"Bindle!" Mrs. Bindle stepped down from a chair, protected by her ironing-blanket, on which she had been standing to replace a piece of holly that had fallen from a picture.
She gazed at the mid-Victorian riot about her with obvious pride; it constituted her holy of holies. Upon it she had laboured for days with soap-and-water and furniture-polish, with evergreen and coloured candles, to render it worthy of the approaching festivity. She had succeeded only in emphasising its uncompromising atmosphere of coldness and angularity.
Antimacassars seemed to shiver self-consciously upon the backs of stamped-plush chairs, photo-frames, and what she called "knick-knacks," stared at one another in wide-eyed desolation; whilst chains of coloured paper, pale green and yellow predominating, stretched in bilious festoons from picture-nail to picture-nail.
On the mantelpiece, in wine-coloured lustres, which were Mrs. Bindle's especial glory, two long candles reared aloft their pink nakedness. They were never to be lit and they knew it; chilly, pink and naked they would remain, eventually to be packed away once more in the cardboard-box, from which for years they had been taken to grace each successive festivity.
It had always been Bindle's ambition to light these candles, which were probably the most ancient pieces of petroleum-wax in the kingdom; but he lacked the moral courage.
"Funny thing you can't be clean without stinkin' like this," he had mumbled that morning, as he sniffed the air, reeking of turpentine with an underlying motif of yellow-soap. "I suppose 'appiness is like drink," he added, "it takes people different ways."
Passing over to the sideboard, Mrs. Bindle gazed down at the refreshments: sausage-rolls, sandwiches, rock-cakes, blanc-mange, jellies, three-cornered tarts, exuding their contents at every joint, chocolate-shape, and other delicacies.
In the centre stood a large open jam-tart made on a meat-dish. It was Mrs. Bindle's masterpiece, a tribute alike to earth and to heaven. On the jam, in letters contrived out of strips of pastry, appeared the exhortation, "Prepare to Meet Thy God."
Bindle had gasped at the sight of this superlative work of art and religion. "That's a funny sort o' way to give a cove a appetite," he had murmured. "If it 'adn't been Mrs. B., I'd 'ave said it was a joke."
It was with obvious satisfaction that Mrs. Bindle viewed her handiwork. At the sight of an iced-cake, sheltering itself behind a plate of bananas, she smiled. Here again her devotional instincts had triumphed. On the uneven white surface, in irregular letters of an uncertain blue, was the statement, "The Wages of Sin is Death."
"Well, well, it ain't my idea of 'appiness."
She span round to find Bindle, who had entered unheard, gazing dubiously at the tart bearing the disconcerting legend.
"What's not your idea of happiness?" she demanded.
He grinned genially across at her.
"You'd like beer-bottles on the mantelpiece, I suppose," she continued, "and clay pipes and spittoons and – "
"Not for me, Mrs. B.," he retorted; "no one ain't never known me miss the fire-place yet."
Mrs. Bindle's lips tightened, as if she were striving to restrain the angry words that were eager to leap out.
She had planned a musical evening, with the object of assisting her brother-in-law in his aspirations as trainer of the choir at the Alton Road Chapel, a post which had recently fallen vacant.
By inviting some of the more humble members of the choir, those on a higher social plane than her own would scarcely be likely to accept, Mrs. Bindle had thought to further Mr. Hearty's candidature.
She recognised that their influence would be indirect in its action; but even that, she decided, would be an asset.
Mr. Hearty had readily consented to lend his harmonium, and had sent it round by his van. It took two men and a boy, together with Mr. Hearty and Mrs. Bindle, a long time to persuade it along the narrow passage. Here it had incontinently stuck for nearly an hour. It was not until Bindle returned, to bring his professional experience to bear, that it had been coaxed into the parlour.
Christmas was near at hand, and for weeks past the choir had been working under forced-draught, practising carols. That had given Mrs. Bindle the idea of devoting her evening entirely to seasonable music.
"Wot jer call me for?" demanded Bindle presently, remembering the reason of his presence.
"Don't forget to get a pail of coals and put it in the kitchen," she ordered.
"We shan't want no coals, Mrs. B., with all that 'ot stuff we got a-comin'," he muttered lugubriously. "Why ain't we got a bit o' mistletoe?" he demanded.
"Don't be disgusting," she retorted.
"Disgustin'!" he cried innocently. "There ain't nothink disgustin' in a bit o' mistletoe."
"I won't have such things in my house," she announced with decision. "You've got a lewd mind."
