by George Moore
“But why should you go to the workhouse? I offer you fourteen pounds a year and everything found.”
“You see, miss, I’ve a baby; we’ve been in the workhouse already; I had to go there the night I left my situation, to get him away from Mrs. Spires; she wanted to kill him; she’d have done it for five pounds — that’s the price. But, miss, my story is not one that can be told to a lady such as you.”
“I think I’m old enough to listen to your story; sit down, and tell it to me.”
And all the while Miss Rice’s eyes were filled with tenderness and pity.
“A very sad story — just such a story as happens every day. But you have been punished, you have indeed.”
“Yes, miss, I think I have; and after all these years of striving it is hard to have to take him back to the workhouse. Not that I want to give out that I was badly treated there, but it is the child I’m thinking of. He was then a little baby and it didn’t matter; we was only there a few months. There’s no one that knows of it but me. But he’s a growing boy now, he’ll remember the workhouse, and it will be always a disgrace.”
“How old is he?”
“He was six last May, miss. It has been a hard job to bring him up. I now pay six shillings a week for him, that’s more than fourteen pounds a year, and you can’t do much in the way of clothes on two pounds a year. And now that he’s growing up he’s costing more than ever; but Mrs. Lewis — that’s the woman what has brought him up — is as fond of him as I am myself. She don’t want to make nothing out of his keep, and that’s how I’ve managed up to the present. But I see well enough that it can’t be done; his expense increases, and the wages remains the same. It was my pride to bring him up on my earnings, and my hope to see him an honest man earning good money. But it wasn’t to be, miss, it wasn’t to be. We must be humble and go back to the workhouse.”
“I can see that it has been a hard fight.”
“It has indeed, miss; no one will ever know how hard. I shouldn’t mind if it wasn’t going to end by going back to where it started…. They’ll take him from me; I shall never see him while he is there. I wish I was dead, miss, I can’t bear my trouble no longer.”
“You shan’t go back to the workhouse so long as I can help you. Esther, I’ll give you the wages you ask for. It is more than I can afford. Eighteen pounds a year! But your child shall not be taken from you. You shall not go to the workhouse. There aren’t many such good women in the world as you, Esther.”
XXIII
FROM THE FIRST Miss Rice was interested in her servant, and encouraged her confidences. But it was some time before either was able to put aside her natural reserve. They were not unlike — quiet, instinctive Englishwomen, strong, warm natures, under an appearance of formality and reserve.
The instincts of the watch-dog soon began to develop in Esther, and she extended her supervision over all the household expenses, likewise over her mistress’s health.
“Now, miss, I must ‘ave you take your soup while it is ‘ot. You’d better put away your writing; you’ve been at it all the morning. You’ll make yourself ill, and then I shall have the nursing of you.” If Miss Rice were going out in the evening she would find herself stopped in the passage. “Now, miss, I really can’t see you go out like that; you’ll catch your death of cold. You must put on your warm cloak.”
Miss Rice’s friends were principally middle-aged ladies. Her sisters, large, stout women, used to come and see her, and there was a fashionably-dressed young man whom her mistress seemed to like very much. Mr. Alden was his name, and Miss Rice told Esther that he, too, wrote novels; they used to talk about each other’s books for hours, and Esther feared that Miss Rice was giving her heart away to one who did not care for her. But perhaps she was satisfied to see Mr. Alden once a week and talk for an hour with him about books. Esther didn’t think she’d care, if she had a young man, to see him come and go like a shadow. But she hadn’t a young man, and did not want one. All she now wanted was to awake in the morning and know that her child was safe; her ambition was to make her mistress’s life comfortable. And for more than a year she pursued her plan of life unswervingly. She declined an offer of marriage, and was rarely persuaded into a promise to walk out with any of her admirers. One of these was a stationer’s foreman, and almost every day Esther went to the stationer’s for the sermon paper on which her mistress wrote her novels, for blotting-paper, for stamps, to post letters — that shop seemed the centre of their lives.
Fred Parsons — that was his name — was a meagre little man about thirty-five. A high and prominent forehead rose above a small pointed face, and a scanty growth of blonde beard and moustache did not conceal the receding chin nor the red sealing-wax lips. His faded yellow hair was beginning to grow thin, and his threadbare frock-coat hung limp from sloping shoulders. But these disadvantages were compensated by a clear bell-like voice, into which no trace of doubt ever seemed to come; and his mind was neatly packed with a few religious and political ideas. He had been in business in the West End, but an uncontrollable desire to ask every customer who entered into conversation with him if he were sure that he believed in the second coming of Christ had been the cause of severance between him and his employers.
He had been at West Kensington a fortnight, had served Esther once with sermon paper, and had already begun to wonder what were her religious beliefs. But bearing in mind his recent dismissal, he refrained for the present. At the end of the week they were alone in the shop. Esther had come for a packet of note-paper. Fred was sorry she had not come for sermon paper; if she had it would have been easier to inquire her opinions regarding the second coming. But the opportunity, such as it was, was not to be resisted. He said —
“Your mistress seems to use a great deal of paper; it was only a day or two ago that I served you with four quires.”
