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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12154 ***
+
+NIGHT WATCHES
+
+By W.W. Jacobs
+
+
+
+THE WEAKER VESSEL
+
+Mr. Gribble sat in his small front parlour in a state of angry
+amazement. It was half-past six and there was no Mrs. Gribble; worse
+still, there was no tea.  It was a state of things that had only
+happened once before. That was three weeks after marriage, and on that
+occasion Mr. Gribble had put his foot down with a bang that had echoed
+down the corridors of thirty years.
+
+The fire in the little kitchen was out, and the untidy remains of Mrs.
+Gribble's midday meal still disgraced the table.  More and more dazed,
+the indignant husband could only come to the conclusion that she had
+gone out and been run over.  Other things might possibly account for her
+behaviour; that was the only one that would excuse it.
+
+His meditations were interrupted by the sound of a key in the front
+door, and a second later a small, anxious figure entered the room and,
+leaning against the table, strove to get its breath.  The process was
+not helped by the alarming distension of Mr. Gribble's figure.
+
+"I--I got home--quick as I could--Henry," said Mrs. Gribble, panting.
+
+"Where is my tea?"  demanded her husband.  "What do you mean by it?  The
+fire's out and the kitchen is just as you left it."
+
+"I--I've been to a lawyer's, Henry," said Mrs. Gribble, "and I had to
+wait."
+
+"Lawyer's?"  repeated her husband.
+
+"I got a letter this afternoon telling me to call.  Poor Uncle George,
+that went to America, is gone."
+
+"That is no excuse for neglecting me," said Mr. Gribble.  "Of course
+people die when they are old.  Is that the one that got on and made
+money?"
+
+His wife, apparently struggling to repress a little excitement, nodded.
+"He--he's left me two hundred pounds a year for life, Henry," she said,
+dabbing at her pale blue eyes with a handkerchief.  "They're going to
+pay it monthly; sixteen pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence a month.
+That's how he left it."
+
+"Two hund--" began Mr. Gribble, forgetting himself.  "Two hun----Go and
+get my tea!  If you think you're going to give yourself airs because
+your uncle's left you money, you won't do it in my house."
+
+He took a chair by the window, and, while his wife busied herself in the
+kitchen, sat gazing in blank delight at the little street.  Two hundred
+a year!  It was all he could do to resume his wonted expression as his
+wife re-entered the room and began to lay the table.  His manner,
+however, when she let a cup and saucer slip from her trembling fingers
+to smash on the floor left nothing to be desired.
+
+"It's nice to have money come to us in our old age," said Mrs. Gribble,
+timidly, as they sat at tea.  "It takes a load off my mind."
+
+"Old age!" said her husband, disagreeably.  "What d'ye mean by old age?
+I'm fifty-two, and feel as young as ever I did."
+
+"You look as young as ever you did," said the docile Mrs. Gribble. "I
+can't see no change in you.  At least, not to speak of."
+
+"Not so much talk," said her husband.  "When I want your opinion of my
+looks I'll ask you for it.  When do you start getting this money?"
+
+"Tuesday week; first of May," replied his wife.  "The lawyers are going
+to send it by registered letter."
+
+Mr. Gribble grunted.
+
+"I shall be sorry to leave the house for some things," said his wife,
+looking round.  "We've been here a good many years now, Henry."
+
+"Leave the house!"  repeated Mr. Gribble, putting down his tea-cup and
+staring at her.
+
+"Leave the house!  What are you talking about?"
+
+"But we can't stay here, Henry," faltered Mrs. Gribble.  "Not with all
+that money.  They are building some beautiful houses in Charlton Grove
+now--bathroom, tiled hearths, and beautiful stained glass in the front
+door; and all for twenty-eight pounds a year."
+
+"Wonderful!"  said the other, with a mocking glint in his eye.
+
+"And iron palings to the front garden, painted chocolate-colour picked
+out with blue," continued his wife, eyeing him wistfully.
+
+Mr. Gribble struck the table a blow with his fist.  "This house is good
+enough for me," he roared; "and what's good enough for me is good enough
+for you.  You want to waste money on show; that's what you want.
+Stained glass and bow-windows!  You want a bow-window to loll about in,
+do you? Shouldn't wonder if you don't want a servant-gal to do the
+work."
+
+Mrs. Gribble flushed guiltily, and caught her breath.
