Although Mr Podsnap would in a general way have highly disapproved of Bodies in rivers as ineligible topics with reference to the cheek of the young person, he had, as one may say, a share in this affair which made him a part proprietor. As its returns were immediate, too, in the way of restraining the company from speechless contemplation of the wine-coolers, it paid, and he was satisfied.
And now the haunch of mutton vapour-bath having received a gamey infusion, and a few last touches of sweets and coffee, was quite ready, and the bathers came; but not before the discreet automaton had got behind the bars of the piano music-desk, and there presented the appearance of a captive languishing in a rose-wood jail. And who now so pleasant or so well assorted as Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, he all sparkle, she all gracious contentment, both at occasional intervals exchanging looks like partners at cards who played a game against All England.
There was not much youth among the bathers, but there was no youth (the young person always excepted) in the articles of Podsnappery. Bald bathers folded their arms and talked to Mr Podsnap on the hearthrug; sleek-whiskered bathers, with hats in their hands, lunged at Mrs Podsnap and retreated; prowling bathers, went about looking into ornamental boxes and bowls as if they had suspicions of larceny on the part of the Podsnaps, and expected to find something they had lost at the bottom; bathers of the gentler sex sat silently comparing ivory shoulders. All this time and always, poor little Miss Podsnap, whose tiny efforts (if she had made any) were swallowed up in the magnificence of her mother’s rocking, kept herself as much out of sight and mind as she could, and appeared to be counting on many dismal returns of the day. It was somehow understood, as a secret article in the state proprieties of Podsnappery that nothing must be said about the day. Consequently this young damsel’s nativity was hushed up and looked over, as if it were agreed on all hands that it would have been better that she had never been born.
The Lammles were so fond of the dear Veneerings that they could not for some time detach themselves from those excellent friends; but at length, either a very open smile on Mr Lammle’s part, or a very secret elevation of one of his gingerous eyebrows – certainly the one or the other – seemed to say to Mrs Lammle, ‘Why don’t you play?’ And so, looking about her, she saw Miss Podsnap, and seeming to say responsively, ‘That card?’ and to be answered, ‘Yes,’ went and sat beside Miss Podsnap.
Mrs Lammle was overjoyed to escape into a corner for a little quiet talk.
It promised to be a very quiet talk, for Miss Podsnap replied in a flutter, ‘Oh! Indeed, it’s very kind of you, but I am afraid I don’t talk.’
‘Let us make a beginning,’ said the insinuating Mrs Lammle, with her best smile.
‘Oh! I am afraid you’ll find me very dull. But Ma talks!’
That was plainly to be seen, for Ma was talking then at her usual canter, with arched head and mane, opened eyes and nostrils.
‘Fond of reading perhaps?’
‘Yes. At least I – don’t mind that so much,’ returned Miss Podsnap.
‘M-m-m-m-music.’ So insinuating was Mrs Lammle that she got half a dozen ms into the word before she got it out.
‘I haven’t nerve to play even if I could. Ma plays.’
(At exactly the same canter, and with a certain flourishing appearance of doing something, Ma did, in fact, occasionally take a rock upon the instrument.)
‘Of course you like dancing?’
‘Oh no, I don’t,’ said Miss Podsnap.
‘No? With your youth and attractions? Truly, my dear, you surprise me!’
‘I can’t say,’ observed Miss Podsnap, after hesitating considerably, and stealing several timid looks at Mrs Lammle’s carefully arranged face, ‘how I might have liked it if I had been a – you won’t mention it, will you?’
‘My dear! Never!’
‘No, I am sure you won’t. I can’t say then how I should have liked it, if I had been a chimney-sweep on May-day.’
‘Gracious!’ was the exclamation which amazement elicited from Mrs Lammle.
‘There! I knew you’d wonder. But you won’t mention it, will you?’
‘Upon my word, my love,’ said Mrs Lammle, ‘you make me ten times more desirous, now I talk to you, to know you well than I was when I sat over yonder looking at you. How I wish we could be real friends! Try me as a real friend. Come! Don’t fancy me a frumpy old married woman, my dear; I was married but the other day, you know; I am dressed as a bride now, you see. About the chimney-sweeps?’
‘Hush! Ma’ll hear.’
‘She can’t hear from where she sits.’
‘Don’t you be too sure of that,’ said Miss Podsnap, in a lower voice. ‘Well, what I mean is, that they seem to enjoy it.’
‘And that perhaps you would have enjoyed it, if you had been one of them?’
Miss Podsnap nodded significantly.
‘Then you don’t enjoy it now?’
‘How is it possible?’ said Miss Podsnap. ‘Oh it is such a dreadful thing! If I was wicked enough – and strong enough – to kill anybody, it should be my partner.’
This was such an entirely new view of the Terpsichorean art as socially practised, that Mrs Lammle looked at her young friend in some astonishment. Her young friend sat nervously twiddling her fingers in a pinioned attitude, as if she were trying to hide her elbows. But this latter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always appeared to be the great inoffensive aim of her existence.
‘It sounds horrid, don’t it?’ said Miss Podsnap, with a penitential face.
Mrs Lammle, not very well knowing what to answer, resolved herself into a look of smiling encouragement.
‘But it is, and it always has been,’ pursued Miss Podsnap, ‘such a trial to me! I so dread being awful. And it is so awful! No one knows what I suffered at Madame Sauteuse’s, where I learnt to dance and make presentation-curtseys, and other dreadful things – or at least where they tried to teach me. Ma can do it.’
‘At any rate, my love,’ said Mrs Lammle, soothingly, ‘that’s over.’
‘Yes, it’s over,’ returned Miss Podsnap, ‘but there’s nothing gained by that. It’s worse here, than at Madame Sauteuse’s. Ma was there, and Ma’s here; but Pa wasn’t there, and company wasn’t there, and there were not real partners there. Oh there’s Ma speaking to the man at the piano! Oh there’s Ma going up to somebody! Oh I know she’s going to bring him to me! Oh please don’t, please don’t, please don’t! Oh keep away, keep away, keep away!’ These pious ejaculations Miss Podsnap uttered with her eyes closed, and her head leaning back against the wall.
But the Ogre advanced under the pilotage of Ma, and Ma said, ‘Georgiana, Mr Grompus,’ and the Ogre clutched his victim and bore her off to his castle in the top couple. Then the discreet automaton who had surveyed his ground, played a blossomless tuneless ‘set,’ and sixteen disciples of Podsnappery went through the figures of – 1, Getting up at eight and shaving close at a quarter past – 2, Breakfasting at nine – 3, Going to the City at ten – 4, Coming home at half-past five – 5, Dining at seven, and the grand chain.
While