“That was for her books; what she now wants is note-paper.”
“So your mistress writes books!”
“Yes.”
“I hope they’re good books — books that are helpful.” He paused to see that no one was within earshot. “Books that bring sinners back to the Lord.”
“I don’t know what she writes; I only know she writes books; I think I’ve heard she writes novels.”
Fred did not approve of novels — Esther could see that — and she was sorry; for he seemed a nice, clear-spoken young man, and she would have liked to tell him that her mistress was the last person who would write anything that could do harm to anyone. But her mistress was waiting for her paper, and she took leave of him hastily. The next time they met was in the evening. She was going to see if she could get some fresh eggs for her mistress’s breakfast before the shops closed, and coming towards her, walking at a great pace, she saw one whom she thought she recognised, a meagre little man with long reddish hair curling under the brim of a large soft black hat. He nodded, smiling pleasantly as he passed her.
“Lor’,” she thought, “I didn’t know him; it’s the stationer’s foreman.” And the very next evening they met in the same street; she was out for a little walk, he was hurrying to catch his train. They stopped to pass the time of day, and three days after they met at the same time, and as nearly as possible at the same place.
“We’re always meeting,” he said.
“Yes, isn’t it strange?… You come this way from business?” she said.
“Yes; about eight o’clock is my time.”
It was the end of August; the stars caught fire slowly in the murky London sunset; and, vaguely conscious of a feeling of surprise at the pleasure they took in each other’s company, they wandered round a little bleak square in which a few shrubs had just been planted. They took up the conversation exactly at the point where it had been broken off.
“I’m sorry,” Fred said, “that the paper isn’t going to be put to better use.”
“You don’t know my mistress, or you wouldn’t say that.”
“Perhaps you don’t know that novels are
very often stories about the loves of men for other men’s wives. Such books can serve no good purpose.”
“I’m sure my mistress don’t write about such things. How could she, poor dear innocent lamb? It is easy to see you don’t know her.”
In the course of their argument it transpired that Miss Rice went to neither church nor chapel.
Fred was much shocked.
“I hope,” he said, “you do not follow your mistress’s example.”
Esther admitted she had for some time past neglected her religion. Fred went so far as to suggest that she ought to leave her present situation and enter a truly religious family.
“I owe her too much ever to think of leaving her. And it has nothing to do with her if I haven’t thought as much about the Lord as I ought to have. It’s the first place I’ve been in where there was time for religion.”
This answer seemed to satisfy Fred.
“Where used you to go?”
“My people — father and mother — belonged to the Brethren.”
“To the Close or the Open?”
“I don’t remember; I was only a little child at the time.”
“I’m a Plymouth Brother.”
“Well, that is strange.”
“Remember that it is only through belief in our Lord, in the sacrifice of the Cross, that we can be saved.”
“Yes, I believe that.”
The avowal seemed to have brought them strangely near to each other, and on the following Sunday Fred took Esther to meeting, and introduced her as one who had strayed, but who had never ceased to be one of them.
She had not been to meeting since she was a little child; and the bare room and bare dogma, in such immediate accordance with her own nature — were they not associated with memories of home, of father and mother, of all that had gone? — touched her with a human delight that seemed to reach to the roots of her nature. It was Fred who preached; and he spoke of the second coming of Christ, when the faithful would be carried away in clouds of glory, of the rapine and carnage to which the world would be delivered up before final absorption in everlasting hell; and a sensation of dreadful awe passed over the listening faces; a young girl who sat with closed eyes put out her hand to assure herself that Esther was still there — that she had not been carried away in glory.
As they walked home, Esther told Fred that she had not been so happy for a long time. He pressed her hand, and thanked her with a look in which appeared all his soul; she was his for ever and ever; nothing could wholly disassociate them; he had saved her soul. His exaltation moved her to wonder. But her own innate faith, though incapable of these exaltations, had supported her during many a troublous year. Fred would want her to come to meeting with him next Sunday, and she was going to Dulwich. Sooner or later he would find out that she had a child, then she would see him no more. It were better that she should tell him than that he should hear it from others. But she felt she could not bear the humiliation, the shame; and she wished they had never met. That child came between her and every possible happiness…. It were better to break off with Fred. But what excuse could she give? Everything went wrong with her. He might ask her to marry him, then she would have to tell him.
Towards the end of the week she heard some one tap at the window; it was Fred. He asked her why he had not seen her; she answered that she had not had time.
“Can you come out this evening?”
“Yes, if you like.”
She put on her hat, and they went out. Neither spoke, but their feet took instinctively the pavement that led to the little square where they had walked the first time they went out together.
“I’ve been thinking of you a good deal, Esther, in the last few days. I want to ask you to marry me.”
Esther did not answer.
“Will you?” he said.
“I can’t; I’m very sorry; don’t ask me.”
“Why can’t you?”
“If I told you I don’t think you’d want to marry me. I suppose I’d better tell you. I’m not the good woman you think me. I’ve got a child. There, you have it now, and you can take your hook when you like.”
