looking over what i have written about mr. wilkins, who was for such a long time one of our most regular customers of an evening at the ‘stretford arms,’ i feel inclined now to cross some of it out; but, of course, it would be difficult to do that, because at the time i wrote of him things were different to what they are now, and i only made the remarks about him which i thought at the time he deserved. even that which was written after he had left the neighbourhood referred to the part he took in things which happened at the time he was with us, and so of course it wouldn’t have done to anticipate.
poor mr. wilkins!
he offended me very often, and at times he was rather a nuisance, poor old gentleman, because he was one who would have a finger in everybody’s pie, and was fond of giving off his opinions, whether he was asked for them or not. but that is all forgiven and forgotten now, and i only think of the old gentleman at his best. we all have our peculiarities—i dare say i have mine—and certainly wilkins had his; but it would be a very queer world if nobody had any crotchets, and everybody was exactly alike. there wouldn’t be any novels, and there wouldn’t be any plays—at least, i suppose not—though, of course, if we had been all alike in our ways and in our dispositions, authors would have had to get over the difficulty somehow.
you remember that mr. wilkins had a daughter in service in london, and it was through her that he found out that i was the mary jane who had written her “memoirs{237}” when she was in service. he was very proud of his daughter, and he had every reason to be so, for she was a very good girl, and had only lived in good families. he had also a daughter who had married, and had gone out with her husband to australia. she used to write to her father now and then, and when he had a letter he was very proud of it, and he would bring it round to our house, and read bits of it that were about the life there out loud to the company, and he used to say, “my girl writes a good letter, doesn’t she, mrs. beckett? she could write a good book if she liked, and it would be very interesting.”
poor mr. wilkins, i’m quite sure he had an idea that his daughter could write a book on australia because she had been there a year or two and could write a very fair letter. some people think that you’ve only to write what you have seen, and it will be as interesting to the public as it is to you and your friends. i believe much cleverer people than mr. wilkins think that, because i’ve seen books advertised in the newspapers, such as “a month in america, by a lady,” or “six weeks in russia, by a gentleman,” and all that sort of thing, and one of the gentlemen who stayed at our hotel left a book behind him from mudie’s, and i read it before sending it after him, and it was nothing but a lot of letters, which a lady, who had gone abroad for her health, had written home to her children. very interesting to her children and her friends, i dare say; but i thought a lot of it quite silly, and i thought to myself that she must be pretty conceited to fancy everybody wanted to read her letters that she wrote home. but i must not say any more on the subject, because people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and perhaps somebody will say that i’m a nice one to talk, seeing that i am always writing down everything that happens to me, and having the impudence to try and get it published.
what brought it up was mr. wilkins being so absurd about his daughter in australia.
in most of these letters there was a glowing account of how well she was getting on, and how her husband had been very lucky out there, and was making money and getting property. it seems he had bought some land, or{238} something, “up country,” which meant a very long way off, and it had turned out so well that he had bought some more, and, according to the young woman, they were on the high road to fortune.
then, her letters began to ask her father to come out to them and settle down with them. she was sure he would like it, and he could be a great help to them as well, as her husband wanted somebody he could trust very much.
at first mr. wilkins shook his head, and said he was too old, that he couldn’t go across the seas, and he thought he should feel more comfortable if he died in his native place and was buried in the old parish churchyard.
but by-and-by something happened which made him hesitate. his daughter up in london was engaged to a young man, and they were to be married in a short time. he was a young man in a very fair position, being head barman in a public-house in the city, and a good deal of the management was left to him, the proprietor having a taste for sport and going away racing a good deal, and the wife not knowing much about the trade, and not being a good business woman.
mr. wilkins’s daughter in london was very fond of her young man, who was very sober and steady, and getting on well and putting money by.
all went very well until the landlord of the public-house went one day to the races at epsom—the city and suburban day, i think it was—and he drove down with some friends in a trap. what happened afterwards came out at the inquest. they may have had too much to drink; but, at any rate, driving back home in the evening they ran into a lamp-post, and the landlord was thrown out on his head, and when he was picked up it was found that he was seriously injured, and he never regained consciousness, but died the next day.
after that miss wilkins didn’t see so much of her lover. he said that, the governor being dead, he had to be always looking after the business, and that prevented him getting out so often as he used to do. the poor girl didn’t suspect anything at first; but, at last, she would have been blind not to see that something was wrong. after a bit the young man tried to get up a quarrel with her; but she,{239} being a sweet temper, wouldn’t quarrel, and then he told her that he had changed his mind, that he didn’t think they were suited to each other, and asked her to break it off.
