It happened on this very same Saturday that Lord Jocelyn, feeling a little low, and craving for speech with his ward, resolved that he would pay a personal visit to him in his own den, where, no doubt, he would find him girt with a fair white apron and crowned with brown paper, proudly standing among a lot of his brother workmen—glorious fellows!—and up to his knees in shavings.
It is easy to take a cab and tell the driver to go to the Mile End Road. Had Lord Jocelyn taken more prudent counsel with himself he would have bidden him drive straight to Messenger's Brewery; but he got down where the Whitechapel road ends and the Mile End road begins, thinking that he would find his way to the Brewery with the greatest ease. First, however, he asked the way of a lady with a basket on her arm; it was, in fact, Mrs. Bormalack going a-marketing, and anxious about the price of greens; and he received a reply so minute, exact, and bewildering, that he felt, as he plunged into the labyrinthine streets of Stepney, like one who dives into the dark and devious ways of the catacombs.
First of all, of course, he lost himself; but as the place was strange to him, and a strange place is always curious, he walked along in great contentment. Nothing remarkable in the streets and houses unless, perhaps, the entire absence of anything to denote inequality of wealth and position, so that, he thought with satisfaction, the happy residents in Stepney all receive the same salaries and make the same income, contribute the same amount to the tax collectors, and pay the same rent. A beautiful continuity of sameness; a divine monotony realizing partially the dreams of the socialist. Presently he came upon a great building which seemed rapidly approaching completion; not a beautiful building, but solid, big, well proportioned and constructed of real red brick, and without the "Queen Anne" conceits which mostly go with that material. It was so large and so well built that it was evidently intended for some special purpose; a purpose of magnitude and responsibility, requiring capital; not a factory, because the windows were large and evidently belonged to great halls, and there were none of the little windows in rows which factories must have in the nature of things; not a prison, because prisons are parsimonious to a fault in the matter of external windows; nor a school—yet it might be a school; then—how should so great a school be built in Stepney? It might be a superior almshouse, or union—yet this could hardly be. While Lord Jocelyn looked at the building, a working-man lounged along, presumably an out-of-working man, with his hands in his pockets and kicking stray stones in the road, which is a sign of the penniless pocket, because he who yet can boast the splendid shilling does not slouch as he goes, or kick stones in the road, but holds his head erect and anticipates with pleasure six half-pints in the immediate future. Lord Jocelyn asked that industrious idle, or idle industrious, if he knew the object of the building. The man replied that he did not know the object of the building; and to make it quite manifest that he really did not know he put an adjective before the word object, and another—that is, the same—before the word building. With that he passed upon his way, and Lord Jocelyn was left marvelling at the slender resources of our language which makes one adjective do duty for so many qualifications. Presently, he came suddenly upon Stepney Church, which is a landmark or initial point, like the man on the chair in the maze of Hampton Court. Here he again asked his way, and then, after finding it and losing it again six times more, and being generally treated with contumely for not knowing so simple a thing, he found himself actually at the gates of the Brewery, which he might have reached in five minutes had he gone the shortest way.
"So," he said, "this is the property of that remarkably beautiful girl, Miss Messenger; who could wish to start better? She is young; she is charming, she is queenly, she is fabulously rich; she is clever; she is—ah! if only Harry had met her before he became an ass!"
He passed the gate and entered the courtyard, at one side of which he saw a door on which was painted the word "Office." The Brewery was conservative; what was now a hive of clerks and writers was known by the same name and stood upon the same spot as the little room built by itself in the open court in which King Messenger I., the inventor of the Entire, had transacted by himself, having no clerks at all, the whole business of the infant Brewery for his great invention. Lord Jocelyn pushed open the door and stood irresolute, looking about him; a clerk advanced and asked his business. Lord Jocelyn was the most polite and considerate of men: he took off his hat, humbly bowed, and presented his card.
"I am most sorry to give trouble," he said. "I came to see——"
"Certainly, my lord." The clerk, having been introduced to Lord Davenant, was no longer afraid of tackling a title, however grand, and would have been pleased to show his familiarity with the great even to a Royal Highness. "Certainty, my lord. If your lordship will be so good as to write your lordship's name in the visitors' book, a guide shall take your lordship round the Brewery immediately."
"Thank you, I do not wish to see the Brewery," said the visitor. "I came to see a—a—a young man who, I believe, works in this establishment: his name is Goslett."
"Oh!" replied the clerk, taken aback, "Goslett? Can any one," he asked generally of the room he had just left, "tell me whether there's a man working here named Goslett?"
Josephus—for it was the juniors' room—knew and indicated the place and man.
"If, my lord," said the clerk, loath to separate himself from nobility, "your lordship will be good enough to follow me, I can take your lordship to the man your lordship wants. Quite a common man, my lord—quite. A joiner and carpenter. But if your lordship wants to see him——"
He led Lord Jocelyn across the court, and left him at the door of Harry's workshop.
