It was a strange coincidence that only two days after this conversation with Miss Kennedy, Harry received his first offer of employment.
It came from the brewery, and was in the first instance a mere note sent by a clerk inviting "H. Goslett" to call at the accountant's office at ten in the morning. The name, standing bare and naked by itself, without any preliminary title of respect—Mister, Master, or Sieur—presented, Harry thought, a very miserable appearance. Perhaps it would be difficult to find a readier method of insulting a man than to hurl his own name at his head. One may understand how Louis Capet must have felt when thus reduced to a plain simplicity.
"What on earth," Harry asked, forgetting his trade, "can they want with me?"
In business houses, working-men, even of the gentle craft of cabinet-making, generally carry with them tools, sometimes wear an apron, always have their trousers turned up, and never wear a collar—using, instead, a red muffler, which keeps the throat warmer, and does not so readily show the effect of London fog and smoke. Also, some of their garments are made of corduroy and their jackets have bulging pockets, and their hats not unfrequently have a pipe stuck into them. This young working-man repaired to the trysting-place in the easy attire in which he was wont to roam about the bowers of the East End. That is to say, he looked like a carelessly-dressed gentleman.
Harry found at the office his uncle, Mr. Bunker, who snorted when he saw his nephew.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Can't you waste your time and bring disgrace on a hard-working uncle outside the place where he is known and respected?"
Harry sighed.
"Few of us," he said, "sufficiently respect their uncles. And with such an uncle—ah!"
What more might have passed between them, I know not. Fortunately, at this point, they were summoned to the presence of the chief accountant.
He knew Mr. Bunker and shook hands with him.
"Is this your nephew, Mr. Bunker?" he asked, looking curiously at the very handsome young fellow who stood before him with a careless air.
"Yes; he's my nephew; at least, he says so," said Mr. Bunker surlily. "Perhaps, sir, you wouldn't mind telling him what you want, and letting him go. Then we can get to business."
"My business is with both of you."
"Both of us?" Mr. Bunker looked uneasy. What business could that be in which he was connected with his nephew?
"Perhaps I had better read a portion of a letter received by me yesterday from Miss Messenger. That portion which concerns you, Mr. Bunker, is as follows."
Rather a remarkable letter had been received at the brewery on the previous day from Miss Messenger. It was remarkable, and, indeed, disquieting, because it showed a disposition to interfere in the management of the great concern, and the interference of a young lady in the brewery boded ill.
The chief brewer and the chief accountant read it together. They were a grave and elderly pair, both in their sixties, who had been regarded by the late Mr. Messenger as mere boys. For he was in the eighties.
"Yes," said the chief brewer, as his colleague read the missive with a sigh, "I know what you would say. It is not the thing itself; the thing is a small thing; the man may even be worth his pay; but it is the spirit of the letter, the spirit, that concerns me."
"It is the spirit," echoed the chief accountant.
"Either," said the chief brewer, "we rule here, or we do not."
"Certainly," said the chief accountant, "and well put."
"If we do not"—here the chief brewer rapped the middle knuckle of the back of his left-hand forefinger with the tip of his right-hand forefinger—"if we do not, what then?"
They gazed upon each other for a moment in great sadness, having before their eyes a hazy vision in which Miss Messenger walked through the brewery, putting down the mighty and lowering salaries. A grateful reward for long and faithful services! At the thought of it, these two servants in their own eyes became patriarchal, as regards the length of years spent in the brewery, and their long services loomed before them as so devoted and so faithful as to place them above the rewarding power of any salary.
The chief accountant was a tall old gentleman, and he stood in a commanding position on the hearth-rug, the letter in one hand and a pair of double eye-glasses in the other.
"You will see from what I am about to read to you, Mr. Bunker," he began, "that your services, such as they were, to the late Mr. Messenger will not go unrewarded."
Very good, so far; but what had his reward to do with his nephew?
"You were a good deal with Mr. Messenger at one time, I remember, Mr. Bunker."
"I was, a great deal."
"Quite so—quite so—and you assisted him, I believe, with his house property and tenants, and so forth."
"I did." Mr. Bunker cleared his throat. "I did, and often Mr. Messenger would talk of the reward I was to have when he was took."
"He left you nothing, however, possibly because he forgot. You ought, therefore, to be the more grateful to Miss Messenger for remembering you; particularly as the young lady has only heard of you by some kind of chance."
"Has she—has she—sent something?" he asked.
The chief accountant smiled graciously.
"She has sent a very considerable present indeed."
"Ah!" Mr. Bunker's fingers closed as if they were grappling with bank-notes.
"Is it," he asked, in trembling accents—"is it a check?"
"I think, Mr. Bunker, that you will like her present better than a check."
"There can be nothing better than one of Miss Messenger's checks," he replied gallantly. "Nothing in the world, except, perhaps, one that's bigger. I suppose it's notes, then?"
"Listen, Mr. Bunker——
"'Considering the various services rendered to my grandfather by Mr. Bunker, with whom I believe you are acquainted, in connection with his property in Stepney and the neighborhood, I am anxious to make him some substantial present. I have therefore caused inquiries to be made as to the best way of doing this. I learn that he has a nephew named Henry Goslett, by trade a cabinet-maker'" [here Mr. Bunker made violent efforts to suppress emotion], "'who is out of employment. I propose that he should be received into the brewery, that a shop with all that he wants should be fitted up for him, and that he attend daily until anything better offers, to do all that may be required in his trade. I should wish him to be independent as regards time of attendance, and that he should be paid at the proper rate for piece-work. In this way, I hope Mr. Bunker may feel that he has received a reward more appropriate to the friendly relations which seem to have existed between my grandfather and himself than a mere matter of money, and I am glad to be able to gratify him in finding honorable employment for one who is, I trust, a deserving young man.'"
"Then, Mr. Bunker, there is this—why, good heavens! man, what is the matter?"
For Mr. Bunker was purple with wrath. Three times he essayed to speak, three times he failed. Then he put on his hat and fled precipitately.
"What is the matter with him?" asked the chief accountant.
The young workman laughed.
"I believe," he replied "that my uncle expected the check."
