Books: Mrs. Caudle\'s Curtain Lectures
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Douglas Jerrold >> Mrs. Caudle\'s Curtain Lectures
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10 Transcribed from the 1902 R. Brimley Johnson edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
MRS. CAUDLE'S CURTAIN LECTURES BY DOUGLAS JERROLD
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
It has happened to the writer that two, or three, or ten, or twenty
gentlewomen have asked him--and asked in various notes of wonder,
pity, and reproof -
"What could have made you think of Mrs. Caudle?
"How could such a thing have entered any man's mind?"
There are subjects that seem like rain drops to fall upon a man's
head, the head itself having nothing to do with the matter. The
result of no train of thought, there is the picture, the statue, the
book, wafted, like the smallest seed, into the brain to feed upon the
soil, such as it may be, and grow there. And this was, no doubt, the
accidental cause of the literary sowing and expansion--unfolding like
a night-flower--of MRS. CAUDLE.
But let a jury of gentlewomen decide.
It was a thick, black wintry afternoon, when the writer stopt in the
front of the playground of a suburban school. The ground swarmed
with boys full of the Saturday's holiday. The earth seemed roofed
with the oldest lead, and the wind came, sharp as Shylock's knife,
from the Minories. But those happy boys ran and jumped, and hopped,
and shouted, and--unconscious men in miniature!--in their own world
of frolic, had no thought of the full-length men they would some day
become; drawn out into grave citizenship; formal, respectable,
responsible. To them the sky was of any or all colours; and for that
keen east wind--if it was called the east wind--cutting the shoulder-
blades of old, old men of forty {1}--they in their immortality of
boyhood had the redder faces, and the nimbler blood for it.
And the writer, looking dreamily into that playground, still mused on
the robust jollity of those little fellows, to whom the tax-gatherer
was as yet a rarer animal than baby hippopotamus. Heroic boyhood, so
ignorant of the future in the knowing enjoyment of the present! And
the writer still dreaming and musing, and still following no distinct
line of thought, there struck upon him, like notes of sudden
household music, these words--CURTAIN LECTURES.
One moment there was no living object save those racing, shouting
boys; and the next, as though a white dove had alighted on the pen
hand of the writer, there was--MRS. CAUDLE.
Ladies of the jury, are there not then some subjects of letters that
mysteriously assert an effect without any discoverable cause?
Otherwise, wherefore should the thought of CURTAIN LECTURES grow from
a school ground--wherefore, among a crowd of holiday school-boys,
should appear MRS. CAUDLE?
For the LECTURES themselves, it is feared they must be given up as a
farcical desecration of a solemn time-honoured privilege; it may be,
exercised once in a life time,--and that once having the effect of a
hundred repetitions, as Job lectured his wife. And Job's wife, a
certain Mohammedan writer delivers, having committed a fault in her
love to her husband, he swore that on his recovery he would deal her
a hundred stripes. Job got well, and his heart was touched and
taught by the tenderness to keep his vow, and still to chastise his
help-mate; for he smote her once with a palm-branch having a hundred
leaves.
DOUGLAS JERROLD.
INTRODUCTION
Poor Job Caudle was one of the few men whom Nature, in her casual
bounty to women, sends into the world as patient listeners. He was,
perhaps, in more respects than one, all ears. And these ears, Mrs.
Caudle--his lawful, wedded wife as she would ever and anon impress
upon him, for she was not a woman to wear chains without shaking
them--took whole and sole possession of. They were her entire
property; as expressly made to convey to Caudle's brain the stream of
wisdom that continually flowed from the lips of his wife, as was the
tin funnel through which Mrs. Caudle in vintage time bottled her
elder wine. There was, however, this difference between the wisdom
and the wine. The wine was always sugared: the wisdom, never. It
was expressed crude from the heart of Mrs. Caudle; who, doubtless,
trusted to the sweetness of her husband's disposition to make it
agree with him.
