Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures Part 15

"Don't tell me! What are shops for, if they're not to be open late and early too? And what are shopmen, if they're not always to attend upon their customers? People pay for what they have, I suppose, and aren't to be told when they shall come and lay their money out, and when they sha'n't? Thank goodness! if one shop shuts, another keeps open; and I always think it a duty I owe to myself to go to the shop that's open last: it's the only way to punish the shopkeepers that are idle, and give themselves airs about early hours.

"Besides, there's some things I like to buy best at candle-light.

Oh, don't talk to me about humanity! Humanity, indeed, for a pack of tall, strapping young fellows--some of 'em big enough to be shown for giants! And what have they to do? Why nothing, but to stand behind a counter, and talk civility. Yes, I know your notions; you say that everybody works too much: I know that. You'd have all the world do nothing half its time but twiddle its thumbs, or walk in the parks, or go to picture-galleries, and museums, and such nonsense. Very fine, indeed; but, thank goodness! the world isn't come to that pa.s.s yet.

"What do you say I am, Mr. Caudle?

"A FOOLISH WOMAN, THAT CAN'T LOOK BEYOND MY OWN FIRESIDE?

"Oh yes, I can; quite as far as you, and a great deal farther. But I can't go out shopping a little with my dear friend Mrs. Wittles--what do you laugh at? Oh, don't they? Don't women know what friendship is? Upon my life, you've a nice opinion of us! Oh yes, we can--we can look outside of our own fenders, Mr. Caudle. And if we can't, it's all the better for our families. A blessed thing it would be for their wives and children if men couldn't either. You wouldn't have lent that five pounds--and I dare say a good many other five pounds that I know nothing of--if you--a lord of the creation!--had half the sense women have. You seldom catch us, I believe, lending five pounds. I should think not.

"No: we won't talk of it to-morrow morning. You're not going to wound my feelings when I come home, and think I'm to say nothing about it. You have called me an inhuman person; you have said I have no thought, no feeling for the health and comfort of my fellow- creatures; I don't know what you haven't called me; and only for buying a--but I sha'n't tell you what; no, I won't satisfy you there- -but you've abused me in this manner, and only for shopping up to ten o'clock. You've a great deal of fine compa.s.sion, you have! I'm sure the young man that served me could have knocked down an ox; yes, strong enough to lift a house: but you can pity him--oh yes, you can be all kindness for him, and for the world, as you call it. Oh, Caudle, what a hypocrite you are! I only wish the world knew how you treated your poor wife!

"What do you say?

"FOR THE LOVE OF MERCY LET YOU SLEEP?

"Mercy, indeed! I wish you could show a little of it to other people. Oh yes, I DO know what mercy means; but that's no reason I should go shopping a bit earlier than I do--and I won't. No; you've preached this over to me again and again; you've made me go to meetings to hear about it: but that's no reason women shouldn't shop just as late as they choose. It's all very fine, as I say, for you men to talk to us at meetings, where, of course, we smile and all that--and sometimes shake our white pocket-handkerchiefs--and where you say we have the power of early hours in our own hands. To be sure we have; and we mean to keep it. That is, I do. You'll never catch me shopping till the very last thing; and--as a matter of principle--I'll always go to the shop that keeps open latest. It does the young men good to keep 'em close to business. Improve their minds indeed! Let 'em out at seven, and they'd improve nothing but their billiards. Besides, if they want to improve themselves, can't they get up, this fine weather, at three? Where there's a will, there's a way, Mr. Caudle."

"I thought," writes Caudle, "that she had gone to sleep. In this hope, I was dozing off when she jogged me, and thus declared herself: 'Caudle, you want nightcaps; but see if I budge to buy 'em till nine at night!"

LECTURE XXIII--MRS. CAUDLE "WISHES TO KNOW IF THEY'RE GOING TO THE SEA-SIDE, OR NOT, THIS SUMMER--THAT'S ALL"

"Hot? Yes, it IS hot. I'm sure one might as well be in an oven as in town this weather. You seem to forget it's July, Mr. Caudle.

