i told you our odd man, tom dexter, came to us after that awful young scamp of a boy, who was going to be a highwayman, left.
mr. wilkins wanted to recommend a man he knew, who had been ostler up in london, but harry said, “no, thank you, wilkins, i’ll look out for one myself.” it was mr. wilkins who recommended us the boy highwayman, so we hadn’t much faith in his recommendations after that; though, of course, he meant well, and only wanted to do the boy’s grandmother a good turn.
i often think what a lot of bad turns you do sometimes to many people through trying to do one person a good turn. i’ve heard it said over and over again, “this comes of trying to do a man a good turn;” and it has always been about something unpleasant having happened.
it isn’t only that the person you try to do a good turn to brings trouble about, but the person himself or herself—for women are as bad as men in that respect—is generally ungrateful to you for what you’ve done, and very often “rounds” on you, as the common expression is, and tries to make out that you’ve done them, or i suppose i ought to say, to be grammatical, done him or her an injury.
“one good turn deserves another,” the proverb says; but my experience of doing anybody a good turn is, that it very seldom gets what it deserves; but generally the other thing.
i recollect one place, when i was in service, where the{142} master was a most kind-hearted man, and a friend came to him one day, and told him a tale about an old lady of very superior education, whose husband had died, and left her in such reduced circumstances that if she did not soon get something to do, she would have to go in the workhouse. the friend told my master that this old lady was a most excellent housekeeper, and used to looking after servants, because she had had her own, and she spoke and wrote french, and would be very useful that way, when there were children learning the language, to talk to them, and give them an accent.
“i knew her husband in business,” said the friend to master, “and you’d be doing a deserving woman a good turn, if you could find her a situation where her talents would be appreciated.”
it happened just at that time that my mistress had been saying to master that, her health being so delicate, and they having to travel about a good deal through it, the awful london winter being too much for her, they ought really to have a housekeeper—a person they could leave at home, to look after the house and the servants while they were away.
master came home and told missus about the old lady (mrs. le jeune, her name was), and missus said that that was just the very sort of person they wanted. why not give her a trial?
“just what i was thinking myself,” said master; “only, my dear, i thought i would consult you first.”
he knew by experience that if he did’nt consult missus first about everything, the fat would be in the fire; for she was one of those ladies who don’t believe that a man can do anything right, and master used to say sometimes he wondered she let him manage his own business. of course he didn’t say that to us servants; but we used to hear when they were having arguments at dinner, which was pretty often.
it happened that just at the time master’s friend told him about mrs. le jeune, we were going to have a grand ball, and missus, who had nervous headaches, was grumbling a good deal, and saying she couldn’t attend to everything because of her health; so master said it would be a{143} good thing to have the old lady engaged at once, and then she could take a lot of trouble off missus’s shoulders.
but mrs. le jeune, it seems, couldn’t come for some reason just then. what it was i don’t know, but at any rate she didn’t arrive until the afternoon of the day that the ball was to come off, and then she drove up in a four-wheeled cab, with a big box outside, about five o’clock.
of course we were all sixes and sevens in the kitchen, because it was rather a small house, and we’d had to turn the best bedroom into a supper-room, and we’d had the upholsterer’s men about all day fitting it up, and draping and decorating the other rooms, and we were all topsy-turvy.
mrs. le jeune, when i let her in, told me she was the new housekeeper, and asked to see missus. missus had gone to lie down, so as to be right for the evening, and had given orders that she wasn’t to be disturbed for anybody till six o’clock, and i knew it would be bad for me if i went and woke her up; so i said to the old lady that missus was asleep; but i would show her to the room that was to be hers.
she was a queer-looking old lady, certainly. she was very short, and had a big bonnet on, and a long, black, foreign-looking cloak, and the longest nose i think i ever saw on a woman in my life, but she spoke like a lady certainly, but when she walked it almost made me laugh. it wasn’t a walk—it was a little skip, and when she moved about, it was for all the world as if she was dancing.
when i told her missus could not see her, she said, “oh, it is very strange. madam knew that i was coming, she should have arranged for my reception; but these city people have no manners. what’s your name, girl?”
“mary jane.”
“mary jane what?”
“mary jane buffham.”
“‘mary jane, madam,’ you mean. be good enough never to address me without calling me ‘madam.’”
