“‘Which spirit, my love?’
“And so they went on; I wondered how he could bear it; for she told him over and over again, he was only fit for woman’s work; but my dear mistress says, its always the way—the gentle quiet men get the vixens; and surely young maids are so gentle, that one wonders where the old vixens come from! However, in the course of the evening, as she was flourishing down in her ‘bloomers,’ she told me that she had made up her mind not to do a hand’s turn, let Peter manage as he might; but sit as grand as Cromwell, at the head of her tea-table—pour out her tea, and talk of the wrongs of woman! She was as proud of her beautiful chaney as of her baby. Well, about an hour after, before any one came, I met a strange woman on the stairs, a very tall, thin woman, and then there was a knock at the door; Mrs. Creed kept firm, the poor servant was out; but to my surprise, the tall woman sprang up from somewhere, and introduced the gentlemen to the bloomer ladies in the parlor—oh what a skrietch the landlady gave. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘that is Peter, that is my husband—in my best apple silk.’
“‘Changed places—that is all,’ said the Inspector of the P Division, coolly; ‘we agreed, my good friends, (the first time we have agreed since the new movement,) that I was intended by nature to be one of the fair sex, and my wife—(according to the old fashion,) to be one of the foul; so I have taken her place, and when the hour comes, she will accompany you to Great Scotland Yard, and take my duty, while I attend to the house and baby.’ After this speech, he plumped down at the head of the tea-table, the seat she delighted in, and began placing the things—or rather misplacing them—and pouring out the tea. Oh, if you could but have seen her! At first she and her friend, Miss Cressy, stormed; and when they did, the men laughed so loudly, as to drown the storming; then she flew at her husband like a mad cat, and tore his cap, and a cup and saucer were broken; upon which she sat down and went into determined hysterics—the men declaring it was the first time their Inspector had ever occasion to use vinegar and burnt feathers; then a basin of water was thrown over her to bring her to, and in the midst of it the baby cried; just as a fierce cat will run to its kitten—the screaming took another turn, and she called out ‘My child, my child!’ but the men would not let her move—and the Inspector rushed out and returned bringing in the baby, hush-owing it in his arms, and talking all kinds of nursery nonsense to it, and dancing it as a woman would, but far more roughly: then he placed it on his knee, and stuffed cake into its mouth; and then a knock came to the door, with a message that the Inspector of the P Division was wanted immediately, as there was a fire in Holborn; and Peter insisted that the new superintendent of the P Division should act up to her words and go; he had done all according to her wishes, and to please her, had resolved to dress as a woman, and perform all a woman’s duties; and she must therefore take his place, and act his part; that she had declared publicly and privately that she was the better man of the two, and he therefore insisted she should now prove it, and that his friends would see that she did so. I could hardly tell whether to laugh or cry, I was so frightened for fear the poor innocent baby should get hurt; and because it continued screaming, the father went to the cupboard and emptied a whole bottle full of that wicked Daffy’s Elixir, which the women here of that class, half in ignorance, half in laziness, give their infants to keep them quiet; and seemed as though he was going to pour it at once down the dear baby’s throat. Och hone! it was then I pitied the poor mother.
“‘Oh, Peter, Peter!’ she called out, ”even a spoonful is too much. Don’t—don’t. Oh, just give my baby to myself again, and I’ll never be a Bloomer;“ and then the dreadful instigator of the mischief shook her head at her, and cried, ‘For shame, for shame,’ and harangued about consistency, and called upon her ‘to be worthy of herself, and go to the fire and command the force, not like a man, but—a woman!’ And all the time the poor mother was struggling to get at her baby; and, for fear of mischief, I turned over the cup—though to be sure it did for the apple-green silk. Poor woman! she could see nothing but her child, and hear nothing but its cries. ‘Give me my baby, and go to your duty, and I’ll never go near a Rights of Woman woman as long as I live,’ she repeated.