"Well, well!" the chief accountant waved his hand. "There is nothing more to be said. You will find your shop; one of the porters will take you to it; you will have all the broken things that used to be sent out, kept for you to mend, and—and—all that. What we want a cabinet-maker for in the brewery, I do not understand. That will do. Stay—you seem a rather superior kind of workman."
"I have had an education," said Harry, blushing.
"Good; so long as it has not made you discontented. Remember that we want sober and steady men in this place, and good work."
"I am not certain yet," said Harry, "that I shall be able to take the place."
"Not take the place? Not take a place in Messenger's brewery? Do you know that everybody who conducts himself well here is booked for life? Do you know what you are throwing away? Not take the place? Why, you may be cabinet-maker for the brewery till they actually pension you off."
"I am—I am a little uncertain in my designs for the future. I must ask for a day to consider."
"Take a day. If, to-morrow, you do not present yourself in the workshop prepared for you, I shall tell Miss Messenger that you have refused her offer."
Harry walked away with a quickened pulse. So far he had been posturing only as a cabinet-maker. At the outset he had no intention of doing more than posture for a while, and then go back to civilized life with no more difference than that caused by the revelation of his parentage. As for doing work, or taking a wage, that was very, very far from his mind. Yet now he must either accept the place, with the pay, or he must stand confessed a humbug. There remained but one other way, which was a worse way than the other two. He might, that is to say, refuse the work without assigning any reason. He would then appear in the character of a lazy and worthless workman—an idle apprentice, indeed; one who would do no work while there was money in the locker for another day of sloth. With that face could he stand before Miss Kennedy, revealed in these—his true colors?
It was an excellent opportunity for flight. That occurred to him. But flight—and after that last talk with the woman whose voice, whose face, whose graciousness had so filled his head and inflamed his imagination.
He walked away, considering.
When a man is very much perplexed, he often does a great many little odd things. Thus, Harry began by looking into the office where his cousin sat.
Josephus' desk was in the warmest part of the room, near the fire—so much promotion he had received. He sat among half a dozen lads of seventeen or twenty years of age, who did the mechanical work of making entries in the books. This he did, too, and had done every day for forty years. Beside him stood a great iron safe, where the books were put away at night. The door was open. Harry looked in, caught the eye of his cousin, nodded encouragingly, and went on his way, his hands in his pockets.
When he came to Mrs. Bormalack's he went in there too, and found Lord Davenant anxiously waiting for the conduct of the case to be resumed, in order that he might put up his feet and take his morning nap.
"This is my last morning," Harry said. "As for your case, old boy, it is as complete as I can make it, and we had better send it in as soon as we can, unless you can find any more evidence."
"No—no," said his lordship, who found this familiarity a relief after the stately enjoyment of the title, "there will be no more evidence. Well, if there's nothing more to be done, Mr. Goslett, I think I will"—here he lifted his feet—"and if you see Clara Martha, tell her that—that——"
Here he fell asleep.
It was against the rules to visit the Dressmakers' Association in the morning or afternoon. Harry therefore went to the room where he had fitted his lathe, and began to occupy himself with the beautiful cabinet he was making for Miss Kennedy. But he was restless; he was on the eve of a very important step. To take a place, to be actually paid for piece-work, is, if you please, a very different thing from pretending to have a trade.
Was he prepared to give up the life of culture?
He sat down and thought what such a surrender would mean.
First, there would be no club; none of the pleasant dinners at the little tables with one or two of his own friends; no easy-chair in the smoking-room for a wet afternoon; none of the talk with men who are actually in the ring—political, literary, artistic, and dramatic, none of the pleasant consciousness that you are behind the scenes, which is enjoyed by so many young fellows who belong to good clubs. The club in itself would be a great thing to surrender.
Next, there would be no society.
He was at that age when society means the presence of beautiful girls; therefore, he loved society, whether in the form of a dance, or a dinner, or an at-home, or an afternoon, or a garden-party, or any other gathering where young people meet and exchange those ideas which they fondly imagine to be original. Well, he must never think any more of society. That was closed to him.
Next, he must give up most of the accomplishments, graces, arts, and skill which he had acquired by dint of great assiduity and much practice. Billiards, at which he could hold his own against most; fencing, at which he was capable of becoming a professor; shooting, in which he was ready to challenge any American; riding, the talking of different languages—what would it help him now to be a master in these arts? They must all go; for the future he would have to work nine hours a day for tenpence an hour, which is two pound a week, allowing for Saturday afternoon. There would simply be no time for practising any single one of these things, even if he could afford the purchase of the instruments required.
Again, he would have to grieve and disappoint the kindest man in the whole world—Lord Jocelyn.
I think it speaks well for this young man that one thing did not trouble him—the question of eating and drinking. He would dine no more; working-men do not dine—they stoke. He would drink no more wine; well, Harry found beer a most excellent and delicious beverage, particularly when you get it unadulterated.
Could he give up all these things? He could not conceive it possible, you see, that a man should go and become a workman, receiving a wage and obeying orders, and afterward resume his old place among gentlemen, as if nothing had happened. Indeed, it would require a vast amount of explanation.
Then he began to consider what he would get if he remained.
One thing only would reward him. He was so far gone in love, that for this girl's sake he would renounce everything and become a workman indeed.
He could not work; the quiet of the room oppressed him; he must be up and moving while this struggle went on.
Then he thought of his uncle Bunker and laughed, remembering his discomfiture and wrath. While he was laughing the door opened, and the very man appeared.
He had lost his purple hue, and was now, in fact, rather pale, and his cheeks looked flabby.
"Nephew," he said huskily, "I want to talk to you about this thing; give over sniggerin', and talk serious now."
"Let us be serious."
"This is a most dreadful mistake of Miss Messenger's; you know at first I thought it must be a joke. That is why I went away; men of my age and respectability don't like jokes. But it was no joke. I see now it is just a mere dreadful mistake which you can set right."
"How can I set it right?"
"To be sure, I could do it myself, very easily. I have only got to write to her, and tell her that you've got no character, and nobody knows if you know your trade."
"I don't think that would do, because I might write as well——"
"The best plan would be for you to refuse the situation and go away again. Look here, boy; you come from no one knows where; you live no one knows how; you don't do any work; my impression is you don't want any, and you've only come to see what you can borrow or steal. That's my opinion. Now, don't let's argue, but just listen. If you'll go away quietly, without any fuss, just telling them at the brewery that you've got to go, I'll give you—yes—I'll give you—twenty pounds down! There!"
