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

in hands that they recognised were more capable than their own.

When the salvage work was ended, and the dishes and basins replaced in an oven that had been reduced to a suitable temperature, the bishop mopped his brow, whilst Mrs. Bindle stood back and gazed at the field-kitchen as St. George might have regarded the conquered dragon.

Her face was flushed, and her hands were grimed; but in her eyes was a keen satisfaction. For once in her life she had occupied the centre of something larger than a domestic stage.

"My friends," cried the bishop, always ready to say a few words or point the moral, "we are all under a very great obligation to our capable friend Mrs. Bindle, a veritable Martha among women;" he indicated Mrs. Bindle with a motion of what was probably the dirtiest episcopal hand in the history of the Church. "She has saved the situation and, what is more, she has saved our dinners. Now," he cried boyishly, "I call for three cheers for Mrs. Bindle."

And they were given with a heartiness that caused Mrs. Bindle a queer sensation at the back of her throat.

The campers flocked round her and found that she whom they had regarded as "uppish," could be almost gracious. Anyhow, she had saved their dinners.

It was Mrs. Bindle's hour.

"Fancy 'im a-callin' 'er Martha, when 'er name's Lizzie," muttered Bindle, as he strolled off. He had taken no very prominent part in the proceedings[Pg 226]—he was a little ashamed of the part he had played in what had proved almost a tragedy.

That day the Tired Workers dined because of Mrs. Bindle, and they knew it. Various were the remarks exchanged among the groups collected outside the tents.

"She didn't 'alf order the bishop about," remarked to his wife the man who should have gone to Yarmouth.

"Any way, if it 'adn't been for 'er you'd 'ave 'ad cinders instead o' baked chops and onions for yer dinner," was the rejoinder, as his wife, a waspish little woman, rubbed a piece of bread round her plate. "She ain't got much to learn about a kitchen stove, I'll say that for 'er," she added, with the air of one who sees virtue in unaccustomed places.

That afternoon when Bindle was lying down inside the tent, endeavouring to digest some fifty per cent. more sausage-toad-in-the-hole than he was licensed to carry, he was aroused from a doze by the sound of voices without.

"We brought 'em for you, missis." It was the man with the stubbly chin speaking.

"Must 'ave made you a bit firsty, all that 'eat," remarked another voice.

Bindle sat up. Events were becoming interesting. He crept to the opening of the tent and slightly pulled aside the flap.

"Best dinner we've 'ad yet." The speaker was the man who had seen a field-kitchen dissected at[Pg 227] Givenchy. He was just in the line of Bindle's vision.

Pulling the flap still further aside, he saw half-a-dozen men standing awkwardly before Mrs. Bindle who, with a bottle of Guinness' stout in either hand, was actually smiling.

"It's very kind of you," she said. "Thank you very much."

In his astonishment, Bindle dropped the flap, and the picture was blotted out.

"Come an' 'ave a look at Daisy," he heard the man with the stubbly chin say. It was obviously his conception of terminating an awkward interview.

"Good day," he heard a voice mumble, to which Mrs. Bindle replied with almost cordiality.

Bindle scrambled back to his mattress, just as Mrs. Bindle pulled aside the flap of the tent and entered, a bottle still in either hand. At the sight, Bindle became aware of a thirst which until then had slumbered.

"I can do with a drop o' Guinness," he cried cheerily, his eyes upon the bottles. "Nice o' them coves to think of us."

"It was me, not you," was Mrs. Bindle's rejoinder, as she stepped across to her mattress.

"But you don't drink beer, Lizzie," he protested. "You're temperance. I'll drink 'em for you."

"If you do, I'll kill you, Bindle." And the intensity with which she uttered the threat decided him that it would be better to leave the brace of Guinness severely alone; but he was sorely puzzled.[Pg 228]

II

That evening, in the sanded tap-room of The Trowel and Turtle, the male summer-campers expressed themselves for the twentieth time uncompromisingly upon the subject of bishops and summer-camps. They were "fed up to the ruddy neck," and would give not a little to be back in London, where it was possible to find a pub "without gettin' a blinkin' blister on your stutterin' 'eel."