Philosophers have debated whether morning or night is most conducive
to the strongest and clearest moral impressions. The Grecian sage
confessed that his labours smelt of the lamp. In like manner did
Mrs. Caudle's wisdom smell of the rushlight. She knew that her
husband was too much distracted by his business as toyman and doll-
merchant to digest her lessons in the broad day. Besides, she could
never make sure of him: he was always liable to be summoned to the
shop. Now from eleven at night until seven in the morning there was
no retreat for him. He was compelled to lie and listen. Perhaps
there was little magnanimity in this on the part of Mrs. Caudle; but
in marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of
the enemy. Besides, Mrs. Caudle copied very ancient and classic
authority. Minerva's bird, the very wisest thing in feathers, is
silent all the day. So was Mrs. Caudle. Like the owl, she hooted
only at night.
Mr. Caudle was blessed with an indomitable constitution. One fact
will prove the truth of this. He lived thirty years with Mrs.
Caudle, surviving her. Yes, it took thirty years for Mrs. Caudle to
lecture and dilate upon the joys, griefs, duties, and vicissitudes
comprised within that seemingly small circle--the wedding-ring. We
say, seemingly small; for the thing, as viewed by the vulgar, naked
eye, is a tiny hoop made for the third feminine finger. Alack! like
the ring of Saturn, for good or evil, it circles a whole world. Or,
to take a less gigantic figure, it compasses a vast region: it may
be Arabia Felix, and it may be Arabia Petrea.
A lemon-hearted cynic might liken the wedding-ring to an ancient
circus, in which wild animals clawed one another for the sport of
lookers-on. Perish the hyperbole! We would rather compare it to an
elfin ring, in which dancing fairies made the sweetest music for
infirm humanity.
Manifold are the uses of rings. Even swine are tamed by them. You
will see a vagrant, hilarious, devastating porker--a full-blooded
fellow that would bleed into many, many fathoms of black pudding--you
will see him, escaped from his proper home, straying in a neighbour's
garden. How he tramples upon the heart's-ease: how, with quivering
snout, he roots up lilies--odoriferous bulbs! Here he gives a
reckless snatch at thyme and marjoram--and here he munches violets
and gilly-flowers. At length the marauder is detected, seized by his
owner, and driven, beaten home. To make the porker less dangerous,
it is determined that he shall be RINGED. The sentence is
pronounced--execution ordered. Listen to his screams!
"Would you not think the knife was in his throat?
And yet they're only boring through his nose!"
Hence, for all future time, the porker behaves himself with a sort of
forced propriety--for in either nostril he carries a ring. It is,
for the greatness of humanity, a saddening thought, that sometimes
men must be treated no better than pigs.
But Mr. Job Caudle was not of these men. Marriage to him was not
made a necessity. No; for him call it if you will a happy chance--a
golden accident. It is, however, enough for us to know that he was
married; and was therefore made the recipient of a wife's wisdom.
Mrs. Caudle, like Mahomet's dove, continually pecked at the good
man's ears; and it is a happiness to learn from what he left behind
that he had hived all her sayings in his brain; and further, that he
employed the mellow evening of his life to put such sayings down,
that, in due season, they might be enshrined in imperishable type.
When Mr. Job Caudle was left in this briary world without his daily
guide and nocturnal monitress, he was in the ripe fulness of fifty-
seven. For three hours at least after he went to bed--such slaves
are we to habit--he could not close an eye. His wife still talked at
his side. True it was, she was dead and decently interred. His
mind--it was a comfort to know it--could not wander on this point;
this he knew. Nevertheless, his wife was with him. The Ghost of her
Tongue still talked as in the life; and again and again did Job
Caudle hear the monitions of bygone years. At times, so loud, so
lively, so real were the sounds, that Job, with a cold chill, doubted
if he were really widowed. And then, with the movement of an arm, a
foot, he would assure himself that he was alone in his holland.
