by George Moore
‘It seems to me, Sir, that all the laws they make nowadays are to prevent people from doing something they want to do.’
‘Right you are, John, right you are,’ and my voice was so emphatic that it brought the conversation to a standstill.
I waited for John to resume it, but he stood embarrassed, and it was to help him that I glanced round the room, saying: ‘Truly, Sandwich must have declined, for such an inn as the George to have so few customers. How many have you had this morning?’
‘Only one, Sir, Mr Cather. He came in early in the day and went away in a hurry, leaving his fishing-rod and creel in the corner over yonder.’
‘Forgetting them in his hurry?’
‘Forgetting them?’ cried John. ‘He would as soon forget his head as forget his fishing-rod! He left it in my charge, and I am perhaps the only man in whose charge he would leave it, for that rod is the very one with which he caught three fish that fetched sixty thousand pounds or more.’
‘Sixty thousand pounds for three fishes, John!’
‘Yes, indeed, Sir.’
‘But there aren’t any fishes in that dirty estuary.’
‘He doesn’t fish in the estuary, Sir. He goes to the Bourne to fish, and he wouldn’t miss an April fishing in the Bourne for any money you could offer him, not for more than sixty thousand pounds. If he did, he’d feel his luck would turn. But you’d like a piece of cheese, Sir; we have some that I think you would like. And what do you say to a glass of port? We have still some left twenty years in bottle.’
‘I think I can trust you about port, John.’
‘You can, Sir, for I don’t believe in deceiving gentlemen; the truth is best in the long run.’
‘A good adage, John; truth and luck are precious possessions. A man who catches three fishes worth sixty thousand pounds certainly has luck on his side. I would hear the story.’
‘So you shall, Sir; I shan’t be away a minute.’ And it was not long after the minute he said it would take him to fetch the port that he returned with a bottle full of promise, for the dust and the cobwebs that enveloped it were not artificially applied but the consecration of time.
‘You will drink a glass with me, John? and you’ll drink sitting down, for port cannot be appreciated if the bibber be not comfortably seated.’
‘I don’t think, Sir, that Mrs Bragg would like to catch me drinking with a customer.’
‘But should she come in unexpectedly I will answer for you, John, saying that a story cannot be told standing up.’
‘Well, Sir, since you will have it so and will speak to Mrs Bragg, saying you insisted.’
‘I will do that and more, John; and now tell me the story of the man who caught not one golden fish but three golden fishes.’
‘You are a stranger in Sandwich, Sir?’
‘This is my first visit.’
‘May I ask then, Sir, if you have walked about the town, and if you noticed in your walk a tall, gabled, red house?’
‘Standing at the end of a short avenue,’ I answered, ‘with shelving lawns and comely trees.’
‘The same, Sir - the house that the three Honourable Miss Pettigues lived in.’
‘But what have the Honourable Miss Pettigues and their house to do with Mr Cather’s luck?’
‘You shall hear, Sir, all in good time.’
The words ‘all in good time’ caused me to raise my eyes, and seeing that the old waiter was already enwrapped in his story, I resolved not to interrupt again, but to let him tell it in his own way.
‘The Miss Pettigues had fifteen hundred a year each, Sir, four thousand five hundred between them to spend in the Red House. A great deal could be done with four thousand five hundred a year in the seventies in a country town.
‘Every day the phaeton came round to the front door to take them for their drive, and they went out driving, Miss Ada and Miss Pinkie. Miss Charlotte, the eldest, was seldom seen with them, her taste being for gardening, and there was always plenty of work for her, she said, in the greenhouses at the back. I think Miss Ada and Miss Pinkie welcomed Miss Charlotte’s taste for gardening - not that they didn’t love their sister, or were unkind to her; far be it from me to suggest anything of that kind; but their tastes were different from Miss Charlotte’s. She was the homely one, who liked her garden, and they liked painting and music.
