THE FIRST DAY.
Angela's genteel place of business, destined as it was to greatness,
came into the world with little pomp and no pretence. On the day
appointed, the work-girls came at nine, and found a brass plate on the
door and a wire blind in the windows, bearing the announcement that this
was the "Dressmakers' Association." This information gave them no
curiosity, and produced no excitement in their minds. To them it seemed
nothing but another artifice to attract the attention of a public very
hard to move. They were quite used to these crafty announcements; they
were cynically incredulous of low prices; they knew the real truth as to
fabrics of freshness unlasting and stuffs which would never wear out;
and as regards forced sales, fabulous prices, and incredible bargains,
they merely lifted the eyelid of the scoffer and went into the workroom.
Whatever was written or printed on bills in the window, no difference
was ever made to them. Nor did the rise and fall of markets alter their
wages one penny. This lack of interest in the success of their work is
certainly a drawback to this _métier_, as to many others. Would it not
be well if workmen of all kinds were directly interested in the
enterprise for which they hire out their labor?
If you have the curiosity to listen to the talk of work-girls in the
evenings when they walk home, or as they journey homeward slowly in the
crawling omnibus, you will be struck by a very remarkable phenomenon. It
is not that they talk without stopping, because that is common to
youthful woman in every rank. It is that in the evening they are always
exasperated. They snap their lips, they breathe quick, they flash their
eyes, they clinch their fingers, and their talk is a narrative of
indignation full of "sezee," "sezzi," and "seshee"--mostly the last,
because what "she" said is generally the cause of all this wrath. A
philosopher, who once investigated the subject, was fortunate enough to
discover why work-girls are always angry at eventide. He maintains that
it means nothing in the world but nagging; they all, he says, sit
together--forewomen, dressmakers, improvers, and apprentices--in one
room. The room, whether large or small, is always close, the hours are
long; as they sit at their work, head bent, back bent, feet still, they
gradually get the fidgets. This is a real disease while it lasts. In the
workroom it has got to last until the time to knock off. First it seizes
the limbs, so that the younger ones want to get up and jump and dance,
while the other ones would like to kick. If not relieved, the patient
next gets the fidgets in her nerves, so that she wriggles in her chair,
gets spasmodic twitchings, shakes her head violently, and bites her
thread with viciousness. The next step is extreme irritability; this is
followed by a disposition on the part of the forewoman to find fault,
and by a determination on the part of the work-girls not to be put upon,
with an intention of speaking up should the occasion arise. Then comes
nagging, which is, in fact, nothing but fidgets translated into English
prose. Some forewomen are excellent translators. And the end is general
exasperation, with fines, notices to leave, warnings, cheekiness,
retorts, accusations, charges, denials, tears, fault-findings, sneers,
angry words, bitter things, personal reflections, innuendos, disrespect,
bullying, and every element of a row-royal. Consequently, when the girls
go home they are exasperated.
We know how Angela proposed to prevent the outbreak of this contagious
disorder by ventilation, exercise, and frequent rests.
She took her place among the girls, and worked with them, sitting beside
Nelly Sorensen, who was to have charge of the workroom. Rebekah, with
Miss Messenger's magnificent order on her mind, sat in the showroom
waiting for visitors. But none came except Mrs. Bormalack, accompanied
by her ladyship, who stepped over to offer their congratulations and
best wishes, and to see what Miss Messenger was going to have.
At eleven o'clock, when the first two hours' pull is beginning to be
felt by the younger hands, Angela invited everybody to rest for half an
hour. They obeyed with some surprise, and followed her with considerable
suspicion, as if some mean advantage was going to be taken of them, some
trick "sprung" upon them.
She took them into a kind of court, which had been the back garden,
paved with asphalt and provided with nets, rackets, and all the gear for
lawn tennis. She invited them to play for half an hour. It was a fine
morning in early September, with a warm sun, a bright sky, and a cool
breeze--the very day for lawn tennis. The girls, however, looked at the
machinery and then at each other, and showed no inclination for the
game. Then Angela led the way into the great glass-room, where she
pointed out the various bars, ropes, and posts which she had provided
for their gymnastic exercises. They looked at each other again, and
showed a disposition to giggle.