Nevertheless, the talk continued. It was terrible to be thus haunted
by a voice: to have advice, commands, remonstrance, all sorts of
saws and adages still poured upon him, and no visible wife. Now did
the voice speak from the curtains; now from the tester; and now did
it whisper to Job from the very pillow that he pressed. "It's a
dreadful thing that her tongue should walk in this manner," said Job,
and then he thought confusedly of exorcism, or at least of counsel
from the parish priest.
Whether Job followed his own brain, or the wise direction of another,
we know not. But he resolved every night to commit to paper one
curtain lecture of his late wife. The employment would, possibly,
lay the ghost that haunted him. It was her dear tongue that cried
for justice, and when thus satisfied, it might possibly rest in
quiet. And so it happened. Job faithfully chronicled all his late
wife's lectures; the ghost of her tongue was thenceforth silent, and
Job slept all his after nights in peace.
When Job died, a small packet of papers was found inscribed as
follows:-
"Curtain Lectures delivered in the course of Thirty Years by Mrs.
Margaret Caudle, and suffered by Job, her Husband."
That Mr. Caudle had his eye upon the future printer, is made pretty
probable by the fact that in most places he had affixed the text--
such text for the most part arising out of his own daily conduct--to
the lecture of the night. He had also, with an instinctive knowledge
of the dignity of literature, left a bank-note of very fair amount
with the manuscript. Following our duty as editor, we trust we have
done justice to both documents.
LECTURE I--MR. CAUDLE HAS LENT FIVE POUNDS TO A FRIEND
"You ought to be very rich, Mr. Caudle. I wonder who'd lend you five
pounds? But so it is: a wife may work and may slave! Ha, dear! the
many things that might have been done with five pounds. As if people
picked up money in the street! But you always were a fool, Mr.
Caudle! I've wanted a black satin gown these three years, and that
five pounds would have entirely bought it. But it's no matter how I
go,--not at all. Everybody says I don't dress as becomes your wife--
and I don't; but what's that to you, Mr. Caudle? Nothing. Oh, no!
you can have fine feelings for everybody but those belonging to you.
I wish people knew you, as I do--that's all. You like to be called
liberal--and your poor family pays for it.
"All the girls want bonnets, and where they're to come from I can't
tell. Half five pounds would have bought 'em--but now they must go
without. Of course, THEY belong to you: and anybody but your own
flesh and body, Mr. Caudle!
"The man called for the water-rate to-day; but I should like to know
how people are to pay taxes, who throw away five pounds to every
fellow that asks them?
"Perhaps you don't know that Jack, this morning, knocked his
shuttlecock through his bedroom window. I was going to send for the
glazier to mend it; but after you lent that five pounds I was sure we
couldn't afford it. Oh, no! the window must go as it is; and pretty
weather for a dear child to sleep with a broken window. He's got a
cold already on his lungs, and I shouldn't at all wonder if that
broken window settled him. If the dear boy dies, his death will be
upon his father's head; for I'm sure we can't now pay to mend
windows. We might though, and do a good many more things too, if
people didn't throw away their five pounds.
"Next Tuesday the fire-insurance is due. I should like to know how
it's to be paid? Why, it can't be paid at all! That five pounds
would have more than done it--and now, insurance is out of the
question. And there never were so many fires as there are now. I
shall never close my eyes all night,--but what's that to you, so
people can call you liberal, Mr. Caudle? Your wife and children may
all be burnt alive in their beds--as all of us to a certainty shall
be, for the insurance MUST drop. And after we've insured for so many
years! But how, I should like to know, are people to insure who make
ducks and drakes of their five pounds?
"I did think we might go to Margate this summer. There's poor little
Caroline, I'm sure she wants the sea. But no, dear creature! she
must stop at home--all of us must stop at home--she'll go into a
consumption, there's no doubt of that; yes--sweet little angel!--I've
made up my mind to lose her, NOW. The child might have been saved;
but people can't save their children and throw away their five pounds
too.
