Looking over what I have written about Mr. Wilkins, who was for such a long time one of our most regular customers of an evening at the ‘Stretford Arms,’ I feel inclined now to cross some of it out; but, of course, it would be difficult to do that, because at the time I wrote of him things were different to what they are now, and I only made the remarks about him which I thought at the time he deserved. Even that which was written after he had left the neighbourhood referred to the part he took in things which happened at the time he was with us, and so of course it wouldn’t have done to anticipate. Poor Mr. Wilkins!
He offended me very often, and at times he was rather a nuisance, poor old gentleman, because he was one who would have a finger in everybody’s pie, and was fond of giving off his opinions, whether he was asked for them or not. But that is all forgiven and forgotten now, and I only think of the old gentleman at his best. We all have our peculiarities—I dare say I have mine—and certainly Wilkins had his; but it would be a very queer world if nobody had any crotchets, and everybody was exactly alike. There wouldn’t be any novels, and there wouldn’t be any plays—at least, I suppose not—though, of course, if we had been all alike in our ways and in our dispositions, authors would have had to get over the difficulty somehow.
You remember that Mr. Wilkins had a daughter in service in London, and it was through her that he found out that I was the Mary Jane who had written her “Memoirs{237}” when she was in service. He was very proud of his daughter, and he had every reason to be so, for she was a very good girl, and had only lived in good families. He had also a daughter who had married, and had gone out with her husband to Australia. She used to write to her father now and then, and when he had a letter he was very proud of it, and he would bring it round to our house, and read bits of it that were about the life there out loud to the company, and he used to say, “My girl writes a good letter, doesn’t she, Mrs. Beckett? She could write a good book if she liked, and it would be very interesting.”
Poor Mr. Wilkins, I’m quite sure he had an idea that his daughter could write a book on Australia because she had been there a year or two and could write a very fair letter. Some people think that you’ve only to write what you have seen, and it will be as interesting to the public as it is to you and your friends. I believe much cleverer people than Mr. Wilkins think that, because I’ve seen books advertised in the newspapers, such as “A Month in America, by a Lady,” or “Six Weeks in Russia, by a Gentleman,” and all that sort of thing, and one of the gentlemen who stayed at our hotel left a book behind him from Mudie’s, and I read it before sending it after him, and it was nothing but a lot of letters, which a lady, who had gone abroad for her health, had written home to her children. Very interesting to her children and her friends, I dare say; but I thought a lot of it quite silly, and I thought to myself that she must be pretty conceited to fancy everybody wanted to read her letters that she wrote home. But I must not say any more on the subject, because people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and perhaps somebody will say that I’m a nice one to talk, seeing that I am always writing down everything that happens to me, and having the impudence to try and get it published.
What brought it up was Mr. Wilkins being so absurd about his daughter in Australia.
In most of these letters there was a glowing account of how well she was getting on, and how her husband had been very lucky out there, and was making money and getting property. It seems he had bought some land, or{238} something, “up country,” which meant a very long way off, and it had turned out so well that he had bought some more, and, according to the young woman, they were on the high road to fortune.
Then, her letters began to ask her father to come out to them and settle down with them. She was sure he would like it, and he could be a great help to them as well, as her husband wanted somebody he could trust very much.
At first Mr. Wilkins shook his head, and said he was too old, that he couldn’t go across the seas, and he thought he should feel more comfortable if he died in his native place and was buried in the old parish churchyard.
But by-and-by something happened which made him hesitate. His daughter up in London was engaged to a young man, and they were to be married in a short time. He was a young man in a very fair position, being head barman in a public-house in the City, and a good deal of the management was left to him, the proprietor having a taste for sport and going away racing a good deal, and the wife not knowing much about the trade, and not being a good business woman.
Mr. Wilkins’s daughter in London was very fond of her young man, who was very sober and steady, and getting on well and putting money by.
All went very well until the landlord of the public-house went one day to the races at Epsom—the City and Suburban day, I think it was—and he drove down with some friends in a trap. What happened afterwards came out at the inquest. They may have had too much to drink; but, at any rate, driving back home in the evening they ran into a lamp-post, and the landlord was thrown out on his head, and when he was picked up it was found that he was seriously injured, and he never regained consciousness, but died the next day.
After that Miss Wilkins didn’t see so much of her lover. He said that, the governor being dead, he had to be always looking after the business, and that prevented him getting out so often as he used to do. The poor girl didn’t suspect anything at first; but, at last, she would have been blind not to see that something was wrong. After a bit the young man tried to get up a quarrel with her; but she,{239} being a sweet temper, wouldn’t quarrel, and then he told her that he had changed his mind, that he didn’t think they were suited to each other, and asked her to break it off.
It upset her terribly, and made her quite ill. It wasn’t only a blow to her pride; but she really loved the fellow. She found out what it all meant when, six months after the landlord met with that fatal accident, her young man married the widow and stepped into an old-established City public-house doing a big trade.
That was the worst blow of all to poor Miss Wilkins. It showed her how unworthy her young man had been of her, having thrown her over to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, and all for money.
She fretted so much that she became quite ill, and wasn’t able to stop in a situation, and so she came home to her father. But that didn’t do her any good, for she moped terribly, and was always brooding, and couldn’t be roused, or persuaded to go out.
I felt very sorry for the poor girl, and I asked her to tea several times; but she only came once, and then she was so miserable that it was more like a funeral feast than a friendly tea-party.
She began to get paler and thinner every day, and Mr. Wilkins grew quite alarmed about her, and the doctor said the only thing for her was to go right away and be among fresh faces and fresh scenes, and then, perhaps, in time she would make an effort and forget her trouble.
