All Sorts and Conditions of Men: An Impossible Story

Her eyes filled with tears.

Captain Sorensen took a book from the table – it was that book which so many people have constantly in their mouths, and yet it never seems to get into their hearts; the book which is so seldom read and so much commented upon. He turned it over till he found a certain passage beginning, "Who can find a virtuous woman?" He read this right through to the end. One passage, "She stretcheth out her hand to the poor. Yea, she reacheth forth her hands unto the needy," he read twice; and the last line, "Let her own works praise her in the gates," he read three times.

"My dear" he concluded, "to pleasure Miss Kennedy you would do more than give up a lover; ay, and with a cheerful heart."

CHAPTER XLI.

BOXING-NIGHT

"Let us keep Christmas," said Angela, "with something like original treatment. We will not dance, because we do that nearly every night."

"Let us," said Harry, "dress up and act."

What were they to act? That he would find for them. How were they to dress? That they would have to find for themselves. The feature of the Christmas festival was that they were to be mummers, and that there was to be mummicking, and of course there would be a little feasting, and perhaps a little singing.

"We must have just such a programme," said Angela to their master of ceremonies, "as if you were preparing it for the Palace of Delight."

"This is the only Palace of Delight," said Harry, "that we shall ever see. For my own part I desire no other."

"But, you know, we are going to have another one, much larger than this little place. Have you forgotten all your projects?"

Harry laughed; it was strange how persistently Miss Kennedy returned to the subject again and again; how seriously she talked about it; how she dwelt upon it.

"We must have," she continued, "sports which will cost nothing, with dresses which we can make for ourselves. Of course we must have guests to witness them."

"Guests cost money," said Harry. "But, of course, in a Palace of Delight money must not be considered. That would be treason to your principles."

"We shall not give our guests anything except the cold remains of the Christmas dinner. As for champagne, we can make our own with a few lemons and a little sugar. Do not forbid us to invite an audience."

Fortunately, a present which arrived from their patron, Miss Messenger, the day before Christmas Day, enabled them to give their guests a substantial supper, at no cost whatever. The present took the form of several hampers, addressed to Miss Kennedy, with a note from the donor conveying her love to the girls and best wishes for the next year, when she hoped to make their acquaintance. The hampers contained turkeys, sausages, ducks, geese, hams, tongues, and the like.

Meantime, Harry, as stage manager and dramatist, had devised the tableaux, and the girls between them had devised the dresses from a book of costumes. Christmas Day, as everybody remembers, fell last year on a Sunday. This gave the girls the whole of Saturday afternoon and evening, with Monday morning for the conversion of the trying-on room into the stage, and the show-room for the audience. But the rehearsals took a fortnight, for some of the girls were stupid and some were shy, though all were willing to learn, and Harry was patient. Besides, there was the chance of wearing the most beautiful dresses, and no one was left out; in the allegory, a pastoral, invented by their manager, there was a part for every one.

The gift of Miss Messenger made it possible to have two sets of guests; one set consisting of the girls' female relations, and a few private friends of Miss Kennedy's who lived and suffered in the neighborhood, for the Christmas dinner, held on Monday; and the other set was carefully chosen from a long list of the select audience in the evening. Among them were Dick and his friend, the ex-Chartist cobbler, and a few leading spirits of the Advanced Club. They wanted an audience who would read between the lines.

The twenty-sixth day of last December was, in the neighborhood of Stepney, dull and overcast; it promised to be a day of rebuke for all quiet folk, because it was a general holiday, one of those four terrible days when the people flock in droves to favorite haunts if it is in the summer, or hang about public-houses if it is winter; when, in the evening, the air is hideous with the shouts of those who roll about the pavements; a day when even Comus and his rabble rout are fain to go home for fear of being hustled and evilly treated by the holiday-makers of famous London town; a day when the peaceful and the pious, the temperate and the timid, stay at home. But to Angela it was a great day, sweet and precious – to use the language of an ancient Puritan and modern prig – because it was the first attempt toward the realization of her great dream; because her girls on this night for the first time showed the fruits of her training in the way they played their parts, their quiet bearing and their new refinement. After the performances of this evening she looked forward with confidence to her palace.