They were seven girls in all, not counting Rebekah, who remained in the
showroom; and Nelly, who was a little older than the rest, stood rather
apart. The girls were not unhealthy-looking, being all quite young, and
therefore not as yet ruined as to the complexion by gas and bad air. But
they looked dejected, as if their work had no charms for them--indeed,
one can hardly imagine that it had--they were only surprised, not
elated, at the half-hour's recreation; they expected that it would be
deducted from their wages, and were resentful.
Then Angela made them a speech. She said, handling a racket to give
herself confidence, that it was highly necessary to take plenty of
exercise in the open air; that she was sure work would be better done
and more quickly done if the fingers did not get too tired; therefore,
that she had had this tennis-court prepared for them and the gymnasium
fitted up, so that they might play in it every day. And then selecting
Nelly and two others, who seemed active young creatures, she gave them
their first lesson in lawn tennis.
The next day she gave a lesson to another set. In a few days tennis
became a passion with the girls. The fashion spread. Lawn tennis is not
an expensive game; shortly there will be no bit of square garden or
vacant space in Stepney but will be marked out into its lawn-tennis
courts.
The gymnasium took longer to become popular. Girls do not like feats of
strength; nor was it until the spell of wet weather last October, when
outdoor games became impossible, that the gymnasium began to attract at
all. Then a spirit of emulation was set up, and bodily exercises became
popular. After becoming quite sure that no deduction was made on account
of the resting time, the girls ceased to be suspicious, and accepted the
gift with something like enthusiasm. Yet, Miss Kennedy was their
employer; therefore, a natural enemy; therefore, gifts from her
continued, for some time, to be received with doubt and suspicion. This
does not seem, on the whole, a healthy outcome of our social system; yet
such an attitude is unfortunately common among work-girls.
At half-past eleven they all resumed work.
At one o'clock another astonishment awaited them.
Miss Kennedy informed them that one of the reforms introduced by her was
the providing of dinner every day, without deducting anything from their
wages. Those to whom dinner was, on most days, the mockery of a piece of
bread and butter, or a bun, or some such figment and pretence of a meal,
simply gasped, and the stoutest held her breath for a while, wondering
what these things might mean.
Yes, there was dinner laid for them upstairs on a fair white cloth; for
every girl a plentiful dish of beef with potatoes and other good things,
and a glass of Messenger's Family Ale--that at eight-and-six the
nine-gallon cask--and bread _à discrétion_. Angela would have added
pudding, but was dissuaded by her forewoman, on the ground that not only
would pudding swallow up too much of the profits, but that it would
demoralize the girls. As it was, one of them, at the mere aspect and
first contemplation of the beef, fell a-weeping. She was lame, and she
was the most dejected among them all. Why she wept, and how Angela
followed her home, and what that home was like, and why she and her
mother and her sisters do now continually praise and pray for Angela,
belong to another story, concerned with the wretchedness and misery
which are found at Whitechapel and Stepney, as well as in Soho and
Marylebone and the back of Regent Street. I shall not write many
chapters of that story, for my own part.
Truly a most wonderful workshop. Was ever such an association of
dressmakers?
After dinner they frolicked and romped, though as yet in an untaught
way, until two, when they began work again.
Miss Kennedy then made them another speech.
She told them that the success of their enterprise depended in great
measure upon their own industry, skill, and energy; that they were all
interested in it, because they were to receive, besides their wages, a
share in the profits; this they only partly understood. Nor did they
comprehend her scheme much more when she went on to explain that they
had the house and all the preliminary furniture found for them, so that
there would be nothing, at first, to pay for rent. They had never
considered the question of rent, and the thing did not go home to them.
But they saw in some vague way that here was an employer of a kind very
much unlike any they had ever before experienced, and they were
astonished and excited.
