MR. COX.
Time had gone on. It was a gloomy winter's evening. Not that, reckoning
by the seasons, it could be called winter yet; but it was getting near
it, and the night was dark and sloppy, and blowing and rainy. The wind
went booming down Daffodil's Delight, sending the fierce rain before it
in showers, and the pools gleamed in the reflected light of the
gas-lamps, as wayfarers splashed through them and stirred up their muddy
waters.
The luxurious and comfortable in position--those at ease in the world,
who could issue their orders to attentive tradespeople at their
morning's leisure--had no necessity to be abroad on that inclement
Saturday night. Not so Daffodil's Delight; there was not much chance
(taking it collectively) of a dinner for the morrow, at the best; but,
unless they went abroad, there was none. The men had not gone to work
yet, and times were bad.
Down the street, to one particular corner shop, which had three
gilt-coloured balls hanging outside it, flocked the stream--chiefly
females. Not together. They mostly walked in units, and, some of them at
least, in a covert sort of manner, keeping in the shade of dead walls,
and of dark houses, as if not caring to be seen. Amongst the latter,
stole one who appeared more especially fearful of being recognised. She
was a young woman, comely once, but pale and hollow-eyed now, her bones
too sharp for her skin. Well wrapped up, was she, against the weather;
her cloth cloak warm, a fur round her neck, and india-rubber shoes.
Choosing her time to approach the shop when the coast should be
tolerably clear, she glanced cautiously in at the window and door, and
entered.
Laying upon the counter a small parcel, which she carried folded in a
handkerchief, she displayed a cardboard box to the sight of the shop's
master, who came forward to attend to her. It contained a really
handsome set of corals, fashioned like those worn in the days when our
mothers were young; a necklace of six rows of small beads, with a gold
snap made to imitate a rose, a long coral bead set in it. A pair of gold
earrings, with large pendant coral drops, lay beside it, and a large and
handsome gold brooch, set likewise with corals.
'What, is it _you_, Miss Baxendale?' he exclaimed, his tone expressive
of some surprise.
'It is, indeed, Mr. Cox,' replied Mary. 'We all have to bend to these
hard times. It's share and share alike in them. Will you please to look
at these jewels?'
She tenderly drew aside the cotton which was over the trinkets--tenderly
and reverently, almost as if a miniature live baby were lying there.
Very precious were they to Mary. They were dear to her from association;
and she also believed them to be of great value.
The pawnbroker glanced at them slightly, carelessly lifting one of the
earrings in his hand, to feel its weight. The brooch he honoured with a
closer inspection.
'What do you want upon them?' he asked.
'Nay,' said Mary, 'it is not for me to name a sum. What will you lend?'
'You are not accustomed to our business, or you would know that we like
borrowers to mention their own ideas as to sum; and we give it if we
can,' he rejoined with ready words. 'What do you ask?'
'If you would let me have four pounds upon them, began Mary,
hesitatingly. But he snapped up the words.
'Four pounds! Why, Miss Baxendale, you can't know what you are saying.
The fashion of these coral things is over and done with. They are worth
next to nothing.'
Mary's heart beat quicker in its sickness of disappointment.
'They are genuine, sir, if you'll please to look. The gold is real gold,
and the coral is the best coral; my poor mother has told me so many a
time. Her godmother was a lady, well-to-do in the world, and the things
were a present from her.'
'If they were not genuine, I'd not lend as many pence upon them,' said
the man. 'With a little alteration the brooch might be made tolerably
modern; otherwise their value would be no more than old gold. In selling
them, I----'
'It will not come to that, Mr. Cox,' interrupted Mary. 'Please God
spares me a little while--and, since the hot weather went out, I feel a
bit stronger--I shall soon redeem them.'
Mr. Cox looked at her thin face; he listened to her short breath; and he
drew his own conclusions. There was a line of pity in his hard face, for
he had long respected Mary Baxendale.
'By the way the strike seems to be lasting on, there doesn't seem much
promise of a speedy end to it,' quoth he, in answer. 'I never was so
over-done with pledges.'
'My work does not depend upon that,' said Mary. 'Let me get up a little
strength, and I shall have as much work as I can do. And I am well paid,
Mr. Cox: I have a private connection. I am not like the poor
seamstresses who make skirts for fourpence a-piece.'
