JULIET MITCHELL.
"It is Miss Sutton. Come in, miss," said Mary Mitchell.
The lady who came in was, in Mrs. Rowles's eyes, exactly like a mouse.
Her eyes were bright, her nose was sharp, and her clothing was all of
a soft grayish-brown. And she was as quick and brisk as one of those
pretty little animals, at which silly people often think they are
frightened.
"Nearly two o'clock, Mrs. Mitchell. Now, if you can get the children
off to school, I have something important to say to you, and only ten
minutes to say it in. Bustle away, my dears," she said to the
children.
After a little clamouring they all went off except Juliet and the
baby.
"Don't you go, Juliet," said Mrs. Rowles; "I want to speak to you
presently, before I go home."
"Then, Juliet," said her mother, "do you think you could carry baby
safely downstairs, and sit on the door-step with him until Miss Sutton
goes away?"
"I shall be sure to bump his head against the wall; I always do," was
Juliet's sulky reply.
"Oh, you must try not to do so," put in Miss Sutton.
"And you might put his head on the side away from the wall," said Mrs.
Rowles cheerfully.
"I might," returned Juliet in a doubtful voice; "but that would be on
the wrong arm."
"The wrong arm will be the right arm this time;" and Mrs. Rowles laid
the baby on Juliet's bony right arm, and both children arrived safely
on the door-step within three minutes.
"Now," said Miss Sutton, "who may this good woman be?"
"My brother's wife from Littlebourne, miss; and she brought us a real
good dinner, and we are all truly thankful. Amen."
"You come to a poor part of London," said Miss Sutton; "and I am not
going to say but that the poverty is deserved, part of it, at all
events. There was Thomas Mitchell, aged twenty-three, getting good
wages as a journeyman printer. There was Mary Rowles, parlour-maid at
the West-end, costing her mistress at the rate of fifty pounds a year,
aged twenty-one. Because they could keep themselves comfortably they
thought they could keep ten children on Thomas's wages. So they got
married, and found they could not do it, not even when the ten was
reduced to eight. Because a gentleman can keep himself comfortably on
a hundred and fifty pounds a year, does he try to keep a wife and ten
children on it?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Rowles, thinking that she ought to say
something, and yet not knowing what to say.
"Oh, no, no," murmured Mary Mitchell.
"Of course not," pursued Miss Sutton. "He says, 'What I have is only
enough to keep myself, so I had better not marry.' Do you know why I
have not married?"
"No, miss," replied Mrs. Mitchell, getting to work again on the
mantle.
"Because the man I liked had not enough to keep a wife and family; he
looked before he leaped. He never leaped at all; he never even
proposed to me point-blank, but it came round to me through a friend.
But you working-people, you never look, and you always leap, and when
you have got your ten children and nothing to feed them on, then you
think that the gentlefolks who would not marry because they had not
enough to keep families on, are to stint and starve themselves to keep
_your_ families. Does that seem fair?"
Mrs. Mitchell stitched away; the others did not reply.
Miss Sutton went on: "If I had ten children, or even two children, I
could not afford to give you what I do." Here she put down a
half-crown on the table. "Now, listen to a plan I have in my head. You
know, Mrs. Mitchell, what we West-end ladies have to pay for our
mantles, even the plainest and simplest we can get; two guineas and a
half, and upwards to any price you like to name. You also know what
you receive for making them."
"Yes, miss, I do;" and Mrs. Mitchell shook her head.
"How much is it?"
"I get ninepence; some of the women only get sevenpence halfpenny."
Mrs. Rowles could not believe her ears.
"Well, say ninepence. Now, I and some of my friends are going to buy
the materials, and pay you for the work just the difference between
the cost of materials and the price we should pay in a shop. Do you
see?"
"Yes, miss, I see; but it won't do," and Mrs. Mitchell shook her head
again.
"Why not?"
"Because ladies like to go to a shop and see hundreds of different
mantles, and choose the one they like best."
"We shall have dozens of paper patterns to choose from, and the
cutting-out will be done by a friend of mine who is very clever at it.
