![Crying for the Light; Or, Fifty Years Ago. Vol. 1 [of 3] cover](/books/content/36808/OEBPS/6498621989836682417_36808-cover.png)
CHAPTER IX.
THE OLD, OLD STORY.
Once upon a time there was a sad hubbub in the Independent Chapel at Sloville. At the monthly tea-meeting of the teachers the prettiest of the female teachers was missing, much to the grief of the young men, and to the relief of some plain but pious young women, who had been rather in the shade since she had come amongst them.
‘Where is Rose Wilcox?’ was the universal query.
‘She’s give up religion, and gone off to the Church, I suppose,’ said the senior deacon, who was president on the occasion.
‘I fear it is worse than that,’ whispered a young female teacher, who, as the neighbour of the missing Rose, was supposed to know more of her movements than anyone else.
‘I can’t say I am surprised; indeed, I may say it is only what I expected,’ continued the senior deacon, ‘considering how frivolous she was, and how little her family availed themselves of the means of grace.’
The senior deacon’s words commended themselves to all. Rose Wilcox was volatile. She was at that critical age when most pretty girls are so—a time of life always severely criticised by those who have passed it, or who have been preserved by kindly circumstances from its many dangers, and who ignore the godly and humane advice of Burns:
‘Then gently scan your brother Man,
Still gentler sister Woman.’
The Rose thus criticised was, perhaps, the prettiest girl in all the town. Her father had been an officer in the navy, who had married for love a wife who had nothing to give him but a pretty face and a loving heart. For a time they lived humbly but comfortably on his half-pay. They had two children, a son and a daughter. The former grew up wild and wayward, and was a sad trouble to the family on the occasion of his visits on shore; for he was a sailor, like his father. Rose was her father’s companion. He taught her all that he knew himself: to read Shakespeare; to get a smattering of French; to play a little on the piano. But he became involved in debt through becoming a surety for an old friend who had no one else to stand between him and impending ruin, and that friend, alas! left him in the lurch, or, in other words, handed him over to his creditors, and he died broken-hearted, leaving his wife and daughter almost penniless and friendless. The mother then moved to Sloville, where she managed, with the assistance of her daughter, to secure a scanty living as milliner and dressmaker—a calling which she had followed before she became a wife, and where, almost to her alarm and at the same time much to her pride, she beheld her daughter grow handsomer and lovelier every day.
The Sloville people said Rose was the prettiest girl in the town, and they were right. The landlord of the leading hotel would have given anything to have secured her services at the bar. The snobs of the place were much given to pester her with their impertinence, while lads of a lower grade inundated her with valentines and poetical effusions, as amorous as they were ill-spelt and badly written; and gay Lotharios in the shape of commercials, far removed from the chastening influences of their own lawful spouses, said to her all sorts of silly things on their occasional visits to the town and her mother’s shop.
As the world goes, this was not much to be wondered at. Even in the good houses round the Park, where all the best families lived, and where carriage company was kept, it was to be questioned whether any more attractive young lady could be found than Rose, in spite of the plainness of her dress and the humble drudgery of her daily life. In no conservatory in that part of the world were to be seen fairer roses than those which adorned her cheeks. Her profile was exquisitely classical; her every action graceful. No lady in the town had such a head of rich brown hair, none so downy a cheek of loveliest pink, none a blue eye so lustrous or sparkling, none a more melodious voice. Many a Belgravian maiden would have given a fortune to have had a hand as delicately formed, a waist as tempting, a step as elastic, a figure as fair, a carriage as superb, a smile as irresistible.
Personal advantages, declaim against them as we will—though why we should do so I know not, since they are the gift of God, and not to be bought with hard cash—are of inestimable value to a woman. It is no use arguing with a jury, Serjeant Ballantine tells us, when the plaintiff or defendant, as the case may be, is a pretty woman, and that it was the same in the time of the Athenians the case of Phryne is an illustration. Is it not Balzac who tells us that the faintest whisper of a pretty woman is louder than the trumpet-call of duty? Nevertheless, a poor girl whose only dower is her beauty finds it often a perilous gift. Indeed, it was owing to this very possession that poor Rose had the world at a disadvantage. She had been spoilt by an indulgent father, and her fond mother was little fitted to act the part of a guide, philosopher, and friend in the perplexities and temptations of real life. Her brother was of no avail, as when at sea he was too far away, and when on shore he had shown a thoughtlessness and heedlessness which made him a burden rather than a help.
It was not true that she had given up religion, as was indicated by some of her associates; the fact was she had none to give up worth speaking of. She had gone to chapel with her mother as a matter of course, and being intelligent and good-natured and willing to be useful, she had been worked into the Sunday-school. It was interesting to her to teach the young idea how to shoot, and she was fond of children, and so she went as a Sunday-school teacher. She had left the chapel because it was dark and dull; because the people were censorious and hard; because the service was uninteresting; because the preacher was always full of the Jews and the prophecies, and seemed to have no idea of life as she saw it around her, and was perpetually railing at a world which seemed to her so bright and fair; because in her heart, as in that of most of us at her age, there was a love of pleasure, impetuous and impatient of control.
