Men\'s Wives

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This etext was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.

MEN'S WIVES

Contents.

The Ravenswing.

I. Which is entirely introductory - contains an account of Miss
Crump, her suitors, and her family circle.

II. In which Mr. Walker makes three attempts to ascertain the
dwelling of Morgiana.

III. What came of Mr. Walker's discovery of the "Bootjack."

IV. In which the heroine has a number more lovers, and cuts a very
dashing figure in the world.

V. In which Mr. Walker falls into difficulties, and Mrs. Walker
makes many foolish attempts to rescue him.

VI. In which Mr. Walker still remains in difficulties, but shows
great resignation under his misfortunes.

VII. In which Morgiana advances towards fame and honour, and in
which several great literary characters make their appearance.

VIII. In which Mr. Walker shows great prudence and forbearance.

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Berry.

I. The fight at Slaughter House.

II. The combat at Versailles.

Dennis Haggarty's wife.

MEN'S WIVES BY G. FITZ-BOODLE.

THE RAVENSWING - CHAPTER I.

WHICH IS ENTIRELY INTRODUCTORY - CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF MISS CRUMP,
HER SUITORS, AND HER FAMILY CIRCLE.

In a certain quiet and sequestered nook of the retired village of
London - perhaps in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square, or at any
rate somewhere near Burlington Gardens--there was once a house of
entertainment called the "Bootjack Hotel." Mr. Crump, the landlord,
had, in the outset of life, performed the duties of Boots in some
inn even more frequented than his own, and, far from being ashamed
of his origin, as many persons are in the days of their prosperity,
had thus solemnly recorded it over the hospitable gate of his hotel.

Crump married Miss Budge, so well known to the admirers of the
festive dance on the other side of the water as Miss Delancy; and
they had one daughter, named Morgiana, after that celebrated part in
the "Forty Thieves" which Miss Budge performed with unbounded
applause both at the "Surrey" and "The Wells." Mrs. Crump sat in a
little bar, profusely ornamented with pictures of the dancers of all
ages, from Hillisberg, Rose, Parisot, who plied the light fantastic
toe in 1805, down to the Sylphides of our day. There was in the
collection a charming portrait of herself, done by De Wilde; she was
in the dress of Morgiana, and in the act of pouring, to very slow
music, a quantity of boiling oil into one of the forty jars. In
this sanctuary she sat, with black eyes, black hair, a purple face
and a turban, and morning, noon, or night, as you went into the
parlour of the hotel, there was Mrs. Crump taking tea (with a little
something in it), looking at the fashions, or reading Cumberland's
"British Theatre." The Sunday Times was her paper, for she voted
the Dispatch, that journal which is taken in by most ladies of her
profession, to be vulgar and Radical, and loved the theatrical
gossip in which the other mentioned journal abounds.

The fact is, that the "Royal Bootjack," though a humble, was a very
genteel house; and a very little persuasion would induce Mr. Crump,
as he looked at his own door in the sun, to tell you that he had
himself once drawn off with that very bootjack the top-boots of His
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the first gentleman in
Europe. While, then, the houses of entertainment in the
neighbourhood were loud in their pretended Liberal politics, the
"Bootjack" stuck to the good old Conservative line, and was only
frequented by such persons as were of that way of thinking. There
were two parlours, much accustomed, one for the gentlemen of the
shoulder-knot, who came from the houses of their employers hard by;
another for some "gents who used the 'ouse," as Mrs. Crump would say
(Heaven bless her!) in her simple Cockniac dialect, and who formed a
little club there.

I forgot to say that while Mrs. C. was sipping her eternal tea or
washing up her endless blue china, you might often hear Miss
Morgiana employed at the little red-silk cottage piano, singing,
"Come where the haspens quiver," or "Bonny lad, march over hill and
furrow," or "My art and lute," or any other popular piece of the
day. And the dear girl sang with very considerable skill, too, for
she had a fine loud voice, which, if not always in tune, made up for
that defect by its great energy and activity; and Morgiana was not
content with singing the mere tune, but gave every one of the
roulades, flourishes, and ornaments as she heard them at the
theatres by Mrs. Humby, Mrs. Waylett, or Madame Vestris. The girl
had a fine black eye like her mamma, a grand enthusiasm for the
stage, as every actor's child will have, and, if the truth must be
known, had appeared many and many a time at the theatre in Catherine
Street, in minor parts first, and then in Little Pickle, in
Desdemona, in Rosina, and in Miss Foote's part where she used to
dance: I have not the name to my hand, but think it is Davidson.
Four times in the week, at least, her mother and she used to sail
off at night to some place of public amusement, for Mrs. Crump had a
mysterious acquaintance with all sorts of theatrical personages; and
the gates of her old haunt "The Wells," of the "Cobourg" (by the
kind permission of Mrs. Davidge), nay, of the "Lane" and the
"Market" themselves, flew open before her "Open sesame," as the
robbers' door did to her colleague, Ali Baba (Hornbuckle), in the
operatic piece in which she was so famous.