It was not a great room with benches, and piles of shavings, and a number of men. Not at all; there were racks with tools, a bench, and a lathe; there were pieces of furniture about waiting repair; there was an unfinished cabinet with delicate carved work, which Lord Jocelyn recognized at once as the handiwork of his boy; and the boy himself stood in the room, his coat off and his cuffs turned up, contemplating the cabinet. It is one of the privileges of the trade that it allows—nay, requires—a good deal of contemplation. Presently Harry turned his head and saw his guardian standing in the doorway. He greeted him cheerfully and led him into the room, where he found a chair with four legs and begged him to sit down and talk.
"You like it, Harry?"
Harry laughed. "Why not?" he said. "You see I am independent, practically. They pay me pretty well according to the work that comes in. Plain work, you see—joiners' work."
"Yes, yes, I see. But how long, my boy—how long?"
"Well, sir, I cannot say. Why not all my life?"
Lord Jocelyn groaned.
"I admit," said Harry, "that if things were different I should have gone back to you long ago. But now I cannot, unless——"
"Unless what?"
"Unless the girl who keeps me here goes away herself or bids me go."
"Then you are really engaged to the dress—I mean—the young lady?"
"No, I am not. Nor has she shown the least sign of accepting me. Yet I am her devoted and humble servant."
"Is she a witch—this woman? Good heavens, Harry! Can you, who have associated with the most beautiful and best-bred women in the world, be so infatuated about a dressmaker?"
"It is strange, is it not? But it is true. The thought of her fills my mind day and night. I see her constantly. There is never one word of love, but she knows already, without that word."
"Strange, indeed," repeated Lord Jocelyn. "But it will pass. You will awake, and find yourself again in your right mind, Harry."
He shook his head.
"From this madness," he said, "I shall never recover—for it is my life. Whatever happens, I am her servant."
"It is incomprehensible," replied his guardian; "you were always chivalrous in your ideas of women. They are unusual in young men of the present day; but they used to sit well upon you. Then, however, your ideal was a lady."
"It is a lady still," said the lover, "and yet a dressmaker. How this can be, I do not know; but it is. In the old days men became the servants of ladies. I know now what a good custom it was, and how salutary to the men. Petit Jehan de Saintre, in his early days, had the best of all possible training."
"But if Petit Jehan had lived at Stepney——?"
"Then there is another thing—the life here is useful."
"You now tinker chairs, and get paid a shilling an hour. Formerly, you made dainty, carved workboxes and fans, and pretty things for ladies, and got paid by their thanks. Which is the more useful life?"
"It is not the work I am thinking of—it is the—— Do you remember what I said the last time I saw you?"
"Perfectly—about your fellow-creatures, was it not? My dear Harry, it seems to me as if our fellow-men get on very well in their own way without our interference."
"Yes—that is to say, no. They are all getting on as badly as possible; and somehow I want, before I go away, to find out what it is they want. They don't know; and how they should set about getting it—if it is to be got—as I think it is. You will not think me a prig, sir?"
"You will never be a prig, Harry, under any circumstances. Does, then, the lady of your worship approve of this?—this study of humanity?"
"Perfectly—if this lady did not approve of it, I should not be engaged upon it."
"Harry, will you take me to see this goddess of Stepney Green—it is there, I believe, that she resides?"
"Yes; I would rather not. Yet (the young man hesitated for a moment)—Miss Kennedy thinks that I have always been a working-man. I would not undeceive her yet. I would rather she did not know that I have given up, for her sake, such a man as you, and such companionship as yours."
He held out both his hands to his guardian, and his eyes for a moment were dim.
Lord Jocelyn made no reply for a moment—then he cleared his throat and said he must go; asked Harry rather piteously could he do nothing for him at all? and made slowly for the door. The clerk who received the distinguished visitor was standing at the door of the office, waiting for another glimpse of the noble and illustrious personage. Presently he came back and reported that his lordship had crossed the yard on the arm of the young man called Goslett, and that on parting with him he had shaken him by the hand, and called him "my boy." Whereat many marvelled, and the thing was a stumbling-block; but Josephus said it was not at all unusual for members of his family to be singled out by the great for high positions of trust; that his own father had been churchwarden of Stepney, and he was a far-off cousin of Miss Messenger's; and that he could himself have been by this time superintendent of his Sunday-school if it had not been for his misfortunes. Presently the thing was told to the chief accountant, who told it to the chief brewer; and if there had been a chief baker one knows not what would have happened.
Lord Jocelyn walked slowly away in the direction of Stepney Green. She lived there, did she? Oh, and her name was Miss Kennedy; ah, and a man, by calling upon her, might see her. Very good—he would call. He would say that he was the guardian of Harry, and that he took a warm interest in him; and that the boy was pining away—which was not true; and that he called to know if Miss Kennedy as a friend would divine the cause—which was crafty. Quite a little domestic drama he made up in his own mind, which would have done beautifully had it not been completely shattered by the surprising things which happened, as will immediately be seen.
Presently he arrived at Stepney Green and stopped to look about him. A quiet, George-the-Third looking place, with many good and solid houses, and a narrow strip of garden running down the middle—in which of these houses did Miss Kennedy dwell?
