Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “As it had cause to be!” was echoed from all parts of the room.

  “Mr. Huskisson began speaking at once about the petition,” continued the manager. “He asked if the sufferings described in it were not exaggerated; but the governor assured him upon his word of honour, as a resident in Westerbury and an eye-witness, that they were underdrawn rather than the contrary; for that no pen, no description, could adequately describe the misery and distress which had been rife in Westerbury ever since the bill had passed. And he used to say that, live as long as he would, he should never forget the look of perplexity and care that overshadowed Mr. Huskisson’s face as he listened to him.”

  “It was repentance pressing sore upon him,” growled a deep bass voice. “It’s to be hoped our famished and homeless children haunted his dreams.”

  “The next September he met with the accident that killed him,” continued Thomas Markham; “and though I know some of us poor sufferers were free in saying it was a judgment upon him, I’ve always held to my opinion that if he had foreseen the misery the bill wrought, he would never have brought it forward in the House of Commons.”

  “Here’s Shepherd a coming in! I wonder how his child is? Last night he thought it was dying. Shepherd, how’s the child?”

  A care-worn, pale man made his way amid the throng. He answered quietly that the child was well.

  “Well! why, you said last night that it was as bad as it could be, Shepherd! You was going off for the doctor then. Did he come to it?”

  “One doctor came, from up there,” answered Shepherd, pointing to the sky. “He came, and He took the child.”

  The words could not be misunderstood, and the room hushed itself in sympathy. “When did the boy die, Shepherd?”

  “To-day, at one; and it’s a mercy. Death in childhood is better than starvation in manhood.”

  “Could Dr. Barnes do nothing for him?” inquired a compassionate voice.

  “He didn’t try; he opened his winder to look out at me — he was undressing to go to bed — and asked whether I had got the money to pay him if he came.”

  “Hiss — iss — ss!” echoed from the room.

  “I answered that I had not; but I would pay him with the very first money that I could scrape together; and I said he might take my word for it, for that had never been broken yet.”

  “And he would not come?”

  “No. He said he knew better than to trust to promises. And when I told him that the boy was dying, and very precious to me, the rest being girls, he said it was not my word he doubted but my ability, for he didn’t believe that any of us men would ever be in work again. So he shut down his winder and doused his candle, and I went home to my boy, powerless to help him, and I watched him die.”

  “Drink a glass of ale, Shepherd,” said Markham, getting a glass from the landlord, and filling it from his own jug.

  “Thank ye kindly, but I shall drink nothing to-night,” replied Shepherd, motioning back the glass. “There’s a sore feeling in my breast, comrades,” he continued, sighing heavily; “it has been there a long while past, but it’s sorer far to-day. I don’t so much blame the surgeon, for there has been a deal of sickness among us, and the doctors have been unable to get their pay. Hundreds of us are nigh akin to starvation; there’s scarcely a crust between us and death; we desire only to work honestly, and we can’t get work to do. As I sat to-day, looking at my dead boy, I asked what we had done to have this fate thrust upon us?”

  “What have we done? That’s it! — what have we done?”

  “But I did not come here to-night to grumble,” resumed Shepherd, “I came for a specific purpose, though perhaps I mayn’t succeed in it. I went down to Jasper, the carpenter, to-day, to ask him to come and take the measure for the little coffin. Well, he’s like all the rest, he won’t trust me; at last he said, if anybody would go bail he should be paid later, he’d make it; and I have come down to ye, friends, to ask who’ll stand by me in this?”

  A score of voices answered, each that he would — eager, sympathizing voices — but Shepherd shook his head. There was not one among them whose word the carpenter would take, for they were all out of work. In the silence that ensued, Shepherd rose to leave.

  “Many thanks for the good-will, neighbours,” he said. “And I don’t grumble at my unsuccess, for I know how powerless many of ye are to aid me. But it’s a bitter trial. I would rather my boy had never been born than that he should come to be buried by the parish. God knows we have heavy burdens to bear.”

  “Shepherd!” cried the clear voice of Thomas Markham, “I will stand by you in this. Tell Jasper I pass my word to see him paid.”

  Shepherd turned back and grasped the hand of Thomas Markham.

  “I can’t thank you as I ought, sir,” he said; “but you have took a load from my heart. Though you were never repaid here, you would be hereafter; for I have come to feel a certainty that if our good deeds are not brought home to us in this world, they are only kept to speak for us in the next.”

  “I say, stop a minute, Shepherd,” called out James Jones, as the man was again making his way to the door. “What made you go to Jasper? He’s always cross-grained after his money, he is. Why didn’t you go to White?”

  “I did go to White first,” answered Shepherd, turning to speak; “but White couldn’t take it. He has got the job for all the new wooden chairs that are wanted for this concert at the town-hall, and hadn’t time for coffins.”

  The mention was the signal for an outburst. It came from all parts of the room, one noise drowning another. Why couldn’t a concert be got up for them? Weren’t they as good as the Poles? Hadn’t they bodies and souls to be saved as well as the Poles? Wasn’t there a whole town of ’em starving under the very noses of them as had got up the concert? They could tell the company that French revolutions had growed out of less causes.

