Night Watches
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The second month’s payment went into his pocket as a matter of course, but on this occasion Mrs. Gribble made no requests for new clothes or change of residence. A little nervous cough was her sole comment.
“Got a cold?” inquired her husband, starting.
“I don’t think so,” replied his wife, and, surprised and touched at this unusual display of interest, coughed again.
“Is it your throat or your chest?” he inquired, gruffly.
Mrs. Gribble coughed again to see. After five coughs she said she thought it was her chest.
“You’d better not go out o’ doors to-day, then,” said Mr. Gribble. “Don’t stand about in draughts; and I’ll fetch you in a bottle of cough mixture when I go out. What about a lay-down on the sofa?”
His wife thanked him, and, reaching the sofa, watched with half-closed eyes as he cleared the breakfast-table. It was the first time he had done such a thing in his life, and a little honest pride in the possession of such a cough would not be denied. Dim possibilities of its vast usefulness suddenly occurred to her.
She took the cough mixture for a week, by which time other symptoms, extremely disquieting to an ease-loving man, had manifested themselves. Going upstairs deprived her of breath; carrying a loaded tea-tray produced a long and alarming stitch in the side. The last time she ever filled the coal-scuttle she was discovered sitting beside it on the floor in a state of collapse.
“You’d better go and see the doctor,” said Mr. Gribble.
Mrs. Gribble went. Years before the doctor had told her that she ought to take life easier, and she was now able to tell him she was prepared to take his advice.
“And, you see, I must take care of myself now for the sake of my husband,” she said, after she had explained matters.
“I understand,” said the doctor.
“If anything happened to me—” began the patient.
“Nothing shall happen,” said the other. “Stay in bed to-morrow morning, and I’ll come round and overhaul you.”
Mrs. Gribble hesitated. “You might examine me and think I was all right,” she objected; “and at the same time you wouldn’t know how I feel.”
“I know just how you feel,” was the reply. “Good-bye.”
He came round the following morning and, following the dejected Mr. Gribble upstairs, made a long and thorough investigation of his patient.
“Say ‘ninety-nine,’” he said, adjusting his stethoscope.
Mrs. Gribble ticked off “ninety-nines” until her husband’s ears ached with them. The doctor finished at last, and, fastening his bag, stood with his beard in his hand, pondering. He looked from the little, whitefaced woman on the bed to the bulky figure of Mr. Gribble.
“You had better lie up for a week,” he said, decidedly. “The rest will do you good.”
“Nothing serious, I s’pose?” said Mr. Gribble, as he led the way downstairs to the small parlour.
“She ought to be all right with care,” was the reply.
“Care?” repeated the other, distastefully. “What’s the matter with her?”
“She’s not very strong,” said the doctor; “and hearts don’t improve with age, you know. Under favourable conditions she’s good for some years yet. The great thing is never to thwart her. Let her have her own way in everything.”
“Own way in everything?” repeated the dumbfounded Mr. Gribble.
The doctor nodded. “Never let her worry about anything,” he continued; “and, above all, never find fault with her.”
“Not,” said Mr. Gribble, thickly—“not even for her own good?”
“Unless you want to run the risk of losing her.”
Mr. Gribble shivered.
“Let her have an easy time,” said the doctor, taking up his hat. “Pamper her a bit if you like; it won’t hurt her. Above all, don’t let that heart of hers get excited.”
He shook hands with the petrified Mr. Gribble and went off, grinning wickedly. He had few favourites, and Mr. Gribble was not one of them.
For two days the devoted husband did the housework and waited on the invalid. Then he wearied, and, at his wife’s suggestion, a small girl was engaged as servant. She did most of the nursing as well, and, having a great love for the sensational, took a grave view of her mistress’s condition.
It was a relief to Mr. Gribble when his wife came downstairs again, and he was cheered to see that she looked much better. His satisfaction was so marked that it brought on her cough again.
“It’s this house, I think,” she said, with a resigned smile. “It never did agree with me.
“Well, you’ve lived in it a good many years,” said her husband, controlling himself with difficulty.
“It’s rather dark and small,” said Mrs. Gribble. “Not but what it is good enough for me. And I dare say it will last my time.”
“Nonsense!” said her husband, gruffly. “You want to get out a bit more. You’ve got nothing to do now we are wasting all this money on a servant. Why don’t you go out for little walks?”
Mrs. Gribble went, after several promptings, and the fruit of one of them was handed by the postman to Mr. Gribble a few days afterwards. Half-choking with wrath and astonishment, he stood over his trembling wife with the first draper’s bill he had ever received.