“i beg your pardon, i didn’t know——”
“did you hear what i said to you? i can’t allow you to speak to me as if i were your equal. i am a lady by birth and education. i have consented to take charge of{144} this establishment in order that it may be properly conducted. i shall have to begin by teaching the servants how to behave themselves, evidently. now, send some one to carry my box and conduct me to my apartment.”
“yes, madam.”
i thought to myself, “well, this is a nice old lady the master’s got hold of. she and missus won’t hit it off together long;” but, of course, it was no business of mine, so i asked one of the upholsterer’s men to give me a hand, and we carried her box upstairs, and i showed the old lady her room.
it was at the top of the house, next the servants’ bedrooms. before she got up she was out of breath.
“oh!” she said, “the attics! this is an insult to which i cannot submit. i am a lady; your master does not seem to be aware of the fact.”
i said i didn’t know anything about that. this was the room. so i got her box in, and gave her a candle, and left her muttering to herself, and taking off her bonnet in front of the looking-glass, and putting on a most wonderful cap, which she took out of the blue bonnet-box she had carried in her hand.
it was a big black cap, with cherries and red-currants and grapes sticking up all over it, and she looked so odd with it on, i had to go away, for fear i should burst out laughing, and hurt her feelings.
in about half an hour the old lady came downstairs into the kitchen, and everybody stared at her. it was most uncomfortable for us all to have a strange housekeeper, and such an eccentric one, walking in right in the middle of the preparations for a party, and beginning to missus it over us at once, and to talk like a duchess to us.
there were a lot of men about the kitchen, which made it worse, the upholsterer’s men, and the confectioner’s men, who were finishing off the things for supper, and the florist’s man with the plants and the flowers; and when that extraordinary old lady walked in, with her wonderful cap, and began to go on at us at once, and order us to do this and to do that, and to say we were a common lot, and not one of us knew how things ought to be done, i wondered what would be the end of it.{145}
before the company came, master went to have a look at the ball-room to see if everything was right, while missus was dressing, and there he found the old lady, who had gone upstairs, and was talking to the upholsterer’s men, who were finishing off, and telling them about how different things were when she was young, and the men were what is called “getting at her,” and encouraging her to talk.
when master went in, he was quite flabbergasted to see that old lady, in her wonderful cap, talking away, and saying this ought to be altered and that ought to be altered, and he didn’t know who she was at first, not recognizing her, till she came up and said—
“good evening, sir; i’m just looking round to see if things are as they should be.”
“oh, thank you,” said the master, hardly knowing what to say. “but i won’t trouble you to do that.”
“oh, it’s no trouble,” she said; “i’m used to these affairs. if you’ll allow me to say it, sir, i don’t care for these artificial flowers about the place. they should be real.”
“perhaps so,” said master; “but if you’ll kindly stay below and look after the servants, that is all you need do at present.”
he was anxious to get her out of the way before missus came down, because he guessed there would be trouble if missus found that old lady interfering and giving orders.
missus was like that. she wouldn’t allow anybody to interfere with her, and she was very touchy on the point. once she wanted to leave the house they were living in, and master put it in the agent’s hands and advertised it, and a gentleman and his wife came and looked at it several times, and everything was settled, and the deed or agreement, or whatever you call it, was to be signed, when, the day before, the lady who was going to take the house came to look over it again, and, going over the drawing-room with missus, she said, “i don’t think the colour of your curtains harmonizes with the paper. when i have the house, i shall have the curtains such and such a colour.”
{146}
that was enough for missus. she fired up directly, and said, “oh, i’m sorry i didn’t consult you when i was putting my curtains up, but the colour suits me well enough, and you won’t alter it, because you won’t have the house!”
and then there were a few words, and the lady thought it best to retire.
that night, when the master came home, missus told him that she’d changed her mind, and she wouldn’t leave the house, and the agreement wasn’t to be signed.
“oh, but, my dear,” said master, “everything is in the lawyer’s hands, and the place is as good as let. we can’t back out of it now.”