  “And I’ll tell ye what,” roared out the old man with the broad shoulders, bringing his fist down on the table with such force that the clatter amidst the cups and glasses caused a sudden silence. “Every gentleman that puts his foot inside that there concert room, is no true man, and I’d tell him so to his face, if ’twas the Lord Lieutenant. What do our people want a fattening up of them there Poles, while we be starving? I wish the Poles was — —”

  “Hold your tongue, Lloyd,” interposed Markham. “It’s not the fault of the Poles, any more than it’s ours; so where’s the use of abusing them?”

  “Yah!” responded Mr. Lloyd.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  A DIFFICULTY ABOUT TICKETS.

  Amidst those who held a strong opinion on the subject of the concert — and it did not in any great degree differ from the men’s — was Mr. Arkell. Mrs. Arkell knew of this, but never supposed it would extend to the length of keeping her away from it: or perhaps she wilfully shut her eyes to any suspicion of the sort.

  On the morning preceding the concert, she was seated making up some pink bows, intended to adorn the white spotted muslin robes of her daughters, when the explanation came. She said something about the concert — really inadvertently — and Mr. Arkell took it up.

  “You are surely not thinking of going to the concert?” he exclaimed.

  “Indeed I am. I shall go and take Lottie and Sophy.”

  “Then, Charlotte, I desire that you will put away all thoughts of it,” he said. “I could not allow my wife and daughters to appear at it.”

  “Why not? why not?” she asked in irritation.

  “There is not the least necessity for my going over the reasons; you have heard me say already what I think of this concert. It is a gratuitous insult on our poor starving people, and neither I nor mine shall take part in it.”

  “All the influential people in the town are supporting it, and will be there.”

  “Not so universally as you may imagine. But at any rate what other people do is no rule for me. I should consider it little less than a sin to purchase tickets, and I will not do it, or allow it
to be done.”

  Mrs. Arkell gave a flirt at the ribbon in her hand, and sent it flying over the table.

  “What will Charlotte and Sophy say? Pleasant news this will be for them! These bows were for their white dresses. I might have spared myself the time and trouble of making them up. Travice goes to it,” she added, resentfully.

  “But Travice goes as senior of the college school. It has pleased Mr. Wilberforce to ask that the four senior boys shall be admitted; it has been accorded, and they have nothing to do but make use of the permission in obedience to his wishes. That is a different thing. If I had to buy a ticket for Travice, I assure you, Charlotte, the concert would wait long enough before it saw him there.”

  “Our tickets would cost only fifteen shillings,” she retorted.

  “I can’t afford fifteen shillings,” said Mr. Arkell, getting vexed. “Charlotte, hear me, once for all; if the tickets cost but one shilling each, I would not have you purchase them. Not a coin of mine, small or large, shall go to swell the funds of the concert. If you and the girls feel disappointed, I am sorry,” he continued, in a kind tone. “It is not often that I run counter to your wishes; but in this one instance — and I must beg you distinctly to understand me — I cannot allow my decision to be disputed.”

  To say that Mrs. Arkell was annoyed, would be a very inadequate word to express what she felt. She had been fond of gaiety all her life; was fond of it still; she was excessively fond of dress; any project offering the one or the other was eagerly embraced by Mrs. Arkell. Though of gentle birth herself — if that was of any service to her — as the wife of William Arkell, the manufacturer, she did not take her standing in what was called the society of Westerbury — and you do not need, I presume, to be reminded what “society” in a cathedral town is; or are ignorant of its pretentious exclusiveness. There was not a more respected man in the whole city than Mr. Arkell; the dean himself was not more highly considered; but he was a manufacturer, the son of a manufacturer, and therefore beyond the pale of the visiting society. It never occurred to him to wish to enter it; but it did to his wife. To have that barrier removed, she would have sacrificed much; and now and again her reason would break out in private complaint against it. She could not see the justice of it. It is true her husband was a manufacturer; but he had been reared a gentleman; he was a brilliant scholar, one of the most accomplished men of his day. His means were ample, and their style of living was good. Mrs. Arkell glanced to some of the people revelling in the entrée of that society, with their poor pitiful income of a hundred pounds, or two, a year; their pinching and screwing; their paltry expedients to make both ends meet. Why should they be admitted and she excluded, was the question she often asked herself. But Mrs. Arkell knew perfectly well, in the midst of her grumbling, that one might as well try to alter the famed laws of the Medes and Persians, as the laws that govern society in a cathedral town: or indeed in any town. This concert she had looked forward to with more interest than usual, because it would afford her the opportunity of hearing some of the great ones of the county play and sing.

  But she did not now see how to get to it; and her disappointment was bitter. It had fallen upon her as a blow. Mrs. Arkell had her faults, but she was a good wife on the whole; not one to run into direct disobedience. She generally enjoyed her own way; her husband rarely interfered to counteract it; certainly he had never denied her anything so positively as this. She sat, the image of discontent, listlessly tossing the pink bows about with her fingers, when her eldest daughter, a tall, elegant girl, came in.

