Mrs. Bindle: Some Incidents from the Domestic Life of the Bindles, Jenkins [popular romance novels TXT] 📗

Mrs. Bindle was not to be denied.

"I took you to church once," he said reminiscently.

"Why don't you take me out now?" she demanded, ignoring his remark.

"Well," he remarked, as he dug into the bowl of his pipe with a match-stick, "when you caught a bus, you don't go on a-runnin' after it, do you?"

"Why don't you get a week off and take me away?"

"Well, I'll think about it." Bindle rose and, picking up his hat, left the room, with the object of seeking the missing paper-boy.

The loneliness of her life was one of Mrs. Bindle's stock grievances. If she had been reminded of the Chinese proverb that to have friends you must deserve friends, she would have waxed scornful. Friends, she seemed to think, were a matter of luck, like a goose in a raffle, or a rich uncle.

"It's little enough pleasure I get," she would cry, in moments of passionate protest.

To this, Bindle would sometimes reply that "it's wantin' a thing wot makes you get it." Sometimes he would go on to elaborate the theory into the impossibility of "'avin' a thing for supper an' savin' it for breakfast."

By this, he meant to convey to Mrs. Bindle that she was too set on post-mortem joys to get the full flavour of those of this world.[Pg 155]

Mrs. Bindle possessed the soul of a potential martyr. If she found she were enjoying herself, she would become convinced that, somewhere associated with it, must be Sin with a capital "S", unless of course the enjoyment were directly connected with the chapel.

She was fully convinced that it was wrong to be happy. Laughter inspired her with distrust, as laughter rose from carnal thoughts carnally expressed. She fought with a relentless courage the old Adam within herself, inspired always by the thought that her reward would come in another and a better world.

Her theology was that you must give up in this world all that your "carnal nature" cries out for, and your reward in the next world will be a sort of perpetual jamboree, where you will see the damned being boiled in oil, or nipped with red-hot pincers by little devils with curly tails. In this she had little to learn either from a Dante, or the Spanish Inquisition.

The Biblical descriptions of heaven she accepted in all their literalness. She expected golden streets and jewelled gates, wings of ineffable whiteness and harps of an inspired sweetness, the whole composed by an orchestra capable of playing without break or interval.

She insisted that the world was wicked, just as she insisted that it was miserable. She struggled hard to bring the light of salvation to Bindle, and she groaned in spirit at his obvious happiness, knowing that to be happy was to be damned.

To her, a soul was what a scalp is to the American[Pg 156] Indian. She strove to collect them, knowing that the believer who went to salvation with the greatest number of saved souls dangling at her girdle, would be thrice welcome, and thrice blessed.

In Bindle's case, however, she had to fall back upon the wheat that fell upon stony ground. With a cheerfulness that he made no effort to disguise, Bindle declined to be saved.

"Look 'ere, Lizzie," he would say cheerily. "Two 'arps is quite enough for one family and, as you and 'Earty are sure of 'em, you leave me alone."

One of Mrs. Bindle's principal complaints against Bindle was that he never took her out.

"You could take me out fast enough once," she would complain.

"But where'm I to take you?" cried Bindle. "You don't like the pictures, you won't go to the 'alls, and I can't stand that smelly little chapel of yours, listenin' to a cove wot tells you 'ow uncomfortable you're goin' to be when you're cold meat."

"You could take me for a walk, couldn't you?" demanded Mrs. Bindle.

"When I takes you round the 'ouses, you bully-rags me because I cheer-o's my pals, and if we passes a pub you makes pleasant little remarks about gin-palaces. Tell you wot it is, Mrs. B.," he remarked on one occasion, "you ain't good company, at least not in this world," he added.

"That's right, go on," Mrs. Bindle would conclude. "Why did you marry me?"[Pg 157]

"There, Mrs. B.," he would reply, "you 'ave me beaten."

From the moment that Mrs. Bindle read of the Bishop of Fulham's Summer-Camps for Tired Workers, she became obsessed by the idea of a holiday in a summer-camp. She was one of the first to apply for the literature that was advertised as distributed free.