+
+"We're going to live as we've always lived," pursued Mr. Gribble.
+"Money ain't going to spoil me.  I ain't going to put on no side just
+because I've come in for a little bit.  If you had your way we should
+end up in the workhouse."
+
+He filled his pipe and smoked thoughtfully, while Mrs. Gribble cleared
+away the tea-things and washed up.  Pictures, good to look upon, formed
+in the smoke-pictures of a hale, hearty man walking along the primrose
+path arm-in-arm with two hundred a year; of the mahogany and plush of
+the saloon bar at the Grafton Arms; of Sunday jaunts, and the Oval on
+summer afternoons.
+
+He ate his breakfast slowly on the first of the month, and, the meal
+finished, took a seat in the window with his pipe and waited for the
+postman.  Mrs. Gribble's timid reminders concerning the flight of time
+and consequent fines for lateness at work fell on deaf ears.  He jumped
+up suddenly and met the postman at the door.
+
+"Has it come?"  inquired Mrs. Gribble, extending her hand.
+
+By way of reply her husband tore open the envelope and, handing her the
+covering letter, counted the notes and coin and placed them slowly in
+his pockets.  Then, as Mrs. Gribble looked at him, he looked at the
+clock, and, snatching up his hat, set off down the road.
+
+He was late home that evening, and his manner forbade conversation.
+Mrs. Gribble, with the bereaved air of one who has sustained an
+irremediable loss, sighed fitfully, and once applied her handkerchief to
+her eyes.
+
+"That's no good," said her husband at last; "that won't bring him back."
+
+"Bring who back?" inquired Mrs. Gribble, in genuine surprise.
+
+"Why, your Uncle George," said Mr. Gribble.  "That's what you're turning
+on the water-cart for, ain't it?"
+
+"I wasn't thinking of him," said Mrs. Gribble, trying to speak bravely.
+"I was thinking of----"
+
+"Well, you ought to be," interrupted her husband.  "He wasn't my uncle,
+poor chap, but I've been thinking of him, off and on, all day.  That
+bloater-paste you are eating now came from his kindness.  I brought it
+home as a treat."
+
+"I was thinking of my clothes," said Mrs. Gribble, clenching her hands
+together under the table.  "When I found I had come in for that money,
+the first thing I thought was that I should be able to have a decent
+dress.  My old ones are quite worn out, and as for my hat and jacket--"
+
+"Go on," said her husband, fiercely.  "Go on.  That's just what I said:
+trust you with money, and we should be poorer than ever."
+
+"I'm ashamed to be seen out," said Mrs. Gribble.
+
+"A woman's place is the home," said Mr. Gribble; "and so long as I'm
+satisfied with your appearance nobody else matters.  So long as I am
+pleased, that's everything.  What do you want to go dressing yourself up
+for?  Nothing looks worse than an over-dressed woman."
+
+"What are we going to do with all that money, then?"  inquired Mrs.
+Gribble, in trembling tones.
+
+"That'll do," said Mr. Gribble, decidedly.  "That'll do.  One o' these
+days you'll go too far.  You start throwing that money in my teeth and
+see what happens.  I've done my best for you all these years, and
+there's no reason to suppose I sha'n't go on doing so.  What did you
+say?  What!"
+
+Mrs. Gribble turned to him a face rendered ghastly by terror.  "I--I
+said--it was my money," she stammered.
+
+Mr. Gribble rose, and stood for a full minute regarding her.  Then,
+kicking a chair out of his way, he took his hat from its peg in the
+passage and, with a bang of the street-door that sent a current of
+fresh, sweet air circulating through the house, strode off to the
+Grafton Arms.
+
+It was past eleven when he returned, but even the spectacle of his wife
+laboriously darning her old dress failed to reduce his good-humour in
+the slightest degree.  In a frivolous mood he even took a feather from
+the dismembered hat on the table and stuck it in his hair.  He took the
+stump of a strong cigar from his lips and, exhaling a final cloud of
+smoke, tossed it into the fireplace.
+
+"Uncle George dead," he said, at last, shaking his head.  "Hadn't
+pleasure acquaintance, but good man.  Good man."
+
+He shook his head again and gazed mistily at his wife.
+
+"He was a teetotaller," she remarked, casually.