Mr. Cox made no immediate reply to this, and there was a pause. The
open box lay before him. He took up the necklace and examined its clasp.
'I will lend you a sovereign upon them.'
She lifted her face pitiably, and the tears glistened in her eyes.
'It would be of no use to me,' she whispered. 'I want the money for a
particular purpose, otherwise I should never have brought here these
gifts of my mother's. She gave them to me the day I was eighteen, and I
have tenderly kept them from desecration.'
Poor Mary! From desecration!
'I have heard her say what they cost; but I forget now. I know it was
over ten pounds.'
'But the day for this fashion has gone by. To ask four pounds upon them
was preposterous; and you would know it to be so, were you acquainted
with the trade.'
'Will you lend me two pounds, then?'
The tone was tremblingly eager, the face beseeching--a wan face, telling
of the coming grave. Possibly the thought struck the pawnbroker, and
awoke some humanity within him.
'I shall lose by it, I know, if it comes to a sale. I'd not do it for
anybody else, Miss Baxendale.'
He proceeded to write out the ticket, his thoughts running upon
whether--if it did come to a sale--he could not make three pounds by the
brooch alone. As he was handing her the money, somebody rushed in, close
to the spot occupied by Mary, and dashed down a large-sized paper parcel
on the counter. She wore a black lace bonnet, which had once been
white, frayed, and altogether the worse for wear, independent of its
dirt. It was tilted on the back of her head, displaying a mass of hair
in front, half grey, half black, and exceedingly in disorder; together
with a red face. It was Mrs. Dunn.
'Well, to be sure! if it's not Mary Baxendale! I thought you was too
much of the lady to put your nose inside a pop-shop. Don't it go again
the grain?' she ironically added, for she did not appear to be in the
sweetest of tempers.
'It does indeed, Mrs. Dunn,' was the girl's meek answer, as she took her
money and departed.
'Now then, old Cox, just attend to me,' began Mrs. Dunn. 'I have brought
something as you don't get offered every day.'
Mr. Cox, accustomed to the scant ceremony bestowed upon him by some of
the ladies of Daffodil's Delight, took the speech with indifference, and
gave his attention to the parcel, from which Mrs. Dunn was rapidly
taking off the twine.
'What's this--silk?' cried he, as a roll of dress-silk, brown,
cross-barred with gold, came forth to view.
'Yes, it is silk; and there's fourteen yards of it; and I want thirty
shillings upon it,' volubly replied Mrs. Dunn.
He took the silk between his fingers, feeling its substance, in his
professionally indifferent and disparaging manner.
'Where did you get it from?' he asked.
'Where did I get it from?' retorted Mrs. Dunn. 'What's that to you!'
D'ye think I stole it?'
'How do I know?' returned he.
'You insolent fellow! Is it only to-day as you have knowed me, Tom Cox?
My name's Hannah Dunn; and I don't want you to testify to my honesty; I
can hold up my head in Daffodil's Delight just as well as you
can--perhaps a little better. Concern yourself with your own business. I
want thirty shillings upon that.'
'It isn't worth thirty shillings in the shop, new,' was the rejoinder.
'What?' shrieked Mrs. Dunn. 'It cost three-and-fourpence halfpenny a
yard, every yard of it, and there's fourteen of 'em, I tell you.'
'I don't care if it cost six-and-fourpence halfpenny, it's not worth
more than I say. I'll lend you ten shillings upon it, and I should lose
then.'
'Where do you expect to go to when you die?' demanded Mrs. Dunn, in a
tone that might be heard half over the length and breadth of Daffodil's
Delight. 'I wouldn't tell such lies for the paltry sake of grinding
folks down; no, not if you made me a duchess to-morrow for it.'
'Here, take the silk off. I have not got time to bother: it's Saturday
night.'
He swept the parcel, silk, paper, and string, towards her, and was
turning away. She leaned over the counter and seized upon him.
'You want a opposition in the place, that's what you want, Master Cox!
You have been cock o' the walk over Daffodil's Delight so long, that
you think you can treat folks as if they was dirt. You be over-done with
business, that's what you be; you're a making gold as fast as they makes
it in Aurstraliar; we shall have you a setting up your tandem next.
What'll you give me upon that silk?'
'I'll give you ten shillings; I have said so. You may take it or not;
it's at your own option.'
