CHAPTER XII
CAPTAIN DOLEFUL AGAIN
HEN Mr. Jorrocks backed from the balcony into the “Moon” after delivering the luminous address reported in our last chapter, Captain Doleful looked at his watch and found it wanted but ten minutes to the time he was to appear at the board of her imperial majesty, Mrs. Barnington; so ringing for Mr. Snubbins, the landlord, he hastily consigned the party to his protection, and, quitting the room, ran through the town like a lamp-lighter, to re-arrange his toilette at his lodgings. Off went the old militia coat, the white moleskins and Hessians made way with pantomimic quickness for a black coat and trousers, which with a shrivelled white waistcoat, and a pair of broad-stringed pumps, completed the revised edition of the arbiter elegantiarum of Handley Cross Spa. The crowded incidents of the hour left no time for reflection, and fortunate, perhaps, it was for the Captain, that he had no time to consider of what had taken place, or even his creative genius might have discovered some little difficulty in reconciling the discrepancies that existed between his professions and performances. So quick, however, were his movements, and the transition of events, that John Trot, the under butler, who was one of the audience before the “Dragon,” had not time to detail the doings of the day to Mr. Mountford, the butler, to tell Mrs. Stumps, the housekeeper, for the information of Bandoline, to carry in broken English to her mistress, ere Captain Doleful’s half resolute tap of a knock announced his arrival at the door.
“Why here’s old Wo-begone himself, I do believe!” exclaimed John, breaking off in his narrative at the intrusion of the flag-poles into Stevenson the hatter’s window. “It is, indeed,” added he, casting his eye up the area grating at the Captain, as he stood above; “I declare he has peeled off his uniform and come like a Christian. Dirty dog, he can’t have washed himself, for I saw him bolt out of the ‘Dragon’ not three minutes afore I left, and I only looked in at the ‘Phœnix and Flower Pot,’ and took one glass of hot elder wine, and came straight home;” saying which, John, in the absence of Sam, the footman, settled himself leisurely into his coatee, and proceeded to let the Captain into the house.
“The dog’s come to dine,” said John, on his return, “and precious hungry he is, I dare say, for he don’t allow himself above two feeds a week they say. However, I gave him a bit of consolation, by telling him that missis had laid down at four o’clock, with orders not to be disturbed, and therefore it might be eight or nine o’clock before they dined; but ‘Sir,’ says I, ‘there’s the Morning Post,’ so I left him to eat that, and precious savage he looked. Now, I declare on the honour of a gentleman, of all the shabby screws I ever came thwart of in the whole of my professional career, that Doleful is the dirtiest and meanest. T’other night it was raining perfect wash-hand-stand basins full, and after sitting master out to bed, and missis until she began to yawn, he mustered courage to do the expensive, and asked me to fetch him a fly. Well, never had I seen the colour of his coin, often and often as he has darkened our door, and come with his nasty jointed clogs, dirty cloaks, and wet numbrellas; but thinks I to myself, this surely will be catching time, and it ’ill all come in a heap in the shape of a golden sovereign pound cake; so out I splashed, silks and all, the first day on, too, and brought up Sam Fletcher’s yellow with the grey; skipped upstairs, told him all was ready, handed him his hat, upon which I saw him fumbling in his upper pocket; he stepped into the fly, and just as I closed the door, slipped something into my hand—felt small—half sov., better than nothing, thought I—‘thank you, sir, Miss Jelly’s,’ cried I to Master Sam; off he went, in comes I, looks in my haud—hang me if it wer’n’t a Joey!”
“That beats everything!” exclaimed Mr. Mountford, the butler, lying down a handful of spoons he had been counting over; “why do you know he gave me one the very same day, and it lies on the entrance table now, to let him see how little we care for Joeys in our house.”
“Who’s that you’re talking about?” inquired Mrs. Stumps, whose room being on the other side of the passage from the butler’s pantry, enabled her to hold a dialogue without the trouble of moving herself across, she having been selected on account of her fatness and the volubility of her tongue.
