Frivolities, Especially Addressed to Those Who Are Tired of Being Serious

III

As Mr. Harland returned along the lane which led towards home he saw, standing in the middle of the road in front of him, a couple of ladies, who, judging from their manœuvres, appeared to be spying out the land. As he came up one of them hailed him. A tall, angular lady, who wore spectacles and low shoes and skirts which did not reach to her ankles, and who spoke in a loud, shrill, rasping voice, which might have been audible on the other side the meadow.

"Say, stranger, can you hitch us on to Mulberry House Academy, where they lams young byes?"

"I know Mulberry House School. I'm the headmaster, Mr. Harland."

The lady turned to her companion.

"Bashemath, I guess we're solid." She returned to the gentleman. "You're the man we're after; we're Mrs. Bindon."

"You-I presume you mean that you are Mrs. Bindon?"

"Me and her are Mrs. Bindon."

"I-I suppose there's some joke intended. Or, perhaps, this lady is your daughter?"

"Sakes alive! Between Bashemath and me there are not twelve months."

"No, Deborah," said the other lady, "nor yet eleven."

"And as for joking, stranger, I'd have you know that I'm no jokist. Bashemath and me have had to walk up from the depôt. The driver said his carriage wouldn't hold no more than seven. We didn't see the use of a carriage just for Bashemath and me, being both of a saving mind."

"You will be glad to hear," remarked Mr. Harland, as he led the way to Mulberry House, a lady on either side of him, "that your sons all enjoy good health."

"Lord save the man!" cried the lady with the glasses, "you don't suppose all them byes is mine. I've one of 'em, and he's enough-the limb! I've seven daughters, but they're Samuel Newton's, who is dead. The rest of them byes are Mr. Bindon's."

"Are there" – Mr. Harland slightly coughed-"are there several Mr. Bindons?"

The lady pulled up short. She turned and faced the gentleman.

"Stranger, are you just sarsing?"

"Madam! Only by inadvertence could a word escape my lips which would in any way cause annoyance to a lady."

When they reached Mulberry House a couple of flys were standing at the front door.

"I guess," observed the angular lady, "there's more of them come up than seven."

As Mr. Harland and his companions ascended the steps two gentlemen came rushing down them. They were the drivers of the flys. Unless circumstances belied them they had been whiling away the interval of waiting by listening at the drawing-room door. In the hall were the cook, housemaid, and the small girl who acted as general help. Their presence in that particular spot required explanation. Their countenances, when they perceived their master, showed that it did.

"What is the meaning of this?" inquired Mr. Harland. "Where's your mistress?"

"If you please, sir, she's in the drawing-room."

"Is she engaged?"

"There are-" The girl choked back a giggle. "There are some ladies with her."

"I guess," remarked the angular lady, "they're some of the other Mrs. Bindons."

Three distinct and undeniable titters came from the servants.

"Sarah," said Mr. Harland, sternly checking the disconcerted damsel as she was about to seek refuge with her colleagues in flight, "show these ladies into the drawing-room, and tell your mistress that I wish to speak to her in the study."

"What-what on earth, Maria, is the meaning of this?" demanded Mr. Harland, as his wife made her appearance in his sanctum.

The lady dropped into a chair.

"Thank goodness, Andrew, you have come home. I don't know what I should have done if I had been left alone with them much longer."

"Who are these women?"

"They're the Mrs. Bindons."

"The Mrs. Bindons! How many of them are there?"

"There were nine. The two you brought make eleven."

"Eleven! Eleven Mrs. Bindons! Maria!"

"Andrew!"

"Is-is the man a Mormon?"

"Yes, he-he's a Mormon."

"Maria! You don't mean that?"

"I do. You remember Jane Cooper?"

"The slut that you sent packing?"

"She's here. She's one of the Mrs. Bindons. And Louisa Brown, she's another."

"Not the Louisa Brown?"

"And there are two or three more whose faces I know quite well, but I can't think who they are."

Mr. Harland drew a long breath. He whistled.

"I knew J. Bindon must be Jolly Jack."

"But, Andrew, what can we do? There's all those boys in there, and some of them have found their mothers and some of them haven't. And there's Jane Cooper come all this way to see her son, and it appears he's been sent by mistake to Canada. And there's Louisa Brown been knocking those three poor stammering creatures' heads together, and she says that you've been neglecting them shamefully because you haven't cured their stutter. And there's a woman been thrashing John G. William with her umbrella. And they're all going on at one another, and at their children, and at me. Oh, Andrew, they've made me feel quite ill. That Mr. Bindon must be an awful man!"

"He appears to be, in his way, a character. A character, so far as Duddenham is concerned, almost of an original kind."