There came along the asphalt walk an old, old man; he was feeble, and tottered as he went. He wore a black silk stock and a buttoned-up frock-coat. His face was wrinkled and creased. It was, in fact, Mr. Maliphant going rather late (because he had fallen asleep by the fire) to protect the property.
Lord Jocelyn asked him politely if he would tell him where Miss Kennedy lived.
The patriarch looked up, laughed joyously, and shook his head—then he said something inaudibly, but his lips moved; and then pointing to a large house on the right, he said aloud:
"Caroline Coppin's house it was—she that married Sergeant Goslett. Mr. Messenger, whose grandmother was a Coppin, and a good old Whitechapel family, had the deeds. My memory is not so good as usual this morning, young man, or I could tell you who had the house before Caroline's father; but I think it was old Mr. Messenger, because the young man who died the other day, and was only a year or two older than me, was born there himself." Then he went on his way, laughing and wagging his head.
"That is a wonderful old man," said Lord Jocelyn. "Caroline Coppin's house—that is, Harry's mother's house. Pity she couldn't keep it for her son—the sergeant was a thrifty man, too. Here is another native; let us try him."
This time it was Daniel Fagg, and in one of his despondent moods, because none of the promised proofs had arrived.
"Can you tell me, sir," asked Lord Jocelyn, "where Miss Kennedy lives?"
The "native," who had sandy hair and a gray beard, and immense sandy eyebrows, turned upon him fiercely, shaking a long finger in his face, as if it was a sword.
"Mind you," he growled, "Miss Kennedy's the only man among you! You talk of your scholars! Gar!—jealousy and envy. But I've remembered her—posterity shall know her when the head of the Egyptian department is dead and forgotten."
"Thank you," said Lord Jocelyn, as the man left him. "I am likely to be forwarded at this rate."
He tried again.
This time it happened to be none other than Mr. Bunker. The events of the last few weeks were preying upon his mind—he thought continually of handcuffs and prisons. He was nervous and agitated.
But he replied courteously, and pointed out the house.
"Ah!" said Lord Jocelyn, "that is the house which an old man, whom I have just asked, said was Caroline Coppin's."
"Old man—what old man?" (Mr. Bunker turned pale—it seemed as if the atmosphere itself was full of dangers.) "'Ouse was whose? That 'ouse, sir, is mine—mine, do you hear?"
Lord Jocelyn described the old man—in fact, he was yet within sight.
"I know him," said Mr. Bunker. "He's mad, that old man—silly with age; nobody minds him. That 'ouse, sir, is mine."
"Oh! And you" (for Lord Jocelyn now recollected him)—"are Mr. Bunker, are you? Do you remember me? Think, man."
Mr. Bunker thought his hardest; but if you do not remember a man, you might as well stand on your head as begin to think.
"Twenty years ago," said Lord Jocelyn, "I took away your nephew, who has now come back here."
"You did, you did," cried Bunker eagerly. "Ah, sir, why did you let him come back here? A bad business—a bad business."
"I came to see him to-day, perhaps to ask him why he stays here."
"Take him away again, sir—don't let him stay. Rocks ahead, sir!" Mr. Bunker put up hands in warning. "When I see youth going to capsize on virtue it makes my blood, as a Christian man, to curdle—take him away."
"Certainly it does you great credit, Mr. Bunker, as a Christian man; because curdled blood must be unpleasant. But what rocks?"
"A rock—one rock, a woman. In that 'ouse, sir, she lives; her name is Miss Kennedy—that is what she calls herself. She's a dressmaker by trade, she says; and a captivator of foolish young men by nature—don't go anigh her. She may captivate you. Daniel Fagg made her an offer of marriage, and he's sixty. He confessed it to me. She tried it on with me; but a man of principles is proof. The conjurer wanted to marry her. My nephew, Dick Coppin, is a fool about her."
"She must be a very remarkable woman," said Lord Jocelyn.
"As for that boy, Harry Goslett" (Bunker uttered the name with an obvious effort)—"he's further gone than all the rest put together. If it wasn't for her, he would go back to where he came from."
"Ah! and where is that?"
"Don't you know, then? You, the man who took him away? Don't you know where he came from? Was it something very bad?"
There was a look of eager malignity about the man's face—he wanted to hear something bad about his nephew.
Lord Jocelyn encouraged him.
"Perhaps I know—perhaps I do not."
"A disgraceful story, no doubt," said Bunker, with a pleased smile. "I dreaded the worst when I saw him with his white hands, and his sneerin', fleerin' ways. I thought of Newgate and jailbirds—I did, indeed, at once. O prophetic soul! Well, now we know the worst, and you had better take him away before all the world knows it. I shan't talk, of course."
"Thank you, Mr. Bunker; and about this Miss Kennedy, is there anything against her except that the men fall in love with her?"
"There is plenty against her; but I'm not the man to take away a woman's character. Reports are about her that would astonish you. If all secrets were known, we should find what a viper we've been cherishing. At the end of her year, out she goes of my 'ouse—bag and baggage, she goes; and wherever she goes, that boy'll go after her unless you prevent it."
