Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/211

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
MRS. CAUDLE'S CURTAIN LECTURES.
175

through you. How you can lay your head upon that pillow and think of going to sleep, I can't tell.

"What have you done?

"Well, you have a face to ask the question. Done? You've broken my confidence, Mr. Caudle: you've taken advantage of my tenderness, my trust in you as a wife—the more fool I for my pains!—and you've separated a happy couple for ever. No; I'm not talking in the clouds; I'm talking in your bed, the more my misfortune.

"Now, Caudle—yes, I shall sit up in the bed if I choose; I'm not going to sleep till I have this properly explained; for Mrs. Badgerly sha'n't lay her separation at my door. You won't deny that you were at the club last night? No, bad as you are, Caudle—and though you're my husband, I can't think you a good man; I try to do, but I can't—bad as you are, you can't deny you were at the club. What?

"You don't deny it?

"That's what I say—you can't. And now answer me this question. What did you say—before the whole world—of Mr. Badgerly's whiskers? There's nothing to laugh at, Caudle; if you'd have seen that poor woman to-day, you'd have a heart of stone to laugh. What did you say of his whiskers? Didn't you tell everybody he dyed 'em? Didn't you hold the candle up to 'em, as you said, to show the purple?

"To be sure you did?

"Ha! people who break jokes never care about breaking hearts. Badgerly went home like a demon; called his wife a false woman: vowed he'd never enter a bed again with her, and to show he was in earnest, slept all night upon the sofa. He said it was the dearest secret of his life; said she had told me; and that I had told