To this reasoning, and to these arrangements, no objection whatever was made by the governor of the apprentice-house. Of athletic frame, and iron nerves, he grinned defiance at any danger that threatened his own person, rightly enough thinking, perhaps, that any disease to which his Water-porridge-fed troop appeared peculiarly liable, would be little likely to attack himself.
It was, however, not the least part of his wisdom upon this occasion, that he systematically paid as little attention to what was going on round him as possible. Had he made it a habit to look into the haggard faces of the drooping children, as one after another they pined, languished, and sunk, first into the horrible abyss of wretchedness called the sick-ward, and then into the grave, it is possible that he too might in some degree have been shaken. As it was, however, he went on so cleverly supplying the missing hands by recommending to the manager that one healthy child should do the work of two, and so cleverly, also, getting all that died by day buried by night, without making, as he said, any fuss or fidget about it whatever, that Mr. Elgood Sharpton felt him to be eminently deserving of an especial reward, and when fifteen children had been noiselessly buried, in Tugs-well churchyard, he presented him with a Bank of England note for ten pounds, as a testimony of his esteem and gratitude for his very exemplary and praiseworthy behaviour. It fared not quite so well, however, with his wife. Whether it were that the poco-curante system was less within reach of her position than of his; or that her frame was less stoutly proof against the malaria with which she was surrounded, a visible change came over her about three weeks after this visitation had been first felt at the Deep Valley mills. Strong in constitution, and athletic in form, it seemed, however, no easy matter for disease itself to conquer her. The large dark eye grew dim, and sunk back behind her high cheek-bones by degrees. Her coarse firm-set features appeared to relax, and her active limbs to languish, for two whole days before she yielded herself to the invincible power that had seized upon her.
It happened during this interval that Fanny Fletcher and Michael, in their eagerness to communicate to each other their observations on the rapidly-increasing sickness of their fellow-labourers, hung back together, as the frightened train swept on before the lifted lash of the governor, and permitted nearly all their companions to reach the mill ere they had left the supper-room. They were perhaps themselves unconscious how much they were emboldened to this hardy defiance of a standing law by the unwonted stillness of tongue, and tameness of aspect observable in Mrs. Poulet. But if they fancied they were to escape entirely they were mistaken, for whilst the little girl was telling Michael that they ought always, at work, or not at work, to be thinking of God, who was perhaps thinking of them, and meaning to take them both up together to his own happy Heaven, just as she had laid her hand on his to enforce her words, and looking wistfully in his face pronounced aloud, “Do Michael, do!” the sick dragon stepped back on hearing them, from the passage that led into the kitchen, and turning her ghastly face full upon them, exclaimed, while her languid fist strove in vain to clench and raise itself, as in days of yore, to threaten castigation.
“Do! you devil’s imps! I’ll do ye! Off to your mules or by — But ere she could finish the sentence, her fever-laden sinews relaxed, and seizing upon the long table for support she sank almost insensible upon a bench. —
Greatly terrified, both Michael and Fanny screamed together, but they screamed in vain. There was no longer any one within hearing save in the closely packed chamber above, where more than twenty sick children lay two and two together, in their miserable beds, but totally without nurses or attendants of any kind, so that their loud cries, though heard by many brought assistance from none.
“Oh! Michael! Michael! she’ll die too!” said Fanny shuddering. “I would make her live longer if I could. She is not fit to die. Go to the pump, Michael, and fetch water! Go, go, dear boy. We must not leave her this way!”