“One pound two shillings and threepence three-farthings!” he recited. “It must be a mistake. It must be for somebody else.”
Mrs. Gribble, with her hand to her heart, tottered to the sofa and lay there with her eyes closed.
“I had to get some dress material,” she said, in a quavering voice. “You want me to go out, and I’m so shabby I’m ashamed to be seen.”
Mr. Gribble made muffled noises in his throat; then, afraid to trust himself, he went into the back-yard and, taking a seat on an upturned bucket, sat with his head in his hands peering into the future.
The dressmaker’s bill and a bill for a new hat came after the next monthly payment; and a bill for shoes came a week later. Hoping much from the well-known curative effects of fine feathers, he managed to treat the affair with dignified silence. The only time he allowed full play to his feelings Mrs. Gribble took to her bed for two days, and the doctor had a heart-to-heart talk with him on the doorstep.
It was a matter of great annoyance to him that his wife still continued to attribute her ill-health to the smallness and darkness of the house; and the fact that there were only two of the houses in Charlton Grove left caused a marked depression of spirits. It was clear that she was fretting. The small servant went further, and said that she was fading away.
They moved at the September quarter, and a slight, but temporary, improvement in Mrs. Gribble’s health took place. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled over new curtains and new linoleum. The tiled hearths, and stained glass in the front door filled her with a deep and solemn thankfulness. The only thing that disturbed her was the fact that Mr. Gribble, to avoid wasting money over necessaries, contrived to spend an unduly large portion on personal luxuries.
“We ought to have some new things for the kitchen,” she said one day.
“No money,” said Mr. Gribble, laconically.
“And a mat for the bathroom.”
Mr. Gribble got up and went out.
She had to go to him for everything. Two hundred a year and not a penny she could call her own! She consulted her heart, and that faithful organ responded with a bound that set her nerves quivering. If she could only screw her courage to the sticking-point the question would be settled for once and all.
White and trembling she sat at breakfast on the first of November, waiting for the postman, while the unconscious Mr. Gribble went on with his meal. The double-knocks down the road came nearer and nearer, and Mr. Gribble, wiping his mouth, sat upright with an air of alert and pleased interest. Rapid steps came to the front door, and a double bang followed.
“Always punctual,” said Mr. Gribble, good-humouredly.
His wife made no reply, but, taking a blue-crossed envelope from the maid in her shaking fingers, looked round for a knife. Her gaze encountered Mr. Gribble’s outstretched hand.
“After you,” he said sharply.
Mrs. Gribble found the knife, and, hacking tremulously at the envelope, peeped inside it and, with her gaze fastened on the window, fumbled for her pocket. She was so pale and shook so much that the words died away on her husband’s lips.
“It is—all right,” gasped his wife.
She put her hand to her throat and, hardly able to believe in her victory, sat struggling for breath. Before her, grim and upright, her husband sat, a figure of helpless smouldering wrath.
“You might lose it,” he said, at last. “I sha’n’t lose it,” said his wife.
To avoid further argument, she arose and went slowly upstairs. Through the doorway Mr. Gribble saw her helping herself up by the banisters, her left hand still at her throat. Then he heard her moving slowly about in the bedroom overhead.
He took out his pipe and filled it mechanically, and was just holding a match to the tobacco when he paused and gazed with a puzzled air at the ceiling. “Blamed if it don’t sound like somebody dancing!” he growled.
STEPPING BACKWARDS
Wonderful improvement,” said Mr. Jack Mills. “Show ‘em to me again.”
Mr. Simpson took his pipe from his mouth and, parting his lips, revealed his new teeth.
“And you talk better,” said Mr. Mills, taking his glass from the counter and emptying it; “you ain’t got that silly lisp you used to have. What does your missis think of ‘em?”
“She hasn’t seen ‘em yet,” said the other. “I had ‘em put in at dinner-time. I ate my dinner with ‘em.”
Mr. Mills expressed his admiration. “If it wasn’t for your white hair and whiskers you’d look thirty again,” he said, slowly. “How old are you?”
“Fifty-three,” said his friend. “If it wasn’t for being laughed at I’ve often thought of having my whiskers shaved off and my hair dyed black. People think I’m sixty.”
“Or seventy,” continued Mr. Mills. “What does it matter, people laughing? You’ve got a splendid head of ‘air, and it would dye beautiful.”
Mr. Simpson shook his head and, ordering a couple of glasses of bitter, attacked his in silence.
“It might be done gradual,” he said, after a long interval. “It don’t do anybody good at the warehouse to look old.”