I shall begin by ordering my winter mantle at once. I shall give about
eight shillings a yard for the stuff; three yards makes twenty-four
shillings; then some braid or something of the sort, say six yards at
two shillings; that is twelve; twenty-four and twelve are thirty-six;
a few buttons and sundries, say five shillings; thirty-six and five
are forty-one. I shall give you seven shillings for the work, and I
shall have a handsome mantle for two pounds eight shillings. Better
than ninepence, and finding your own cotton and sewing-silk. Eh?"
"Yes, Miss Sutton; it is very kind of you. But it won't do. There are
too many of us women; and you ladies, you all like to go shopping."
"You see," said Miss Sutton, turning to Mrs. Rowles, "what we want to
do is to get rid of the _middleman_. We are going to try if we can
persuade the great shop-keepers to come face to face with the people
who actually do the work. I don't know how we shall succeed, but we
will make an effort, and we will keep 'pegging away' until we get
something done. And, one word more, Mrs. Mitchell; do not bring Juliet
up to the slop-work trade. Get her a situation. When your husband is
strong again and goes to work, then set the girl up with some decent
clothes, and we will find her a little place."
"She wants a little place," said Mrs. Mitchell; "but there's no place
hereabouts. Our clergyman says he has nine thousand people in his
parish, all so poor that his own house is the only one where there is
a servant kept."
"You don't say so!" cried Mrs. Rowles, unable to keep longer silence.
"Why, with us there are laundresses that keep servants! and many
little places for girls--minding babies and such like."
"Ah, in the country," said Miss Sutton; "I daresay. Oh, this dreadful,
ravenous London; it eats up men, women, and children! Well, I must go
on to another house. Good-bye, good-bye."
As the lady went away Mrs. Rowles asked, "Where does she come from?"
"She lives in a street near Hyde Park. She and many other ladies, and
gentlemen too, have districts in the East-end, because there are no
ladies and gentlemen here who could be district visitors; there are
only poor people here."
Emma Rowles thought deeply for a few minutes, while Mary Mitchell
stitched away.
Thomas Mitchell had raised himself up, and was saying, "I shall soon
be much better. I feel I am going to be strong again. Emma Rowles has
given me quite a turn."
"Don't say that, Tom; it is rude," whispered his wife.
"I mean a turn for the better, a turn for the better."
"I wish, oh, I wish," Mrs. Rowles burst out, "how I wish I could turn
you all out into the country! Fresh air, fresh water, room to move
about! Where the rain makes the trees clean, instead of making the
streets dirty, like it does here. Though we have mud up to your eyes
in the country too; but then it is sweet, wholesome mud. Ah! what is
that?"
A noise of confused voices rose from the street, and Mrs. Mitchell ran
to the window. But these attics were not the whole size of the house,
and the window was set so far back that she could not see the pavement
on her own side of the street.
"It is that Juliet again, I'll be bound! There never was such a girl
for getting into scrapes! She seems to have no heart, no spirit, for
doing better."
With a hopeless sigh Mrs. Mitchell went back to the mantle.
Her sister could not take things so easily. She was not used to the
incessant cries and outcries, quarrels, accidents, and miseries of a
great city. Mrs. Rowles ran swiftly down the sloppy stairs to the open
door, there she found Juliet leaning against the railings, while the
baby lay sprawling on the step.
"Whatever is the matter?" asked Mrs. Rowles, breathless with fear.
"Nothing," was Juliet's reply.
"But I heard loud voices."
"That was only when Miss Sutton walked on baby."
"Poor little fellow! How did that happen?"
"Oh, I don't know; he just slipped off my lap at the very moment that
she was coming out. He's not hurt."
Mrs. Rowles picked up the baby to make sure that he was not injured,
and found no mark or bruise.
"But his spine might be hurt, or his brain, without there being any
outside mark. I am afraid you are very careless."
"Yes, I am. I don't care about nothing."
"Now, that's not at all pretty of you, Juliet."
"Don't want it to be pretty."
"And it's not kind and nice."
"Don't want to be kind and nice."
