“And you were at dinner in your new black suit?”
“Well,” growled Dandy, “I borrowed Sally’s apron. Seems I can’t please ye.”
Mrs. Mel neither enjoined nor cared for outward forms of respect, where she was sure of complete subserviency. If Dandy went beyond the limits, she gave him an extra dose. Up to the limits he might talk as he pleased, in accordance with Mrs. Mel’s maxim, that it was a necessary relief to all talking creatures.
“Now, take off your apron,” she said, “and wash your hands, dirty pig, and go and wait at table in there;” she pointed to the parlour-door. “Come straight to me when everybody has left.”
“Well, there I am with the bottles again,” returned Dandy. “It’s your fault this time, mind! I’ll come as straight as I can.”
Dandy turned away to perform her bidding, and Mrs. Mel ascended to the drawing-room to sit with Mrs. Wishaw, who was, as she told all who chose to hear, an old flame of Mel’s, and was besides, what Mrs. Mel thought more of, the wife of Mel’s principal creditor, a wholesale dealer in cloth, resident in London.
The conviviality of the mourners did not disturb the house. Still, men who are not accustomed to see the colour of wine every day, will sit and enjoy it, even upon solemn occasions, and the longer they sit the more they forget the matter that has brought them together. Pleading their wives and shops, however, they released Evan from his miserable office late in the afternoon. His mother came down to him, and saying, “I see how you did the journey—you walked it,” told him to follow her.
“Yes, mother,” Evan yawned, “I walked part of the way. I met a fellow in a gig about ten miles out of Fallowfield, and he gave me a lift to Flatsham. I just reached Lymport in time, thank Heaven! I wouldn’t have missed that! By the way, I’ve satisfied these men.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Mel.
“They wanted—one or two of them—what a penance it is to have to sit among those people an hour!—they wanted to ask me about the business, but I silenced them. I told them to meet me here this day week.”
Mrs. Mel again went “Oh!” and, pushing into one of the upper rooms, said, “Here’s your bed-room, Van, just as you left it.”
“Ah, so it is,” murmured Evan, eyeing a print. “The Douglas and the Percy: ‘he took the dead man by the hand.’ What an age it seems since I last saw that. There’s Sir Hugh Montgomery on horseback—he hasn’t moved. Don’t you remember my father calling it the Battle of Tit-for-Tat? Gallant Percy! I know he wished he had lived in those days of knights and battles.”
“It does not much signify whom one has to make clothes for,” observed Mrs. Mel. Her son happily did not mark her.
“I think we neither of us were made for the days of pence and pounds,” he continued. “Now, mother, sit down, and talk to me about him. Did he mention me? Did he give me his blessing? I hope he did not suffer. I’d have given anything to press his hand,” and looking wistfully at the Percy lifting the hand of Douglas dead, Evan’s eyes filled with big tears.
“He suffered very little,” returned Mrs. Mel, “and his last words were about you.”
“What were they?” Evan burst out.
“I will tell you another time. Now undress, and go to bed. When I talk to you. Van, I want a cool head to listen. You do nothing but yawn yard-measures.”
The mouth of the weary youth instinctively snapped short the abhorred emblem.
“Here, I will help you, Van.”
In spite of his remonstrances and petitions for talk, she took off his coat and waistcoat, contemptuously criticising the cloth of foreign tailors and their absurd cut.
“Have you heard from Louisa?” asked Evan.
“Yes, yes—about your sisters by-and-by. Now, be good, and go to bed.”
She still treated him like a boy, whom she was going to force to the resolution of a man.
Dandy’s sleeping-room was on the same floor as Evan’s. Thither, when she had quitted her son, she directed her steps. She had heard Dandy tumble up-stairs the moment his duties were over, and knew what to expect when the bottles had been in his way; for drink made Dandy savage, and a terror to himself. It was her command to him that, when he happened to come across liquor he should immediately seek his bedroom and bolt the door, and Dandy had got the habit of obeying her. On this occasion he was vindictive against her, seeing that she had delivered him over to his enemy with malice prepense. A good deal of knocking, and summoning of Dandy by name, was required before she was admitted, and the sight of her did not delight him, as he testified.
“I’m drunk!” he bawled. “Will that do for ye?”
Mrs. Mel stood with her two hands crossed above the apron-string, noting his sullen lurking eye with the calm of a tamer of beasts.
“You go out of the room; I’m drunk!” Dandy repeated, and pitched forward on the bed-post, in the middle of an oath.
She understood that it was pure kindness on Dandy’s part to bid her go and be out of his reach; and therefore, on his becoming so abusive as to be menacing, she, without a shade of anger, and in the most unruffled manner, administered to him the remedy she had reserved, in the shape of a smart box on the ears, which sent him flat to the floor. He rose, after two or three efforts, quite subdued.
“Now, Dandy, sit on the edge of the bed.”
Dandy sat on the extreme edge, and Mrs. Mel pursued: “Now, Dandy, tell me what your master said at the table.”
“Talked at ’em like a lord, he did,” said Dandy, stupidly consoling the boxed ear.
“What were his words?”
Dandy’s peculiarity was, that he never remembered anything save when drunk, and Mrs. Mel’s dose had rather sobered him. By degrees, scratching at his head haltingly, he gave the context.