it upset her terribly, and made her quite ill. it wasn’t only a blow to her pride; but she really loved the fellow. she found out what it all meant when, six months after the landlord met with that fatal accident, her young man married the widow and stepped into an old-established city public-house doing a big trade.
that was the worst blow of all to poor miss wilkins. it showed her how unworthy her young man had been of her, having thrown her over to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, and all for money.
she fretted so much that she became quite ill, and wasn’t able to stop in a situation, and so she came home to her father. but that didn’t do her any good, for she moped terribly, and was always brooding, and couldn’t be roused, or persuaded to go out.
i felt very sorry for the poor girl, and i asked her to tea several times; but she only came once, and then she was so miserable that it was more like a funeral feast than a friendly tea-party.
she began to get paler and thinner every day, and mr. wilkins grew quite alarmed about her, and the doctor said the only thing for her was to go right away and be among fresh faces and fresh scenes, and then, perhaps, in time she would make an effort and forget her trouble.
i don’t believe myself that a woman ever forgets a trouble of that sort. they may seem to before the world; but it is only put away for a time. it comes back again. but there is no doubt that it comes back less in a new place than in an old one, where there is nothing to take your attention off it.
it was just after the doctor had told wilkins this that another letter came from australia, from the daughter there, almost begging her father to come out to them. the doctor said, when he heard of it, “why not go, wilkins, and take your daughter with you?” and at last the poor old gentleman made up his mind that he would. miss wilkins was eager to go too. she said she{240} should be glad to get away from everything that reminded her of the past. i think wilkins would still have hesitated, but for the fact that just at the time our clergyman was changed, the rev. tommy going away to a seaside place, and a new clergyman coming—quite a young fellow, who looked almost like a boy, and had a lot of new notions that poor wilkins said were dreadful. he and wilkins didn’t get on at all from the very first, the old fellow rather resenting what he called the young clergyman’s “new-fangled ways.” and the young clergyman got wild with wilkins, who, he said, was “an old fossil,” and “behind the age,” and they had words. and then wilkins in a pet said he should resign, and the young clergyman said he was very glad of it, and he thought it was about time, as mr. wilkins had been spoiled, by his predecessor allowing him to have his own way, and was too old now to learn different.
the end of it was that one evening mr. wilkins came into our bar-parlour very excited, and said he had given that whipper-snapper a bit of his mind, and resigned his place, and he was going to accept his married daughter’s offer, and go to australia.
at first, when he said it, his old friends who were present said, “go on!” but he soon let them know that he was serious. and the next day he went up to london to make arrangements about a passage for himself and his daughter.
it made quite a sensation in the village, as soon as it was known that our old parish clerk was going to australia. a committee met at our house, and it was determined, in recognition of his long connection with the parish, and the esteem in which he was held by everybody, to give him what graves, the farrier, called “a good send-off.” there was a lot of talk about how it was to be done, and at last it was determined to get up “a wilkins testimonial and banquet.” it was settled that the banquet was to be at our house, and harry entered into it heart and soul, because he liked wilkins very much. there was a lot of dispute as to what the testimonial was to be, and at last it was decided that something that an inscription could be put on was best—something that he could keep and{241} show to everybody and leave behind him as a family heirloom.
harry suggested a piece of plate, and that was agreed to after some absurd remarks by graves, who wanted to know what a piece of plate was like; and when it was agreed to be a silver tankard, with an inscription on it, graves said he thought a plate was something to eat off, and he couldn’t see how anything that you drank out of could be a plate.
i dare say he thought it was very funny, but nobody laughed at the joke except himself; but, as he laughed loud enough for twenty people, perhaps he was satisfied.
as soon as the preliminaries were settled, harry and mr. jarvis, the miller, the one that was nearly run over on the night of the burglary at the hall, were appointed to collect the subscriptions, and a day was fixed for the banquet, which was to be the night before mr. wilkins left the village to go to london, where he was going to stop for a day and a night before he sailed from the docks for melbourne.
the rev. tommy was written to, and he headed the subscription with a pound, and the doctor gave a pound, and several of the gentry people gave the same, and the rest was made up in ten shillings and five shillings from the little tradespeople, and smaller sums from the working folks. it was a success from the first, for mr. wilkins was very much respected, and everybody was sorry he was going to leave. the new clergyman—the “whipper-snapper”—wasn’t asked; but when he heard what was going on, he came into our place one day and gave harry a pound, and harry said he wasn’t such a bad sort after all.