“Make a clean job of it,” counselled Mr. Mills, who was very fond of a little cheap excitement. “Get it over and done with. You’ve got good features, and you’d look splendid clean-shaved.” Mr. Simpson smiled faintly. “Only on Wednesday the barmaid here was asking after you,” pursued Mr. Mills. Mr. Simpson smiled again. “She says to me, ‘Where’s Gran’pa?’ she says, and when I says, haughty like, ‘Who do you mean?’ she says, ‘Father Christmas!’ If you was to tell her that you are only fifty-three, she’d laugh in your face.”
“Let her laugh,” said the other, sourly.
“Come out and get it off,” said Mr. Mills, earnestly. “There’s a barber’s in Bird Street; you could go in the little back room, where he charges a penny more, and get it done without anybody being a bit the wiser.”
He put his hand on Mr. Simpson’s shoulder, and that gentleman, with a glare in the direction of the fair but unconscious offender, rose in a hypnotized fashion and followed him out. Twice on the way to Bird Street Mr. Simpson paused and said he had altered his mind, and twice did the propulsion of Mr. Mills’s right hand, and his flattering argument, make him alter it again.
It was a matter of relief to Mr. Simpson that the barber took his instructions without any show of surprise. It appeared, indeed, that an elderly man of seventy-eight had enlisted his services for a similar purpose not two months before, and had got married six weeks afterwards. Age of the bride given as twenty-four, but said to have looked older.
A snip of the scissors, and six inches of white beard fell to the floor. For the first time in thirty years Mr. Simpson felt a razor on his face. Then his hair was cut and shampooed; and an hour later he sat gazing at a dark-haired, clean-shaven man in the glass who gazed back at him with wondering eyes—a lean-jawed, good-looking man, who, in a favourable light, might pass for forty. He turned and met the admiring eyes of Mr. Mills.
“What did I tell you?” inquired the latter. “You look young enough to be your own son.”
“Or grandson,” said the barber, with professional pride.
Mr. Simpson got up slowly from the chair and, accompanied by the admiring Mr. Mills, passed out into the street. The evening was young, and, at his friend’s suggestion, they returned to the Plume of Feathers.
“You give the order,” said Mr. Mills, “and see whether she recognizes you.”
Mr. Simpson obeyed.
“Don’t you know him?” inquired Mr. Mills, as the barmaid turned away.
“I don’t think I have that pleasure,” said the girl, simpering.
“Gran’pa’s eldest boy,” said Mr. Mills.
“Oh!” said the girl. “Well, I hope he’s a better man than his father, then?”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded Mr. Simpson, painfully conscious of his friend’s regards.
“Nothing,” said the girl, “nothing. Only we can all be better, can’t we? He’s a nice old gentleman; so simple.”
“Don’t know you from Adam,” said Mr. Mills, as she turned away. “Now, if you ask me, I don’t believe as your own missis will recognize you.”
“Rubbish,” said Mr. Simpson. “My wife would know me anywhere. We’ve been married over thirty years. Thirty years of sunshine and shadow together. You’re a single man, and don’t understand these things.”
“P’r’aps you’re right,” said his friend. “But it’ll be a bit of a shock to her, anyway. What do you say to me stepping round and breaking the news to her? It’s a bit sudden, you know. She’s expecting a white-haired old gentleman, not a black-haired boy.”
Mr. Simpson looked a bit uneasy. “P’r’aps I ought to have told her first,” he murmured, craning his neck to look in the glass at the back of the bar.
“I’ll go and put it right for you,” said his friend. “You stay here and smoke your pipe.”
He stepped out briskly, but his pace slackened as he drew near the house.
“I—I—came—to see you about your husband,” he faltered, as Mrs. Simpson opened the door and stood regarding him.
“What’s the matter?” she exclaimed, with a faint cry. “What’s happened to him?”
“Nothing,” said Mr. Mills, hastily. “Nothing serious, that is. I just came round to warn you so that you will be able to know it’s him.”
Mrs. Simpson let off a shriek that set his ears tingling. Then, steadying herself by the wall, she tottered into the front room, followed by the discomfited Mr. Mills, and sank into a chair.
“He’s dead!” she sobbed. “He’s dead!”
“He is not,” said Mr. Mills.
“Is he much hurt? Is he dying?” gasped Mrs. Simpson.
“Only his hair,” said Mr. Mills, clutching at the opening. “He is not hurt at all.”
Mrs. Simpson dabbed at her eyes-and sat regarding him in bewilderment. Her twin chins were still quivering with emotion, but her eyes were beginning to harden. “What are you talking about?” she inquired, in a raspy voice.
