The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

“I believe all you say, Josepha, and our people, the rich and the poor, both believe it. They hev given the government ivery blessed chance to do fairly by them. Now, if it does so, well and good. If it does not do so, the people are full ready to make them do it. I can tell you that.”

“I am so tired of it all,” said Annie wearily. “Why do poor, uneducated men want to meddle with elections for parliament? I can understand and feel with them in their fight about their looms – it means their daily bread; but why should they care about the men who make our laws and that sort of business?”

“I’ll tell thee why. They hev to do it or else go on being poor and ignorant and of no account among men. Our laws are made to please the men who have a vote or a say-so in any election. The laboring men of England hev no vote at all. They can’t say a word about their rights in the country for through the course of centuries the nobles and the rich men hev got all the votes in their awn pockets.”

“Maybe there is something right in that arrangement, Antony. They are better educated.”

“Suppose that argument stood, Annie; still a poor man might like one rich man better than another, and he ought to be able to hev his chance for electing his choice; but that, however, is only the tag-end of the question.”

“Then what is the main end?”

“This: – In the course of centuries, places once of some account hev disappeared, as really as Babylon or Nineveh, and little villages hev grown to be big cities. There is no town of Sarum now, not a vestige, but the Chatham family represent it in parliament to-day or they sell the position or give it away. The member for the borough of Ludgershall is himself the only voter in the borough and he is now in parliament on his awn nomination. Another place has two members and only seven voters; and what do you think a foreigner visiting England would say when told that a green mound without a house on it sent two members to Parliament, or that a certain green park without an inhabitant also sent two members to Parliament? Then suppose him taken to Manchester, Bradford, Sheffield, and other great manufacturing cities, and told they had no representative in Parliament; what do you suppose he would think and say?”

“He would advise them to get a few paper caps among their coronets,” said Josepha.

“And so it goes all over England,” said the squire. “Really, my dears, two-thirds of the House of Commons are composed of the nominees of the nobles and the great landowners. What comes of the poor man’s rights under such circumstances? He hes been robbed of them for centuries; doesn’t tha think, Annie, it is about time he looked after them?”

“I should think it was full time,” Josepha said hotly.

“It is a difficult question,” replied Annie. “It must have many sides that require examination.”

“Whatever is right needs no examination, Annie.”

“Listen, women, I have but told you one-half of the condition. There is another side of it, for if some places hev been growing less and less during the past centuries, other places, once hardly known, have become great cities, like Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, and so forth, and have no representation at all. What do you think of that? Not a soul in parliament to speak for them. Now if men hev to pay taxes they like to know a little bit about their whys and wherefores, eh, women?”

“Did they always want to know, father?” asked Katherine.

“I should say so. It would only be natural, Kitty, but at any rate since the days of King John; and I don’t believe but what the ways of men and the wants of men hev been about the same iver since God made men. They hev allays wanted a king and they hev allays been varry particular about hev-ing some ways and means of making a king do what they want him to do.”

“Suppose the lords pass The Bill but alter it so much that it is not The Bill, what then, father?”

“Well, Kitty, they could do that thing but as your aunt said, they had better not. Nothing but the whole Bill will now satisfy. No! they dare not alter it. Now you can talk over what I hev told you. I must go about my awn business and the first thing I hev to do is to take my wife home. Come, Annie, I am needing thee.”

Annie rose with a happy alacrity. She was glad to go. To be alone with her husband after the past days of society’s patented pleasures was an unspeakable rest and refreshment. They drove to the Clarendon in silent contentment, holding each other’s hand and putting off speech until they could talk without restraint of any kind. And if anyone learned in the expression of the flesh had noticed their hands they would have seen that Annie’s thumb in the clasp was generally the uppermost, a sure sign that she had the strongest will and was made to govern. The corollary of this fact is, that if the clasping thumb in both parties is the right thumb, then complications are most likely to frequently occur.

Indeed Annie did not speak until she had thrown aside her bonnet and cloak and was comfortably seated in the large soft chair she liked best; then she said with an air of perfect satisfaction, “O Antony! It was so kind and thoughtful of thee to come for me. I was afraid there might be some unpleasant to-do before I got away. Josepha was ready for one, longing for one, and Jane hed to make that excuse about getting dinner ready, in order to avoid it. Jane, you know, supports the whole House of Lords, and she goes on about ‘The Constitution of the British Government’ as if it was an inspired document.”

“Well tha knows, Leyland is a Tory from his head to his feet. I doan’t think his mind hes much to do with his opinions. He inherited them from his father, just as he inherited his father’s face and size and money. And a woman hes to think as her husband thinks – if she claims to be a good wife.”

“That idea is an antiquated lie, Antony. A good wife, Antony, thinks not only for herself, she thinks also for her husband.”

“I niver noticed thee making thysen contrary. As I think, thou thinks. Allays that is so.”

“Nay, it is not. There is many a thing different in my mind to what is in thy mind, and thou knows it, too; and there are subjects we neither of us want to talk of because we cannot agree about them. I often thank thee for thy kind self-denial in this matter.”

“I’m sure I doan’t know what thou art so precious civil about. I think of varry little now but the Reform Bill and the poor weavers; and thou thinks with me on both of them subjects. Eh, Joy?”

“To be sure I do – with some sub-differences.”