we got so much money that it was more than enough to buy the tankard, and harry suggested that we should put the rest into a purse and present it to mr. wilkins, as it would be very useful for the journey. mr. wilkins had been a saving man, and he had a nice little sum in the bank; but, of course, money is always welcome, especially when there are two fares to australia to pay.
the banquet was left to us, and, after we had thought it well over and consulted the committee, it was agreed{242} that it was to be five shillings a head, and that everybody was to pay for what they drank extra. this was better, because, of course, the company would be rather mixed, several of the better people, such as the doctor and some of the young gentlemen from the private houses, having promised to come, to show their respect for mr. wilkins, and they would drink wine, while the ordinary people would drink beer.
harry said to me, “we’ll show them what the ‘stretford arms’ can do, my dear.” and we arranged a banquet that i am sure would be no disgrace to a west end london hotel. knowing our company, we arranged accordingly; having dishes to suit the gentlefolks, and hot joints and things to suit the others. the banquet was to be in the coffee-room, and that would hold a lot of people, by making one long set of tables run all round it. the doctor promised to take the chair, and mr. wilkins, of course, was to be on his right hand, and harry was to take the vice-chair. there were to be no ladies, which i opposed at first; but it was thought better, as it might have led to quarrelling.
of course wilkins knew what was going on, and he was very proud, though it touched him deeply. and when he shook hands with us, the night that the deputation waited on him and invited him to the banquet, the poor old fellow’s voice was quite husky, and his hand trembled.
it was very funny the way he tried to pretend he wasn’t listening, when any of the arrangements were discussed in the bar-parlour. and sometimes we used to be talking about what the inscription was to be, and that sort of thing, and in would walk wilkins himself; and then we all left off and whispered, and first one would be called out of the room, and then the other, to settle a point, mr. wilkins all the time smoking his long clay pipe and looking up at the ceiling, as though he hadn’t the slightest idea that he was in any way concerned in what was going on.
one day, just before the banquet, harry came to me and said, “missus, you know all about these things—how do you invite the press?”
“what press?” i said, wondering what he was driving at.{243}
“the newspapers,” he said. i’ve had a hint that mr. wilkins would like the press to be present. he’s going to make a speech.”
i thought for a minute, and then said that i supposed it would be better to write to the editor of our county paper and send him a ticket.
“yes,” said harry, “but i fancy wilkins would like the times and the morning advertiser to be present.”
i couldn’t help laughing at that. of course it was absurd; as if the editor of the times and the morning advertiser would take the trouble to come down to our place to hear mr. wilkins speak!
i told harry that it was ridiculous, as it was only a local affair, and i wasn’t even sure if it was big enough for our county paper to come to.
harry seemed a little disappointed. he said that it would have been such a good thing for us, if it could have been got into the london papers; because in all the accounts of banquets that he had read it always said at the end something about the hotel or the restaurant, and the way in which the banquet was served.
“well,” i said, “i’m sure the london papers would laugh at us if we invited them; but there’ll be no harm in asking the local paper.”
the committee met and talked it over, and a nice invitation was sent to our editor, and we got a letter back in a couple of days, saying that he feared he could not send a reporter, as the affair was not of sufficient general interest; but if we sent a short account of the proceedings it should be inserted.
somehow or other, mr. wilkins got to hear of it, and, though he was disappointed about the times and the morning advertiser, he paid me a very pretty little compliment. he came to me, and said, “mrs. beckett, ma’am, i have heard that our county journal is anxious for a report of the farewell banquet which is to be given in my honour. i am sure that there will be no one so fitted in every way to draw up that report as yourself. you are an authoress, and well known in literature, and can do the subject justice.”
i blushed at that, and went quite hot. “i’m not used{244} to writing in newspapers, mr. wilkins,” i said, “which is quite different to writing books.” but the old gentleman was so anxious that i should write the report that i promised i would. after that i read all the reports of banquets i could find in the newspapers, so as to get used to the style, and the only thing that bothered me was how i should be able to write out all the speeches, and i told mr. wilkins so. he relieved me on this point by saying he should have his speech written out beforehand, and he would have a copy made specially for me.