The evening-paper that Bindle brought home possessed a new interest for her.

"Anything about the summer-camps?" she would ask, interrupting Bindle in his study of the cricket and racing news, until at last he came to hate the very name of summer-camps and all they implied.

"That's the worst o' religion," he grumbled one night at The Yellow Ostrich; "it comes a-buttin' into your 'ome life, an' then there ain't no peace."

"I don't 'old wiv religion," growled Ginger.

"I ain't got nothink to say against religion as religion," Bindle had remarked; "but I bars summer-camps."

Mrs. Bindle, however, was packing. With all the care of a practised housewife, she first devoted herself to the necessary cooking-utensils. She packed and unpacked half-a-dozen times a day, always stowing away some article that, a few minutes later, she found she required.

Her conversation at meal-times was devoted exclusively to what they should take with them. She asked innumerable questions, none of which Bindle was able satisfactorily to answer. To him the bucolic life[Pg 158] was a closed book; but he soon realised that a holiday at the Surrey Summer-Camp was inevitable.

"Wot am I to do in a summer-camp?" he mumbled, one evening after supper. "I can drive an 'orse, if some one's leadin' it, an' I knows it's an 'en wot lays the eggs an' the cock wot makes an 'ell of a row in the mornin', same as them ole 'orrors we used to 'ave; but barrin' that, I'm done."

"That's right," broke in Mrs. Bindle, "try and spoil my pleasure, it's little enough I get."

"But wot are we goin' to do in the country?" persisted Bindle with wrinkled forehead. "I don't like gardenin', an'——"

"Pity you don't," she snapped.

"Yes, it's a pity," he agreed; "still, it's saved me an 'ell of a lot o' back-aches. But wot are we goin' to do in a summer-camp, that's wot I want to know."

"You'll be getting fresh air and—and you can watch the sunsets."

"But the sun ain't goin' to set all day," he persisted. "Besides, I can see the sunset from Putney Bridge, an' damn good sunsets too, for them as likes 'em. There ain't no need to go to a summer-camp to see a sunset."

"You can go on, you're not hurting me." Mrs. Bindle drew in her lips and sat looking straight in front of her, a grim figure of Christian patience.

"I can't milk a cow," Bindle continued disconsolately, reviewing his limitations. "I can't catch chickens, me with various veins in my legs, I 'ates the smell[Pg 159] o' pigs, an' I ain't good at weedin' gardens. Now I asks you, Mrs. B., wot use am I at a summer-camp? I'll only be a sort o' fly in the drippin'."

"You can enjoy yourself, I suppose, can't you?" she snapped.

"But 'ow?"

"Oh! don't talk to me. I'm sick and tired of your grumbling, with your don't like this, an' your don't like that. Pity you haven't something to grumble about."

"But I ain't——"

"There's many men would be glad to have a home like yours, an' chance it."

"Naughty!" cried Bindle, wagging an admonitory finger at her. "If I——"

"Stop it!" she cried, jumping up, and making a dash for the fire, which she proceeded to poke into extinction.

Meanwhile, Bindle had stopped it, seizing the opportunity whilst Mrs. Bindle was engaged with the fire, to slip out to The Yellow Ostrich.

II

"Looks a bit lonely, don't it?" Bindle gazed about him doubtfully.

"What did you expect in the country?" snapped Mrs. Bindle.

"Well, a tram or a bus would make it look more 'ome-like."[Pg 160]

The Bindles were standing on the down platform of Boxton Station surrounded by their luggage. There was a Japanese basket bursting to reveal its contents, a large cardboard hat-box, a small leather bag without a handle and tied round the middle with string to reinforce a dubious fastening. There was a string-bag blatantly confessing to its heterogeneous contents, and a roll of blankets, through the centre of which poked Mrs. Bindle's second-best umbrella, with a travesty of a parrot's head for a handle.

There was a small deal box without a lid and marked "Tate's Sugar," and a frying-pan done up in newspaper, but still obviously a frying-pan. Finally there was a small tin-bath, full to overflowing, and covered by a faded maroon-coloured table-cover that had seen better days.