“I doan’t meddle with what thou calls thy ‘subdifferences.’ I’ll warrant they are innocent as thysen and thy son Dick is a good son and he thinks just as I think on ivery subject. That’s enough, Annie, on sub-differences. Let us hev a bit of a comfortable lunch. Jane’s breakfast was cold and made up of fancy dishes like oysters and chicken minced with mushrooms, and muffins and such miscarriages of eatable dishes. I want some sensible eating at one o’clock and I feel as if it was varry near one now.”

“What shall I order for you?”

“Some kidney soup and cold roast beef and a good pudding, or some Christ Church tartlets, the best vegetables they hev and a bottle of Bass’ best ale or porter, but thou can-hev a cup of sloppy tea if tha fancies it.”

“I think no better of sloppy things than thou does, Antony. I’ll hev a glass of good, pale sherry wine, and the same would be better for thee than anything Bass brews. Bass makes a man stout, and thou art now just the right weight; an ounce more flesh would spoil thy figure and take the spring out of thy step and put more color in thy face and take the music out of thy voice; but please thy dear self about thy eating; perhaps I am a bit selfish about thy good looks, but when a woman gets used to showing herself off with a handsome man she can’t bear to give up that bit of pride.”

“Well, then, Annie dear, whativer pleases thee, pleases me. Send for number five, and order what thou thinks best.”

“Nay, Antony, thou shalt have thy own wish. It is little enough to give thee.”

“It is full and plenty, if thou puts thy wish with it.”

Then Annie happily ordered the kidney soup and cold roast and the particular tarts he liked and the sherry instead of the beer, and the fare pleased both, and they ate it with that smiling cheerfulness which is of all thanksgiving the most acceptable to the Bountiful Giver of all good things. And as they ate they talked of Katherine’s beauty and loving heart and of Dick’s ready obedience and manly respect for his father, and food so seasoned and so cheerfully eaten is the very best banquet that mortals can ever hope to taste in this life.

In the meantime, Dick, urged both by his father’s desire and his own wistful longing to see Faith Foster, lost no time in reaching his home village. He was shocked by its loneliness and silence. He did not meet or see a single man. The women were shut up in their cottages. Their trouble had passed all desire for company and all hope of any immediate assistance. Talking only enervated them and they all had the same miserable tale to tell. It might have been a deserted village but for the musical chime of the church clock and the sight of a few little children sitting listlessly on the doorsteps of the cottages. Hunger had killed in them the instinct of play. “It hurts us to play. It makes the pain come,” said one little lad, as he looked with large suffering eyes into Dick’s face; but never asked from him either pity or help. Yet his very silence was eloquence. No words could have moved to sympathy so strongly as the voiceless appeal of his sad suffering eyes, his thin face, and the patient helplessness of his hopeless quiet. Dick could not bear it. He gave the child some money, and it began to cry softly and to whimper “Mammy! Mammy!” and Dick hurried homeward, rather ashamed of his own emotion, yet full of the tenderest pity.

He found Britton pottering about the stable and his wife Sarah trying with clumsy fingers to fashion a child’s frock. “Oh, Master Dick!” she cried. “Why did tha come back to this unhappy place? I think there is pining and famishing in ivery house and sickness hard following it.”

“I have come, Sarah, to see what can be done to help the trouble.”

“A God’s mercy, sir! We be hard set in Annis village this day.”

“Have you a room ready for me, Sarah? I may be here for a few days.”

“It would be a varry queer thing if I hedn’t a room ready for any of the family, coming in a hurry like. Your awn room is spick and span, sir. And I’ll hev a bit of fire there in ten minutes or thereby, but tha surely will hev summat to eat first.”

“Nothing to eat just yet, Sarah. I shall want a little dinner about five o’clock if you will have it ready.”

“All right, sir. We hev no beef or mutton in t’ house, sir, but I will kill a chicken and make a rice pudding, if that will do.”

“That is all I want.”

Then Dick went to the stables and interviewed Britton, and spoke to every horse in it, and asked Britton to turn them into the paddock for a couple of hours. “They are needing fresh air and a little liberty, Britton,” he said, and as Britton loosened their halters and opened the door that led into the paddock they went out prancing and neighing their gratitude for the favor.

“That little gray mare, sir,” said Britton, “she hes as much sense as a human. She knew first of all of them what was coming, and she knew it was your doing, sir, that’s the reason she nudged up against you and fairly laid her face against yours.”

“Yes, she knew me, Britton. Lucy and I have had many a happy day together.” Then he asked Britton about the cattle and the poultry, and especially about the bulbs and the garden flowers, which had always had more or less the care of Mistress Annis.

These things attended to, he went to his room and dressed himself with what seemed to be some unnecessary care. Dick, however, did not think so. He was going to see Mr. Foster and he might see Faith, and he could not think of himself as wearing clothing travel-soiled in her presence. In an hour, however, he was ready to go to the village, fittingly dressed from head to feet, handsome as handsome Youth can be, and the gleam and glow of a true love in his heart. “It may be – it may be!” he told himself as he walked speedily down the nearest way to the village.

When about half-way there, he met the preacher. “I heard you were here, Mr. Annis,” he said. “Betty Bews told me she saw you pass her cottage.”

“I came in answer to your letter, sir. The Bill is at a great crisis, and my father’s vote on the right side is needed. And I was glad to come, if I can do good in any way.”

“Oh, yes, sir, there are things to do, and words to say that I cannot do or say – and the need is urgent.”

“Then let us go forward. I was shocked by the village as I passed through it. I did not meet a single man. I saw only a few sickly looking women, and some piteous children.”