"Very liberal indeed! But I am afraid——"
"I'll make it twenty-five. A man of spirit can do anything with twenty-five pounds down. Why, he might go to the other end of the world. If I were you I'd go there. Large openings there for a lad of spirit—large openings! Twenty-five pounds down, on the nail."
"It seems a generous offer, still——"
"Nothing," Mr. Bunker went on, "has gone well since you came. There's this dreadful mistake of Miss Messenger's; then that Miss Kennedy's job. I didn't make anything out of that compared with what I might, and there's the——" He stopped, because he was thinking of the houses.
"I want you to go," he added almost plaintively.
"And that, very much, is one of the reasons why I want to stay. Because, you see, you have not yet answered a question of mine. What did you get for me when you traded me away?"
For the second time his question produced a very remarkable effect upon the good man.
When he had gone, slamming the door behind him, Harry smiled sweetly.
"I know," he said, "that he has done 'something,' as they call it. Bunker is afraid. And I—yes—I shall find it out and terrify him still more. But, in order to find it out, I must stay. And if I stay, I must be a workman. And wear an apron! And a brown-paper cap! No. I draw the line above aprons. No consideration shall induce me to wear an apron. Not even—no—not if she were to make the apron a condition of marriage."
He spent the afternoon wandering about the streets of Stepney, full of the new thought that here might be his future home. This reflection made him regard the place from quite a novel point of view. As a mere outsider, he had looked upon the place critically, with amusement, with pity, with horror (in rainy weather), with wonder (in sunshiny days). He was a spectator, while before his eyes were played as many little comedies, comediettas, or tragedies or melodramas as there were inhabitants. But no farces, he remarked, and no burlesques. The life of industry contains no elements of farce or of burlesque. But if he took this decisive step he would have to look upon the East End from an inside point of view; he would be himself one of the actors; he would play his own little comedy. Therefore he must introduce the emotion of sympathy, and suppress the critical attitude altogether.
There was once an earl who went away and became a sailor before the mast; he seems to have enjoyed sailoring better than legislating, but was, by accident, ingloriously drowned while so engaged. There was also the Honorable Timothy Clitheroe Davenant, who was also supposed to be drowned, but in reality exercised until his death, and apparently with happiness, the craft of wheelwright. There was another unfortunate nobleman, well known to fame, who became a butcher in a colony, and liked it. Precedents enough of voluntary descent and eclipse, to say nothing of the involuntary obscurations, as when an émigré had to teach dancing, or the son of a royal duke was fain to become a village schoolmaster. These historical parallels pleased Harry's fancy until he recollected that he was himself only a son of the people, and not of noble descent, so that they really did not bear upon his case, and he could find not one single precedent in the whole history parallel with himself. "Mine," he said, formulating the thing, "is a very remarkable and unusual case. Here is a man brought up to believe himself of gentle birth and educated as a gentleman, so that there is nothing in the most liberal training of a gentleman that he has not learned, and no accomplishment which becomes a gentleman that he has not acquired. Then he learns that he is not a gentleman by birth, and that he is a pauper; wherefore, why not honest work? Work is noble, to be sure, especially if you get the kind of work you like, and please yourself about the time of doing it; nothing could be a more noble spectacle than that of myself working at the lathe for nothing, in the old days; would it be quite as noble at the brewery, doing piece-work?"
These reflections, this putting of the case to himself, this grand dubiety, occupied the whole afternoon. When the evening came, and it was time for him to present himself in the drawing-room, he was no further advanced toward a decision.
The room looked bright and restful; wherever Angela went, she was accompanied and surrounded by an atmosphere of refinement. Those who conversed with her became infected with her culture; therefore, the place was like any drawing-room at the West End, save for the furniture, which was simple. Ladies would have noticed, even in such little things, in the way in which the girls sat and carried themselves, a note of difference. To Harry these minutiæ were unknown, and he saw only a room full of girls quietly happy and apparently well-bred; some were reading; some were talking, one or two were "making" something for themselves, though their busy fingers had been at work all day. Nelly and Miss Kennedy were listening to the captain, who was telling a yarn of his old East Indiaman. The three made a pretty group, Miss Kennedy seated on a low stool at the captain's knee, while the old man leaned forward in his arm-chair, his daughter beside him watching, in her affectionate and pretty way, the face of her patron.
The quiet, peaceful air of the room, the happy and contented faces which before had been so harassed and worn, struck the young man's heart. Part of this had been his doing; could he go away and leave the brave girl who headed the little enterprise to the tender mercies of a Bunker? The thought of what he was throwing up—the club-life, the art-life, the literary life, the holiday-time, the delightful roving in foreign lands, which he should enjoy no more—all seemed insignificant considered beside this haven of rest and peace in the troubled waters of the East End. He was no philanthropist; the cant of platforms was intolerable to him; yet he was thinking of a step which meant giving up his own happiness for that of others; with, of course, the constant society of the woman he loved. Without that compensation the sacrifice would be impossible. Miss Kennedy looked up and nodded to him kindly, motioning him not to interrupt the story, which the captain presently finished.
Then they had a little music and a little playing, and there was a little dancing—all just as usual; a quiet, pleasant evening; and they went away.
"You are silent to-night, Mr. Goslett," said Angela, as they took their customary walk in the quiet little garden called Stepney Green.
"Yes. I am like the parrot; I think the more."
"What is in your mind?"
"This: I have had an offer—an offer of work—from the brewery. Miss Messenger herself sent the offer, which I am to accept or to refuse to-morrow morning."
"An offer of work? I congratulate you. Of course you will accept?" She looked at him sharply, even suspiciously.
"I do not know."
"You have forgotten," she said—in other girls the words and the tone of her voice would have sounded like an encouragement—"you have forgotten what you said only last Sunday evening."
"No: I have not forgotten. What I said last Sunday evening only increases my embarrassment. I did not expect, then—I did not think it possible that any work here would be offered to me."
"Is the pay insufficient?"
"No: the pay is to be at the usual market-rate."
"Are the hours too long?"
"I am to please myself. It seems as if the young lady had done her best to make me as independent as a man who works for money can be."