The little girl endeavoured to raise the woman’s head, which had sunk upon the table, but the effort was beyond her strength, and feeling after a moment’s reflection that the best manner of assisting heir would be to call others, she cried, “No, no! don’t go Michael! Don’t go for the water. It is no use my trying to hold her up, and besides we don’t know if it is good for her or not. Oh dear! how dreadful bad she looks. Let us run away to the mill, Michael, and tell the master.” —
The seizure of Mrs. Poulet, unlike every other, became, within an hour, from the time it was known, the theme of every tongue throughout the whole establishment. Had it been Mr. Elgood Sharpton himself it could not well have occasioned a greater sensation. The effect this produced throughout the sickly troop might have served as a proof of the wisdom of a government when it conceals the mischief it has brought upon an empire, from those who are likely to discuss it. The total silence which till now had been preserved among the managers and overlookers respecting the contagious nature of the malady which had got among the children, the absence of all medical attendance, and of all precautionary or medical measures in any way calculated to excite attention, had hitherto very successfully prevented rumour from doing her usual work on such occasions; and it is probable that this partial ignorance of their own danger considerably lessened its consequences; for it was only one or two such thoughtful, meditative little things, as Fanny Fletcher, who had began to remember having heard of infectious fevers, and to think that maybe it was something of that sort that had made Nos. 9,16, 18, 19. &c., &c., stay away so long, and that too, when the mill was so very busy.
But when it became generally known that the awful strength of Mrs. Poulet was laid low, and when the words, “the fever have cautched her!” had once been pronounced aloud, the palpable image of the pale tyrant seemed to stand frowning in the midst of them, substituting his grisley hour-glass and scythe for the fist, and the frown he had conquered.
The scene which followed this was very frightful. — Those upon whom infection had seized, sunk from their work at once, despite the goading thong which had hitherto kept them from dropping — as the spur and the lash sustain the failing post-horse. While those who were yet untouched looked in each other’s faces as if to watch who next should fall. When the children from all the different floors of the fabric met together at their midday meal, the first thought of each seemed to be the finding out who was missing since last they assembled, and the shudder that followed the perceiving another and another, and another gone, ran along the shortening lines with an agony which grew more and more intense as their numbers lessened.
When things had reached this state, Mr. Elgood Sharpton agreed with Mr. Poulet that it might perhaps be as well to let an apothecary from Tugswell visit the factory, to which reluctant decision two reasons strongly contributed. The first was, that though with his usual forethought he had divided his nocturnal buryings between the churchyards of Tugswell and Meddington, the clergymen of both had declared that their frequency rendered it necessary that some inquiry should be made into the cause of so great a mortality — and the second was that the fact of the mistress of the apprentice house, being herself at the point of death from the same malady, must infallibly prove to the medical visitant that it was no treatment peculiar to the children which had occasioned it, but that it had come beyond all possibility of contradiction by the visitation of God.
Nevertheless the medical gentleman ventured to declare that nothing would be so likely to stop the contagion as nourishing food; upon which the terrified manufacturer astonished all the butchers within his reach, by commanding a large supply of beef and mutton “good enough to make wholesome soup,” and before another ghastly week had passed away, the wisdom of this prescription became so evident that when settling accounts together at the end of it, Mr. Poulet hinted to his employer that he did not feel quite sure whether upon the whole a little better living for the apprentices might not pay.
For all answer Mr. Elgood Sharpton put his finger to the sum total for provisions during the last week, and then turning ba
ck a page or two of the huge volume, did the same by the sum total of a former week.
“True, sir, true enough,” said Mr. Poulet, “but howsomever it can’t be denied, that if we go on this fashion we shall have no hands left to work with — and there would be but small profit in that sir.”
“My dear Poulet, you do not study the population returns as attentively as I do,” replied his enlightened master. “Just at this moment it may be very right to cram them for several reasons — the best being, observe, that by so doing we stop more mouths than their own. But as to going on in the same style of expense when this fit of dying and gossiping is over, it is quite out of the question, and I do beg that you will never mention the subject to me again. You can know little my good Poulet of the rate at which pauper children are multiplied, if you think it necessary to preserve them at this ruinous rate of expence. If there were all of them to die off before the end of the month, I would undertake to have their place supplied before the end of the next. You may take my word for it that no man ever succeeded in business who did not know how to make out an accurate balance between profit and loss. I know to a fraction what each of these ‘prentice brats are worth, Poulet, and I can tell you that such weekly bills as these would speedily turn the tables against us.”
