Mrs. Bindle: Some Incidents from the Domestic Life of the Bindles

Charley did not seem to notice anything unusual. In his gentle, good-natured way he hoped that Millie would not again ask him to talk to Aunt Lizzie.

Mrs. Bindle partook, no other word adequately describes the action, of an open jam tart with the aid of a spoon and fork, from time to time sipping daintily from her glass of lemonade; but she refused all else. She had made an excellent meal, she repeatedly assured Millie, and had enjoyed it.

Millie found comfort in plying Bindle with dainties. He had received no orders to curtail his appetite, so he had decided in his own idiom to "let 'em all come" – and they came, tarts and turnovers, fruit-salad and blanc-mange, custard and jelly. By the time the cheese and biscuits had arrived, he was forced to lean back in his chair and confess himself vanquished.

"Not if you was to pay me," he said, as he shook a regretful head.

After the meal, they returned to the drawing-room. Millie showed Mrs. Bindle an album of coloured postcards they had collected during their honeymoon, whilst Charley wandered about like a restless spirit, missing his after-dinner pipe.

"Ain't we goin' to smoke?" Bindle had whispered hoarsely, as they entered the drawing-room; but Charley shook a sad and resigned head.

"She mightn't like it," he whispered back, so Bindle seated himself in the corner of a plush couch, and wondered how long it would be before Mrs. Bindle made a move to go home.

Millie was trying her utmost to make the postcards last as long as possible. Charley had paused beside her in his restless strolling about the room, and proceeded to recall unimportant happenings at the places pictured.

At length the photographs were exhausted, and both Millie and Charley began to wonder what was to take their place, when Mrs. Bindle rose, announcing that she must be going. Millie pressed her to stay, and strove to stifle the thanksgiving in her heart, whilst Charley began to count the minutes before he would be able to "light up."

The business of parting, however, occupied time, and it was fully twenty minutes later that Bindle and Mrs. Bindle, accompanied by Charley and Millie, passed down the narrow little passage towards the hall door.

Another five minutes were occupied in remarks upon the garden and how they had enjoyed themselves – and then the final goodnights were uttered.

As his niece kissed him, Bindle muttered, "I been all right, ain't I, Millikins?" and she squeezed his arm reassuringly, at which he sighed his relief. The tortures he had suffered that evening were as nothing, provided Millie were happy.

As the hall door closed, Charley struck a match and lighted his pipe. Returning to the drawing-room, he dropped into the easiest of the uneasy chairs.

"What's the matter with Uncle Joe to-night, Millie?" he enquired, and for answer Millie threw herself upon him, wound her arms round his neck and sobbed.

"Been a pleasant evenin', Lizzie," said Bindle conversationally, as they walked towards the nearest tram-stop.

Mrs. Bindle sniffed.

"Nice young chap, Charley," he remarked a moment later. He was determined to redeem his promise to Millie.

"What was the matter with you to-night?" she demanded aggressively.

"Matter with me?" he enquired in surprise. "There ain't nothink the matter with me, Lizzie, I enjoyed myself fine."

"Yes, sitting all the evening as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth."

"But – " began Bindle.

"Oh, I know you," she interrupted. "You wanted Millie and Charley to think it's all my fault and that you're a saint. They should see you in your own home," she added.

"But I ain't said nothink," he protested.

"You aren't like that at home," she continued. "There you do nothing but blaspheme and talk lewd talk and sneer at Mr. Hearty. Oh! I can see through you," she added, "and you needn't think you deceived Millie, or Charley. They're not the fools you think them."

Bindle groaned in spirit. He had suffered acutely that evening, mentally having had to censor every sentence before uttering it.

"Then look at the way you behaved. Eating like a gormand. You made me thoroughly ashamed of you. I could see Millie watching – "

"But she was watchin' to see I 'ad enough to eat," he protested.

"Don't tell me. Any decently refined girl would be disgusted at the way you behave. Eating jam tarts with your fingers."

"But wot should I eat 'em with?"

Before she had time to reply, the tram drew up and, following her usual custom, Mrs. Bindle made a dart for it, elbowing people right and left. She could always be trusted to make sufficient enemies in entering a vehicle to last most people for a lifetime.