"I wonder where poor little Mopsy is! While you were lending that
five pounds, the dog ran out of the shop. You know, I never let it
go into the street, for fear it should be bit by some mad dog, and
come home and bite all the children. It wouldn't now at all astonish
me if the animal was to come back with the hydrophobia, and give it
to all the family. However, what's your family to you, so you can
play the liberal creature with five pounds?
"Do you hear that shutter, how it's banging to and fro? Yes,--I know
what it wants as well as you; it wants a new fastening. I was going
to send for the blacksmith to-day, but now it's out of the question:
NOW it must bang of nights, since you've thrown away five pounds.
"Ha! there's the soot falling down the chimney. If I hate the smell
of anything, it's the smell of soot. And you know it; but what are
my feelings to you? SWEEP THE CHIMNEY! Yes, it's all very fine to
say sweep the chimney--but how are chimneys to be swept--how are they
to be paid for by people who don't take care of their five pounds?
"Do you hear the mice running about the room? I hear them. If they
were to drag only you out of bed, it would be no matter. SET A TRAP
FOR THEM! Yes, it's easy enough to say--set a trap for 'em. But how
are people to afford mouse-traps, when every day they lose five
pounds?
"Hark! I'm sure there's a noise downstairs. It wouldn't at all
surprise me if there were thieves in the house. Well, it MAY be the
cat; but thieves are pretty sure to come in some night. There's a
wretched fastening to the back-door; but these are not times to
afford bolts and bars, when people won't take care of their five
pounds.
"Mary Anne ought to have gone to the dentist's to-morrow. She wants
three teeth taken out. Now, it can't be done. Three teeth that
quite disfigure the child's mouth. But there they must stop, and
spoil the sweetest face that was ever made. Otherwise, she'd have
been a wife for a lord. Now, when she grows up, who'll have her?
Nobody. We shall die, and leave her alone and unprotected in the
world. But what do you care for that? Nothing; so you can squander
away five pounds."
"And thus," comments Caudle, "according to my wife, she--dear soul!--
couldn't have a satin gown--the girls couldn't have new bonnets--the
water-rate must stand over--Jack must get his death through a broken
window--our fire-insurance couldn't be paid, so that we should all
fall victims to the devouring element--we couldn't go to Margate, and
Caroline would go to an early grave--the dog would come home and bite
us all mad--the shutter would go banging for ever--the soot would
always fall--the mice never let us have a wink of sleep--thieves be
always breaking in the house--our dear Mary Anne be for ever left an
unprotected maid,--and with other evils falling upon us, all, all
because I would go on lending five pounds!"
LECTURE II--MR. CAUDLE HAS BEEN AT A TAVERN WITH A FRIEND, AND IS
"ENOUGH TO POISON A WOMAN" WITH TOBACCO-SMOKE
"Poor me! Ha! I'm sure I don't know who'd be a poor woman! I don't
know who'd tie themselves up to a man, if they knew only half they'd
have to bear. A wife must stay at home, and be a drudge, whilst a
man can go anywhere. It's enough for a wife to sit like Cinderella
by the ashes, whilst her husband can go drinking and singing at a
tavern. YOU NEVER SING? How do I know you never sing? It's very
well for you to say so; but if I could hear you, I daresay you're
among the worst of 'em.
"And now, I suppose, it will be the tavern every night? If you think
I'm going to sit up for you, Mr. Caudle, you're very much mistaken.
No: and I'm not going to get out of my warm bed to let you in,
either. No: nor Susan shan't sit up for you. No: nor you shan't
have a latchkey. I'm not going to sleep with the door upon the
latch, to be murdered before the morning.
"Faugh! Pah! Whewgh! That filthy tobacco-smoke! It's enough to
kill any decent woman. You know I hate tobacco, and yet you will do
it. YOU DON'T SMOKE YOURSELF? What of that? If you go among people
who DO smoke, you're just as bad, or worse. You might as well smoke-
-indeed, better. Better smoke yourself than come home with other
people's smoke all in your hair and whiskers.
