Kabanata Kabanata 2 · Chapter II

I spoke of my lady a line or two back. Now the Diamond could never have

been in our house, where it was lost, if it had not been made a present

of to my lady’s daughter; and my lady’s daughter would never have been

in existence to have the present, if it had not been for my lady who

(with pain and travail) produced her into the world. Consequently, if

we begin with my lady, we are pretty sure of beginning far enough back.

And that, let me tell you, when you have got such a job as mine in

hand, is a real comfort at starting.

If you know anything of the fashionable world, you have heard tell of

the three beautiful Miss Herncastles. Miss Adelaide; Miss Caroline; and

Miss Julia—this last being the youngest and the best of the three

sisters, in my opinion; and I had opportunities of judging, as you

shall presently see. I went into the service of the old lord, their

father (thank God, we have got nothing to do with him, in this business

of the Diamond; he had the longest tongue and the shortest temper of

any man, high or low, I ever met with)—I say, I went into the service

of the old lord, as page-boy in waiting on the three honourable young

ladies, at the age of fifteen years. There I lived till Miss Julia

married the late Sir John Verinder. An excellent man, who only wanted

somebody to manage him; and, between ourselves, he found somebody to do

it; and what is more, he throve on it and grew fat on it, and lived

happy and died easy on it, dating from the day when my lady took him to

church to be married, to the day when she relieved him of his last

breath, and closed his eyes for ever.

I have omitted to state that I went with the bride to the bride’s

husband’s house and lands down here. “Sir John,” she says, “I can’t do

without Gabriel Betteredge.” “My lady,” says Sir John, “I can’t do

without him, either.” That was his way with her—and that was how I went

into his service. It was all one to me where I went, so long as my

mistress and I were together.

Seeing that my lady took an interest in the out-of-door work, and the

farms, and such like, I took an interest in them too—with all the more

reason that I was a small farmer’s seventh son myself. My lady got me

put under the bailiff, and I did my best, and gave satisfaction, and

got promotion accordingly. Some years later, on the Monday as it might

be, my lady says, “Sir John, your bailiff is a stupid old man. Pension

him liberally, and let Gabriel Betteredge have his place.” On the

Tuesday as it might be, Sir John says, “My lady, the bailiff is

pensioned liberally; and Gabriel Betteredge has got his place.” You

hear more than enough of married people living together miserably. Here

is an example to the contrary. Let it be a warning to some of you, and

an encouragement to others. In the meantime, I will go on with my

story.

Well, there I was in clover, you will say. Placed in a position of

trust and honour, with a little cottage of my own to live in, with my

rounds on the estate to occupy me in the morning, and my accounts in

the afternoon, and my pipe and my _Robinson Crusoe_ in the evening—what

more could I possibly want to make me happy? Remember what Adam wanted

when he was alone in the Garden of Eden; and if you don’t blame it in

Adam, don’t blame it in me.

The woman I fixed my eye on, was the woman who kept house for me at my

cottage. Her name was Selina Goby. I agree with the late William

Cobbett about picking a wife. See that she chews her food well and sets

her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you’re all

right. Selina Goby was all right in both these respects, which was one

reason for marrying her. I had another reason, likewise, entirely of my

own discovering. Selina, being a single woman, made me pay so much a

week for her board and services. Selina, being my wife, couldn’t charge

for her board, and would have to give me her services for nothing. That

was the point of view I looked at it from. Economy—with a dash of love.

I put it to my mistress, as in duty bound, just as I had put it to

myself.

“I have been turning Selina Goby over in my mind,” I said, “and I

think, my lady, it will be cheaper to marry her than to keep her.”

My lady burst out laughing, and said she didn’t know which to be most

shocked at—my language or my principles. Some joke tickled her, I

suppose, of the sort that you can’t take unless you are a person of

quality. Understanding nothing myself but that I was free to put it

next to Selina, I went and put it accordingly. And what did Selina say?

Lord! how little you must know of women, if you ask that. Of course she

said, Yes.

