Short Fiction · Mrs. Brumby (3/4)

When we found ourselves alone with the roll of paper in our hands, we were very angry with Mrs. Brumby, but almost more angry with ourselves. We were in no way bound to the woman, and yet she had in some degree substantiated a claim upon us. We piqued ourselves specially on never making any promise beyond the vaguest assurance that this or that proposed contribution should receive consideration at some altogether undefined time; but now we were positively pledged to read Mrs. Brumby’s effusion and have our verdict ready by the day after tomorrow. We were wont, too, to keep ourselves much secluded from strangers; and here was Mrs. Brumby, who had already been with us twice, positively entitled to a third audience. We had been scolded, and then forgiven, and then ridiculed by a woman who was old, and ugly, and false! And there was present to us a conviction that though she was old, and ugly, and false, Mrs. Brumby was no ordinary woman. Perhaps it might be that she was really qualified to give us valuable assistance in regard to the magazine, as to which we must own we were sometimes driven to use matter that was not quite so brilliant as, for our readers’ sakes, we would have wished it to be. We feel ourselves compelled to admit that old and ugly women, taken on the average, do better literary work than they who are young and pretty. I did not like Mrs. Brumby, but it might be that in her the age would find another De Staël. So thinking, we cut the little string, and had the manuscript open in our own hands. We cannot remember whether she had already indicated to us the subject of the essay, but it was headed, “Costume in 18⁠—.” There were perhaps thirty closely-filled pages, of which we read perhaps a third. The handwriting was unexceptionable, orderly, clean, and legible; but the matter was undeniable twaddle. It proffered advice to women that they should be simple, and to men that they should be cleanly in their attire. Anything of less worth for the purpose of amusement or of instruction could not be imagined. There was, in fact, nothing in it. It has been our fate to look at a great many such essays, and to cause them at once either to be destroyed or returned. There could be no doubt at all as to Mrs. Brumby’s essay.

She came punctual as the clock. As she seated herself in our chair and made some remark as to her hope that we were satisfied, we felt something like fear steal across our bosom. We were about to give offence, and dreaded the arguments that would follow. It was, however, quite clear that we could not publish Mrs. Brumby’s essay on Costume, and therefore, though she looked more like Minerva now than ever, we must go through our task. We told her in half-a-dozen words that we had read the paper, and that it would not suit our columns.

“Not suit your columns!” she said, looking at us by no means in sorrow, but in great anger. “You do not mean to trifle with me like that after all you have made me suffer?” We protested that we were responsible for none of her sufferings. “Sir,” she said, “when I was last here you owned the wrong you had done me.” We felt that we must protest against this, and we rose in our wrath. There were two of us angry now.

“Madam,” we said, “you have kindly offered us your essay, and we have courteously declined it. You will allow us to say that this must end the matter.” There were allusions here to kindness and courtesy, but the reader will understand that the sense of the words was altogether changed by the tone of the voice.

“Indeed, Sir, the matter will not be ended so. If you think that your position will enable you to trample upon those who make literature really a profession, you are very much mistaken.”

“Mrs. Brumby,” we said, “we can give you no other answer, and as our time is valuable⁠—”

“Time valuable!” she exclaimed⁠—and as she stood up an artist might have taken her for a model of Minerva had she only held a spear in her hand. “And is no time valuable, do you think, but yours? I had, Sir, your distinct promise that the paper should be published if it was left in your hands above a week.”

“That is untrue, Madam.”

“Untrue, Sir?”

“Absolutely untrue.” Mrs. Brumby was undoubtedly a woman, and might be very like a goddess, but we were not going to allow her to palm off upon us without flat contradiction so absolute a falsehood as that. “We never dreamed of publishing your paper.”

“Then why, Sir, have you troubled yourself to read it⁠—from the beginning to the end?” We had certainly intimated that we had made ourselves acquainted with the entire essay, but we had in fact skimmed and skipped through about a third of it.

“How dare you say, Sir, you have never dreamed of publishing it, when you know that you studied it with that view?”

“We didn’t read it all,” we said, “but we read quite enough.”

