Walter Besant
All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story
CHAPTER XL.
SWEET NELLY
In every love-story there is always, though it is not always told, a secondary plot, the history of the man or woman who might have been left happy but for the wedding bells which peal for somebody else and end the tale. When these ring out, the hopes and dreams of some one else, for whom they do not ring, turn at last to dust and ashes. We are drawing near the church; we shall soon hear those bells. Let us spare a moment to speak of this tale untold, this dream of the morning, doomed to disappointment.
It is only the dream of a foolish girl; she was young and ignorant; she was brought up in a school of hardship until the time when a gracious lady came to rescue her. She had experienced, outside the haven of rest, where her father was safely sheltered, only the buffets of a hard and cruel world, filled with greedy taskmasters who exacted the uttermost farthing in work and paid the humblest farthing for reward. More than this, she knew, and her father knew, that when his time came for exchanging that haven for the cemetery, she would have to fight the hard battle alone, being almost a friendless girl, too shrinking and timid to stand up for herself. Therefore, after her rescue, at first she was in the seventh heaven; nor did her gratitude and love toward her rescuer ever know any abatement. But there came a time when gratitude was called upon to contend with another feeling.
From the very first Harry's carriage toward Nelly was marked by sympathetic and brotherly affection. He really regarded this pretty creature, with her soft and winning ways, as a girl whom he could call by her Christian name and treat as one treats a sweet and charming child. She was clever at learning – nobody, not even Miss Kennedy, danced better; she was docile; she was sweet-tempered and slow to say or think evil. She possessed naturally, Harry thought – but then he forgot that her father had commanded an East Indiaman – a refinement of thought and manner far above the other girls; she caught readily the tone of her patron; she became in a few weeks, this young dressmaker, the faithful effigies of a lady under the instruction of Miss Kennedy, whom she watched and studied day by day. It was unfortunate that Harry continued to treat her as a child, because she was already a woman.
Presently she began to think of him, to watch for him, to note his manner toward herself.
Then she began to compare and to watch his manner toward Miss Kennedy.
Then she began to wonder if he was paying attention to Miss Kennedy, if they were engaged, if they had an understanding.
She could find none. Miss Kennedy was always friendly toward him, but never more. He was always at her call, her faithful servant, like the rest of them, but no more.
Remember that the respect and worship with which she regarded Miss Kennedy were unbounded. But Harry she did not regard as on the same level. No one was good enough for Miss Kennedy. And Harry, clever and bright and good as he seemed, was not too good for herself.
They were a great deal together. All Nelly's evenings were spent in the drawing-room; Harry was there every night; they read together; they talked and danced and sang together. And though the young man said no single word of love, he was always thoughtful for her in ways that she had never experienced before. Below a certain level, men are not thoughtful for women. The cheapeners of women's labor at the East End are not by any means thoughtful toward them. No one had ever considered Nelly at all, except her father.
Need one say more? Need one explain how tender flowers of hope sprang up in this girl's heart, and became her secret joy?
This made her watchful, even jealous. And when a change came in Miss Kennedy's manner – it was after her first talk with Lord Jocelyn – when Nelly saw her color heighten and her eyes grow brighter when Harry appeared, a dreadful pain seized upon her, and she knew, without a word being spoken, that all was over for her. For what was she compared with this glorious woman, beautiful as the day, sweet as a rose in June, full of accomplishments? How could any man regard her beside Miss Kennedy? How could any man think of any other woman when such a goddess had smiled upon him?
In some stories, a girl who has had to beat down and crush the young blossoms of love goes through a great variety of performances, always in the same order. The despair of love demands that this order shall be obeyed. She turns white; she throws herself on her bed, and weeps by herself, and miserably owns that she loves him; she tells the transparent fib to her sister or mother; she has received a blow from which she never will recover; if she is religious, it brings her nearer to heaven – all this we have heard over and over again. Poor little Nelly knew nothing about her grander sisters in misfortune; she knew nothing of what is due to self-respect under similar circumstances; she only perceived that she had been foolish, and tried to show as if that was not so. It was a make-believe of rather a sorry kind. When she was alone she reproached herself; when she was with Miss Kennedy she reproached herself; when she was with Harry she reproached herself. Always herself to blame, no one else, and the immediate result was that her great limpid eyes were surrounded by dark rings and her cheeks grew thin.