As my time drew nearer, and there got to be talk of my having a new

coat for the ceremony, my mind began to misgive me. I have compared

notes with other men as to what they felt while they were in my

interesting situation; and they have all acknowledged that, about a

week before it happened, they privately wished themselves out of it. I

went a trifle further than that myself; I actually rose up, as it were,

and tried to get out of it. Not for nothing! I was too just a man to

expect she would let me off for nothing. Compensation to the woman when

the man gets out of it, is one of the laws of England. In obedience to

the laws, and after turning it over carefully in my mind, I offered

Selina Goby a feather-bed and fifty shillings to be off the bargain.

You will hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless true—she was fool

enough to refuse.

After that it was all over with me, of course. I got the new coat as

cheap as I could, and I went through all the rest of it as cheap as I

could. We were not a happy couple, and not a miserable couple. We were

six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. How it was I don’t

understand, but we always seemed to be getting, with the best of

motives, in one another’s way. When I wanted to go upstairs, there was

my wife coming down; or when my wife wanted to go down, there was I

coming up. That is married life, according to my experience of it.

After five years of misunderstandings on the stairs, it pleased an

all-wise Providence to relieve us of each other by taking my wife. I

was left with my little girl Penelope, and with no other child. Shortly

afterwards Sir John died, and my lady was left with her little girl,

Miss Rachel, and no other child. I have written to very poor purpose of

my lady, if you require to be told that my little Penelope was taken

care of, under my good mistress’s own eye, and was sent to school and

taught, and made a sharp girl, and promoted, when old enough, to be

Miss Rachel’s own maid.

As for me, I went on with my business as bailiff year after year up to

Christmas 1847, when there came a change in my life. On that day, my

lady invited herself to a cup of tea alone with me in my cottage. She

remarked that, reckoning from the year when I started as page-boy in

the time of the old lord, I had been more than fifty years in her

service, and she put into my hands a beautiful waistcoat of wool that

she had worked herself, to keep me warm in the bitter winter weather.

I received this magnificent present quite at a loss to find words to

thank my mistress with for the honour she had done me. To my great

astonishment, it turned out, however, that the waistcoat was not an

honour, but a bribe. My lady had discovered that I was getting old

before I had discovered it myself, and she had come to my cottage to

wheedle me (if I may use such an expression) into giving up my hard

out-of-door work as bailiff, and taking my ease for the rest of my days

as steward in the house. I made as good a fight of it against the

indignity of taking my ease as I could. But my mistress knew the weak

side of me; she put it as a favour to herself. The dispute between us

ended, after that, in my wiping my eyes, like an old fool, with my new

woollen waistcoat, and saying I would think about it.

The perturbation in my mind, in regard to thinking about it, being

truly dreadful after my lady had gone away, I applied the remedy which

I have never yet found to fail me in cases of doubt and emergency. I

smoked a pipe and took a turn at _Robinson Crusoe_. Before I had

occupied myself with that extraordinary book five minutes, I came on a

comforting bit (page one hundred and fifty-eight), as follows: “Today

we love, what tomorrow we hate.” I saw my way clear directly. Today I

was all for continuing to be farm-bailiff; tomorrow, on the authority

of _Robinson Crusoe_, I should be all the other way. Take myself

tomorrow while in tomorrow’s humour, and the thing was done. My mind

being relieved in this manner, I went to sleep that night in the

character of Lady Verinder’s farm-bailiff, and I woke up the next

morning in the character of Lady Verinder’s house-steward. All quite

comfortable, and all through _Robinson Crusoe_!

My daughter Penelope has just looked over my shoulder to see what I

have done so far. She remarks that it is beautifully written, and every

word of it true. But she points out one objection. She says what I have

done so far isn’t in the least what I was wanted to do. I am asked to

tell the story of the Diamond and, instead of that, I have been telling

the story of my own self. Curious, and quite beyond me to account for.

I wonder whether the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of

writing books, ever find their own selves getting in the way of their

subjects, like me? If they do, I can feel for them. In the meantime,

here is another false start, and more waste of good writing-paper.

What’s to be done now? Nothing that I know of, except for you to keep

your temper, and for me to begin it all over again for the third time.