Nor was it true that she had gone to church, as intimated above. The fact was, she had summoned up her energies for an awful step for anyone to take: she had run away from poverty, and hard work, and privation, and discomfort, and wretchedness, in the hope and belief—alas! too rudely to be shaken—that henceforth there was to be perpetual sunshine in her path, and perpetual joy in her heart.
We are all of us too ready to fancy that grapes grow on thorns, and Rose was no exception to the general rule. She had never read Wordsworth, and perhaps if she had she would not have understood that grand ode, though the knowledge did painfully come to her in after-life, where he invokes Duty as stern daughter of the voice of God:
‘Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity.’
At home for a long time she had been disappointed at her lot. She was getting tired of hard work and humble fare, ignorant of the fact that God gives us what is best for us, and that His wisdom is as omnipotent as His love. She had no companions to guide her aright, and was tired of the awkward admiration of the homely and lubberly lads with whom she came in contact. She had taken to reading trashy novels, which had not merely amused her, but filled her head with nonsense. Greedily she drank in all their poison. Little by little they broke down all the defences of her common-sense, as she read of splendid marriages made by simple village girls, of runaway matches, of wonderful elopements. They taught her how pleasure was the supreme good, how true happiness consisted in having wealth, in riding in a brougham, in being dressed in silks and satins, in wearing diamonds, in going to grand balls; in short, in realizing what at the meeting-house had been pretty plainly denounced as the pleasures of sin for a season.
The more the poor girl reasoned on her condition the harder to her it seemed to be. It must be false what the parsons said; people who had money, who lived sumptuously, who were arrayed in purple and fine linen, must be happy—as she herself was when she had a crown-piece in her pocket, a dress a little smarter than usual, or a bonnet of the latest fashion. There was the senior deacon, who more fond of money than he? though he always called it dross and filthy lucre. Then there were the senior deacon’s daughters and wife; did not they always look a little more amiable when they had new clothes on? There was the old parson himself; did not everyone laugh at him because he was poor and shabby, and had not his long life of poverty reduced him to such a state that he could not say ‘Bo!’ to a goose? Money meant health, and happiness, and honour, and power; that was clear. Why, the wickedest men in the town, who had money, were made more of than the old parson, who had never done harm to anyone, and whose long record was unsullied. Naturally, this sort of reasoning made the poor girl a little discontented and out of sorts.
At times she had all the youthful recklessness of her sex, and not a little was her mother terrified. A father or a brother might have taught her a little common-sense, but her only confidante was her mother—as fond as she was foolish—who felt herself that her daughter had a smile as sunny, a carriage as graceful, an air as distinguished, and a birth as gentle, as any of the leaders of society in Sloville. She always insisted on her daughter’s fitness for something higher. Love levels all distinctions of rank, and Rose herself was half a Radical—at any rate, much more of one than pretty women generally are. She was also ambitious. She had a charming voice, and danced well. Why should she not shine in society? Why should not she be the star of the ball-room and the theatre? Why should not she have a brougham and drive in the parks? Why should not the men fall down and worship at her shrine? Beauty had a magic power, and wonders were ever being performed daily by the sorcery of Love. Did not King Cophetua take a beggar-maid to be his queen?
‘I’ll be a lady yet,’ said the silly girl; ‘I am tired of stitching and sewing from morn to night; I am tired of this dull street and this dull town; I’ll be a lady yet, mother,’ she said, ‘and you shall come and live with me in a fine house in town with plenty of servants to wait on us and real nice dinners to eat.’
‘Nonsense, girl!’ said the mother. ‘You had better marry the deacon’s shopman; he is very fond of you, and I am sure, by this time, he could furnish a house well and keep a wife comfortable.’
Now, as the individual in question was as fat as a porpoise, and very much the shape of one; as his manners were as plebeian as his appearance, and as he never had anything to say for himself, Rose regarded him with infinite disgust, and vowed she’d rather go into a nunnery or die an old maid.
On the night of the Chartist meeting already referred to, Rose was met by the individual in question, and as there were so many people about, Rose graciously accepted the offer of his arm to take her home, much to his delight and joy. He determined to make the best of his chance. There are some men who take an ell when you give them an inch. Rose’s rustic admirer belonged to this class.
Rose became alarmed at his amorous attention, and screamed. That scream was heard by a gentleman, Sloville’s only baronet, the lord of the manor, as he was riding past in his brougham. By the clear moonlight he saw that the girl who stood trembling before him was the girl whose face had haunted his dreams since he first caught sight of her in Sloville, and in pursuit of whom he had scoured the town like a hawk ever since. He had caught sight of her for a moment at the Chartist meeting, and here she was actually in his power, and needing his aid! How he blessed his stars, as eagerly, with the most polished air, he offered to drive Rose home. At first she hesitated, as was natural. If she would get inside, he would mount the box and drive.