Perhaps there is no misfortune more common among women – especially among women of the better class – than that of disappointed hope. Girls who are hard worked in shops have no time, as a rule, to think of love at all. Love, like other gracious influences, does not come in their way. It is when leisure is arrived at, with sufficiency of food and comfort, of shelter and good clothing, that love begins.
To most of Angela's girls, Harry Goslett was a creature far above their hopes or thoughts. It was pleasant to dance with him; to hear him play, to hear him talk; but he did not belong to them. It was not for nothing that their brothers called him "Gentleman Jack." They were, in fact, "common girls," although Angela, by the quiet and steady force of example, was introducing such innovations in the dressing of the hair, the carriage of the person, and the style of garments, that they were rapidly becoming uncommon girls. But they occupied a position lower than that of Nelly, who was the daughter of a ship's captain now in the asylum; or of Rebekah, who was the daughter of a minister, and had the key to all truth.
To Nelly, therefore, there came for a brief space this dream of love. It lasted, indeed, so brief a space – it had such slender foundations of reality – that when it vanished she ought to have let it go without a sigh, and have soon felt as if it never had come to her at all. This is difficult of accomplishment, even for women of strong nerves and good physique; but Nelly tried it and partially succeeded. That is, no one knew her secret except Angela, who divined it – having special reason for this insight; and Rebekah, who perhaps had also her own reasons; but she was a self-contained woman, who kept her own secret.
"She cannot," said Rebekah, watching Angela and Harry, who were walking together on the green – "she cannot marry anybody else. It is impossible."
"But why," said Nelly – "why do they not tell us, if they are to be married?"
"There are many things," said Rebekah, "which Miss Kennedy does not tell us. She has never told us who she is or where she came from, or how she gets command of money; or how she knows Miss Messenger; or what she was before she came to us. Because, Nelly, you may be sure of one thing – that Miss Kennedy is a lady, born and bred. Not that I want to know more than she chooses to tell, and I am as certain of her goodness as I am certain of anything. And what this place will do for the girls if it succeeds, no one can tell. Miss Kennedy will tell us, perhaps, some day why she has come among us, pretending to be a dressmaker."
"Oh!" said Nelly, "what a thing for us that she did pretend! And oh, Rebekah, what a thing it would be if she were to leave off pretending! But she would never desert us – never."
"No, she never would."
Rebekah continued to watch them.
"You see, Nelly, if she is a lady, he is a gentleman." Nelly blushed; and then blushed again for very shame at having blushed at all. "Some gentleman, I am told, take delight in turning girls' heads. He doesn't do that. Has he ever said a word to you that he shouldn't?"
"No," said Nelly, "never."
"Well, and he hasn't to me; though, as for you, he goes about saying everywhere that you are the prettiest girl in Stepney, next to Miss Kennedy. And as for me and the rest, he has always been like a brother; and a good deal better than most brothers are to their sisters. Being a gentleman, I mean he is no match for you and me, who are real work-girls. And there is nobody in the parish except Miss Kennedy for him."
"Yet he works for money."
"So does she. My dear, I don't understand it – I never could understand it. Perhaps some day we shall know what it all means. There they are, making believe. They go on making believe and pretending, and they seem to enjoy it. Then they walk about together, and play in words with each other – one pretending not to understand and so on. Miss Kennedy says, 'But then I speak from hearsay, for I am only a dressmaker.' And he says, 'So I read, because, of course, a cabinet-maker can know nothing of these things.' Mr. Bunker, who ought to be made to learn the Epistle of St. James by heart, says dreadful things of both of them, and one his own nephew; but what does he know? – nothing."
"But, Rebekah, Mr. Goslett cannot be a very great gentleman, if he is Mr. Bunker's nephew; his father was a sergeant in the army."
"He is a gentleman by education and training. Well, some day we shall learn more. Meantime, I for one am contented that they should marry. Are you, Nelly?"
"I, too," she replied, "am contented, if it will make Miss Kennedy happy."
