nurse bundle finds a vocation—ragged robin's wife—mrs. bundle's ideas on husbands and public-houses
i was very happy under mr. clerke's sway, and yet i was glad to go to school.
the tutor himself, who had been "on the foundation" at eton, had helped to fill me with anticipations of public-school life. it was decided that i also should go to eton, but as an oppidan, and becoming already a partisan of my own part of the school, i often now disputed conclusions or questioned facts in my tutor's school anecdotes, which commonly tended to the sole glorification of the "collegers."
i must not omit to mention an interview that about this period took place between my father and mrs. bundle. it was one morning just after the eton matter had been settled, that my nurse presented herself in my father's library, her face fatter and redder than usual from being swollen and inflamed by weeping.
"well?" said my father, looking up pleasantly from his accounts. but he added hastily, "why, bless me, mrs. bundle, what is the matter?"
"asking your pardon for troubling you, sir," nurse bundle began in a choky voice, "but as you[165] made no mention of it yourself, sir, your kindness being what it is, and the young gentleman as good as gone to school, and me eating the bread of idleness ever since that tutor come, i wished to know, sir, when you thought of giving me notice."
"give you notice to do what?" asked my father.
"to leave your service, sir," said mrs. bundle, steadily. "there's no nurse wanted in this establishment now, sir."
my father laid one hand on mrs. bundle's shoulder, and with the other he drew forward a miniature of my mother which always hung on a standing frame on the writing-table.
"it is like yourself to be so scrupulous," he said; "but you will never again speak of leaving us, mrs. bundle. please, for her sake," added my father, his own voice faltering as he looked towards the miniature. as for nurse bundle, her tears utterly forbade her to get out a word.
"if you have too much to do," my father went on, "let a young girl be got to relieve you of any work that troubles you; or, if you very much wish for a home to yourself, i have no right to refuse that, though i wish you could be happy under my roof, and i will see about one of those cottages near the gate. but you will not desert me—and reginald—after so many years."
"the day i do leave will be the breaking of my heart," sobbed nurse bundle, "and if there was any ways in which i could be useful—but take wages for nothing, i could not, sir."
"mrs. bundle," said my father, "if your wages were a matter of any importance to me, if i could not afford even to pay you for your work, i should still ask you to share my home, with such comforts[166] as i had to offer, and to help me so far as you could, for the sake of the past. i must always be under an obligation to you which i can never repay," added my father, in his rather elaborate style. "and as to being useful, well, ahem, if you will kindly continue to superintend and repair my linen and master reginald's ——"
"why, bless your innocence, sir, and meaning no disrespect," said mrs. bundle, "but there ain't no mending in your linen. there was some darning in the tutor's socks, but you give away half-a-dozen pair last monday, sir, as hadn't a darn in 'em no bigger than a pea."
i think it was the allusion to "giving away" that suggested an idea to my father in his perplexity for employing nurse bundle.
"stay," he exclaimed, "mrs. bundle, there is a way in which you could be of the greatest service to me. i often feel that the loss of a lady at the head of my household must be especially felt among the poor people around us—additionally so, as mr. andrewes is not married, and there is no lady either at the rectory or here to visit the sick and encourage the mothers and children. i fear that when i do anything for them it is often in a wrong way, or for wrong objects."
"well, sir," said mrs. bundle, an old grievance rushing to her mind, "i had thought myself of making so bold as to speak to you about that there tommy masden as you give half-crowns to, as tells you one big lie on the top of another, and his father drinks every penny he earns, and his mother at the back-door all along for scraps, and throwed the christmas soup to the pig, and said they wasn't come to the workus yet; and a coat as good as new of yours, sir, hanging out of the door[167] of the pawnshop, and giving me such a turn i thought my legs would never have carried me home, till i found you'd given it to that tommy, who won't do a hand's turn for sixpence, but begs at every house in the parish every week as comes round, and tells everybody, as he tells yourself, sir, that he never gets nothing from nobody."