Rose accepted his offer; there could be no harm in that, though she would not allow the brougham to come nearer her home than the top of the street in which she lived, for fear of scandal. She accepted the offer, partly because she wished for the sensation of riding in a brougham like a real lady, and partly because of her anxiety to get rid of her loutish lover. Perhaps it had been as well if Rose had ridden up to the door in the brougham, or had refused the offer of it altogether. As it was, she got out, and the driver of the brougham would not allow her to go home alone. If he was proud as Lucifer, he was subtle as the serpent that tempted Eve. She could not refuse his offer of guardianship, his appearance was so handsome, and his manner so polished and flattering and deferential. Surely he could not do her any harm. The offer was one she had not sufficient self-denial to repel as she ought to have done, as any well-regulated young lady in superior circles of course would have done.
Alas! Rose was but a poor dressmaker, barely eighteen, an age when to the young woman clings a good deal of the romantic folly of the girl. She was the pride of an indulgent mother who never restrained her little whims, and whose scanty means afforded but little relief to the dull monotony of her daily life. Rose, of course, was in her seventh heaven. Her hour of triumph and reward had arrived. Here was the prince who had come to marry the beggar’s daughter; the gallant knight who was to lead her out of the prison house of poverty, to reveal to her all the glories of a world which, after all, looks best at a distance.
There is a tide in the affairs of women as well as men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, and Rose believed that the tide was now in her favour. Here was the chance for which she had been dreaming, for which she had been prepared by a due course of silly novel-reading.
‘A tall, dark gentleman is in love with you,’ said the gipsy whom Rose had last consulted on the subject. ‘He will come to you when you least expect it. He is immensely rich, and will make you handsome presents. He will take you to London, where he will marry you, and you shall have horses and carriages, and servants, and music, and wine, and balls, and will live happy ever after.’
The tall, dark gentleman had come, and he had fallen in love with her. It amused him in that dull town to have an affair of this kind on hand. It gave a new zest to his blasé life; the only things he cared for were pretty faces, and he had spent his life ever since leaving Oxford in search of them. Now that he had come to the family estate and title; now that he was Sir Watkin Strahan, of Elm Court, it is not to be presumed that there was any diminution of zeal in his search; on the contrary, he pushed it with more zest than ever. In the language of his friends, he was a devil of a fellow for women, and it was clear to him that this young rustic beauty would soon fall an easy prey.
The chances were all in favour of the execution of his wicked design, for he was a cruel man, in spite of his youth and handsome face and figure, a polished gentleman, yet venomous and dangerous as a cobra or a wolf. He was now given up to one pursuit, the ruin of this fair young girl, on whom, in an evil moment, he had cast a longing eye; and poor Rose thought him a model gentleman! He had no scruples of conscience when his fancy was aroused. All he cared for, all he thought of, was himself. Pleasure was to be had, regardless of the cost to himself, of the misery to others. In a rich and old community like ours the number of such men is immense, and the mischief they do no tongue can tell. In our streets by night we see the ruin they have wrought.
‘I am mad after that girl,’ said Sir Watkin to a friend one day. ‘I have made her presents of all kinds; I have followed up every chance; I have promised even to marry her, and yet she keeps me at arm’s length. She is a regular Penelope. It seems years since I first saw her.’
‘Nonsense!’ said his friend—an old rake of the Regency, to whom all women were mere childish toys—‘she can’t resist you. You are bound to win her. She is only a little more artful than others of her class.’
‘I wish it were so. I almost despair; and that makes me the more determined she shall be mine. I was never disappointed yet.’
‘Courage, mon ami,’ was the reply. ‘Such a little beauty is not to be caught in a day. Take the advice of an old soldier. You are too cautious. You must carry her by a grand coup de main.’
Alas! an opportunity soon occurred. There was to be a grand horse-race a few miles off. Rose had never seen one, and wished to go. She had let herself be taken there by the Baronet. She was very sorry she had agreed to the arrangement, but it was too late to draw back, and she made an excuse to her mother for her temporary absence. After the race there was a grand dinner, followed by a ball. The poor girl had hardly the heart to refuse, and, indeed, she was too far from home to go back alone, though the agreement was that she was to be taken back immediately the race was over. This part of the programme the Baronet never intended to put in execution, and he made some excuse or other for its non-fulfilment, which she was obliged to accept. Off her guard with excitement and wine yet not without misgivings of heart, she was persuaded to accompany the party back to London. In her sober moments she would never have done such a thing, but she was surrounded by men and women who laughed at her scruples and overcame her objections. Hardly knowing what she was about, she—a dove, innocent and unprotected—was borne by the vultures to town.