"I never knew any good come to a man who went to a tavern. Nice
companions he picks up there! Yes! people who make it a boast to
treat their wives like slaves, and ruin their families. There's that
wretch Harry Prettyman. See what he's come to! He doesn't get home
now till two in the morning; and then in what a state! He begins
quarrelling with the door-mat, that his poor wife may be afraid to
speak to him. A mean wretch! But don't you think I'll be like Mrs.
Prettyman. No: I wouldn't put up with it from the best man that
ever trod. You'll not make me afraid to speak to you, however you
may swear at the door-mat. No, Mr. Caudle, that you won't.
"YOU DON'T INTEND TO STAY OUT TILL TWO IN THE MORNING?
"How do you know what you'll do when you get among such people? Men
can't answer for themselves when they get boozing one with another.
They never think of their poor wives, who are grieving and wearing
themselves out at home. A nice headache you'll have to-morrow
morning--or rather THIS morning; for it must be past twelve. YOU
WON'T HAVE A HEADACHE? It's very well for you to say so, but I know
you will; and then you may nurse yourself for me. Ha! that filthy
tobacco again! No; I shall not go to sleep like a good soul. How's
people to go to sleep when they're suffocated?
"Yes, Mr. Caudle, you'll be nice and ill in the morning! But don't
you think I'm going to let you have your breakfast in bed, like Mrs.
Prettyman. I'll not be such a fool. No; nor I won't have discredit
brought upon the house by sending for soda-water early, for all the
neighbourhood to say, 'Caudle was drunk last night.' No: I've some
regard for the dear children, if you haven't. No: nor you shan't
have broth for dinner. Not a neck of mutton crosses my threshold, I
can tell you.
"YOU WON'T WANT SODA, AND YOU WON'T WANT BROTH? All the better. You
wouldn't get 'em if you did, I can assure you.--Dear, dear, dear!
That filthy tobacco! I'm sure it's enough to make me as bad as you
are. Talking about getting divorced,--I'm sure tobacco ought to be
good grounds. How little does a woman think, when she marries, that
she gives herself up to be poisoned! You men contrive to have it all
of your own side, you do. Now if I was to go and leave you and the
children, a pretty noise there'd be! You, however, can go and smoke
no end of pipes and--YOU DIDN'T SMOKE? It's all the same, Mr.
Caudle, if you go among smoking people. Folks are known by their
company. You'd better smoke yourself, than bring home the pipes of
all the world.
"Yes, I see how it will be. Now you've once gone to a tavern, you'll
always be going. You'll be coming home tipsy every night; and
tumbling down and breaking your leg, and putting out your shoulder;
and bringing all sorts of disgrace and expense upon us. And then
you'll be getting into a street fight--oh! I know your temper too
well to doubt it, Mr. Caudle--and be knocking down some of the
police. And then I know what will follow. It MUST follow. Yes,
you'll be sent for a month or six weeks to the treadmill. Pretty
thing that, for a respectable tradesman, Mr. Caudle, to be put upon
the treadmill with all sorts of thieves and vagabonds, and--there,
again, that horrible tobacco!--and riffraff of every kind. I should
like to know how your children are to hold up their heads, after
their father has been upon the treadmill?--No; I WON'T go to sleep.
And I'm not talking of what's impossible. I know it will all happen-
-every bit of it. If it wasn't for the dear children, you might be
ruined and I wouldn't so much as speak about it, but--oh, dear, dear!
at least you might go where they smoke GOOD tobacco--but I can't
forget that I'm their mother. At least, they shall have ONE parent.
"Taverns! Never did a man go to a tavern who didn't die a beggar.
And how your pot-companions will laugh at you when they see your name
in the Gazette! For it MUST happen. Your business is sure to fall
off; for what respectable people will buy toys for their children of
a drunkard? You're not a drunkard! No: but you will be--it's all
the same.
"You've begun by staying out till midnight. By-and-by 'twill be all
night. But don't you think, Mr. Caudle, you shall ever have a key.