"And I am afraid people will not love you if you go on like this."
"Don't want people to love me."
Mrs. Rowles knew not how to soften this hard heart. "Juliet, don't you
want to help your sick father and your hard-working mother, and all
your hungry little brothers and sisters?"
"No, I don't. I want to go away from them. I want to have mutton-chops
and rice puddings like we used to have when there was not so many of
us; and merino frocks, and new boots with elastic sides; and the
Crystal Palace."
"Oh, you would like to leave home?"
"Yes, I would. They worrit me, and I worrit them."
"Oh, poor child, poor child!"
The kind-hearted Emma Rowles made curious little noises with her
tongue and her teeth, and toiled again up the staircase with baby in
her arms, and Juliet silently following as she went. Mrs. Rowles
framed short, unworded prayers for guidance at this present crisis;
and when she stood again in her sister-in-law's room her resolve was
taken.
She put the baby into his father's arms.
"There, Thomas, I do hope you will get about soon. Do you think your
trade is a healthy one? My Ned, he always says that it is bad to work
by night, and bad to sleep by day, says he."
"Emma Rowles," was Mitchell's sharp rejoinder, "does your Ned ever
read a newspaper?"
"Yes, most every day. Them passing through the lock often give him a
_Standard_ or a _Telegraph_."
"Then he'd better not find fault with the printers. If the public
would be content with evening papers, we printers might keep better
hours."
"There now!" said Mrs. Rowles, venturing on a short laugh "Do you
know, I never thought of when the morning papers get printed."
"There's a many as thoughtless as you, and more so."
Mitchell laughed scornfully. His wife also laughed a very little, and
baby chuckled as if he too thought his aunt's ignorance of the world
very amusing; but none of these laughs moved Juliet even to smile.
Then Emma Rowles began to tie her bonnet-strings, and to pull her
mantle on her shoulders.
"I will take back the empty basket, please," she said. "And,
Thomas,--Mary,--I want you to let me take something else."
"There's not much you can take," said Thomas.
"Will you lend me one of your children?"
"Oh, not my precious, precious baby-boy!" cried Mary, throwing aside
the mantle. "He's the only baby we've got now!"
"No, not baby; I should be rather afraid of him. But one of the
others."
"Well--" and Mrs. Mitchell hesitated.
"Take me," said Juliet, in a low, hard voice. "I'm that stupid and
awkward and careless that I'm no good to anybody. And I don't want to
learn, and I don't want to be good. All I want is mutton-chops and
puddings, and new boots."
Her sullen little face stared at her aunt with a look of stolid
indifference on it. Was it possible that poverty had pinched her
child's heart so hard as to have pinched all softness and sweetness
out of it?
Mrs. Rowles's heart was full of softness and sweetness.
"May I take Juliet home with me? I can't promise mutton-chops, but
there will be beans and bacon. And boots perhaps we can manage."
"I don't like parting with any of them. Though, to be sure, Florry can
mind baby; or even little Amy can. Juliet, my child, shall I let you
go?" and Mrs. Mitchell clasped the girl in her arms, and tears
streamed down the mother's face, while Juliet stood as stony and
unmoved as ever.
"She's got no clothes for going on a visit," said Mitchell.
"She can have some of my girl's; they are just of a size."
"All right, then, Emma. You're a good sister, you are. Not one of my
people has come forward like this. They are all so high and mighty and
so well-to-do in the world, they can't turn their eyes down so low as
me and mine. But you've give me a turn for the better, Emma Rowles.
You'll see I'll be at work on Monday night, if not sooner."
Juliet being lent to her, Mrs. Rowles felt that she might now proceed
on her homeward journey, which would occupy some three hours. So,
after affectionate farewells she set off, her basket hanging on one
arm and her niece hanging on the other; and they clambered into
omnibuses, rushed over crossings and under horses' heads, ran full
tilt against old gentlemen, and caught themselves on the hooks and
buttons of old ladies, in a way which Juliet alone would never have
done. But Mrs. Rowles, being unused to London, was more fussy and
hurried than any Londoner could ever find time to be.