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(
and also by a little understanding among themselves) to drop in one
after another, just about tea-time. This being a season favourable to
conversation, and the room being a cool, shady, lazy kind of place,
with some plants at the open window shutting out the dust, and
interposing pleasantly enough between the tea table within and the
old Tower without, it is no wonder that the ladies felt an inclination to
talk and linger, especially when there are taken into account the
additional inducements of fresh butter, new bread, shrimps, and
watercresses.
Now, the ladies being together under these circumstances, it was
extremely natural that the discourse should turn upon the propensity
of mankind to tyrannize over the weaker sex, and the duty that
developed upon the weaker sex to resist that tyranny and assert their
rights and dignity. It was natural for four reasons: firstly, because Mrs
Quilp being a young woman and notoriously under the dominion of
her husband ought to be excited to rebel; secondly, because Mrs
Quilp's parent was known to be laudably shrewish in her disposition
and inclined to resist male authority; thirdly, because each visitor
wished to show for herself how superior she was in this respect to the
generality of her sex; and forthly, because the company being
accustomed to acandalise each other in pairs, were deprived of their
usual subject of conversation now that they were all assembled in
close friendship, and had consequently no better employment than to
attack the common enemy.
Moved by these considerations, a stout lady opened the proceedings
by inquiring, with an air of great concern and sympathy, how Mr
Quilp was; whereunto Mr Quilp's wife's mother replied sharply, 'Oh!
He was well enough - nothing much was every the matter with him -
and ill weeds were sure to thrive.' All the ladies then sighed in concert,
shook their heads gravely, and looked at Mrs Quilp as a martyr.
'Ah!' said the spokeswoman, 'I wish you'd give her a little of your
advice, Mrs Jiniwin' - Mrs Quilp had been a Miss Jiniwin it should be
observed - 'nobody knows better than you, ma'am, what us women
owe to ourselves.'
'
Owe indeed, ma'am!' replied Mrs Jiniwin. 'When my poor husband,
her dear father, was alive, if he had ever venture'd a cross word to me,
I'd have - ' The good old lady did not finish the sentence, but she
twisted off the head of a shrimp with a vindictiveness which seemed to
imply that the action was in some degree a substitute for words. In
this light it was clearly understood by the other party, who
immediately replied with great approbation, 'You quite enter into my
feelings, ma'am, and it's jist what I'd do myself.'
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