"He is not convinced of the truth," said Rebekah, making her little sectarian reservation, "but any woman who would want a better husband must be a fool. As for you and me, now, after knowing these two, it will be best for us never to marry, rather than to marry one of the drinking, tobacco-smoking workmen, who would have us."
"Yes," said Nelly, "much best. I shall never marry anybody."
Certainly it was not likely that more young gentlemen would come their way. One Sunday evening, the girl, being alone with Miss Kennedy, took courage and dared to speak to her.
In fact, it was Angela herself who began the talk.
"Let us talk, Nelly," she began; "we are quite alone. Tell me, my dear, what is on your mind?"
"Nothing," said Nelly.
"Yes there is something – tell me what it is."
"Oh, Miss Kennedy, I cannot tell you. It would be rudeness to speak of it."
"There can be no rudeness, Nelly, between you and me. Tell me what you are thinking."
Angela knew already what was in her mind, but after the fashion of her sex she dissembled. The brutality of truth among the male sex is sometimes very painful; and yet we are so proud, some of us, of our earnest attachment to truth.
"Oh, Miss Kennedy, can you not see that he is suffering?"
"Nelly!" but she was not displeased.
"He is getting thinner. He does not laugh as he used to; and he does not dance as much as he did. Oh, Miss Kennedy, can you not take pity on him?"
"Nelly, you have not told me whom you mean. Nay," as with a sudden change of tone she threw her arms about Nelly's neck and kissed her, "nay. I know very well whom you mean, my dear."
"I have not offended you?"
"No, you have not offended me. But, Nelly, answer me one question – answer it truthfully. Do you, from your own heart, wish me to take pity on him?"
Nelly answered frankly and truthfully:
"Yes; because how can I wish anything but what will make you happy? Oh, how can any of us help wishing that; and he is the only man who can make you happy. And he loves you."
"You want him to love me for my sake; for my own sake. Nelly, dear child, you humble me."
But Nelly did not understand. She had secretly offered up her humble sacrifice – her pair of turtledoves; and she knew not that her secret was known.
"She loves him herself," Angela was thinking, "and she gives him up for my sake."
"He is not," Nelly went on – as if she could by any words of hers persuade Angela – "he is not like any of the common workmen. See how he walks, and how independent he is, and he talks like a gentleman. And he can do all the things that gentlemen learn to do. Who is there among us all that he could look at, except you?"
"Nelly – do not make me vain."
"As for you, Miss Kennedy, there is no man fit for you in all the world. You call yourself a dressmaker, but we know better; oh, you are a lady! My father says so. He used to have great ladies sometimes on board his ship. He says that never was any one like you for talk and manner. Oh, we don't ask your secret, if you have one – only some of us (not I, for one) are afraid that some day you will go away, and never come back to us again. What should we do then?"
"My dear, I shall not desert you."
"And, if you marry him, you will remain with us? A lady should marry a gentleman, I know; she could not marry any common man. But you are, so you tell us, only a dressmaker. And he, he says, only a cabinet-maker; and Dick Coppin says that, though he can use the lathe, he knows nothing at all about the trade – not even how they talk, nor anything about them. If you two have secrets, Miss Kennedy, tell them to each other."
"My secrets, if I have any, are very simple, Nelly, and very soon you shall know them; and, as for his, I know them already."
Angela was silent awhile, thinking over this thing; then she kissed the girl, and whispered: "Patience yet a little while, dear Nelly. Patience, and I will do, perhaps, what you desire."
"Father," said Nelly, later on that night, sitting together by the fire, "father, I spoke to Miss Kennedy to-night."
"What did you speak to her about, my dear?"
"I told her that we knew (you and I) that she is a lady, whatever she may pretend."
"That is quite true, Nelly."
"And I said that Mr. Goslett is a gentleman, whatever he may pretend."
"That may be true – even though he is not a gentleman born – but that's a very different thing, my dear."
"Why is it different?"
"Because there are many ladies who go about among poor people; but no gentleman, unless it's the clergymen. Ladies seem to like it – they do it, however hard the work, for nothing – and all because it is their duty, and an imitation of the Lord. Some of them go out nursing. I have told you how I took them out to Scutari. Some of them go, not a bit afraid, into the foul courts, and find out the worst creatures in the world, and help them. Many of them give up their whole lives for the poor and miserable. My dear, there is nothing that a good woman will shrink from – no misery, no den of wickedness – nothing. Sometimes I think Miss Kennedy must be one of those women. Yes, she's got a little money, and she has come here to work in her own way among the people here."