+
+"He was tee-toiler," repeated Mr. Gribble, regarding her equably.  "Good
+man.  Uncle George dead-tee-toller."
+
+Mrs. Gribble gathered up her work and began to put it away.
+
+"Bed-time," said Mr. Gribble, and led the way upstairs, singing.
+
+His good-humour had evaporated by the morning, and, having made a light
+breakfast of five cups of tea, he went off, with lagging steps, to work.
+It was a beautiful spring morning, and the idea of a man with two
+hundred a year and a headache going off to a warehouse instead of a
+day's outing seemed to border upon the absurd.  What use was money
+without freedom? His toil was sweetened that day by the knowledge that
+he could drop it any time he liked and walk out, a free man, into the
+sunlight.
+
+By the end of a week his mind was made up.  Each day that passed made
+his hurried uprising and scrambled breakfast more and more irksome; and
+on Monday morning, with hands in trouser-pockets and legs stretched out,
+he leaned back in his chair and received his wife's alarming intimations
+as to the flight of time with a superior and sphinx-like smile.
+
+"It's too fine to go to work to-day," he said, lazily.  "Come to that,
+any day is too fine to waste at work."
+
+Mrs. Gribble sat gasping at him.
+
+"So on Saturday I gave 'em a week's notice," continued her husband, "and
+after Potts and Co. had listened while I told 'em what I thought of 'em,
+they said they'd do without the week's notice."
+
+"You've never given up your job?"  said Mrs. Gribble.
+
+"I spoke to old Potts as one gentleman of independent means to another,"
+said Mr. Gribble, smiling.  "Thirty-five bob a week after twenty years'
+service!  And he had the cheek to tell me I wasn't worth that.  When I
+told him what he was worth he talked about sending for the police.  What
+are you looking like that for?  I've worked hard for you for thirty
+years, and I've had enough of it.  Now it's your turn."
+
+"You'd find it hard to get another place at your age," said his wife;
+"especially if they wouldn't give you a good character."
+
+"Place!"  said the other, staring.  "Place!  I tell you I've done with
+work.  For a man o' my means to go on working for thirty-five bob a week
+is ridiculous."
+
+"But suppose anything happened to me," said his wife, in a troubled
+voice.
+
+"That's not very likely," said Mr. Gribble.
+
+"You're tough enough.  And if it did your money would come to me."
+
+Mrs. Gribble shook her head.
+
+"WHAT?" roared her husband, jumping up.
+
+"I've only got it for life, Henry, as I told you," said Mrs. Gribble, in
+alarm.  "I thought you knew it would stop when I died."
+
+"And what's to become of me if anything happens to you, then?"  demanded
+the dismayed Mr. Gribble.  "What am I to do?"
+
+Mrs. Gribble put her handkerchief to her eyes.
+
+"And don't start weakening your constitution by crying," shouted the
+incensed husband.
+
+"What are you mumbling?"
+
+"I sa--sa--said, let's hope--you'll go first," sobbed his wife.  "Then
+it will be all right."
+
+Mr. Gribble opened his mouth, and then, realizing the inadequacy of the
+English language for moments of stress, closed it again.  He broke his
+silence at last in favour of Uncle George.
+
+"Mind you," he said, concluding a peroration which his wife listened to
+with her fingers in her ears--"mind you, I reckon I've been absolutely
+done by you and your precious Uncle George.  I've given up a good
+situation, and now, any time you fancy to go off the hooks, I'm to be
+turned into the street."
+
+"I'll try and live, for your sake, Henry," said his wife.
+
+"Think of my worry every time you are ill," pursued the indignant Mr.
+Gribble.
+
+Mrs. Gribble sighed, and her husband, after a few further remarks
+concerning Uncle George, his past and his future, announced his
+intention of going to the lawyers and seeing whether anything could be
+done.  He came back in a state of voiceless gloom, and spent the rest of
+a beautiful day indoors, smoking a pipe which had lost much of its
+flavour, and regarding with a critical and anxious eye the small, weedy
+figure of his wife as she went about her work.
+
+The second month's payment went into his pocket as a matter of course,
+but on this occasion Mrs. Gribble made no requests for new clothes or
+change of residence.  A little nervous cough was her sole comment.
+
+"Got a cold?"  inquired her husband, starting.
+
+"I don't think so," replied his wife, and, surprised and touched at this
+unusual display of interest, coughed again.
