Part 28 (1/2)

CHAPTER II

DISENCHANTMENT

It is said that 'creaking doors hang the longest,' and Mrs Pulchop, of Carthage Cottage, Richmond, was an excellent ill.u.s.tration of the truth of this saying. Thin, pale, with light bleached-looking hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes to match, she looked so shadowy and unsubstantial, than an impression was conveyed to the onlooker that a breath might blow her away. She was often heard to declare, when anything extra-ordinary happened, that one might 'knock her down with a feather', which, as a matter of fact, was by no means a stretch of fancy, provided the feather was a strong one and Mrs Pulchop was taken unawares. She was continually alluding to her 'const.i.tootion', as if she had an interest in politics, but in reality she was referring to her state of health, which was invariably bad. According to her own showing, there was not a single disease under the sun with which she had not been afflicted, and she could have written a whole book on the subject of medicine, and put herself in, in every instance, as an ill.u.s.trative case.

Mr Pulchop had long since departed this life, being considerably a.s.sisted in his exit from this wicked world by the quant.i.ty of patent medicines his wife compelled him to take to cure him, which unfortunately, however, had the opposite effect.

Mrs Pulchop said he had been a handsome man, but according to the portrait she had of him he resembled a bull-dog more than anything else in nature. The young Pulchops, of which there were two, both of the female s.e.x, took after their father in appearance and their mother in temperament, and from the time they could talk and crawl knew as much about drops, poultices, bandages, and draughts as many a hospital nurse of mature age.

One day Vandeloup sent a telegram to Kitty saying he would be home to dinner, and as he always required something extra in the way of cooking, Kitty went to interview Mrs Pulchop on the subject. She found that lady wrapped up in a heavy shawl, turning herself into a tea-kettle by drinking hot water, the idea being, as she a.s.sured Kitty, to rouse up her liver. Miss Topsy Pulchop was tying a bandage round her face, as she felt a toothache coming on, while Miss Anna Pulchop was unfortunately quite well, and her occupation being gone, was seated disconsolately at the window trying to imagine she felt pains in her back.

'Ah!' groaned Mrs Pulchop, in a squeaky voice, sipping her hot water; 'you don't know, my dear, what it is to be aworrited by your liver--tortures and inquisitions ain't in it, my love.'

Kitty said she was very sorry, and asked her if nothing would relieve her sufferings, but Mrs Pulchop shook her head triumphantly.

'My sweet young thing,' said the patient, with great gusto, 'I've tried everything under the sun to make it right, but they ain't no good; it's always expanding and a contracting of itself unbeknown to me, and throwing the bile into the stomach, which ain't its proper place.'

'It does sound rather nasty,' a.s.sented Kitty; 'and Topsy seems to be ill, too.'

'Toothache,' growled Topsy, who had a deep, ba.s.s voice, and being modelled on the canine lines of her late lamented father, the growl suited her admirably. 'I had two out last week, and now this one's started.'

'Try a roasted fig, Topsy dear,' suggested her mother, who, now, having finished her hot water, looked longingly at the kettle for more.

'Toothache,' growled Topsy, in reply, 'not gumboil;' the remedy suggested by Mrs Pulchop being for the latter of these ills.

'You are quite well, at any rate,' said Kitty to Anna, cheerfully.

Anna, however, declined to be considered in good health. 'I fancy my back is going to ache,' she said, darkly placing her hand in the small of it. 'I'll have to put a linseed poultice on it tonight, to draw the cold out.'

Then she groaned dismally, and her mother and sister, hearing the familiar sound, also groaned, so there was quite a chorus, and Kitty felt inclined to groan also, out of sympathy.

'M. Vandeloup is coming to dinner tonight,' she said, timidly, to Mrs Pulchop.

'And a wonder it is, my sweet angel,' said that lady, indignantly, rising and glancing at the pretty girl, now so pale and sad-looking, 'it's once in a blue moon as he comes 'ome, a--leaving you to mope at home like a broken-hearted kitten in a coal box. Ah, if he only had a liver, that would teach him manners.'

Groans of a.s.sent from the Misses Pulchops, who both had livers and were always fighting with them.

'And what, my neglected cherub,' asked Mrs Pulchop, going to a looking-gla.s.s which always hung in the kitchen, for the three to examine their tongues in, 'what shall I give you for dinner?'

Kitty suggested a fowl, macaroni cheese, and fruit for dessert, which bill of fare had such an effect on the family that they all groaned in unison.

'Macaroni cheese,' growled Topsy, speaking from the very depth of the cork soles she wore to keep her feet dry; 'there's nothing more bilious.

I couldn't look at it.'

'Ah,' observed Mrs Pulchop, 'you're only a weak gal, and men is that obstinate they'd swaller bricks like ostriges sooner nor give in as it hurt 'em. You shall 'ave a nice dinner, Mrs Vanloops, tho' I can't deny but what it ull be bilious.'

Thus warned, Kitty retired into her own room and made herself nice for Gaston to look on when he came.

Poor thing, it was so rarely now that he came home to dinner, that a visit from him was regarded by her in the light of a treat. She dressed herself in a pretty white dress and tied a blue sash round her waist, so that she might look the same to him as when he first saw her. But her face was now worn and white, and as she looked at her pallor in the gla.s.s she wished she had some rouge to bring a touch of colour to her cheeks. She tried to smile in her own merry way at the wan reflection she beheld, but the effort was a failure, and she burst into tears.