The day began, then, at half-past with the big dinner. All the girls could bring their mothers, sisters, and female relations generally, who were informed that Miss Messenger, the mysterious person who interfered perpetually, like a goddess out of a machine, with some new gift, or some device for their advantage, was the giver of the feast.

It was a good and ample Christmas dinner served in the long work-room by Angela and the girls themselves. There were the turkeys of the hamper, roasted with sausages, and roast beef and roast fowls, and roast geese and roast pork, with an immense supply of the vegetables dear to London people; and after this first course, there were plum-pudding and mince-pies. Messenger's ale, with the stout so much recommended by Bunker, flowed freely, and after dinner there was handed to each a glass of port. None but women and children – no boy over eight being allowed – were present at the feast, and when it was over most of the women got up and went away, not without some little talk with Angela and some present in kind from the benevolent Miss Messenger. Then they cleared all away and set out the tables again, with the same provisions, for the supper in the evening, at which there would be hungry men.

All the afternoon they spent in completing their arrangements. The guests began to arrive at five. The music was supplied by Angela herself, who did not act, with Captain Sorensen and Harry. The piano was brought downstairs and stood in the hall outside the trying-on room.

The performance was to commence at six, but everybody had come long before half-past five. At a quarter to six the little orchestra began to play the old English tunes dear to pantomimes.

At the ringing of a bell, the music changed to a low monotonous plaint and the curtain slowly rose on the tableau.

There was a large, bare, empty room; its sole furniture was a table and three chairs; in one corner was a pile of shavings; upon them sat, crouching with her knees drawn up, the pale and worn figure of a girl; beside her were the crutches which showed that she was a cripple; her white cheek was wasted and hollow; her chin was thrust forward as if she was in suffering almost intolerable. During the tableau she moved not, save to swing slowly backward and forward upon the shavings which formed her bed.

On the table, for it was night, was a candle in a ginger-beer bottle, and two girls sat at the table working hard; their needles were running a race with starvation; their clothes were in rags; their hair was gathered up in careless knots; their cheeks were pale; they were pinched and cold and feeble with hunger and privation.

Said one of the women present, "Twopence an hour, they can make. Poor things! poor things!"

"Dick," whispered the cobbler, "you make a note of it; I guess what's coming."

The spectators shivered with sympathy. They knew so well what it meant; some of them had themselves dwelt amid these garrets of misery and suffering.

Then voices were heard outside in the street singing.

They were the waits, and they sang the joyful hymns of Christmas. When the working-girls heard the singing, they paid no heed whatever, plying the needle fast and furiously; and the girl in the shavings paid no heed, slowly swinging to and fro in her pain and hunger. At the sight of this callous contempt, this disregard of the invitation to rejoice, as if there were neither hope nor joy for such as themselves, with only a mad desire to work for something to stay the dreadful pains of hunger, some of the women among the spectators wept aloud.

Then the waits went away; and there was silence again.

Then one of the girls – it was Nelly – stopped, and leaned back in her chair, with her hand to her heart; the work fell from her lap upon the floor; she sprang to her feet, threw up her hands, and fell in a lifeless heap upon the floor. The other girl went on with her sewing; and the cripple went on swinging backward and forward. For they were all three so miserable that the misery of one could no more touch the other two.

The curtain dropped. The tableau represented, of course, the girls who work for an employer.

After five minutes it rose again. There were the same girls and others; they were sitting at work in a cheerful and well-furnished room; they were talking and laughing. The clock struck six, and they laid aside their work, pushed back the table and advanced to the front singing all together. Their faces were bright and happy; they were well dressed, they looked well fed; there was no trouble among them at all; they chatted like singing-birds; they ran and played.

Then Captain Sorensen came in with his fiddle, and first he played a merry tune, at the sound of which the girls caught each other by the waist, and fell to dancing the old Greek ring. Then he played a quadrille, and they danced that simple figure, and as if they liked it; and then he played a waltz, and they whirled round and round.

