“And saying this,” writes Caudle, “she scrambled from the bed and put out the night.”
LECTURE XXIX - MRS. CAUDLE THINKS “THE TIME HAS COME TO HAVE A COTTAGE OUT OF TOWN”
“Oh, Caudle, you ought to have had something nice to-night; for you’re not well, love - I know you’re not. Ha! that’s like you men - so headstrong! You will have it that nothing ails you; but I can tell, Caudle. The eye of a wife - and such a wife as I’ve been to you - can at once see whether a husband’s well or not. You’ve been turning like tallow all the week; and what’s more, you eat nothing now. It makes me melancholy to see you at a joint. I don’t say anything at dinner before the children; but I don’t feel the less. No, no; you’re not very well; and you’re not as strong as a horse. Don’t deceive yourself - nothing of the sort. No, and you don’t eat as much as ever: and if you do, you don’t eat with a relish, I’m sure of that. You can’t deceive me there.
“But I know what’s killing you. It’s the confinement; it’s the bad air you breathe; it’s the smoke of London. Oh yes, I know your old excuse: you never found the air bad before. Perhaps not. But as people grow older, and get on in trade - and, after all, we’ve nothing to complain of, Caudle - London air always disagrees with ’em. Delicate health comes with money: I’m sure of it. What a colour you had once, when you’d hardly a sixpence; and now, look at you!
“’Twould add thirty years to your life - and think what a blessing that would be to me; not that I shall live a tenth part of the time - thirty years, if you’d take a nice little house somewhere at Brixton.
“You hate Brixton?
“I must say it, Caudle, that’s so like you: any place that’s really genteel you can’t abide. Now Brixton and Baalam Hill I think delightful. So select! There, nobody visits nobody, unless they’re somebody. To say nothing of the delightful pews that make the churches so respectable!
“However, do as you like. If you won’t go to Brixton, what do you say to Clapham Common? Oh, that’s a very fine story! Never tell me! No; you wouldn’t be left alone, a Robinson Crusoe with wife and children, because you’re in the retail way. What?
“The retired wholesales never visit the retired retails at Clapham?
“Ha! that’s only your old sneering at the world, Mr. Caudle; but I don’t believe it. And after all, people should keep to their station, or what was this life made for? Suppose a tallow-merchant does keep himself above a tallow-chandler, - I call it only a proper pride. What?