+
+"Is it your throat or your chest?"  he inquired, gruffly.
+
+Mrs. Gribble coughed again to see.  After five coughs she said she
+thought it was her chest.
+
+"You'd better not go out o' doors to-day, then," said Mr. Gribble.
+"Don't stand about in draughts; and I'll fetch you in a bottle of cough
+mixture when I go out.  What about a lay-down on the sofa?"
+
+His wife thanked him, and, reaching the sofa, watched with half-closed
+eyes as he cleared the breakfast-table.  It was the first time he had
+done such a thing in his life, and a little honest pride in the
+possession of such a cough would not be denied.  Dim possibilities of
+its vast usefulness suddenly occurred to her.
+
+She took the cough mixture for a week, by which time other symptoms,
+extremely disquieting to an ease-loving man, had manifested themselves.
+Going upstairs deprived her of breath; carrying a loaded tea-tray
+produced a long and alarming stitch in the side.  The last time she ever
+filled the coal-scuttle she was discovered sitting beside it on the
+floor in a state of collapse.
+
+"You'd better go and see the doctor," said Mr. Gribble.
+
+Mrs. Gribble went.  Years before the doctor had told her that she ought
+to take life easier, and she was now able to tell him she was prepared
+to take his advice.
+
+"And, you see, I must take care of myself now for the sake of my
+husband," she said, after she had explained matters.
+
+"I understand," said the doctor.
+
+"If anything happened to me--" began the patient.
+
+"Nothing shall happen," said the other.  "Stay in bed to-morrow morning,
+and I'll come round and overhaul you."
+
+Mrs. Gribble hesitated.  "You might examine me and think I was all
+right," she objected; "and at the same time you wouldn't know how I
+feel."
+
+"I know just how you feel," was the reply.  "Good-bye."
+
+He came round the following morning and, following the dejected Mr.
+Gribble upstairs, made a long and thorough investigation of his patient.
+
+"Say 'ninety-nine,'" he said, adjusting his stethoscope.
+
+Mrs. Gribble ticked off "ninety-nines" until her husband's ears ached
+with them.  The doctor finished at last, and, fastening his bag, stood
+with his beard in his hand, pondering.  He looked from the little,
+whitefaced woman on the bed to the bulky figure of Mr. Gribble.
+
+"You had better lie up for a week," he said, decidedly.  "The rest will
+do you good."
+
+"Nothing serious, I s'pose?"  said Mr. Gribble, as he led the way
+downstairs to the small parlour.
+
+"She ought to be all right with care," was the reply.
+
+"Care?"  repeated the other, distastefully.  "What's the matter with
+her?"
+
+"She's not very strong," said the doctor; "and hearts don't improve with
+age, you know.  Under favourable conditions she's good for some years
+yet.  The great thing is never to thwart her.  Let her have her own way
+in everything."
+
+"Own way in everything?"  repeated the dumbfounded Mr. Gribble.
+
+The doctor nodded.  "Never let her worry about anything," he continued;
+"and, above all, never find fault with her."
+
+"Not," said Mr. Gribble, thickly--"not even for her own good?"
+
+"Unless you want to run the risk of losing her."
+
+Mr. Gribble shivered.
+
+"Let her have an easy time," said the doctor, taking up his hat.
+"Pamper her a bit if you like; it won't hurt her.  Above all, don't let
+that heart of hers get excited."
+
+He shook hands with the petrified Mr. Gribble and went off, grinning
+wickedly.  He had few favourites, and Mr. Gribble was not one of them.
+
+For two days the devoted husband did the housework and waited on the
+invalid.  Then he wearied, and, at his wife's suggestion, a small girl
+was engaged as servant.  She did most of the nursing as well, and,
+having a great love for the sensational, took a grave view of her
+mistress's condition.
+
+It was a relief to Mr. Gribble when his wife came downstairs again, and
+he was cheered to see that she looked much better.  His satisfaction was
+so marked that it brought on her cough again.
+
+"It's this house, I think," she said, with a resigned smile.  "It never
+did agree with me.
+
+"Well, you've lived in it a good many years," said her husband,
+controlling himself with difficulty.
+
+"It's rather dark and small," said Mrs. Gribble.  "Not but what it is
+good enough for me.  And I dare say it will last my time."