For the first time she had tasted of the charmed cup, and she found it pleasant. She felt sorry for her mother, to whom she wrote a hasty note, but without giving her any address, telling her not to be alarmed at her absence, stating that she was staying with some kind friends, and that she would soon let her know further particulars, which she felt sure would please her. She was to stay at the house of a real lady, who was to take her to see all the grand sights of the town. Her spirits rose to the occasion, and, dressed magnificently in the latest fashions, she found some kind of enjoyment in the gay company she kept, in riding in a brougham, in going to the theatre and the opera, in finding herself in a new world, where she was received with a favour never extended to her in the tamer circles of Sloville. She felt that she had made a wonderful start in the world, and how wrong were they who spoke of its pleasures as transitory and of little worth.
‘That was the world for her,’ said the Baronet, whose demeanour was at times most kind and considerate, and who treated her with the respect due from a gentleman to a lady, though occasionally he assumed a boldness which brought the hot blood to her cheek and filled her with alarm.
Once upon a time, it is said, an old Scotch beadle, with the astute utterance of his class, went a-courting. ‘Jeannie,’ said he, as he took the object of his affection into the parochial cemetery, and pointed to some graves in a remote corner, ‘that’s whaur my people lie. Would ye like to lie with them?’ Jeannie answered in the affirmative, and the happy pair soon became man and wife. In the same way the Baronet threw open to the dazzled eyes of this fatherless country girl all the usual resorts of the gay world in all their pomp and glory, and she was delighted, as she had not the experience to tell her how much was tinsel, how little of it was real, how much of it was selfishness, and nothing more. Her heart warmed towards her benefactor. Confident in her beauty and his goodness of heart, she feared no harm. In the circle in which she moved she achieved a complete success. The women were very envious, and the men were as foolish as most men are where a pretty woman is concerned.
Young people think little of what is felt for them by their fathers and mothers. The cynic may say, ‘Why should they? I did not bring myself into existence; and what has life done for me but to make me toil for labour that profiteth not, to clothe me with a carcase that shall soon be dissolved in death, to give me a mind that utterly, after all its endeavour, fails to understand even what passes under my very nose, to say nothing of the mysteries which lie around.’ But most of us feel, nevertheless, that our fathers and mothers have claims on us that we can never sufficiently repay them for—the care and love which rocked us in the cradle, which gave joy and happiness to our early homes, which guarded us in youth, which helped to plant us out in the world—a love the memory of which lasts as long as life. The worst of it is that frequently we do not feel this till it is too late, till we can make no ear that it would rejoice to listen to such with rapture is stilled by the cold hand of death. I can never forget a picture of a girl weeping at her mother’s grave. It was an illustration to one of Jane Taylor’s simple poems, as follows:
‘Oh, if she would but come again,
I think I’d vex her so no more.’
In her new circle Rose had that natural feeling. It was hard for her to live without her mother. That mother might be ill; that mother she knew to be lonely and poor, and in need of her society and aid. It was her duty, she felt, to be by that mother’s side. She intended to return, if not to-day, at any rate to-morrow; to tell her mother all, how, notwithstanding appearances, she was innocent as when she slept under that mother’s roof. But the difficulty was to go back. Her mother would believe her story, but nobody else would; and all her little world would look at her in scorn. She could not face that little world that seems to us so big. What was she to do? Like too many of us in emergencies, she did nothing, and was overcome by the circumstances in which she had weakly allowed herself to be placed.
Yet Rose was not happy in her heart of hearts, and all the while an inner sense of fear, of something sad and sorrowful to come, restrained her natural light-heartedness. Scandal had been busy with her name in her native town. She could not ask, as she had done in her early days, the blessing of God on her life. But she had burnt her boats, and for her there was no return. She was clever, and was determined to cultivate her powers. All her mornings were spent in hard study. She had masters who made up for the defects of early education. The Baronet, who had left London for a while on a shooting tour in North America, was to return, and, of course, would marry her in due time; and then her fair fame would be vindicated, and her mother’s heart would beat for joy. She was a born actress, and her chief delight was to be found in the study of the leading actors and actresses on the stage. Her musical talent was of a high order, and she had a knack of picking up foreign languages that made her the wonder of the extremely bad set in which she lived. She was always busy, always in a whirl of excitement, and had little time to think of what she was and whither she was going. She shrank from being brought face to face with her real self. Whenever she did so she found she really had gained but little, after all. It is true she was not vicious, but, then, she had grown hard and worldly, and that is little better in the Court of Conscience. Often she longed for her early home, her mother’s side, her life of daily drudgery, the God of her early youth.
