On the Care and Management of Women (2)

    Our coach-load was a homely party, and some of the jokes were broad—harmless enough in themselves, had Minnie and I really been the married couple we were supposed to be, but even in that case unnecessary. I can only hope that Minnie did not understand them. Anyhow, she looked as if she didn’t.
    I forget where we stopped for lunch, but I remember that lamb and mint sauce was on the table, and that the circumstance afforded the greatest delight to all the party, with the exception of the stout lady, who was still indignant, Minnie and myself. About my behaviour as a bridegroom opinion appeared to be divided. “He’s a bit standoffish with her,” I overheard one lady remark to her husband; “I like to see ’em a bit kittenish myself.” A young waitress, on the other hand, I am happy to say, showed more sense of natural reserve. “Well, I respect him for it,” she was saying to the barmaid, as we passed through the hall; “I’d just hate to be fuzzled over with everybody looking on.” Nobody took the trouble to drop their voices for our benefit. We might have been a pair of prize love birds on exhibition, the way we were openly discussed. By the majority we were clearly regarded as a sulky young couple who would not go through their tricks.
    I have often wondered since how a real married couple would have faced the situation. Possibly, had we consented to give a short display of marital affection, “by desire,” we might have been left in peace for the remainder of the journey.
    Our reputation preceded us on to the steamboat. Minnie begged and prayed me to let it be known we were not married. How I was to let it be known, except by requesting the captain to summon the whole ship’s company on deck, and then making them a short speech, I could not think. Minnie said she could not bear it any longer, and retired to the ladies’ cabin. She went off crying. Her trouble was attributed by crew and passengers to my coldness. One fool planted himself opposite me with his legs apart, and shook his head at me.
    “Go down and comfort her,” he began. “Take an old man’s advice. Put your arms around her.” (He was one of those sentimental idiots.) “Tell her that you love her.”
    I told him to go and hang himself, with so much vigour that he all but fell overboard. He was saved by a poultry crate: I had no luck that day.
    At Ryde the guard, by superhuman effort, contrived to keep us a carriage to ourselves. I gave him a shilling, because I did not know what else to do. I would have made it half-a-sovereign if he had put eight other passengers in with us. At every station people came to the window to look in at us.
    I handed Minnie over to her father on Ventnor platform; and I took the first train the next morning, to London. I felt I did not want to see her again for a little while; and I felt convinced she could do without a visit from me. Our next meeting took place the week before her marriage.
    “Where are you going to spend your honeymoon?” I asked her; “in the New Forest?”
    “No,” she replied; “nor in the Isle of Wight.”
    To enjoy the humour of an incident one must be at some distance from it either in time or relationship. I remember watching an amusing scene in Whitefield Street, just off Tottenham Court Road, one winter’s Saturday night. A woman—a rather respectable looking woman, had her hat only been on straight—had just been shot out of a public-house. She was very dignified, and very drunk. A policeman requested her to move on. She called him “Fellow,” and demanded to know of him if he considered that was the proper tone in which to address a lady. She threatened to report him to her cousin, the Lord Chancellor.
    “Yes; this way to the Lord Chancellor,” retorted the policeman. “You come along with me;” and he caught hold of her by the arm.
    She gave a lurch, and nearly fell. To save her the man put his arm round her waist. She clasped him round the neck, and together they spun round two or three times; while at the very moment a piano-organ at the opposite corner struck up a waltz.
    “Choose your partners, gentlemen, for the next dance,” shouted a wag, and the crowd roared.
    I was laughing myself, for the situation was undeniably comical, the constable’s expression of disgust being quite Hogarthian, when the sight of a child’s face beneath the gas-lamp stayed me. Her look was so full of terror that I tried to comfort her.
    “It’s only a drunken woman,” I said; “he’s not going to hurt her.”
    “Please, sir,” was the answer, “it’s my mother.”
    Our joke is generally another’s pain. The man who sits down on the tin-tack rarely joins in the laugh.