"But wot should I eat 'em with?" enquired Bindle again when they were seated.

"Sssh!" she hissed, conscious that a number of people were looking at her, including several who had made acquaintance with the sharpness of her elbows.

"But if you ain't to eat jam tarts with yer fingers, 'ow are you goin' to get 'em into yer mouth?" he enquired in a hoarse whisper, which was easily heard by the greater part of the occupants of the tram. "They don't jump," he added.

A ripple of smiles broke out on the faces of most of their fellow-passengers.

"Will you be quiet?" hissed Mrs. Bindle.

"Mind you don't grow up like that, kid," whispered an amorous youth to a full-busted young woman, whose hand he was grasping with interlaced fingers.

Mrs. Bindle heard the remark and drew in her lips still further.

"Been gettin' yer face sticky, mate?" enquired a little man sitting next to Bindle, in a voice of sympathy.

Bindle turned and gave him a wink.

No sooner had they alighted from the tram at The King's Head, than Mrs. Bindle's restraint vanished. All the way to Fenton Street she reviled Bindle for humiliating her before other people. She gave full rein to the anger that had been simmering within her all the evening. Millie should be told of his conduct. Charley should learn to hate him, and Little Joey to execrate the very mention of his name.

"But you shouldn't go a-jabbin' yer elbows in people's – " Bindle paused for a word sufficiently delicate for Mrs. Bindle's ears and which, at the same time, would leave no doubt as to the actual portion of the anatomy to which he referred.

"I'll jab my elbows into you, if you're not careful," was the uncompromising response. "I'm referring to the tarts."

And Bindle made a bolt for it.

"Now this all comes through tryin' to sit on a safety-valve," he muttered. "Mrs. B. 'as got to blow-orf some'ow, or she'd bust."

CHAPTER XIII
MRS. BINDLE'S DISCOVERY

I

On Wednesday evenings, Mrs. Bindle went to chapel to engage in the weekly temperance service. As temperance meetings always engendered in Mrs. Bindle the missionary spirit, Bindle selected Wednesday for what he called his "night out."

If he got home early, it was to encounter Mrs. Bindle's prophetic views as to the hereafter of those who spent their leisure in gin-palaces.

At first Mrs. Bindle had shown her resentment by waiting up until Bindle returned; but as he made that return later each Wednesday, she had at last capitulated, and it became no longer necessary for him to walk the streets until two o'clock in the morning, in order to slip upstairs unchallenged as to where he expected to go when he died.

One Wednesday night, as he was on his way home, whistling "Bubbles" at the stretch of his powers, he observed the figure of a girl standing under a lamp-post, her head bent, her shoulders moving convulsively.

"'Ullo – 'ullo!" he cried. "Wot's the matter now?"

At Bindle's words she gave him a fleeting glance, then, turning once more to the business on hand, sobbed the louder.

"Wot's wrong, my dear?" Bindle enquired, regarding her with a puzzled expression. "Oo's been 'urting you?"

"I'm – I'm afraid," she sobbed.

"Afraid! There ain't nothink to be afraid of when Joe Bindle's about. Wot you afraid of?"

"I'm – I'm afraid to go home," sobbed the girl.

"Afraid to go 'ome," repeated Bindle. "Why?"

"M-m-m-m-mother."

"Wot's up with 'er? She ill?"

"She – she'll kill me."

"Ferocious ole bird," he muttered. Then to the girl, "'Ere, you didn't ought to be out at this time o' night, a young gal like you. Why, it's gettin' on for twelve. Wot's wrong with Ma?"

"She'll kill me. I darsen't go home." She looked up at Bindle, a pathetic figure, with twitching mouth and frightened eyes. Then, controlling her sobs, she told her story.

She had been to Richmond with a girl friend, and some boys had taken them for a run on their motorcycles. One of the cycles had developed engine-trouble and, instead of being home by ten, it was half-past eleven before she got to Putney Bridge Station.

"I darsen't go home," she wailed, as she finished her story. "Mother'll kill me. She said she would last time. I know she will," and again she began to cry, this time without any effort to shield her tear-stained face. Fear had rendered her regardless of appearances.