Very suddenly a change came. Sir Watkin Strahan had left England, not for a shooting tour in North America, as it had been understood, but on account of pecuniary embarrassments, brought on by his extravagant habits. It was hinted that he was about to marry a fortune, ‘but that matters little,’ said the informant to poor Rose; ‘he loves you and you love him. The hard necessities of his situation will compel him to go through the form of matrimony with another, but that is no reason why you two should not be virtually man and wife.’ The Baronet said as much in the impassioned letters which he sent to Rose. He had lost, he regretted to say, heavily on the turf and at play. He had made some unfortunate speculations on the Stock Exchange. He had travelled to repair his losses at Homburg, and Baden, and Spa, and there he had made matters worse. His friends had insisted on his getting married, promising pecuniary assistance if he did. They did more. They found out for him a fitting heiress. A rich merchant had an only daughter whom he was willing to part with for a consideration—that she should be called my lady. As the lady was anxious for a title, and the gentleman was equally anxious to finger her cash, there was little reason for delay. Indeed, it was felt on all sides that the sooner the business was settled the better. The lady and gentleman had met, and been mutually satisfied with one another. The Baronet, so proud of his title, had sold himself for a mess of pottage. That was a very shabby thing to do; but he did something still shabbier, he implied that to Rose it would make no difference—that she would still be the dearest object to his heart. Poor girl! she felt the insult bitterly.
‘It was the way of the world,’ said her new friends. ‘It was only what she need expect. She must have been a fool to think that it would be otherwise.’ So said her London friends to her. Well, she owned she had been a fool. She had never meant to be a rich man’s mistress. The Baronet had overwhelmed her with his wealth and magnificence. He had treated her with such consideration that she never expected anything from him other than what was right and honourable, and she had been prepared to give him all she could in return—her heart. Further than that she could never go. She would never be what he wished her to be for all his wealth. Her dream was over, and she woke to find herself helpless, friendless, poor, and alone. It was a bitter awakening for her. It would have broken her heart, and ruined her life, had it not been for her youthful pluck, and spirit, and pride. The man of the world who believes woman to be as bad as himself, who quotes Pope and tells us that every woman is at heart a rake, will tell me I have drawn an unreal girl. I tell him there are thousands of such in the homes of the poor, and it is because there are such that England is still a nation great and grand.
But to return to our heroine.
When the dishonourable proposal was made to her—a proposal which she could not at first understand, veiled as it was in artful language—all her pride was in arms, her anger was aroused, and her love was turned to hate. In her wrath she left the house, leaving behind her letters, books, jewellery, dresses, everything that had been given her, and, dressed in the simple style of her former life, she went out into the world shedding bitter tears, and not knowing where to go. Sad and mad, she walked the streets of London alone—streets in which it is more dangerous for a pretty girl to walk along, and at night, than it would be among Kaffir or Hottentots. She had given no one any intimation of her going, or as to what her intentions were. She had escaped from the destroyer, that was enough for her. A stranger to London, she wandered wearily about, till she came to a street with a blaze of light streaming from the shop windows on every side, crowded with cabs and carriages, whilst the pavement was so filled up as to render locomotion almost impossible.
What she saw struck her with astonishment and horror. She had never heard of such a thing, and did not believe it possible. It was night, and yet the place was as busy as if it were day. There were women in full dress from the adjacent theatres, other in couples or hanging on the arms of men, who might have been officers in the army and navy or members of the swell mob. There were similar parties in hansoms and broughams. Intermixed with them were beggars, and pickpockets, and swindlers, and outcasts, and all the riffraff of a London street. Rose watched the broughams, and saw them setting down their inmates at a building which bore to her a name of no meaning. She watched awhile, and then, advancing to the door and paying her shilling, found herself in a dancing casino of a rather superior character. The walls were lined with seats on which men and women were seated. There was a bar at one end at which a good deal of chaffing and smoking and drinking were going on. Up in the gallery was a German band, and, as they played, some danced, while others looked on. Poor Rose was frightened beyond description at the appearance of all around her. The air was full of oaths and laughter, and all were gay, gay as wine could make them, from Lord Tom Noddy drinking himself into del. trem., to the last ticket-of-leave from Her Majesty’s jails. Rose had never seen so many vagabonds collected together under a roof before, and they were all gay—the painted harlots, the City men, the Jew money-lenders, the clerk who had come to spend the proceeds of his latest embezzlement, the scheming M.P., the jockey from Newmarket, the prize-fighter from Whitechapel, the greenhorn from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Pulling her veil over her face, Rose stood in a corner by herself, trembling and alone, afraid to remain, yet afraid to go away, fearing she might be stopped. Already she found herself remarked on and pointed at; already she had seen in the crowded and heated room more than one of the boon companions of her quondam lover. What was she to do? She had never dreamt of such awful degradation as she saw there. She had never believed in its existence. She thought such a place would have never been tolerated by the police, and impossible in a Christian land. Men jeered at her, as she stood with the hot blood crimsoning her cheek, while the made-up women around seemed, to her, grinning over her impending fall. Was she to become one of them—to renounce all modesty and virtue, to drink of the wine-cup offered her on every side, in the delirium of the hour to enlist in the devil’s service, to put on his livery and to take his pay? Well, she was poor, but not so poor as all that—as long as she had the use of her senses. Better poverty itself than a life of shame. For awhile she stood dazed and frightened, forgetting where she was, and that all eyes were upon her. Presently she was recalled to herself by a gentleman coming up and asking her to dance. She refused.