I know you. Yes; you'd do exactly like that Prettyman, and what did
he do, only last Wednesday? Why, he let himself in about four in the
morning, and brought home with him his pot-companion, Puffy. His
dear wife woke at six, and saw Prettyman's dirty boots at her
bedside. And where was the wretch, her husband? Why, he was
drinking downstairs--swilling. Yes; worse than a midnight robber,
he'd taken the keys out of his dear wife's pockets--ha! what that
poor creature has to bear!--and had got at the brandy. A pretty
thing for a wife to wake at six in the morning, and instead of her
husband to see his dirty boots!
"But I'll not be made your victim, Mr. Caudle, not I. You shall
never get at my keys, for they shall lie under my pillow--under my
own head, Mr. Caudle.
"You'll be ruined, but if I can help it, you shall ruin nobody but
yourself.
"Oh, that hor--hor--hor--i--ble tob--ac--co!"
To this lecture, Caudle affixes no comment. A certain proof, we
think, that the man had nothing to say for himself.
LECTURE III--MR. CAUDLE JOINS A CLUB--"THE SKYLARKS."
"Well, if a woman hadn't better be in her grave than be married!
That is, if she can't be married to a decent man. No; I don't care
if you are tired, I SHAN'T let you go to sleep. No, and I won't say
what I have to say in the morning; I'll say it now. It's all very
well for you to come home at what time you like--it's now half-past
twelve--and expect I'm to hold my tongue, and let you go to sleep.
What next, I wonder? A woman had better be sold for a slave at once.
"And so you've gone and joined a club? The Skylarks, indeed! A
pretty skylark you'll make of yourself! But I won't stay and be
ruined by you. No: I'm determined on that. I'll go and take the
dear children, and you may get who you like to keep your house. That
is, as long as you have a house to keep--and that won't be long, I
know.
"How any decent man can go and spend his nights in a tavern!--oh,
yes, Mr. Caudle; I daresay you DO go for rational conversation. I
should like to know how many of you would care for what you call
rational conversation, if you had it without your filthy brandy-and-
water; yes, and your more filthy tobacco-smoke. I'm sure the last
time you came home, I had the headache for a week. But I know who it
is who's taking you to destruction. It's that brute, Prettyman. He
has broken his own poor wife's heart, and now he wants to--but don't
you think it, Mr. Caudle; I'll not have my peace of mind destroyed by
the best man that ever trod. Oh, yes! I know you don't care so long
as you can appear well to all the world,--but the world little thinks
how you behave to me. It shall know it, though--that I'm determined.
"How any man can leave his own happy fireside to go and sit, and
smoke, and drink, and talk with people who wouldn't one of 'em lift a
finger to save him from hanging--how any man can leave his wife--and
a good wife, too, though I say it--for a parcel of pot-companions--
oh, it's disgraceful, Mr. Caudle; it's unfeeling. No man who had the
least love for his wife could do it.
"And I suppose this is to be the case every Saturday? But I know
what I'll do. I know--it's no use, Mr. Caudle, your calling me a
good creature: I'm not such a fool as to be coaxed in that way. No;
if you want to go to sleep, you should come home in Christian time,
not at half-past twelve. There was a time, when you were as regular
at your fireside as the kettle. That was when you were a decent man,
and didn't go amongst Heaven knows who, drinking and smoking, and
making what you think your jokes. I never heard any good come to a
man who cared about jokes. No respectable tradesman does. But I
know what I'll do: I'll scare away your Skylarks. The house serves
liquor after twelve of a Saturday; and if I don't write to the
magistrates, and have the licence taken away, I'm not lying in this
bed this night. Yes, you may call me a foolish woman; but no, Mr.
Caudle, no; it's you who are the foolish man; or worse than a foolish
man; you're a wicked one. If you were to die to-morrow--and people
who go to public-houses do all they can to shorten their lives--I
should like to know who would write upon your tombstone, 'A tender
husband and an affectionate father'? _I_--I'd have no such
falsehoods told of you, I can assure you.
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