“you’ll have to back out of it,” said missus, “for i’m not going to let that woman have my house. she’s had the impudence to find fault with my taste, and to tell me what she’s going to do, and so she sha’n’t come in at all—so there now!”
and all master could say was no good. missus declared she’d never go into another house alive, and, for the sake of peace and quietness, master had to refuse to sign the agreement at the last moment.
there was an awful row about it, i heard, and the other gentleman was very indignant, but it was no use. it was more than master dared do to sign the agreement, knowing what his wife was, and he couldn’t be made to, legally, so the other people had to give way after lawyer’s letters had passed.
and one day, when missus met the other lady in an omnibus going to regent street, she said to her, “my curtains are still blue, madam;” and the other lady called to the conductor to stop the omnibus, and she paid her fare, and got out.
knowing how missus was, you may be sure the master was in a fright about the new housekeeper interfering. there would have been a nice scene, and, with the company beginning to arrive, he didn’t want that.
so he said to the waiter who was had in—the man we always had for dinner-parties and balls—“waters,” he said, “for heaven’s sake, keep that old woman downstairs. do anything you like, only keep her downstairs.”
“all right; sir,” said waters. and he got the old lady{147} to sit down in the breakfast-room, and keep guard over the provisions and the wine that were put out for the musicians’ supper, and made out it was very important she should be there, as she was to see that nobody came in and helped themselves.
she saw that nobody did, but she helped herself, and by the time the ball was in full swing the poor old lady had drunk so much wine, she was quite silly, and presently began to get lively, and, feeling lonely, i suppose, she went upstairs to stand in the hall and see the fun, though she had to lean up against the wall a good deal, the wine having got in her head.
i can’t tell you the trouble we had with her; but the end of it was she suddenly made her appearance in the ball-room with her cap very much on one side, and her face very flushed, and said, “where’s mr. —— [naming the master]? i have a communication to make to him.”
master was horrified, and missus said, “good gracious, who is this person?”
“person, madam?” said the new housekeeper, “i’d have you to know i’m a real lady, which is more than you are.”
she made as if she would come across to missus, but she staggered, and fell into the arms of a very stout old gentleman, and put her arms round his neck, and began to have hysterics, and the waiter and master had to get her away by main force between them, the company almost bursting with laughter.
master was in an awful rage, and said he’d turn her out there and then, but he couldn’t in her condition, and so two of us girls got her upstairs and put her to bed, and we thought she’d go off to sleep; but just as the company had sat down to supper in the bedroom, which had been turned into a supper-room, she appeared with a candle in her hand, like lady macbeth, and no cap on, only her bald head, looking the most extraordinary figure you ever saw in your life, and asked if there was a doctor present, as she felt very ill, and was liable to heart attacks if not taken in time.
master and the waiter had to get her out again; but missus was in a terrible rage about it, and went on at{148} master before all the company, saying he ought to be ashamed of himself, bringing such a creature into the house. and the rest of the party was quite spoilt, missus going off to bed herself in a temper, saying she had a bad headache, and master was so worried that he took a little more champagne than was good for him, and slipped up dancing, and hit his eye against a rout seat, and made it so bad he was disfigured for the rest of the evening, and went and hid himself down in the breakfast-room till the company were gone, which they soon were, as everything was upset, and it got awkward.
the next day when the old lady got up, about ten o’clock, she came down and ordered her breakfast, and was beginning to missus it again, and say what she was going to do, and how she was going to keep missus in her place, when master came and told her to be off. he gave her ten shillings, and ordered her box to be brought down and put on a cab, and told her she was a wicked old woman, and she ought to be ashamed of herself.
she refused to go at first, saying she was engaged for three months, and she wanted three months’ money. but she was got into the cab at last, and we were all very thankful to see the last of her.
but she sent master a county court summons for three months’ wages, and he had no end of trouble with her. and through going and giving his friend, who had recommended her, a bit of his mind, they quarrelled, and never spoke again; and missus, having put herself in such a rage the night before, and gone to bed, got up cross the next morning, wild with herself and everybody else, and had an awful quarrel with her mother, who was very rich, and who reprimanded her for being so passionate, and it caused such a coldness between them that, when a year after the mother died, it was found she had altered her will, and left all her money to charitable institutions, and master reckoned that he was twenty thousand pounds out through doing a friend a good turn in giving that old lady a job, besides all the worry and annoyance and the unpleasantness that had come of it.
it was writing about mr. wilkins and his doing the boy-highwayman’s grandmother a good turn that put this{149} story into my head; but, of course, it happened while i was in service, and has nothing to do with the ‘stretford arms.’
mr. wilkins was very sorry, i know, and we didn’t blame him; but we weren’t going to let him do anybody else a good turn at our expense. so harry looked out for man, and having heard of one who was in want of a job, named tom dexter, and liking his manner, and what he had heard about him, he took him on, and a better servant we never had.
