Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  And now I will tell you another thing. Were it convenient for you to drink a small cup of coffee after your dinner, before leaving for work again, the support and energy it will give you, both mental and bodily, are wonderful; and it is not a false energy that will fade away: it will do you good service till evening. He who is here called Arthur Danesbury, one a vast deal wiser and better than I am, knew its invigorating properties — knew it by self-experience. Tell your wife to make a small cup ready for you, and one for herself, if she likes, not for the children; and in a short time you will thank me for having suggested it. In summer, when the midday fire is out, it can be made at breakfast-time, and taken cold. Never mind the milk. It will not cost much: not half so much as your dinner beer. And that’s all I wished to say to you.

  “One good result the plan has effected,” resumed Squire Hanson, ‘‘is, that two public-houses and three beer-shops have been already obliged to shut up, lacking customers.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” said Lady Temple. “There were so many.”

  “I have done what I can,” said Arthur. “I will do what I can, so long as I am spared health and strength and means. I felt that it was incumbent on me to strive to raise my dependents out of the degraded habits they were pursuing; a positive duty laid in my path; a sin that would rest at my door, if I supinely neglected it.”

  There was a pause. It was broken by Mr. St. George.

  ‘‘Now that Mr. Danesbury has had his say, I must have none. Do you know, sir, that when the report of these doings, this wild scheme, reached town, you were looked upon by practical matter-of-fact men, as being a little touched here?”

  Mr. St George tapped his forehead as he spoke, and his keen eyes twinkled with merriment.

  “I dare say it was so,” laughed Arthur. “I believe a debate took place in Eastborough, among my brother magistrates, whether it might not be prudent to send for a doctor and keeper from Bedlam.”

  “I assure you,” resumed Mr. St. George, “I had my own doubts. Not as to your sanity: no, I don’t say: that; but as to whether you were not subsiding into a visionary; and the fear has chiefly brought me down to-day. ‘You can’t go,’ said Serle to me, when the invitation came. ‘I’ll try,’ said I, ‘for it’s right that somebody should see after Danesbury;’ and, in spite of the law-courts, away I came.”

  “Walter! how can you utter such nonsense?” remonstrated his wife.

  “Nonsense? Well, I’ll go to sober feet, then,” said Mr. St. George, changing his tone to one of earnestness. “Danesbury, I don’t know if there’s another man living who would have thought of such a scheme: or would have dared to put it in practice, if he had thought of it. He would have feared ridicule.”

  Mr. Pratt put his hale old face across the table, and spoke meaningly. “Is there another man living, such as Arthur Danesbury? And can ridicule approach him?”

  “I can only say, then,” said Arthur in reply to Mr. St. George, “that if I have been the first to set the example, I hope others will follow it. But will you mention to me where lies, or may appear to lie, the insane points of the plan?”

  Mr. St George considered. “I suppose they lie in the supplying of coffee and bread and butter,” quoth he, rubbing his nose. “Serle said, that was a proof which no lunacy commissioner would ever get over.”

  A general laugh went round. “That’s the only part I deemed to be extravagant,” observed Lord Temple, when it had subsided. “It did certainly strike me as being so.”

  “Singular, not extravagant,” returned Arthur. “Or — well — if you like — let us admit that the coffee point is extravagant

  — but there are two meanings to the word, you know. And, if you like, I will allow that my binding down the men from month to month was also somewhat unusual; but what else is there to complain of?”

  “Why — it’s a completely Utopian scheme altogether, you know, Danesbury. There’s so much of the ideal in it.”

  “The ideal!” repeated Arthur; “you must mean the real. Many and many a British master, employing numbers, has opened a place for his men in an evening, where they find lights, fires, and appropriate literature to while away the leisure hours. My father opened a reading-room; but it did not take. In what does my plan differ? save that I take a personal interest in it, and give them coffee and bread and butter?”

  “Ah!” said Mr. St. George, shaking his head, “I fear it is that coffee that has done it.”

  “In two senses of the word,” returned the magistrate, laughing. “Done the men out of their evening beer, and done Mr. Danesbury out of his reputation as a sane man.”

  “My poor operatives were going headlong on the downward road, as all must do who drink beyond their means,” interposed the quiet voice of Arthur, “and I felt that I was in a measure answerable for them. Visionary again, you will say; but I am naturally of a thoughtful nature, possessing, I believe, a large share of the bump that phrenologists call conscientiousness; and past events in my family have tended to make me reflect deeply, more so than many do. I, gifted with a full portion of intellect, of intelligence, of means, was placed in authority over this body of unthinking men; I paid them fair wages for the work they did for me, and I often gave them good counsel; but the conviction arose, and pressed itself forcibly upon me, that our relations ought not to end there; that I ought to endeavour to help them out of their darkness. I determined to try some scheme: I formed my resolution—” Here his voice faltered in hesitation, but he rallied from it, and proceeded in a low, impressive tone— “as I stood over the tomb that contains my father, my mother, my brothers, and my father’s second wife; all of these, had strong drink, either through their own filing for it, or the failing of others, contributed to hasten to the grave. I was standing there without premeditation. I had been walking through Eastborough, a night walk, and had seen the men flocking into the public-houses, and there I made my resolve — to try — whether I should succeed or fail. A faint notion of the scheme I afterward carried out dawned then upon me. The difficulty was, how could I draw them from the public-houses I what possible inducement could I offer in their stead! What should you have done?”