Beer was Mr. Crump's beverage, diversified by a little gin, in the
evenings; and little need be said of this gentleman, except that he
discharged his duties honourably, and filled the president's chair
at the club as completely as it could possibly be filled; for he
could not even sit in it in his greatcoat, so accurately was the
seat adapted to him. His wife and daughter, perhaps, thought
somewhat slightingly of him, for he had no literary tastes, and had
never been at a theatre since he took his bride from one. He was
valet to Lord Slapper at the time, and certain it is that his
lordship set him up in the "Bootjack," and that stories HAD been
told. But what are such to you or me? Let bygones be bygones; Mrs.
Crump was quite as honest as her neighbours, and Miss had five
hundred pounds to be paid down on the day of her wedding.

Those who know the habits of the British tradesman are aware that he
has gregarious propensities like any lord in the land; that he loves
a joke, that he is not averse to a glass; that after the day's toil
he is happy to consort with men of his degree; and that as society
is not so far advanced among us as to allow him to enjoy the
comforts of splendid club-houses, which are open to many persons
with not a tenth part of his pecuniary means, he meets his friends
in the cosy tavern parlour, where a neat sanded floor, a large
Windsor chair, and a glass of hot something and water, make him as
happy as any of the clubmen in their magnificent saloons.

At the "Bootjack" was, as we have said, a very genteel and select
society, called the "Kidney Club," from the fact that on Saturday
evenings a little graceful supper of broiled kidneys was usually
discussed by the members of the club. Saturday was their grand
night; not but that they met on all other nights in the week when
inclined for festivity: and indeed some of them could not come on
Saturdays in the summer having elegant villas in the suburbs, where
they passed the six-and-thirty hours of recreation that are happily
to be found at the end of every week.

There was Mr. Balls, the great grocer of South Audley Street, a warm
man, who, they say, had his twenty thousand pounds; Jack Snaffle, of
the mews hard by, a capital fellow for a song; Clinker, the
ironmonger: all married gentlemen, and in the best line of
business; Tressle, the undertaker, etc. No liveries were admitted
into the room, as may be imagined, but one or two select butlers and
major-domos joined the circle; for the persons composing it knew
very well how important it was to be on good terms with these
gentlemen and many a time my lord's account would never have been
paid, and my lady's large order never have been given, but for the
conversation which took place at the "Bootjack," and the friendly
intercourse subsisting between all the members of the society.

The tiptop men of the society were two bachelors, and two as
fashionable tradesmen as any in the town: Mr. Woolsey, from
Stultz's, of the famous house of Linsey, Woolsey and Co. of Conduit
Street, Tailors; and Mr. Eglantine, the celebrated perruquier and
perfumer of Bond Street, whose soaps, razors, and patent ventilating
scalps are know throughout Europe. Linsey, the senior partner of
the tailors' firm had his handsome mansion in Regent's Park, drove
his buggy, and did little more than lend his name to the house.
Woolsey lived in it, was the working man of the firm, and it was
said that his cut was as magnificent as that of any man in the
profession. Woolsey and Eglantine were rivals in many ways--rivals
in fashion, rivals in wit, and, above all, rivals for the hand of an
amiable young lady whom we have already mentioned, the dark-eyed
songstress Morgiana Crump. They were both desperately in love with
her, that was the truth; and each, in the absence of the other,
abused his rival heartily. Of the hairdresser Woolsey said, that as
for Eglantine being his real name, it was all his (Mr. Woolsey's)
eye; that he was in the hands of the Jews, and his stock and grand
shop eaten up by usury. And with regard to Woolsey, Eglantine
remarked, that his pretence of being descended from the Cardinal was
all nonsense; that he was a partner, certainly, in the firm, but had
only a sixteenth share; and that the firm could never get their
moneys in, and had an immense number of bad debts in their books.
As is usual, there was a great deal of truth and a great deal of
malice in these tales; however, the gentlemen were, take them all in
all, in a very fashionable way of business, and had their claims to
Miss Morgiana's hand backed by the parents. Mr. Crump was a
partisan of the tailor; while Mrs. C. was a strong advocate for the
claims of the enticing perfumer.