‘Then what the d--- are you here for?’ was his rough reply.
She turned away speechless—horror-struck—especially as she saw the amusement of the half-tipsy bystanders.
‘A deuced fine girl, upon my word!’
‘Fresh as Hebe,’ said another.
‘Artfulness itself,’ was the remark of another.
‘Yes; that virtuous air is all put on,’ said one of the women present. ‘You may depend upon it she is no better than she should be, although she looks so shy.’
‘Yes; a very promising filly,’ said the last speaker’s male friend. ‘I’ve half a mind to make up to her myself.’
‘You had better stay where you are, old man,’ replied his female friend, as she gave him a fond caress.
Poor Rose knew by their looks that they were talking at her, and she trembled from head to foot. Oh that she could hide herself, that she could get out of the room! but, no, that was impossible.
CHAPTER X
UNDER THE STARS.
What could Rose do in that den of wild men and wilder women, the like of which was to be seen in no other country under heaven, licensed by Act of Parliament, past which bishops drove down on their way to make speeches at Exeter Hall on behalf of the Bible Society, or of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts?
Again and again she wished she were veil out of that inferno, where she was stared at on every side.
‘Surely you will dance, miss,’ said the master of the ceremonies, approaching her respectfully. ‘Allow me to introduce you to Lord ---’
Again Rose declined, much to the annoyance of a debauched, sickly youth, who was ‘my lord,’ and reverenced as such accordingly. My lord revived his spirits with an S. and B., and was soon whirling round the room with another in his arms.
Under the influence of drink a man approached the corner where Rose was sitting, caught hold of her arm, and with an oath attempted to drag her off her seat. Her scream brought a crowd around, but not before her assailant had been knocked down by a gentleman, who was one of the wall-flowers watching the dancers, pretending to enjoy themselves.
The affrighted proprietor of the place rushed up. If there was a row he might lose his license. The police were outside. He brought with him his chuckers-out, and order was restored.
In the confusion attending its restoration Rose managed to find her way to the door, her defender walking by her side.
‘Outside,’ she exclaimed joyfully, ‘thank God!’
‘Ah,’ said her companion, ‘how came you there? That was not the place for you.’
‘No, no,’ she said passionately; ‘I was wretched and I went in; but,’ she added, ‘you—how came you there?’
‘What! do you know me?’
‘Of course I do. You came to Sloville, and you made a speech at the Chartist meeting. You were a minister then, I think.’
‘You are right,’ said Wentworth, for it was he; ‘I was hoping to be a minister then. You may well ask how I came to be in yon place. Know, then, that I am a minister no longer—that illusion is past—that I am now a writer for the press and a man about town.’
‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ said the girl. ‘I thought you made such a good speech at the Chartist meeting, and hoped that you would do a great deal of good in the town. Are you happier now than you were then?’
‘Happier, no!’
‘Yes, much, and gayer a great deal.’
‘Ah then, your experience is something like my own. We are all alike. As soon as Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they ceased to be happy. I don’t believe there is such a thing as happiness in the world. I was so wretched that I crept in yon den for warmth and shelter, and out of curiosity to see if that sort of thing was happiness.’
‘And what did you think?’
‘Why, that a costermonger’s wife has a happier lot.’
‘“Foolish soul,”’ continued Wentworth, ‘“what Act of Legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all. What if thou wert born and predestined not to be happy, but to be unhappy?”’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Rose. ‘You did not speak to the people in that way at Sloville.’
‘Ah, no! I had not read my Carlyle then. I am quoting you out of “Sartor Resartus.” Behold in me a philosopher.’
‘Well,’ said Rose, with a smile, ‘I can’t say the sight is particularly brilliant or overpowering.’
Just at that moment up comes the policeman—the London policeman, whose chief occupation seems to be to watch men and women when they stop in the streets for a talk, and to keep out of the way when he is wanted to prop up the inebriate, or to lay hold of a pickpocket, or a burglar, or a rough.
‘We must be off,’ said Wentworth, ‘or we shall be run in. Which way are you walking? May I see you home?’
Gradually he was being interested in his companion. Gradually he began to recall to himself the long-lost vision of her lovely face. He had never forgotten it, and here, where he could have least expected, it had come to him once more. Fate had once more thrown her in his way. Was he to miss his chance? he asked himself. ‘Certainly not,’ was the reply of the inward monitor; ‘you would be a fool if you did.’ As he watched her the light seemed to fade out of her countenance, and over it came a cloud.
‘I am afraid you are tired,’ said he; ‘let me offer you some refreshment.’
‘No, no; I can’t eat anything.’
‘Well, then, let me see you home?’
The question recalled Rose to herself. She had no home. She had rushed away in sorrow, and anger, and despair. In all that wilderness of bricks and mortar she had no home. She stood there homeless, friendless, and alone. She hardly felt safe. As they stood talking, men from the clubs, the theatre and dinner-party passed and repassed, staring at her impudently all the while. As soon as Wentworth left her she felt they would seek her, as the lion does his prey.