“In that case, sir, there is surely no more to be said,” replied Poulet; and then changing the subject, he added, “In course, sir you won’t object to my missis being buried by day, instead of by night? Besides respect to her, sir, I think it would be quite as well, shewing all the country, you see, as how flesh is but grass for the high, as for the low, and making it manifest to all the country that it can’t be no want of good nursing and comfort as causes the deaths at our mill.”
“Quite right, quite right, Poulet,” replied the rapid-minded Mr. Sharpton, promptly; “I should not object even to stopping the mills for a couple of hours or so, and making all the hands follow as mourners, if you thought it would answer.”
“Why, as to that, sir,” said the faithful servant, “I would not undertake to say that we should be able to get up much of a procession if we turned out the whole lot to choose from. They couldn’t stand I should think, sir, without the mules to hold by, for so long together. They totter frightful, I can tell you, when they starts first to move to and fro, from factory to ‘prentice-house, and back again, and I don’t think there would be either credit or profit in making a show of them.”
“Well, well! do as you will, Poulet. I dont care a brass farthing whether they walk or stand; and I can’t say when I built this factory, it was with any view to make a show, as you call it, of the young ladies and gentlemen to be employed in it.”
With a light laugh which challenged an answering laugh from the governor, widower as he was, Mr. Elgood Sharpton rose to depart. Poulet attended him to the outer gate, and held his stirrup while he mounted, reiterating his promises to do the best he could, and only stipulating for plenty of vinegar, and leave to use soap till the cold weather came in.
Meanwhile, though a less proportion died of those who were seized with the malady, than before the improvement in the diet was introduced, the plague was as yet very far from being stayed. No day passed without many fresh victims sinking under its influence, and it was no uncommon thing to see two or three wheelbarrows at a time, towards the evening of every day, conveying children from the factory to the apprentice-house who had fallen while following the machinery.
For a whole week after the death of Mrs. Poulet, Michael and his friend Fanny, both continued as it seemed, unscathed, and many were the grave discussions between them, as to whether they ought to be sorry or glad that they were so — Fanny very steadily adhering to her first opinion, that if they had a great deal of love for each other, they would not let themselves be sorry, if one saw the other go away, and Michael as steadily persisting that right or wrong he must be so very sorry if Fanny went, as not to care at all how soon he followed after.
The disinterested reasonings of the little girl were soon put to the proof. Michael looked so very ill one morning at breakfast, that even the iron-hearted Poulet told him he had best mount to the sick ward before it was needful to carry him; but Michael looked at poor Fanny, and saw such an expression of terror and misery in her countenance, that he could not help thinking she would change her mind about being glad, if he did not go into work along with her. So he told the governor that he wasn’t bad at all, and had rather work than not; an assurance, which it could not, under any circumstances, be Mr. Poulet’s duty to combat; and accordingly Michael got to his place in the mill, and spoke cheeringly to Fanny as he went along. But before the hour of dinner he was on the floor, and when the overlooker called to a stretcher to have him wheelbarrowed back to the’Prentice-house, Fanny Fletcher thought that she certainly did not love poor Michael Armstrong so much as she fancied she did, for that if the choice had been given her, she would a great deal rather have been taken ill herself. And spite of a strap that she saw coming towards her, and flourishing ready for duty in the air, she helped to drag the unresisting body of her poor companion from before the mules, and thoughtless and reckless of the consequences, sat down and held his head on her knee, till he was raised in the arms of the stretcher and carried off. It was then, and not till then, that her tears began to flow, and they flowed so fast, that she could no longer see the uplifted strap, nor was it till the blow had descended sharply on her arm that she was sufficiently mistress of her thoughts to remember, that there was at any rate a hope that it might be her turn next, and with this to comfort her, she yielded meekly to the arm that pushed her to her usual place, and resumed her occupation with more stedfast courage, than at that moment any other hope could have given her.
