“By the lord Harry, Mr. Franklin!” cried the old man, “that’s exactly what Robinson Crusoe has done!”
He struggled to his feet with my assistance, and stood for a moment, looking backwards and forwards between Robinson Crusoe and me, apparently at a loss to discover which of us had surprised him most. The verdict ended in favour of the book. Holding it open before him in both hands, he surveyed the wonderful volume with a stare of unutterable anticipation—as if he expected to see Robinson Crusoe himself walk out of the pages, and favour us with a personal interview.
“Here’s the bit, Mr. Franklin!” he said, as soon as he had recovered the use of his speech. “As I live by bread, sir, here’s the bit I was reading, the moment before you came in! Page one hundred and fifty-six as follows:—‘I stood like one Thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an Apparition.’ If that isn’t as much as to say: ‘Expect the sudden appearance of Mr. Franklin Blake’—there’s no meaning in the English language!” said Betteredge, closing the book with a bang, and getting one of his hands free at last to take the hand which I offered him.
I had expected him, naturally enough under the circumstances, to overwhelm me with questions. But no—the hospitable impulse was the uppermost impulse in the old servant’s mind, when a member of the family appeared (no matter how!) as a visitor at the house.
“Walk in, Mr. Franklin,” he said, opening the door behind him, with his quaint old-fashioned bow. “I’ll ask what brings you here afterwards—I must make you comfortable first. There have been sad changes, since you went away. The house is shut up, and the servants are gone. Never mind that! I’ll cook your dinner; and the gardener’s wife will make your bed—and if there’s a bottle of our famous Latour claret left in the cellar, down your throat, Mr. Franklin, that bottle shall go. I bid you welcome, sir! I bid you heartily welcome!” said the poor old fellow, fighting manfully against the gloom of the deserted house, and receiving me with the sociable and courteous attention of the bygone time.
It vexed me to disappoint him. But the house was Rachel’s house, now. Could I eat in it, or sleep in it, after what had happened in London? The commonest sense of self-respect forbade me—properly forbade me—to cross the threshold.
I took Betteredge by the arm, and led him out into the garden. There was no help for it. I was obliged to tell him the truth. Between his attachment to Rachel, and his attachment to me, he was sorely puzzled and distressed at the turn things had taken. His opinion, when he expressed it, was given in his usual downright manner, and was agreeably redolent of the most positive philosophy I know—the philosophy of the Betteredge school.
“Miss Rachel has her faults—I’ve never denied it,” he began. “And riding the high horse, now and then, is one of them. She has been trying to ride over you—and you have put up with it. Lord, Mr. Franklin, don’t you know women by this time better than that? You have heard me talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge?”
I had heard him talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge pretty often—invariably producing her as his one undeniable example of the inbred frailty and perversity of the other sex. In that capacity he exhibited her now.
“Very well, Mr. Franklin. Now listen to me. Different women have different ways of riding the high horse. The late Mrs. Betteredge took her exercise on that favourite female animal whenever I happened to deny her anything that she had set her heart on. So sure as I came home from my work on these occasions, so sure was my wife to call to me up the kitchen stairs, and to say that, after my brutal treatment of her, she hadn’t the heart to cook me my dinner. I put up with it for some time—just as you are putting up with it now from Miss Rachel. At last my patience wore out. I went downstairs, and I took Mrs. Betteredge—affectionately, you understand—up in my arms, and carried her, holus-bolus, into the best parlour where she received her company. I said ‘That’s the right place for you, my dear,’ and so went back to the kitchen. I locked myself in, and took off my coat, and turned up my shirt-sleeves, and cooked my own dinner. When it was done, I served it up in my best manner, and enjoyed it most heartily. I had my pipe and my drop of grog afterwards; and then I cleared the table, and washed the crockery, and cleaned the knives and forks, and put the things away, and swept up the hearth. When things were as bright and clean again, as bright and clean could be, I opened the door and let Mrs. Betteredge in. ‘I’ve had my dinner, my dear,’ I said; ‘and I hope you will find that I have left the kitchen all that your fondest wishes can desire.’ For the rest of that woman’s life, Mr. Franklin, I never had to cook my dinner again! Moral: You have put up with Miss Rachel in London; don’t put up with her in Yorkshire. Come back to the house!”
Quite unanswerable! I could only assure my good friend that even his powers of persuasion were, in this case, thrown away on me.
“It’s a lovely evening,” I said. “I shall walk to Frizinghall, and stay at the hotel, and you must come tomorrow morning and breakfast with me. I have something to say to you.”
Betteredge shook his head gravely.
“I am heartily sorry for this,” he said. “I had hoped, Mr. Franklin, to hear that things were all smooth and pleasant again between you and Miss Rachel. If you must have your own way, sir,” he continued, after a moment’s reflection, “there is no need to go to Frizinghall tonight for a bed. It’s to be had nearer than that. There’s Hotherstone’s Farm, barely two miles from here. You can hardly object to that on Miss Rachel’s account,” the old man added slily. “Hotherstone lives, Mr. Franklin, on his own freehold.”
I remembered the place the moment Betteredge mentioned it. The farm-house stood in a sheltered inland valley, on the banks of the prettiest stream in that part of Yorkshire: and the farmer had a spare bedroom and parlour, which he was accustomed to let to artists, anglers, and tourists in general. A more agreeable place of abode, during my stay in the neighbourhood, I could not have wished to find.
“Are the rooms to let?” I inquired.
“Mrs. Hotherstone herself, sir, asked for my good word to recommend the rooms, yesterday.”
“I’ll take them, Betteredge, with the greatest pleasure.”
We went back to the yard, in which I had left my travelling-bag. After putting a stick through the handle, and swinging the bag over his shoulder, Betteredge appeared to relapse into the bewilderment which my sudden appearance had caused, when I surprised him in the beehive chair. He looked incredulously at the house, and then he wheeled about, and looked more incredulously still at me.
“I’ve lived a goodish long time in the world,” said this best and dearest of all old servants—“but the like of this, I never did expect to see. There stands the house, and here stands Mr. Franklin Blake—and, Damme, if one of them isn’t turning his back on the other, and going to sleep in a lodging!”
He led the way out, wagging his head and growling ominously. “There’s only one more miracle that can happen,” he said to me, over his shoulder. “The next thing you’ll do, Mr. Franklin, will be to pay me back that seven-and-sixpence you borrowed of me when you were a boy.”
This stroke of sarcasm put him in a better humour with himself and with me. We left the house, and passed through the lodge gates. Once clear of the grounds, the duties of hospitality (in Betteredge’s code of morals) ceased, and the privileges of curiosity began.
He dropped back, so as to let me get on a level with him. “Fine evening for a walk, Mr. Franklin,” he said, as if we had just accidentally encountered each other at that moment. “Supposing you had gone to the hotel at Frizinghall, sir?”
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