"Yet you hesitate. Why?"
He was silent—thinking what he should tell her. The whole truth would have been best; but then, one so seldom tells the whole truth about anything, far less about one's self. He could not tell her that he had been masquerading all the time, after so many protestations of being a real working-man.
"Is it that you do not like to make friends among the East End workmen?"
"No." He could answer this with truth. "It is not that. The working-men here are better than I expected to find them. They are more sensible, more self-reliant, and less dangerous. To be sure, they profess to entertain an unreasoning dislike for rich people, and, I believe, think that their lives are entirely spent over oranges and skittles. I wish they had more knowledge of books, and could be got to think in some elemental fashion about art. I wish they had a better sense of beauty, and I wish they could be got to cultivate some of the graces of life. You shall teach them, Miss Kennedy. Also, I wish that tobacco was not their only solace. I am very much interested in them. That is not the reason."
"If you please to tell me——" she said.
"Well, then"—he would tell that fatal half-truth—"the reason is this; you know that I have had an education above what fortune intended for me when she made me the son of Sergeant Goslett."
"I know," she replied. "It was my case, as well; we are companions in this great happiness."
"The man who conferred this benefit upon me, the best and kindest-hearted man in the world, to whom I am indebted for more than I can tell you, is willing to do more for me. If I please, I may live with him in idleness."
"You may live in idleness? That must be, indeed, a tempting offer!"
"Idleness," he replied, a little hurt at her contempt for what certainly was a temptation for him, "does not always mean doing nothing."
"What would you do, then?"
"There is the life of culture and art——"
"Oh, no!" she replied. "Would you really like to become one of those poor creatures who think they lead lives devoted to art? Would you like to grow silly over blue china, to quarrel about color, to worship form in poetry, to judge everything by the narrow rules of the latest pedantic fashion?"
"You know this art world, then?"
"I know something of it, I have heard of it. Never mind me—think of yourself. You would not, you could not, condemn yourself to such a life."
"Not to such a life as you picture. But, consider, I am offered a life of freedom instead of servitude."
"Servitude! Why, we are all servants one of the other. Society is like the human body, in which all the limbs belong to each other. There must be rich and poor, idlers and workers; we depend one upon the other; if the rich do not work with and for the poor, retribution falls upon them. The poor must work for the rich, or they will starve; poor or rich, I think it is better to be poor; idler or worker, I know it is better to be worker."
He thought of Lord Jocelyn; of the pleasant chambers in Piccadilly, of the club, of his own friends, of society, of little dinners, of stalls at the theatre; of suppers among actors and actresses; of artists and the smoking-parties; of the men who write, and the men who talk, and the men who know everybody, and are full of stories; of his riding, and hunting, and shooting; of his fencing, and billiards, and cards.
All these things passed through his brain swiftly, in a moment. And then he thought of the beautiful woman beside him, whose voice was the sweetest music to him that he had ever heard.
"You must take the offer," she went on, and her words fell upon his ear like the words of an oracle to a Greek in doubt. "Work at the brewery is not hard. You will have no task-master set over you; you are free to go and come, to choose your own time; there will be in so great a place, there must be, work, quite enough to occupy your time. Give up yearning after an idle life, and work in patience."
"Is there anything," he said, "to which you could not persuade me?"
"Oh, not for me!" she replied impatiently. "It is for yourself. You have your life before you, to throw away or to use. Tell me," she hesitated a little; "you have come back to your own kith and kin, after many years. They were strange to you at first, all these people of the East End—your own people. Now that you know them, should you like to go away from them, altogether away and forget them? Could you desert them? You know, if you go, that you will desert them, for between this end of London and the other there is a great gulf fixed, across which no one ever passes. You will leave us altogether if you leave us now."
At this point Harry felt the very strongest desire to make it clear that what concerned him most would be the leaving her, but he repressed the temptation and merely remarked that, if he did desert his kith and kin, they would not regret him. His Uncle Bunker, he explained, had even offered him five-and-twenty pounds to go.
"It is not that you have done anything, you know, except to help us in our little experiment," said Angela. "But it is what you may do, what you shall do, if you remain."
"What can I do?"
"You have knowledge; you have a voice; you have a quick eye and a ready tongue; you could lead, you could preside. Oh! what a career you might have before you!"
"You think too well of me, Miss Kennedy. I am a very lazy and worthless kind of man."
"No." She shook her head and smiled superior. "I know you better than you know yourself. I have watched you for these months. And then we must not forget, there is our Palace of Delight."
"Are we millionaires?"
"Why, we have already begun it. There is our drawing-room; it is only a few weeks old, yet see what a difference there is already. The girls are happy; their finer tastes are awakened; their natural yearnings after things delightful are partly satisfied; they laugh and sing now; they run about and play. There is already something of our dream realized. Stay with us, and we shall see the rest."
He made an effort and again restrained himself.
"I stay, then," he said, "for your sake—because you command me to stay."
Had she done well? She asked herself the question in the shelter of her bedroom, with great doubt and anxiety. This young workman, who might if he chose be a—well—yes—a gentleman—quite as good a gentleman as most of the men who pretend to the title—was going to give up whatever prospects he had in the world, at her bidding, and for her sake. For her sake! Yet what he wished was impossible.
What reward, then, had she to offer him that would satisfy him? Nothing. Stay, he was only a man. One pretty face was as good as another; he was struck with hers for the moment. She would put him in the way of being attracted by another. Yes: that would do. This settled in her own mind, she put the matter aside, and, as she was very sleepy, she only murmured to herself, as her eyes closed, "Nelly Sorensen."
The subject of Angela's meditations was not where she thought him, in his own bedroom. When he left his adviser, he did not go in at once, but walked once or twice up and down the pavement, thinking. What he had promised to do was nothing less than to reverse, altogether, the whole of his promised life; and this is no light matter, even if you do it for love's sweet sake. And, Miss Kennedy being no longer with him, he felt a little chilled from the first enthusiasm. Presently he looked at his watch; it was still early, only half-past ten.
"There is the chance," he said. "It is only a chance. He generally comes back somewhere about this time."
