Then, of course, came the humiliating explanation in the presence of the assembled multitude; and there, amidst the laughter “of all nations,”—for the foreigners, one and all, would have the circumstance translated to them,—Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys had to make known the whole of the mistake, and to tell how Cursty was about to be taken into custody on a charge of infanticide, for having drowned a couple of puppies. By the time he had finished what theatrical critics term “the éclaircissement of the contretemps” a body of police, attracted to the spot by the well-known buzz of a distant rattle, swarmed round the door like blue-bottles round a butcher’s shop, and there they kept dabbing at the knocker, very much after the same persevering manner as belongs to beadles accompanying the parish engine to a chimney on fire.
As we said before, while the Sandboys were in the kitchen, anxiously looking for some tidings touching their luggage, Major Oldschool was, immediately overhead, impatiently pacing the parlour, and vowing all manner of vengeance against his niece for having gone off with a “dirty, beggarly, skinny vagabond of a Frenchman.” The Major was what is termed a “good hater” of foreigners.
Major Oldschool was a portly little man, who had left one of his legs behind him in India, where the better part of his life had been spent, and where, while attacking one of the bamboo forts of the Burmese, he had been wounded in his knee-cap in such a manner as to necessitate the amputation of the limb. In figure he was far from commanding; for the high living of India had given him so strong a tendency to corpulence, that he had lost sight of his boot for many years. This obesity was a great annoyance to the Major, and, to keep his fat within due bounds, his braided blue surtout was made to fit so tight, that you could not help fancying but that, with the slightest puncture, he would shrivel up to a mere bit of skin, like an India-rubber ball. Major Oldschool, withal, had that “highly respectable” appearance which invariably accompanies the white hair so peculiar to Bankers, Capitalists, and Pomeranian dogs. It was the Major’s continual boast, that he was grey before he was thirty; and so proud was he of his silver locks, that he wore them half over his face, in the form of whiskers and moustachios, which met at the corners of his mouth, and gave him very much the look of a gentleman who had been called away in the middle of shaving, and had the lather still clinging about his lips and cheeks.
Another striking peculiarity of the Major was, that he would wear tight black stocking-net pantaloons, and a Hessian boot—for the place of the other boot, ever since he had been wounded, was supplied by a wooden leg. And it sounded not a little strange to hear him, as the night drew in, call for his slipper, or, if he fancied he had taken cold, talk of putting his foot in hot water; and equally curious was it when his old housekeeper informed him that really his leg was getting so shabby, he must have it fresh painted. In his bed-room, against the wall, stood a range of old boots and shoes—all rights and no lefts—one Hessian, one dancing-pump, and one carpet slipper; and when he sat down in his chair, his wooden leg stuck out at right angles to his Hessian boot, so that it had somewhat the appearance of a gun protruding from a ship’s side.
The Major had no fixed residence, (he had to come up from Bath within the last few weeks, to be present at the opening of the Great Exhibition,) but continually floated about the country in the company of an old housekeeper, who knowing all his ways, and all his whims, had grown to be quite indispensable to him. Mrs. Coddle was the lady of a defunct twopenny-postman, and since the death of the respected twopenny, she had “took to nussing;” but not liking the dormitory accommodations usual in “the monthly line,” she had been only too glad to avail herself of the Major’s offer, after having attended him during a severe bilious fever, to continue in his service in the capacity of housekeeper. And so effectually had she performed her duties, and so necessary had she made herself to his comfort, during her short residence with him in that capacity, that—having a true sense of her value to him—she always made a point, when she could not get the Major to do just as she pleased, of threatening to leave him, saying she could see plainly she was not wanted, and that he could do well enough without her now; and adding, as she wiped her eyes with the corner of her white apron, that it might be a severe struggle for her to leave so kind a master as he’d always been to her, but, at least she’d have the satisfaction of knowing, when she was gone, that she wouldn’t be a wherreting on him then, no longer.
