I AM THE DRESSMAKER.
It happened on this very same Saturday that Lord Jocelyn, feeling a
little low, and craving for speech with his ward, resolved that he would
pay a personal visit to him in his own den, where, no doubt, he would
find him girt with a fair white apron and crowned with brown paper,
proudly standing among a lot of his brother workmen--glorious
fellows!--and up to his knees in shavings.
It is easy to take a cab and tell the driver to go to the Mile End Road.
Had Lord Jocelyn taken more prudent counsel with himself he would have
bidden him drive straight to Messenger's Brewery; but he got down where
the Whitechapel road ends and the Mile End road begins, thinking that he
would find his way to the Brewery with the greatest ease. First,
however, he asked the way of a lady with a basket on her arm; it was, in
fact, Mrs. Bormalack going a-marketing, and anxious about the price of
greens; and he received a reply so minute, exact, and bewildering, that
he felt, as he plunged into the labyrinthine streets of Stepney, like
one who dives into the dark and devious ways of the catacombs.
First of all, of course, he lost himself; but as the place was strange
to him, and a strange place is always curious, he walked along in great
contentment. Nothing remarkable in the streets and houses unless,
perhaps, the entire absence of anything to denote inequality of wealth
and position, so that, he thought with satisfaction, the happy residents
in Stepney all receive the same salaries and make the same income,
contribute the same amount to the tax collectors, and pay the same rent.
A beautiful continuity of sameness; a divine monotony realizing
partially the dreams of the socialist. Presently he came upon a great
building which seemed rapidly approaching completion; not a beautiful
building, but solid, big, well proportioned and constructed of real red
brick, and without the "Queen Anne" conceits which mostly go with that
material. It was so large and so well built that it was evidently
intended for some special purpose; a purpose of magnitude and
responsibility, requiring capital; not a factory, because the windows
were large and evidently belonged to great halls, and there were none of
the little windows in rows which factories must have in the nature of
things; not a prison, because prisons are parsimonious to a fault in the
matter of external windows; nor a school--yet it might be a school;
then--how should so great a school be built in Stepney? It might be a
superior almshouse, or union--yet this could hardly be. While Lord
Jocelyn looked at the building, a working-man lounged along, presumably
an out-of-working man, with his hands in his pockets and kicking stray
stones in the road, which is a sign of the penniless pocket, because he
who yet can boast the splendid shilling does not slouch as he goes, or
kick stones in the road, but holds his head erect and anticipates with
pleasure six half-pints in the immediate future. Lord Jocelyn asked that
industrious idle, or idle industrious, if he knew the object of the
building. The man replied that he did not know the object of the
building; and to make it quite manifest that he really did not know he
put an adjective before the word object, and another--that is, the
same--before the word building. With that he passed upon his way, and
Lord Jocelyn was left marvelling at the slender resources of our
language which makes one adjective do duty for so many qualifications.
Presently, he came suddenly upon Stepney Church, which is a landmark or
initial point, like the man on the chair in the maze of Hampton Court.
Here he again asked his way, and then, after finding it and losing it
again six times more, and being generally treated with contumely for not
knowing so simple a thing, he found himself actually at the gates of the
Brewery, which he might have reached in five minutes had he gone the
shortest way.
"So," he said, "this is the property of that remarkably beautiful girl,
Miss Messenger; who could wish to start better? She is young; she is
charming, she is queenly, she is fabulously rich; she is clever; she
is--ah! if only Harry had met her before he became an ass!"
He passed the gate and entered the courtyard, at one side of which he
saw a door on which was painted the word "Office." The Brewery was
conservative; what was now a hive of clerks and writers was known by the
same name and stood upon the same spot as the little room built by
itself in the open court in which King Messenger I., the inventor of the
Entire, had transacted by himself, having no clerks at all, the whole
business of the infant Brewery for his great invention. Lord Jocelyn
pushed open the door and stood irresolute, looking about him; a clerk
advanced and asked his business. Lord Jocelyn was the most polite and
considerate of men: he took off his hat, humbly bowed, and presented his
card.
"I am most sorry to give trouble," he said. "I came to see----"
"Certainly, my lord." The clerk, having been introduced to Lord
Davenant, was no longer afraid of tackling a title, however grand, and
would have been pleased to show his familiarity with the great even to a
Royal Highness. "Certainty, my lord. If your lordship will be so good as
to write your lordship's name in the visitors' book, a guide shall take
your lordship round the Brewery immediately."