tom was about fifty, a fine, burly fellow; but his hair was quite grey, and his face wrinkled. it was trouble, as we found out afterwards, that had given him such an old look.
tom was soon a great favourite with us all, and it was quite a pleasure to ask him to do anything; he was so willing. the customers liked him, too; and he soon began to do very well, because, being so civil and obliging, he got good tips. and one great thing about him was, he was a strict teetotaller.
i dare say you’ll laugh at a licensed victualler’s wife praising a man for being a teetotaller, because if everybody were teetotallers our trade wouldn’t have been what it was; but i must say with servants it is a great thing when they are teetotallers, especially servants about a place where drink is easy to get.
tom was quite a character in his way, being full of odd sayings, and very sharp at reckoning people up in a minute. harry used to say that directly tom had cleaned a man’s boots he knew his character, but i do not go so far as that, though certainly he was able to tell what people would be like, almost directly he saw them.
when anybody new came, tom would carry their luggage upstairs, and, for fun, harry would say sometimes, “well, tom, what’s this lot’s character?” tom would say, “grumblers, sir,” or “troublesome,” or “mean,” or “jolly,” or something else, as the case might be, and he wasn’t often wrong. sometimes he would say, “wait till i’ve had their boots through my hands, sir.” and it was very rarely after that that he hesitated. he used to declare that a man’s boots told a lot about him, and once he tried to{150} explain to me how it was with the boots he was cleaning, for an example. it wasn’t only the shape, but it was the way they were worn at the heels, and the condition of them, and the way he found them put outside the door, and all that. it was a curious idea, but i dare say living among boots, so to speak, and seeing the different varieties, makes you notice little things that other people wouldn’t.
tom had been with us six months before i knew what his story was, for about himself he never had very much to say. harry was chaffing him about making a fortune. he was doing so well in tips, and not spending anything, and, having nobody, so far as we knew, to keep, harry said he would be taking a public-house and setting up in opposition to us.
tom smiled, and said, “not likely, sir.” and one thing led to another, till he told us why he was a teetotaller, and what he was saving his money up for.
it seems he had had a wife, who had been a great trouble to him—not at first, because they were very happy, and married for love. tom was in a good situation in london when they married, and he got a comfortable home together, having always been a hard-working, saving fellow.
he was about thirty when he married, and his wife was ten years younger, so they were a very good match. after they had been married about ten years, and had got two nice children—a boy and a girl—a great trouble came. the little boy was the mother’s favourite, and she doted on him, as mothers will. but when the boy was a nice age, and growing into a sturdy little fellow, he caught the scarlet fever of some other children, and, in spite of everything that could be done for him, he died.
it nearly turned the poor mother’s brain, and i can quite understand it, for, oh! what should i do, if anything happened to my little one? tom was nearly broken-hearted too; but, as he said, he had his work to go to every day, and that took his mind off his trouble. but it is so different for the woman, who has to be alone with her grief in the house, where everything reminds her of her lost one, and where she misses him every minute.
tom came home always, directly his work was over, and he put on a cheerful face, and tried to get his wife to talk{151} of something else, but she always came back to the one subject that was on her mind—her boy. then tom tried to do her good by taking her out to places of amusement now and then, and on saturday evening they would go to a play, or a music-hall; but it was all no good. he would see his wife’s face change all of a sudden, and he would know that her thoughts were far away from the noise and the glare, and the smoke and the smiling faces round her; far away in the great cemetery, where her little boy lay buried.
tom putting his big, rough hand across his eyes as he told me this, it brought the tears into mine. poor woman! it must be so dreadful, when your life ought to be at its best, to be haunted like that.
well, at last she got so melancholy and absent-minded that tom saw it was no good taking her out, and he was quite unhappy about it. she loved him, and she loved her little girl, but she was one of those people who, when sorrow comes, haven’t the strength of mind to battle with it, but nurse it, and pamper it, and encourage it, giving themselves over body and soul to it, and brooding night and day, instead of making an effort to throw it off.
the home, which had once been so spick and span, now began to look dirty and untidy; the little girl was neglected, and when tom came home if was a very different place that he came to from what it used to be.
he didn’t like to say much to the poor, broken-hearted woman; but he was only a man, and at last began to grumble a little, because things were going from bad to worse, and his home was really going to rack and ruin.