"And Mr. Goslett, father?"
"Men don't do what women do. There may be something in what Mr. Bunker says – that he has reasons of his own for coming here and hiding himself."
"Oh, father, you don't mean it; and his own uncle, too, to say such a thing."
"Yes, his own uncle. Mr. Goslett, certainly, does belong to the place; though why Bunker should bear him so much malice is more than I can tell."
"And, father, there is another reason why he should stay here." Nelly blushed, and laughed merrily.
"What is that, my dear?"
Nelly kissed him and laughed again.
"It is your time for a pipe – let me fill it for you. And the Sunday ration, here it is; and here is a light. Oh, father, to be a sailor so long and have no eyes in your head!"
"What" – he understood now – "you mean Miss Kennedy! Nell, my dear, forgive me – I was thinking that perhaps you – "
"No, father," she replied hurriedly, "that could never be. I want nothing but to stay on here with you and Miss Kennedy, who has been so good to us that we can never, never thank her enough; nor can we wish her too much joy. But, please, never – never say that again."
Her eyes filled with tears.
Captain Sorensen took a book from the table – it was that book which so many people have constantly in their mouths, and yet it never seems to get into their hearts; the book which is so seldom read and so much commented upon. He turned it over till he found a certain passage beginning, "Who can find a virtuous woman?" He read this right through to the end. One passage, "She stretcheth out her hand to the poor. Yea, she reacheth forth her hands unto the needy," he read twice; and the last line, "Let her own works praise her in the gates," he read three times.
"My dear" he concluded, "to pleasure Miss Kennedy you would do more than give up a lover; ay, and with a cheerful heart."
CHAPTER XLI.
BOXING-NIGHT
"Let us keep Christmas," said Angela, "with something like original treatment. We will not dance, because we do that nearly every night."
"Let us," said Harry, "dress up and act."
What were they to act? That he would find for them. How were they to dress? That they would have to find for themselves. The feature of the Christmas festival was that they were to be mummers, and that there was to be mummicking, and of course there would be a little feasting, and perhaps a little singing.
"We must have just such a programme," said Angela to their master of ceremonies, "as if you were preparing it for the Palace of Delight."
"This is the only Palace of Delight," said Harry, "that we shall ever see. For my own part I desire no other."
"But, you know, we are going to have another one, much larger than this little place. Have you forgotten all your projects?"
Harry laughed; it was strange how persistently Miss Kennedy returned to the subject again and again; how seriously she talked about it; how she dwelt upon it.
"We must have," she continued, "sports which will cost nothing, with dresses which we can make for ourselves. Of course we must have guests to witness them."
"Guests cost money," said Harry. "But, of course, in a Palace of Delight money must not be considered. That would be treason to your principles."
"We shall not give our guests anything except the cold remains of the Christmas dinner. As for champagne, we can make our own with a few lemons and a little sugar. Do not forbid us to invite an audience."
Fortunately, a present which arrived from their patron, Miss Messenger, the day before Christmas Day, enabled them to give their guests a substantial supper, at no cost whatever. The present took the form of several hampers, addressed to Miss Kennedy, with a note from the donor conveying her love to the girls and best wishes for the next year, when she hoped to make their acquaintance. The hampers contained turkeys, sausages, ducks, geese, hams, tongues, and the like.
Meantime, Harry, as stage manager and dramatist, had devised the tableaux, and the girls between them had devised the dresses from a book of costumes. Christmas Day, as everybody remembers, fell last year on a Sunday. This gave the girls the whole of Saturday afternoon and evening, with Monday morning for the conversion of the trying-on room into the stage, and the show-room for the audience. But the rehearsals took a fortnight, for some of the girls were stupid and some were shy, though all were willing to learn, and Harry was patient. Besides, there was the chance of wearing the most beautiful dresses, and no one was left out; in the allegory, a pastoral, invented by their manager, there was a part for every one.