It was true the field-kitchen had arrived, that they had eaten their first decent meal, and there was every reason to believe that the marquee was at the station; still they were "sick of the whole streamin' business."

To add to their troubles the landlord of The Trowel and Turtle expressed grave misgivings as to the weather. The glass was dropping, and there was every indication of rain.

"Rain'll jest put the scarlet lid on this blinkin' beano," was the opinion expressed by one of the party and endorsed by all, as, with the landlord's advice to see that everything was made snug for the night, they trooped out of the comfortable tap-room and turned their heads towards the Summer-Camp.

At the entrance of the meadow they were met by Patrol-leader Smithers.

"You must slack the ropes of your tents," he announced, "there may be rain. Only just slack them[Pg 229] a bit; don't overdo it, or they'll come down on the top of you if the wind gets up."

"Oh crikey!" moaned a long man with a straggling moustache, as he watched Patrol-leader Smithers march briskly down the lane.

For some moments the men gazed at one another in consternation; each visualised the desperate state of discomfort that would ensue as the result of wind and rain.

"Let's go an' 'ave a look at Daisy," said Bindle inconsequently.

His companions stared at him in surprise. A shrill voice in the distance calling "'Enery" seemed to lend to them decision, particularly to 'Enery himself. They turned and strolled over to where Daisy was engaged in preparing the morrow's milk supply. She had been milked and was content.

"Look 'ere, mates," began Bindle, having assured himself that there were no eavesdroppers, "we're all fed up with Summer-Camps for tired workers—that so?"

"Up to the blinkin' neck," said a big man with a dirt-grimed skin, voicing the opinion of all.

"There ain't no pubs," said a burly man with black whiskers, "no pictures, can't put a shillin' on an 'orse, can't do anythink——"

"But watch this ruddy cow," broke in the man with the stubbly chin.

"Well, well, p'raps you're right, only I couldn't 'ave said it 'alf as politely," said Bindle, with a grin.[Pg 230] "We're all for good ole Fulham where a cove can lay the dust. Ain't that so, mates?"

The men expressed their agreement according to the intensity of their feelings.

"Well, listen," said Bindle, "an' I'll tell you." They drew nearer and listened.

Twenty minutes later, when the voice demanding 'Enery became too insistent to be denied, the party broke up, and there was in the eyes of all that which spoke of hope.

III

That night, as Patrol-leader Smithers had foretold, there arose a great wind which smote vigorously the tents of the Surrey Summer-Camp for Tired Workers. For a time the tents withstood the fury of the blast; they swayed and bent before it, putting up a vigorous defence however. Presently a shriek told of the first catastrophe; then followed another and yet another, and soon the darkness was rent by cries, shrieks, and lamentations, whilst somewhere near the Bindles' tent rose the voice of one crying from a wilderness of canvas for 'Enery.

Mrs. Bindle was awakened by the loud slatting of the tent-flap. Pandemonium seemed to have broken loose. The wind howled and whistled through the tent-ropes, the rain swept against the canvas sides with an ominous "swish," the pole bent as the tent swayed from side to side.[Pg 231]

"Bindle," she cried, "get up!"

"'Ullo!" he responded sleepily. He had taken the precaution of not removing his trousers, a circumstance that was subsequently used as evidence against him.

"The tent's coming down," she cried. "Get up and hold the prop."

As she spoke, she scrambled from beneath the blankets and seized the brown mackintosh, which she kept ready to hand in case of accidents. Wrapping this about her, she clutched at the bending pole, whilst Bindle struggled out from among the bedclothes.

Scrambling to his feet, he tripped over the tin-bath. Clutching wildly as he fell, he got Mrs. Bindle just above the knees in approved rugger style.

With a scream she relinquished the pole to free her legs from Bindle's frenzied clutch and, losing her footing, she came down on top of him.

"Leave go," she cried.

