Chapter X: Part II: The Result (3)

We confess that we were grievously annoyed. By the time that Mrs. Brumby had left the premises, our clerk had gone also. He had rushed off to the nearest police-court to swear an information against her on account of the box on the ear which she had given him, and we were unable to leave our desk till he had returned. We found that for the present the doing of any work in our line of business was quite out of the question. A calm mind is required for the critical reading of manuscripts, and whose mind could be calm after such insults as those we had received? We sat in our chair, idle, reflective, indignant, making resolutions that we would never again open our lips to a woman coming to us with a letter of introduction and a contribution, till our lad returned to us. We were forced to give him a sovereign before we could induce him to withdraw his information. We object strongly to all bribery, but in this case we could see the amount of ridicule which would be heaped upon our whole establishment if some low-conditioned lawyer were allowed to cross-examine us as to our intercourse with Mrs. Brumby. It was with difficulty that the clerk arranged the matter the next day at the police office, and his object was not effected without the farther payment by us of £1 2s. 6d. for costs.

It was then understood between us and the clerk that on no excuse whatever should Mrs. Brumby be again admitted to my room, and I thought that the matter was over. “She shall have to fight her way through if she does get in,” said the lad. “She aint going to knock me about any more,--woman or no woman.” “O, dea, certe,” we exclaimed. “It shall be a dear job to her if she touches me again,” said the clerk, catching up the sound.

We really thought we had done with Mrs. Brumby, but at the end of four or five days there came to us a letter, which we have still in our possession, and which we will now venture to make public. It was as follows. It was addressed not to ourselves but to Messrs. X., Y., and Z., the very respectable proprietors of the periodical which we were managing on their behalf.

“Pluck Court, Gray’s Inn, 31st March, 18--.

“GENTLEMEN,

“We are instructed by our client, Lieutenant Brumby, late of the
Duke of Sussex’s Own regiment, to call upon you for payment of the
sum of twenty-five guineas due to him for a manuscript essay on
Costume, supplied by his wife to the ---- Magazine, which is, we
believe, your property, by special contract with Mr. ----, the
Editor. We are also directed to require from you and from Mr. ----
a full apology in writing for the assault committed on Mrs. Brumby
in your Editor’s room on the 27th instant; and an assurance also
that the columns of your periodical shall not be closed against
that lady because of this transaction. We request that £1 13s. 8d.,
our costs, may be forwarded to us, together with the above-named
sum of twenty-five guineas.

“We are, gentlemen,

“Your obedient servants,

“BADGER AND BLISTER.

“Messrs. X., Y., Z., Paternoster Row.”

We were in the habit of looking in at the shop in Paternoster Row on the first of every month, and on that inauspicious first of April the above letter was handed to us by our friend Mr. X. “I hope you haven’t been and put your foot in it,” said Mr. X. We protested that we had not put our foot in it at all, and we told him the whole story. “Don’t let us have a lawsuit, whatever you do,” said Mr. X. “The magazine isn’t worth it.” We ridiculed the idea of a lawsuit, but we took away with us Messrs. Badger and Blister’s letter and showed it to our legal adviser, Mr. Sharp. Mr. Sharp was of opinion that Badger and Blister meant fighting. When we pointed out to him the absolute absurdity of the whole thing, he merely informed us that we did not know Badger and Blister. “They’ll take up any case,” said he, “however hopeless, and work it with superhuman energy, on the mere chance of getting something out of the defendant. Whatever is got out of him becomes theirs. They never disgorge.” We were quite confident that nothing could be got out of the magazine on behalf of Mrs. Brumby, and we left the case in Mr. Sharp’s hands, thinking that our trouble in the matter was over.

A fortnight elapsed, and then we were called upon to meet Mr. Sharp in Paternoster Row. We found our friend Mr. X. with a somewhat unpleasant visage. Mr. X. was a thriving man, usually just, and sometimes generous but he didn’t like being “put upon.” Mr. Sharp had actually recommended that some trifle should be paid to Mrs. Brumby, and Mr. X. seemed to think that this expense would, in case that advice were followed, have been incurred through fault on our part. “A ten-pound note will set it all right,” said Mr. Sharp.