"'Ere, I'll take you 'ome," cried Bindle, with the air of a man who has arrived at a mighty decision. "If Mrs. B. gets to 'ear of it, there'll be an 'ell of a row though," he muttered.

The girl appeared undecided.

"You won't let her hurt me?" she asked, with the appealing look of a frightened child.

"Well, I can't start scrappin' with your ma, my dear," he said uncertainly; "but I'll do my best. My missis is a bit of a scrapper, you see, an' I've learned 'ow to 'andle 'em. Of course, if she liked 'ymns an' salmon, it'd be sort of easier," he mused, "not that there's much chance of gettin' a tin' o' salmon at this time o' night."

The girl, unaware of his habit of trading on Mrs. Bindle's fondness for tinned salmon and hymn tunes, looked at him with widened eyes.

"No," he continued, "it's got to be tack this time. 'Ere, come along, young un, we can't stay 'ere all night. Where jer live?"

She indicated with a nod the end of the street in which they stood.

"Well, 'ere goes," he cried, starting off, the girl following. As they proceeded, her steps became more and more reluctant, until at last she stopped dead.

"'Wot's up now?" he enquired, looking over his shoulder.

"I darsen't go in," she said tremulously. "I d-d-darsen't."

"'Ere, come along," cried Bindle persuasively. "Your ma can't eat you. Which 'ouse is it?"

"That one." She nodded in the direction of a gate opposite a lamp-post, fear and misery in her eyes.

"Come along, my dear. I won't let 'er 'urt you," and, taking her gently by the arm, he led her towards the gate. Here, however, the girl stopped once more and clung convulsively to the railings, half-dead with fright.

Opening the gate, Bindle walked up the short tiled path and, reaching up, grasped the knocker. As he did so, the door opened with such suddenness that he lurched forward, almost into the arms of a stout woman with a fiery face and angry eyes.

From Bindle her gaze travelled to the shrinking figure clinging to the railings.

"You old villain!" she cried, in a voice hoarse with passion, making a dive at Bindle, who, dodging nimbly, took cover behind a moth-eaten evergreen in the centre of the diminutive front garden.

"You just let me catch you, keeping my gal out like this, and you old enough to be her father, too. As for you, my lady, you just wait till I get you indoors. I'll show you, coming home at this time o' night."

She made another dive at Bindle; but her bulk was against her, and he found no difficulty in evading the attack.

"What d'you mean by it?" she demanded, as she glared at him across the top of the evergreen, "and 'er not seventeen yet. For two pins I'd have you taken up."

"'Ere, old 'ard, missis," cried Bindle, keeping a wary eye upon his antagonist. "I ain't wot you think. I'm a dove, that's wot I am, an' 'ere are you a-playin' chase-me-Charlie round this 'ere – "

"Wait till I get you," she shouted, drowning Bindle's protest. "I'll give you dove, keeping my gal out all hours. You just wait. I'll show you, or my name ain't Annie Brunger."

She made another dive at him; but, by a swift movement, he once more placed the diminutive evergreen between them.

"Mother! – mother!" The girl rushed forward and clung convulsively to her mother's arm. "Mother, don't!"

"You wait, my lady," cried Mrs. Brunger, shaking off her daughter's hand. "I'll settle with you when I've finished with him, the beauty. I'll show him!"

The front door of the house on the right slowly opened, and a curl-papered head peeped out. Two doors away on the other side a window was raised, and a man's bald head appeared. The hounds of scandal scented blood.

"Mother!" The girl shook her mother's arm desperately. "Mother, don't! This gentleman came home with me because I was afraid."

"What's that?" Mrs. Brunger turned to her daughter, who stood with pleading eyes clutching her arm, her own fears momentarily forgotten.

"He saw me crying and said he'd come home with me because – Oh, mother, don't! – don't!"

Two windows on the opposite side of the way were noisily pushed up, and heads appeared.

"'Ere, look 'ere, missis," cried Bindle, seizing his opportunity. "It's no use a-chasin' me round this 'ere gooseberry bush. I told you I ain't no lion. I come to smooth things over. A sort o' dove, you know."