More contending; but the pawnbroker was firm; and Mrs. Dunn was forced
to accept the offer, or else take away her silk.
'How long is this strike going to last?' he asked, as he made out the
duplicate.
The words excited the irascibility of Mrs. Dunn.
'Strike!' she uttered, in a flaming passion. 'Who dares to call it a
strike? It's not a strike; it's a lock-out.'
'Lock-out, then. The two things come to the same, don't they? Is there a
chance of its coming to an end?'
'No, they don't come to the same,' shrieked Mrs. Dunn. 'A strike's what
it is--a strike; a act of noble independence which the British workman
may be proud on. A lock-out is a nasty, mean, overbearing tyranny on the
part of the masters. Now, old Cox! call it a strike again.'
'But I hear the masters' shops are open again--for anybody to go to work
that likes,' replied Mr. Cox, quite imperturbable.
'They be open for slaves to go to work, not for free-born men,' retorted
Mrs. Dunn, her shrieking voice at a still higher pitch. 'I hope the
men'll hold out for ever, I do! I hope the masters 'll be drove,
everyone of 'em, into the dust and dregs of the bankruptcy court! I hope
their sticks and stones 'll be sold up, down to their children's
cradles----'
'There, that's enough,' interposed the pawnbroker, as he handed her what
he had to give. 'You'll be collecting a crowd round the door, if you go
on like that. Here's somebody else waiting for your place.'
It was Mrs. Cheek, an especial friend of the lady's now being dismissed.
Mrs. Cheek was carefully carrying a basket which contained various
chimney ornaments--pretty enough in their places, but not of much value.
The pawnbroker, after some haggling, not so intemperately carried on as
the bargain just concluded, advanced six shillings on them.
'I had wanted twelve,' she said; 'and I can't do with less.'
'I am willing to lend it,' returned he, 'if you bring goods
accordingly.'
'I have stripped the place of a'most all the light things as can be
spared,' said Mrs. Cheek. 'One doesn't care to begin upon the heavy
furniture and the necessaries.'
'Is there no chance of the present state of affairs coming to an end?'
inquired Mr. Cox, putting the same question to which he had not got a
direct answer from Mrs. Dunn. 'The men can go back to work if they like;
the masters' yards are open again.'
'Open!' returned Mrs. Cheek, in a guttural tone, as she threw back her
head in disdain; 'they have been open some time, if you call _that_
opening 'em. If a man likes to go as a sneaking coward, and work upon
the terms offered now, knuckling down to the masters, and putting his
hand to their mean old odious document, severing himself from the Union,
he can do it. It ain't many of our men as you'll find do that dirty
work. If my husband was to attempt it, I'd be ready to skin him alive.'
'But the men have gone back in some parts of the metropolis.'
'_Men_, do you call 'em. A few may; one black sheep out of a flock. They
ain't men, they are half-castes. Let them look to theirselves,'
concluded Mrs. Cheek significantly, as she quitted the pawnbroker's shop
with a fling.
At the butcher's stall, a few paces further, she came up to Mrs. Dunn,
who was standing in the glare of the blazing gaslight, in the incessant
noise of the 'Buy, buy, buy! what'll you buy?' Not less than a dozen
women were congregated there, elbowing each other, as they turned over
the scraps of meat set out for sale in small heaps--sixpence the lot, a
shilling the lot, according to quality and quantity. In the prosperous
time when their husbands were in full work, these ladies had scornfully
disdained such heaps on a Saturday night. They had been wont then to buy
a good joint for the Sunday's dinner. One of the women nudged another in
her vicinity, directing her attention to the inside of the shop. 'Just
twig Mother Shuck; she's a being served, I hope!'
'Mother Shuck,' Slippery Sam's better half, was making her purchases in
the agreeable confidence of possessing money to pay for them--liver and
bacon for the present evening's supper, and a breast of veal, to be
served with savoury herbs, for the morrow's dinner. In the old times,
while the throng of women now outside had been able to make the same or
similar purchases, _she_ had hovered without like a hungry hyena,
hanging over the cheap portions with covetous eyes and fingers, as many
another poor wife had done, whose husband could not or would not work.
Times were changed.
