Works of Ellen Wood, page 143
“Now, Jacky,” said Brumm, when the meal was over, “get yourself ready; it has gone ten. Polly too.”
“It’s a’most too cold for Polly this morning,” said Mrs. Brumm.
“Not a bit on’t. The walk’ll do her good, and give her an appetite for dinner. What is for dinner, Bell? I asked you before, but you didn’t answer.”
“It ain’t much thanks to you as there’s anything,” retorted Mrs. Brumm, who rejoiced in the aristocratic name of Arabella. “You plant yourself again at the Horned Ram, and see if I worries myself to come after you for money. I’ll starve on the Sunday first.”
“I can’t think what goes of your money,” returned Andrew. “There had not used to be this fuss if I stopped out for half an hour on the Saturday night, with my wages in my pocket. Where does yours go to?”
“It goes in necessaries,” shortly answered Mrs. Brumm. But not caring for reasons of her own to pursue this particular topic, she turned to that of the dinner. “I have half a shoulder of mutton, and I’m going to take it to the bake’us with a batter pudden under it, and to boil the taters at home.”
“That’s capital!” returned Andrew, gently rubbing his hands. “There’s nothing nicer than baked mutton and a batter pudden. Jacky, brush your hair well: it’s as rough as bristles.”
“I had to use a handful of soda to get the dye out,” said Mrs. Brumm. “Soda’s awful stuff for making the hair rough.”
Andrew slipped out to the Honey Fair barber, who did an extensive business on Sunday morning, to be shaved. When he returned he went up to wash and dress, and finally uncovered a deal box where he was accustomed to find his clean shirt. With all Mrs. Brumm’s faults she had neat ways. The shirt was not there.
“Bell, where’s my clean shirt?” he called out from the top of the stairs.
Mrs. Bell Brumm had been listening for the words and received them with satisfaction. She nodded, winked, and went through a little pantomime of ecstasy, to the intense delight of the children, who were in the secret, and nodded and winked with her. “Clean shirt?” she called back again, as if not understanding.
“My Sunday shirt ain’t here.”
“You haven’t got no Sunday shirt to-day.”
Andrew Brumm descended the stairs in consternation. “No Sunday shirt!” he repeated.
“No shirt, nor no collar, nor no handkercher,” coolly affirmed Mrs. Brumm. “There ain’t none ironed. They be all in the wet and the rough, wrapped up in an old towel. Jacky and Polly haven’t nothing either.”
Brumm stared considerably. “Why, what’s the meaning of that?”
“The irons are in pawn,” shortly answered Mrs. Brumm. “You know you never came home with the money, so I couldn’t get ’em out.”
Another wordy war. Andrew protested she had no “call” to put the irons in any such place. She impudently retorted that she should put the house in if she liked.
A hundred such little episodes could be related of the domestic life of Honey Fair.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE MESSRS. BANKES.
On the Monday morning, a troop of the gloveress girls flocked into Charlotte East’s. They were taking holiday, as was usual with them on Mondays. Charlotte was a favourite. It is true, she “bothered” them, as they called it, with good advice, but they liked her in spite of it. Charlotte’s kitchen was always tidy and peaceful, with a bright fire burning in it: other kitchens would be full of bustle and dirt. Charlotte never let them hinder her; she worked away at her gloves all the time. Charlotte was a glove-maker; that is, she sewed the fingers together, and put in the thumbs, forgits, and quirks. Look at your own gloves, English made. The long strips running up inside the fingers are the forgits; and the little pieces between, where the fingers open, are the quirks. The gloves Charlotte was occupied with now were of a very dark green colour, almost black, called corbeau in the trade, and they were sewn with white silk. Charlotte’s stitches were as beautifully regular as though she had used a patent machine. The white silk and the fellow glove to the one she was making, lay inside a clean white handkerchief doubled upon her lap; other gloves, equally well covered, were in a basket at her side.
