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

There was a flicker of a smile at the corners of the policeman's mouth, which seemed not so very many years before to have been lisping baby language. He looked at the big man. It was not for him to advise.

"'Ere, Charley, blaaarst you," cried the big man, pushing his way to the gate. He had decided that the dice had gone against him. "Get them things on to the blinkin' barrer, you stutterin' young pup. Wot the purple – "

"Here, that's enough of that," said a quiet, determined voice, and the soft lines of the policeman's face hardened.

"Wot she want to say it was to let for?" he grumbled as he loped towards the hand-cart.

"'Ere 'ave I come wiv all these things to take the blinkin' 'ouse, then there's all this ruddy fuss. Are you goin' to get over into that blinkin' garden and fetch out them stutterin' things, or must I chuck you over?"

The last remark was addressed to Charley, who, with a wary eye on his parent, had been watching events, hoping against hope that the policeman would manifest signs of aggression, and carry on the good work that Mrs. Bindle had begun.

Charley glanced interrogatingly at the policeman. Seeing in his eye no encouragement to mutiny, he sidled towards the gate, a watchful eye still on his father. A moment later he was engaged in handing the furniture over the railings.

After the man had deposited the colander, a tin-bath, and two saucepans in the barrow, he seemed suddenly smitten with an idea.

He tugged a soiled newspaper from his trouser pocket. Glancing at it, he walked over to where the policeman was engaged in moving on the crowd.

"Read that," he said, thrusting the paper under the officer's nose and pointing to a passage with a dirty forefinger. "Don't that say the blinkin' 'ouse is to let? You oughter run 'er in for false – " He paused. "For false – " he repeated.

With a motion of his hand, the policeman brushed aside the newspaper.

"Move along there, please. Don't block up the footpath," he said.

At length the barrow was laden.

The policeman stood by with the air of a man whose duty it is to see the thing through.

The crowd still loitered. They had even yet hopes of a breach of the peace.

The big man was reluctant to go without a final effort to rehabilitate himself. Once more he drew the paper from his pocket and approached the policeman.

"Wot she put that in for?" he demanded, indicating the advertisement.

Ignoring the remark, the policeman drew his notebook once more from his pocket.

"I shall want your name and address," he said with an official air.

"Wotjer want it for?"

"Now, then, come along," said the policeman, and the big man gave his name and address.

"Wot she do it for?" he repeated, "an' wot's going to 'appen to 'er for 'ittin' me in the stummick?"

"You'd better get along," said the policeman.

With a grumble in his throat, the big man placed himself between the shafts of the barrow and, having blasted Charley into action, moved off.

"Made a rare mess of the garding, ain't 'e?" remarked the rag-and-bone man to the woman with the tweed cap and the hat-pin.

"Blinkin' profiteer!" was her comment.

II

"It's all your fault. Look wot they done." Mrs. Bindle surveyed the desolation which, that morning, had been a garden.

The bed was trodden down, the geraniums broken, and the lobelia border showed big gaps in its blue and greenness.

"It's always the same with anything I 'ave," she continued. "You always spoil it."

"But it wasn't me," protested Bindle. "It was that big cove with the pinafore."

"Who put that advertisement in?" demanded Mrs. Bindle darkly. "That's what I should like to know."

"Somebody wot 'ad put the wrong number," suggested Bindle.

"I'd wrong number them if I caught them."

Suddenly she turned and made a bolt inside the house.

Bindle regarded the open door in surprise. A moment later his quick ears caught the sound of Mrs. Bindle's hysterical sobbing.

"Now ain't that jest like a woman?" was his comment. "She put 'im to sleep in the first round, an' still she ain't 'appy. Funny things, women," he added.

That evening as Mrs. Bindle closed the front door behind her on her way to the Wednesday temperance service, she turned her face to the garden; it had been in her mind all day.

She blinked incredulously. The lobelia seemed bluer than ever, and within the circular border was a veritable riot of flowering geraniums.

"It's that Bindle again," she muttered with indrawn lips as she turned towards the gate. "Pity he hasn't got something better to do with his money." Nevertheless she placed upon the supper-table an apple-tart that had been made for to-morrow's dinner, to which she added a cup of coffee, of which Bindle was particularly fond.

CHAPTER VII
MRS. BINDLE DEMANDS A HOLIDAY

I

"I see they're starting summer-camps." Mrs. Bindle looked up from reading the previous evening's paper. She was invariably twelve hours late with the world's news.

Bindle continued his breakfast. He was too absorbed in Mrs. Bindle's method of serving dried haddock with bubble-and-squeak to evince much interest in alien things.