It was her blunt, sullen nature that had spoken; she didn’t care if he left her on the spot — now he knew all and could do as he liked. At last, he said —
“But you’ve repented, Esther?”
“I should think I had, and been punished too, enough for a dozen children.”
“Ah, then it wasn’t lately?”
“Lately! It’s nearly eight year ago.”
“And all that time you’ve been a good woman?”
“Yes, I think I’ve been that.”
“Then if—”
“I don’t want no ifs. If I am not good enough for you, you can go elsewhere and get better; I’ve had enough of reproaches.”
“I did not mean to reproach you; I know that a woman’s path is more difficult to walk in than ours. It may not be a woman’s fault if she falls, but it is always a man’s. He can always fly from temptation.”
“Yet there isn’t a man that can say he hasn’t gone wrong.”
“No, not all, Esther.”
Esther looked him full in the face.
“I understand what you mean, Esther, but I can honestly say that I never have.”
Esther did not like him any better for his purity, and was irritated by the clear tones of his icy voice.
“But that is no reason why I should be hard on those who have not been so fortunate. I didn’t mean to reproach you just now, Esther; I only meant to say that I wish you had told me this before I took you to meeting.”
“So you’re ashamed of me, is that it? Well, you can keep your shame to yourself.”
“No, not that, Esther—”
“Then you’d like to see me humiliated before the others, as if I haven’t had enough of that already.”
“No, Esther, listen to me. Those who transgress the moral law may not kneel at the table for a time, until they have repented; but those who believe in the sacrifice of the Cross are acquitted, and I believe you do that.”
“Yes.”
“A sinner that repenteth —— I will speak about this at our next meeting; you will come with me there?”
“Next Sunday I’m going to Dulwich to see the child.”
“Can’t you go after meeting?”
“No, I can’t be out morning and afternoon both.”
“May I go with you?”
“To Dulwich!”
“You won’t go until after meeting; I can meet you at the railway station.”
“If you like.”
As they walked home Esther told Fred the story of her betrayal. He was interested in the story, and was very sorry for her.
“I love you, Esther; it is easy to forgive those we love.”
“You’re very good; I never thought to find a man so good.” She looked up in his face; her hand was on the gate, and in that moment she felt that she almost loved him.
XXIV
MRS. HUMPHRIES, AN elderly person, who looked after a bachelor’s establishment two doors up, and generally slipped in about tea-time, soon began to speak of Fred as a very nice young man who would be likely to make a woman happy. But Esther moved about the kitchen in her taciturn way, hardly answering. Suddenly she told Mrs. Humphries that she had been to Dulwich with him, and that it was wonderful how he and Jackie had taken to one another.
“You don’t say so! Well, it is nice to find them religious folks less ‘ard-’earted than they gets the name of.”
Mrs. Humphries was of the opinion that henceforth Esther should give herself out as Jackie’s aunt. “None believes them stories, but they make one seem more respectable like, and I am sure Mr. Parsons will appreciate the intention.” Esther did not answer, but she thought of what Mrs. Humphries had said. Perhaps it would be better if Jackie were to leave off calling her Mummie. Auntie! But no, she could not bear it. Fred must take her as she was or not at all. They seemed to understand eac
h other; he was earning good money, thirty shillings a week, and she was now going on for eight-and-twenty; if she was ever going to be married it was time to think about it.
“I don’t know how that dear soul will get on without me,” she said one October morning as they jogged out of London by a slow train from St. Paul’s. Fred was taking her into Kent to see his people.
“How do you expect me to get on without you?”
Esther laughed.
“Trust you to manage somehow. There ain’t much fear of a man not looking after his little self.”
“But the old folk will want to know when. What shall I tell them?”
“This time next year; that’ll be soon enough. Perhaps you’ll get tired of me before then.”
“Say next spring, Esther.”
The train stopped.
“There’s father waiting for us in the spring-cart. Father! He don’t hear us. He’s gone a bit deaf of late years. Father!”
“Ah, so here you are. Train late.”
“This is Esther, father.”
They were going to spend the day at the farm-house, and she was going to be introduced to Fred’s sisters and to his brother. But these did not concern her much, her thoughts were set on Mrs. Parsons, for Fred had spoken a great deal about his mother. When she had been told about Jackie she was of course very sorry; but when she had heard the whole of Esther’s story she had said, “We are all born into temptation, and if your Esther has really repented and prayed to be forgiven, we must not say no to her.” Nevertheless Esther was not quite easy in her mind, and half regretted that she had consented to see Fred’s people until he had made her his wife. But it was too late to think of such things. There was the farm-house. Fred had just pointed it out, and scenting his stable, the old grey ascended the hill at a trot, and Esther wondered what the farm-house would be like. All the summer they had had a fine show of flowers, Fred said. Now only a few Michaelmas daisies withered in the garden, and the Virginia creeper covered one side of the house with a crimson mantle. The old man said he would take the trap round to the stable, and Fred walked up the red-bricked pavement and lifted the latch. As they passed through the kitchen Fred introduced Esther to his two sisters, Mary and Lily. But they were busy cooking.
