The Solitary House (151 page)

“George will look us up,” says Mr. Bagnet. “At half-after four. To the moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This afternoon?”

“Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I begin to think. Just about that; and no less,” returns Mrs. Bagnet, laughing, and shaking her head.

“Old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet. “Never mind. You’d be as young as ever you was. If you wasn’t younger. Which you are. As everybody knows.”

Quebec and Malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that
Bluffy is sure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what it will be.

“Do you know, Lignum,” says Mrs. Bagnet, casting a glance on the table-cloth, and winking, “salt!” at Malta with her right eye, and shaking the pepper away from Quebec with her head; “I begin to think George is in the roving way again.”

“George,” returns Mr. Bagnet, “will never desert. And leave his old comrade. In the lurch. Don’t be afraid of it.”

“No, Lignum. No. I don’t say he will. I don’t think he will. But if he could get over this money-trouble of his, I believe he would be off.”

Mr. Bagnet asks why.

“Well,” returns his wife, considering, “George seems to me to be getting not a little impatient and restless. I don’t say but what he’s as free as ever. Of course he must be free, or he wouldn’t be George; but he smarts, and seems put out.”

“He’s extra-drilled,” says Mr. Bagnet. “By a lawyer. Who would put the devil out.”

“There’s something in that,” his wife assents; “but so it is, Lignum.”

Further conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity under which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force of his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry humour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made-gravy acquiring no flavour, and turning out of a flaxen complexion. With a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the process of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every direction, as if they were subject to earthquakes. The legs of the fowls, too, are longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly. Overcoming these disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr. Bagnet at last dishes, and they sit down at table; Mrs. Bagnet occupying the guest’s place at his right hand.

It is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a year, for two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious. Every kind of finer tendon and ligament that is in the nature of poultry to possess, is developed in these specimens in the singular form of guitar-strings. Their limbs appear to have struck
roots into their breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the earth. Their legs are so hard, as to encourage the idea that they must have devoted the greater part of their long and arduous lives to pedestrian exercises, and the walking of marches. But Mr. Bagnet, unconscious of these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs. Bagnet eating a most severe quantity of the delicacies before her; and as that good old girl would not cause him a moment’s disappointment on any day, least of all on such a day, for any consideration, she imperils her digestion fearfully. How young Woolwich cleans the drumsticks without being of ostrich descent, his anxious mother is at a loss to understand.

The old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of the repast, in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth swept, and the dinner-service washed up and polished in the backyard. The great delight and energy with which the two young ladies apply themselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in imitation of their mother, and skating in and out on little scaffolds of pattens, inspire the highest hopes for the future, but some anxiety for the present. The same causes lead to confusion of tongues, a clattering of crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a whisking of brooms, and an expenditure of water, all in excess; while the saturation of the young ladies themselves is almost too moving a spectacle for Mrs. Bagnet to look upon, with the calmness proper to her position. At last the various cleansing processes are triumphantly completed; Quebec and Malta appear in fresh attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, and something to drink, are placed upon the table; and the old girl enjoys the first peace of mind she ever knows on the day of this delightful entertainment.

When Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are very near to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet announces,

“George! Military time.”

It is George; and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl (whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and for Mr. Bagnet. “Happy returns to all!” says Mr. George.

“But, George, old man!” cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him curiously. “What’s come to you?”

“Come to me?”

“Ah! you are so white, George—for you—and look so shocked. Now don’t he, Lignum?”

“George,” says Mr. Bagnet, “tell the old girl. What’s the matter.”

“I didn’t know I looked white,” says the trooper, passing his hand over his brow, “and I didn’t know I looked shocked, and I’m sorry I do. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over.”

“Poor creetur!” says Mrs. Bagnet, with a mother’s pity. “Is he gone? Dear, dear!”

“I didn’t mean to say anything about it, for it’s not birthday talk, but you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I should have roused up in a minute,” says the trooper, making himself speak more gaily, “but you’re so quick, Mrs. Bagnet.”

“You’re right. The old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet. “Is as quick. As powder.”

“And what’s more, she’s the subject of the day, and we’ll stick to her,” cries Mr. George. “See here, I have brought a little brooch along with me. It’s a poor thing, you know, but it’s a keepsake. That’s all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet.”

Mr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring leapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of reverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. “Old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet. “Tell him my opinion of it.”

“Why, it’s a wonder, George!” Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. “It’s the beautifullest thing that ever was seen!”

“Good!” says Mr. Bagnet. “My opinion.”

“It’s so pretty, George,” cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it on all sides, and holding it out at arm’s length, “that it seems too choice for me.”

“Bad!” says Mr. Bagnet. “Not my opinion.”

“But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow,” says Mrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, and her hand stretched out to him; “and though I have been a cross-grained
soldier’s wife to you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, I am sure, in reality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for good luck, if you will, George.”