"Thank you, I do not wish to see the Brewery," said the visitor. "I came
to see a--a--a young man who, I believe, works in this establishment:
his name is Goslett."
"Oh!" replied the clerk, taken aback, "Goslett? Can any one," he asked
generally of the room he had just left, "tell me whether there's a man
working here named Goslett?"
Josephus--for it was the juniors' room--knew and indicated the place and
man.
"If, my lord," said the clerk, loath to separate himself from nobility,
"your lordship will be good enough to follow me, I can take your
lordship to the man your lordship wants. Quite a common man, my
lord--quite. A joiner and carpenter. But if your lordship wants to see
him----"
He led Lord Jocelyn across the court, and left him at the door of
Harry's workshop.
It was not a great room with benches, and piles of shavings, and a
number of men. Not at all; there were racks with tools, a bench, and a
lathe; there were pieces of furniture about waiting repair; there was an
unfinished cabinet with delicate carved work, which Lord Jocelyn
recognized at once as the handiwork of his boy; and the boy himself
stood in the room, his coat off and his cuffs turned up, contemplating
the cabinet. It is one of the privileges of the trade that it
allows--nay, requires--a good deal of contemplation. Presently Harry
turned his head and saw his guardian standing in the doorway. He greeted
him cheerfully and led him into the room, where he found a chair with
four legs and begged him to sit down and talk.
"You like it, Harry?"
Harry laughed. "Why not?" he said. "You see I am independent,
practically. They pay me pretty well according to the work that comes
in. Plain work, you see--joiners' work."
"Yes, yes, I see. But how long, my boy--how long?"
"Well, sir, I cannot say. Why not all my life?"
Lord Jocelyn groaned.
"I admit," said Harry, "that if things were different I should have gone
back to you long ago. But now I cannot, unless----"
"Unless what?"
"Unless the girl who keeps me here goes away herself or bids me go."
"Then you are really engaged to the dress--I mean--the young lady?"
"No, I am not. Nor has she shown the least sign of accepting me. Yet I
am her devoted and humble servant."
"Is she a witch--this woman? Good heavens, Harry! Can you, who have
associated with the most beautiful and best-bred women in the world, be
so infatuated about a dressmaker?"
"It is strange, is it not? But it is true. The thought of her fills my
mind day and night. I see her constantly. There is never one word of
love, but she knows already, without that word."
"Strange, indeed," repeated Lord Jocelyn. "But it will pass. You will
awake, and find yourself again in your right mind, Harry."
He shook his head.
"From this madness," he said, "I shall never recover--for it is my life.
Whatever happens, I am her servant."
"It is incomprehensible," replied his guardian; "you were always
chivalrous in your ideas of women. They are unusual in young men of the
present day; but they used to sit well upon you. Then, however, your
ideal was a lady."
"It is a lady still," said the lover, "and yet a dressmaker. How this
can be, I do not know; but it is. In the old days men became the
servants of ladies. I know now what a good custom it was, and how
salutary to the men. Petit Jehan de Saintre, in his early days, had the
best of all possible training."
"But if Petit Jehan had lived at Stepney----?"
"Then there is another thing--the life here is useful."
"You now tinker chairs, and get paid a shilling an hour. Formerly, you
made dainty, carved workboxes and fans, and pretty things for ladies,
and got paid by their thanks. Which is the more useful life?"
"It is not the work I am thinking of--it is the---- Do you remember what
I said the last time I saw you?"
"Perfectly--about your fellow-creatures, was it not? My dear Harry, it
seems to me as if our fellow-men get on very well in their own way
without our interference."
"Yes--that is to say, no. They are all getting on as badly as possible;
and somehow I want, before I go away, to find out what it is they want.
They don't know; and how they should set about getting it--if it is to
be got--as I think it is. You will not think me a prig, sir?"
"You will never be a prig, Harry, under any circumstances. Does, then,
the lady of your worship approve of this?--this study of humanity?"
"Perfectly--if this lady did not approve of it, I should not be engaged
upon it."
"Harry, will you take me to see this goddess of Stepney Green--it is
there, I believe, that she resides?"