"Oh, Andrew, don't talk like that-don't. Think of it. Eleven wives! And I don't know how many more there are at home. To hear those women speak you would think that there were hundreds, and not one of them seems in the least ashamed. There are some of them in Canada looking for their children-for all I know eleven more are coming here. Andrew!" The lady rose. She laid her hand, with a solemn gesture, upon her husband's arm. "I will not have those women and their children in my house. I will not have a Bindon, now that I know all, under my roof, not for a hundred thousand pounds."

Mr. Harland rubbed his chin.

"I think that I had better go and see these ladies, Maria, or they may feel that they are being slighted."

"No half measures! You will turn them out of my house, the mothers and their children, stick and stone, never to return-or else I leave it."

"You're quite right, Maria. I think, if I were you, I'd go upstairs and wash my face and brush my hair. You seem to be excited."

"You'd be excited if you'd gone through what I have."

"Now," said Mr. Harland to himself when his wife had gone, "to interview that very compound noun-the wife of Mr. Bindon." He went out into the passage. "They appear to be employing the shining hour. Unless I am mistaken that is John G. William's howl, and that is John B. David's. The ladies are either thrashing the young gentlemen upon their own account, or else they are setting them on, in what is possibly Salt Lake City style, to thrash each other." Then arose a hubbub of women's voices. "What a peaceful household Jolly Jack's must be." He stood and listened. The din grew greater. "They're at it. Are they scratching each other's eyes out, or are they merely giving their lungs free play? Perhaps on the whole I had better go and see."

He had hardly taken two steps in the direction of the drawing-room when someone twitched his coat-sleeve from behind.

"Mr. 'arland! Mr. 'arland!"

There came the twitch at his sleeve again. Someone addressed him in a very muffled voice, which in force scarcely amounted to a whisper, from the rear. Mr. Harland wheeled round.

"Who's that?" he cried.

"Ssh!" Close behind him, so close that Mr. Harland by his sudden movement almost knocked him down, stood a man. He had his finger pressed against his lips. "Ssh! I came round by the back; I knew that they was in the front."

He spoke in a low and tremulous whisper. Beads of perspiration stood on his face. Agitation was on every line. Mr. Harland stared at him, astonished. He had approached from behind so noiselessly that the schoolmaster had been taken unawares.

"May I ask, sir, who you are?"

"I'll tell you in 'arf a minute. Just step this way."

The stranger, taking Mr. Harland by the arm, led him in the direction of the study which he had just now quitted. Mr. Harland allowed himself to be led. At the study door the stranger paused. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the drawing-room. His voice dropped to a whisper: "How many of 'em are there?"

"How many are there, sir, of what?"

Mr. Harland put the counter-question in his ordinary tones. This seemed to disconcert the stranger. "Never mind. Just step inside."

With a hurried movement he drew Mr. Harland within the study.

"You don't mind my just turning the key?"

"If you mean do I object to your locking the door, I do very strongly. What are you doing? What do you mean, sir, by your impertinence?"

The stranger had not only locked the door, he had withdrawn the key from the lock.

"Softly! softly! I don't mean no 'arm. I only want to be a little private. Don't you know me, Mr. 'arland?"

"Know you?" The schoolmaster looked the stranger up and down. He was a man of medium height, of a fleshy habit. His face, which was fat and broad, and pasty hued, suggested a curious mixture of shrewdness and of folly. His eyes were small and bright. He wore carefully-trimmed mutton-chop whiskers, adjuncts which lent him an air of flashy imbecility. When he removed his glossy silk hat, which he did to enable him to mop his brow with his pink silk pocket-handkerchief, it was seen that he was almost bald, and that what little hair he had was straw-coloured, parted in the middle, and curled close to his head. He was dressed from head to foot in shiny black broadcloth. His hands were large and fat, and the fingers were loaded with rings. A thick gold chain passed from pocket to pocket of his waistcoat, and in his light-blue necktie was an enormous diamond pin.

"Know you?" repeated Mr. Harland, continuing his examination of the man. "I've seen you somewhere before, and yet" – then came a sudden burst of recollection. "Why, you're Jolly Jack!" The stranger simpered. He carefully wiped the lining of his hat.

"Ah, Mr. 'arland, I used to be. But that's a many years ago. There's not much jollity about me now. I'm just J. Bindon."

"Oh, you're just J. Bindon. The Mr. Bindon, I presume, with whose correspondence I've been honoured?"

"That's the chap."

"And whose 'shipments' from time to time have come to hand?"

"Ah, them shipments!"

"As you say, Mr. Bindon, 'Ah, them shipments.' I don't know if you are aware, Mr. Bindon, that your wife is in my drawing-room?"