“Yes;--a ten-pound note,--just flung into the gutter. I wonder that you allowed yourself to have anything to do with such a woman.” We protested against this injustice, giving Mr. X. to know that he didn’t understand and couldn’t understand our business. “I’m not so sure of that,” said Mr. X. There was almost a quarrel, and we began to doubt whether Mrs. Brumby would not be the means of taking the very bread from out of our mouths. Mr. Sharp at last suggested that in spite of what he had seen from Mrs. Brumby, the lieutenant would probably be a gentleman. “Not a doubt about it,” said Mr. X., who was always fond of officers and of the army, and at the moment seemed to think more of a paltry lieutenant than of his own Editor.

Mr. Sharp actually pressed upon us and upon Mr. X. that we should call upon the lieutenant and explain matters to him. Mrs. Brumby had always been with us at twelve o’clock. “Go at noon,” said Mr. Sharp, “and you’ll certainly find her out.” He instructed us to tell the lieutenant “just the plain truth,” as he called it, and to explain that in no way could the proprietors of a magazine be made liable to payment for an article because the Editor in discharge of his duty had consented to read it. “Perhaps the lieutenant doesn’t know that his name has been used at all,” said Mr. Sharp. “At any rate, it will be well to learn what sort of a man he is.”

“A high minded gentleman, no doubt,” said Mr. X. the name of whose second boy was already down at the Horse Guards for a commission.

Though it was sorely against the grain, and in direct opposition to our own opinion, we were constrained to go to Harpur Street, Theobald’s Road, and to call upon Lieutenant Brumby. We had not explained to Mr. X. or to Mr. Sharp what had passed between Mrs. Brumby and ourselves when she suggested such a visit, but the memory of the words which we and she had then spoken was on us as we endeavoured to dissuade our lawyer and our publisher. Nevertheless, at their instigation, we made the visit. The house in Harpur Street was small, and dingy, and old. The door was opened for us by the normal lodging-house maid-of-all-work, who when we asked for the lieutenant, left us in the passage, that she might go and see. We sent up our name, and in a few minutes were ushered into a sitting-room up two flights of stairs. The room was not untidy, but it was as comfortless as any chamber we ever saw. The lieutenant was lying on an old horsehair sofa, but we had been so far lucky as to find him alone. Mr. Sharp had been correct in his prediction as to the customary absence of the lady at that hour in the morning. In one corner of the room we saw an old ram-shackle desk, at which, we did not doubt, were written those essays on costume and other subjects, in the disposing of which the lady displayed so much energy. The lieutenant himself was a small gray man, dressed, or rather enveloped, in what I supposed to be an old wrapper of his wife’s. He held in his hands a well-worn volume of a novel, and when he rose to greet us he almost trembled with dismay and bashfulness. His feet were thrust into slippers which were too old to stick on them, and round his throat he wore a dirty, once white, woollen comforter. We never learned what was the individual character of the corps which specially belonged to H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex; but if it was conspicuous for dash and gallantry, Lieutenant Brumby could hardly have held his own among his brother officers. We knew, however, from his wife that he had been invalided, and as an invalid we respected him. We proceeded to inform him that we had been called upon to pay him a sum of twenty-five guineas, and to explain how entirely void of justice any such claim must be. We suggested to him that he might be made to pay some serious sum by the lawyers he employed, and that the matter to us was an annoyance and a trouble,--chiefly because we had no wish to be brought into conflict with any one so respectable as Lieutenant Brumby. He looked at us with imploring eyes, as though begging us not to be too hard upon him in the absence of his wife, trembled from head to foot, and muttered a few words which were nearly inaudible. We will not state as a fact that the lieutenant had taken to drinking spirits early in life, but that certainly was our impression during the only interview we ever had with him. When we pressed upon him as a question which he must answer whether he did not think that he had better withdraw his claim, he fell back upon his sofa, and began to sob. While he was thus weeping Mrs. Brumby entered the room. She had in her hand the card which we had given to the maid-of-all-work, and was therefore prepared for the interview. “Sir,” she said, “I hope you have come to settle my husband’s just demands.”