The gift of Miss Messenger made it possible to have two sets of guests; one set consisting of the girls' female relations, and a few private friends of Miss Kennedy's who lived and suffered in the neighborhood, for the Christmas dinner, held on Monday; and the other set was carefully chosen from a long list of the select audience in the evening. Among them were Dick and his friend, the ex-Chartist cobbler, and a few leading spirits of the Advanced Club. They wanted an audience who would read between the lines.
The twenty-sixth day of last December was, in the neighborhood of Stepney, dull and overcast; it promised to be a day of rebuke for all quiet folk, because it was a general holiday, one of those four terrible days when the people flock in droves to favorite haunts if it is in the summer, or hang about public-houses if it is winter; when, in the evening, the air is hideous with the shouts of those who roll about the pavements; a day when even Comus and his rabble rout are fain to go home for fear of being hustled and evilly treated by the holiday-makers of famous London town; a day when the peaceful and the pious, the temperate and the timid, stay at home. But to Angela it was a great day, sweet and precious – to use the language of an ancient Puritan and modern prig – because it was the first attempt toward the realization of her great dream; because her girls on this night for the first time showed the fruits of her training in the way they played their parts, their quiet bearing and their new refinement. After the performances of this evening she looked forward with confidence to her palace.
The day began, then, at half-past with the big dinner. All the girls could bring their mothers, sisters, and female relations generally, who were informed that Miss Messenger, the mysterious person who interfered perpetually, like a goddess out of a machine, with some new gift, or some device for their advantage, was the giver of the feast.
It was a good and ample Christmas dinner served in the long work-room by Angela and the girls themselves. There were the turkeys of the hamper, roasted with sausages, and roast beef and roast fowls, and roast geese and roast pork, with an immense supply of the vegetables dear to London people; and after this first course, there were plum-pudding and mince-pies. Messenger's ale, with the stout so much recommended by Bunker, flowed freely, and after dinner there was handed to each a glass of port. None but women and children – no boy over eight being allowed – were present at the feast, and when it was over most of the women got up and went away, not without some little talk with Angela and some present in kind from the benevolent Miss Messenger. Then they cleared all away and set out the tables again, with the same provisions, for the supper in the evening, at which there would be hungry men.
All the afternoon they spent in completing their arrangements. The guests began to arrive at five. The music was supplied by Angela herself, who did not act, with Captain Sorensen and Harry. The piano was brought downstairs and stood in the hall outside the trying-on room.
The performance was to commence at six, but everybody had come long before half-past five. At a quarter to six the little orchestra began to play the old English tunes dear to pantomimes.
At the ringing of a bell, the music changed to a low monotonous plaint and the curtain slowly rose on the tableau.
There was a large, bare, empty room; its sole furniture was a table and three chairs; in one corner was a pile of shavings; upon them sat, crouching with her knees drawn up, the pale and worn figure of a girl; beside her were the crutches which showed that she was a cripple; her white cheek was wasted and hollow; her chin was thrust forward as if she was in suffering almost intolerable. During the tableau she moved not, save to swing slowly backward and forward upon the shavings which formed her bed.
On the table, for it was night, was a candle in a ginger-beer bottle, and two girls sat at the table working hard; their needles were running a race with starvation; their clothes were in rags; their hair was gathered up in careless knots; their cheeks were pale; they were pinched and cold and feeble with hunger and privation.
Said one of the women present, "Twopence an hour, they can make. Poor things! poor things!"
"Dick," whispered the cobbler, "you make a note of it; I guess what's coming."
The spectators shivered with sympathy. They knew so well what it meant; some of them had themselves dwelt amid these garrets of misery and suffering.
Then voices were heard outside in the street singing.
They were the waits, and they sang the joyful hymns of Christmas. When the working-girls heard the singing, they paid no heed whatever, plying the needle fast and furiously; and the girl in the shavings paid no heed, slowly swinging to and fro in her pain and hunger. At the sight of this callous contempt, this disregard of the invitation to rejoice, as if there were neither hope nor joy for such as themselves, with only a mad desire to work for something to stay the dreadful pains of hunger, some of the women among the spectators wept aloud.
Then the waits went away; and there was silence again.