But even this sad hope proved vain. Fanny Fletcher still continued one of the very few upon whom the contagion had no effect. For the first day or two after the removal of her friend, her mind was almost wholly occupied by the expectation of feeling the same symptoms that she had witnessed in him; and when these came not, her thoughts reverted to the possibility of his recovering and coming again to work near her.
It was an established custom among those who alone could give information on the subject, never to permit any questionings concerning the sick, or if they were boldly hazarded, to give no other reply than a rebuke. So that day after day, and week after week elapsed, without her being at all able to guess, whether Michael were dead or alive. By degrees, however, all hope of seeing him return, faded from her mind, and then, poor little girl, she found out that people can’t always wish truly and really for what they know to be best either for themselves or others. And day by day, though still the fever touched her not, she grew more pale, more thin, more melancholy. Now and then, indeed, it still occurred to her as possible that Michael might reappear again, as many had done after many days of sickness; but, alas! none had ever staid away so long as he had done! She had questioned many who had been ill concerning him, but none seemed to know or care any thing about those who had shared the sick chamber with them; till at length, a boy to whom she had often addressed these questions, because she happened to know that he had been taken to the sick ward on the same day as Michael, replied as if by a sudden effort of recollection, “Oh! that chap? Him what was one of the last as come? Ay, ay, I mind all about him. He was dead and buried before he had been down three days.” —
Fanny Fletcher asked no more questions, nor had she any longer hope of following where so many of her happier companions were gone. The fever was pronounced to be over, the Factory and Apprentice-house were whitewashed, and a number of new inmates arrived. All things in short at the Deep-Valley Mills appeared to be going on as prosperously as usual; a statement which could be hardly impeached by the fact that one little girl there was growing paler and more shadow-like every day.
CHAPTER XXI.
MISS BROTHERTON EXERTS HER ELOQUENCE, AND NURSE TREMLETT IS BROUGHT TO REASON THEREBY — THE HEIRESS HARDENS HER HEART, AND SPEAKS HARSH TRUTHS TO
MARTHA DOWLING, BUT ALL IN VAIN — SHE CONCEIVES A PROJECT, AND SETS ABOUT PUTTING IT IN EXECUTION WITH GREAT SPIRIT.
“WELL, my dear Mary,!” said Mrs. Tremlett, on sitting down tete-à-tête with Miss Brotherton, after their return from Fairly, “don’t you think that you will come at last to confess that I was right when I told you that you had better let things alone, and not attempt to make any fuss or stir about these factory goings on?”
Mary looked sick at heart, and only shook her head in reply “Why, what have you gained, my dear child, by all your labour and pains to get information, as you call it? You are looking as white as a sheet — your eyes are sunk in your head — when I look at you, instead of the smiles you used to give me, I get nothing but sighs, and all for what? Can you in honesty and truth say that you have gained any thing worth knowing by following your own opinion instead of mine? What good in the world can you do, dear, by listening to all the shocking stories that clergyman there told you? I dare say he is a very good man, and he looks like it, but upon my word I think he is doing nothing but just wasting his time, as well as yourself; for though I sat and said nothing, as of course it was my place to do, I listened to every word, and it is just because I believe every word was true, that common sense makes me see there’s no good to talk about it. Indeed, and indeed, my darling, I would not make free to talk to you in this way, which looks for all the world as if I was taking advantage of your goodness to me, if I did not see that you was going the way to torment yourself for everlasting, without doing one bit of good to any one. For how, my dear, can you, or that good clergyman either, hope to put down all the wicked doings he told about? And to be sure he said as much himself — didn’t he Miss Mary? Then do make up your mind to be quiet and happy, and let things that you can’t mend, alone. Put as many children to school as you like, my dear, and you may give them a pretty neat uniform, you know, and that will be a pleasure for you to think about, and to look at; but for pity’s sake my dear, dear, child! give up at once, and for ever, this bothering yourself for everlasting about the factories, which you can no more stop, Mary, than you can stop the sun from rising in the morning, and setting at night.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 196