Bindle looked down ruefully at the litter of possessions that formed an oasis on a desert of platform.

"They ain't afraid of anythink 'appening 'ere," he remarked, as he looked about him. "Funny little 'ole, I calls it."

Mrs. Bindle was obviously troubled. She had been clearly told at the temporary offices of the Committee of the Summer-Camps for Tired Workers, that a cart met the train by which she and Bindle had travelled; yet nowhere was there a sign of life. Vainly in her own mind she strove to associate Bindle with the cause of their standing alone on a country railway-platform, surrounded by so uninviting a collection of luggage.[Pg 161]

Presently an old man was observed leaving the distant signal-box and hobbling slowly towards them. When within a few yards of the Bindles, he halted and gazed doubtfully, first at them, then at the pile of their possessions. Finally he removed his cap of office as railway porter, and scratched his head dubiously.

"I missed un that time," he said at length, as he replaced his cap.

"Missed who?" enquired Bindle.

"The four-forty," replied the old man, stepping aside to get a better view of the luggage. "Got a-talkin' to Young Tom an' clean forgot un." It was clear that he regarded the episode in the light of a good joke. "Yours?" he queried a moment later, indicating with a jerk of his head the litter on the platform.

"Got it first time, grandpa," said Bindle cheerfully. "We come to start a pawnshop in these parts," he added.

The porter looked at Bindle with a puzzled expression, then his gaze wandered back to the luggage and finally on to Mrs. Bindle.

"We've come to join the Summer-Camp," she explained.

"The Summer-Camp!" repeated the man, "the Summer-Camp!" Then he suddenly broke into a breeze of chuckles. He looked from Mrs. Bindle to the luggage and from the luggage to Bindle, little gusts of throaty croaks eddying and flowing. Finally with a resounding smack he brought his hand down upon his fustian thigh.[Pg 162]

"Well, I'm danged," he chuckled, "if that ain't a good un. I maun go an' tell Young Tom," and he turned preparatory to making off for the signal-box.

Bindle, however, by a swift movement barred his way.

"If it's as funny as all that, ole sport, wot's the matter with tellin' us all about it?"

Once more the old man stuttered off into a fugue of chuckles.

"Young Tom'll laugh over this, 'e will," he gasped; "'e'll split 'isself."

"I suppose they don't 'ave much to amuse 'em," said Bindle patiently. "Now then, wot's it all about?" he demanded.

"Wrong station," spluttered the ancient. Then a moment later he added, "You be wantin' West Boxton. Camp's there. Three mile away. There ain't another train stoppin' here to-night," he added.

Mrs. Bindle looked at Bindle. Her lips had disappeared; but she said nothing. The arrangements had been entirely in her hands, and it was she who had purchased the tickets.

"How far did you say it was?" she demanded of the porter in a tone that seemed, as if by magic, to dry up the fountain of his mirth.

"Three mile, mum," he replied, making a shuffling movement in the direction of where Young Tom stood beside his levers, all unconscious of the splendid joke that had come to cheer his solitude. Mrs. Bindle,[Pg 163] however, placed herself directly in his path, grim and determined. The man fell back a pace, casting an appealing look at Bindle.

"Where can we get a cart?" she demanded with the air of one who has taken an important decision.

The porter scratched his head through his cap and considered deeply, then with a sudden flank movement and a muttered, "I'll ask Young Tom," he shuffled off in the direction of the signal-box.

Bindle gazed dubiously at the pile of their possessions, and then at Mrs. Bindle.

"Three miles," he muttered. "You didn't ought to be trusted out with a young chap like me, Mrs. B.," he said reproachfully.

"That's enough, Bindle."

Without another word she stalked resolutely along the platform in the direction of the signal-box. The old porter happening to glance over his shoulder saw her coming, and broke into a shambling trot, determined to obtain the moral support of Young Tom before another encounter.

Drawing his pipe from his pocket, Bindle sank down upon the tin-bath,