At length she said in a saddened tone: ‘I have no home—no friends. I know not where to go.’
Wentworth was shocked.
And then she told him her story. She felt that she was safe, that London life had not corrupted him, that there was a true manhood in him, after all.
There was a quiet hotel just by; he took the poor girl there, but the landlady objected. They did not take in single young ladies there who had no luggage, that guarantee of respectability, and who had no recommendation. Had she been known to any of the families who had been in the habit of using her hotel, the case would have been different. As it was they had not an apartment to spare.
They tried other establishments equally in vain. Rose began to realize at last all the dangers and horrors of her situation. There are disadvantages connected with our refined and highly-developed system of civilization. Out on the prairie she might have found shelter for the night in the rude Indian hut, but in Christian London what can a poor girl do? Is it not a fact that a pretty girl cannot walk down Regent Street in broad daylight alone without being insulted by some hoary old debauchee or other?
At length a happy thought came to Wentworth. His laundress, he knew, let lodgings. She lived in one of the small streets at the back of Clifford’s Inn, and he would take his charge there for the night. The woman was glad to oblige him, though she thought it vastly queer; but that was no concern of hers, or of anyone else, she thought, as long as she got the rent. ‘Mr. Wentworth,’ she remarked to her husband as he attempted, as is the manner of men, some deprecating criticism, ‘is a gentleman, and will behave himself as such;’ and she was right, though Wentworth in town had altered a great deal from the Wentworth of the Sloville meeting-house: the man seemed not quite so hopeful, not quite so raw and inexperienced. The laundress had a heart that could feel for another, and she had connections that could aid her. By her help Rose was introduced to an establishment where her services, as a clever hand at dressmaking, were speedily recognised and in the consciousness that she was honestly earning her living, and in the daily routine of duty, she soon forgot the bitterness of her past. She was herself again, perhaps a trifle more serious, but a good deal more wise.
Wentworth went down to Sloville, and brought back Rose’s mother, and she was happy and content. The mother could find no fault with her girl, as she saw how bravely she had trampled on her past follies, how steadily she worked for her happiness, and her cup of joy was full. It had almost killed her when Rose ran away. What she suffered then she could hardly say, as the dull days and the long nights were spent in anxious watching and waiting for the well-known step at the door. Now she could but thankfully say to herself, ‘This, my precious one, was dead, but is alive again; was lost, but is found.’ Happy the father or the mother who can say as much!
It was a pleasure to Rose to earn her own living; she was a very clever needle-woman, and got good wages in one of the grand emporiums of commerce in Regent Street. It was a pleasure to her to make her mother happy, and they never seemed as if they could do enough for one another. The mother never knew why her daughter, of whose beauty she was so proud, had run away from home, or why she refused to go back to the old home. Rose was young, and in due time recovered from what, for the time, was a crushing blow. She heard of the Baronet occasionally, for his family seat was near Sloville, and her mother loved to gossip of the place and people. He had married a rich wife, and paid all his debts. One son had been the result of the marriage, but that had died in a somewhat mysterious manner. The lady, whose health was very bad, chiefly resided at Elm Court, while her lord and master had returned to his evil courses in town—as a sow that had been washed, as the Bible coarsely puts it, to her wallowing in the mire.
Fortunately, Rose never saw anything of him, and he was nothing to her now. Her mother was a little prying and inquisitive, but Rose, gentle and tender-hearted, had a way of keeping her mouth shut—somewhat rare in her sex—and when she had made up her mind to be silent, no power on earth could make her talk. The old lady got about her in time some of her old friends, with the male part of whom the daughter was as popular as ever, in spite of her mysterious exit from Sloville.
All the young shopmen in the neighbourhood were ready to fall in love with her, but Rose gave them no encouragement, much to the grief of her mother, who was really anxious to see her daughter settled in life. Rose said she was quite comfortable as she was, and her mother had to give way. It was soon clearly understood that Rose was not in the matrimonial market at all, and admiring swains said no more. Rose, as we have seen, was of gentle birth, and that will assert itself in the blood. Successful tradesmen have little time to study the graces of life, and Rose liked refinement; it had come to her hereditarily, as we all know it does. It was not her fault that she turned up her nose at vulgar commonplace admirers, however well off they might be as regards this world’s goods.
It is needless to say that Rose, with her bright face, made many friends. A leading theatrical, in search of attractions for his theatre, got hold of her, and found how full she was of dramatic power. Rose had always been fond of the stage, even as it appeared in such a humble form as that in which it was revealed to her at Sloville, and the finished acting of the London theatre gave her immense satisfaction. At first the pay was small, and her work was hard; excellence on the stage, as excellence everywhere, is not to be won without steady work, but she was an apt learner, and made rapid progress. One day she had, as all of us have at some time or other, a chance. One of the principal actresses was taken ill, and Rose had suddenly to perform her part. Her success was as complete as it was gratifying and unexpected.