Amidst the husband’s wailings there had been one little sentence which reached our ears. “She does it all,” he had said, throwing his eyes up piteously towards our face. At that moment the door had been opened, and Mrs. Brumby had entered the room. When she spoke of her husband’s “just demands,” we turned to the poor prostrate lieutenant, and were deterred from any severity towards him by the look of supplication in his eye,. “The lieutenant is not well this morning,” said Mrs. Brumby, “and you will therefore be pleased to address yourself to me.” We explained that the absurd demand for payment had been made on the proprietors of the magazine in the name of Lieutenant Brumby, and that we had therefore been obliged, in the performance of a most unpleasant duty, to call upon that gentleman; but she laughed our argument to scorn. “You have driven me to take legal steps,” she said, “and as I am only a woman I must take them in the name of my husband. But I am the person aggrieved, and if you have any excuse to make you can make it to me. Your safer course, Sir, will be to pay me the money that you owe me.”

I had come there on a fool’s errand, and before I could get away was very angry both with Mr. Sharp and Mr. X. I could hardly get a word in amidst the storm of indignant reproaches which was bursting over my head during the whole of the visit. One would have thought from hearing her that she had half filled the pages of the magazine for the last six months, and that we, individually, had pocketed the proceeds of her labour. She laughed in our face when we suggested that she could not really intend to prosecute the suit, and told us to mind our own business when we hinted that the law was an expensive amusement. “We, Sir,” she said, “will have the amusement, and you will have to pay the bill.” When we left her she was indignant, defiant, and self-confident.

And what will the reader suppose was the end of all this? The whole truth has been told as accurately as we can tell it. As far as we know our own business we were not wrong in any single step we took. Our treatment of Mrs. Brumby was courteous, customary, and conciliatory. We had treated her with more consideration than we had perhaps ever before shown to an unknown, would-be contributor. She had been admitted thrice to our presence. We had read at any rate enough of her trash to be sure of its nature. On the other hand, we had been insulted, and our clerk had had his ears boxed. What should have been the result? We will tell the reader what was the result. Mr. X. paid £10 to Messrs. Badger and Blister on behalf of the lieutenant; and we, under Mr. Sharp’s advice, wrote a letter to Mrs. Brumby in which we expressed deep sorrow for our clerk’s misconduct, and our own regret that we should have delayed,--“the perusal of her manuscript.” We could not bring ourselves to write the words ourselves with our own fingers, but signed the document which Mr. Sharp put before us. Mr. Sharp had declared to Messrs. X., Y., and Z., that unless some such arrangement were made, he thought that we should be cast for a much greater sum before a jury. For one whole morning in Paternoster Row we resisted this infamous tax, not only on our patience, but,--as we then felt it,--on our honour. We thought that our very old friend Mr. X. should have stood to us more firmly, and not have demanded from us a task that was so peculiarly repugnant to our feelings. “And it is peculiarly repugnant to my feelings to pay £10 for nothing,” said Mr. X., who was not, we think, without some little feeling of revenge against us; “but I prefer that to a lawsuit.” And then he argued that the simple act on our part of signing such a letter as that presented to us could cost us no trouble, and ought to occasion us no sorrow. “What can come of it? Who’ll know it?” said Mr. X. “We’ve got to pay £10, and that we shall feel.” It came to that at last, that we were constrained to sign the letter,--and did sign it. It did us no harm, and can have done Mrs. Brumby no good but the moment in which we signed it was perhaps the bitterest we ever knew.

That in such a transaction Mrs. Brumby should have been so thoroughly successful, and that we should have been so shamefully degraded, has always appeared to us to be an injury too deep to remain unredressed for ever. Can such wrongs be, and the heavens not fall! Our greatest comfort has been in the reflection that neither the lieutenant nor his wife ever saw a shilling of the £10. That, doubtless, never went beyond Badger and Blister.

THE END.

PRINTED BY W. H. SMITH AND SON, 186, STRAND, LONDON.