‘Fine, aristocratic women they both were, Sir, with aquiline noses, Miss Ada perhaps more commanding than Miss Pinkie, handsomer, but not so pretty. Miss Pinkie had the loveliest head of flaxen hair I ever saw in my life, flaxen with a tint of red in it; I have heard it compared to spun silk. Miss Ada sketched in water-colours. There’s hardly a piece of the marsh that hasn’t been painted by her, and windmills, too - she painted many, and would drive for miles around to get a good view of a watermill or an old castle.
‘Why they never married was a great question in the days gone by. Some said Miss Ada looked too high, among dukes and marquises, and that she didn’t think any of the gentry good enough for her. Her manner was distant, though it was part of herself, and it may have kept suitors off. But the same could not be said of Miss Pinkie. She was always ready to sing for a charity. Miss Ada, who was much interested in hospital work, accompanied her sister on the piano. A gentleman writing to the Sandwich Gazette said that no one could sing her own songs better than Miss Pinkie, though Miss Lind might do better in an opera.’
‘You seem to have known the family very well, John, and to have a good memory,’ I said, with the intention of encouraging him to tell the story in his own way.
‘Sandwich born and bred, Sir,’ he answered, ‘with every opportunity of knowing the Miss Pettigues, of seeing them leave the Red House in their phaeton every day of my life, and being called in when I was a mere pantry boy to help; and a great delight it was to me in those early days to leave the pantry and sit on the stairs to hear Miss Pinkie sing “Robin Adair”. Mr Trout, their butler, knowing that I had an ear for a sweet tune, always let me get away - but I haven’t told you about Mr Trout, who took big wages from the Miss Pettigues, as was his right, for in the trade competitions he was judged to be the third greatest butler in England, and he would have been first if he had got his due, but there’s a lot of trickery in those competitions.
‘However, whether he should have been first instead of third is a matter of opinion, but everybody knew him to be a fine, courtly gentleman - gentleman on his father’s side, for when he had the measles his old mother came to nurse him, and she was not Mrs but Miss. It was then that we began to say: “Good blood will make a show, no matter on which side of the blanket the child may be born”, and Trout must have had a long ancestry of blue blood behind him, for he ran to sixteen or seventeen stone without coarseness anywhere, neither in his face nor hands, not even in his belly, Sir, which is a coarse feature in heavy men - perhaps in thin men as well as in heavy,’ John added with a snigger.
‘The Derby, the Leger, and the Oaks were his favourite races, but now and again he was given to studying the weights for the big handicaps and backing his judgement, and nobody ever had finer judgement; he’d have made a great handicapper. When I saw him come down the street and go into the George I’d run after him to hear what he had to say, and everybody in the room would listen to him just as I did. It’s extraordinary the commanding way he had, and without knowing it. He talked and we listened just as children listen to the parson, swallowing every word be said; and as he was in the parlour of the George, be was at the Red House.
‘And to make a story that is often too long, short, one day Trout, having taken his orders in the drawing-room after breakfast, gave the ladies notice, saying that he needed a change and was leaving at the end of the month. At which they all began to speak at once. Miss Charlotte asked if he wasn’t satisfied with his room and if he would like to have a private sitting-room; Miss Ada offered him more wages; and Miss Pinkie left the piano and took her seat by her sisters on the rep sofa.
‘“If Trout wishes
for a change,” she said, “I can recommend Scotland.”’
‘Trout thanked the three ladies for their different kindnesses and said he had no thought for more wages, nor did he wish for a private sitting-room, and when he had spoken of change he didn’t mean change of air.
“You have heard of a better situation, Trout?” said Miss Ada.
‘“No situation would suit me after yours, Miss, but I’ve been in service now for a quarter of a century and, as I have said, would like a change. The lease of the George is for sale -”
‘“Trout, we think you should have warned us before that you desired to leave,” said Miss Ada, and Trout, who was always a little afraid of her, took his chance to dodge behind the screen and get out of the room before she could say another word. She was too proud to call him back, but every morning when he came for orders the argument began again.
‘“We have tried to persuade him,” said Miss Pinkie, “not once but ten times, and every day he seems more fixed in his idea than he was the day before. I am afraid there is no hope.”
‘On these words Miss Ada poked her knitting-needles through her worsted ball, placed it in the basket by her side, and the three sisters sat looking at each other.