"Thank you again, Mr. Bunker. Good-morning."
Angela (just returned from her chapel) was sitting at the window of the workroom, in her usual place; she looked out upon the green now and again.
Presently she saw Mr. Maliphant creep slowly along the pavement, and observed that he stopped and spoke to a gentleman. Then she saw Daniel Fagg swinging his arms and gesticulating, as he rehearsed to himself the story of his wrongs, and he stopped and spoke to the same man. Then she saw Mr. Bunker walking moodily on his way, and he stopped, too, and conversed with the stranger. Then he turned, and she saw his face.
It was Lord Jocelyn le Breton, and he was walking with intention toward her own door!
She divined the truth in a moment—he was coming to see the "dressmaker" who had bewitched his boy.
She whispered to Nelly that a gentleman was coming to see her who must be shown upstairs. She took refuge in the drawing-room, which was happily empty; and she awaited him with a beating heart.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs—the door opened. She rose to meet him.
"You here, Miss Messenger! This is, indeed, a surprise."
"No, Lord Jocelyn," she replied, confused, yet trying to speak confidently; "in this house, if you please, I am not Miss Messenger. I am Miss Kennedy, the—the——"
Now she remembered exactly what her next words would mean to him, and she blushed violently. "I am the—the dressmaker."
A man of the world at forty-five seldom feels surprised at anything, unless, indeed, like Molière, he encounters virtue in unexpected quarters. This, however, was a thing so extraordinary that Lord Jocelyn gasped.
"Pardon me, Miss Messenger," he said, recovering himself. "I was so totally unprepared for this—this discovery."
"Now that you have made it, Lord Jocelyn, may I ask you most earnestly to reveal it to no one? I mean no one at all."
"I understand perfectly. Yes, Miss Messenger, I will keep your secret. Since it is a secret, I will tell it to none. But I would ask a favor in return, if I may."
"What is that?"
"Take me further into your confidence. Let me know why you have done this most wonderful thing. I hope I am not impertinent in asking this of you."
"Not impertinent, certainly. And the thing must seem strange to you. And after what you told me some time ago, about——" She hesitated a moment, and then turned her clear brown eyes straight upon his face, "about your ward, perhaps some explanation is due to you."
"Thank you, beforehand."
"First, however, call me Miss Kennedy here; pray—pray, do not forget that there is no Miss Messenger nearer than Portman Square."
"I will try to remember."
"I came here," she went on, "last July, having a certain problem in my mind. I have remained here ever since, working at that problem. It is not nearly worked out yet, nor do I think that in the longest life it could be worked out. It is a most wonderful problem, for one thing leads to another, and great schemes rise out of small, and there are hundreds of plans springing out of one—if I could only carry them out."
"To assist you in carrying them out, you have secured the services of my ward, I learn."
"Yes; he has been very good to me."
"I have never," said Lord Jocelyn, "been greatly tempted in the direction of philanthropy. But pray go on."
"The first thing I came to establish was an association of dressmakers, myself being one. That is very simple. I have started them with a house free of rent and the necessary furniture—which I know is wrong, because it introduces an unfair advantage—and we divide all the money in certain proportions. That is one thing."
"But, my dear young lady, could you not have done this from Portman Square?"
"I could, but not so well. To live here as a workwoman among other workwomen is, at least, to avoid the danger of being flattered, deceived, and paid court to. I was a most insignificant person when I came. I am now so far advanced that a great many employers of women's labor cordially detest me, and would like to see my association ruined.
"O Lord Jocelyn," she went on, after a pause, "you do not know, you cannot know the dreadful dangers which a rich woman has to encounter. If I had come here in my own name I should have been besieged by every plausible rogue who could catch my ear for half an hour. I should have all the clergy round me imploring help for their schools and their churches; I should have had every unmarried curate making love to me; I should have paid ten times as much as anybody else; and, worse than all, I should not have made a single friend. My sympathies, whenever I read the parable, are always with Dives, because he must have been so flattered and worshipped before his pride became intolerable."
"I see. All this you escaped by your assumption of the false name."
"Yes. I am one of themselves; one of the people; I have got my girls together; I have made them understand my project; they have become my fast and faithful friends. The better to inspire confidence, I even sheltered myself behind myself. I said Miss Messenger was interested in our success. She sends us orders. I went to the West End with things made up for her. Thanks mainly to her, we are flourishing. We work for shorter hours and for greater pay than other girls: I could already double my staff if I could only, which I shall soon, double the work. We have recreation, too, and we dine together, and in the evening we have singing and dancing. My girls have never before known any happiness: now they have learned the happiness of quiet, at least, with a little of the culture, and some of the things which make rich people happy. Oh! would you have me go away and leave them, when I have taught these things of which they never dreamed before? Should I send them back to the squalid house and the bare pittance again? Stay and take your luncheon with us when we dine, and ask yourself whether it would not be better for me to live here altogether—never to go back to the West End at all—than to go away and desert my girls?"
