The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories Part 4

We soon set out on our expeditions of sight-seeing, but we did not keep together. Euphemia and I made our way to the old cathedral. The ancient verger who took us about the edifice was obliged to show us everything, Euphemia being especially anxious to see the stall in the choir which had belonged to Charles Kingsley, and was much disturbed to find that under the seat the monks of the fifteenth century had carved the subject of one of Baron Munchausen's most improbable tales.

"Of course," said she, "they did not know that Charles Kingsley was to have this stall, or they would have cut something more appropriate."

"Those old monks 'ad a good deal of fun in them," said the verger, "hand they were particular fond of showing up quarrels between men and their wives, which they could do, you see, without 'urting each other's feelings. These queer carvings are hunder the seats, which turn hup in this way, and I've no doubt they looked at them most of the time they were kneeling on the cold floor saying their long, Latin prayers."

"Yes, indeed!" said Euphemia. "It must have been a great comfort to the poor fellows."

"We went all through that cathedral," exclaimed Pomona, when she came in the next day. "The old virgin took us everywhere."

"Verger," exclaimed Euphemia.

"Well, he looked so like a woman in his long gown," said Pomona, "I don't wonder I mixed him. We put two s.h.i.+llin's in his little box, though one was enough, as I told Jonas, and then he took us round and pointed out all the beautiful carvin's and things on the choir, the transits, and the nave, but when Jonas stopped before the carved figger of the devil chawin' up a sinner, and asked if that was the transit of a knave, the old feller didn't know what he meant. An' then we wandered alone through them ruined cloisters and subterraneal halls, an' old tombstones of the past, till I felt I don't know how. There was a girl in New Jersey who used to put on airs because her family had lived in one place for a hundred years. When I git back I'll laugh that girl to scorn."

After two days of delight in this quaint old town we took the train Londonward. Without consultation Jonas bought tickets for himself and wife, while I bought Euphemia's and mine. Consequently our servants travelled first-cla.s.s, while we went in a second-cla.s.s carriage. We were all greatly charmed with the beautiful garden country through which we pa.s.sed. It was harvest time, and Jonas was much impressed by the large crops gathered from the little fields.

"I might try to do something of that kind when I go back," he afterward said, "but I expect I'd have to dig a little hole for each grain of wheat, and hoe it, and water it, and tie the blade to a stick if it was weakly."

"An' a nice easy time you'd have of it," said Pomona; "for you might plant your wheat field round a stump, and set there, and farm all summer, without once gettin' up."

"And that is Windsor!" exclaimed Euphemia, as we pa.s.sed within view of that royal castle. "And there lives the Sovereign of our Mother Country!"

I was trying to puzzle out in what relations.h.i.+p to the Sovereign this placed us, when Euphemia continued:--

"I am bound to go to Windsor Castle! I have examined into every style of housekeeping, French flats and everything, and I must see how the Queen lives. I expect to get ever so many ideas."

"All right," said I; "and we will visit the royal stables, too, for I intend to get a new buggy when we get back."

We determined that on reaching London we would go directly to lodgings, not only because this was a more economical way of living, but because it was the way in which many of Euphemia's favorite heroes and heroines had lived in London.

"I want to keep house," she said, "in the same way that Charles and Mary Lamb did. We will toast a bit of m.u.f.fin or a potted sprat, and we'll have a hamper of cheese and a tankard of ale, just like those old English poets and writers."

"I think you are wrong about the hamper of cheese," I said. "It couldn't have been as much as that, but I have no doubt we'll have a jolly time."

We got into a four-wheeled cab, Jonas on the seat with the driver, and the luggage on top. I gave the man a card with the address of the house to which we had been recommended. There was a number, the name of a street, the name of a place, the name of a square, and initials denoting the quarter of the town.

"It will confuse the poor man dreadfully," said Euphemia. "It would have been a great deal better just to have said where the house was."

The man, however, drove to the given address without mistake. The house was small, but as there were no other lodgers, there was room enough for us. Euphemia was much pleased with the establishment. The house was very well furnished, and she had expected to find things old and stuffy, as London lodgings always were in the books she had read.

"But if the landlady will only steal our tea," she said, "it will make it seem more like the real thing."