“He’s been to a hairdresser’s,” said Mr. Mills. “He’s ‘ad all his white whiskers cut off, and his hair cut short and dyed black. And, what with that and his new teeth, I thought—he thought—p’r’aps you mightn’t know him when he came home.”
“Dyed?” cried Mrs. Simpson, starting to her feet.
Mr. Mills nodded. “He looks twenty years younger,” he said, with a smile. “He’d pass for his own son anywhere.”
Mrs. Simpson’s eyes snapped. “Perhaps he’d pass for my son,” she remarked.
“Yes, easy,” said the tactful Mr. Mills. “You can’t think what a difference it’s made to him. That’s why I came to see you—so you shouldn’t be startled.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Simpson. “I’m much obliged. But you might have spared yourself the trouble. I should know my husband anywhere.”
“Ah, that’s what you think,” retorted Mr. Mills, with a smile; “but the barmaid at the Plume didn’t. That’s what made me come to you.”
Mrs. Simpson gazed at him.
“I says to myself,” continued Mr. Mills, “‘If she don’t know him, I’m certain his missis won’t, and I’d better–’”
“You’d better go,” interrupted his hostess.
Mr. Mills started, and then, with much dignity, stalked after her to the door.
“As to your story, I don’t believe a word of it,” said Mrs. Simpson. “Whatever else my husband is, he isn’t a fool, and he’d no more think of cutting off his whiskers and dyeing his hair than you would of telling the truth.”
“Seeing is believing,” said the offended Mr. Mills, darkly.
“I’ll wait till I do see, and then I sha’n’t believe,” was the reply. “It is a put-up job between you and some other precious idiot, I expect. But you can’t deceive me. If your black-haired friend comes here, he’ll get it, I can tell you.”
She slammed the door on his protests and, returning to the parlour, gazed fiercely into the glass on the mantelpiece. It reflected sixteen stone of honest English womanhood, a thin wisp of yellowish-grey hair, and a pair of faded eyes peering through clumsy spectacles.
“Son, indeed!” she said, her lips quivering. “You wait till you come home, my lord!”
Mr. Simpson, with some forebodings, returned home an hour later. To a man who loved peace and quietness the report of the indignant Mr. Mills was not of a reassuring nature. He hesitated on the doorstep for a few seconds while he fumbled for his key, and then, humming unconcernedly, hung his hat in the passage and walked into the parlour.
The astonished scream of his wife warned him that Mr. Mills had by no means exaggerated. She rose from her seat and, crouching by the fireplace, regarded him with a mixture of anger and dismay.
“It—it’s all right, Milly,” said Mr. Simpson, with a smile that revealed a dazzling set of teeth.
“Who are you?” demanded Mrs. Simpson. “How dare you call me by my Christian name. It’s a good job for you my husband is not here.”
“He wouldn’t hurt me,” said Mr. Simpson, with an attempt at facetiousness. “He’s the best friend I ever had. Why, we slept in the same cradle.”
“I don’t want any of your nonsense,” said Mrs. Simpson. “You get out of my house before I send for the police. How dare you come into a respectable woman’s house in this fashion? Be off with you.”
“Now, look here, Milly–” began Mr. Simpson.
His wife drew herself up to her full height of four feet eleven.
“I’ve had a hair-cut and a shave,” pursued her husband; “also I’ve had my hair restored to its natural colour. But I’m the same man, and you know it.”
“I know nothing of the kind,” said his wife, doggedly. “I don’t know you from Adam. I’ve never seen you before, and I don’t want to see you again. You go away.”
“I’m your husband, and my place is at home,” replied Mr. Simpson. “A man can have a shave if he likes, can’t he? Where’s my supper?”
“Go on,” said his wife. “Keep it up. But be careful my husband don’t come in and catch you, that’s all.”
Mr. Simpson gazed at her fixedly, and then, with an impatient exclamation, walked into the small kitchen and began to set the supper. A joint of cold beef, a jar of pickles, bread, butter, and cheese made an appetizing display. Then he took a jug from the dresser and descended to the cellar.
A musical trickling fell on the ear of Mrs. Simpson as she stood at the parlour door, and drew her stealthily to the cellar. The key was in the lock, and, with a sudden movement, she closed the door and locked it. A sharp cry from Mr. Simpson testified to his discomfiture.
“Now I’m off for the police,” cried his wife.
“Don’t be a fool,” shouted Mr. Simpson, tugging wildly at the door-handle. “Open the door.”
