Those who came to the workhouse for servants never offered more than
fourteen pounds a year, and these wages would not pay for her baby's keep
out at nurse. Her friend the matron did all she could, but it was always
fourteen pounds. "We cannot afford more." At last an offer of sixteen
pounds a year came from a tradesman in Chelsea; and the matron introduced
Esther to Mrs. Lewis, a lonely widowed woman, who for five shillings a
week would undertake to look after the child. This would leave Esther
three pounds a year for dress; three pounds a year for herself.
What luck!
The shop was advantageously placed at a street corner. Twelve feet of
fronting on the King's Road, and more than half that amount on the side
street, exposed to every view wall papers and stained glass designs. The
dwelling-house was over the shop; the shop entrance faced the kerb in the
King's Road.
The Bingleys were Dissenters. They were ugly, and exacted the uttermost
farthing from their customers and their workpeople. Mrs. Bingley was a
tall, gaunt woman, with little grey ringlets on either side of her face.
She spoke in a sour, resolute voice, when she came down in a wrapper to
superintend the cooking. On Sundays she wore a black satin, fastened with
a cameo brooch, and round her neck a long gold chain. Then her manners
were lofty, and when her husband called "Mother," she answered testily,
"Don't keep on mothering me." She frequently stopped him to settle his
necktie or collar. All the week he wore the same short jacket; on Sundays
he appeared in an ill-fitting frock-coat. His long upper lip was clean
shaven, but under his chin there grew a ring of discoloured hair, neither
brown nor red, but the neutral tint that hair which does not turn grey
acquires. When he spoke he opened his mouth wide, and seemed quite
unashamed of the empty spaces and the three or four yellow fangs that
remained.
John, the elder of the two brothers, was a silent youth whose one passion
seemed to be eavesdropping. He hung round doors in the hopes of
overhearing his sisters' conversation and if he heard Esther and the
little girl who helped Esther in her work talking in the kitchen, he would
steal cautiously halfway down the stairs. Esther often thought that his
young woman must be sadly in want of a sweetheart to take on with one such
as he. "Come along, Amy," he would cry, passing out before her; and not
even at the end of a long walk did he offer her his arm; and they came
strolling home just like boy and girl.
Hubert, John's younger brother, was quite different. He had escaped the
family temperament, as he had escaped the family upper lip. He was the one
spot of colour in a somewhat sombre household, and Esther liked to hear
him call back to his mother, "All right, mother, I've got the key; no one
need wait up for me. I'll make the door fast."
"Oh, Hubert, don't be later than eleven. You are not going out dancing
again, are you? Your father will have the electric bell put on the door,
so that he may know when you come in."
The four girls were all ruddy-complexioned and long upper-lipped. The
eldest was the plainest; she kept her father's books, and made the pastry.
The second and third entertained vague hopes of marriage. The youngest was
subject to hysterics, fits of some kind.
The Bingleys' own house was representative of their ideas, and the taste
they had imposed upon the neighbourhood. The staircase was covered with
white drugget, and the white enamelled walls had to be kept scrupulously
clean. There were no flowers in the windows, but the springs of the blinds
were always in perfect order. The drawing-room was furnished with
substantial tables, cabinets and chairs, and antimacassars, long and wide,
and china ornaments and glass vases. There was a piano, and on this
instrument, every Sunday evening, hymns were played by one of the young
ladies, and the entire family sang in the chorus.
It was into this house that Esther entered as general servant, with wages
fixed at sixteen pounds a year. And for seventeen long hours every day,
for two hundred and thirty hours every fortnight, she washed, she
scrubbed, she cooked, she ran errands, with never a moment that she might
call her own. Every second Sunday she was allowed out for four, perhaps
for four and a half hours; the time fixed was from three to nine, but she
was expected to be back in time to get the supper ready, and if it were
many minutes later than nine there were complaints.
She had no money. Her quarter's wages would not be due for another
fortnight, and as they did not coincide with her Sunday out, she would not
see her baby for another three weeks. She had not seen him for a month,
and a great longing was in her heart to clasp him in her arms again, to
feel his soft cheek against hers, to take his chubby legs and warm, fat
feet in her hands. The four lovely hours of liberty would slip by, she
would enter on another long fortnight of slavery. But no matter, only to
get them, however quickly they sped from her. She resigned herself to her
fate, her soul rose in revolt, and it grew hourly more difficult for her
to renounce this pleasure. She must pawn her dress--the only decent dress
she had left. No matter, she must see the child. She would be able to get
the dress out of pawn when she was paid her wages. Then she would have to
buy herself a pair of boots; and she owed Mrs. Lewis a good deal of money.