"That's right," she continued after a pause, "don't you answer. Your ears are in your stomach. Pleasant companion you are. I might as well be on a desert island for all the company you are."

"If you wasn't such a damn good cook, Mrs. B., I might find time to say pretty things to you." It was only in relation to her own cooking that Bindle's conversational lapses passed without rebuke.

"There are to be camps for men, camps for women, and family camps," continued Mrs. Bindle without raising her eyes from the paper before her.

"Personally myself I says put me among the gals." The remark reached Mrs. Bindle through a mouthful of haddock and bubble-and-squeak, plus a fish-bone.

"You don't deserve to have a decent home, the way you talk."

There were times when no answer, however gentle, was capable of turning aside Mrs. Bindle's wrath. On Sunday mornings in particular she found the burden of Bindle's transgressions weigh heavily upon her.

Bindle sucked contentedly at a hollow tooth. He was feeling generously inclined towards all humanity. Haddock, bubble-and-squeak, and his own philosophy enabled him to withstand the impact of Mrs. Bindle's most vigorous offensive.

"It's years since I had a holiday," she continued complainingly.

"It is, Mrs. B.," agreed Bindle, drawing his pipe from his coat pocket and proceeding to charge it from a small oblong tin box. "We ain't exactly wot you'd call an 'oneymoon couple, you an' me."

"The war's over."

"It is," he agreed.

"Then why can't we have a holiday?" she demanded, looking up aggressively from her paper.

"Now I asks you, Mrs. B.," he said, as he returned the tin box to his pocket, "can you see you an' me in a bell-tent, or paddlin', or playin' ring-a-ring-a-roses?" and he proceeded to light his pipe with the blissful air of a man who knows that it is Sunday, and that The Yellow Ostrich will open its hospitable doors a few hours hence.

"It says they're very comfortable," Mrs. Bindle continued, her eyes still glued to the paper.

"Wot is?"

"The tents."

"You ought to ask Ging wot a bell-tent's like, 'e'd sort o' surprise you. It's worse'n a wife, 'otter than religion, colder than a blue-ribboner. When it's 'ot it bakes you, when it's cold it lets you freeze, and when it's blowin' 'ell an' tinkers, it 'oofs it, an' leaves you with nothink on, a-blushin' like a curate 'avin' 'is first dip with the young women in the choir. That's wot a bell-tent is, Mrs. B. In the army they calls 'em 'ell-tents."

"Oh! don't talk to me," she snapped as she rose and proceeded to clear away the breakfast-things, during which she expressed the state of her feelings by the vigour with which she banged every utensil she handled. As she did so Bindle proceeded to explain and expound the salient characteristics of the army bell-tent.

"When you wants it to stand up," he continued, "it comes down, you bein' underneath. When you wants it to come down, nothing on earth'll move it, till you goes inside to 'ave a look round an' see wot's the trouble, then down it comes on top o' you. It's a game, that's wot it is," he added with conviction, "a game wot nobody ain't goin' to win but the tent."

"Go on talking, you're not hurting me," said Mrs. Bindle, with indrawn lower lip, as she brought down the teapot upon the dresser with a super bang.

"I've 'eard Ging talk o' twins, war, women, an' the beer-shortage; but to 'ear 'im at 'is best, you got to get 'im to talk about bell-tents."

"Everybody else has a holiday except me." Mrs. Bindle was not to be diverted from her subject. "Here am I, slavin' my fingers to the bone, inchin' and pinchin' to keep you in comfort, an' I can't 'ave a holiday. It's a shame, that's what it is, and it's all your fault." She paused in the act of wiping out the inside of the frying-pan, and stood before Bindle like an accusing fury. Anger always sullied the purity of her diction.

"Well, why don't you 'ave an 'oliday if you set yer 'eart on it? I ain't got nothink to say agin it." He continued to puff contentedly at his pipe, wondering what had become of the paper-boy. Bindle had become too inured to the lurid qualities of domesticity to allow them to perturb him.

"'Ow can I go alone?"

"You'd be safe enough."

"You beast!" Bindle was startled by the vindictiveness with which the words were uttered.

For a few minutes there was silence, punctuated by Mrs. Bindle's vigorous clearing away. Presently she passed over to the sink and turned on the tap.

"Nice thing for a married woman to go away alone," she hurled at Bindle over her shoulder, amidst the rushing of water.

"Well, take 'Earty," he suggested, with the air of a man anxious to find a way out of a difficulty.

