Kitabı oku: «Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles», sayfa 12

Betsy did not wait for a second bidding. She preferred going for besoms, or for anything else, to her mother's kitchen and her mother's scolding. Her coming back was another affair; she would be just as likely to propel the besom into the kitchen and make off herself, as to enter.

She suddenly stopped now, door in hand, to relate some news.

"I say, mother, there's going to be a party at the Alhambra tea-gardens."

"A party at the Alhambra tea-gardens, with frost and snow on the ground!" ironically repeated Mrs. Carter. "Be off, and don't be an oaf."

"It's true," said Betsy. "All Honey Fair's going to it. I shall go too. 'Melia and Mary Ann Cross is going to have new things for it, and–"

"Will you go along and get that besom?" cried angry Mrs. Carter. "No child of mine shall go off to their Alhambras, catching their death on the wet grass."

"Wet grass!" echoed Betsy. "Why, you're never such a gaby as to think they'd have a party on the grass! It is to be in the big room, and there's to be a fiddle and a tam–"

"–bourine" never came. Mrs. Carter sent the wet mop flying after Miss Betsy, and the young lady, dexterously evading it, flung-to the door and departed.

A couple of hours later, Timothy Carter was escorted home, his own walking none of the steadiest. The men with him had taken more than Timothy; but it was that weak man's misfortune to be overcome by a little. You will allow, however, that he had taken enough, having spent his shilling and gone into debt besides. Mrs. Carter received him–Well, I am rather at a loss to describe it. She did not actually beat him, but her shrill voice might be heard all over Honey Fair, lavishing hard names upon helpless Tim. First of all, she turned out his pockets. The shilling was all gone. "And how much more tacked on to it?" asked she, wise by experience. And Timothy was just able to understand and answer. He felt himself as a lamb in the fangs of a wolf. "Eightpence halfpenny."

"A shilling and eightpence halfpenny chucked away in drink in one night!" repeated Mrs. Carter. She gave him a short, emphatic shake, and propelled him up the stairs; leaving him without a light, to get to bed as he could. She had still some hours' work downstairs, in the shape of mending clothes.

But it never once occurred to Mrs. Carter that she had herself to thank for his misdoings. With a tidy room and a cheerful fire to receive him, on returning from his day's work, Timothy Carter would no more have thought of the public-houses than you or I should. And if, as did Charlotte East, she had welcomed him with a good supper and a pleasant tongue, poor Tim in his gratitude had forsworn public-houses for ever.

Neither, when Mark Mason staggered home, and his wife raved at and quarrelled with him, to the further edification of Honey Fair, did it strike that lady that she could be in fault. As Mrs. Carter had said, Henrietta Mason did not overburden herself with work of any sort; but she did make a pretence of washing her four children in a bucket on a Saturday night, and her kitchen afterwards. The ceremony was delayed through idleness and bad management to the least propitious part of the evening. So sure as she had the bucket before the fire, and the children collected round it; one in, one just out roaring to be dried, and the two others waiting their turn for the water, all of them stark naked—for Mrs. Mason made a point of undressing them at once to save trouble—so sure, I say, as these ablutions were in progress, the children frantically crying, Mrs. Mason boxing, storming, and rubbing, and the kitchen swimming, in would walk the father. Words invariably ensued: a short, sharp quarrel; and he would turn out again for the nearest public-house, where he was welcomed by a sociable room and a glowing fire. Can any one be surprised that it should be so?

You must not think these cases overdrawn; you must not think them exceptional cases. They are neither the one nor the other. They are truthful pictures, taken from what Honey Fair was then. I very much fear the same pictures might be taken from some places still.

CHAPTER XXII.
MR. BRUMM'S SUNDAY SHIRT

But there's something to say yet of Mrs. Brumm. You saw her turning away from Robert East's door, saying that her husband, Andrew, had promised to come home that night and to bring his wages. Mrs. Brumm, a bad manager, as were many of the rest, would probably have received him with a sloppy kitchen, buckets, and besoms. Andrew had had experience of this, and, disloyal knight that he was, allowed himself to be seduced into the Horned Ram. He'd just take one pint and a pipe, he said to his conscience, and be home in time for his wife to get what she wanted. A little private matter of his own would call him away early. Pressed for a sum of money in the week which was owing to his club, and not possessing it, he had put his Sunday coat in pledge: and this he wanted to get out. However, a comrade sitting in the next chair to him at the Horned Ram had to get his coat out of the same accommodating receptacle. Nothing more easy than for him to bring out Andrew's at the same time; which was done. The coat on the back of his chair, his pipe in his mouth, and a pint of good ale before him, the outer world was as nothing to Andrew Brumm.

At ten o'clock, the landlord came in. "Andrew Brumm, here's your wife wanting to see you."

Now Andrew was not a bad sort of man by any means, but he had a great antipathy to being looked after. A joke went round at Andrew's expense; for if there was one thing the men in general hated more than another, it was that their wives should come in quest of them to the public-houses. Mrs. Brumm received a sharp reprimand; but she saw that he was, as she expressed it, "getting on," so she got some money from him and kept her scolding for another opportunity.

She did not go near the pawnbroker's to get her irons out. She bought a bit of meat and what else she wanted, and returned to Honey Fair. Robert East was closing his door for the night as she passed it. "Has Brumm come home?" he asked.

"Not he, the toper! He is stuck fast at the Horned Ram, getting in for it nicely. I have been after him for some money."

"Have you got your irons out?" inquired Charlotte, coming to the door.

"No, nor nothing else; and there's pretty near half the kitchen in. It's him that'll suffer. He has been getting out his own coat, but he can't put it on. Leastways, he won't without a clean collar and shirt; and let him fish for them. Wait till to-morrow comes, Mr. 'Drew Brumm!"

"Was his coat in?" returned Charlotte, surprised.

"That it was. Him as goes on so when I puts a thing or two in! He owed some money at his club, and he went and put his coat in for four shillings, and Adam Thorneycroft has been and fetched it out for him."

"Adam Thorneycroft!" involuntarily returned Charlotte.

"Thorneycroft's coat was in too, and he went for it just now, and Brumm gave him the ticket to get out his. Smith's daughter told me that. She was serving with her mother in the bar."

"Is Adam Thorneycroft at the Horned Ram still?"

"That he is: side by side with Brumm. A nice pair of 'em! Charlotte East, take my advice; don't you have anything to say to Thorneycroft. A woman had better climb up to the top of her topmost chimbley and pitch herself off, head foremost, than marry a man given to drink."

Charlotte East felt vexed at the allusion—vexed that her name should be coupled openly with that of Adam Thorneycroft by the busy tongues of Honey Fair. That an attachment existed between herself and Adam Thorneycroft was true; but she did not wish the fact to become too apparent to others. Latterly she had been schooling her heart to forget him, for he was taking to frequent public-houses.

Mrs. Brumm went home, and was soon followed by her husband. He was not much the worse for what he had taken: he was a little. Mrs. Brumm reproached him with it, and a wordy war ensued.

They arose peaceably in the morning. Andrew was a civil, well-conducted man, and but for Horned Rams would have been a pattern to three parts of Honey Fair. He liked to be dressed well on Sunday and to attend the cathedral with his two children: he was very fond of listening to the chanting Mrs. Brumm—as was the custom generally with the wives of Honey Fair—stayed at home to cook the dinner. Andrew was accustomed to do many odd jobs on the Sunday morning, to save his wife trouble. He cleaned the boots and shoes, brushed his clothes, filled the coal-box, and made himself useful in sundry other ways. All this done, they sat down to breakfast with the two children, the unfortunate Jacky less black than he had been the previous night.

"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.