There are no cabs at Stepney, but there are tramways which go quite as fast, and, besides, give one the opportunity of exchanging ideas on current topics with one's travelling companions. Harry jumped into one, and sat down between a bibulous old gentleman, who said he lived in Fore Street, but had for the moment mislaid all his other ideas, and a lady who talked to herself as she carried a bundle. She was rehearsing something dramatic, a monologue, in which she was "giving it" to somebody unknown. And she was so much under the influence and emotion of imagination that the young man trembled lest he might be mistaken for the person addressed. However, happily, the lady so far restrained herself, and Aldgate was reached in peace. There he took a hansom and drove to Piccadilly.
The streets looked strange to him after his three months' absence; the lights, the crowds on the pavements, so different from the East End crowd; the rush of the carriages and cabs taking the people home from the theatre, filled him with a strange longing. He had been asleep; he had had a dream; there was no Stepney; there was no Whitechapel Road—a strange and wondrous dream. Miss Kennedy and her damsels were only a part of this vision. A beautiful and delightful dream. He was back again in Piccadilly, and all was exactly as it always had been. So far all was exactly the same, for Lord Jocelyn was in his chamber and alone.
"You are come back to me, Harry?" he said, holding the young man's hand; "you have had enough of your cousins and the worthy Bunker. Sit down, boy. I heard your foot on the stairs. I have waited for it a long time. Sit down and let me look at you. To-morrow you shall tell me all your adventures."
"It is comfortable," said Harry, taking his old chair and one of his guardian's cigarettes. "Yes, Piccadilly is better, in some respects, than Whitechapel."
"And there is more comfort the higher up you climb, eh?"
"Certainly, more comfort. There is not, I am sure, such an easy-chair as this east of St. Paul's."
Then they were silent, as becomes two men who know what is in each other's heart, and wait for it to be said.
"You look well," said Harry presently. "Where did you spend the summer?"
"Mediterranean. Yacht. Partridges."
"Of course. Do you stay in London long?"
And so on. Playing with the talk, and postponing the inevitable, Harry learned where everybody had been, and who was engaged, and who was married, and how one or two had joined the majority since his departure. He also heard the latest scandal, and the current talk, and what had been done at the club, and who had been blackballed, with divers small bits of information about people and things. And he took up the talk in the old manner, and fell into the old attitude of mind quite naturally, and as if there had been no break at all. Presently the clock pointed to one, and Lord Jocelyn rose.
"We will talk again to-morrow, Harry, my boy, and the day after to-morrow, and many days after that. I am glad to have you back again." He laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder.
"Do not go just yet," said Harry, blushing and feeling guilty, because he was going to inflict pain on one who loved him. "I cannot talk with you to-morrow."
"Why not?"
"Because—sit down again and listen—because I have made up my mind to join my kith and kin altogether, and stay among them."
"What? Stay among them?"
"You remember what you told me of your motive in taking me. You would bring up a boy of the people like a gentleman. You would educate him in all that a gentleman can learn, and then you would send him back to his friends, whom he would make discontented, and so open the way for civilization."
"I said so—did I? Yes: but there were other things, Harry. You forget that motives are always mixed. There was affection for my brave sergeant and a desire to help his son; there were all sorts of things. Besides, I expected that you would take a rough kind of polish only—like nickel, you know, or pewter—and you turned out real silver. A gentleman, I thought, is born, not made. This proved a mistake. The puddle blood would show, I expected, which was prejudice, you see, because there is no such thing as puddle blood. Besides, I thought you would be stupid and slow to pick up ideas, and that you would pick up only a few; supposing, in my ignorance, that all persons not 'born,' as the Germans say, must be stupid and slow."
"And I was not stupid?"
"You? The brightest and cleverest lad in the whole world—you stepped into the place I made for you as if you had been born for it. Now tell me why you wish to step out of it."
"Like you, sir I have many motives. Partly, I am greatly interested in my own people; partly, I am interested in the place itself and its ways; partly, I am told, and I believe, that there is a great deal which I can do there—do not laugh at me."
"I am not laughing, Harry; I am only astonished. Yes, you are changed, your eyes are different, your voice is different. Go on, my boy."
"I do not think there is much to say—I mean, in explanation. But of course I understand—it is a part of the thing—that if I stay among them I must be independent. I could no longer look to your bounty, which I have accepted too long. I must work for my living."
"Work! And what will you do?"
"I know a lot of things, but somehow they are not wanted at Stepney, and the only thing by which I can make money seems to be my lathe—I have become a cabinet-maker."
"Heavens! You have become a cabinet-maker? Do you actually mean, Harry, that you are going to work—with your hands—for money?"
"Yes; with my hands. I shall be paid for my work; I shall live by my work. The puddle blood, you see."
"No, no," said Lord Jocelyn, "there is no proof of puddle blood in being independent. But think of the discomfort of it."
"I have thought of the discomfort. It is not really so very bad. What is your idea of the life I shall have to live?"
"Why," said Lord Jocelyn, with a shudder, "you will rise at six; you will go out in working-clothes, carrying your tools, and with your apron tied round and tucked up like a missionary bishop on his way to a confirmation. You will find yourself in a workshop full of disagreeable people, who pick out unpleasant adjectives and tack them on to everything, and whose views of life and habits are—well, not your own. You will have to smoke pipes at a street corner on Sundays; your tobacco will be bad; you will drink bad beer—Harry! the contemplation of the thing is too painful."
Harry laughed.
"The reality is not quite so bad," he said. "Cabinet-makers are excellent fellows. And as for myself, I shall not work in a shop, but alone. I am offered the post of cabinet-maker in a great place where I shall have my own room to myself, and can please my own convenience as to my hours. I shall earn about tenpence an hour—say seven shillings a day, if I keep at it."
"If he keeps at it," murmured Lord Jocelyn, "he will make seven shillings a day."
"Dinner in the middle of the day, of course." Harry went on, with a cheerful smile. "At the East End everybody stokes at one. We have tea at five and supper when we can get it. A simpler life than yours."
"This is a programme of such extreme misery," said Lord Jocelyn, "that your explanations are quite insufficient. Is there, I wonder, a woman in the case?"
Harry blushed violently.
"There is a woman, then?" said his guardian triumphantly. "There always is. I might have guessed it from the beginning. Come, Harry, tell me all about it. Is it serious? Is she—can she be—at Whitechapel—a lady?"