The children close up to see it done, and Mr. Bagnet looks over young Woolwich’s head to see it done, with an interest so maturely wooden, yet pleasantly childish, that Mrs. Bagnet cannot help laughing in her airy way, and saying, “O Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap you are!” But the trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. “Would any one believe this?” says he, catching it as it drops, and looking round. “I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!”

Mrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like a pipe; and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the trooper to be inducted into his usual snug place, and the pipes to be got into action. “If that don’t bring you round, George,” says she, “just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and the two together
must
do it.”

“You ought to do it of yourself,” George answers; “I know that very well, Mrs. Bagnet. I’ll tell you how, one way and another, the blues have got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. ’Twas dull work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him.”

“What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your roof.”

“I helped him so far, but that’s little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know his right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped out of that.”

“Ah, poor creetur!” says Mrs. Bagnet.

“Then,” says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing his heavy hand over his hair, “that brought up Gridley in a man’s mind. His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up in a man’s mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly—it made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you.”

“My advice to you,” returns Mrs. Bagnet, “is to light your pipe, and tingle that way. It’s wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the health altogether.”

“You’re right,” says the trooper, “and I’ll do it.”

So he does it: though still with an indignant gravity that impresses the young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer the ceremony of drinking Mrs. Bagnet’s health; always given by himself on these occasions, in a speech of exemplary terseness. But the young ladies having composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of calling “the mixtur,” and George’s pipe being now in a glow, Mr. Bagnet considers it his duty to proceed to the toast of the evening. He addresses the assembled company in the following terms.

“George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day’s march. And you won’t find such another. Here’s towards her!”

The toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns thanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity. This model composition is limited to the three words “And wishing yours!” which the old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession, and a well-regulated swig of the mixture. This she again follows up, on the present occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation, “Here’s a man!”

Here
is
a man, much to the astonishment of the little company, looking in at the parlour-door. He is a sharp-eyed man—a quick keen man—and he takes in everybody’s look at him, all at once, individually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a remarkable man.

“George,” says the man, nodding, “how do you find yourself?”

“Why, it’s Bucket!” cries Mr. George.

“Yes,” says the man, coming in and closing the door. “I was going down the street here, when I happened to stop and look in at the musical instruments in the shop-window—a friend of mine is in want of a second-hand wiolinceller, of a good tone—and I saw a party enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I thought I couldn’t be mistaken. How goes the world with you, George, at the present moment? Pretty smooth?
And with you, ma’am? And with you, governor? And Lord”; says Mr. Bucket, opening his arms, “here’s children too! You may do anything with me, if you only show me children. Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who
your
father and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life!”

Mr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George, and taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. “You pretty dears,” says Mr. Bucket, “give us another kiss; it’s the only thing I’m greedy in. Lord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of these two, ma’am? I should put ’em down at the figures of about eight and ten.”

“You’re very near, sir,” says Mrs. Bagnet.

“I generally am near,” returns Mr. Bucket, “being so fond of children. A friend of mine has had nineteen of ’em, ma’am, all by one mother, and she’s still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not so much so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And what do you call these, my darling?” pursues Mr. Bucket, pinching Malta’s cheeks. “These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And what do you think about father? Do you think father could recommend a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. Bucket’s friend my dear? My name’s Bucket. Ain’t that a funny name?”

These blandishments have entirely won the family heart. Mrs. Bagnet forgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass for Mr. Bucket, and waiting upon him hospitably. She would be glad to receive so pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she tells him that as a friend of George’s she is particularly glad to see him this evening, for George has not been in his usual spirits.

“Not in his usual spirits?” exclaims Mr. Bucket. “Why, I never heard of such a thing! What’s the matter, George? You don’t intend to tell me you’ve been out of spirits. What should you be out of spirits for? You haven’t got anything on your mind, you know.”

“Nothing particular,” returns the trooper.

“
I
should think not,” rejoins Mr. Bucket. “What could you have on your mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on
their
minds, eh? Not they; but they’ll be upon the minds of
some of the young fellows, some of these days, and make ’em precious low-spirited. I ain’t much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma’am.”

Mrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his own.

“There, ma’am!” says Mr. Bucket. “Would you believe it? No, I haven’t. My wife, and a lodger, constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as fond of children as myself, and as wishful to have ’em; but no. So it is. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine. What a very nice backyard, ma’am! Any way out of that yard, now?”

There is no way out of that yard.

“Ain’t there really?” says Mr. Bucket. “I should have thought there might have been. Well, I don’t know as I ever saw a backyard that took my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No, I see there’s no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it is!”

Having cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his chair next his friend Mr. George, and pats Mr. George affectionately on the shoulder.

“How are your spirits, now, George?”

“All right now,” returns the trooper.

“That’s your sort!” says Mr. Bucket. “Why should you ever have been otherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to be out of spirits. That ain’t a chest to be out of spirits, is it, ma’am? And you haven’t got anything on your mind, you know, George; what could you have on your mind!”