A Life's Secret

'You hold your tongue, Sam,' reprimanded Mrs. Quale. 'You have been a greasing your throat pretty strong, I see, with an extra pot or two; you'll be in for it as usual before the day's out. How is it you are going now?' she added, turning to the women.

'It's just the worst managed thing as I ever had to do with,' volubly spoke up Jim Dunn's wife, Hannah. 'And it's all the fault o' the men: as everything as goes wrong always is. There was a quarrel yesterday over it, and nothing was settled, and this morning when we met they began a jawing again. Some would go, and some wouldn't; some 'ud have a van to the Forest, and some 'ud take a omnibus ride to the Zoological Gardens, and see the beasts, and finish up at the play; some 'ud sit at home, and smoke, and drink, and wouldn't go nowhere; and most of the men got off to the "Bricklayers' Arms" and stuck there; and afore the difference was settled in favour of the van and the Forest, twelve o'clock struck, and then there was dinner to be had, and us to put ourselves to rights and the van to be seen after. And there it is, now three o'clock's gone.'

'It'll be just a ride out, and a ride in,' cried Mrs. Quale; 'you won't have much time to stop. Money must be plentiful with you, a fooling it away like that. I thought some of you had better sense.'

'We spoke against it, father and I,' said quiet Mary Baxendale, in Mrs. Quale's ear; 'but as we had given our word to join in it and share in the expense, we didn't like to go from it again. Mother doesn't feel strong to-day, so she's stopping at home.'

'It does seem stupid to start at this late hour,' spoke up a comely woman, mild in speech, Robert Darby's wife. 'Better to have put it off till to-morrow, and taken another day's holiday, as I told my master. But when it was decided to go, we didn't say nay, for I couldn't bear to disappoint the children.'

The children were already being lifted into the van. Sundry baskets and bundles, containing provisions for tea, and stone bottles of porter for the men, were being lifted in also. Then the general company got in; Daffodil's Delight, those not bound on the expedition, assembling to witness the ceremony, and Peter casting an eye at it from his parlour. After much packing, and stowing, and laughing, and jesting, and the gentlemen declaring the ladies must sit upon their laps three deep, the van and its four horses moved off, and went lumbering down Daffodil's Delight.

Mrs. Quale, after watching the last of it, was turning into her own gate, when she heard a tapping at the window of the tenement on the other side of her house. Upon looking round, it was thrown open, and a portly matron, dressed almost well enough for a lady, put out her head. She was the wife of George Stevens, a very well-to-do workman, and most respectable man.

'Are they going off to the Forest at this hour, that lot?'

'Ay,' returned Mrs. Quale; 'was ever such nonsense known? I'd have made a day of it, if I had went. They'll get home at midnight, I expect, fit to stand on their heads. Some of the men have had a'most as much as is good for them now.'

'I say,' continued Mrs. Stevens, 'George says, will you and your master come in for an hour or two this evening, and eat a bit of supper with us? We shall have a nice dish o' beefsteaks and onions, or some relishing thing of that sort, and the Cheeks are coming.'

'Thank ye,' said Mrs. Quale. 'I'll ask Peter. But don't go and get anything hot.'

'I must,' was the answer. 'We had a shoulder of lamb yesterday, and we finished it up to-day for dinner, with a salad; so there's nothing cold in the house, and I'm forced to cook a bit of something. I say, don't make it late; come at six. George—he's off somewhere, but he'll be in.'

Mrs. Quale nodded acquiescence, and went indoors. Her husband was reading and smoking still.

'I'd have put it off till ten at night, and went then!' ironically cried she, in allusion to the departed pleasure-party. 'A bickering and contending they have been over it, Hannah Dunn says; couldn't come to an agreement what they'd do, or what they wouldn't do! Did you ever see such a load! Them poor horses 'll have enough of it, if the others don't. I say, the Stevenses want us to go in there to supper to-night. Beefsteaks and onions.'