"Mother! – mother!" Again the girl clutched her mother's arm, shaking it in her excitement. "I was afraid to come home, honestly I was, and – and he saw me crying and – and said – " Sobs choked her further utterance.

"Come inside, the pair of you." Mrs. Brunger had at length become conscious of the interest of her neighbours. "Some folks never can mind their own business," she added, as a thrust at the inquisitive. Turning her back on the delinquent pair, she marched in at the door, along the short passage to the kitchen at the farther end, where the gas was burning.

Bindle followed her confidently, and stood, cap in hand, by the kitchen-table, looking about him with interest. The girl, however, remained flattened against the side of the passage, as if anxious to efface herself.

"Elsie, if you don't come in, I'll fetch you," announced the mother threateningly.

Elsie slid along the wall and round the door-post, making for the corner of the room farthest from her mother. There she stood with terrified eyes fixed upon her parent.

"Now, then, what have you two got to say for yourselves?" Mrs. Brunger looked from Bindle to her daughter, with the air of one who is quite prepared to assume the responsibilities of Providence.

"Well, it was like this 'ere," said Bindle easily. "I see 'er," he jerked his thumb in the direction of the girl, "cryin' under a lamp-post down the street, so I asks 'er wot's up."

Bindle paused, and Mrs. Brunger turned to her daughter with a look of interrogation.

"I – I – " began the girl, then she, too, stopped abruptly.

"You've been with that hussy Mabel Warnes again." There was accusation and conviction in Mrs. Brunger's tone. "Don't you deny it," she continued, although the girl made no sign of doing so. "I warned you what I'd do to you if you went out with that fast little baggage again, and I'll do it, so help me God, I will." Her voice was rising angrily.

"'Ere, look 'ere, missis – " began Bindle.

"My name's Brunger – Mrs. Brunger," she added, to prevent any possibility of misconception. "I thought I told you once."

"You did," said Bindle cheerfully. "Now, look 'ere," he continued persuasively, "we're only young once."

Mrs. Brunger snorted disdainfully; and the look she gave her daughter caused the girl to shrink closer to the wall.

"Rare cove I was for gettin' 'ome late," remarked Bindle reminiscently.

"More shame you," was the uncompromising retort.

"Shouldn't wonder if you was a bit late now an' again when you was a gal," he continued, looking up at Mrs. Brunger with critical appreciation – "or else the chaps didn't know wot was wot," he added.

"Two blacks don't make a white," was Mrs. Brunger's obscure comment.

"Yes; but a gal can't 'elp bein' pretty," continued Bindle, following the line of his reasoning. "Now, if you'd been like some ma's, no one wouldn't 'ave wanted to keep 'er out."

"Who are you getting at?" demanded Mrs. Brunger; but there was no displeasure in her voice.

"It's only the pretty ones wot gets kept out late," continued Bindle imperturbably, his confidence rising at the signs of a weakening defence. "Now, with a ma like you," he paused eloquently, "it was bound to 'appen. You didn't ought to be too 'ard on the gal, although, mind you," he said, turning to the culprit, "she didn't ought to go out with gals against her ma's wishes, an' she's goin' to be a good gal in future – ain't that so, my dear?"

The girl nodded her head vigorously.

"There, you see," continued Bindle, turning once more to Mrs. Brunger, whose face was showing marked signs of relaxation. "Now, if I was a young chap again," he continued, looking from mother to daughter, "well, anythink might 'appen."

"Go on with you, do." Mrs. Brunger's good humour was returning.

"Well, I suppose I must," said Bindle, with a grin. "It's about time I was 'opping it."

His announcement seemed to arouse the girl. Hitherto she had stood a silent witness, puzzled at the strange turn events were taking; but now she realised that her protector was about to leave her to the enemy. She started forward, and clutched Bindle by the arm.

"Don't go! – oh, don't go! I – " She stopped suddenly, and looked across at her mother.

"You ain't a-goin' to be too 'ard on 'er?" said Bindle, interpreting the look.

Mrs. Brunger looked irresolute. Her anger found its source in the mother-instinct of protection rather than in bad temper. Bindle was quick to take advantage of her indecision. With inspiration he turned to the girl.