Now, it was a curious fact, that these two gentlemen were each in
need of the other's services--Woolsey being afflicted with premature
baldness, or some other necessity for a wig still more
fatal--Eglantine being a very fat man, who required much art to make
his figure at all decent. He wore a brown frock-coat and frogs, and
attempted by all sorts of contrivances to hide his obesity; but
Woolsey's remark, that, dress as he would, he would always look like
a snob, and that there was only one man in England who could make a
gentleman of him, went to the perfumer's soul; and if there was one
thing on earth he longed for (not including the hand of Miss Crump)
it was to have a coat from Linsey's, in which costume he was sure
that Morgiana would not resist him.

If Eglantine was uneasy about the coat, on the other hand he
attacked Woolsey atrociously on the score of his wig; for though the
latter went to the best makers, he never could get a peruke to sit
naturally upon him and the unhappy epithet of Mr. Wiggins, applied
to him on one occasion by the barber, stuck to him ever after in the
club, and made him writhe when it was uttered. Each man would have
quitted the "Kidneys" in disgust long since, but for the other--for
each had an attraction in the place, and dared not leave the field
in possession of his rival.

To do Miss Morgiana justice, it must be said, that she did not
encourage one more than another; but as far as accepting
eau-de-Cologne and hair-combs from the perfumer--some opera tickets,
a treat to Greenwich, and a piece of real Genoa velvet for a bonnet
(it had originally been intended for a waistcoat), from the admiring
tailor, she had been equally kind to each, and in return had made
each a present of a lock of her beautiful glossy hair. It was all
she had to give, poor girl! and what could she do but gratify her
admirers by this cheap and artless testimony of her regard? A
pretty scene and quarrel took place between the rivals on the day
when they discovered that each was in possession of one of
Morgiana's ringlets.

Such, then, were the owners and inmates of the little "Bootjack,"
from whom and which, as this chapter is exceedingly discursive and
descriptive, we must separate the reader for a while, and carry
him--it is only into Bond Street, so no gentleman need be afraid--
carry him into Bond Street, where some other personages are awaiting
his consideration.

Not far from Mr. Eglantine's shop in Bond Street, stand, as is very
well known, the Windsor Chambers. The West Diddlesex Association
(Western Branch), the British and Foreign Soap Company, the
celebrated attorneys Kite and Levison, have their respective offices
here; and as the names of the other inhabitants of the chambers are
not only painted on the walls, but also registered in Mr. Boyle's
"Court Guide," it is quite unnecessary that they should be repeated
here. Among them, on the entresol (between the splendid saloons of
the Soap Company on the first floor, with their statue of Britannia
presenting a packet of the soap to Europe, Asia, Africa, and
America, and the West Diddlesex Western Branch on the basement)-
-lives a gentleman by the name of Mr. Howard Walker. The brass
plate on the door of that gentleman's chambers had the word "Agency"
inscribed beneath his name; and we are therefore at liberty to
imagine that he followed that mysterious occupation. In person Mr.
Walker was very genteel; he had large whiskers, dark eyes (with a
slight cast in them), a cane, and a velvet waistcoat. He was a
member of a club; had an admission to the opera, and knew every face
behind the scenes; and was in the habit of using a number of French
phrases in his conversation, having picked up a smattering of that
language during a residence "on the Continent;" in fact, he had
found it very convenient at various times of his life to dwell in
the city of Boulogne, where he acquired a knowledge of smoking,
ecarte, and billiards, which was afterwards of great service to him.
He knew all the best tables in town, and the marker at Hunt's could
only give him ten. He had some fashionable acquaintances too, and
you might see him walking arm-in-arm with such gentlemen as my Lord
Vauxhall, the Marquess of Billingsgate, or Captain Buff; and at the
same time nodding to young Moses, the dandy bailiff; or Loder, the
gambling-house keeper; or Aminadab, the cigar-seller in the
Quadrant. Sometimes he wore a pair of moustaches, and was called
Captain Walker; grounding his claim to that title upon the fact of
having once held a commission in the service of Her Majesty the
Queen of Portugal. It scarcely need be said that he had been
through the Insolvent Court many times. But to those who did not
know his history intimately there was some difficulty in identifying
him with the individual who had so taken the benefit of the law,
inasmuch as in his schedule his name appeared as Hooker Walker,
wine-merchant, commission-agent, music-seller, or what not. The
fact is, that though he preferred to call himself Howard, Hooker was
his Christian name, and it had been bestowed on him by his worthy
old father, who was a clergyman, and had intended his son for that
profession. But as the old gentleman died in York gaol, where he
was a prisoner for debt, he was never able to put his pious
intentions with regard to his son into execution; and the young
fellow (as he was wont with many oaths to assert) was thrown on his
own resources, and became a man of the world at a very early age.

