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Mr. Caudle enjoys his Brandy-and-Water
John Leech
1845
Wood-engraving
Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures, "Lecture XXIIV, “Mr. Caudle's Cruel Neglect,” 126.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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‘Yes, Caudle; we’ve now been married many years but if we were to live together for a thousand years to come — what are you clasping your hands at ? — a thousand years to come, I say, I shall never forget your conduct this day. You could go to the other end of the ship and smoke a cigar, when you knew I should be ill — oh, you knew it; for I always am. The brutal way, too, in which you took that cold brandy-and-water — you thought I didn’t see you; but ill as I was, hardly able to hold my head up, I was watching you all the time. Three glasses of cold brandy-and-water; and you sipped ’em, and drank the health of people who you didn’t care a pin about; whilst the health of your own lawful wife was nothing. Three glasses of brandy-and-water, and I left — as I may say — alone! You didn’t hear ’em, but everybody was crying shame of you.
‘What do you say? A good deal my own fault? I took too much dinner? Well, you are a man! [“Lecture XXIIV, Mrs. Caudle Dwells on Caudle's 'Cruel Neglect' of her on Board 'The Red Rover.' Mrs. Caudle so 'ill with the sea.' that they put up at The Dolphin, Herne Bay,” pp. 126-127 in the 1907 edition; 122 in the 1866 edition]
Finally on their way to the seaside resort of Margate, the Caudles have boarded a vacation steamer, "The Red Rover," at St. Katherine's Dock, London. However, headwinds encountered as the vessel plows down the Thames have rendered the London couple's holiday excursion less than pleasant. Caudle tries a bracing cigar on deck (as in Keene's initial-letter vignette that opens the chapter — see below). But Leech adds the glass of brandy-and-water, the smokestack, and the irate Mrs. Caudle being blown backwards. Ironically, the much put-upon Mr. Caudle is oblivious to his wife's obvious discomfiture, which the good lady describes as "sea-sickness."
"Curtain Lecture." World-Wide Words: Investigating the English language across the globe. http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-cur1.htm
Jerrold, Douglas William. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. London: R. Brimley Johnson, 1866.
Jerrold, Douglas William. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1856.
Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures and Other Stories and Essays. Intro. Walter Jerrold. London, Toronto, and New York: Henry Frowde Oxford U. P., 1854, rpt. 1907.
Kelly, Richard. "Mrs. Caudle: A Victorian Curtain Lecturer." University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol. 38, Number 3 (April 1969): 295-309. Project Muse http://muse.jhu.edu/article/559417/pdf.
Spielmann, Marion Harry. History of 'Punch'. London and New York: Cassell, 1895.
Sutherland, John. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal: Stanford U. P., 1989.
Created 25 May 2024