I don’t believe myself that a woman ever forgets a trouble of that sort. They may seem to before the world; but it is only put away for a time. It comes back again. But there is no doubt that it comes back less in a new place than in an old one, where there is nothing to take your attention off it.
It was just after the doctor had told Wilkins this that another letter came from Australia, from the daughter there, almost begging her father to come out to them. The doctor said, when he heard of it, “Why not go, Wilkins, and take your daughter with you?” And at last the poor old gentleman made up his mind that he would. Miss Wilkins was eager to go too. She said she{240} should be glad to get away from everything that reminded her of the past. I think Wilkins would still have hesitated, but for the fact that just at the time our clergyman was changed, the Rev. Tommy going away to a seaside place, and a new clergyman coming—quite a young fellow, who looked almost like a boy, and had a lot of new notions that poor Wilkins said were dreadful. He and Wilkins didn’t get on at all from the very first, the old fellow rather resenting what he called the young clergyman’s “new-fangled ways.” And the young clergyman got wild with Wilkins, who, he said, was “an old fossil,” and “behind the age,” and they had words. And then Wilkins in a pet said he should resign, and the young clergyman said he was very glad of it, and he thought it was about time, as Mr. Wilkins had been spoiled, by his predecessor allowing him to have his own way, and was too old now to learn different.
The end of it was that one evening Mr. Wilkins came into our bar-parlour very excited, and said he had given that whipper-snapper a bit of his mind, and resigned his place, and he was going to accept his married daughter’s offer, and go to Australia.
At first, when he said it, his old friends who were present said, “Go on!” But he soon let them know that he was serious. And the next day he went up to London to make arrangements about a passage for himself and his daughter.
It made quite a sensation in the village, as soon as it was known that our old parish clerk was going to Australia. A committee met at our house, and it was determined, in recognition of his long connection with the parish, and the esteem in which he was held by everybody, to give him what Graves, the farrier, called “a good send-off.” There was a lot of talk about how it was to be done, and at last it was determined to get up “a Wilkins Testimonial and Banquet.” It was settled that the banquet was to be at our house, and Harry entered into it heart and soul, because he liked Wilkins very much. There was a lot of dispute as to what the testimonial was to be, and at last it was decided that something that an inscription could be put on was best—something that he could keep and{241} show to everybody and leave behind him as a family heirloom.
Harry suggested a piece of plate, and that was agreed to after some absurd remarks by Graves, who wanted to know what a piece of plate was like; and when it was agreed to be a silver tankard, with an inscription on it, Graves said he thought a plate was something to eat off, and he couldn’t see how anything that you drank out of could be a plate.
I dare say he thought it was very funny, but nobody laughed at the joke except himself; but, as he laughed loud enough for twenty people, perhaps he was satisfied.
As soon as the preliminaries were settled, Harry and Mr. Jarvis, the miller, the one that was nearly run over on the night of the burglary at the Hall, were appointed to collect the subscriptions, and a day was fixed for the banquet, which was to be the night before Mr. Wilkins left the village to go to London, where he was going to stop for a day and a night before he sailed from the docks for Melbourne.
The Rev. Tommy was written to, and he headed the subscription with a pound, and the doctor gave a pound, and several of the gentry people gave the same, and the rest was made up in ten shillings and five shillings from the little tradespeople, and smaller sums from the working folks. It was a success from the first, for Mr. Wilkins was very much respected, and everybody was sorry he was going to leave. The new clergyman—the “whipper-snapper”—wasn’t asked; but when he heard what was going on, he came into our place one day and gave Harry a pound, and Harry said he wasn’t such a bad sort after all.
We got so much money that it was more than enough to buy the tankard, and Harry suggested that we should put the rest into a purse and present it to Mr. Wilkins, as it would be very useful for the journey. Mr. Wilkins had been a saving man, and he had a nice little sum in the bank; but, of course, money is always welcome, especially when there are two fares to Australia to pay.
The banquet was left to us, and, after we had thought it well over and consulted the committee, it was agreed{242} that it was to be five shillings a head, and that everybody was to pay for what they drank extra. This was better, because, of course, the company would be rather mixed, several of the better people, such as the doctor and some of the young gentlemen from the private houses, having promised to come, to show their respect for Mr. Wilkins, and they would drink wine, while the ordinary people would drink beer.
Harry said to me, “We’ll show them what the ‘Stretford Arms’ can do, my dear.” And we arranged a banquet that I am sure would be no disgrace to a West End London hotel. Knowing our company, we arranged accordingly; having dishes to suit the gentlefolks, and hot joints and things to suit the others. The banquet was to be in the coffee-room, and that would hold a lot of people, by making one long set of tables run all round it. The doctor promised to take the chair, and Mr. Wilkins, of course, was to be on his right hand, and Harry was to take the vice-chair. There were to be no ladies, which I opposed at first; but it was thought better, as it might have led to quarrelling.
Of course Wilkins knew what was going on, and he was very proud, though it touched him deeply. And when he shook hands with us, the night that the deputation waited on him and invited him to the banquet, the poor old fellow’s voice was quite husky, and his hand trembled.
It was very funny the way he tried to pretend he wasn’t listening, when any of the arrangements were discussed in the bar-parlour. And sometimes we used to be talking about what the inscription was to be, and that sort of thing, and in would walk Wilkins himself; and then we all left off and whispered, and first one would be called out of the room, and then the other, to settle a point, Mr. Wilkins all the time smoking his long clay pipe and looking up at the ceiling, as though he hadn’t the slightest idea that he was in any way concerned in what was going on.
One day, just before the banquet, Har............