I've been waiting quietly--have never spoken; yet, not a word have you said of the seaside yet. Not that I care for it myself--oh, no; my health isn't of the slightest consequence. And, indeed, I was going to say--but I won't--that the sooner, perhaps, I'm out of this world, the better. Oh, yes; I dare say you think so--of course you do, else you wouldn't lie there saying nothing. You're enough to aggravate a saint, Caudle; but you shan't vex me. No; I've made up my mind, and never intend to let you vex me again. Why should I worry myself?

"But all I want to ask you is this: do you intend to go to the sea- side this summer?

"YES? YOU'LL GO TO GRAVESEND?

"Then you'll go alone, that's all I know. Gravesend! You might as well empty a salt-cellar in the New River, and call that the sea- side. What?

"IT'S HANDY FOR BUSINESS?

"There you are again! I can never speak of taking a little enjoyment, but you fling business in my teeth. I'm sure you never let business stand in the way of your own pleasure, Mr. Caudle--not you. It would be all the better for your family if you did.

"You know that Matilda wants sea-bathing; you know it, or ought to know it, by the looks of the child; and yet--I know you, Caudle-- you'd have let the summer pa.s.s over, and never said a word about the matter. What do you say?

"MARGATE'S SO EXPENSIVE?

"Not at all. I'm sure it will be cheaper for us in the end; for if we don't go, we shall all be ill--every one of us--in the winter.

Not that my health is of any consequence: I know that well enough.

It never was yet. You know Margate's the only place I can eat a breakfast at, and yet you talk of Gravesend! But what's my eating to you? You wouldn't care if I never ate at all. You never watch my appet.i.te like any other husband, otherwise you'd have seen what it's come to.

"What do you say?

"HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?

"There you are, Mr. Caudle, with your meanness again. When you want to go yourself to Blackwall or to Greenwich you never ask, how much will it cost? What?

"YOU NEVER GO TO BLACKWALL?

"Ha! I don't know that; and if you don't, that's nothing at all to do with it. Yes, you can give a guinea a plate for whitebait for yourself. No, sir: I'm not a foolish woman: and I know very well what I'm talking about--n.o.body better. A guinea for whitebait for yourself, when you grudge a pint of shrimps for your poor family.

Eh?

"YOU DON'T GRUDGE 'EM ANYTHING?

"Yes, it's very well for you to lie there and say so.

"WHAT WILL IT COST?

"It's no matter what it will cost, for we won't go at all now. No; we'll stay at home. We shall all be ill in the winter--every one of us, all but you; and nothing ever makes you ill. I've no doubt we shall all be laid up, and there'll be a doctor's bill as long as a railroad; but never mind that. It's better--much better--to pay for nasty physic than for fresh air and wholesome salt water. Don't call me 'woman,' and ask 'what it will cost.' I tell you, if you were to lay the money down before me on that quilt, I wouldn't go now-- certainly not. It's better we should all be sick; yes, then you'll be pleased.

"That's right, Mr. Caudle; go to sleep. It's like your unfeeling self! I'm talking of our all being laid up; and you, like any stone, turn round and begin to go to sleep. Well, I think that's a pretty insult!

"HOW CAN YOU SLEEP WITH SUCH A SPLINTER IN YOUR FLESH?

"I suppose you mean to call me the splinter?--and after the wife I've been to you! But no, Mr. Caudle, you may call me what you please; you'll not make me cry now. No, no; I don't throw away my tears upon any such person now.

"What?

"DON'T?

"Ha! that's your ingrat.i.tude! But none of you men deserve that any woman should love you. My poor heart!

"Everybody else can go out of town except us. Ha! If I'd only married Simmons--What?

"WHY DIDN'T I?

"Yes, that's all the thanks I get.

"WHO'S SIMMONS?

"Oh, you know very well who Simmons is. He'd have treated me a little better, I think. He WAS a gentleman.

"YOU CAN'T TELL?

"May be not: but I can. With such weather as this, to stay melting in London; and when the painters are coming in!

"YOU WON'T HAVE THE PAINTERS IN?

"But you must; and if they once come in, I'm determined that none of us shall stir then. Painting in July, with a family in the house!

We shall all be poisoned, of course; but what do you care for that?

"WHY CAN'T I TELL YOU WHAT IT WILL COST?