By this time there had sprung up an intimacy between ourselves and Mrs. Grimes which seemed to justify an expression of the doubt which I then threw on the propriety of such a disarrangement of her most private domestic affairs. “Mr. Grimes will hardly approve of that,” we said.
“Oh, John won’t mind. What’ll it matter to John as long as Mackenzie is out in time for him to go to bed? We aint early birds, morning or night—that’s true. In our line folks can’t be early. But from ten to six there’s the room, and he shall have it. Come up and see, Sir.” So we followed Mrs. Grimes up the narrow staircase to the marital bower. “It aint large, but there’ll be room for the table, and for him to sit at it;—won’t there now?”
It was a dark little room, with one small window looking out under the low roof, and facing the heavy high dead wall of the brewery opposite. But it was clean and sweet, and the furniture in it was all solid and good, old-fashioned, and made of mahogany. Two or three of Mrs. Grimes’s gowns were laid upon the bed, and other portions of her dress were hung on pegs behind the doors. The only untidy article in the room was a pair of “John’s” trousers, which he had failed to put out of sight. She was not a bit abashed, but took them up and folded them and patted them, and laid them in the capacious wardrobe. “We’ll have all these things away,” she said, “and then he can have all his papers out upon the bed just as he pleases.”
We own that there was something in the proposed arrangement which dismayed us. We also were married, and what would our wife have said had we proposed that a contributor—even a contributor not red-nosed and seething with gin—that any best-disciplined contributor should be invited to write an article within the precincts of our sanctum? We could not bring ourselves to believe that Mr. Grimes would authorise the proposition. There is something holy about the bedroom of a married couple; and there would be a special desecration in the continued presence of Mr. Julius Mackenzie. We thought it better that we should explain something of all this to her. “Do you know,” we said, “this seems to be hardly prudent?”
“Why not prudent?” she asked.
“Up in your bedroom, you know! Mr. Grimes will be sure to dislike it.”
“What—John! Not he. I know what you’re a-thinking of, Mr. ⸻,” she said. “But we’re different in our ways than what you are. Things to us are only just what they are. We haven’t time, nor yet money, nor perhaps edication, for seemings and thinkings as you have. If you was travelling out amongst the wild Injeans, you’d ask anyone to have a bit in your bedroom as soon as look at ’em, if you’d got a bit for ’em to eat. We’re travelling among wild Injeans all our lives, and a bedroom aint no more to us than any other room. Mackenzie shall come up here, and I’ll have the table fixed for him, just there by the window.” I hadn’t another word to say to her, and I could not keep myself from thinking for many an hour afterwards, whether it may not be a good thing for men, and for women also, to believe that they are always travelling among wild Indians.
When we went down Mr. Grimes himself was in the little parlour. He did not seem at all surprised at seeing his wife enter the room from above accompanied by a stranger. She at once began her story, and told the arrangement which she proposed—which she did, as I observed, without any actual request for his sanction. Looking at Mr. Grimes’s face, I thought that he did not quite like it; but he accepted it, almost without a word, scratching his head and raising his eyebrows. “You know, John, he could no more do it at home than he could fly,” said Mrs. Grimes.
“Who said he could do it at home?”
“And he couldn’t do it in the taproom;—could he? If so, there aint no other place, and so that’s settled.” John Grimes again scratched his head, and the matter was settled. Before we left the house Mackenzie himself came in, and was told in our presence of the accommodation which was to be prepared for him. “It’s just like you, Mrs. Grimes,” was all he said in the way of thanks. Then Mrs. Grimes made her bargain with him somewhat sternly. He should have the room for five hours a day—ten till three, or twelve till five; but he must settle which, and then stick to his hours. “And I won’t have nothing up there in the way of drink,” said John Grimes.
“Who’s asking to have drink there?” said Mackenzie.
“You’re not asking now, but maybe you will. I won’t have it, that’s all.”
“That shall be all right, John,” said Mrs. Grimes, nodding her head.
“Women are that soft—in the way of judgment—that they’ll go and do a’most anything, good or bad, when they’ve got their feelings up.” Such was the only rebuke which in our hearing Mr. Grimes administered to his pretty wife. Mackenzie whispered something to the publican, but Grimes only shook his head. We understood it all thoroughly. He did not like the scheme, but he would not contradict his wife in