"Yes," said Harry, "it is quite true. There is a woman, and I am in love with her. She is a dressmaker."
"Oh!"
"And a lady."
Lord Jocelyn said nothing.
"A lady." Harry repeated the words, to show that he knew what he was saying. "But it is no use. She won't listen to me."
"That is more remarkable than your two last statements. Many men have fallen in love with dressmakers, some dressmakers have acquired partially the manners of a lady; but that any dressmaker should refuse the honorable attentions of a handsome young fellow like you, and a gentleman, is inconceivable."
"A cabinet-maker, not a gentleman. But do not let us talk of her, if you please."
Then Lord Jocelyn proceeded, with such eloquence as was at his command, to draw a picture of what he was throwing away compared with what he was accepting. There was a universal feeling, he assured his ward, of sympathy with him: everybody felt that it was rough on such a man as himself to find that he was not of illustrious descent; he would take his old place in society; all his old friends would welcome him back among them, with much more to the same purpose.
It was four o'clock in the morning when their conversation ended and Lord Jocelyn went to bed sorrowful, promising to renew his arguments in the morning. As soon as he was gone, Harry went to his own room and put together a few little trifles belonging to the past which he thought he should like. Then he wrote a letter of farewell to his guardian, promising to report himself from time to time, with a few words of gratitude and affection. And then he stole quietly down the stairs and found himself in the open street. Like a school-boy, he had run away.
There was nobody left in the streets. Half-past four in the morning is almost the quietest time of any; even the burglar has gone home, and it is too early for anything but the market-garden carts on their way to Covent Garden. He strode down Piccadilly and across the silent Leicester Square into the Strand. He passed through that remarkable thoroughfare, and, by way of Fleet Street, where even the newspaper offices were deserted, the leader-writers and the editor and the subeditors all gone home to bed, to St. Paul's. It was then a little after five, and there was already a stir. An occasional footfall along the principal streets. By the time he got to the Whitechapel Road there were a good many up and about, and before he reached Stepney Green the day's work was beginning. The night had gone and the sun was rising, for it was six o'clock and a cloudless morning. At ten he presented himself once more at the accountant's office.
"Well?" asked the chief.
"I am come," said Harry, "to accept Miss Messenger's offer."
"You seem pretty independent. However, that is the way with you working-men nowadays. I suppose you don't even pretend to feel any gratitude?"
"I don't pretend," said Harry pretty hotly, "to answer questions outside the work I have to do."
The chief looked at him as if he could, if he wished, and was not a Christian, annihilate him.
"Go, young man," he said presently, pointing to the door, "go to your work. Rudeness to his betters a working-man considers due to himself, I suppose. Go to your work."
Harry obeyed without a word, being in such a rage that he could not speak. When he reached his workshop, he found waiting to be mended an office-stool with a broken leg. I regret to report that this unhappy stool immediately became a stool with four broken legs and a kicked-out seat.
Harry was for the moment too strong for the furniture.
Not even the thought of Miss Kennedy's approbation could bring him comfort. He was an artisan, he worked by the piece—that was nothing. The galling thing was to realize that he must now behave to certain classes with a semblance of respect, because now he had his "betters."
The day before he was a gentleman who had no "betters." He was enriched by this addition to his possessions, and yet he was not grateful.
There lies on the west and southwest of Stepney Green a triangular district, consisting of an irregular four-sided figure—what Euclid beautifully calls a trapezium—formed by the Whitechapel Road, the Commercial Road, Stepney Green, and High Street, or Jamaica Street, or Jubilee Street, whichever you please to call your frontier. This favored spot exhibits in perfection all the leading features which characterize the great Joyless City. It is, in fact, the heart of the East End. Its streets are mean and without individuality or beauty; at no season and under no conditions can they ever be picturesque; one can tell, without inquiring, that the lives led in those houses are all after the same model, and that the inhabitants have no pleasures. Everything that goes to make a city, except the means of amusement, is to be found here. There are churches and chapels—do not the blackened ruins of Whitechapel Church stand here? There are superior "seminaries" and "academies," names which linger here to show where the yearning after the genteel survives; there is a board school, there is the great London Hospital, there are almshouses, there are even squares in it—Sidney Square and Bedford Square, to wit—but there are no gardens, avenues, theatres, art galleries, libraries, or any kind of amusement whatever.
The leading thoroughfare of this quarter is named Oxford Street, which runs nearly all the way from the New Road to Stepney Church. It begins well with some breadth, a church and a few trees on one side, and almshouses with a few trees on the other. This promise is not kept; it immediately narrows and becomes like the streets which branch out of it, a double row of little two-storied houses, all alike. Apparently, they are all furnished alike; in each ground-floor front there are the red curtains and the white blind of respectability, with the little table bearing something, either a basket of artificial flowers, or a big Bible or a vase, or a case of stuffed birds from foreign parts, to mark the gentility of the family. A little farther on, the houses begin to have small balconies on the first floor, and are even more genteel. The streets which run off north and south are like unto it but meaner. Now, the really sad thing about this district is that the residents are not the starving class, or the vicious class, or the drinking class; they are well-to-do and thriving people, yet they desire no happiness, they do not feel the lack of joy, they live in meanness and are content therewith. So that it is emphatically a representative quarter and a type of the East End generally, which is for the most part respectable and wholly dull, and perfectly contented never to know what pleasant strolling and resting-places, what delightful interests, what varied occupation, what sweet diversions there are in life.