"Now, you mustn't worry yer ma, my dear. She's got quite enough to see to without bein' bothered by a pretty little 'ead like yours. Now, if she forgives you, will you promise 'er not to be late again, an' not to go with that gal wot she don't like?"

"Oh, yes, yes! I won't, mums, honestly." She looked appealingly at her mother, and saw something in her face that was reassuring, for a moment later she was clinging almost fiercely to her mother's arm.

"You must come in one Saturday evening and see my husband," said Mrs. Brunger a few minutes later, as Bindle fumbled with the latch of the hall door. "He's on The Daily Age, and is only home a-Saturday nights."

"Oh, do, please!" cried the girl, smiles having chased all but the marks of tears from her face, and Bindle promised that he would.

"Now, if Mrs. B. was to 'ear of these little goin's on," he muttered, as he walked towards Fenton Street, "there'd be an 'ell of a row. Mrs. B.'s a good woman an', bein' a good woman, she's bound to think the worst," and he swung open the gate that led to his "Little Bit of 'Eaven."

II

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Stitchley."

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Bindle. I 'ope I 'aven't come at a inconvenient time."

"No, please come in," said Mrs. Bindle, with almost geniality, as she stood aside to admit her caller, then, closing the front-door behind her, she opened that leading to the parlour.

"Will you just wait here a minute, Mrs. Stitchley, and I'll pull up the blind?" she said.

Mrs. Stitchley smirked and smiled, whilst Mrs. Bindle made her way, with amazing dexterity, through the maze of things with which the room was crammed, in the direction of the window.

A moment later, she pulled up the dark-green blind, which was always kept drawn so that the carpet might not fade, and the sunlight shuddered into the room. It revealed a grievous medley of antimacassared chairs, stools, photograph-frames, pictures and ornaments, all of which were very dear to Mrs. Bindle's heart.

"Won't you sit down, Mrs. Stitchley?" enquired Mrs. Bindle primly. Mrs. Stitchley was inveterate in her attendance at the Alton Road Chapel; Bindle had once referred to her as "a chapel 'og."

"Thank you, my dear, thank you," said Mrs. Stitchley, whose manner exuded friendliness.

She looked about her dubiously, and it was Mrs. Bindle who settled matters by indicating a chair of stamped-plush, the seat of which rose hard and high in the centre. Over the back was an ecru antimacassar, tied with a pale-blue ribbon. After a moment's hesitation, Mrs. Stitchley entrusted it with her person.

"It's a long time since I see you, Mrs. Bindle." They had met three evenings previously at chapel.

Mrs. Bindle smiled feebly. She always suspected Mrs. Stitchley of surreptitious drinking, in spite of the fact that she belonged to the chapel Temperance Society. Mrs. Stitchley's red nose, coupled with the passion she possessed for chewing cloves, had made her fellow-worshipper suspicious.

"Wot a nice room," Mrs. Stitchley looked about her appreciatively, "so genteel, and 'ow refined."

Mrs. Bindle smirked.

"I was sayin' to Stitchley only yesterday mornin' at breakfast – he was 'avin' sausages, 'e bein' so fond of 'em – 'Mrs. Bindle 'as taste,' I says, 'and refinement.'"

Mrs. Bindle, who had seated herself opposite her visitor, drew in her chin and folded her hands before her, with the air of one who is receiving only what she knows to be her due.

There was a slight pause.

"Yes," said Mrs. Stitchley, with a sigh, "I was always one for refinement and respectability."

Mrs. Bindle said nothing. She was wondering why Mrs. Stitchley had called. Although she would not have put it into words, or even allow it to find form in her thoughts, she knew Mrs. Stitchley to be a woman to whom gossip was the breath of life.

"Now you're wonderin' why I've come, my dear," continued Mrs. Stitchley, who always grew more friendly as her calls lengthened, "but it's a dooty. I says to Stitchley this mornin', 'There's that poor, dear Mrs. Bindle a-livin' in innocence of the way in which she's bein' vilated.'" Mrs. Stitchley was sometimes a little loose in the way she constructed her sentences and the words she selected.