“We shall never be able to keep him unless he marries one of us,” said Miss Charlotte.
“Marries one of us!” cried Miss Ada. “We are on the eve of losing Trout, and I must remind you, Charlotte, that this is not a moment for pleasantries, and such pleasantries!”
‘“You are very hard on me,” said Charlotte, “very hard. But I don’t see that I have said anything so very shocking.
We can’t manage without Trout, and if you can suggest any other way of keeping him I should be glad to hear it. I wouldn’t have proposed marriage if you had had anything else to suggest, but every morning we try to persuade Trout and every morning he tells us that he has signed the lease. And if you can’t read his face, I can; he is determined to be landlord of the George, or - Well, I have told you!”
‘“You think, Charlotte, that the thought has come to him -
‘“No, I don’t think the thought has ever come to him; I wish it had; what I propose is that we tell him.”
‘“That we tell him!” said Miss Ada.
‘“There is nothing else to do. You have proposed more wages, Ada; again and again you have added another and another five pounds a quarter; and you, Pinkie, have offered him a three-months’ tour in Scotland. And now only three more days of our old life remain to us. In three days we start to live as best we can without Trout. You look frightened, and well you may, for though I know very little about housekeeping, you know less. You think only of your water-colour paintings and your poor people, Ada, and you, Pinkie, have your piano and your songs.
“I have my greenhouses to look after, but coming and going from the garden to the kitchen I have picked up some little knowledge of housekeeping and dread the responsibility that is about to fall upon us. I can’t sleep at night for thinking on whom we can rely to look into the coachman’s bills for hay and corn. We shall never be able to cope with the cook without Trout, for being used to taking orders from Trout, she’ll not take them from us. I lie awake thinking who will count the linen before it goes to the wash and count it when it comes back, and there are a hundred other things of which you know hardly anything.”
‘“All you say is true,” said Miss Ada. “We shall meet with many difficulties, but there is Mr Maxwell.”
‘Miss Pinkie, who had begun to hum “Annie Laurie”, stopped suddenly. “Mr Maxwell can advise us only about our investments.”
‘“The truth is that we know very little about our affairs,” said Miss Ada. “Do you think, Charlotte -”
‘“I have said all I have to say, but you will not listen to me,” Miss Charlotte answered.
‘“We are not angry with you, Charlotte,” said Miss Ada, holding out her hand; “Pinkie is not angry with you, nor am I.”
‘“I am glad to hear it, for there’s no use being taken aback, Ada,” Miss Charlotte replied. “The thing is to find some way out. I don’t think anything else will stop him, but I am sorry if I offended you. I know I am always wrong and shall say no more.”
“Charlotte!” said Miss Ada. “But what we should like to hear is what put the word marriage into your mind?”
‘“Why, the dreadful difficulty we are in, of course - what else?”
‘“Yes, yes, the difficulty; but how do you propose to communicate your wish? - that’s what we mean, isn’t it, Pinkie?”
‘“Yes, Ada, Charlotte’s wish.”
‘“Not my wish,” cried Miss Charlott, “but to save you and Pinkie -”
‘“And yourself, Charlotte!”
“Yes, of course,” Miss Charlotte answered.
‘“But we fail to see how your wish, for lack of a better word, may be communicated to Trout. Do you propose that we should write to him?”
‘“No, no, Ada, not write. What we have to propose would seem ridiculous in a letter, and if he refused all three he’d have the letter to show.”
“I have always believed Trout to be a strictly honourable man,” said Miss Ada.
‘“So have I,” Miss Charlotte answered; “but we are creatures of circumstance, and think what our position in the town would be with our letter in the pocket of the landlord of the George.”
‘“Charlotte! Charlotte!” cried both sisters.
‘“It’s very easy to cry ‘Charlotte! Charlotte!’ but we are within three days of the catastrophe. You ask me what we are to do. We must just tell him to pick and choose.”
‘“It seems a little brutal,” said Miss Ada.
‘“You can put it differently, if you like; you can ask him if he ever thought of marrying one of us.”