As for the people, they follow a great variety of trades. There are "travelling drapers" in abundance; it is, in fact, the chosen quartier of that romantic following; there are a good many stevedores, which betrays the neighborhood of docks; there are some who follow the mysterious calling of herbalist, and I believe you could here still buy the materials for those now forgotten delicacies, saloop and tansy pudding. You can at least purchase medicines for any disease under the sun if you know the right herbalist to go to. One of them is a medium as well; and if you call on him, you may be entertained by the artless prattle of the "sperruts," of whom he knows one or two. They call themselves all sorts of names—such as Peter, Paul, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Byron—but in reality there are only two of them, and they are bad actors. Then there are cork-cutters, "wine merchants' engineers"—it seems rather a grand thing for a wine merchant, above all other men, to want an engineer; novelists do not want engineers—sealing-wax manufacturers, workers in shellac and zinc, sign-painters, heraldic painters, coopers, makers of combs, iron hoops, and sun-blinds, pewterers, feather-makers—they only pretend to make feathers; what they really do is to buy them, or pluck the birds, and then arrange the feathers and trim them; but they do not really make them—ship-modelers, a small but haughty race; mat-dealers, who never pass a prison without using bad language, for reasons which many who have enjoyed the comforts of a prison will doubtless understand. There are also a large quantity of people who call themselves teachers of music. This may be taken as mere pride and ostentatious pretence, because no one wants to learn music in this country, no one ever plays any music, no one has a desire to hear any. If any one called and asked for terms of tuition, he would be courteously invited to go away, or the professor would be engaged, or he would be out of town. In the same way, a late learned professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge was reported always to have important business in the country if an Arab came to visit the colleges. But what a lift above the stevedores, pewterers, and feather pretenders to be a professor of music!
Angela would plant her Palace in this region, the most fitting place, because the most dreary; because here there exists nothing, absolutely nothing, for the imagination to feed upon. It is, in fact, though this is not generally known, the purgatory prepared for those who have given themselves up too much to the enjoyment of roses and rapture while living at the West End. How beautiful are all the designs of Nature! Could there be, anywhere in the world, a more fitting place for such a purgatory than such a city? Besides, once one understands the thing, one is further enabled to explain why these grim and sombre streets remain without improvement. To beautify them would seem, in the eyes of pious and religious people, almost flying in the face of Providence. And yet, not really so; for it may be argued that there are other places also fitted for the punishment of these purgatorial souls—for instance, Hoxton, Bethnal Green, Battersea, and the Isle of Dogs.
Angela resolved, therefore, that on this spot the Palace of Joy should stand. There should be, for all who chose to accept it, a general and standing invitation to accept happiness and create new forms of delight. She would awaken in dull and lethargic brains a new sense, the new sense of pleasure; she would give them a craving for things of which as yet they knew nothing. She would place within their reach, at no cost whatever, absolutely free for all, the same enjoyments as are purchased by the rich. A beautiful dream! They should cultivate a noble discontent; they should gradually learn to be critical; they should import into their own homes the spirit of discontent; they should cease to look upon life as a daily uprising and a down-sitting, a daily mechanical toil, a daily rest. To cultivate the sense of pleasure is to civilize. With the majority of mankind the sense is undeveloped, and is chiefly confined to eating and drinking. To teach the people how the capacity of delight may be widened, how it may be taught to throw out branches in all manner of unsuspected directions, was Angela's ambition. A very beautiful dream!
She owned so many houses in this district that it was quite easy to find a place suitable for her purpose. She discovered upon the map of her property a whole foursquare block of small houses, all her own, bounded north, south, east, and west by streets of other small houses, similar and similarly situated. This site was about five minutes west of Stepney Green, and in the district already described. The houses were occupied by weekly tenants, who would find no difficulty in getting quarters as eligible elsewhere. Some of them were in bad repair; and what with maintenance of roofs and chimneys, bad debts, midnight flittings, and other causes, there was little or no income derived from these houses. Mr. Messenger, indeed, who was a hard man, but not unjust, only kept them to save them from the small owner like Mr. Bunker, whose necessities and greed made him a rack-rent landlord.
Having fixed upon her site, Angela next proceeded to have interviews—but not on the spot, where she might be recognized—with lawyers and architects, and to unfold partially her design. The area on which the houses stood formed a pretty large plot of ground, ample for her purpose, provided that the most was made of the space and nothing wasted. But a great deal was required; therefore she would have no lordly staircases covering half the ground, nor great ante-rooms, nor handsome lobbies. Everything, she carefully explained, was to be constructed for use and not for show. She wanted, to begin with, three large halls: one of them was to be a dancing-room, but it might also be a children's play-room for wet weather; one was to be used for a permanent exhibition of native talent, in painting, drawing, wood and ivory-carving, sculpture, leather-work, and the like, everything being for sale at low prices; the last was to be a library, reading and writing room. There was also to be a theatre, which would serve as a concert and music room, and was to have an organ in it. In addition to these there were to be a great number of class-rooms for the various arts, accomplishments, and graces that were to be taught by competent professors and lecturers. There were to be other rooms where tired people might find rest, quiet, and talk—the women with tea and work, the men with tobacco. And there were to be billiard-rooms, a tennis-court, a racket-court, a fives-court, and a card-room. In fact, there was to be space found for almost every kind of recreation.
She did not explain to her architect how she proposed to use this magnificent place of entertainment; it was enough that he should design it and carry out her ideas; and she stipulated that no curious inquirers on the spot should be told for what purpose the building was destined, nor who was the builder.
One cannot get designs for a palace in a week: it was already late in the autumn, after Harry had taken up his appointment, and was busy among the legs of stools, that the houses began to be pulled down and the remnants carted away. Angela pressed on the work; but it seemed a long and tedious delay before the foundations were laid and the walls began slowly to rise.
There should have been a great function when the foundation-stone was laid, with a procession of the clergy in white surplices and college caps, perhaps a bishop, Miss Messenger herself, with her friends, a lord or two, the officers of the nearest Masonic Lodge, a few Foresters, Odd Fellows, Buffaloes, Druids, and Shepherds, a flag, the charity children, a dozen policemen, and Venetian masts, with a prayer, a hymn, a speech and a breakfast—nothing short of this should have satisfied the founder. Yet she let the opportunity slip, and nothing was done at all; the great building, destined to change the character of the gloomy city into a City of Sunshine, was begun with no pomp or outward demonstration. Gangs of workmen cleared away the ignoble bricks; the little tenements vanished; a broad space bristling with little garden-walls gaped where they had stood; then the walls vanished; and nothing at all was left but holes where cellars had been; then they raised a hoarding round the whole, and began to dig out the foundation. After the hoarding was put up, nothing more for a long time was visible. Angela used to prowl round it in the morning, when her girls were all at work, but fearful lest the architect might come and recognize her.