She was agitated because she spoke from her heart. She went on without waiting for any reply:
"If you knew the joyless lives, the hopeless days of these girls, if you could see their workrooms, if you knew what is meant by their long hours and their insufficient food, you would not wonder at my staying here, you would cry shame upon the rich woman so selfish as to spend her substance in idle follies, when she might have spent it upon her unfortunate sisters."
"I think," said Lord Jocelyn, "that you are a very noble girl."
"Then there is another scheme of mine: a project so great and generous—nay, I am not singing my own praises, believe me—that I can never get it out of my mind. This project, Lord Jocelyn, is due to your ward."
"Harry was always an ingenious youth. But pray tell me what it is."
"I cannot," she replied; "when I put the project into words they seem cold and feeble. They do not express the greatness of it. They would not rouse your enthusiasm. I could not make you understand in any degree the great hopes I have of this enterprise."
"And it is Harry's invention?"
"Yes—his. All I have done is to find the money to carry it out."
"That is a good part of any enterprise, however."
At this point the bell rang.
"That is the first bell," said Angela; "now they lay down their work and scamper about—at least the younger ones do—for ten minutes before dinner. Come with me to the dining-room."
Presently the girls came trooping in, fifteen or so, with bright eyes and healthy cheeks. Some of them were pretty: one, Lord Jocelyn thought, of a peculiarly graceful and delicate type, though too fragile in appearance. This was Nelly Sorensen. She looked more fragile than usual to-day, and there were black lines under her lustrous eyes. Another, whom Miss Kennedy called Rebekah, was good-looking in a different way, being sturdy, rosy-cheeked, and downright in her manner. Another, who would otherwise have been quite common in appearance, was made beautiful—almost—by the patient look which had followed years of suffering; she was a cripple; all their faces during the last few months had changed for the better; not one among them all bore the expression which is described by the significant words "bold" and "common." Six months of daily drill and practice in good manners had abolished that look at any rate.
The dinner was perfectly plain and simple, consisting of a piece of meat with plenty of vegetables and bread, and nothing else at all. But the meat was good and well cooked, and the service was on fair white linen. Moreover, Lord Jocelyn, sitting down in this strange company, observed that the girls behaved with great propriety. Soon after they began, the door opened and a man came in. It was one of those to whom Lord Jocelyn had spoken on the green, the man with the bushy sandy eyebrows. He took his seat at the table and began to eat his food ravenously. Once he pushed his plate away as if in a temper, and looked up as if he was going to complain. Then the girl they called Rebekah—she came to dinner on Saturdays, so as to have the same advantages as the rest, though she did no work on that day—held up her forefinger and shook it at him, and he relapsed into silence. He was the only one who behaved badly, and Miss Kennedy made as if she had not seen.
During the dinner the girls talked freely among themselves without any of the giggling and whispering which, in some circles, is considered good manners; they all treated Miss Kennedy with great respect, though she was only one workwoman among the rest. Yet there was a great difference, and the girls knew it; next to her on her left sat the pretty girl whom she called Nelly.
When dinner was over, because it was Saturday there was no more work. Some of the girls went into the drawing-room to rest for an hour and read; Rebekah went home again to attend the afternoon service; some went into the garden, although it was December, and began to play lawn-tennis on the asphalt; the man with the eyebrows got up and glared moodily around from under those shaggy eyebrows and then vanished. Angela and Lord Jocelyn remained alone.
"You have seen us," she said; "what do you think of us?"
"I have nothing to say, and I do not know what to think."
"Your ward is our right hand. We women want a man to work for us always. It is his business, and his pleasure, too, to help us to amuse ourselves. He finds diversions; he invents all kinds of things for us. Just now he is arranging tableaux and plays for Christmas."
"Is it—is it—oh, Miss Kennedy—is it for the girls only?"
"That is dangerous ground," she replied, but not severely. "Do you think we had better discuss the subject from that point of view?"
"Poor boy!" said Lord Jocelyn. "It is the point of view from which I must regard it."
She blushed again—and her beautiful eyes grew limpid.
"Do you think," she said, speaking low, "do you think I do not feel for him? Yet there is a cause—a sentiment, perhaps. The time is not quite come. Lord Jocelyn, be patient with me!"
"You will take pity on him?"
"Oh!" she took the hand he offered her. "If I can make him happy——"
"If not," replied Lord Jocelyn, kissing her hand, "he would be the most ungrateful dog in all the world. If not, he deserves to get nothing but a shilling an hour for the miserable balance of his days. A shilling? No; let him go back to his tenpence. My dear young lady, you have made me at all events, the happiest of men! No, do not fear: neither by word nor look shall Harry—shall any one—know what you have been so very, very good, so generous, and so thoughtful as to tell me."
"He loves me for myself," she murmured. "He does not know that I am rich. Think of that, and think of the terrible suspicions which grow up in every rich woman's heart when a man makes love to her. Now I can never, never doubt his honesty. For my sake he has given up so much; for my sake—mine! oh! Why are men so good to women?"