Mrs. Coddle was a particularly clean-looking, motherly body. She wore the whitest of caps, with very deep borders, and the cleanest of aprons, while her cotton gowns were of the neatest of patterns; and though she was close upon sixty, her cheeks were almost as rosy as baking apples. To do her justice, she certainly was a mightily pleasant old dame to look at, and she was just one of those persons who, by saving a gentleman every kind of trouble in life, and seeing that he has not to make the least exertion to gratify a single want, manage to beget such a habit of indolence and dependence in those upon whom they attend, that their excess of servitude soon gets to assume the character of the greatest tyranny.
It was the especial care of Mrs. Coddle that the Major should not be able to stir his foot, or know where to lay his hands upon the least article of his own property, without first consulting her—not that she ever allowed him, indeed, to want for anything that he was in the habit of requiring. His clean linen, well-aired, and his one sock turned down, were always ready for him to put on, the morning they were due—and never, since she had been in the house, had a button been known to be missing, or to come off in the operation of dressing. His pipe was on the table ready filled for him, so that he could put it in his mouth the very moment he had finished his breakfast. When he was ready to take his morning walk, there was his hat well brushed, and a clean pair of buckskin gloves, resting on the brim—and when he returned, the bootjack was on the rug, and his slipper nice and warm, inside the fender, so that he might not suffer from a damp foot. She never troubled him about what he would have for dinner, for having made herself acquainted with all his little likings and dislikings, she knew well what to provide, and how to tickle his palate with a daily change, or to give an extra relish to the meal with some agreeable surprise; indeed, it was a creed with her—as with most ladies—that all men were pigs, and that, like their brother animals at the Zoological Gardens, the only way to prevent them being savage was to feed them well. And certainly, it must be confessed, that the Major, like corpulent gentlemen in general, was particularly fond of what is termed “the fat of the land.”
At night Mrs. Coddle brewed his toddy for him, and knew exactly the point in the glass up to which to pour the spirit; and when he had taken his three tumblers, there stood his bed candlestick at his elbow, to light him to his room; while on his pillow were his nightcap and night-shirt, ready for him to put on, with the least possible trouble, and when the bell sounded to tell Mrs. Coddle that the Major was in bed, the motherly old dame would come and take his candle—light his rushlight—and see whether he was quite comfortable, before leaving him for the night.
Mrs. Coddle, moreover, made herself useful to her master as a kind of invisible mistress of the ceremonies. Major Oldschool’s long absence from England, and the alteration of many of the points of politeness, since he was a “blood upon town,” placed the officer in considerable doubt as to how he ought to behave in the presence of company. Mrs. Coddle had “nussed,” to use the lady’s own words, “in the fust of families,” for her connexion, as she said, being only among carriage people, she had helped to bring no less than four cornets into the world in her time, and, she was happy to say, as there weren’t one child among all her babbies (she had, in her own peculiar language, had as many as nine confinements every year since poor dear Mr. Coddle’s death), she was happy to say, as “there wasn’t one child of her nussing what could be called wulgar born.” Accordingly, Mrs. Coddle considered herself so well versed in all the social etiquette of the day, that she acted in the capacity of fashionable governess to the Major, paying particular attention to his “manners,” and taking care that he made what she termed “no holes in ’em afore wisitors.” If the Major had a friend to tea with him, she was continually bobbing in and out of the room, with some excuse or other, just to see how he was “behaving hisself;” and as she passed behind his chair, she would whisper in his ear, “Don’t drink your tea out of your sarcer,—you know I told you scores of times it aint perlite.” At dinner, while waiting upon him, she would say at one moment, as she saw him commit one after another the several little improprieties of the table, “There you are again, eating your fish with your knife—how often am I to tell you it’s wulgar?” at another, she would exclaim, “Now, Major, why will you keep scraping your plate round and round in that there manner, when if there’s one thing that is more ongenteeler than another, that’s it;” then as she saw him about to lift the glass to his lips, she would take hold of his arm, and beg of him to swallow his “victuals” first, saying, he had a dreadful habit of drinking with his mouth full, and that was the most wulgarest trick of all the tricks he had.