  “I!” cried Mr. St George. “Don’t ask me. The terrors of the law, a five-shillings fine, and the tread-mill, are the only persuasions I understand.”

  Another smile went round; it would have been a laugh but for Mr. Danesbury’s solemn earnestness.

  “I pondered over it long,” he resumed. “I thought— ‘If I am to while away these men from one indulgence, I must substitute another, and I must see if I can not bring them to like the substitute as well, in time, as the lost indulgence. ‘It is all very well to put a reflective man upon his own good sense; to impress upon him that, to be temperate, is a duty he may not transgress, unless he would offend God, and injure himself: my poor operatives had not attained to reflection, and I knew it would be of no use going to work in that way. Therefore, I hit upon the coffee scheme, and the binding down the men to it for a certain period. I could not think of any thing better; and I honestly confess that, were it now to fail, I do not know that I could devise any better plan. It was an uncertain venture, but it was worth the risk.”

  “It will not fail now, Mr. Danesbury,” said Squire Hanson.

  “I don’t fancy it will, squire,” observed Mr. St. George. “The binding down the men to attend; that binding down accomplished the business. But this will be a pretty cost out of your pocket yearly,” he added to Arthur.

  “Not very much. Little, indeed, in comparison to the welfare of so many souls. Ought I to begrudge it to them from my ample means?”

  “Mrs. Danesbury may be less generously inclined; and may let you know that she is, in sundry curtain lectures.”

  “Mrs. Danesbury married me with her eyes open, and my plans with me,” returned Arthur, nodding to his wife, with a merry smile. “I expect she will be wanting her share of cost also, when she begins upon the wives and the schools for the children.”

>   “Your treasure will never weigh down your banker’s chests, if you go on at many of these ‘costs,’ “ said Mr. St. George.

  “There is such a thing as another sort of treasure to be accumulated,” answered Arthur, gently: “a Treasure that will stand us in good stead when that which we lodge at bankers’ houses shall take to itself wings and flee away.”

  “Well,” concluded Mr. St. George, breaking a pause of silence, “I shall convey word back to Serle that you are neither insane nor a visionary: but a man who has had the wisdom to look his responsibilities in the face, and the courage to act upon them. And all I can say is, I hope your much-cared-for men will reap permanent benefit; and you, a rich reward.”

  “And when you hear my scheme laughed at for its extravagance by those who, like myself, are placed in authority over the ignorant and the improvident, relate to them what mine is doing. Tell them that the extravagance consists only in the idea, not in the working, and that Arthur Danesbury hopes to see many others such, raised by the masters, in his native land.”

  When they rose from luncheon, Lord Temple linked his arm for a moment within that of William Danesbury.

  “Let me have a word with you, William,” he said. “Is it all serene? Isabel declares it is. She says she can read it in your face.”

  “Quite. For six months I have touched nothing. I begin to wonder now at my former marvellous infatuation, and at the difficulty I experienced in tearing myself from it. I can truly say I have conquered.”

  “It was difficult at first.”

  “Ay,” answered William, with a deep breath, “it verily was difficult. But the difficulty is over. You might put wine, and beer, and spirits before me now, all poured out in glasses, and I should withstand them all. I like water now.”

  “As I told you would. What a happy company we are to-day!” continued Lord Temple; “thinking, rational beings, aware of our responsibility — as St. George remarked with regard to Arthur — and striving to act up to it, firm in our self-reliance. God has been very merciful to us: you and I, William, have especial cause to say it.”

  ‘‘I thought the only face which bore a shade was that of Mrs. St. George.”

  “She was contrasting things, here, with her own family, I imagine. Her brothers are squandering their father’s money, and one or two of them drinking wholesale. There goes Arthur: I never was so proud of him as I am to-day. Pratt is right in saying that there’s hardly such another man on the face of the earth.”

  Arthur Danesbury had given his arm to his wife, and was proceeding to the tent. The guests followed. A hearty English dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding had been disposed of by its occupants; but their drink was water, succeeded by a cup of coffee. Tea, with ample accompaniments, was to come in the evening. It was the first meeting of master and men since the former’s return: they rose in a body, and their acclamations rent the air. Not one around stood as proudly as did Thomas Harding, who was at the head of one of the tables; proud, like Lord Temple, of Arthur Danesbury, of the master whom he so loved and reverenced. Mr. Danesbury help up his band for silence.