"No," said Lord Jocelyn. "Ask what men can ever do that they should be rewarded with the love and trust of such a woman as you?"
That is, indeed, a difficult question, seeing in what words the virtuous woman has been described by one who writes as if he ought to have known. As a pendant to the picture 'tis pity, 'tis great pity we have not the eulogy of the virtuous man. But there never were any, perhaps.
Lord Jocelyn stayed with Angela all the afternoon. They talked of many things; of Harry's boyhood, of his gentle and ready ways, of his many good qualities, and of Angela herself, her hopes and ambitions, and of their life at Bormalack's. And Angela told Lord Jocelyn about her protégés, the claimants to the Davenant peerage, with the history of the "Roag in Grane," Saturday Davenant; and Lord Jocelyn promised to call upon them.
It was five o'clock when she sent him away, with permission to come again. Now this, Lord Jocelyn felt, as he came away, was the most satisfactory, nay the most delightful, day that he had ever spent.
That lucky rascal Harry! To think of this tremendous stroke of fortune! To fall in love with the richest heiress in England; to have that passion returned, to be about to marry the most charming, the most beautiful, the sweetest woman that had ever been made. Happy, thrice happy boy! What wonder, now, that he found tinkering chairs, in company, so to speak, with that incomparable woman, better than the soft divans of his club or the dinners and dances of society? What had he, Lord Jocelyn, to offer the lad, in comparison with the delights of this strange and charming courtship?
In every love-story there is always, though it is not always told, a secondary plot, the history of the man or woman who might have been left happy but for the wedding bells which peal for somebody else and end the tale. When these ring out, the hopes and dreams of some one else, for whom they do not ring, turn at last to dust and ashes. We are drawing near the church; we shall soon hear those bells. Let us spare a moment to speak of this tale untold, this dream of the morning, doomed to disappointment.
It is only the dream of a foolish girl; she was young and ignorant; she was brought up in a school of hardship until the time when a gracious lady came to rescue her. She had experienced, outside the haven of rest, where her father was safely sheltered, only the buffets of a hard and cruel world, filled with greedy taskmasters who exacted the uttermost farthing in work and paid the humblest farthing for reward. More than this, she knew, and her father knew, that when his time came for exchanging that haven for the cemetery, she would have to fight the hard battle alone, being almost a friendless girl, too shrinking and timid to stand up for herself. Therefore, after her rescue, at first she was in the seventh heaven; nor did her gratitude and love toward her rescuer ever know any abatement. But there came a time when gratitude was called upon to contend with another feeling.
From the very first Harry's carriage toward Nelly was marked by sympathetic and brotherly affection. He really regarded this pretty creature, with her soft and winning ways, as a girl whom he could call by her Christian name and treat as one treats a sweet and charming child. She was clever at learning—nobody, not even Miss Kennedy, danced better; she was docile; she was sweet-tempered and slow to say or think evil. She possessed naturally, Harry thought—but then he forgot that her father had commanded an East Indiaman—a refinement of thought and manner far above the other girls; she caught readily the tone of her patron; she became in a few weeks, this young dressmaker, the faithful effigies of a lady under the instruction of Miss Kennedy, whom she watched and studied day by day. It was unfortunate that Harry continued to treat her as a child, because she was already a woman.
Presently she began to think of him, to watch for him, to note his manner toward herself.
Then she began to compare and to watch his manner toward Miss Kennedy.
Then she began to wonder if he was paying attention to Miss Kennedy, if they were engaged, if they had an understanding.
She could find none. Miss Kennedy was always friendly toward him, but never more. He was always at her call, her faithful servant, like the rest of them, but no more.
Remember that the respect and worship with which she regarded Miss Kennedy were unbounded. But Harry she did not regard as on the same level. No one was good enough for Miss Kennedy. And Harry, clever and bright and good as he seemed, was not too good for herself.
They were a great deal together. All Nelly's evenings were spent in the drawing-room; Harry was there every night; they read together; they talked and danced and sang together. And though the young man said no single word of love, he was always thoughtful for her in ways that she had never experienced before. Below a certain level, men are not thoughtful for women. The cheapeners of women's labor at the East End are not by any means thoughtful toward them. No one had ever considered Nelly at all, except her father.
Need one say more? Need one explain how tender flowers of hope sprang up in this girl's heart, and became her secret joy?
This made her watchful, even jealous. And when a change came in Miss Kennedy's manner—it was after her first talk with Lord Jocelyn—when Nelly saw her color heighten and her eyes grow brighter when Harry appeared, a dreadful pain seized upon her, and she knew, without a word being spoken, that all was over for her. For what was she compared with this glorious woman, beautiful as the day, sweet as a rose in June, full of accomplishments? How could any man regard her beside Miss Kennedy? How could any man think of any other woman when such a goddess had smiled upon him?