'I can't afford nothing, hardly, I can't,' grumbled Mrs. Cheek. 'What's
the good of six shillings for a Saturday night, when everything's
wanted, from the rent down to a potater? The young 'uns have got their
bare feet upon the boards, as may be said, for their shoes be without
toes and heels; and who is to get 'em others? I wish that Cox was a bit
juster. He's a getting rich upon our spoils. Six shillings for that lot
as I took him in!'
'I wish he was smothered!' struck in Mrs. Dunn. 'He took and asked me if
I'd stole the silk. It was that lovely silk, you know, as I was fool
enough to go and choose the week of the strike, on the strength of the
good times a coming. We have had something else to do since, instead of
making up silk gownds.'
'The good times ain't come yet,' said Mrs. Cheek, shortly. 'I wish the
old 'uns was back again, if we could get 'em without stooping to the
masters.'
'It was at the shop where Mary Ann and Jemimar deals, when they has to
get in things for their customers' work,' resumed Mrs. Dunn, continuing
the subject of the silk. 'I shouldn't have had credit at any other
place. Fourteen yards I bought of it, and three-and-fourpence halfpenny
I gave for every yard of it; I did, I protest to you, Elizar Cheek; and
that swindling old screw had the conscience to offer me ten shillings
for the whole!'
'Is the silk paid for?'--'Paid for!' wrathfully repeated Mrs. Dunn; 'has
it been a time to pay for silk gownds when our husbands be under a
lock-out? Of course it's not paid for, and the shop's a beginning to
bother for it; but they'll be none the nearer getting it. I say, master,
what'll you weigh in these fag ends of mutton and beef at--the two
together?' It will be readily understood, from the above conversation
and signs, that in the several weeks that had elapsed since the
commencement of the lock-out, things, socially speaking, had been going
backwards. The roast goose and other expected luxuries had not come yet.
The masters' works were open--open to any who would go to work in them,
provided they renounced all connection with the Trades' Unions.
Daffodil's Delight, taking it collectively, would not have this at any
price, and held out. The worst aspect in the affair--I mean for the
interests of the men--was, that strange workmen were assembling from
different parts of the country, accepting the work which they refused.
Of course this feature in the dispute was most bitter to the men; they
lavished their abuse upon the masters for employing strange hands; and
they would have been glad to lavish something worse than abuse up on
the hands themselves. One of the masters compared them to the fable of
the dog in the manger--they would not take the work, and they would not
let (by their good will) anybody else take it. Incessant agitation was
maintained. The workmen were in a sufficiently excited state, as it was;
and, to help on that which need not have been helped, the agents of the
Trades' Union kept the ball rolling--an incendiary ball, urging
obstinacy and spreading discontent. But this little history has not so
much to do with the political phases of the unhappy dispute, as with its
social effects.
As Mary Baxendale was returning home from the pawnbroker's, she passed
Mrs. Darby, who was standing at her own door looking at the weather.
'Mary, girl,' was the salutation, 'this is not a night for you to be
abroad.'
'I was obliged to go,' was the reply. 'How are the children?'
'Come in and see them,' said Mrs. Darby. She led the way into a back
room, which, at the first glance, seemed to be covered with mattresses
and children. A large family had Robert Darby--indeed, it was a
complaint prevalent in Daffodil's Delight. They were of various ages;
these, lying on the mattresses, six of them, were from four to twelve
years. The elder ones were not at home. The room had a close, unhealthy
smell, which struck especially on the senses of Mary, rendered sensitive
from illness.
'What have you got them all in this room for?' she exclaimed, in the
impulse of the moment.
'I have given up the rooms above,' was Mrs. Darby's reply.
'But--when the children were ill--was it a time to give up rooms?'
debated Mary.
'No,' replied Mrs. Darby, who spoke as if she were heart-broken, in a
sad, subdued tone, the very reverse of Mesdames Dunn and Cheek. 'But how
could we keep on the top rooms when we were unable to get together the
rent, to pay for them? I spoke to the landlord, and he is letting the
back rent stand a bit, not to sell us up; and I gave up to him the two
top rooms; and we all sleep in here together.'
'I wish the men would go back to work!' said Mary, with a sigh.
'Mary my heart's just failing within me,' said Mrs. Darby, her tone a
sort of wail. 'Here's winter coming on, and all of them out of work. If
it were not for my daughter, who is in service, and brings us her wages
as she gets them, I believe we should just have starved. I _must_ get
medicine, for the children, though we go without bread.'