"You're a dirty-minded beast," was the retort.

"An' this Sunday, too. Oh, naughty!"

"You never take me anywhere." Mrs. Bindle was not to be denied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Pity you don't," she snapped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But 'ow?"

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

"But I ain't – "

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

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

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

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

II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Missed who?" enquired Bindle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That's enough, Bindle."

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

Drawing his pipe from his pocket, Bindle sank down upon the tin-bath, jumping up instantly, conscious that something had given way beneath him with a crack suggestive of broken crockery. Reseating himself upon the bundle of blankets, he proceeded to smoke contentedly. After all, something would happen, something always did.

Twenty minutes elapsed before Mrs. Bindle returned with the announcement that the signalman had telegraphed to West Boxton for a cart.

"Well, well," said Bindle philosophically, "it's turnin' out an 'appy day; but I could do with a drink."

An hour later a cart rumbled its noisy way up to the station, outside which stood the Bindles and their luggage. A business-like little boy scout slid off the tail.

"You want to go to the Camp?" he asked briskly.

"Well," began Bindle, "I can't say that I – "

"Yes," interrupted Mrs. Bindle, seeing in the boy scout her St. George; "we got out at the wrong station." She looked across at Bindle as she spoke, as if to indicate where lay the responsibility for the mistake.

"All right!" said the friend of all the world. "We'll soon get you there."

"An' who might you be, young-fellow-my-lad?" enquired Bindle.

"I'm Patrol-leader Smithers of the Bear Patrol," was the response.

"You don't say so," said Bindle. "Well, well, it's live an' learn, ain't it?"

"Now we'll get the luggage up," said Patrol-leader Smithers.

"'Ow 'Aig an' Foch must miss you," remarked Bindle as between them they hoisted up the tin-bath; but the lad was too intent upon the work on hand for persiflage.

A difficulty presented itself in how Mrs. Bindle was to get into the cart. Her intense sensitiveness, coupled with the knowledge that there would be four strange pairs of male eyes watching her, constituted a serious obstacle. Young Tom, in whom was nothing of the spirit of Jack Cornwell, and his friend the old porter made no effort to disguise the fact that they were determined to see the drama through to the last fade-out.

Bindle's suggestion that he should "'oist" her up, Mrs. Bindle had ignored, and she flatly refused to climb the spokes of the wheel. The step in front was nearly a yard from the ground, and Mrs. Bindle resented Young Tom's sandy leer.

It was Patrol-leader Smithers who eventually solved the problem by suggesting a dandy-chair, to which Mrs. Bindle reluctantly agreed. Accordingly Bindle and the porter crossed arms and clasped one another's wrists.

Mrs. Bindle took up a position with her back to the tail of the cart, and the two Sir Walters bent down, whilst Patrol-leader Smithers turned his back and, with great delicacy, strove to engage the fixed eye of Young Tom; but without success.

"Now when I says 'eave – 'eave," Bindle admonished the porter.

Gingerly Mrs. Bindle sat down upon their crossed hands.

"One, two, three – 'eave!" cried Bindle, and they heaved.

There was a loud guffaw from Young Tom, a stifled scream, and Mrs. Bindle was safely in the cart; but on her back, with the soles of her elastic-sided boots pointing to heaven. Bindle had under-estimated the thews of the porter.

"Right away!" cried Patrol-leader Smithers, feeling that prompt action alone could terminate so regrettable an incident, and he and Bindle clambered up into the cart, where Mrs. Bindle, having regained control of her movements, was angrily tucking her skirts about her.

The cart jerked forward, and Young Tom and his colleague grinned their valedictions, in their hearts the knowledge that they had just lived a crowded hour of glorious life.

The cart jolted its uneasy way along the dusty high-road, with Bindle beside the driver, Mrs. Bindle sitting on the blankets as grim as Destiny itself, engaged in working up a case against Bindle, and the boy scout watchful and silent, as behoves the leader of an enterprise.

Bindle soon discovered that conversationally the carter was limited to the "Aye" of agreement, varied in moments of unwonted enthusiasm with an "Oh, aye!"

At the end of half an hour's jolt, squeak, and crunch, the cart turned into a lane overhung by giant elms, where the sun-dried ruts were like miniature trenches.

"Better hold on," counselled the lad, as he made a clutch at the Japanese basket, which was in danger of going overboard. "It's a bit bumpy here."

"Fancy place in wet weather," murmured Bindle, as he held on with both hands. "So this is the Surrey Summer-Camp for Tired Workers," and he gazed about him curiously.