The girls had come in noisily, with flushed cheeks and eager eyes. Charlotte saw that something was exciting them. They liked to tell her of their little difficulties and pleasures. Betsy Carter had informed her mother that there was going to be a “party at the Alhambra tea-gardens,” if you remember; and this was the point of interest to-day. These “Alhambra tea-gardens,” however formidable and perhaps suggestive the name, were very innocent in reality. They belonged to a quiet roadside inn, half a mile from the town, and comprised a large garden and extensive lawn. The view from them was beautiful; and many a party from Helstonleigh, far higher in the scale of society than these girls, would go there in summer to take tea and enjoy the view. A young, tall, handsome girl of eighteen had drawn her chair close to Charlotte’s. She was the half-sister of Mark Mason, and had her home with him and his wife; supporting herself after a fashion by her work. But she was always in debt to them, and she and Mrs. Mark did not get along well together. She wore a new shawl, and straw bonnet trimmed with blue ribbons: and her dark hair fell in glossy ringlets — as was the fashion then. Two other girls perched themselves on a table. They were sisters — Amelia and Mary Ann Cross; others placed themselves where they could. Somewhat light were they in manner, these girls; free in speech. Nothing farther. If an unhappy girl did, by mischance, turn out badly, or, as the expressive phrase had it, “went wrong,” she was forthwith shunned, and shunned for ever. Whatever may have been the faults and failings prevailing in Honey Fair, this sort of wrong-doing was not common amongst them.
“Why, Caroline, that is new!” exclaimed Charlotte East, alluding to the shawl.
Caroline Mason laughed. “Is it not a beauty?” cried she. And it may be remarked that in speech and accent she was superior to some of the girls.
Charlotte took a corner of it in her hand. “It must have cost a pound at least,” she said. “Is it paid for?”
Again Caroline laughed. “Never you mind whether it’s paid for or not, Charlotte. You won’t be called upon for the money for it. As I told my sister-in-law yesterday.”
“You did not want it, Caroline; and I am quite sure you could not afford it. Your winter cloak was good yet. It is so bad a plan, getting goods on credit. I wish those Bankeses had never come near the place!”
“Don’t you run down Bankes’s, Charlotte East,” interposed Eliza Tyrrett, a very plain girl, with an ill-natured expression of face. “We should never get along at all if it wasn’t for Bankes’s.”
“You would get along all the better,” returned Charlotte. “How much are they going to charge you for this shawl, Caroline?”
Caroline and Eliza Tyrrett exchanged peculiar glances. There appeared to be some secret between them, connected with the shawl. “Oh, a pound or so,” replied Caroline. “What was it, Eliza?”
Eliza Tyrrett burst into a loud laugh, and Caroline echoed it. Charlotte East did not press for the answer. But she did press the matter against dealing with Bankes’s; as she had pressed it many a time before.
A twelvemonth ago, some strangers had opened a linen-draper’s shop in a back street of Helstonleigh; brothers of the name of Bankes. They professed to do business upon credit, and to wait upon people at their own homes, after the fashion of hawkers. Every Monday would one of them appear in Honey Fair, a great pack of goods on his back, which would be opened for inspection at each house. Caps, shawls, gown-pieces, calico, flannel, and finery, would be displayed in all their fascinations. Now, you who are reading this, only reflect on the temptation! The women of Honey Fair went into debt; and it was three parts the work of their lives to keep the finery, and the system, from the knowledge of their husbands.
“Pay us so much weekly,” Bankes’s would say. And the women did so: it seemed like getting a gown for nothing. But Bankes’s were found to be strict in collecting the instalments; and how these weekly payments told upon the wages, I will leave you to judge. Some would have many shillings to pay weekly. Charlotte East and a few more prudent ones spoke against this system; but they made no impression. The temptation was too great. Charlotte assumed that this was how Caroline Mason’s shawl had been obtained. In that, however, she was mistaken.
“Charlotte, we are going down to Bankes’s. There’ll be a better choice in his shop than in his pack. You have heard of the party at the Alhambra. Well, it is to be next Monday, and we want to ask you what we shall wear. What would you advise us to get for it?”