This was the labor of girls for themselves. Everybody understood perfectly what was meant without the waste of words. Some of the mothers present wiped their eyes and told their neighbors that this was no play acting, but the sweet and blessed truth; and that the joy was real, because the girls were working for themselves and there were no naggings, no fines, no temper, no bullying, no long hours.

After this there was a concert, which seemed a falling off in point of excitement. But it was pretty. Captain Sorensen played some rattling sea ditties; then Miss Kennedy and Mr. Goslett played a duet; then the girls sang a madrigal in parts, so that it was wonderful to hear them, thinking how ignorant they were six months before. Then Miss Kennedy played a solo, and then the girls sang another song. By what magic, by what mystery, were girls so transformed? Then the audience talked together, and whispered that it was all the doing of that one girl – Miss Kennedy – who was believed by everybody to be a lady born and bred, but pretended to be a dressmaker. She it was who got the girls together, gave them the house, found work for them, arranged the time and duties, and paid them week by week for shorter hours better wages. It was she who persuaded them to spend their evenings with her instead of trapesing about the streets, getting into mischief; it was she who taught them the singing, and all manner of pretty things; and they were not spoiled by it, except that they would have nothing more to say to the rough lads and shopboys who had formerly paid them rude court and jested with them on Stepney Green. Uppish they certainly were; what mother would find fault with a girl for holding up her head and respecting herself? And as for manners, why, no one could tell what a difference there was.

The Chartist looked on with a little suspicion at first, which gradually changed to the liveliest satisfaction.

"Dick," he whispered to his friend and disciple, "I am sure that, if the working-men like, they may find the swells their real friends. See, now we've got all the power; they can't take it from us; very good then, who are the men we should suspect? Why, those who've got to pay the wages – the manufacturers and such. Not the swells. Make a note of that, Dick. It may be the best card you've got to play. A thousand places such as this – planted all about England – started at first by a swell – why, man, the working classes would have not only all the power but all the money. Oh, if I were ten years younger! What are they going to do next?"

The next thing they did pleased the women, but the men did not seem to care much about it, and the Chartist went on developing the new idea to Dick, who drank it all in, seeing that here, indeed, was a practical and attractive idea even though it meant a new departure. But the preacher of a new doctrine has generally a better chance than one who only hammers away at an old one.

The stage showed one figure. A beautiful girl, her hair bound in a fillet, clad in Greek dress, simple, flowing, graceful, stood upon a low pedestal. She was intended – it was none other than Nelly – to represent woman dressed as she should be. One after the other there advanced upon the stage and stood beside this statue, women dressed as women ought not to be; there they were, the hideous fashions of generations; the pinched waists, monstrous hats, high peaks, hoops and crinolines, hair piled up, hair stuffed out, gigot sleeves, high waists, tight skirts, bending walk, boots with high heels – an endless array.

When Nelly got down from her pedestal and the show was over, Harry advanced to the front and made a little speech. He reminded his hearers that the Association was only six months old; he begged them to consider what was its position now. To be sure, the girls had been started, and, that he said, was the great difficulty; but, the start once made and prejudice removed, they found themselves with work to do, and they were now paying their own way and doing well; before long they would be able to take in more hands; it was not all work with them, but there was plenty of play, as they knew. Meantime the girls invited everybody to have supper with them, and after supper there would be a little dance.

They stayed to supper, and they appreciated the gift of Miss Messenger; then they had the little dance – Dick Coppin now taking his part without shame. While the dancing went on the Chartist sat in the corner of the room, talking with Angela. When he went away his heart – which was large and generous – burned within him, and he had visions of a time when the voices of the poor shall not be raised against the rich nor the minds of the rich hardened against the poor. Perhaps he came unconsciously nearer to Christianity, this man who was a scoffer and an unbeliever, that night than he had ever before. To have faith in the future forms, indeed, a larger part of the Christian religion than some of us ever realize. And to believe in a single woman is one step, however small, toward believing in the Divine Man.

CHAPTER XLII.