Peter's head was bent attentively over a map in his book, and it continued so bent for a minute or two. Then he raised it. 'Who's to be there?'

'The Cheeks,' she said. 'I'll make haste and put the kettle on, and we'll have our tea as soon as it boils. She says don't go in later than six.'

Pinning on the coarse apron, Mrs. Quale passed into the kitchen to her work. From the above slight sketch, it may be gathered that Daffodil's Delight was, take it for all in all, in tolerably comfortable circumstances. But for the wasteful mode of living generally pervading it; the improvidence both of husbands and wives; the spending where they need not have spent, and in things they would have been better without—it would have been in very comfortable circumstances: for, as is well known, no class of operatives earn better wages than those connected with the building trade.

'Is this Peter Quale's?'

The question proceeded from a stranger, who had entered the house passage, and thence the parlour, after knocking at its door. Peter raised his eyes, and beheld a tall, young, very gentleman-like man, in grey travelling clothes and a crape band on his black hat. Of courteous manners also, for he lifted his hat as he spoke, though Peter was only a workman and had a paper cap on his head.

'I am Peter Quale,' said Peter, without moving.

Perhaps you may have already guessed that it was Austin Clay. He stepped forward with a frank smile. 'I am sent here,' he said, 'by the Messrs. Hunter. They desired me to inquire for Peter Quale.'

Peter was not wont to put himself out of the way for strangers: had a Duke Royal vouchsafed him a visit, I question if Peter would have been more than barely civil; but he knew his place with respect to his employers, and what was due to them—none better; and he rose up at their name, and took off his paper cap, and laid his pipe inside the fender, and spoke a word of apology to the gentleman before him.

'Pray do not mention it; do not disturb yourself,' said Austin, kindly. 'My name is Clay. I have just entered into an engagement with the Messrs. Hunter, and am now in search of lodgings as conveniently near their yard as may be. Mr. Henry Hunter said he thought you had rooms which might suit me: hence my intrusion.'

'Well, sir, I don't know,' returned Peter, rather dubiously. He was one of those who are apt to grow bewildered with any sudden proposition; requiring time, as may be said, to take it in, before he could digest it.

'You are from the country, sir, maybe?'

'I am from the country. I arrived in London but an hour ago, and my portmanteau is yet at the station. I wish to settle where I shall lodge, before I go to get it. Have you rooms to let?'

'Here, Nancy, come in!' cried Peter to his wife. 'The rooms are in readiness to be shown, aren't they?'

Mrs. Quale required no second call. Hearing a strange voice, and gifted in a remarkable degree with what we are taught to look upon as her sex's failing—curiosity—she had already discarded again the apron, and made her appearance in time to receive the question.

'Ready and waiting,' answered she. 'And two better rooms for their size you won't find, sir, search London through,' she said, volubly, turning to Austin. 'They are on the first floor—a nice sitting-room, and a bedchamber behind it. The furniture is good, and clean, and handsome; for, when we were buying of it, we didn't spare a few pounds, knowing such would keep good to the end. Would you please step up, sir, and take a look at them?'

Austin acquiesced, motioning to her to lead the way. She dropped a curtsey as she passed him, as if in apology for taking it. He followed, and Peter brought up the rear, a dim notion penetrating Peter's brain that the attention was due from him to one sent by the Messrs. Hunter.

Two good rooms, as she had said; small, but well fitted up. 'You'd be sure to be comfortable, sir,' cried Mrs. Quale to Austin. 'If I can't make lodgers comfortable, I don't know who can. Our last gentleman came to us three years ago, and left but a month since. He was a barrister's clerk, but he didn't get well paid, and he lodged in this part for cheapness.'

'The rooms would suit me, so far as I can judge,' said Austin, looking round; 'suit me very well indeed, if we can agree upon terms. My pocket is but a shallow one at present,' he laughed.

'I would make them easy enough for any gentleman sent by the masters,' struck in Peter. 'Did you say your name was Clay, sir?'

'Clay,' assented Austin.