What Mr. Howard Walker's age was at the time of the commencement of
this history, and, indeed, for an indefinite period before or
afterwards, it is impossible to determine. If he were
eight-and-twenty, as he asserted himself, Time had dealt hardly with
him: his hair was thin, there were many crows'-feet about his eyes,
and other signs in his countenance of the progress of decay. If, on
the contrary, he were forty, as Sam Snaffle declared, who himself
had misfortunes in early life, and vowed he knew Mr. Walker in
Whitecross Street Prison in 1820, he was a very young-looking person
considering his age. His figure was active and slim, his leg neat,
and he had not in his whiskers a single white hair.

It must, however, be owned that he used Mr. Eglantine's Regenerative
Unction (which will make your whiskers as black as your boot), and,
in fact, he was a pretty constant visitor at that gentleman's
emporium; dealing with him largely for soaps and articles of
perfumery, which he had at an exceedingly low rate. Indeed, he was
never known to pay Mr. Eglantine one single shilling for those
objects of luxury, and, having them on such moderate terms, was
enabled to indulge in them pretty copiously. Thus Mr. Walker was
almost as great a nosegay as Mr. Eglantine himself: his
handkerchief was scented with verbena, his hair with jessamine, and
his coat had usually a fine perfume of cigars, which rendered his
presence in a small room almost instantaneously remarkable. I have
described Mr. Walker thus accurately, because, in truth, it is more
with characters than with astounding events that this little history
deals, and Mr. Walker is one of the principal of our dramatis
personae.

And so, having introduced Mr. W., we will walk over with him to Mr.
Eglantine's emporium, where that gentleman is in waiting, too, to
have his likeness taken.

There is about an acre of plate glass under the Royal arms on Mr.
Eglantine's shop-window; and at night, when the gas is lighted, and
the washballs are illuminated, and the lambent flame plays fitfully
over numberless bottles of vari-coloured perfumes--now flashes on a
case of razors, and now lightens up a crystal vase, containing a
hundred thousand of his patent tooth-brushes--the effect of the
sight may be imagined. You don't suppose that he is a creature who
has those odious, simpering wax figures in his window, that are
called by the vulgar dummies? He is above such a wretched artifice;
and it is my belief that he would as soon have his own head chopped
off, and placed as a trunkless decoration to his shop-window, as
allow a dummy to figure there. On one pane you read in elegant gold
letters "Eglantinia"--'tis his essence for the handkerchief; on the
other is written "Regenerative Unction"--'tis his invaluable pomatum
for the hair.

There is no doubt about it: Eglantine's knowledge of his profession
amounts to genius. He sells a cake of soap for seven shillings, for
which another man would not get a shilling, and his tooth-brushes go
off like wildfire at half-a-guinea apiece. If he has to administer
rouge or pearl-powder to ladies, he does it with a mystery and
fascination which there is no resisting, and the ladies believe
there are no cosmetics like his. He gives his wares unheard-of
names, and obtains for them sums equally prodigious. He CAN dress
hair--that is a fact--as few men in this age can; and has been known
to take twenty pounds in a single night from as many of the first
ladies of England when ringlets were in fashion. The introduction
of bands, he says, made a difference of two thousand pounds a year
in his income; and if there is one thing in the world he hates and
despises, it is a Madonna. "I'm not," says he, "a tradesman--I'm a
HARTIST" (Mr. Eglantine was born in London)--"I'm a hartist; and
show me a fine 'ead of air, and I'll dress it for nothink." He vows
that it was his way of dressing Mademoiselle Sontag's hair, that
caused the count her husband to fall in love with her; and he has a
lock of it in a brooch, and says it was the finest head he ever saw,
except one, and that was Morgiana Crump's.

With his genius and his position in the profession, how comes it,
then, that Mr. Eglantine was not a man of fortune, as many a less
clever has been? If the truth must be told, he loved pleasure, and
was in the hands of the Jews. He had been in business twenty years:
he had borrowed a thousand pounds to purchase his stock and shop;
and he calculated that he had paid upwards of twenty thousand pounds
for the use of the one thousand, which was still as much due as on
the first day when he entered business. He could show that he had
received a thousand dozen of champagne from the disinterested
money-dealers with whom he usually negotiated his paper. He had
pictures all over his "studios," which had been purchased in the
same bargains. If he sold his goods at an enormous price, he paid
for them at a rate almost equally exorbitant. There was not an
article in his shop but came to him through his Israelite providers;
and in the very front shop itself sat a gentleman who was the
nominee of one of them, and who was called Mr. Mossrose. He was
there to superintend the cash account, and to see that certain
instalments were paid to his principals, according to certain
agreements entered into between Mr. Eglantine and them.

