Nicky-Nan, Reservist Part 22

_That_ was the voice of Mrs Penhaligon uplifted without, voluble and frenzied: and the Doctor hurried forth, Nicky-Nan hobbling after, to find Mrs Penhaligon waving her arms like a windmill's, and Mrs Polsue, as before the blast of them, flat-backed against the wall of the pa.s.sage.

"--And there you'll stay," Mrs Penhaligon threatened, "while I teach your proud flesh! S'pose now I ventured on _you_, as you've been venturin' on _me!_ S'pose now that, without so much as a visitin'

card, I nosed in on you with--'So that's your poor dear husban's portrait, that you nagged to his grave--and a speakin' image of him too, afore he took to the drink as the better way--An' what little lux'ries might _you_ have cookin' in the apparatus, such as a barren woman might reas'nably afford? Yes, yes--it must be a great savin', havin' no children of your own, but do it warrant pig's liver an'

bacon of a Sat.u.r.day?' Oh, my Gor, _I'll_ make your two ends meet afore I've done with 'ee! _I'll_ tell 'ee the savin' of lard 'pon b.u.t.ter! _I'll_ tell 'ee about nettle-broth an' bread-crumbs for a child's diet! _I'll_--"

The noise had attracted a group of women to the porchway; among them, Mrs Climoe--"good at the war-cry," as Homer says of Diomede.

They huddled forward, obscuring the light.

Mrs Polsue, feeling the wall firm against her back, collected her dignity. "I wish all _respectable_ people here," she appealed to Dr Mant, as he came hurrying up the pa.s.sage, "to take note of this woman's language."

"'Woman?'" panted Mrs Penhaligon. "No more of a woman than yourself: and less of a lady, thank G.o.d! Out! OUT! afore I soil my hands upon 'ee!"

"You would hardly believe, Dr Mant"--Mrs Polsue addressed him with an air of fine gentility, as the one person present who could understand--"but I called on this poor body to advise and, if necessary, procure her some addition to her income from the Emergency Fund."

"Oh, take her away!" sobbed Mrs Penhaligon, suddenly breaking down.

"Isn't it enough to lie awake at night with your man at the wars?

You're a gentleman, sir, an' a doctor, an' can understand.

Do 'ee take her away!"

But Nicky-Nan had pushed forward. "You mean well, ma'am, I don't doubt," he said, addressing Mrs Polsue. "But this here War has got upon everybody's nerves, in a manner o' speaking."

"It doesn't seem to trouble yours," retorted Mrs Polsue, at bay and vicious; "or maybe it has, and that's why you're not with the Reserve."

Nicky-Nan flushed to the roots of his hair. But he answered pacifically--"Until I go, ma'am, you may take it from me that Mrs Penhaligon shan't want. I fixed all that up with her husband afore he left. So there's not need for you callin' again, if you don't mind."

He said it firmly, yet quite respectfully. One or two of the women in the porch murmured approval.

Not so Mrs Climoe.

"O-oh!" said Mrs Climoe, half aloud and all unheeded for the moment.

"So that's the way the wind blows, sure enough!"

CHAPTER XV.

THE 'TATY-PATCH.

Nicky-Nan went back to his parlour, closed the door carefully, mounted the platform again, and resumed his plastering. He felt vexed with himself over that little speech of bravado. It had been incautious, with all those women listening.

Still it might be explained away, and easily enough. That woman Polsue put everybody's back up. His words had been just a piece of bluff to get rid of her.

He had succeeded, too. He chuckled, recalling Mrs Polsue's discomfiture; how with a final sniff she had turned and pa.s.sed out between the ironical files that drew aside for her in the porchway.

. . . For a burden had fallen from his heart: his little mistake, just now, weighed as nothing against the a.s.surance that Dr Mant would write a certificate and settle these meddlesome idiots at the Troy Custom-house. . . . Moreover Dr Mant, who pa.s.sed for a knowledgeable fellow in his profession, had as good as a.s.sured him that his leg was nothing to die of; not just yet anyway. Well, he would have it attended to, sometime; his life was valuable now.

But he wasn't going to hurry about it, if a sound leg meant his being taken and ordered off to this dam-fool War. Nicky-Nan pursed up his lips as he worked, whistling to himself a cheerful, tuneless ditty.

Some one tapped on the door. "Who's there?"

"It's me," answered the voice of Mrs Penhaligon. "Can I come in?"