  “Oh, mamma! how lovely they are! won’t they look well on the white dresses!”

  “Well!” grunted Mrs. Arkell, “I might have spared myself the trouble of making them. We are not to go to the concert now.”

  “Not to go to the concert!” echoed Charlotte, opening her eyes in utter astonishment. “Does papa say so?”

  “Yes; he will not allow tickets to be purchased. He does not approve of the concert. And he says, if the tickets cost but a shilling each, he should think it a sin to give it.”

  Charlotte sat down, the picture of dismay.

  “Where will be the use of our new dresses now!” she exclaimed.

  “Where will be the use of anything,” retorted Mrs. Arkell. “Don’t whirl your chain round like that, Charlotte, giving me the fidgets!”

  Charlotte dropped her chain. A bright idea had occurred to her.

  “If papa’s objection lies in the purchase of tickets, let us ask Henry Arkell for his, mamma. Mrs. Peter is sure to be too ill to go.”

  One minute’s pause of thought, and Mrs. Arkell caught at the suggestion, as a famished outcast catches at the bread offered to him. If a doubt obtruded itself, that their appearing at the concert at all would be almost as unpalatable to her husband as their spending money upon its tickets, she conveniently put it out of sight.

  The gentlemen forming the choir of the cathedral, both lay-clerks and choristers, had been solicited to give their services to the concert; as an acknowledgment two tickets were presented to each of them, in common with the amateur performers. Henry Arkell had, of course, two with the rest, and these were the tickets thought of by Charlotte.

  Not a moment lost Mrs. Arkell. Away went she to pay a visit to Mrs. Peter — a most unusual condescension; and it impressed Mrs. Peter accordingly, who was lying on her sofa that day, very poorly indeed. Mrs. Arkell at once proclaimed the motive of her visit; she did not beat about the bush, or go to work with crafty diplomacy, but she plunged into it with open frankness, telling of their terrible disappointment, through Mr. Arkell’s objecting, on principle, to buy tickets.

  “If you do not particularly wish to go yourself, Mrs. Peter — I know how unequal you are to exertion — and would give Henry’s tickets to myself and Charlotte, I should feel more obliged than I can express.”

  There was one minute’s hesitation on Mrs. Peter Arkell’s part. She had really wished to go to this concert; she was nursing herself up to be able to go; and she knew how greatly Lucy, who had but few chances of any sort of pleasure, was looking forward to it. But the hesitation lasted the minute only; the next, the coveted tickets, with their pretty little red seal in the corner, were in the hand of Mrs. Arkell.

  She went home as elated as though she had taken an enemy’s ship at sea, and were sailing into port with it.

  “Sophy must make up her mind to stay at home,” she soliloquized. “It is her papa’s fault, and I shall tell her so, if she’s rebellious over it, as she is sure to be. This gives one advantage, however: there will be more room in the carriage for me and Charlotte. I wondered how we should all three cram in, with new white dresses on.”

  About the time that she was hugging this idea complacently to herself, the college clock struck one; and the college boys came pelting, pell-mell, down the steps of the schoolroom, their usual mode of egress. Travice Arkell, the senior boy of the school now — and the senior of that school possessed great power, and ruled his followers with an iron hand, more or less so according to his nature — waited, as he was obliged, to the last; he locked the door, and went flying across the grounds to leave the keys at the head master’s. Travice Arkell was almost a man now, and would quit the school very shortly.

  Bounding along as fast as he could go when he had left the keys — taking no notice of a knot of juniors who were quarrelling over marbles — Travice made a detour as he turned out of the grounds, and entered the house of Mrs. Peter Arkell. He was rather addicted to making this detour, but he burst in now at an inopportune moment. Lucy was in tears, and Mrs. Arkell was remonstrating against them in a reasoning, not to say a reproving tone. Henry, who had got in previously, was nursing his leg, a very blank look upon his face.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Travice, as Lucy made her escape.

  “I thought Lucy had more sense,” was the vexed rejoinder made by Mrs. Peter. “Don’t ask, Travice. It is nothing.”

  “What is it, Harry, boy?” cried Travice,
with scant attention to the “don’t ask.” “She can’t be crying for nothing.”

  “It’s about the concert,” returned Henry, ruefully, his disappointment being at least equal to Lucy’s. “Mamma has given away the tickets, and Lucy can’t go.”

  “Whatever’s that for?” asked Travice, who was as much at home at Mrs. Peter’s as he was at his own house. “Who has got the tickets?”

  “Mrs. Arkell.”

  “Mrs. Arkell!” shouted Travice, staring at the boy as if he questioned the truth of the words. “Do you mean my mother? What on earth does she want with your tickets?”

  As he put the question he turned to Mrs. Peter, lying there with the sensitive crimson on her cheeks. She had certainly not intended to betray this to Travice: it had come out in the suddenness of the moment, and she strove to make the best of it now.

  “I am glad it has happened so, Travice. I feel so weak to-day that I was beginning to think it would be imprudent, if not impossible, for me to venture to go to-morrow. To say the least, I am better away. As to Lucy, she is very foolish to cry over so trifling a disappointment. She’ll forget it directly.”