Mrs. Bindle's lips began to assume a hard line.

"I don't understand, Mrs. Stitchley," she said.

"Jest wot I says to Stitchley, 'She don't know, the poor lamb,' I says, ''ow she's bein' deceived, 'ow she's – '" Mrs. Stitchley paused, not from any sense of the dramatic; but because of a violent hiccough that had assailed her.

"Excuse me, mum – Mrs. Bindle," she corrected herself; "but I always was a one for 'iccups, an' when it ain't 'iccups it's spasms. Stitchley was sayin' to me only yesterday, no it wasn't, it was the day before, that – "

"Won't you tell me what you were going to?" said Mrs. Bindle. She knew of old how rambling were Mrs. Stitchley's methods of narration.

"To be sure, to be sure," and she nodded until the jet ornament in her black bonnet seemed to have become palsied. "Well, my dear, it's like this. As I was sayin' to Stitchley this mornin', 'I can't see poor Mrs. Bindle deceived by that monster.' I see through 'im that evenin', a-turnin' your 'appy party into – " she paused for a simile – "into wot 'e turned it into," she added with inspiration.

"Oh! the wickedness of this world, Mrs. Bindle. Oh! the sin and error." She cast up her bleary, watery blue eyes, and gazed at the yellow paper flycatcher, and once more the jet ornament began to shiver.

"Please tell me what it is, Mrs. Stitchley," said Mrs. Bindle, conscious of a sense of impending disaster.

"The wicked man, the cruel, heartless creature; but they're all the same, as I tell Stitchley, and him with a wife like you, Mrs. Bindle, to carry on with a young Jezebel like that, to – "

"Carry on with a young Jezebel!"

Mrs. Bindle's whole manner had changed. Her uprightness seemed to have become emphasised, and the grim look about her mouth had hardened into one of menace. Her eyes, hard as two pieces of steel, seemed to pierce through her visitor's brain. "What do you mean?" she demanded.

Instinctively Mrs. Stitchley recoiled.

"As I says to Stitchley – " she began, when Mrs. Bindle broke in.

"Never mind Mr. Stitchley," she snapped. "Tell me what you mean."

Mrs. Stitchley looked hurt. Things were not going exactly as she had planned. In the retailing of scandal, she was an artist, and she constructed her periods with a view to their dramatic effect upon her listener.

"Yes," she continued reminiscently, "'e's been a good 'usbindt 'as Stitchley. Never no gallivanting with other females. 'E's always said: 'Matilda, my dear, there won't never be another woman for me.' His very words, Mrs. Bindle, I assure you," and Mrs. Stitchley preened herself like a moth-eaten peacock.

"You were saying – " began Mrs. Bindle.

"To be sure, to be sure," said Mrs. Stitchley; "but we all 'ave our crosses to bear. The Lord will give you strength, Mrs. Bindle, just as He gave me strength when Stitchley lorst 'is leg. 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,'" she added enigmatically.

"Mrs. Stitchley," said Mrs. Bindle, rising with an air of decision, "I insist on your telling me what you mean."

"Ah! my dear," said Mrs. Stitchley, with an emotion in her voice that she usually kept for funerals, "I knew 'ow it would be. I says to Stitchley, 'Stitchley,' I says, 'that poor, dear woman will suffer. She was made for sufferin'. She's one of them gentle, tender lambs, that's trodden underfoot by the serpent's tooth of man's lust; but she will bear 'er cross.' Them was my very words, Mrs. Bindle," she added, indifferent to the mixture of metaphor.

Mrs. Bindle looked at her visitor helplessly. Her face was very white; but she realised Mrs. Stitchley's loquacity was undammable.

"A-takin' 'ome a young gal at two o'clock in the mornin', and then bein' asked in by 'er mother – and 'er father away at 'is work every night – and 'er not mor'n seventeen, and all the neighbours with their 'eads out of the windows, and 'er a-screechin' and askin' of 'er mother not to 'it 'er, and 'er sayin' 'Wait 'till I get you, my gal,' and callin' 'im an ole villain. 'E ought to be took up. I says to Stitchley, 'Stitchley,' I says, 'that man ought to be took up, an' it's only because of Lord George that 'e ain't.'"