As she saw her palace begin to grow into existence, she became anxious about its success. The first beatific vision, the rapture of imagination, was over, and would come no more; she had now to face the hard fact of an unsympathetic people who perhaps would not desire any pleasure—or if any, then the pleasure of a "spree," with plenty of beer. How could the thing be worked if the people themselves would not work it? How many could she reckon upon as her friends? Perhaps two or three at most. Oh, the Herculean task, for one woman, with two or three disciples, to revolutionize the City of East London!
With this upon her mind, her conversations with the intelligent young cabinet-maker became more than usually grave and earnest. He was himself more serious than of old, because he now occupied so responsible a position in the brewery. Their relations remained unchanged. They walked together, they talked and they devised things in the drawing-room, and especially for Saturday evenings.
"I think," he said, one evening when they were alone except for Nelly in the drawing-room, "I think that we should never think or talk of working-men in the lump, any more than we think of rich men in a lump. All sorts and conditions of men are pretty much alike, and what moves one moves all. We are all tempted in the same way; we can all be led in the same way."
"Yes, but I do not see how that fact helps."
They were talking, as Angela loved to do, of the scheme of the palace.
"If the palace were built, we should offer the people of Stepney, without prejudice to Whitechapel, Mile End Bow, or even Cable Street, a great many things which at present they cannot get and do not desire. Yet they have always proved extremely attractive. We offer the society of the young for the young, with dancing, singing, music, acting, entertainments—everything except, which is an enormous exception, feasting; we offer them all for nothing; we tell them, in fact, to do everything for themselves; to be the actors, singers, dancers, and musicians."
"And they cannot do anything."
"A few can; the rest will come in. You forget, Miss Kennedy, the honor and glory of acting, singing, and performing in public. Can there be a greater reward than the applause of one's friends?"
"It could never be so nice," said Nelly, "to dance in a great hall among a lot of people as to dance up here, all by ourselves."
The palace was not, in these days, very greatly in the young man's mind. He was occupied with other things: his own work and position; the wisdom of his choice; the prospects of the future. For surely, if he had exchanged the old life and got nothing in return but work at a lathe all day at tenpence an hour, the change was a bad one. Nothing more had been said to him by Miss Kennedy about the great things he was to do, with her, for her, among his people. Was he, then, supposed to find out for himself these great things? And he made no more way with his wooing. That was stopped, apparently, altogether.
Always kind to him; always well pleased to see him; always receiving him with the same sweet and gracious smile; always frank and open with him; but nothing more.
Of late he had observed that her mind was greatly occupied; she was brooding over something; he feared that it might be something to do with the Associated Dressmakers' financial position. She did not communicate her anxieties to him, but always, when they were alone, wanted to go back to their vision of the palace. Harry possessed a ready sympathy; he fell easily and at once into the direction suggested by another's words. Therefore, when Angela talked about the palace, he too took up the thread of invention, and made believe with her as if it were a thing possible, a thing of brick and mortar.
"I see," he went on this evening, warming to the work, "I see the opening day, long announced, of the palace. The halls are furnished and lit up; the dancing-room is ready; the theatre is completed, and the electric lights are lit; the concert-rooms are ready with their music-stands and their seats. The doors are open. Then a wonderful thing happens."
"What is that?" asked Angela.
"Nobody comes."
"Oh!"
"The vast chambers echo with the footsteps of yourself, Miss Kennedy, and of Nelly, who makes no more noise than a demure kitten. Captain Sorensen and I make as much trampling as we can, to produce the effect of a crowd. But it hardly seems to succeed. Then come the girls, and we try to get up a dance; but, as Nelly says, it is not quite the same as your drawing-room. Presently two men, with pipes in their mouths, come in and look about them. I explain that the stage is ready for them, if they like to act; or the concert-room, if they will sing; or the dancing-room, should they wish to shake a leg. They stare and they go away. Then we shut up the doors and go away and cry."
"O Mr. Goslett, have you no other comfort for me?"
"Plenty of comfort. While we are all crying, somebody has a happy thought. I think it is Nelly."
She blushed a pretty rosy red. "I am sure I could never suggest anything."
"Nelly suggests that we shall offer prizes, a quantity of prizes, for competition in everything, the audience or the spectators to be judges; and then the palace will be filled and the universal reign of joy will begin."
"Can we afford prizes?" asked Angela the practical.
"Miss Kennedy," said Harry severely, "permit me to remind you that, in carrying out this project, money, for the first time in the world's history, is to be of no value."
If Newnham does not teach women to originate—which a thousand Newnhams will never do—it teaches them to catch at an idea and develop it. The young workman suggested her palace; but his first rough idea was a poor thing compared with Angela's finished structure—a wigwam beside a castle, a tabernacle beside a cathedral. Angela was devising an experiment, the like of which has never yet been tried upon restless and dissatisfied mankind. She was going, in short, to say to them: "Life is full, crammed full, overflowing with all kinds of delights. It is a mistake to suppose that only rich people can enjoy these things. They may buy them, but everybody may create them; they cost nothing. You shall learn music, and forthwith all the world will be transformed for you; you shall learn to paint, to carve, to model, to design, and the day shall be too short to contain the happiness you will get out of it. You shall learn to dance, and know the rapture of the waltz. You shall learn the great art of acting, and give each other the pleasure which rich men buy. You shall even learn the great art of writing, and learn the magic of a charmed phrase. All these things which make the life of rich people happy shall be yours; and they shall cost you nothing. What the heart of man can desire shall be yours, and for nothing. I will give you a house to shelter you, and rooms in which to play; you have only to find the rest. Enter in, my friends; forget the squalid past; here are great halls and lovely corridors—they are yours. Fill them with sweet echoes of dropping music; let the walls be covered with your works of art; let the girls laugh and the boys be happy within these walls. I give you the shell, the empty carcass; fill it with the spirit of content and happiness."
Would they, to begin with, "behave according"? It was easy to bring together half a dozen dressmakers: girls always like behaving nicely; would the young men be equally amenable? And would the policeman be inevitable, as in the corridors of a theatre? The police, however, would have to be voluntary, like every other part of the institution, and the guardians of the peace must, like the performers in the entertainments, give their services for nothing. For which end, Harry suggested, it would be highly proper to have a professor of the noble art of self-defence, with others of fencing, single-stick, quarter-staff, and other kindred objects.