"Yes; I would rather not. Yet (the young man hesitated for a
moment)--Miss Kennedy thinks that I have always been a working-man. I
would not undeceive her yet. I would rather she did not know that I have
given up, for her sake, such a man as you, and such companionship as
yours."
He held out both his hands to his guardian, and his eyes for a moment
were dim.
Lord Jocelyn made no reply for a moment--then he cleared his throat and
said he must go; asked Harry rather piteously could he do nothing for
him at all? and made slowly for the door. The clerk who received the
distinguished visitor was standing at the door of the office, waiting
for another glimpse of the noble and illustrious personage. Presently he
came back and reported that his lordship had crossed the yard on the arm
of the young man called Goslett, and that on parting with him he had
shaken him by the hand, and called him "my boy." Whereat many marvelled,
and the thing was a stumbling-block; but Josephus said it was not at all
unusual for members of his family to be singled out by the great for
high positions of trust; that his own father had been churchwarden of
Stepney, and he was a far-off cousin of Miss Messenger's; and that he
could himself have been by this time superintendent of his Sunday-school
if it had not been for his misfortunes. Presently the thing was told to
the chief accountant, who told it to the chief brewer; and if there had
been a chief baker one knows not what would have happened.
Lord Jocelyn walked slowly away in the direction of Stepney Green. She
lived there, did she? Oh, and her name was Miss Kennedy; ah, and a man,
by calling upon her, might see her. Very good--he would call. He would
say that he was the guardian of Harry, and that he took a warm interest
in him; and that the boy was pining away--which was not true; and that
he called to know if Miss Kennedy as a friend would divine the
cause--which was crafty. Quite a little domestic drama he made up in his
own mind, which would have done beautifully had it not been completely
shattered by the surprising things which happened, as will immediately
be seen.
Presently he arrived at Stepney Green and stopped to look about him. A
quiet, George-the-Third looking place, with many good and solid houses,
and a narrow strip of garden running down the middle--in which of these
houses did Miss Kennedy dwell?
There came along the asphalt walk an old, old man; he was feeble, and
tottered as he went. He wore a black silk stock and a buttoned-up
frock-coat. His face was wrinkled and creased. It was, in fact, Mr.
Maliphant going rather late (because he had fallen asleep by the fire)
to protect the property.
Lord Jocelyn asked him politely if he would tell him where Miss Kennedy
lived.
The patriarch looked up, laughed joyously, and shook his head--then he
said something inaudibly, but his lips moved; and then pointing to a
large house on the right, he said aloud:
"Caroline Coppin's house it was--she that married Sergeant Goslett. Mr.
Messenger, whose grandmother was a Coppin, and a good old Whitechapel
family, had the deeds. My memory is not so good as usual this morning,
young man, or I could tell you who had the house before Caroline's
father; but I think it was old Mr. Messenger, because the young man who
died the other day, and was only a year or two older than me, was born
there himself." Then he went on his way, laughing and wagging his head.
"That is a wonderful old man," said Lord Jocelyn. "Caroline Coppin's
house--that is, Harry's mother's house. Pity she couldn't keep it for
her son--the sergeant was a thrifty man, too. Here is another native;
let us try him."
This time it was Daniel Fagg, and in one of his despondent moods,
because none of the promised proofs had arrived.
"Can you tell me, sir," asked Lord Jocelyn, "where Miss Kennedy lives?"
The "native," who had sandy hair and a gray beard, and immense sandy
eyebrows, turned upon him fiercely, shaking a long finger in his face,
as if it was a sword.
"Mind you," he growled, "Miss Kennedy's the only man among you! You talk
of your scholars! Gar!--jealousy and envy. But I've remembered
her--posterity shall know her when the head of the Egyptian department
is dead and forgotten."
"Thank you," said Lord Jocelyn, as the man left him. "I am likely to be
forwarded at this rate."
He tried again.
This time it happened to be none other than Mr. Bunker. The events of
the last few weeks were preying upon his mind--he thought continually of
handcuffs and prisons. He was nervous and agitated.
But he replied courteously, and pointed out the house.
"Ah!" said Lord Jocelyn, "that is the house which an old man, whom I
have just asked, said was Caroline Coppin's."