Mrs. Simpson remained silent, and her husband resumed his efforts until the door-knob, unused to such treatment, came off in his hand. A sudden scrambling noise on the cellar stairs satisfied the listener that he had not pulled it off intentionally.
She stood for a few moments, considering. It was a stout door and opened inwards. She took her bonnet from its nail in the kitchen and, walking softly to the street-door, set off to lay the case before a brother who lived a few doors away.
“Poor old Bill,” said Mr. Cooper, when she had finished. “Still, it might be worse; he’s got the barrel o’ beer with him.”
“It’s not Bill,” said Mrs. Simpson.
Mr. Cooper scratched his whiskers and looked at his wife.
“She ought to know,” said the latter. “We’ll come and have a look at him,” said Mr. Cooper.
Mrs. Simpson pondered, and eyed him dubiously.
“Come in and have a bit of supper,” she said at last. “There’s a nice piece of beef and pickles.”
“And Bill—I mean the stranger—sitting on the beer-barrel,” said Mr. Cooper, gloomily.
“You can bring your beer with you,” said his sister, sharply. “Come along.”
Mr. Cooper grinned, and, placing a couple of bottles in his coat pockets, followed the two ladies to the house. Seated at the kitchen table, he grinned again, as a persistent drumming took place on the cellar door. His wife smiled, and a faint, sour attempt in the same direction appeared on the face of Mrs. Simpson.
“Open the door!” bellowed an indignant voice. “Open the door!”
Mrs. Simpson, commanding silence with an uplifted finger, proceeded to carve the beef. A rattle of knives and forks succeeded.
“O-pen-the-door!” said the voice again.
“Not so much noise,” commanded Mr. Cooper. “I can’t hear myself eat.”
“Bob!” said the voice, in relieved accents, “Bob! Come and let me out.”
Mr. Cooper, putting a huge hand over his mouth, struggled nobly with his feelings.
“Who are you calling ‘Bob’?” he demanded, in an unsteady voice. “You keep yourself to yourself. I’ve heard all about you. You’ve got to stay there till my brother-in-law comes home.”
“It’s me, Bob,” said Mr. Simpson—“Bill.”
“Yes, I dare say,” said Mr. Cooper; “but if you’re Bill, why haven’t you got Bill’s voice?”
“Let me out and look at me,” said Mr. Simpson.
There was a faint scream from both ladies, followed by protests.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Mr. Cooper, reassuringly. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I don’t want to get a crack over the head.”
“It’s all a mistake, Bob,” said the prisoner, appealingly. “I just had a shave and a haircut and—and a little hair-dye. If you open the door you’ll know me at once.”
“How would it be,” said Mr. Cooper, turning to his sister, and speaking with unusual distinctness—“how would it be if you opened the door, and just as he put his head out I hit it a crack with the poker?”
“You try it on,” said the voice behind the door, hotly. “You know who I am well enough, Bob Cooper. I don’t want any more of your nonsense. Milly has put you up to this!”
“If your wife don’t know you, how do you think I can?” said Mr. Cooper. “Now, look here; you keep quiet till my brother-in-law comes home. If he don’t come home perhaps we shall be more likely to think you’re him. If he’s not home by to-morrow morning we—Hsh! Hsh! Don’t you know there’s ladies present?”
“That settles it,” said Mrs. Cooper, speaking for the first time. “My brother-in-law would never talk like that.”
“I should never forgive him if he did,” said her husband, piously.
He poured himself out another glass of beer and resumed his supper with relish. Conversation turned on the weather, and from that to the price of potatoes. Frantic efforts on the part of the prisoner to join in the conversation and give it a more personal turn were disregarded. Finally he began to kick with monotonous persistency on the door.
“Stop it!” shouted Mr. Cooper.
“I won’t,” said Mr. Simpson.
The noise became unendurable. Mr. Cooper, who had just lit his pipe, laid it on the table and looked round at his companions.
“He’ll have the door down soon,” he said, rising. “Halloa, there!”
“Halloa!” said the other.
“You say you’re Bill Simpson,” said Mr. Cooper, holding up a forefinger at Mrs. Simpson, who was about to interrupt. “If you are, tell us something you know that only you could know; something we know, so as to identify you. Things about your past.”
A strange noise sounded behind the door.
“Sounds as though he is smacking his lips,” said Mrs. Cooper to her sister-in-law, who was eyeing Mr. Cooper restlessly.
“Very good,” said Mr. Simpson; “I agree. Who is there?”
“Me and my wife and Mrs. Simpson,” said Mr. Cooper.
“He is smacking his lips,” whispered Mrs. Cooper. “Having a go at the beer, perhaps.”