Five shillings a week came to thirteen pound a year, leaving her three
pound a year for boots and clothes, journeys back and forward, and
everything the baby might want. Oh, it was not to be done--she never would
be able to pull through. She dare not pawn her dress; if she did she'd
never be able to get it out again. At that moment something bright lying
on the floor, under the basin-stand, caught her eye. It was half-a-crown.
She looked at it, and as the temptation came into her heart to steal, she
raised her eyes and looked round the room.
She was in John's room--in the sneak's room. No one was about. She would
have cut off one of her fingers for the coin. That half-crown meant
pleasure and a happiness so tender and seductive that she closed her eyes
for a moment. The half-crown she held between forefinger and thumb
presented a ready solution of the besetting difficulty. She threw out the
insidious temptation, but it came quickly upon her again. If she did not
take the half-crown she would not be able to go Peckham on Sunday. She
could replace the money where she found it when she was paid her wages. No
one knew it was there; it had evidently rolled there, and having tumbled
between the carpet and the wall had not been discovered. It had probably
lain there for months, perhaps it was utterly forgotten. Besides, she need
not take it now. It would be quite safe if she put it back in its place;
on Sunday afternoon she would take it, and if she changed it at once--It
was not marked. She examined it all over. No, it was not marked. Then the
desire paused, and she wondered how she, an honest girl, who had never
harboured a dishonest thought in her life before, could desire to steal; a
bitter feeling of shame came upon her.
It was a case of flying from temptation, and she left the room so
hurriedly that John, who was spying in the passage, had not time either to
slip downstairs or to hide in his brother's room. They met face to face.
"Oh, I beg pardon, sir, but I found this half-crown in your room."
"Well, there's nothing wonderful in that. What are you so agitated about?
I suppose you intended to return it to me?"
"Intended to return it! Of course."
An expression of hate and contempt leaped into her handsome grey eyes,
and, like a dog's, the red lip turned down. She suddenly understood that
this pasty-faced, despicable chap had placed the coin where it might have
accidentally rolled, where she would be likely to find it. He had
complained that morning that she did not keep his room sufficiently clean!
It was a carefully-laid plan, he was watching her all the while, and no
doubt thought that it was his own indiscretion that had prevented her from
falling into the snare. Without a word Esther dropped the half-crown at
his feet and returned to her work; and all the time she remained in her
present situation she persistently refused to speak to him; she brought
him what he asked for, but never answered him, even with a Yes or No.
It was during the few minutes' rest after dinner that the burden of the
day pressed heaviest upon her; then a painful weariness grew into her
limbs, and it seemed impossible to summon strength and will to beat
carpets or sweep down the stairs. But if she were not moving about before
the clock struck, Mrs. Bingley came down to the kitchen.
"Now, Esther, is there nothing for you to do?"
And again, about eight o'clock, she felt too tired to bear the weight of
her own flesh. She had passed through fourteen hours of almost
unintermittent toil, and it seemed to her that she would never be able to
summon up sufficient courage to get through the last three hours. It was
this last summit that taxed all her strength and all her will. Even the
rest that awaited her at eleven o'clock was blighted by the knowledge of
the day that was coming; and its cruel hours, long and lean and
hollow-eyed, stared at her through the darkness. She was often too tired
to rest, and rolled over and over in her miserable garret bed, her whole
body aching. Toil crushed all that was human out of her; even her baby was
growing indifferent to her. If it were to die! She did not desire her
baby's death, but she could not forget what the baby-farmer had told
her--the burden would not become lighter, it would become heavier and
heavier. What would become of her? Was there no hope? She buried her face
in her pillow, seeking to escape from the passion of her despair. She was
an unfortunate girl, and had missed all her chances.
In the six months she had spent in the house in Chelsea her nature had
been strained to the uttermost, and what we call chance now came to decide
the course of her destiny. The fight between circumstances and character
had gone till now in favour of character, but circumstances must call up
no further forces against character. A hair would turn the scale either
way. One morning she was startled out of her sleep by a loud knocking at
the door. It was Mrs. Bingley, who had come to ask her if she knew what
time it was. It was nearly seven o'clock. But Mrs. Bingley could not blame
her much, having herself forgotten to put on the electric bell, and Esther
hurried through her dressing. But in hurrying she happened to tread on her
dress, tearing it right across. It was most unfortunate, and just when she
was most in a hurry. She held up the torn skirt. It was a poor, frayed,
worn-out rag that would hardly bear mending again. Her mistress was
calling her; there was nothing for it but to run down and tell her what
had happened.
"Haven't you got another dress that you can put on?"
"No, ma'am."
"Really, I can't have you going to the door in that thing. You don't do
credit to my house; you must get yourself a new dress at once."
Esther muttered that she had no money to buy one.
"Then I don't know what you do with your money."
"What I do with my wages is my affair; I've plenty of use for my money."
"I cannot allow any servant of mine to speak to me like that."