As we intended to stay some time in London, where I had business to transact for the firm with which I was engaged, we immediately began to make ourselves as much at home as possible. Pomona, a.s.sisted by Jonas, undertook at once the work of the house. To this the landlady, who kept a small servant, somewhat objected, as it had been her custom to attend to the wants of her lodgers.

"But what's the good of Jonas an' me bein' here," said Pomona to us, "if we don't do the work? Of course, if there was other lodgers, that would be different, but as there's only our own family, where's the good of that woman and her girl doin' anything?"

And so, as a sort of excuse for her being in Europe, she began to get the table ready for supper, and sent Jonas out to see if there was any place where he could buy provisions. Euphemia and I were not at all certain that the good woman of the house would be satisfied with this state of things; but still, as Jonas and Pomona were really our servants, it seemed quite proper that they should do our work. And so we did not interfere, although Euphemia found it quite sad, she said, to see the landlady standing idly about, gazing solemnly upon Pomona as she dashed from place to place engaged with her household duties.

After we had been in the house for two or three days, Pomona came into our sitting-room one evening and made a short speech.

"I've settled matters with the woman here," she said, "an' I think you'll like the way I've done it. I couldn't stand her follerin' me about, an' sayin' 'ow they did things in Hingland, while her red-faced girl was a-spendin' the days on the airy steps, a-lookin' through the railin's. 'Now, Mrs. Bowlin',' says I, 'it'll just be the ruin of you an' the death of me if you keep on makin' a picter of yourself like that lonely Indian a-sittin' on a pinnacle in the jographys, watchin'

the inroads of civilization, with a locomotive an' a cog-wheel in front, an' the buffalo an' the grisly a-disappearin' in the distance.

Now it'll be much better for all of us,' says I, 'if you'll git down from your peak, and try to make up your mind that the world has got to move. Aint there some place where you kin go an' be quiet an'

comfortable, an' not a-woundin' your proud spirit a-watchin' me bake hot rolls for breakfast an' sich?' An' then she says she'd begun to think pretty much that way herself, an' that she had a sister a-livin'

down in the Suss.e.x Mews, back of Gresham Terrace, Camberwell Square, Hankberry Place, N.W. by N., an' she thought she might as well go there an' stay while we was here. An' so I says that was just the thing, and the sooner done the happier she'd be. An' I went up stairs and helped her pack her trunk, which is a tin one, which she calls her box, an' I got her a cab, an' she's gone."

"What!" I cried; "gone! Has she given up her house entirely to us?"

"For the time bein' she has," answered Pomona, "for she saw very well it was better thus, an' she's comin' every week to git her money, an'

to see when we're goin' to give notice. An' the small girl has been sent back to the country."

It was impossible for Euphemia and myself to countenance this outrageous piece of eviction; but in answer to our exclamations of surprise and reproach, Pomona merely remarked that she had done it for the woman's own good, and, as she was perfectly satisfied, she didn't suppose there was any harm done; and, at any rate, it would be "lots nicer" for us. And then she asked Euphemia what she was going to have for breakfast the next morning, so that Jonas could go out to the different mongers and get the things.

"Now," said Euphemia, when Pomona had gone down stairs, "I really feel as if I had a foothold on British soil. It doesn't seem as if it was quite right, but it is perfectly splendid."

And so it was. From that moment we set up an English Rudder Grange in the establishment which Pomona had thus rudely wrenched, as it were, from the claws of the British Lion. We endeavored to live as far as possible in the English style, because we wanted to try the manners and customs of every country. We had tea for breakfast and ale for luncheon, and we ate shrimps, prawns, sprats, saveloys, and Yarmouth bloaters. We "took in the Times," and, to a certain extent, we endeavored to cultivate the broad vowels. Some of these things we did not like, but we felt bound to allow them a fair trial.

We did not give ourselves up to sight-seeing as we had done at Chester, because now there was plenty of time to see London at our leisure. In the mornings I attended to my business, and in the afternoons Euphemia and I generally went out to visit some of the lions of the grand old city.

Pomona and Jonas also went out whenever a time could be conveniently arranged, which was done nearly every day, for Euphemia was anxious they should see everything. They almost always took their child, and to this Euphemia frequently objected.

