SAM BENTLEY’S CHRISTMAS.
CHAPTER III.
When Mr. Sam Bentley returned from London after his visit to Miss Moore’s establishment, he maintained a strict silence about his loss. He had several reasons for so doing; first, he felt that his loss would be the occasion of much joking against him from his acquaintances, and would lessen him in their estimation, inasmuch as he, being a Yorkshireman, had not been able to take care of his own; he had other and more cogent reasons arising out of his family arrangements. He was a great man everywhere but at home. He was a bachelor, and his maiden and sole surviving sister was his housekeeper, and her tongue was one of “the powers that be.” Bentley had a very decided opinion that women should have nothing to do with business, and this might have inclined him to say nothing at home about his London adventures; but he also knew that if he spoke at all about the lost note he could not help telling all, and this would make a great disturbance. His sister, who considered it a disgrace to any family if the wife, sisters, or daughters were not the sempstresses for the male portion of the family, would be more vexed at the ordering of shirts than at the loss of the money. She would be insulted at a stranger doing for her brother, and for hire, what she alone ought to have done, and from affection. It was a wounding of one of her strongest prejudices. She was a woman of warm feelings, and little accustomed to control her temper. Her anger was not a sudden hot eruption, fierce for a few minutes, and then burnt out, but a long-continued smouldering irritation, which was displayed by constant “nagging” and galling invective, which Sam could not bear. It was not as the crackling of thorns under the pot, but as the steady burning of an ignited coal-bed. Consulting, therefore, his dignity abroad and his peace at home, he made no allusion whatever to his loss.
The only other inmate of his house was his nephew Henry, who had met with Susan, and been the unwitting cause of so much trouble to her. He was looked upon as the only recognised relative and heir of his uncle and aunt, and was in due time to enter into his uncle’s business, and meanwhile was apprenticed to a woolstapler, that he might become better acquainted with the various qualities of wool. His uncle had originally been a working man, and had by his shrewdness, skill in business, and thrift, gradually improved his position until he had become one of the largest manufacturers and most wealthy men in the town. His increase of wealth had not been accompanied by any corresponding increase of luxury or display. He continued to reside in the house he had occupied when he first, on a small scale, ventured into business on his own account. He had no servant, all the household work being done by his sister. His dwelling consisted, on the ground floor, of a large flagged kitchen, which ordinarily served for all purposes of living, cooking, and washing, and of a parlour, or “the room,” as it was commonly called, in distinction to the kitchen, which was styled “the house.” The “room” was only used on extraordinary occasions, such as the “tide,” or annual fair, and it was then left as soon as possible that the host and guests might gather round the kitchen fire, and enjoy their potations and pipes with greater ease in a more accustomed place. If the house had a fault, it was that it was too clean. It was brightly, painfully clean. The tin and brass household and culinary utensils which decked the walls and mantel-shelf were radiant in their polish. The fire-irons were kept mainly for show, for they were brightened up until a touch would sully them, and therefore they stood in state against the oven and boiler, whilst a rough bar of iron was appointed the poker for use, and had to submit to the brightening process.
At stated periods there was a general cleaning down, performed from a feeling of religious duty in preserving the tradition handed down from the good housewives of old, and certainly not because it was required by the accumulation of dust. Miss Bentley had only once been in London, and she had returned disgusted with the unheard-of negligence and want of cleanliness which she had observed in her lodgings, and with the wretched and, as she averred, poisonous quality of the fluid there called milk. She from that time always commiserated those who went to town, and all but prayed for them as being subjected to a sad purgatory. Her brother was proud of her for her notable qualities as a manager;—no cakes, pickles, or preserves were, in his estimation, to be compared with hers. She was, in her way, as successful as he was in his, and if there was one thing relating to himself in which he gloried it was that he had, from being a poor man, grown into a rich one without any help from others. He was proud of his money; he rejoiced in it; he handled it with gratification; he spoke of it without reserve or delicacy. He was suspicious of all approaches to intimacy on the part of others, believing that his money was the lure. On such occasions he would say to himself, “Sam Bentley, the workin’ man, wi’ eighteen shillin’ a week, would hev’ seen nought on ’em!” and then he would jerk his head up and give his sharp, sidelong glance like a sparrow on the look-out for the hawk, and with his usual nod of self-approbation of his own observations, he would continue, “It’s not t’ man but t’ bone the dogs want.” A thrusting of his hands into his pockets full of coins and a sweet jingling of “money in both pockets,” would round off and give weight to his resolution to thwart all those roguish designs. Yet he was, in his way, liberal. Unasked, his charity would flow both in public subscriptions and in private gifts. He enjoyed in a large degree two pleasures connected with money which are most dearly prized by the men of his native county,—the pleasure of getting it and the pleasure of spending it free from the control, the advice, or the knowledge of others. When called upon to contribute towards any public charity, if those who solicited his contributions were of a higher social rank than himself, he would draw back and repulse their advances with plainness amounting almost to rudeness. He would not be dictated to by them—he would not have their superiority brought to bear, in any way, upon his conduct. They should not with smooth, roundabout speeches “come over him,” or tell him what he was to do.