Later on, when they might be getting tired again, they had a visitor. It
was no other than Captain Sorensen. He said that by permission of Miss
Kennedy he would read to them for an hour, and that, if she permitted
and they liked, as he was an old man with nothing to do, he would come
and read to them often.
So this astonishing day passed on.
They had tea at five, with another half-hour's rest. As the evening was
so fine, it was served in the garden.
At seven they found that it was time to strike work--an hour at least
earlier than at any other house. What _could_ these things mean?
And then fresh marvels. For when the work was put away, Miss Kennedy
invited them all to follow her upstairs. There she formally presented
them with a room for their own use in the evening if they pleased. There
was a piano in it; but, unfortunately, nobody could play. The floor was
polished for dancing, but then no one could dance; and there was a table
with games upon it, and magazines and illustrated papers. In this room,
Miss Kennedy told them, they could sing, dance, play, read, talk, sit,
or do anything else in reason, and within the limits of modest
recreation. They might also, on Saturday evenings, bring their friends,
brothers, and so forth, who would also be expected to behave within the
limits of modesty and good breeding. In short, the place was to be a
drawing-room, and Angela proposed to train the girls by example and
precept into a proper feeling as regards the use of a drawing-room.
There was to be no giggling, no whispering in corners, nor was there to
be any horseplay. Good manners lie between horseplay on the one hand and
giggling on the other.
The kind of evening proposed by their wonderful mistress struck the
girls at first with a kind of stupefaction. Outside, the windows being
open, they could hear the steps of those who walked, talked, and laughed
on Stepney Green. They would have preferred to be among that throng of
idle promenaders; it seemed to them a more beautiful thing to walk up
and down the paths than to sit about in a room and be told to play.
There were no young men. There was the continual presence of their
employer. They were afraid of her; there was also Miss Hermitage, of
whom also they were afraid; there was, in addition, Miss Sorensen, of
whom they might learn to be afraid. As for Miss Kennedy, they were the
more afraid of her because not only did she walk, talk, and look like a
person out of another world, but, oh, wonderful! she knew
nothing--evidently nothing--of their little tricks. Naturally one is
afraid of a person who knows nothing of one's wicked ways. This is the
awkwardness in entertaining angels. They naturally assume that their
entertainers stand on the same elevated level as themselves; this causes
embarrassment. Most of us, like Angela's shop-girls, would, under the
circumstances, betray a tendency to giggle.
Then she tried to relieve them from their awkwardness by sitting down to
the piano and playing a lively galop.
"Dance, girls," she cried.
In their early childhood, before they went to school or workshop, the
girls had been accustomed to a good deal of dancing. Their ballroom was
the street; their floor was the curbstone; their partners had been other
little girls; their music the organ-grinder's. They danced with no step
but such as came by nature, but their little feet struck true and kept
good time. Now they were out of practice; they were grown big, too; they
could no longer seize each other by the waist and caper round and round.
Yet the music was inspiriting; eyes brightened, their heels became as
light as air. Yet, alas! they did not know the steps.
Angela stopped playing and looked round her. The girls were crowded
together.
Rebekah Hermitage sat apart at the table. There was that in her face
which betokened disapproval, mingled with curiosity, for she had never
seen a dance, and never, except on a barrel-organ, heard dance music.
Nelly Sorensen stood beside the piano watching the player with the
devotion which belongs to the disciple who loves the most. Whatever Miss
Kennedy did was right and sweet and beautiful. Also, whatever she did
filled poor Nelly with a sense of humiliation, because she herself felt
so ignorant.
"Rebekah! Nelly!" cried Angela. "Can you not help me?"
Both shook their heads.
"I cannot dance," said Rebekah, trying to show a little scorn, or, at
least, some disapprobation. "In our Connection we never dance."
"You never dance?" Angela forgot for the moment that she was in Stepney,
and among a class of girls who do not dance. "Do you sing?"
"If any is merry," replied Rebekah, "let him sing hymns."