"There ain't nothink lood in kissin' a gal under the mistletoe," he demurred, "or under anythink else," he added as an after-thought.
"You're nasty-minded, Bindle, and you know it."
"Well, wot are we goin' to do at a party if there ain't goin' to be no kissin'?" he persisted, looking about him with unwonted despondency.
"Mr. Hearty has lent us his harmonium!" she said with unction, gazing reverently across at the instrument, which was the pride of her brother-in-law's heart.
"But wot's the use of an 'armonium," he complained. "You can't play 'unt the slipper, or postman's knock with an 'armonium."
"We're going to sing."
"Wot, 'ymns?" he groaned.
"No, carols," was the retort. "It's Christmas," she added as if by way of explanation.
"Well, it don't look like it, and it don't smell like it." He sniffed the atmosphere with obvious disgust. "Puts me in mind of 'orse-oils," he added.
"That's right, go on," she retorted tartly. "You're not hurting me, if you think it." She drew in her lips and crossed her hands in front of her, with Mrs. Bindle a manifestation of Christian resignation.
"I don't want to 'urt you, Lizzie; but I ask you, can you see me a-singin' carols?" He turned towards her a despondent eye of interrogation. "Me, at my age?"
"You're not asked to sing. You can go out and spend the evening swearing and drinking with your low companions." She moved over to the mantelpiece, and adjusted one of her beloved pink candles. "You'd only spoil the music," she added.
"If there wasn't no music there wouldn't be no religion," he grumbled. "It's 'armoniums in this world and 'arps in the next. I'd sooner be a pussyfoot than play an 'arp."
Mrs. Bindle ignored the remark, and proceeded to re-pile a plate of sausage-rolls to a greater symmetry, flicking an imaginary speck of dust from a glass-jug of lemonade.
"Now mind," she cried, as he walked towards the door, "I won't have you spoiling my evening, you'd better go out."
"An 'usband's cross-roads, or why Bindle left 'ome," he grinned as he turned, winked at the right-hand pink candle and disappeared, leaving Mrs. Bindle to gaze admiringly at her handiwork. She had laboured very hard in preparing for the evening's festivities.
Half-way down the stairs, Mrs. Bindle paused to listen. Her quick ears had detected the sound of voices at the back-door, and what was undoubtedly the clink of bottles. Continuing her descent, she entered the kitchen, pausing just inside the door.
"That's all right, 'Op-o'-my-thumb. A dozen it is," she heard Bindle remark to someone in the outer darkness. There was a shrill "Good-night," and Bindle entered the kitchen from the scullery, carrying a beer-bottle under each arm and one in either hand.
"Who was that?" she demanded, her eyes fixed upon the bottles.
"Oh! jest a nipper wot 'ad brought somethink for me," he said with assumed unconcern.
"What did he bring?" she demanded, her eyes still fixed on the bottles.
"Some beer wot I ordered."
"What for?"
"To drink." He looked at her as if surprised at the question.
"I didn't suppose you'd bought it to wash in," was the angry retort. "There are four bottles in the cupboard. They'll last till Saturday. Why did you order more?" Mrs. Bindle was obviously suspicious.
"P'raps somebody'll get dry to-night," he temporised.
"Don't you tell me any of your wicked lies, Bindle," she cried angrily. "You know they're all temperance. How many did you order?"
"Oh, jest a few," he said, depositing the bottles on the lower shelf of the dresser. "Nothink like 'avin' a bottle or two up yer sleeve."
"Why have you got your best suit on?" She regarded with disapproval the blue suit and red necktie Bindle was wearing. Her eyes dropped to the white cuffs that only a careful manipulation of his thumbs prevented from slipping off altogether.
"Ain't it the night of the party?" he enquired innocently.
"I told you that I won't have you come in, you with your common ways and low talk."
"That's all right," he replied cheerfully. "I'm a-goin' to sit in the kitchen."
"And what good will that do you?" she demanded suspiciously. "Another time, when I'm alone, you can go out fast enough. Now because I've got a few friends coming, nothing will move you."
"But I want to 'ear the music," he protested. "P'raps I'll get to like carols if I 'ear enough of 'em," he added, with the air of one who announces that some day he hopes to acquire a taste for castor-oil.
"You're enough to try the patience of a saint," she cried, still eyeing the bottles of beer. "I suppose you're up to some devilment. It wouldn't be you to let me enjoy myself."
"I likes to see you enjoyin' yerself, Lizzie," he protested. "'Ow'd you like ole Ginger to run in an' – ?"
