"Greater humanity."
The world, largely as it had unfolded itself to Phillis, consisted as
yet to her wholly of the easy classes. That there were poor people in
the country was a matter of hearsay. That is, she had caught a glimpse
during a certain walk with Cæsar of a class whose ways were clearly
not her ways, nor their manner of thought hers. She had now to
learn--as a step to that wider sympathy first awakened by the
butter-woman's baby--that there is a kind of folk who are more
dangerous than picturesque, to be pitied rather than to be painted, to
be schooled and disciplined rather than to be looked at.
She learned this lesson through Mrs. L'Estrange, whose laudable custom
it was to pay periodical visits to a certain row of cottages. They
were not nice cottages, but nasty. They faced an unrelenting ditch,
noisome, green, and putrid. They were slatternly and out at elbows.
The people who lived in them were unpleasant to look at or to think
of; the men belonged to the riverside--they were boat-cads and touts;
and if there is any one pursuit more demoralising than another, it is
that of launching boats into the river, handing the oars, and helping
out the crew.
In the daytime the cottages were in the hands of the wives. Towards
nightfall the men returned: those who had money enough were drunk;
those who were sober envied those who were drunk. Both drunk and sober
found scolding wives, squalid homes, and crying children. Both drunk
and sober lay down with curses, and slept till the morning, when they
awoke, and went forth again with the jocund curse of dawn.
Nothing so beautiful as the civilisation of the period. Half a mile
from Agatha L'Estrange and Phillis Fleming were these cottages. Almost
within earshot of a house where vice was unknown, or only dimly seen
like a ghost at twilight, stood the hovels where virtue was
impossible, and goodness a dream of an unknown land. What notion do
they have of the gentle life, these dwellers in misery and squalor?
What fond ideas of wealth's power to procure unlimited gratification
for the throat do they conceive, these men and women whose only
pleasure is to drink beer till they drop?
One day Phillis went there with Agatha.
It was such a bright warm morning, the river was so sparkling, the
skies were so blue, the gardens were so sunny, the song of the birds
so loud, the laburnums so golden, and the lilacs so glorious to
behold, that the girl's heart was full of all the sweet thoughts which
she had learned of others or framed for herself--thoughts of poets,
which echoed in her brain and flowed down the current of her thoughts
like the swans upon the river; happy thoughts of youth and innocence.
She walked beside her companion with light and elastic tread; she
looked about her with the fresh unconscious grace that belongs to
childhood; it was her greatest charm. But the contentment of her soul
was rudely shaken--the beauty went out of the day--when Mrs.
L'Estrange only led her away from the leafy road and took her into her
"Row." There the long arms of the green trees were changed into
protruding sticks, on which linen was hanging out to dry; the songs of
the birds became the cry of children and the scolding of women; for
flowers there was the iridescence on the puddles of soap-suds; for
greenhouse were dirty windows and open doors which looked into squalid
interiors.
"I am going to see old Mr. Medlicott," said Mrs. L'Estrange
cheerfully, picking her accustomed way among the cabbage-stalks,
wash-tubs, and other evidences of human habitation.
The women looked out of their houses and retired hastily. Presently
they came out again, and stood every one at her door with a clean
apron on, each prepared to lie like an ambassador for the good of the
family.
In a great chair by a fire there sat an old woman--a malignant old
woman. She looked up and scowled at the ladies; then she looked at the
fire and scowled; then she pointed to the corner and scowled again.
"Look at him," she growled in a hoarse crescendo. "Look at him, lying
like a pig--like a pig. Do you hear?"
"I hear."
The voice came from what Phillis took at first to be a heap of rags.
She was right, because she could not see beneath the rags the supine
form of a man.
Mrs. L'Estrange took no notice of the old woman's introduction to the
human pig. That phenomenon repeated his answer:
"I hear. I'm her beloved grandson, ladies. I'm Jack-in-the-Water."
"Get up and work. Go down to your river. Comes home and lies down, he
does--yah! ye lazy pig; says he's goin' to have the horrors, he
does--yah! ye drunken pig; prigs my money for drink--yah! ye thievin'
pig. Get up and go out of the place. Leave me and the ladies to talk.
Go, I say!"