"Old man--what old man?" (Mr. Bunker turned pale--it seemed as if the
atmosphere itself was full of dangers.) "'Ouse was whose? That 'ouse,
sir, is mine--mine, do you hear?"
Lord Jocelyn described the old man--in fact, he was yet within sight.
"I know him," said Mr. Bunker. "He's mad, that old man--silly with age;
nobody minds him. That 'ouse, sir, is mine."
"Oh! And you" (for Lord Jocelyn now recollected him)--"are Mr. Bunker,
are you? Do you remember me? Think, man."
Mr. Bunker thought his hardest; but if you do not remember a man, you
might as well stand on your head as begin to think.
"Twenty years ago," said Lord Jocelyn, "I took away your nephew, who has
now come back here."
"You did, you did," cried Bunker eagerly. "Ah, sir, why did you let him
come back here? A bad business--a bad business."
"I came to see him to-day, perhaps to ask him why he stays here."
"Take him away again, sir--don't let him stay. Rocks ahead, sir!" Mr.
Bunker put up hands in warning. "When I see youth going to capsize on
virtue it makes my blood, as a Christian man, to curdle--take him away."
"Certainly it does you great credit, Mr. Bunker, as a Christian man;
because curdled blood must be unpleasant. But what rocks?"
"A rock--one rock, a woman. In that 'ouse, sir, she lives; her name is
Miss Kennedy--that is what she calls herself. She's a dressmaker by
trade, she says; and a captivator of foolish young men by nature--don't
go anigh her. She may captivate you. Daniel Fagg made her an offer of
marriage, and he's sixty. He confessed it to me. She tried it on with
me; but a man of principles is proof. The conjurer wanted to marry her.
My nephew, Dick Coppin, is a fool about her."
"She must be a very remarkable woman," said Lord Jocelyn.
"As for that boy, Harry Goslett" (Bunker uttered the name with an
obvious effort)--"he's further gone than all the rest put together. If
it wasn't for her, he would go back to where he came from."
"Ah! and where is that?"
"Don't you know, then? You, the man who took him away? Don't you know
where he came from? Was it something very bad?"
There was a look of eager malignity about the man's face--he wanted to
hear something bad about his nephew.
Lord Jocelyn encouraged him.
"Perhaps I know--perhaps I do not."
"A disgraceful story, no doubt," said Bunker, with a pleased smile. "I
dreaded the worst when I saw him with his white hands, and his sneerin',
fleerin' ways. I thought of Newgate and jailbirds--I did, indeed, at
once. O prophetic soul! Well, now we know the worst, and you had better
take him away before all the world knows it. I shan't talk, of course."
"Thank you, Mr. Bunker; and about this Miss Kennedy, is there anything
against her except that the men fall in love with her?"
"There is plenty against her; but I'm not the man to take away a woman's
character. Reports are about her that would astonish you. If all secrets
were known, we should find what a viper we've been cherishing. At the
end of her year, out she goes of my 'ouse--bag and baggage, she goes;
and wherever she goes, that boy'll go after her unless you prevent it."
"Thank you again, Mr. Bunker. Good-morning."
Angela (just returned from her chapel) was sitting at the window of the
workroom, in her usual place; she looked out upon the green now and
again.
Presently she saw Mr. Maliphant creep slowly along the pavement, and
observed that he stopped and spoke to a gentleman. Then she saw Daniel
Fagg swinging his arms and gesticulating, as he rehearsed to himself the
story of his wrongs, and he stopped and spoke to the same man. Then she
saw Mr. Bunker walking moodily on his way, and he stopped, too, and
conversed with the stranger. Then he turned, and she saw his face.
It was Lord Jocelyn le Breton, and he was walking with intention toward
her own door!
She divined the truth in a moment--he was coming to see the "dressmaker"
who had bewitched his boy.
She whispered to Nelly that a gentleman was coming to see her who must
be shown upstairs. She took refuge in the drawing-room, which was
happily empty; and she awaited him with a beating heart.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs--the door opened. She rose to meet
him.
"You here, Miss Messenger! This is, indeed, a surprise."
"No, Lord Jocelyn," she replied, confused, yet trying to speak
confidently; "in this house, if you please, I am not Miss Messenger. I
am Miss Kennedy, the--the----"
Now she remembered exactly what her next words would mean to him, and
she blushed violently. "I am the--the dressmaker."