“Get nothing,” replied Charlotte. “Don’t go to Bankes’s, and don’t go to the Alhambra.”
The whole assembly sat in wonder, with open eyes. “Not go to the party!” echoed pert Amelia Cross. “What next, Charlotte East?”
“I told you what it would be, if you came into Charlotte East’s,” said Eliza Tyrrett, a sneer on her countenance.
“I am not against proper amusement, though I don’t much care for it myself,” said Charlotte. “But when you speak of going to a party at the Alhambra, somehow it does not sound respectable.”
The girls opened their eyes wider. “Why, Charlotte, what harm do you suppose will come to us? We can take care of ourselves, I hope?”
“It is not that,” said Charlotte. “Of course you can. Still it does not sound nice. It is like going to a public-house — you can’t call the Alhambra anything else. It is quite different, this, from going there to have tea in the summer. But that’s not it, I say. If you go to it, you would be running into debt for all sorts of things at Bankes’s, and get into trouble.”
“My sister-in-law says you are a croaker, Charlotte; and she’s right,” cried Caroline Mason, with good-humour.
“Charlotte, it is not a bit of use your talking,” broke in Mary Ann Cross vehemently. “We shall go to the party, and we shall buy new things for it. Bankes’s have some lovely sarcenets, cross-barred; green, and pink, and lilac; and me and ‘Melia mean to have a dress apiece off ‘em. With a pink bow in front, and a white collar — my! wouldn’t folks stare at us! — Twelve yards each it would take, and they are one-and-eightpence a yard.”
“Mary Ann, it would be just madness! There’d be the making, the lining, and the ribbon: five or six-and-twenty shillings each, they would cost you. Pray don’t!”
“How you do reckon things up, Charlotte! We should pay off weekly: we have time afore us.”
“What would your father say?”
“Charlotte, just hold your noise about father,” quickly returned Amelia Cross, in a hushed and altered tone. “You know we don’t tell him about Bankes’s.”
Charlotte found she might as well have talked to the winds. The girls were bent upon the evening’s pleasure, and also upon the smart things they deemed necessary for it. A few minutes more and they left her; and trooped down to the shop of the Messrs. Bankes.
Charlotte was coming home that evening from an errand to the town, when she met Adam Thorneycroft. He was somewhat above the common run of workmen.
“Oh, is it you, Charlotte?” he exclaimed, stopping her. “I say, how is it that you’ll never have anything to say to me now?”
“I have told you why, Adam,” she replied.
“You have told me a pack of nonsense. I wouldn’t lose you, Charlotte, to be made king of England. When once we are married, you shall see how steady I’ll be. I will not enter a public-house.”
“You have been saying that you will not for these twelve months past, Adam,” she sadly rejoined; and, had her face been visible in the dark night, he would have seen that it was working with agitation.
“What does it hurt a man, to go out and take a quiet pipe and a glass after his work’s over? Everybody does it.”
“Everybody does not. But I do not wish to contend. It seems to bring you no conviction. Half the miseries around us in Honey Fair arise from so much of the wages being wasted at the public-houses. I know what you would say — that the wives are in fault as well. So they are. I do not believe people were sent into the world to live as so many of us live: nothing but scuffle and discomfort, and — I may almost say it — sinfulness. One of these wretched households shall never be mine.”
“My goodness, Charlotte! How seriously you speak!”
“It is a serious subject. I want to try to live so as to do my duty by myself and by those around me; to pass my days in peace with the world and with my conscience. A woman beaten down, cowed by all sorts of ills, could not do so; and, where the husband is unsteady, she must be beaten down. Adam, you know it is not with a willing heart I give you up, but I am forced to it.”
“How can you bring yourself to say this to me?” he rejoined.
“I don’t deny that it is hard,” she faintly said, suppressing with difficulty her emotion. “This many a week I and duty have been having a conflict with each other: but duty has gained the mastery. I knew it would from the first — —”
“Duty be smothered!” interrupted Adam Thorneycroft. “I shall think you a born natural presently, Charlotte.”