+
+"Nonsense!"  said her husband, gruffly.  "You want to get out a bit
+more. You've got nothing to do now we are wasting all this money on a
+servant. Why don't you go out for little walks?"
+
+Mrs. Gribble went, after several promptings, and the fruit of one of
+them was handed by the postman to Mr. Gribble a few days afterwards.
+Half-choking with wrath and astonishment, he stood over his trembling
+wife with the first draper's bill he had ever received.
+
+"One pound two shillings and threepence three-farthings!" he recited.
+"It must be a mistake.  It must be for somebody else."
+
+Mrs. Gribble, with her hand to her heart, tottered to the sofa and lay
+there with her eyes closed.
+
+"I had to get some dress material," she said, in a quavering voice.
+"You want me to go out, and I'm so shabby I'm ashamed to be seen."
+
+Mr. Gribble made muffled noises in his throat; then, afraid to trust
+himself, he went into the back-yard and, taking a seat on an upturned
+bucket, sat with his head in his hands peering into the future.
+
+The dressmaker's bill and a bill for a new hat came after the next
+monthly payment; and a bill for shoes came a week later.  Hoping much
+from the well-known curative effects of fine feathers, he managed to
+treat the affair with dignified silence.  The only time he allowed full
+play to his feelings Mrs. Gribble took to her bed for two days, and the
+doctor had a heart-to-heart talk with him on the doorstep.
+
+It was a matter of great annoyance to him that his wife still continued
+to attribute her ill-health to the smallness and darkness of the house;
+and the fact that there were only two of the houses in Charlton Grove
+left caused a marked depression of spirits.  It was clear that she was
+fretting.  The small servant went further, and said that she was fading
+away.
+
+They moved at the September quarter, and a slight, but temporary,
+improvement in Mrs. Gribble's health took place.  Her cheeks flushed and
+her eyes sparkled over new curtains and new linoleum.  The tiled
+hearths, and stained glass in the front door filled her with a deep and
+solemn thankfulness.  The only thing that disturbed her was the fact
+that Mr. Gribble, to avoid wasting money over necessaries, contrived to
+spend an unduly large portion on personal luxuries.
+
+"We ought to have some new things for the kitchen," she said one day.
+
+"No money," said Mr. Gribble, laconically.
+
+"And a mat for the bathroom."
+
+Mr. Gribble got up and went out.
+
+She had to go to him for everything.  Two hundred a year and not a penny
+she could call her own!  She consulted her heart, and that faithful
+organ responded with a bound that set her nerves quivering.  If she
+could only screw her courage to the sticking-point the question would be
+settled for once and all.
+
+White and trembling she sat at breakfast on the first of November,
+waiting for the postman, while the unconscious Mr. Gribble went on with
+his meal.  The double-knocks down the road came nearer and nearer, and
+Mr. Gribble, wiping his mouth, sat upright with an air of alert and
+pleased interest.  Rapid steps came to the front door, and a double bang
+followed.
+
+"Always punctual," said Mr. Gribble, good-humouredly.
+
+His wife made no reply, but, taking a blue-crossed envelope from the
+maid in her shaking fingers, looked round for a knife.  Her gaze
+encountered Mr. Gribble's outstretched hand.
+
+"After you," he said sharply.
+
+Mrs. Gribble found the knife, and, hacking tremulously at the envelope,
+peeped inside it and, with her gaze fastened on the window, fumbled for
+her pocket.  She was so pale and shook so much that the words died away
+on her husband's lips.
+
+"You--you had better let me take care of that," he said, at last.
+
+"It is--all right," gasped his wife.
+
+She put her hand to her throat and, hardly able to believe in her
+victory, sat struggling for breath.  Before her, grim and upright, her
+husband sat, a figure of helpless smouldering wrath.
+
+"You might lose it," he said, at last.  "I sha'n't lose it," said his
+wife.
+
+To avoid further argument, she arose and went slowly upstairs.  Through
+the doorway Mr. Gribble saw her helping herself up by the banisters, her
+left hand still at her throat.  Then he heard her moving slowly about in
+the bedroom overhead.
+
+He took out his pipe and filled it mechanically, and was just holding a
+match to the tobacco when he paused and gazed with a puzzled air at the
+ceiling.  "Blamed if it don't sound like somebody dancing!"  he growled.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Weaker Vessel, by W.W. Jacobs
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12154 ***