NOT JOSEPHUS, BUT ANOTHER

The attractions of a yard peopled with ghosts, discontented figure-heads, and an old man, are great at first, but not likely to be lasting if one does not personally see or converse with the ghosts and if the old man becomes monotonous. We expect too much of old men. Considering their years, we think their recollections must be wonderful. One says, "Good heavens! Methuselah must recollect William the Conqueror and King John, and Sir John Falstaff, to say nothing of the battle of Waterloo!" As a matter of fact, Methuselah generally remembers nothing except that where Cheapside now stands was once a green field. As for Shakespeare, and Coleridge, and Charles Lamb, he knows nothing whatever about them. You see if he had taken so much interest in life as to care about things going on, he would very soon, like his contemporaries, have worn out the machine, and would be lying, like them, in the grassy inclosure.

Harry continued to go to the carver's yard for some time, but nothing more was to be learned from him. He knew the family history, however, by this time, pretty well. The Coppins of Stepney, like all middle-class families, had experienced many ups and downs. They had been churchwardens; they had been bankrupts; they had practised many trades; and once there was a Coppin who died, leaving houses – twelve houses – three apiece to his children – a meritorious Coppin. Where were those houses now? Absorbed by the omnivorous Uncle Bunker. And how Uncle Bunker got those belonging to Caroline Coppin could not now be ascertained, except from Uncle Bunker himself. Everywhere there are scrapers and scatterers; the scrapers are few, and the scatterers many. By what scatterer or what process of scattering did Caroline lose her houses?

Meantime, Harry did not feel himself obliged to hold his tongue upon the subject; and everybody knew, before long, that something was going on likely to be prejudicial to Mr. Bunker. People whispered that Bunker was going to be caught out; this rumor lent to the unwilling agent some of the interest which attaches to a criminal. Some went so far as to say that they had always suspected him because he was so ostentatious in his honesty; and this is a safe thing to say, because any person may be reasonably suspected; and if we did not suspect all the world, why the machinery of bolts and bars, keys and patent safes? But it is the wise man who suspects the right person, and it is the justly proud man who strikes an attitude and says: "What did I tell you?" As yet, however, the suspicions were vague. Bunker, for his part, though not generally a thin-skinned man, easily perceived that there was a change in the way he was received and regarded; people looked at him with marked interest in the streets; they turned their heads and looked after him; they talked about him as he approached; they smiled with meaning; Josephus Coppin met him one day, and asked him why he would not tell his nephew how he obtained those three houses and what consideration he gave for them. He began, especially of an evening, over brandy and water, to make up mentally, over and over again, his own case, so that it might be presented at the right moment absolutely perfect and without a flaw; a paragon among cases. His nephew, whom he now regarded with a loathing almost lethal, was impudent enough to go about saying that he had got those houses unlawfully. Was he? Very good; he would have such law as is to be had in England, for the humiliation, punishment, stamping out, and ruining of that nephew; aye, if it cost him five hundred pounds he would. He should like to make his case public; he was not afraid; not a bit; let all the world know; the more the story was known, the more would his contemporaries admire his beautiful and exemplary virtue, patience, and moderation. There were, he said, with the smile of benevolence and blush of modesty which so well become the good man, transactions, money transactions, between himself and his sister-in-law, especially after her marriage with a man who was a secret scatterer. These money matters had been partly squared by the transfer of the houses, which he took in part payment; the rest he forgave when Caroline died, and when, which showed his goodness in an electric light, he took over the boy to bring him up to some honest trade, though he was a beggar. Where were the proofs of those transactions? Unfortunately they were all destroyed by fire some years since, after having been carefully preserved, and docketed, and indorsed, as is the duty of every careful man of business.

Now by dint of repeating this precious story over and over again, the worthy man came to believe it entirely, and to believe that other people would believe it as well. It seemed, in fact, so like the truth, that it would deceive even experts, and pass for that priceless article. At the time when Caroline died, and the boy went to stay with him, no one asked any questions, because it seemed nobody's business to inquire into the interest of the child. After the boy was taken away it gradually became known among the surviving members of the family that the houses had long before, owing to the profligate extravagance of the sergeant – as careful a man as ever marched – passed into the hands of Bunker, who now had all the Coppin houses. Everything was clean forgotten by this time. And the boy must needs turn up again, asking questions. A young villain! A serpent! But he should be paid out.