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Bindle made an effort to control herself. "Who was it that took some one home at two o'clock in the morning?"

"You poor lamb," croaked Mrs. Stitchley, gazing up at Mrs. Bindle, whose unlamblike qualities were never more marked than at that moment. "You poor lamb. You're being deceived, Mrs. Bindle, cruelly and wickedly vilated. Your 'usbindt's carrying on with a young gal wot might 'ave been 'is daughter. Oh! the wickedness of this world, the – "

"I don't believe it."

Mrs. Stitchley started back. The words seemed almost to hit her in the face. She blinked her eyes uncertainly, as she looked at Mrs. Bindle, the embodiment of an outraged wife and a vengeful fury.

"I'm afraid I must be going, my dear," said Mrs. Stitchley; "but I felt I ought to tell you."

"Not until you've told me everything," said Mrs. Bindle, with decision, as she moved towards the door, "and you don't leave this room until you've explained what you mean."

Mrs. Stitchley turned round in her chair as Mrs. Bindle passed across the room, surprise and fear in her eyes.

"Lord a mercy me!" she cried. "Don't ee take on like that, Mrs. Bindle. 'E ain't worth it."

Then Mrs. Bindle proceeded to make it abundantly clear to Mrs. Stitchley that she required the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, without unnecessary circumlocution, verbiage, or obscuring metaphor.

At the end of five minutes she had reduced her visitor to a state of tearful compliance.

At first her periods halted; but she soon got into her stride and swung along with obvious enjoyment.

"My sister-in-law, not as she is my sister-in-law regler, Stitchley's father 'avin' married twice, 'is second bein' a widow with five of 'er own, an' 'er not twenty-nine at the time, reckless, I calls it. As I was sayin', Mrs. Coggles, 'er name's enough to give you a pain, an' the state of 'er 'ome, my dear – " Mrs. Stitchley raised her eyes to the ceiling as if words failed her.

"Well," she continued after a momentary pause, during which Mrs. Bindle looked at her without moving a muscle, "as I was sayin', Mrs. Coggles" – she shuddered slightly as she pronounced the name – "she lives in Arloes Road, No. 9, pink tie-ups to 'er curtains she 'as, an' that flashy in 'er dress. Well, well!" she concluded, as if Christian charity had come to her aid.

"She told me all about it. She was jest a-goin' to bed, bein' late on account of 'Ector, that's 'er seventh, ten months old an' still at the breast, disgustin' I calls it, 'avin' wot she thought was convulsions, an' 'earin' the row an' 'ubbub, she goes to the door an' sees everythink, an' that's the gospel truth, Mrs. Bindle, if I was to be struck down like Sulphira."

She then proceeded to give a highly elaborated and ornate account of Bindle's adventure of some six weeks previously. She accompanied her story with a wealth of detail, most of which was inaccurate, coupled with the assurance that the Lord and Mrs. Stitchley would undoubtedly do all in their power to help Mrs. Bindle in her hour of trial.

Finally, Mrs. Stitchley found herself walking down the little tiled path that led to the Bindles' outer gate, in her heart a sense of great injustice.

"Never so much as bite or sup," she mumbled, as she turned out of the gate, taking care to leave it open, "and me a-tellin' 'er all wot I told 'er. I've come across meanness in my time; but I never been refused a cup-o'-tea, an' me fatiguing myself something cruel to go an' tell 'er. I don't wonder he took up with that bit of a gal."

That night she confided in her husband. "Stitchley," she said, "there ain't never smoke without fire, you mark my words," and Stitchley, glancing up from his newspaper, enquired what the 'ell she was gassing about; but she made no comment beyond emphasising, once more, that he was to mark her words.

That afternoon, Mrs. Bindle worked with a vigour unusual even in her. She attacked the kitchen fire, hurled into the sink a flat-iron that had the temerity to get too hot, scrubbed boards that required no scrubbing, washed linoleum that was spotless, blackleaded where to blacklead was like painting the lily. In short, she seemed determined to exhaust her energies and her anger upon the helpless and inanimate things about her.