In some stories, a girl who has had to beat down and crush the young blossoms of love goes through a great variety of performances, always in the same order. The despair of love demands that this order shall be obeyed. She turns white; she throws herself on her bed, and weeps by herself, and miserably owns that she loves him; she tells the transparent fib to her sister or mother; she has received a blow from which she never will recover; if she is religious, it brings her nearer to heaven—all this we have heard over and over again. Poor little Nelly knew nothing about her grander sisters in misfortune; she knew nothing of what is due to self-respect under similar circumstances; she only perceived that she had been foolish, and tried to show as if that was not so. It was a make-believe of rather a sorry kind. When she was alone she reproached herself; when she was with Miss Kennedy she reproached herself; when she was with Harry she reproached herself. Always herself to blame, no one else, and the immediate result was that her great limpid eyes were surrounded by dark rings and her cheeks grew thin.
Perhaps there is no misfortune more common among women—especially among women of the better class—than that of disappointed hope. Girls who are hard worked in shops have no time, as a rule, to think of love at all. Love, like other gracious influences, does not come in their way. It is when leisure is arrived at, with sufficiency of food and comfort, of shelter and good clothing, that love begins.
To most of Angela's girls, Harry Goslett was a creature far above their hopes or thoughts. It was pleasant to dance with him; to hear him play, to hear him talk; but he did not belong to them. It was not for nothing that their brothers called him "Gentleman Jack." They were, in fact, "common girls," although Angela, by the quiet and steady force of example, was introducing such innovations in the dressing of the hair, the carriage of the person, and the style of garments, that they were rapidly becoming uncommon girls. But they occupied a position lower than that of Nelly, who was the daughter of a ship's captain now in the asylum; or of Rebekah, who was the daughter of a minister, and had the key to all truth.
To Nelly, therefore, there came for a brief space this dream of love. It lasted, indeed, so brief a space—it had such slender foundations of reality—that when it vanished she ought to have let it go without a sigh, and have soon felt as if it never had come to her at all. This is difficult of accomplishment, even for women of strong nerves and good physique; but Nelly tried it and partially succeeded. That is, no one knew her secret except Angela, who divined it—having special reason for this insight; and Rebekah, who perhaps had also her own reasons; but she was a self-contained woman, who kept her own secret.
"She cannot," said Rebekah, watching Angela and Harry, who were walking together on the green—"she cannot marry anybody else. It is impossible."
"But why," said Nelly—"why do they not tell us, if they are to be married?"
"There are many things," said Rebekah, "which Miss Kennedy does not tell us. She has never told us who she is or where she came from, or how she gets command of money; or how she knows Miss Messenger; or what she was before she came to us. Because, Nelly, you may be sure of one thing—that Miss Kennedy is a lady, born and bred. Not that I want to know more than she chooses to tell, and I am as certain of her goodness as I am certain of anything. And what this place will do for the girls if it succeeds, no one can tell. Miss Kennedy will tell us, perhaps, some day why she has come among us, pretending to be a dressmaker."
"Oh!" said Nelly, "what a thing for us that she did pretend! And oh, Rebekah, what a thing it would be if she were to leave off pretending! But she would never desert us—never."
"No, she never would."
Rebekah continued to watch them.
"You see, Nelly, if she is a lady, he is a gentleman." Nelly blushed; and then blushed again for very shame at having blushed at all. "Some gentleman, I am told, take delight in turning girls' heads. He doesn't do that. Has he ever said a word to you that he shouldn't?"
"No," said Nelly, "never."
"Well, and he hasn't to me; though, as for you, he goes about saying everywhere that you are the prettiest girl in Stepney, next to Miss Kennedy. And as for me and the rest, he has always been like a brother; and a good deal better than most brothers are to their sisters. Being a gentleman, I mean he is no match for you and me, who are real work-girls. And there is nobody in the parish except Miss Kennedy for him."
"Yet he works for money."
"So does she. My dear, I don't understand it—I never could understand it. Perhaps some day we shall know what it all means. There they are, making believe. They go on making believe and pretending, and they seem to enjoy it. Then they walk about together, and play in words with each other—one pretending not to understand and so on. Miss Kennedy says, 'But then I speak from hearsay, for I am only a dressmaker.' And he says, 'So I read, because, of course, a cabinet-maker can know nothing of these things.' Mr. Bunker, who ought to be made to learn the Epistle of St. James by heart, says dreadful things of both of them, and one his own nephew; but what does he know?—nothing."
"But, Rebekah, Mr. Goslett cannot be a very great gentleman, if he is Mr. Bunker's nephew; his father was a sergeant in the army."
"He is a gentleman by education and training. Well, some day we shall learn more. Meantime, I for one am contented that they should marry. Are you, Nelly?"
"I, too," she replied, "am contented, if it will make Miss Kennedy happy."
"He is not convinced of the truth," said Rebekah, making her little sectarian reservation, "but any woman who would want a better husband must be a fool. As for you and me, now, after knowing these two, it will be best for us never to marry, rather than to marry one of the drinking, tobacco-smoking workmen, who would have us."
"Yes," said Nelly, "much best. I shall never marry anybody."
Certainly it was not likely that more young gentlemen would come their way. One Sunday evening, the girl, being alone with Miss Kennedy, took courage and dared to speak to her.
In fact, it was Angela herself who began the talk.