"well, well," said my father, laughing, "you see how i want somebody to look out the real cases of distress and deserving poverty. of course, i must speak to mr. andrewes first, mrs. bundle, but i am sure he will be as glad as myself that you should do what we have neither of us a wife to undertake."
i know nurse bundle was only too glad to reconcile her honest conscience to staying at dacrefield; and i think the allusion to the lack of a lady head to our household decided her at all risks to remove that reason for a second mrs. dacre. moreover, the duties proposed for her suited her tastes to a shade.
mr. andrewes was delighted. and thus it came about that, though my father would have been horrified at the idea of employing a sister of mercy, and though bible-woman and district visitor were names not familiar in our simple parochial machinery, mrs. bundle did the work of all three to the great benefit of our poor neighbours.
not, however, to the satisfaction of those who had hitherto leant most upon the charity of the hall. a certain picturesquely tattered man, living at some distance from the village, who was in the habit of waylaying my father at certain points on the estate, with well-timed agricultural remarks and a cunning affectation of half-wittedness and good-[168]humour, got henceforward no half-crowns for his pains.
"mrs. bundle has knocked off all my pensioners," my father would laughingly complain. but he was quite willing that the half-crowns should now be taken direct to the man's wife and children, instead of passing from his hands to the public-house. "though really the good woman—for i understand she is a most excellent person—is singularly hard-favoured," my father added, "and looks more as if she thrashed old ragged robin than as if he beat her, as i hear he does."
"nothing inside, and the poker outside, makes a many women as they've no wish to sit for their picter," said mrs. bundle, severely, in reply to some remark of mine, reflecting, like my father's, on the said woman's appearance. "and when a woman has children, and their father brings home nothing but kicks and bad language, in all reason if it isn't the death or the ruin of her, it makes her as she 'asn't much time nor spirits to spare for dropping curtseys and telling long tales like some people as is always scrap-seeking at gentry's back-doors. but i knows a clean place when i takes it unawares, and clothes with more patch than stuff, and all the colour washed out of them, and bruises hid, and a bad husband made the best of, and children as knows how to behave themselves."
the warmth of mrs. bundle's feelings only prompted me to tease her; and it was chiefly for "the fun of working her up" that i said—
"ah, but, nurse, you know we heard she went after him one night to the public-house, and made a row before everybody. i don't mean he ought to go to the public-house, but still, i'm sure if i'd[169] a wife who came and hunted me up when she thought i ought to be indoors, i'd—well, i'd try and teach her to stay at home. besides, women ought to be gentle, and perhaps if she were sweeter-tempered with him, he'd be kinder to her."
"do you know what she went for, master reginald?" said nurse bundle. "not a halfpenny does he give her to feed the children with, and everything in that house that's got she gets by washing. and the rich folk she washed for kept her waiting for her money—more shame to 'em; there was weeks run on, and she borrowed a bit, and pawned a bit, and when she went the day they said they'd pay her, he'd been before and drawed the money, and was drinking it up when she went to see if she could get any, and then laughed at her, and sent her back to the children as was starving, and the neighbour she'd borrowed of as called her a thief and threatened to have her up. gentle! why, bless your innocence, who ever knowed gentleness do good to a drunkard? she should have stood up to him sooner, and he'd never have got so bad. she's kept his brute ways to herself and made his home comfortable with her own earnings, till he thinks he may do anything and never bring in nothing. she did lay out some of his behaviour before him that day, and he beat her for it afterwards. but if it had been me, master reginald, i'd have had money to feed them children, or i'd have fought him while i'd a bit of breath in my body."
and with all my respect for nurse bundle, i am bound to say that i think she would have been as good as her word.