for two or three days before the banquet we were very busy getting everything ready, and i was very anxious, as it was the first public dinner on a big scale that we had done. but, thank goodness, nothing went wrong, except that the woman we had in to help our cook turned out a very violent temper, and in a rage pulled our cook’s cap off and threw it on the fire, and she, trying to snatch it off again, upset a big saucepan of custard that was boiling, and it all ran over into her boots, and made her dance about, and shriek and yell that she was scalded to death—(she really was hurt, poor woman)—and that made the kitchen-maid, who was subject to epilepsy, fall down and have a fit. and as we sacked the assistant cook for her behaviour, and cook and the kitchen-maid were too ill to do anything all the next day, we had to send out right and left to get help. and we got a woman who was an excellent cook and very handy; but had a baby that she couldn’t leave, and so brought it with her. it was the peevishest baby that i ever came across, and shrieked itself into convulsions from morning till night, until at last the people staying in the hotel sent down and said, if that child didn’t leave off they should have to go. except for these little things everything went on as well as could be expected, seeing what a strain it was on the resources of the establishment. that last line is a line out of my report, which i wrote for our county paper. it isn’t in the report which they had printed, but i wrote it, having seen it in a report of a banquet i had read, and i think “strain on the resources of the establishment” a very good expression under the circumstances.
but all’s well that ends well, and when the eventful{245} evening arrived everything was right, and the coffee-room looked beautiful with the flags which we had put up, and evergreens, and coloured paper, and a big device over mr. wilkins’s head, on which was written—
england’s loss is australia’s gain;
god speed mr. wilkins across the main.
when the company had all assembled there were fifty-one altogether who sat down, and it was a very pretty sight. we had extra waitresses in to help, and i remained in the room and superintended them, keeping near the door, of course. harry behaved beautifully as the vicechairman, taking care never to be the landlord, or to interfere with anything, only once, when graves—who, of course, couldn’t behave himself even on such an occasion—said, “i say, mr. vice, don’t you think this beer is a bit off?” harry replied, “i don’t know, mr. graves; i’m drinking champagne,” which made everybody laugh.
there was plenty of champagne drunk, too, at the head of the table, mr. wilkins tasting it, as he said afterwards, for the first time in his life, and everything went off capitally, and not too noisy at first, though the way some of them ate, at the lower end, showed that they meant to have their money’s worth, as well as to show their respect for wilkins.
after the cheese and celery the doctor rapped the table, and then harry rapped the table too, and said, “order for the chair.” and mr. wilkins, who knew, of course, what was coming, looked at the pattern of his cheese-plate as though it was a very beautiful picture, and made little pills with the bread by his side, and twisted the tablecloth, and did everything except look at the company.
the doctor made a very nice, kind little speech about wilkins, referring to the many, many years he had been parish clerk, and how he was looked upon by everybody in the place as a friend, and how sorry they all were to lose him, and how they hoped that a long and happy life with his family awaited him in the new country.
everybody cheered, and said “hear, hear,” to the sentiments, the only person interrupting in the wrong place being graves, who said, “hear, hear,” when the doctor{246} said, “and now mr. wilkins is about to leave us, perhaps for ever.”
at the end of the doctor’s speech everybody got up and raised their glasses, and shouted, “three cheers for wilkins!” and then they sang, “for he’s a jolly good fellow,” and kept on till i thought they would never leave off.
after that, mr. jarvis, the miller, sang a song, to give mr. wilkins time to pull himself together for his reply, and then mr. wilkins rose, and the company banged the table till the glasses jumped again, and i thought the whole arrangement would come down with a crash, the tables being only on tressels.
mr. wilkins rose and said, “ladies and gentlemen”—(there were no ladies, so he looked hard at the door where i was trying to keep out of sight)—“this is the proudest moment of my life. i thank you, gentlemen, one and all. i—i had prepared a speech, but every word has gone out of my head. (‘hear, hear,’ from graves.) i cannot say what i feel. i have known the company here for many, many years; i have lived among you man and boy, and at one time i thought i should die among you. (‘hear, hear,’ from graves again.) but i am going away to a foreign country. i shall find, i hope, new friends there; but i shall never forget the old ones. i thank you one and all, high and low, rich and poor, for your great kindness to me this day. it’s more than i deserve. (‘hear, hear,’ from graves again.) this beautiful mug”—(i forgot to tell you that the doctor wound up his speech by presenting the piece of plate and the purse of gold)—“will be treasured by me to the last hour of my life. i shall hand it down to my children untarnished. for that, and the generous gift which you have also given me, i thank you from the bottom of my heart, and, ladies and gentlemen, i can’t say any more, except to say, ‘good-bye, and god bless you all.’”