"Let us talk, Nelly," she began; "we are quite alone. Tell me, my dear, what is on your mind?"
"Nothing," said Nelly.
"Yes there is something—tell me what it is."
"Oh, Miss Kennedy, I cannot tell you. It would be rudeness to speak of it."
"There can be no rudeness, Nelly, between you and me. Tell me what you are thinking."
Angela knew already what was in her mind, but after the fashion of her sex she dissembled. The brutality of truth among the male sex is sometimes very painful; and yet we are so proud, some of us, of our earnest attachment to truth.
"Oh, Miss Kennedy, can you not see that he is suffering?"
"Nelly!" but she was not displeased.
"He is getting thinner. He does not laugh as he used to; and he does not dance as much as he did. Oh, Miss Kennedy, can you not take pity on him?"
"Nelly, you have not told me whom you mean. Nay," as with a sudden change of tone she threw her arms about Nelly's neck and kissed her, "nay. I know very well whom you mean, my dear."
"I have not offended you?"
"No, you have not offended me. But, Nelly, answer me one question—answer it truthfully. Do you, from your own heart, wish me to take pity on him?"
Nelly answered frankly and truthfully:
"Yes; because how can I wish anything but what will make you happy? Oh, how can any of us help wishing that; and he is the only man who can make you happy. And he loves you."
"You want him to love me for my sake; for my own sake. Nelly, dear child, you humble me."
But Nelly did not understand. She had secretly offered up her humble sacrifice—her pair of turtledoves; and she knew not that her secret was known.
"She loves him herself," Angela was thinking, "and she gives him up for my sake."
"He is not," Nelly went on—as if she could by any words of hers persuade Angela—"he is not like any of the common workmen. See how he walks, and how independent he is, and he talks like a gentleman. And he can do all the things that gentlemen learn to do. Who is there among us all that he could look at, except you?"
"Nelly—do not make me vain."
"As for you, Miss Kennedy, there is no man fit for you in all the world. You call yourself a dressmaker, but we know better; oh, you are a lady! My father says so. He used to have great ladies sometimes on board his ship. He says that never was any one like you for talk and manner. Oh, we don't ask your secret, if you have one—only some of us (not I, for one) are afraid that some day you will go away, and never come back to us again. What should we do then?"
"My dear, I shall not desert you."
"And, if you marry him, you will remain with us? A lady should marry a gentleman, I know; she could not marry any common man. But you are, so you tell us, only a dressmaker. And he, he says, only a cabinet-maker; and Dick Coppin says that, though he can use the lathe, he knows nothing at all about the trade—not even how they talk, nor anything about them. If you two have secrets, Miss Kennedy, tell them to each other."
"My secrets, if I have any, are very simple, Nelly, and very soon you shall know them; and, as for his, I know them already."
Angela was silent awhile, thinking over this thing; then she kissed the girl, and whispered: "Patience yet a little while, dear Nelly. Patience, and I will do, perhaps, what you desire."
"Father," said Nelly, later on that night, sitting together by the fire, "father, I spoke to Miss Kennedy to-night."
"What did you speak to her about, my dear?"
"I told her that we knew (you and I) that she is a lady, whatever she may pretend."
"That is quite true, Nelly."
"And I said that Mr. Goslett is a gentleman, whatever he may pretend."
"That may be true—even though he is not a gentleman born—but that's a very different thing, my dear."
"Why is it different?"
"Because there are many ladies who go about among poor people; but no gentleman, unless it's the clergymen. Ladies seem to like it—they do it, however hard the work, for nothing—and all because it is their duty, and an imitation of the Lord. Some of them go out nursing. I have told you how I took them out to Scutari. Some of them go, not a bit afraid, into the foul courts, and find out the worst creatures in the world, and help them. Many of them give up their whole lives for the poor and miserable. My dear, there is nothing that a good woman will shrink from—no misery, no den of wickedness—nothing. Sometimes I think Miss Kennedy must be one of those women. Yes, she's got a little money, and she has come here to work in her own way among the people here."
"And Mr. Goslett, father?"
"Men don't do what women do. There may be something in what Mr. Bunker says—that he has reasons of his own for coming here and hiding himself."
"Oh, father, you don't mean it; and his own uncle, too, to say such a thing."
"Yes, his own uncle. Mr. Goslett, certainly, does belong to the place; though why Bunker should bear him so much malice is more than I can tell."
"And, father, there is another reason why he should stay here." Nelly blushed, and laughed merrily.
"What is that, my dear?"
Nelly kissed him and laughed again.
"It is your time for a pipe—let me fill it for you. And the Sunday ration, here it is; and here is a light. Oh, father, to be a sailor so long and have no eyes in your head!"
"What"—he understood now—"you mean Miss Kennedy! Nell, my dear, forgive me—I was thinking that perhaps you——"
"No, father," she replied hurriedly, "that could never be. I want nothing but to stay on here with you and Miss Kennedy, who has been so good to us that we can never, never thank her enough; nor can we wish her too much joy. But, please, never—never say that again."
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."
"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.