“Only old Lamentable,” replied Mr. Trott; “what do you think the fellow’s done now?—complimenting Mr. Mountford and myself with a Joey a-piece. Stop till I catch him with a decent coat on, and see if I don’t dribble the soup or melted butter over it.”
“Confound the mean dog,” observed Mrs. Stumps, “he’s the most miserable man that ever was seen. I do wonder that missis, with all her fine would-be-fashionable airs, countenances such a mean sneak. Master may be dull, and I dare say he is, but he’s a prince compared to old Doleful.”
“Master’s soft,” replied Mr. Mountford thoughtfully, “and he’s hard too in some things, but there are many worse men than he. Besides, the wife’s enough to drive him mad. She’s a terrible tartar.”
“She’s in one of her tantrums’s to-day,” observed Mrs. Stumps, “and has had Mademoiselle crying all the morning. She’s tried on thirteen dresses already and none will please her. It will be eight o’clock very likely before they dine, and that reminds me she had two notes this morning by post—one was from Lady Gillyfield, and Sam thought he saw something about dining, and staying all night, as he took it up-stairs, so just you keep your ears open at dinner, and find out the day, as I want to have a few friends to cards and a quadrille the first time the family go from home.”
“Oh, I dare say I can acquaint you all about it without waiting for dinner,” observed Mr. Mountford. “Sam, just step into the clothes-room, and feel in B.’s brown frock-coat that he had on this morning, and bring me his letters.” Sam obeyed, and speedily returned with three. Mr. Mountford took them, and casting an adhesiv’d one aside, as either a “bill or a begging letter,” opened a fine glazed note with blue edges, sealed with a transfixed heart on green wax:—“Monday at ten, at the ‘Apollo Belvidere,”’ was all it contained, and winking at Sam, who winked at John Trot, who passed the wink to Mrs. Stumps, Mr. Mountford refolded the note, and opened the one from Sir Gibeon Gillyfield, which contained a pressing invitation for the Friday following, to make one at a battu on the Saturday.
“You must find out whether they go or not,” observed Mrs. Stumps; “they will be sure to say something about it at dinner, so mind be on the look-out. There’s missis’s bell! my stars, how she rings! wouldn’t be near her for the world.”—A perfect peal!
After Doleful had had a good spell at the “Post,” beginning with the heading and ending with the printer’s name at the end, Mr. Barnington made his appearance from his room below, where he had been deceiving himself into the belief that he was reading, and saluted the M.C. in the way that a man generally takes his wife’s friends when he does not like her. After exchanging a few nothings, he looked with an air of easy indifference round the room, then at the French clock on the mantel-piece, next at his watch to see that it was not wrong, and finally composed himself cross-legged into a low douro with massive cushions at the back and sides. Doleful resumed his seat on the sofa. Thus they sat for half an hour, listening to the tickings of the timepiece, looking alternately at each other and the door. Seven o’clock came and no Mrs. Barnington, then the quarter chimed in that concise sort of way that almost says, “Oh, it’s only the quarter!” the half-hour followed with a fuller chorus and more substantial music, whereupon Barnington, who was beginning to be hungry, looked indignantly at his watch and the door, then at Doleful, but wisely said nothing. Doleful, who had only treated himself to a penny bun since breakfast, was well-nigh famished, and inwardly wished he had palmed himself off on the Jorrocks’s; when just as the timepiece was chiming away at a quarter to eight, a page in a green and gold uniform threw open the door, and in sallied the majestic Mrs. Barnington in lavender-coloured satin. With a slight inclination of her head to the Captain, who was up like an arrow to receive her, and a look of contempt at her husband, she seated herself on an ottoman, and glancing at a diminutive watch in her armlet, and seeing it corresponded with the time on the mantel-piece, without a word of apology for keeping them waiting, she hurried off the page to order dinner instantly.