  “My men, I am delighted to see you all again,” he began, in his cheering way. “Have you relished your dinner?”

  To assure him that they had was needless; and he made another motion for silence.

  “I did not order you beer: I expressly desired that it should not be given to you. Not that I had any pleasure in depriving you to-day of your ordinary dinner drink, or that I hoped to force you suddenly to relinquish it. But I wished to afford you one self-convincing proof how far more full of energy you will be this afternoon, how much lighter and pleasanter you will feel, although I dare say you have, some of you, eaten enough for six” (great laughter), “than you do when you drink the beer: in short, how far more capable you will find yourselves whether for work or for enjoyment. You shall honestly tell me to-night if it be not so, and we will talk further, another time, about the expediency of your adopting it for your midday meal.”

  Symptoms of applause again, but Mr. Danesbury continued:

  “I am truly gratified to hear that, during my month’s absence, none of you have deserted to the opposition house over the way; but that two or three have voluntarily returned to mine. My men, what motive do you suppose I had in instituting this evening refuge, and in drawing you to it?”

  “Our good,” responded a voice.

  “Just so. Your good, and that of your wives and families; your good in this world, and your good in the next. Oh, my friends, I have your welfare very much at heart; believe me, it causes me many a sleepless and anxious night. I have a duty to perform to you, as you have to me, a duty appointed by God; and in the next world, whither you and I are alike hastening, how shall we answer to Him, if we have neglected it? I want to lead you toward that better world — to show you how you may get there. So long as you were sunk in your previous bad and careless habits, you were not advancing to it. Were you?”

  No. Conscience rose up before them, and they hung their heads sorrowfully.

  “But I do think many of you are advancing now. A little bit; it can not come all at once; there must be a beginning to all things. One of the greater of the prophets, in speaking of men who had erred ‘through wine and strong drink,’ says that, to those who would learn knowledge and understand doctrine, precept must be upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there a little. And, by persevering on, step by step, a little and a little, it will come to you. I hope, I trust” — he looked from one table to another affectionately— “that the time will come when you will all spend your evenings with me, without one exception. I say with me, because I shall often look in upon you. Some among you,” he added, “still remember my mother. My good women, I speak now to you.”

  Yes, many did. They looked up eagerly.

  “And you remember that she was all kindness to you; she would have been ever so, had she lived. But she is gone, and others have gone, and there is now another Mrs. Danesbury; my wife, whom I hold upon my arm. She will be to you and your families what my mother was. She is anxious to be so, to befriend and help you all; and I know that you will welcome her for my sake, until you have learned to welcome and love her for her own.”

  A deeper shout than ever filled the tent, meant for Mrs. Danesbury, and Mary turned her hot face toward her husband, hoping to hide her raining tears.

  “Courage, my darling,” he whispered, fondly glancing down upon her. “Be not ashamed of their seeing your tears, Mary: tears are passports to hearts, you know.”

  And when the murmur had subsided, Mr. Danesbury resumed to the men.

  ‘‘You have been pleased to say that you have hitherto found me a considerate master, and you shall find me one. If you do as I wish you, and strive to be good men, single-hearted in the sight of your Maker, I will be more indulgent to you than I have yet been. Will you not strive to be so for your own sakes?”

  ‘‘Ay, that they would!” Though some of them could scarcely promise it, for their hearts and eyes were full.

  ‘‘Oh, my dear friends,” concluded Arthur Danesbury, with solemn earnestness, “listen to my counsel, for it is born of anxiety for you. By the exercise of a little persevering self-denial you will find great reward. I will do what I can to encourage you to exercise it. Your Saviour — your all-merciful Saviour — is looking down upon us; now, as I speak, and you listen; he is waiting for you to choose the good and reject the evil; waiting to aid all who ask for his help. May you — and I — and all of us — be so strengthened in our labors here, that, when they are over, we may find him waiting to receive us hereafter; waiting to welcome us with his own blessed words, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!’”

  “Amen, Amen!”

  THE END

  EAST LYNNE

  On the strength of the success of Danesbury House, Wood had proved herself a writer of popular and successful novels. Her next novel, East Lynne, which began serialisation in
the New Monthly Magazine in 1860, is easily regarded now as her most successful and best-known work. Continuously in print ever since, it was one of the most influential of the 1860’s ‘sensation’ novels – stories of domestic scandal, mystery and intrigue, designed to appeal to the senses and thrill the nerves as much as the intellect, taking their cue not from great literature, but from the sensational newspaper reportage of the day.

  One of the perennial topics of the sensation novel was a hidden or shameful relationship, which threatened the stability of an apparently conventional and respectable middle-class marriage. East Lynne is one such story, relating the experiences of a married woman who abandons her husband and children, choosing to elope with an aristocratic suitor. After he deserts her and she bears an illegitimate child, Lady Isabel disguises herself and takes the position of governess in the household of her former husband and his new wife.