"Get up orf my stomach then," he gasped.

At that moment, the wind gave a tremendous lift to the tent. Mrs. Bindle was clutching wildly at the base of the pole, Bindle was striving to wriggle from beneath her. The combination of forces caused the tent to sway wildly. A moment later, it seemed to start angrily from the ground, and she fell over backwards, whilst a mass of sopping canvas descended, stifling alike her screams and Bindle's protests that he was being killed.

It took Bindle nearly five minutes to find his way[Pg 232] out from the heavy folds of wet canvas. Then he had to go back into the darkness to fetch Mrs. Bindle. In order to effect his own escape, Bindle had cut the tent-ropes. Just as he had found Mrs. Bindle, a wild gust of wind entered behind him, lifted the tent bodily and bore it off.

The suddenness of the catastrophe seemed to strike Mrs. Bindle dumb. To be sitting in the middle of a meadow at dead of night, clothed only in a nightdress and a mackintosh, with the rain drenching down, seemed to her to border upon the indecent.

"You there, Lizzie?" came the voice of Bindle, like the shout of one hailing a drowning person.

"Where's the tent?" demanded Mrs. Bindle inconsequently.

"Gawd knows!" he shouted back. "Probably it's at Yarmouth by now. 'Oly ointment," he yelled.

"What's the matter?"

"I trodden on the marjarine."

"It's all we've got," she cried, her housewifely fears triumphing over even the stress of wind and rain and her own intolerable situation.

From the surrounding darkness came shouts and enquiries as disaster followed disaster. Heaving masses of canvas laboured and, one by one, produced figures scanty of garment and full of protest; but mercifully unseen.

Women cried, children shrieked, and men swore volubly.

"I'm sittin' in somethink sticky," cried Bindle presently.[Pg 233]

"You've upset the marmalade. Why can't you keep still?"

Keep still! Bindle was searching for the two bottles of Guinness' stout he knew to be somewhere among the d�bris, unconscious that Mrs. Bindle had packed them away in the tin-bath.

As the other tents disgorged their human contents, the pandemonium increased. In every key, appeals were being made for news of lost units.

By the side of the tin-bath Mrs. Bindle was praying for succour and the lost bell-tent, which had sped towards the east as if in search of the wise men, leaving all beneath it naked to the few stars that peeped from the scudding clouds above, only to hide their faces a moment later as if shocked at what they had seen.

Suddenly a brilliant light flashed across the meadow and began to bob about like a hundred candle power will-o'-the-wisp. It dodged restlessly from place to place, as if in search of something.

Behind a large acetylene motor-lamp, walked Patrol-leader Smithers, searching for one single erect bell-tent—there was none.

Shrieks that had been of terror now became cries of alarm. Forms that had struggled valiantly to escape from the billowing canvas, now began desperately to wriggle back again to the seclusion that modesty demanded. With heads still protruding they regarded the scene, praying that the rudeness of the wind would not betray them.

Taking immediate charge, Patrol-leader Smithers[Pg 234] collected the men and gave his orders in a high treble, and his orders were obeyed.

By the time the dawn had begun nervously to finger the east, sufficient tents to shelter the women and children had been re-erected, the cause of the trouble discovered, and the men rebuked for an injudicious slacking of the ropes.

"I ought to have seen to it myself," remarked Patrol-leader Smithers with the air of one who knows he has to deal with fools. "You'll be all right now," he added reassuringly.

"All right now," growled the man with the stubbly chin as he looked up at the grey scudding clouds and then down at the rain-soaked grass. "We would if we was ducks, or ruddy boy scouts; but we're men, we are—on 'oliday," he added with inspiration, and he withdrew to his tent, conscious that he had voiced the opinion of all.

V

Later that morning three carts, laden with luggage, rumbled their way up to West Boxton railway-station, followed by a straggling stream of men, women, and children. Overhead heavy rainclouds swung threateningly across the sky. Men were smoking their pipes contentedly, for theirs was the peace which comes of full knowledge. Behind them they had left a litter of