“Thank you, sir,” replied I; but perceiving that the memory of his brother affected him, I did not speak again for a few minutes. We then resumed our conversation, and pulling back with the tide, landed at the wharf.
On the day of the dinner party I went up to Mr Turnbull’s at three o’clock as he had proposed. I found the house in a bustle; Mr and Mrs Turnbull, with the butler and footman, in the dining-room, debating as to the propriety of this and that being placed here and there, both servants giving their opinion, and arguing on a footing of equality, contradicting and insisting, Mr Turnbull occasionally throwing in a word, and each time snubbed by his wife, although the servants dare not take any liberty with him. “Do, pray, Mr Turnbull, leave hus to settle these matters. Get hup your wine; that is your department. Leave the room, Mr Turnbull, hif you please. Mortimer and I know what we are about, without your hinterference.”
“Oh! by the Lord, I don’t wish to interfere; but I wish you and your servants not to be squabbling, that’s all. If they gave me half the cheek—”
“Do, pray, Mr Turnbull, leave the room, and allow me to regulate my own ’ousehold.”
“Come, Jacob, we’ll go down into the cellar,” said Mr Turnbull; and accordingly we went.
I assisted Mr Turnbull in his department as much as I could, but he grumbled very much. “I can’t bear all this nonsense, all this finery and foolery. Everything comes up cold, everything is out of reach. The table’s so long, and so covered with uneatables, that my wife is hardly within hail and, by jingo, with her the servants are masters. Not with me, at all events; for if they spoke to me as they do to Mrs Turnbull, I would kick them out of the house. However, Jacob, there’s no help for it. All one asks for is quiet; and I must put up with all this sometimes, or I should have no quiet from one year’s end to another. When a woman will have her way, there’s no stopping her: you know the old verse—
“A man’s a fool who strives by force or skill
To stem the torrent of a woman’s will;
For if she will, she will, you may depend on’t,
And if she won’t, she won’t—and there’s an end on’t.
“Now let’s go up into my room, and we will chat while I wash my hands.”
As soon as Mr Turnbull was dressed, we went down into the drawing-room, which was crowded with tables loaded with every variety of ornamental articles. “Now this is what my wife calls fashionable. One might as well be steering through an ice-floe as try to come to an anchor here without running foul of something. It’s hard-a-port or hard-a-starboard every minute; and if your coat-tail jibes, away goes something, and whatever it is that smashes, Mrs T always swears it was the most valuable thing in the room. I’m like a bull in a china-shop. One comfort is, that I never come in here except when there’s company. Indeed, I’m not allowed, thank God. Sit on a chair, Jacob, one of those spider-like French things, for my wife won’t allow blacks, as she calls them, to come to an anchor upon her sky-blue silk sofas. How stupid to have furniture that one’s not to make use of! Give me comfort but it appears that’s not to be bought for money.”