“Yes, I know. I can’t help it. Adam, we should never pull together, you see. Good-bye! We can be friends in future, if you like; nothing more.”
She held out her hand to him for a parting salutation. Adam, hurt and angry, flung it from him, and turned towards Helstonleigh: and Charlotte continued her way home, her tears dropping in the dusky night.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HARD TO BEAR.
Mrs. Halliburton struggled on. A struggle, my reader, that it is to be hoped, for your comfort’s sake, you have never experienced, and never will. She had learnt the stitch for the back of the gloves, and Mr. Lynn supplied her with a machine and with work. But she could not do it quickly as yet; though it was a hopeful day for her when she found that her weekly earnings amounted to six shillings.
Mrs. Reece paid her twenty shillings a week. Or rather, Dobbs: for Dobbs was paymaster-general. Of that, Jane could use (she had made a close calculation) six shillings, putting by fourteen for rent and taxes. Her taxes were very light, part of them being paid by the landlord, as was the custom with some houses in Helstonleigh. But for this, the rent would have been less. Sorely tempted as she was, by hunger, by cold, almost by starvation, Jane was resolute in leaving the fourteen shillings intact. She had suffered too much from non-payment of the last rent, not to be prepared with the next. But — the endurance and deprivation! — how great they were! And she suffered far more for her children than for herself.
One night, towards the middle of February, she felt very downhearted: almost as if she could not struggle on much longer. With her own earnings and the six shillings taken from Mrs. Reece’s money she could count little more than twelve shillings weekly, and everything had to be found out of it. Coals, candles, washing — that is, the soap, firing, etc., necessary for Miss Betsy Carter to do it with; the boys’ shoe-mending and other trifles, besides food. You will not, therefore, be surprised to hear that on this night they had literally nothing in the house but part of a loaf of bread. Jane was resolute in one thing — not to go into debt. Mrs. Buffle would have given credit, probably other shops also; but Jane believed that her sole chance of surmounting the struggle eventually was by keeping debt, even trifling debt, away. They had this morning eaten bread for breakfast; they had eaten potatoes and salt for dinner; and now, tea-time, there was bread again. All Jane had in her pocket was twopence, which must be kept for milk for the following morning; so they were drinking water now.
They were round the fire; two of the boys kneeling on the ground to get the better blaze, thankful they had a fire at all. Their lessons were over for the day. William had been thoroughly well brought on by his father, in Greek, Latin, Euclid, and in English generally — in short, in the branches necessary to a good education. Frank and Gar were forward also; indeed, Frank, for his age, was a very good Latin scholar. But how could they do much good or make much progress by themselves? William helped his brothers as well as he could, but it was somewhat profitless work; and Jane was all too conscious that they needed to be at school. Altogether, her heart was sore within her.
Another thing was beginning to worry her — a fear lest her brother should not be able to send the rent. She had fully counted upon it; but, now that the time of its promised receipt was at hand, fears and doubts arose. She was dwelling on it now — now, as she sat there at her work, in the twilight of the early spring evening. If the money did not come, all she could do would be to go to Mr. Ashley, tell him of her ill luck, and that he must take the things at last. They must turn out, wanderers on the wide earth; no ——
A plaintive cry interrupted her dream and recalled her to reality. It came from Jane, who was seated on a stool, her head leaning against the side of the mantel-piece.
“She is crying, mamma,” cried quick Frank; and Janey whispered something into Frank’s ear, the cry deepening into sobs.
“Mamma, she’s crying because she’s hungry.”
“Janey, dear, I have nothing but bread. You know it. Could you eat a bit?”
“I want something else,” sobbed Janey. “Some meat, or some pudding. It is such a long time since we had any. I am tired of bread; I am very hungry.”
There came an echoing cry from the other side of the fireplace. Gar had laid his head down on the floor, and he now broke out, sobbing also.
“I am hungry too. I don’t like bread any more than Janey does. When shall we have something nice?”
Jane gathered them to her, one in each arm, soothing them with soft caresses, her heart aching, her own sobs choked down, one single comfort present to her — that God knew what she had to bear.