“And yet but this moment ago you told me that you had perused it carefully.” The word peruse we certainly never used in our life. We object to “perusing,” as we do to “commencing” and “performing.” We “read,” and we “begin,” and we “do.” As to that assurance which the word “carefully” would intend to convey, we believe that we were to that extent guilty. “I think, Sir,” she continued, “that you had better see the lieutenant.”

“With a view to fighting the gentleman?” we asked.

“No, Sir. An officer in the Duke of Sussex’s Own draws his sword against no enemy so unworthy of his steel.” She had told me at a former interview that the lieutenant was so confirmed an invalid as to be barely able, on his best days, to drag himself out of bed. “One fights with one’s equal, but the law gives redress from injury, whether it be inflicted by equal, by superior, or by⁠—Inferior.” And Mrs. Brumby, as she uttered the last word, wagged her helmet at us in a manner which left no doubt as to the position which she assigned to us.

It became clearly necessary that an end should be put to an intercourse which had become so very unpleasant. We told our Minerva very plainly that we must beg her to leave us. There is, however, nothing more difficult to achieve than the expulsion of a woman who is unwilling to quit the place she occupies. We remember to have seen a lady take possession of a seat in a mail coach to which she was not entitled, and which had been booked and paid for by another person. The agent for the coaching business desired her with many threats to descend, but she simply replied that the journey to her was a matter of such moment that she felt herself called upon to keep her place. The agent sent the coachman to pull her out. The coachman threatened⁠—with his hands as well as with his words⁠—and then set the guard at her. The guard attacked her with inflamed visage and fearful words about Her Majesty’s mails, and then set the ostlers at her. We thought the ostlers were going to handle her roughly, but it ended by their scratching their heads, and by a declaration on the part of one of them that she was “the rummest go he’d ever seen.” She was a woman, and they couldn’t touch her. A policeman was called upon for assistance, who offered to lock her up, but he could only do so if allowed to lock up the whole coach as well. It was ended by the production of another coach, by an exchange of the luggage and passengers, by a delay of two hours, and an embarrassing possession of the original vehicle by the lady in the midst of a crowd of jeering boys and girls. We could tell Mrs. Brumby to go, and we could direct our boy to open the door, and we could make motions indicatory of departure with our left hand, but we could not forcibly turn her out of the room. She asked us for the name of our lawyer, and we did write down for her on a slip of paper the address of a most respectable firm, whom we were pleased to regard as our attorneys, but who had never yet earned six and eightpence from the magazine. Young Sharp, of the firm of Sharp and Butterwell, was our friend, and would no doubt see to the matter for us should it be necessary;⁠—but we could not believe that the woman would be so foolish. She made various assertions to us as to her position in the world of literature, and it was on this occasion that she brought out those printed slips which we have before mentioned. She offered to refer the matter in dispute between us to the arbitration of the editor of the Curricle; and when we indignantly declined such interference, protesting that there was no matter in dispute, she again informed us that if we thought to trample upon her we were very much mistaken. Then there occurred a little episode which moved us to laughter in the midst of our wrath. Our boy, in obedience to our pressing commands that he should usher Mrs. Brumby out of our presence, did lightly touch her arm. Feeling the degradation of the assault, Minerva swung round upon the unfortunate lad and gave him a box on the ear which we’ll be bound the editor of the West Barsetshire Gazette remembers to this day. “Madam,” we said, as soon as we had swallowed down the first involuntary attack of laughter, “if you conduct yourself in this manner we must send for the police.”

“Do, Sir, if you dare,” replied Minerva, “and every man of letters in the metropolis shall hear of your conduct.” There was nothing in her threat to move us, but we confess that we were uncomfortable. “Before I leave you, Sir,” she said, “I will give you one more chance. Will you perform your contract with me and accept my contribution?”

“Certainly not,” we replied. She afterwards quoted this answer as admitting a contract.

We are often told that everything must come to an end⁠—and there was an end at last to Mrs. Brumby’s visit. She went from us with an assurance that she should at once return home, pick up the lieutenant⁠—hinting that the exertion, caused altogether by our wickedness, might be the death of that gallant officer⁠—and go with him direct to her attorney. The world of literature should hear of the terrible injustice which had been done to her, and the courts of law should hear of it too.

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., Z., the very respectable proprietors of the periodical which we were managing on their behalf.

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 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.