"What's the good," she said, "of carrying a baby not two years old to the Tower of London, the British Museum, and the Chapel of Henry VII.?

She can't take any interest in the smothered princes, or the a.s.syrian remnants. If I am at home, I can look after her as well as not."

"But you see, ma'am," said Pomona, "we don't expect the baby'll ever come over here ag'in, an' when she gits older, I'll tell her all about these things, an' it'll expan' her intelleck a lot more when she feels she's seed 'em all without knowin' it. To be sure, the monnyments of bygone days don't always agree with her; for Jone set her down on the tomb of Chaucer the other day, an' her little legs got as cold as the tomb itself, an' I told him that there was too big a difference between a tomb nigh four hundred years old an' a small baby which don't date back two years, for them to be sot together that way; an' he promised to be more careful after that. He gouged a little piece out of Chaucer's tomb, an' as we went home we bought a copy of the old gentleman's poems, so as we could see what reason there was for keepin'

him so long, an' at night I read Jone two of the Canterbury Tales. 'You wouldn't 'a' thought,' says Jone, 'jus' by lookin' at that little piece of plaster, that the old fellow could 'a' got up such stories as them.'"

"What I want to see more'n anything else," said Pomona to us one day, "is a real lord, or some kind of n.o.bleman of high degree. I've allers loved to read about 'em in books, and I'd rather see one close to, than all the tombs and crypts and lofty domes you could rake together; an' I don't want to see 'em neither in the streets, nor yet in a House of Parliament, which aint in session; for there, I don't believe, dressin'

in common clothes as they do, that I could tell 'em from other people.

What I want is to penetrate into the home of one of 'em, and see him as he really is. It's only there that his n.o.ble blood'll come out."

"Pomona," cried Euphemia, in accents of alarm, "don't you try penetrating into any n.o.bleman's home. You will get yourself into trouble, and the rest of us, too."

"Oh, I'm not a-goin' to git you into any trouble, ma'am," said Pomona; "you needn't be afeard of that." And she went about her household duties.

A few days after this, as Euphemia and I were going to the Tower of London in a Hansom cab--and it was one of Euphemia's greatest delights to be bowled over the smooth London pavements in one of these vehicles, with the driver out of sight, and the horse in front of us just as if we were driving ourselves, only without any of the trouble, and on every corner one of the names of the streets we had read about in d.i.c.kens and Thackeray, and with the Sampson Bra.s.ses, and the Pecksniffs, and the Mrs. Gamps, and the Guppys, and the Sir Leicester Dedlocks, and the Becky Sharps, and the Pendennises, all walking about just as natural as in the novels--we were surprised to see Pomona hurrying along the sidewalk alone. The moment our eyes fell upon her a feeling of alarm arose within us. Where was she going with such an intent purpose in her face, and without Jonas? She was walking westward, and we were going to the east. At Euphemia's request I stopped the cab, jumped out, and ran after her, but she had disappeared in the crowd.

"She is up to mischief," said Euphemia.

But it was of no use to worry our minds on the subject, and we soon forgot, in the ancient wonders of the Tower, the probable eccentricities of our modern handmaid.

We returned; night came on; but Pomona was still absent. Jonas did not know where she was, and was very much troubled; and the baby, which had been so skilfully kept in the background by its mother that, so far, it had never annoyed us at all, now began to cry, and would not be comforted. Euphemia, with the a.s.sistance of Jonas, prepared the evening meal, and when we had nearly eaten it, Pomona came home. Euphemia asked no questions, although she was burning with curiosity to know where Pomona had been, considering that it was that young woman's duty to inform her without being asked.

When Pomona came in to wait on us, she acted as if she expected to be questioned, and was perfectly willing to answer, but Euphemia stood upon her dignity, and said nothing. At last Pomona could endure it no longer, and standing with a tray in her hand, she exclaimed:--

"I'm sorry I made you help git the dinner, ma'am, and I wouldn't 'a'

done it for anything, but the fact is I've been to see a lord, an' was kep' late."

"What!" cried Euphemia, springing to her feet; "you don't mean that!"