"Nelly, can you help me?"
She, too, shook her head. But, she said, "her father could play the
fiddle. Might he come?"
Angela begged her to invite him immediately, and on her way to ask Mr.
Goslett, at Mrs. Bormalack's, to bring his fiddle too. Between them they
would teach the girls to dance.
Then she sat down and began to sing. First she sang, "By the Banks of
Allen Water," and then "The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington," and next,
"Drink to me only with thine eyes"--sweet and simple ditties all. Then
came Captain Sorensen, bearing his fiddle, and happy to help, and while
he played, Angela stood all the girls in a row before her, headed by
Nelly, and gave them their first lesson in the giddy dance.
Then came Harry Goslett, and at the sight of his cheerful countenance
and at the mere beholding how he bowed to Miss Kennedy, and asked to be
allowed, and put his arm round her waist and whirled her round in a
galop, their hearts were lifted up, and they longed no more for Stepney
Green. Then he changed Miss Kennedy for Nelly; and though she was
awkward at first, she soon fell into the step, while Miss Kennedy danced
with another; and then Mr. Goslett with another, and so on till all had
had a practical lesson. Then they ceased altogether to long for the jest
of the gallant 'prentice; for what were jests to this manly, masterful
seizure by the waist, this lifting almost off the feet, this whirl round
and round to the music of the fiddle which the brave old captain played
as merrily as any bo's'n's mate or quartermaster on an East Indiaman? In
half an hour the feet of all but one--the one who, poor girl, was
lame--felt that noble sympathy with the music so readily caught by those
intelligent organs, and--_they could dance_. Perhaps for the first time
in the annals of Stepney, her daughters had learned to dance.
The rest would be easy. They tried a quadrille, then another galop.
Harry endeavored to do his duty, but there were some who remarked that
he danced twice, that second galop, with Nelly Sorensen, and they were
jealous. Yet it was only an unconscious tribute paid to beauty. The
young fellow was among a bevy of dressmakers; an uncommon position for a
man of his bringing-up. One of them, somehow, was, to all appearance,
and to any but perhaps the most practised eye, a real genuine lady--not
a copy at all; the other was so graceful and sweet that she seemed to
want but a touch to effect the transformation. As for the other girls,
they were simple young persons of the workroom and counter--a common
type. So common, alas! that we are apt to forget the individuality of
each, her personal hopes, and her infinite possibilities. Yet, however
insignificant is the crowd, the individual is so important.
Then he was interested in the dark-eyed girl who sat by herself at the
table, looking on, anxiously, at an amusement she had always heard of as
"soul-destroying." She was wondering why her ears were pleased with the
playing, and why her brain was filled with strange images, and why it
was so pleasant to watch the girls dancing, their eyes aglow and their
cheeks flushed.
"Do not tempt me," she said, when Harry ventured to invite her, too, to
join the giddy throng. "Do not tempt me--no--go away!"
Her very brusqueness showed how strong was the temptation. Was she,
already, giving way to the first temptation?
Presently the evening was over, the girls had all trooped noisily out of
the house, and Angela, Captain Sorensen, Nelly, and the young workman
were walking across the green in the direction of the Almshouse.
When Angela got home to the boarding-house the dreariness of the evening
was in full blast. The boarders were sitting in silence, each wrapped in
his own thoughts. The professor lifted his head as she entered the room,
and regarded her with thoughtful eyes, as if appraising her worth as a
_clairvoyante_. David Fagg scowled horribly. His lordship opened his
mouth as if to speak, but said nothing. Mr. Maliphant took his pipe out
of his mouth, and began a story. "I remember," he said, "the last time
but one that he was ruined"--he did not state the name of the
gentleman--"the whole town was on fire, and his house with them. What
did he do? Mounted his horse and rode around, and bought up all the
timber for twenty miles around. And see what he's worth now!" When he
had told this story he relapsed into silence. Angela thought of that
casual collection of unsympathetic animals put into a cage and called a
"Happy Family."