'It is not medicine they want: it is nourishment,' said Mary.
'It is both. Nourishment would have done when they were first ailing,
but now that it has turned to low fever, they must have medicine, or it
will grow into typhus. It's bark they have to take, and it costs----'
'Mother! mother!' struck up a plaintive voice, that of the eldest of the
children lying there, 'I want more of that nice drink!'
'I have not got it, Willy. You know that you had it all. Mrs. Quale
brought me round a pot of black currant jelly,' she explained to Mary,
'and I poured boiling water on it to make drink. Their little parched
throats did so relish it, poor things.'
Mary knelt on the floor and put her hand on the child's moist brow. He
was a pretty boy; fair and delicate, with light curls falling round his
face. A gentle, thoughtful, intelligent boy he had ever been, but less
healthy than some. 'You are thirsty, Willy?'
He opened his heavy eyelids, and the large round blue eyes glistened
with fever, as they were lifted to see who spoke.
'How do you do, Mary?' he meekly said. 'Yes, I am so thirsty. Mother
said perhaps she should have a sixpence to-night to buy a pot of jelly
like Mrs. Quale's.' Mrs. Darby coloured slightly; she thought Mary must
reflect on the extravagance implied. Sixpence for jelly, when they were
wanting money for a loaf!
'I did say it to him,' she whispered, as she was quitting the room with
Mary. 'I thought I might spare a sixpence out of what Darby got from the
society. But I can't; I can't. There's so many things we cannot do
without, unless we just give up, and lie down and don't even try at
keeping body and soul together. Rent, and coals, and candles, and soap;
and we must eat something. Darby, too, of course he wants a trifle for
beer and tobacco. Mary, I say I am just heart-faint. If the poor boy
should die, it'll be upon my mind for ever, that the drink he craved
for in his last illness couldn't be got for him.'
'Does he crave for it?'
'Nothing was ever like it. All day long it has been his sad, pitiful
cry. "Have you got the jelly yet, mother? Oh, mother, if I could but
have the drink!"'
As Mary went through the front room, Robert Darby was in it then. His
chin rested on his hands, his elbows were on the table; altogether he
looked very down-hearted.
'I have been to see Willy,' she cried.
'Ah, poor little chap!' It was all he said; but the tone implied more.
'Things seem to be getting pretty low with us all. I wish there could be
a change,' continued Mary.
'How can there be, while the masters and the Unions are at loggerheads?'
he asked. 'Us men be between the two, and between the two we come to the
ground. It's like sitting on two stools at once.'
Mary proceeded to the shop where jelly was sold, an oilman's, bought a
sixpenny pot, and took it back to Mrs. Darby's, handing it in at the
door. 'Why did you do it, Mary? You cannot afford it.'
'Yes, I can. Give it to Willy, with my love.'
'He will only be out of a world of care, if God does take him,' sighed
Mary to herself, as she bent her steps homeward. 'Oh, father!' she
continued aloud, encountering John Baxendale at their own gate, 'I wish
this sad state of things could be ended. There's the poor little Darbys
worse instead of better. They are all lying in one room, down with
fever.'
'God help us if fever should come!' was the reply of John Baxendale.
'It is not catching fever yet. They have given up their top chambers,
and are all sleeping in that back room. Poor Willie craved for a bit of
jelly, and Mrs. Darby could not get it him.'
'Better crave for that than for worse things,' returned John Baxendale.
'I am just a walking about here, because I can't bear to stop indoors. I
_can't_ pay the rent, and the things must go.'
'No, father, they need not. He said if you would get up two pounds
towards it, he would give time for the rest. If----'
'Two pounds!' ejaculated John Baxendale, 'where am I to get two pounds
from? Borrow of them that have been provident, and so are better off, in
this distress, than me? No, that I never will.'
Mary opened her hand, and displayed two sovereigns held in its palm.
They sparkled in the gaslight. 'The money is my own, father. Take it.' A
sudden revulsion of feeling came over Baxendale--he seemed to have
passed from despair to hope.--'Child,' he gently said, 'did an angel
send it?' And Mary, worn with weakness, with long-continued insufficient
food, sad with the distress around her, burst into tears, and, bending
her head upon his arm, sobbed aloud.