As a critic, Wentworth had to record her triumph, and it not a little astonished him to find in the Miss Howard, the new star of the theatre, an old acquaintance. The meeting was mutually gratifying. If in her distress and poverty she needed his protection, much more did she need it in the hour of her triumph. If he admired her as a rustic beauty, much more did he admire her as she shone radiant on the stage.
Since then a couple of years had passed, to both of them precious ones. It is true they had seen little of each, other in the meanwhile; when he had walked with her under the stars from the dancing saloon, he was bent on realizing what pleasure, if any, is to be found in a life of gaiety and dissipation. He had fought his doubts and gathered strength; duty, not pleasure, was to be his aim. The utter dreary formalism of the old-fashioned Evangelical drove many a bold lad into dissipation. Youth fancies that sort of thing attractive, and especially does it come with a tenfold power to all who have lived in a strict home, and amongst strait-laced people. The game is hardly worth the candle. Solomon found it to be so in his time, when he tried the experiment on the most expensive scale, but youth does not care much for Solomon, and has over-weening confidence in self.
But Wentworth had seen in the rottenness of the surface gaiety, in the bitterness of its Dead Sea apples, in the hideousness of that laughter which is as the crackling of thorns under a pot, that it was not in that round of drunken revelry that happiness was to be found, or that man was to be elevated to his true sphere. The longer he lived in it the more intolerable it seemed. In his despair he became a cynic and a pessimist. With what bitterness did he write against society and the world! It was all out of joint, he said, as writers of his class ever will, forgetting that it was he who was out of joint. But one day there came to him a change; he thought in his wretchedness—for a man of pleasure is always wretched—of the prodigal son. The parable seemed to have a new meaning for him—to open his eyes to the fact that God is a God of love, full of pity for the sinner, ready to save to the utmost, and that in the person of Jesus Christ we have a revelation and a realization of Divine love and power. The call, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden,’ sounded to his ear like that of a brother. Old Bunyan writes how when Christian escaped out of the Slough of Despond there came to him a man named Help, who drew him out. It was the great God Himself to whom Wentworth owed his escape. As the scales left his eyes, he saw in the heaven above, not an angry Jehovah, but a God of love—a Father, not a Judge. So it was with the great American preacher Ward Beecher, who, though studying for the ministry, was for awhile in doubt, in difficulty and despair. ‘I think,’ he writes, ‘when I stand in Zion and before God, the brightest thing I shall look back upon will be that blessed morning in May when it pleased God to reveal to my wondering soul that it was His nature to love a man in his sins for the sake of helping him out of them. He did not do it out of compliment to Christ, to a law or plan of salvation, but from the fulness of His great heart. That He was not made angry by sin, but sorry; that He was not furious with wrath toward the sinner, but pitied him; in short, that He felt toward me as my mother felt toward me, to whose eyes my wrong-doing brought tears, who never pressed me so close to her as when I had done wrong, and who would fain with her yearning heart lift me out of trouble.’ And the change was as beautiful as sudden. All earth seemed fresher to Wentworth, the sun more bright, the earth more green, the flowers more fair, the songs of birds more musical, and life infinitely more great and grand. How hard and distasteful seemed his old idea of religion! how cold and dry and apart from ordinary life and daily duty! A mere matter of words, a performance to be carried on on Sunday, and chiefly by unpleasant men and women who held that the world was a waste, howling wilderness given over to the devil, and that heaven was only for the elect, as they deemed themselves to be. They said God would set aside the laws of nature—the laws He had made—and work miracles on their behalf; that they would prosper and become fat if they made a profession of religion. It was their intense selfishness which alienated him. Hell-fire was the lot of the sinners, and they became religious, not that they had the least idea of a God of mercy and love, but that they might not be sent to hell. Their religion was a kind of fire-escape, that was all. He hated such blasphemy and such selfishness. When they sang,
‘Lord, what a wretched land this is
That yields us no supplies!’
or,
‘My thoughts on awful subjects roll,
Damnation and the soul;’
‘Lord, we’re a garden walled around,
Planted and made peculiar ground,’
he was alike distressed and shocked.
Once upon a time an old divine met Dr. Doddridge, of pious memory, as he was going to preach.
‘I wish for you the presence of God in the chapel,’ said the good doctor in his unctuous style.
‘My dear doctor,’ said the old divine, ‘we have always the presence of God everywhere.’
That was the feeling that came at length to Wentworth—that God is everywhere present with us as a Father and a Friend. It was that that filled his heart with joy. It was enough for him that he was there to pity and succour and bless.
It was in a similar spirit that the actress had learned to realize the Divine presence and power.
And once more they are under the stars as he sees her to her comfortable home, where an aged mother with a bright smile awaits her coming. That walk of theirs under the stars had been the turning-point of their lives. It was the girl trembling and sorrowful by his side who had helped to recall him to his better self. She had achieved success, and so had he. Outcasts as they were in the eyes of the Church, they were children crying, and not in vain, for the light.