Having that sort of opinion of Mr. Mossrose which Damocles may have
had of the sword which hung over his head, of course Mr. Eglantine
hated his foreman profoundly. "HE an artist," would the former
gentleman exclaim; "why, he's only a disguised bailiff! Mossrose
indeed! The chap's name's Amos, and he sold oranges before he came
here." Mr. Mossrose, on his side, utterly despised Mr. Eglantine,
and looked forward to the day when he would become the proprietor of
the shop, and take Eglantine for a foreman; and then it would HIS
turn to sneer and bully, and ride the high horse.

Thus it will be seen that there was a skeleton in the great
perfumer's house, as the saying is: a worm in his heart's core, and
though to all appearance prosperous, he was really in an awkward
position.

What Mr. Eglantine's relations were with Mr. Walker may be imagined
from the following dialogue which took place between the two
gentlemen at five o'clock one summer's afternoon, when Mr. Walker,
issuing from his chambers, came across to the perfumer's shop:--

"Is Eglantine at home, Mr. Mossrose?" said Walker to the foreman,
who sat in the front shop.

"Don't know--go and look" (meaning go and be hanged); for Mossrose
also hated Mr. Walker.

"If you're uncivil I'll break your bones, Mr. AMOS," says Mr.
Walker, sternly.

"I should like to see you try, Mr. HOOKER Walker," replies the
undaunted shopman; on which the Captain, looking several tremendous
canings at him, walked into the back room or "studio."

"How are you, Tiny my buck?" says the Captain. "Much doing?"

"Not a soul in town. I 'aven't touched the hirons all day," replied
Mr. Eglantine, in rather a desponding way.

"Well, just get them ready now, and give my whiskers a turn. I'm
going to dine with Billingsgate and some out-and-out fellows at the
'Regent,' and so, my lad, just do your best."

"I can't," says Mr. Eglantine. "I expect ladies, Captain, every
minute."

"Very good; I don't want to trouble such a great man, I'm sure.
Good-bye, and let me hear from you THIS DAY WEEK, Mr. Eglantine."
"This day week" meant that at seven days from that time a certain
bill accepted by Mr. Eglantine would be due, and presented for
payment.

"Don't be in such a hurry, Captain--do sit down. I'll curl you in
one minute. And, I say, won't the party renew?"

"Impossible--it's the third renewal."

"But I'll make the thing handsome to you;--indeed I will."

"How much?"

"Will ten pounds do the business?"

"What! offer my principal ten pounds? Are you mad, Eglantine?--A
little more of the iron to the left whisker."

"No, I meant for commission."

"Well, I'll see if that will do. The party I deal with, Eglantine,
has power, I know, and can defer the matter no doubt. As for me,
you know, I'VE nothing to do in the affair, and only act as a friend
between you and him. I give you my honour and soul, I do."

"I know you do, my dear sir." The last two speeches were lies. The
perfumer knew perfectly well that Mr. Walker would pocket the ten
pounds; but he was too easy to care for paying it, and too timid to
quarrel with such a powerful friend. And he had on three different
occasions already paid ten pounds' fine for the renewal of the bill
in question, all of which bonuses he knew went to his friend Mr.
Walker.

Here, too, the reader will perceive what was, in part, the meaning
of the word "Agency" on Mr. Walker's door. He was a go-between
between money-lenders and borrowers in this world, and certain small
sums always remained with him in the course of the transaction. He
was an agent for wine, too; an agent for places to be had through
the influence of great men; he was an agent for half-a-dozen
theatrical people, male and female, and had the interests of the
latter especially, it was said, at heart. Such were a few of the
means by which this worthy gentleman contrived to support himself,
and if, as he was fond of high living, gambling, and pleasures of
all kinds, his revenue was not large enough for his expenditure-
-why, he got into debt, and settled his bills that way. He was as
much at home in the Fleet as in Pall Mall, and quite as happy in the
one place as in the other. "That's the way I take things," would
this philosopher say. "If I've money, I spend; if I've credit, I
borrow; if I'm dunned, I whitewash; and so you can't beat me down."
Happy elasticity of temperament! I do believe that, in spite of his
misfortunes and precarious position, there was no man in England
whose conscience was more calm, and whose slumbers were more
tranquil, than those of Captain Howard Walker.

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