“‘Oh you unworthy member!’ cried her friend. ‘If you had a drop of the old Roman blood in your veins you would sacrifice home, husband, child, to the public good.’
“Now, aunt, think of that being said before me—and I being a Roman born, bred, and reared—as you and Father Doyle know well—as if female Romans did not care for their children! I gave it to her then. I never let my tongue go as I did then, since I’ve been in the country. She said she should not forget me, and I told her the remembrance would be mutual. Roman blood, indeed! I saw her out of the house, and going down the street, with a gang of boys after her, calling out, ‘There’s an old Bloomer—there’s an old Bloomer!’
“While I was busy with her the poor landlady got her baby, and humbled herself—as was right—and in another hour the house was quiet enough, and the Inspector gone to his duty. The next morning my dear good mistress sent for the landlady.
“‘I suppose,’ she said to me, going up stairs, ‘I shall lose my lodgers as well as my character.’
“Now my mistress says, that of all laws the law of kindness is the strongest; and, though the landlady entered the drawing-room with every nerve in her body set for a battle, the tears came into her eyes by the time my mistress bade her good morning and told her to sit down—of course, I came away. When Peter came home that evening, I heard his wife go—rather slowly, but she did go—to the door; and I heard him say, ‘Thank you, my love—this is very good of you.’ And when I told my dear lady this, she smiled the old smile, and went on talking so sweetly to me, that I judged it was just the way she talked to her.
“‘Ah!’ she said, ‘it is very wrong to go on laughing at follies that are likely to lead to evil. Not but what ridicule will sometimes gain a quicker victory than reason; but it leaves an ugly scar, which marks to the death.’ (I always put down her exact words.) ‘Whether the young or the ignorant listen patiently or not, to reproof or advice, it is no less the duty of the old to give it; but to be done usefully, Ellen, it must be done kindly. I should have talked to this young creature before, and not have suffered her to go on in her folly without remonstrance. It is a vain creature, as I might have known by the cards—that was one turn of the vanity, this is another. All love of notoriety is vanity; it’s wonderful the forms it takes. One man wants to write a book before he can spell; another talks of joining the legislature because he has been listened to at a vestry; another’s desire leads to heading charity lists—very useful, if he pays the money. One woman piques herself on small hands, and lays them on the top of a muff intended to keep them warm; another gets up an ancestry; another, (the vulgarest,) talks of her rich friends and her accounts at her banker’s, or stuffs your ears with titles, committed to memory from the peerage. But these, Ellen, if you understand them, are innocent vanities, doing no harm. The ill-spelt book will never be published; if the would-be orator gets into parliament, he continues a ‘single-speech Jack’ to the end of his days; the small hands become chilblained; the rich friends get into the list of uncertified bankrupts, the titles are soon drilled off; but the vanity which takes a woman from the sacred duties of home to display her weakness abroad—and unsexes her—strikes at the root of our domestic happiness, and should be treated accordingly. I should have talked to her before, Ellen—I should indeed!—kindly, you know, and nothing daunted even if repulsed. And I am not sure but that kindness can turn even vanity to good account. There are plenty of mischievous people always ready to start new wrongs and new sorrows as causes for discontent; and, between you and me, Ellen, if more extensive employment could be given to women, they would not get into such imaginary troubles; they would have more to do. In gentle, profitable employment the legislature—law-makers, Ellen—have neglected our interests now and then; but short tunics and long trowsers wont alter laws, you know. That young woman confesses she never knew she had any thing to complain of until it was put into her head. And—it makes me smile—but she says, the folly of the thing never struck her until she saw that six-foot-two Peter of hers, with his black whiskers and broad shoulders, in her dress, spoon-feeding the baby! She bitterly resents his exposing her to the ridicule of his companions; but I reminded her she had exposed herself by her attempts at establishing so unblushing a notoriety. Certainly the landlady is a changed woman, poor thing! poor thing!’