Then one of the girls – it was Nelly – stopped, and leaned back in her chair, with her hand to her heart; the work fell from her lap upon the floor; she sprang to her feet, threw up her hands, and fell in a lifeless heap upon the floor. The other girl went on with her sewing; and the cripple went on swinging backward and forward. For they were all three so miserable that the misery of one could no more touch the other two.
The curtain dropped. The tableau represented, of course, the girls who work for an employer.
After five minutes it rose again. There were the same girls and others; they were sitting at work in a cheerful and well-furnished room; they were talking and laughing. The clock struck six, and they laid aside their work, pushed back the table and advanced to the front singing all together. Their faces were bright and happy; they were well dressed, they looked well fed; there was no trouble among them at all; they chatted like singing-birds; they ran and played.
Then Captain Sorensen came in with his fiddle, and first he played a merry tune, at the sound of which the girls caught each other by the waist, and fell to dancing the old Greek ring. Then he played a quadrille, and they danced that simple figure, and as if they liked it; and then he played a waltz, and they whirled round and round.
This was the labor of girls for themselves. Everybody understood perfectly what was meant without the waste of words. Some of the mothers present wiped their eyes and told their neighbors that this was no play acting, but the sweet and blessed truth; and that the joy was real, because the girls were working for themselves and there were no naggings, no fines, no temper, no bullying, no long hours.
After this there was a concert, which seemed a falling off in point of excitement. But it was pretty. Captain Sorensen played some rattling sea ditties; then Miss Kennedy and Mr. Goslett played a duet; then the girls sang a madrigal in parts, so that it was wonderful to hear them, thinking how ignorant they were six months before. Then Miss Kennedy played a solo, and then the girls sang another song. By what magic, by what mystery, were girls so transformed? Then the audience talked together, and whispered that it was all the doing of that one girl – Miss Kennedy – who was believed by everybody to be a lady born and bred, but pretended to be a dressmaker. She it was who got the girls together, gave them the house, found work for them, arranged the time and duties, and paid them week by week for shorter hours better wages. It was she who persuaded them to spend their evenings with her instead of trapesing about the streets, getting into mischief; it was she who taught them the singing, and all manner of pretty things; and they were not spoiled by it, except that they would have nothing more to say to the rough lads and shopboys who had formerly paid them rude court and jested with them on Stepney Green. Uppish they certainly were; what mother would find fault with a girl for holding up her head and respecting herself? And as for manners, why, no one could tell what a difference there was.
The Chartist looked on with a little suspicion at first, which gradually changed to the liveliest satisfaction.
"Dick," he whispered to his friend and disciple, "I am sure that, if the working-men like, they may find the swells their real friends. See, now we've got all the power; they can't take it from us; very good then, who are the men we should suspect? Why, those who've got to pay the wages – the manufacturers and such. Not the swells. Make a note of that, Dick. It may be the best card you've got to play. A thousand places such as this – planted all about England – started at first by a swell – why, man, the working classes would have not only all the power but all the money. Oh, if I were ten years younger! What are they going to do next?"
The next thing they did pleased the women, but the men did not seem to care much about it, and the Chartist went on developing the new idea to Dick, who drank it all in, seeing that here, indeed, was a practical and attractive idea even though it meant a new departure. But the preacher of a new doctrine has generally a better chance than one who only hammers away at an old one.
The stage showed one figure. A beautiful girl, her hair bound in a fillet, clad in Greek dress, simple, flowing, graceful, stood upon a low pedestal. She was intended – it was none other than Nelly – to represent woman dressed as she should be. One after the other there advanced upon the stage and stood beside this statue, women dressed as women ought not to be; there they were, the hideous fashions of generations; the pinched waists, monstrous hats, high peaks, hoops and crinolines, hair piled up, hair stuffed out, gigot sleeves, high waists, tight skirts, bending walk, boots with high heels – an endless array.
When Nelly got down from her pedestal and the show was over, Harry advanced to the front and made a little speech. He reminded his hearers that the Association was only six months old; he begged them to consider what was its position now. To be sure, the girls had been started, and, that he said, was the great difficulty; but, the start once made and prejudice removed, they found themselves with work to do, and they were now paying their own way and doing well; before long they would be able to take in more hands; it was not all work with them, but there was plenty of play, as they knew. Meantime the girls invited everybody to have supper with them, and after supper there would be a little dance.