"No, you can't!" he shouted. "Here, wait a minute! . . . And what might be the matter now?" he asked, as he opened the door a very little way. "I'm sorry, ma'am, that I can't ask 'ee to step inside; but there's a tidyin'-up goin' forward."

"I'd as lief speak to 'ee here, in the pa.s.sage. Indeed I'd rather,"

said Mrs Penhaligon as he emerged, trowel in hand. "Well, what is it?"

She hesitated a moment. "'Tis a hard thing for a woman to say. . . .

But maybe 'tis turnin' out you are?" she suggested brightly.

"Turnin' out?"

"That would simplify things, o' course. And everybody knowin' that Pamphlett's served you with a notice to quit--"

But thereupon Nicky-Nan exploded. "Served me with a notice, did he?

Pamphlett! . . . Well, yes he did, if you want to know. But never you fret: I'm upsides with Pamphlett. This is my house, ma'am: an'

here I bide till it pleases me to quit."

"O-oh!" sighed Mrs Penhaligon dejectedly, "then it puts me in a very awkward position, if you don't mind my sayin' so."

"How is it awkward, ma'am?" asked Nicky-Nan, rubbing his unshaven chin with the point of the trowel.

"Well, Mr Nanjivell, I dare say you meant it well enough. But I have my reputation to think about; an' the children, G.o.d bless 'em!

I grant that Polsue body to be a provokin' woman. She 'ave a way with her that drives me mad as a sheep. But, if you don't mind me tellin' 'ee, you men have no sense--not a mother's son of 'ee. Not a doubt my Sam'd ha' spoke up just as fierce as you did. But then, you see, he's my Sam."

"Very like 'tis my dulness, ma'am," said Nicky-Nan, still delicately sc.r.a.ping his jaw-bristles with the trowel; "but I don't catch your drift, even now."

"Then I'll speak plainer. Where was the sense to blurt out afore a lot o' naybours as _you_'d see I didn' come to want? Be I the kind o' woman to take any help but my own man's?--even if you had it to give, which 'tis well be-known as you haven't."

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" He swore as if a wasp had stung him: and indeed he had jabbed the point of the trowel into his jaw. After a pause he added, "The naybours know--do they?--as I couldn' act up to what I promised that woman, not if I tried. Very well, then. Where's the harm done?

. . . I cleared her out, anyway."

Mrs Penhaligon eyed him with pity for a moment. "Yes," she sighed, "that's just the plumb-silly way my Sam would talk: and often enough he've a-driven me just wild with it. Men be all of one mould. . . .

Mr Nanjivell, you've no great experience o' women. But did 'ee ever know a woman druv to the strikes[1] by another woman? An' did 'ee ever know a woman, not gone in the strikes, that didn' keep some wit at the back of her temper? . . . _I_ was dealin' with Mrs Polsue, don't you make any mistake."

"It struck me that she had been distressin' you, an' you'd be glad to get the rids of her."

"So I _was_ in distress. But I had th' upper hand, 'specially wi'

those women hearkenin' and every one hatin' her. . . . What must happen, but forth you steps with a 'Leave this to me. _I_'ll look after Mrs Penhaligon. _I_'ll see _she_ don't come to want'--all as bold as a fire-hose. '_I_'ll clear 'ee out o' this house, which is _our_ house,' says you--or to that effect. I wasn' so mad but, when I heard 'ee, there was time to glimpse mother Climoe's face.

Oh yes! I know what you'll be sayin'. 'Talk, is it?' you'll be sayin', just like my Sam: an' 'Let them talk. What's talk?'--an'

talk, all the time, two-thirds of every decent woman's life!"

"I never heard such dratted nonsense in all my born days."

"That's because you was never married. You'd have heard it from a wife, half your time: though I dare say"--Mrs Penhaligon sighed-- "'twould ha' been with you like the rest. . . . 'A nice cauch Mr Nanjivell's made of it,' said I to myself, getting back to the kitchen: 'but he's under notice to quit: and if he quits quick an'

delicate, mebbe there's no great harm done.' So I came along to ask you about it."

At this point Nicky-Nan fairly lost command of his temper.

"So you're one wi' the rest, eh? All in one blasted conspiracy to turn me to doors! One comes threatenin', t'other comes carneyin', but all endin' in the same lidden.[2] 'Your health ben't the best, Nanjivell: let me recommend a change of air.' 'Nanjivell, you're a fine upstandin' fellow, an' young for your age. Why don't 'ee leg it off to the War?' 'These be hard times, Nanjivell; so I'm forced to ask 'ee for your rent, or out you go.' An' now along you come wi'