Mrs. Quale wheeled round at this, and took a free, full view of the gentleman from head to foot. 'Clay? Clay?' she repeated to herself. 'And there is a likeness, if ever I saw one! Sir,' she hastily inquired, 'do you come from the neighbourhood of Ketterford?'

'I come from Ketterford itself,' replied he.

'Ah, but you were not born right in the town. I think you must be Austin Clay, sir; the orphan son of Mr. Clay and his wife—Miss Austin that used to be. They lived at the Nash farm. Sir, I have had you upon my lap scores of times when you were a little one.'

'Why–who are you?' exclaimed Austin.

'You can't have forgot old Mr. Austin, the great-uncle, sir? though you were only seven years old when he died. I was Ann Best, cook to the old gentleman, and I heard all the ins and outs of the marriage of your father and mother. The match pleased neither family, and so they just took the Nash farm for themselves, to be independent and get along without being beholden for help to anybody. Many a fruit puff have I made for you, Master Austin; many a currant cake: how things come round in this world! Do take our rooms, sir—it will seem like serving my old master over again.'

'I will take them willingly, and be glad to fall into such good hands. You will not require references now?'

Mrs. Quale laughed. Peter grunted resentfully. References from anybody sent by the Messrs. Hunter! 'I would say eight shillings a week, sir,' said Peter, looking at his wife. 'Pay as you like; monthly, or quarterly, or any way.'

'That's less than I expected,' said Austin, in his candour. 'Mr. Henry Hunter thought they would be about ten shillings.'

Peter was candid also. 'There's the neighbourhood to be took into consideration, sir, which is not a good one, and we can only let according to it. In some parts—and not far off, neither—you'd pay eighteen or twenty shillings for such rooms as these; in Daffodil's Delight it is different, though this is the best quarter of it. The last gentleman paid us nine. If eight will suit you, sir, it will suit us.'

So the bargain was struck; and Austin Clay went back to the station for his luggage. Mrs. Quale, busy as a bee, ran in to tell her next-door neighbour that she could not be one of the beef-steak-and-onion eaters that night, though Peter might, for she should have her hands full with their new lodger. 'The nicest, handsomest young fellow,' she wound up with; 'one it will be a pleasure to wait on.'

'Take care what you be at, if he's a stranger,' cried cautious Mrs. Stevens. 'There's no trusting those country folks: they run away sometimes. It looks odd, don't it, to come after lodgings one minute, and enter upon 'em the next?'

'Very odd,' assented Mrs. Quale, with a laugh. 'Why, it was Mr. Henry Hunter sent him round here; and he has got a post in their house.'

'What sort of one?' asked Mrs. Stevens, sceptical still.

'Who knows? Something superior to the best of us workpeople, you may be sure. He belongs to gentlefolks,' concluded Mrs. Quale. 'I knew him as a baby. It was in his mother's family I lived before I married. He's as like his mother as two peas, and a handsome woman was Mrs. Clay. Good-bye: I'm going to get the sheets on to his bed now.'

Mrs. Quale, however, found that she was, after all, able to assist at the supper; for, when Austin came back, it was only to dress himself and go out, in pursuance of the invitation he had accepted to dine at Mr. Henry Hunter's. With all his haste it had struck six some minutes when he got there.

Mrs. Henry Hunter, a very pretty and very talkative woman, welcomed him with both hands, and told her children to do the same, for it was 'the gentleman who saved papa.' There was no ceremony; he was received quite en famille; no other guest was present, and three or four of the children dined at table. He appeared to find favour with them all. He talked on business matters with Mr. Henry Hunter; on lighter topics with his wife; he pointed out some errors in Mary Hunter's drawings, which she somewhat ostentatiously exhibited to him, and showed her how to rectify them. He entered into the school life of the two young boys, from their classics to their scrapes; and nursed a pretty little lady of five, who insisted on appropriating his knee—bearing himself throughout all with the modest reticence—the refinement of the innate gentleman. Mrs. Henry Hunter was charmed with him.