"go to your tutor, my dear," she continued, "and talk latin and greek and such like, as[170] you knows about; but don't talk rubbish about pretty looks and ways for a woman as is tied to a drunkard, for i can't abear it. i seed enough of husbands and public-houses in my young days to keep me a single woman and my own missis. not but what i've had my feelings like other folk, and plenty of offers, besides a young cabinet-maker as had high wages and the beautifullest complexion you ever saw. but he was overfond of company; so i went to service, and cried myself to sleep every night for three months; and when next i see him he was staggering along the street, and i says, 'i'm sorry to see you like this, william,' and he says, 'it's your doing, mary; your no's drove me to the glass.' and i says, 'then it's best as it is. if one no drove you to the glass, you and married life wouldn't suit, for there's plenty of noes there.' so i left him wiping his eyes, for he always cried when he was in beer. and i says to myself, 'i'll go back to place, where i knows what i'm working for, and can leave it if we don't suit.' and it was always the same, my dear. if it was a nice-looking footman, he'd have his evening out and come home fresh; and if it was an elderly butler as had put a little by, he wanted to set up in the public line. so i kept myself to myself, my dear, for i'm short-tempered at the best, and could never put up with the abuse of a man in liquor."
i was so thoroughly converted to the side of ragged robin's wife, that i at once pressed some of my charity money on mrs. bundle for her benefit; but i tried to dispute my nurse's unfavourable view of husbands by instancing her worthy brother-in-law at oakford.
"ah, yes, buckle," said mrs. bundle, in a tone[171] which seemed to do less justice to the saddler's good qualities than they deserved. "he's a good, soft, easy body, is buckle."
whence i concluded that mrs. bundle, like some other ladies, was not altogether easy to please.
i think it was during our last walk through the village before mr. clerke left us, that he and i called on ragged robin's wife. she was thankful, but not communicative, and the eyes, deep set in her bony and discoloured face, seemed to have lost the power of lighting up with hope.
"my dear regie," said mr. clerke, as we turned homewards, "i never saw anything more pitiable than the look in that woman's eyes; and the tone in which she said, 'there be a better world afore us all, sir—i'll be well off then,' when i said i hoped she'd be better off and happier now, quite went to my heart. i'm afraid she never will have much comfort in this world, unless she outlives her lord and master. do you know, regie, she reminds me very much of an ill-treated donkey; her bones look so battered, and there's a sort of stubborn hopelessness about her like some poor neddy who is thwacked and tugged this way and that, work he never so hard. poor thing, she may well look forward to heaven," added my tutor, whose kind heart was very sore on this subject, "and it's a blessed thought how it will make up, even for such a life here!"
"what will make it up to the donkeys?" i asked, taking mr. clerke at a disadvantage on that standing subject of dispute between us—a "better world" for beasts.
but my tutor only said, "my dear regie, you do say the most singular things!" which, as i pointed out, was no argument, one way or another.[172]
meanwhile, through mrs. bundle, we did our best for robin's wife and certain other ill-treated women about the place. mrs. bundle could be very severe on the dirt and discomfort which "drove some men to the public as would stay at home if there was a clean kitchen to stay in, and less of that nagging at a man and screaming after children as never made a decent husband nor a well-behaved child yet." yet in certain cases of undeserved brutality, like robin's, i fear she sometimes counselled resistance, on the principle that it "couldn't make him do worse, and might make him do better."
i am sure that my father had never thought of mrs. bundle acting as sick nurse in the village; but matters seemed to develop of themselves. she was so experienced and capable that she could hardly fail to smoothe the disordered bed-clothes, open the window, clear the room of the shiftless gossips who flocked like ravens to predict death, and take the control of mismanaged sick-rooms. it came to be a common thing that some wan child should present itself at our door with the message that "missis bundle she wants her things, for as mother be so bad, she says she'll see her over the night."
as for herself, i doubt if she had ever been happier in her life. her conscience was at ease, for she certainly worked hard enough for her wages, and it was good to see the glow of pleasure that an oft-repeated remark of my father's never failed to bring over her honest face.
"don't overwork yourself, mrs. bundle. what should we do if you were laid up?"