she didn’t say anything when he grumbled. she only cried, and that upset tom awfully, so he said, “come, come, missus, i didn’t mean to be unkind. kiss me, and make it up. i know your poor heart’s broke, my lass, but life’s got to be lived, you know, my dear, and sorrows will come. let’s make the best of it, instead of the worst. we’ve got each other, and we’ve got our little girl, god bless her, and we must be thankful for the blessings we’ve got, instead of grieving over those we’ve lost.”
tom’s wife sighed, and said, in a weary sort of a way, she’d try; and she did try for a week or two, and to{152}m’s home was a little better; but after that she dropped back again into her old listless state, and nothing seemed to rouse her.
and then tom made an awful discovery. the poor woman was doing what hundreds have done before—drinking to drown her sorrow, drinking quietly, never getting drunk, but only dazed and helpless.
he was nearly broken-hearted when he found it out, and he went down on his knees and prayed to her for god’s sake to give it up, or it would be ruin for all of them. but she didn’t seem to care now even for him, and his reproaches and prayers and entreaties only made her more miserable, and then she took more drink than ever.
he didn’t tell me all he went through for two or three years after that, but it must have been awful for him to do what he did. she ruined him, brought him down till his home was sold up. it’s a common enough story—the drinking wife or the drinking husband that ruins the home, and you can read about it in the police cases almost every day. sometimes it comes to murder, for a man who is a decent, hard-working fellow goes mad when he gets together home after home, only to see each go to pieces, wrecked by the dreadful drink, and his children, that he is proud of and loves, running the streets ragged and neglected.
but it was doubly sad in our odd man’s case, poor fellow, because the thing that brought it about was the mother’s love for her little one. he had lost his child, and through that he lost his wife and his home.
he found at last that all his trying was no good. if he didn’t give his wife money to get the drink she pawned his things, and what she couldn’t pawn she sold. she ran him into debt and got him into difficulties everywhere, and he was driven mad when he saw his life and her life being wrecked in such a dreadful way.
it was too much for him at last, and then he grew desperate. one night, when he came home and found the place stripped and his wife in a drunken sleep, he went out himself, and, meeting a friend, they went to the public-house together, and tom had a glass of brandy to steady his nerves, and then he had another, and then—well, and{153} then he took to drink too—drank hard himself to drown his trouble, and then the end came quickly. he was dismissed from his place for drunkenness, a place he had had for twenty years, and that week he was homeless—homeless, with a drunken wife and a delicate child, and, as he said, it might have been so different.
oh, that “might have been!” what a lot it means in our lives!
when tom got to this part of his story, he broke down at last. “you mustn’t mind me, ma’am,” he said; “but i can’t think of that awful time even now without a shudder. the first night that i slept in the casual ward, and lay awake and thought the past over, i thought i should have gone mad. i made up my mind that the next day i’d go to one of the bridges and drown myself.
“and then i thought, what would become of my poor little girl and that poor misguided woman if i was dead?
“i was the only hope they had in the world. then i said to myself, ‘perhaps, now things are at the worst, they will mend. there may be a chance of my poor lass coming to her senses now she sees what she’s brought us all to. at any rate, she can’t get any drink now, and the break may be the means of curing her.’”
“and was it, tom?” i said, for i was getting interested in his story, and i knew something must have happened to change his luck, as they call it, or he wouldn’t be our odd man now, so cheerful, and so contented and respectable.
“well, ma’am, it didn’t all come right at once. we’d a good deal to go through before things began to mend. my wife——”
“is your wife alive, tom?” i said, interrupting him.
“i hope so, ma’am.”
“you hope so! don’t you know?”
“no, ma’am—that’s the sad part of the story. that’s what i’m coming to. when we left the casual ward the next day——”
* * * * *
no. 17 going—given you a cheque for his bill. let me see it. that’s a good bank, but i don’t think i ought to take a cheque. but if i say i won’t, it’s like suspecting the gentleman of being a swindler. his luggage is very{154} respectable. dear me, i wish harry was here. something’s sure to crop up just because he’s gone down for two days to see his mother. it’s only ten pounds odd. i suppose i’d better take it. all right; receipt the bill. oh, dear, i hope it’s all right. harry will think me so stupid if it isn’t. i shall have that cheque on my mind, night and day, till it’s paid. i don’t think i’ll take it. susan, susan, bring that bill back. what! you’ve given it to the gentleman? he’s got his bill receipted? dear, dear, i don’t think i can refuse now. well, i hope it will be all right.