Jack-in-the-Water arose slowly. He was a long-legged creature with
shaky limbs, and when he stood upright his head nearly touched the
rafters of the low unceiled room. And he had a face at sight of which
Phillis shuddered--an animal face with no forehead; a cruel, bad,
selfish face, all jowl and no front. His eyes were bloodshot and his
lips were thick. He twitched and trembled all over--his legs trembled;
his hands trembled; his cheeks twitched.
"'Orrors!" he said in a husky voice. "And should ha' had the 'orrors
if I hadn't a took the money. Two-and-tuppence."
He pushed past Phillis, who shrank in alarm, and disappeared.
"Well, Mrs. Medlicott, and how are we?" asked Mrs. L'Estrange in a
cheerful voice--she took no manner of notice of the man.
"Worse. What have you got for me? Money? I want money. Flannel? I want
flannel. Physic? I want physic. Brandy? I want brandy very bad; I
never wanted it so bad. What have you got? Gimme brandy and you shall
read me a tract."
"You forget," said Agatha, "that I never read to you."
"Let the young lady read, then. Come here, missy. Lord, Lord! Don'tee
be afraid of an old woman as has got no teeth. Come now. Gimme your
hand. Ay, ay, ay! Eh, eh, eh! Here's a pretty little hand."
"Now, Mrs. Medlicott, you said you would not do that any more. You
know it is all foolish wickedness.
"Foolish wickedness," echoed the Witch of Endor. "Never after to-day,
my lady. Come, my pretty lass, take off the glove and gimme the hand."
Without knowing what she did, Phillis drew off the glove from her left
hand. The old woman leaned forward in her chair and looked at the
lines. She was a fierce and eager old woman. Life was strong in her
yet, despite her fourscore years; her eyes were bright and fiery; her
toothless gums chattered without speaking; her long lean fingers shook
as they seized on the girl's dainty palm.
"Ay, ah! Eh, eh! The line of life is long. A silent childhood! a
love-knot hindered; go, on, girl--go on, wife and mother; happy life
and happy age, but far away--not here--far away; a lucky lot with him
you love; to sleep by his side for fifty years and more; to see your
children and your grandchildren; to watch the sun rise and set from
your door--a happy life, but far away."
She dropped the girl's hand as quickly as she had seized it, and fell
back in her chair mumbling and moaning.
"Gimme brandy, Mrs. L'Estrange--you are a charitable woman--gimme
brandy. And port-wine!--ah! lemme have some port-wine. Tea? Don't
forget the tea. And Jack-in-the-Water drinks awful, he does. Worse
than his father; worse than his grandfather--and they all went off at
five-and-thirty."
"I will send you up a basket, Mrs. Medlicott. Come, Phillis, I have
got to go to the next cottage."
But Phillis stayed behind a moment.
She touched the old woman on the forehead with her fingers and said
softly--
"Tell me, are you happy? Do you suffer?"
"Happy? only the rich are happy. Suffer? of course I suffer. All the
pore suffers."
"Poor thing! May I come and see you and bring you things?"
"Of course you may."
"And you will tell me about yourself?"
"Child, child!" cried the old woman impatiently. "Tell you about
myself? There, there, you're one of them the Lord loves--wife and
mother; happy life and happy death; childer and grandchilder; but far
away, far away."
Mrs. Medlicott gave Phillis her first insight into that life so near
and yet so distant from us. She should have been introduced to the
ideal cottage, where the stalwart husband supports the smiling wife,
and both do honour to the intellectual curate with the long coat and
the lofty brow. Where are they--lofty brow of priest and stalwart form
of virtuous peasant? Remark that Phillis was a child; the first effect
of the years upon a child is to sadden it. Philemon and Baucis in
their cot would have rejoiced her; that of old Mrs. Medlicott set her
thinking.
And while she drew from memory the old fortune-teller in her cottage,
certain words of Abraham Dyson's came back to her:
"Life is a joy to one and a burden to ninety-nine. Remember in your
joy as many as you can of the ninety-nine.
"Learn that you cannot be entirely happy, because of the ninety-nine
who are entirely wretched.
"When you reach this knowledge, Phillis, be sure that the Coping-stone
is not far-off."