‘ “There is no use asking him that, for I am sure he never thought of such a thing!” cried Miss Pinkie. “And when do you propose that we should put the question to Trout?”
‘“I think the simplest way, Ada, is always the best way.”
‘“The simplest way!” said Miss Ada.
‘“But which is the simplest way?” Miss Pinkie lisped, speaking to herself.
‘“Since you are willing to take him, Charlotte,” said Miss Ada, “wouldn’t it be better that you should put the question?”
‘“But he may not choose me; he may, and very likely will choose you, Ada, or maybe you, Pinkie. You must be prepared to take him if you are chosen. I think you had better take the lead, Ada, in this matter, too.”
‘“You’re very selfish, Charlotte!”
‘“It will not be me, I am sure of it,” said Miss Charlotte. “I wonder what kind of women he likes - blonde or dark?”
“How did all this come to your ears, John - all the talk of the sisters? You prattle it all as if you had it by heart.’
‘The story has been going round Sandwich for thirty years or more, Sir. I use bits of my own here and there, but I’m telling the story just as I heard it and as everybody else has heard it.’
‘A legend,’ said I, ‘rather than a story, a legend being the work of several, a story the work of one. But continue, John.’
‘Well, there they were next morning sitting on the sofa all a-row, trying to keep up their courage, Miss Charlotte being not less frightened than the others when it came to the point of popping the question to Trout.’
‘Which was it, John, that spoke to him?’
‘I have always heard, Sir, that it was Miss Ada, and that she said: “Trout, this is our last day together, unless you marry one of us.”
‘Marry one of you!” said Trout.
‘“We know you never thought of such a thing, Trout, we know you didn’t, but we had to think, and after all what is best for all of us must be the right thing to do.”
“There’s a great deal of wisdom in what you say, Miss.”
‘“So, Trout, you are willing to forgo the George?”
“Well, Miss, I’m so taken aback by what I’ve j
ust heard that perhaps it would be better for us all to think it over. I will give you my answer the day after tomorrow.” On these words Trout turned round sharply and was about to leave the room, but when he came to the door (this is how he used to tell the story himself), something seemed to speak within him. He returned to the ladies and said: “I have thought it out. I will.”
‘“You will take one of us?” said Miss Ada. “Then you will have to choose, Trout.”
‘“Oh, Miss!” Trout used to say that his heart seemed to stop beating, and that he stood like a stock before the three Miss Pettigues till at last Miss Ada said:
‘“Well, which do you choose?”
‘Miss Ada’s words brought courage to Trout, and he said: “You do beautiful water-colours, Miss Ada, and Miss Pinkie sings like a lark or Jenny Lind; but I have no thought for such things, and you won’t take it amiss if I say that I could do better with Miss Charlotte? You don’t mind my frankness?” ‘“Not in the least, Trout, not in the least; on the contrary, we admire it,” said Miss Pinkie.
‘At these words Trout was more embarrassed than before, for he didn’t know how to get out of the room, nor did he know in what terms to address his future sisters-in-law; and it was whilst feeling himself the biggest fool in Sandwich, unable to go forward or to go back, that Miss Charlotte said: “Herbert!”
‘It was the Herbert that woke him up. “Trout today, Miss; Herbert and Charlotte after the ceremony!”
‘Miss Ada and Miss Pinkie could not keep back a smile, and the success of his quip enabled Trout to tell the ladies that the marriage would take place by special licence.
‘“I must have a new dress, for I haven’t had one for two years,” Miss Charlotte interrupted, “and I’d like to be married in grey silk trimmed with pink ribbons. What do you say, Pinkie?”
‘Trout drew himself up. No smile appeared on his face, for though a hearty, communicative man, he knew how to keep his countenance when the occasion required, and the story, as his cronies tell it, is that he spoke without faltering, though it was difficult, saying that he would advise an immediate trip to London in search of the grey silk gown and wedding presents, for - He stopped on the “for”, and spoke instead of the necessity for silence. Nobody, he said, need be told of the wedding; and nobody would have known anything about it before the ceremony if the question had not arisen on the door-step whether Trout should go to church sitting inside with the ladies, or on the box with the coachman.