"Ssh!" Mr. Bindon put his ringer to his lips. He approached Mr. Harland with a mysterious air, "Might I ask you not to speak so loud, Mr. 'arland, and not to pronounce my name. If you must call me something, I'd sooner you was to call me Jack."

"Is your name, Mr. Bindon, not one of which you have reason to be proud?"

"Don't you, Mr. 'arland, don't you now." He put a question from behind the cover of his hand. "How many of 'em are there?"

"How many are there-of Mrs. Bindon?"

The husband and the father sighed.

"If you like to put it that way."

"I understand that in my drawing-room at present there are eleven."

Mr. Bindon placed his silk hat on a chair.

He began again to mop his brow. "That's all, is it? Then there's some more of 'em about. I suppose you couldn't tell me which of 'em is there?"

"I'm afraid not. I have not myself been introduced to the whole of Mrs. Bindon-only to two of her. And in the case of that two I have not been honoured with a formal introduction. But if you like I will ring the bell, and the servant shall make inquiries."

"Not for worlds, Mr. 'arland, not for worlds! I wouldn't ave 'em know that I was 'ere not for a thousand dollars. Mr. 'arland, you look upon a man who's in a remarkable situation."

"I can easily believe, Mr. Bindon, that I look upon a man who, upon more than one occasion, has been in a remarkable situation."

"It's easy to laugh, Mr. 'arland, but circumstances is stronger than us. Do you remember when I left Duddenham?"

"For the benefit of your health, was it not?"

"Just-just so. For the benefit of my 'ealth. By the way, I suppose I ain't running no risk in coming back?"

"You should be a better judge than I."

"Some-someone had been knocking a gamekeeper on the 'ead, but I'll swear it wasn't me. I was very much misjudged in them days, Mr. 'arland. 'Owsomever, I suppose all that is forgotten years ago, and when I left Duddenham, Mr. 'arland, I went to America, and then I found myself in the City of the Saints."

"The City of the Saints?"

"In Salt Lake City, Mr. 'arland. I got on in my modest way; I certainly got on. But I soon saw that there was one way of getting on which was better than any other."

"And that was?"

"Marrying. Not as you understand it over here, marrying one young woman and getting done with it; but marrying in the wholesale line. In them days no man came to much in Salt Lake City who 'adn't got at least a dozen wives. I always 'ad 'ad an eye for a female. I'd got no objection to a dozen, nor yet a score. So I looked about to see 'ow I could get 'em."

Mr. Bindon coughed modestly behind his handkerchief. He took a chair. He continued to tell his tale with the aid of his fingers.

"First of all I looked at 'ome. There was Jane Cooper; I knew she was in a little trouble; I asked 'er to come. There was Louisa Brown; she was in a little trouble too, so I asked 'er. Then there was Susan Baxter over at Basingthorpe. I always 'ad been sweet on Susan; I asked 'er too. There was one or two other gals about the countryside for whom I'd 'ad a liking, so I asked 'em all."

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Bindon, that all these young women came to you, each knowing that the other one was coming?"

"Well-not exactly. They didn't know that they all was coming till they all was there."

"And then?"

"Well, there was little differences just at first. But they settled down; they settled down. They 'ad a way in Salt Lake City, in them days, of getting the women to settle down. Well, Mr. 'arland, I got on! I got on! I got wives and children, and then more wives and more children. Some of the wives was widdies, and they brought children of their own. So we grew and multiplied, and all went well-till persecution came."

"Persecution?"

"You know, Mr. 'arland, we always 'ad 'ad enemies-the Saints! They was against the Peculiar Institootion."

"Wholesale marrying?"

Mr. Bindon only sighed.

"By degrees things got warm for us, especially for me. I was a prominent member of the Church, and they went for me special because they said I had so many wives."

"May I ask, Mr. Bindon, how many wives you had?"

"That's more than I can say, Mr. 'arland, more than I can say. It's a little complicated. There's some you're married to, and some you're sealed to, and some you're on the point of being sealed to, and there you are. When I first went out, marrying was the surest way of getting on. But, by degrees, marrying didn't pay. There was a talk of bigamy. There was threats of bringing me before the Gentile courts."

Mr. Bindon paused. He drew his silk handkerchief two or three times across his brow. Again he sighed.

"Ah, Mr. 'arland, there 'adn't never been in my 'ousehold that perfect peace there ought to have been. There was complications. It's a long story, and it's no use going into it now, but there they was. I kep' 'em under-with great care, I kep' 'em under until persecution came. Then keep 'em under I could not, try 'ow I might. There was, Mr. 'arland, I tell you plainly, there was ructions. I've been struck, Mr. 'arland, struck! by my own wives. They knocked me down one day, some on 'em, and stamped on me. It ain't all beer and skittles, married life, especially when you don't know 'ow many wives you 'as, and most of 'em 'as tempers."