mr. wilkins, when he came to that, broke down a little, and then everybody cheered, and he sat down. it wasn’t a bad speech—much better than what he had written out to say, which was nearly all taken from an old book of speeches, published at a shilling, as i found out afterwards,{247} and which was what the prince of wales might have said at a state banquet, but was all nonsense for a parish clerk.
after mr. wilkins’s speech the doctor said, “you may all smoke.” and they did smoke! in five minutes you couldn’t see across the room. and then they had spirits and water, and there were more speeches, and the doctor’s health was proposed, and then harry’s health coupled with mine, and they would make me come in and stand by harry while he replied, and i tried to look as dignified as i could, though i felt awfully hot and flustered, till harry gave me a dreadful slap on the back, which he meant to emphasize what he was saying about me, but which made me feel quite ill for a minute or two. and then they all began to talk at once, and sing songs; and when the banquet broke up, everybody insisted upon seeing mr. wilkins home. and it was just as well, for, what with the heat, and the excitement, and the smoke, and the champagne, and hot spirits on the top of that, poor dear mr. wilkins was glad of somebody’s arm to lean on.
but it all ended well, and was a great success, though the cleaning-up to get the coffee-room straight for the next morning was awful, especially as the strange people we had in to help, emptied all the bottles and all the glasses, and, the contents being rather mixed, some of them were a little excited, and made more noise about their work than they ought to have done.
the next day i sat down to write my report. mr. wilkins, who came round to say good-bye privately to me, as i couldn’t go up to the station with the others to see him off, asked me to put in the speech he had written out, instead of the one he delivered; but i couldn’t do that. i wrote a nice account, giving a few details of mr. wilkins’s life, and the names of the principal guests, and, of course, i said what i could about the banquet, and how much everybody enjoyed it, and i put in a nice little line about harry, though it seemed so funny for me to have to call him “mine host of the ‘stretford arms’;” but i knew that was the right way to do it.
it took me nearly all day to write out the report; and{248} then i made a nice clean copy of it, and sent it to our county paper.
and when the paper came out, we couldn’t find it for a long time, till right down in a corner we found three lines: “mr. wilkins, for many years parish clerk of ——, was entertained at a banquet by his fellow-parishioners on thursday last, on the occasion of his departure for australia.”
i could have cried my eyes out with vexation. the nasty, mean editor had not even said where the banquet was held.
harry was in an awful rage. he had ordered and paid for a hundred copies—to send away. thank goodness, poor mr. wilkins had sailed for australia before the paper came out, and so he knew nothing of the cruel treatment which my first attempt at writing for the press had met with.
that is how mr. wilkins left us. it was a pleasant way certainly; but i know he felt going very much indeed. he was an old man to begin life again in a new world. but he has his daughters with him, and if his eldest daughter is as well off as he says she is, perhaps in time he will get reconciled to the change.
we have had one letter from him since he arrived in australia. the invalid daughter was better, and he gave a wonderful account of the place where he is living. it is a long way “up country,” and he says it is all so new and strange, that sometimes he expects to wake up in his easy-chair in the ‘stretford arms’ and find out that he has dropped off for forty winks, and has been dreaming.
he wrote a lot about the wonderful things he had seen and the wonderful adventures he had had. he says that he has to ride on horseback to get about, and it was very awkward at first; but his son-in-law gave him lessons, and now he is all right. he says he is going to learn how to throw the lasso and catch cattle. i think he has learnt to throw the hatchet. the idea is too absurd of our old parish clerk, the respectable mr. wilkins, galloping about the country and catching animals, like those wild fellows you read about on the great american plains.
still, he is there in the midst of it all, and i don’t sup{249}pose we shall ever see him again. it is a strange end to the career of a quiet, old-fashioned old fellow like wilkins—a man who all his life had hardly spent a week away from the quiet little country place in which he was the parish clerk. i often say to harry, when we speak of him, “who ever would have believed such a thing could happen?” and harry says that in this world there never is any knowing what may happen; but one thing he knows will never happen again, and that is that i shall spend a whole day writing an article for our county paper.
and harry is perfectly right. but never mind, we have had our revenge. we always took the local paper every week before, and now we have given it up. “that’s the best way to make newspapers feel that you——”
* * * * *
mr. saxon arrived! and he never sent word that he was coming! oh dear, dear! i must come at once. nothing will be right, and there’ll be a nice to-do if his liver happens to be wrong.