"If that man enters my house I'll insult him!" she cried, her eyes glinting angrily.
"That ain't easy," he replied cheerfully, "unless you was to drink 'is beer. That always gets 'is rag out."
"I won't have that man in my house," she stormed. "You shall not pollute my home with your foul-mouthed, public-house companions. I – "
"Ole Ging is all right," Bindle assured her, as he proceeded to fetch four more bottles from the scullery. "All you got to do is to give 'im some beer, play 'All is Forgiven Wot 'Appened on Peace Night,' an' let 'im stamp 'is feet to the chorus, an' 'e's one of the cheerfullest coves wot you'll find."
"Well, you bring him here and see what I'll do," she announced darkly.
"That's all right, Mrs. B., don't you worry. I jest asked 'Uggles to run round an' keep me company, and Wilkie may drop in if 'e ain't too busy coughin'; but they shan't get mixed up with the canaries – they won't want to after wot I'm goin' to tell 'em, an' we'll all be as quiet as mice."
"If you bring any of your friends into the parlour, Bindle," she cried, "I'll turn the gas out."
"Naughty!" he admonished, wagging at her a playful forefinger. "I ain't a-goin' to allow – "
"Stop it!" and with that she bounced out of the kitchen and dashed upstairs to the bedroom, banging the door behind her.
"Ain't women funny," he grumbled, as he fetched the remaining four bottles of beer from the scullery, and placed them upon the shelf of the dresser. "Nice ole row there'd 'ave been if I'd said anythink about turnin' out the gas. That's why ole 'Earty's so keen on them choir practices. I bet they got a penny-in-the-slot meter, an' everybody takes bloomin' good care to leave all their coppers at 'ome."
Overhead, Mrs. Bindle could be heard giving expression to her feelings in the opening and shutting of drawers.
"Well, well!" he sighed philosophically, "I suppose you can't 'ave everythink, as the cove said when 'e found the lodger 'ad gone orf with 'is trousers on Bank 'Oliday," and he proceeded to gather together two cracked tumblers, which had been censored by Mrs. Bindle as unfit for her guests, a large white mug, with a pink band and the remains of a view of Margate, and a pint jug with a pink butterfly on the spout.
"We're a-goin' to enjoy ourselves, any-old-'ow," he murmured as, picking up a meat-dish from the dresser, he slipped into the parlour, returning a moment later with it piled with rock-cakes, sandwiches and sausage-rolls. These he hid on the bottom shelf of the dresser, placing a pair of boots in front of them.
"Jest in time," he muttered, as Mrs. Bindle was heard descending the stairs. "It's – 'Ullo!" he broke off, "'ere's the first appetite," as a knock was heard at the front door.
For the next ten minutes, Mrs. Bindle was busy conducting her guests upstairs to "take off their things." Their escorts waited in the passage, clearing their throats, or stroking their chins. Convention demanded that they should wait to make a formal entry into the parlour with their wives.
With his ear pressed against the kitchen door, Bindle listened with interest, endeavouring to identify from their voices the arrivals as they passed.
By ten minutes past seven, the sounds in the passage had ceased – the guests had all come. In Mrs. Bindle's circle it was customary to take literally the time mentioned in the invitation, and to apologise for even a few minutes' lateness.
In order that the Montagues should not become confused with the Capulets, Bindle had taken the precaution of asking his own friends to come to the back door. He had added that the beer would be in the kitchen.
Mrs. Bindle had always been immovable in her determination that Bindle's "low public-house companions" should not have an opportunity of "insulting" her friends from the Alton Road Chapel.
With Mrs. Bindle the first quarter-of-an-hour of her rare social gatherings was always a period of anguish and uncertainty. Although everybody knew everybody else, all were constrained and ill-at-ease.
Miss Lamb kept twirling her rolled-gold bracelet round her lace-mittened wrist, smiling vacantly the while. Miss Death seemed unable to keep her hard grey eyes, set far too closely together, from the refreshment sideboard, whilst Mrs. Dykes, a tiny woman in a fawn skirt and a coral-pink blouse, was continually feeling the back of her head, as if anticipating some catastrophe to her hair.
Mrs. Hearty, who began in a bright blue satin blouse, and ended in canary-coloured stockings thrust into cloth shoes with paste buckles, beat her breast and struggled for breath. Mr. Hearty was negative, conversationally he was a bankrupt, whilst Mrs. Stitchley was garrulous and with a purpose. She was bent upon talking down the consciousness that she had not been invited.
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