SHADOWS IN HONEY FAIR.
August was hot in Honey Fair. The women sat at their open doors, or even
outside them; the children tumbled in the gutters; the refuse in the
road was none the better for the month's heat.
Charlotte East sat in her kitchen one Tuesday afternoon, busy as usual.
Her door was shut, but her window was open. Suddenly the latch was
lifted and Mrs. Cross came in: not with the bold, boisterous movements
that were common to Honey Fair, but with creeping steps that seemed
afraid of their own echoes, and a scared face.
Mrs. Cross was in trouble. Her two daughters, Amelia and Mary Ann, to
whom you have had the honour of an introduction, had purchased those
lovely cross-barred sarcenets, green, pink, and lilac, and worn them at
the party at the Alhambra: which party went off satisfactorily, leaving
nothing behind it but some headaches for the next day, and a trifle of
pecuniary embarrassment to Honey Fair in general. What with the finery
for the party, and other finery, and what with articles really useful,
but which perhaps _might_ have been done without, Honey Fair was pretty
deeply in with the Messrs. Bankes. In Mrs. Cross's family alone, herself
and her daughters owed, conjointly, so much to these accommodating
tradesmen that it took eight shillings a week to keep them quiet. You
can readily understand how this impoverished the weekly housekeeping;
and the falsehoods that had to be concocted, by way of keeping the
husband, Jacob Cross, in the dark, were something alarming. This was the
state of things in many of the homes of Honey Fair.
Mrs. Cross came in with timid steps and a scared face. "Charlotte, lend
me five shillings for the love of goodness!" cried she, speaking as if
afraid of the sound of her own voice. "I don't know another soul to ask
but you. There ain't another that would have it to lend, barring Dame
Buffle, and she never lends."
"You owe me twelve shillings already," answered Charlotte, pausing for a
moment in her sewing.
"I know that. I'll pay you off by degrees, if it's only a shilling a
week. I am a'most drove mad. Bankes's folks was here yesterday, and me
and the girls had only four shillings to give 'em. I'm getting in
arrears frightful, and Bankes's is as cranky over it as can be. It's all
smooth and fair so long as you're buying of Bankes's and paying 'em; but
just get behind, and see what short answers and sour looks you'll have!"
"But Amelia and Mary Ann took in their work on Saturday and had their
money?"
"My patience! I don't know what us should do if they hadn't! We have to
pay up everywhere. We're in debt at Buffle's, in debt to the baker, in
debt for shoes; we're in debt on all sides. And there's Cross spending
three shilling good of his wages at the public-house! It takes what me
and the girls earn to pay a bit up here and there, and stop things from
coming to Cross's ears. Half the house is in the pawn-shop, and what'll
become of us I don't know. I can't sleep o' nights, hardly, for thinking
on't."
Charlotte felt sure that, were it her case, she should not sleep at all.
"The worst is, I have to keep the little 'uns away from school. Pay for
'em I can't. And a fine muck they get into, playing in the road all day.
'What does these children do to theirselves at school, to get into this
dirty mess?' asks Cross, when he comes in. 'Oh, they plays a bit in the
gutter coming home,' says I. 'We plays a bit, father,' cries they, when
they hears me, a-winking at each other to think how we does their
father."
Charlotte shook her head. "I should end it all."
"End it! I wish we could end it! The girls is going to slave theirselves
night and day this week and next. But it's not for my good: it's for
their'n. They want to get their grand silks out o' pawn! Nothing but
outside finery goes down with them, though they've not an inside rag to
their backs. They leave care to me. Fools to be sure, they was, to buy
them silks! They have been in the pawn-shop ever since, and Bankes's
a-tearing 'em to pieces for the money!"
"I should end it by confessing to Jacob," said Charlotte, when she could
get in a word. "He is not a bad husband----"
"And look at his passionate temper!" broke in Mrs. Cross. "Let it get to
his ears that we have gone on tick to Bankes's and elsewhere, and he'd
rave the house out of winders."
"He would be angry at first, no doubt; but when he cooled down he would
see the necessity of something being done, and help in it. If you all
set on and put your shoulders to the wheel you might soon get clear.
Live upon the very least that will satisfy hunger--the plainest
food--dry bread and potatoes. No beer, no meat, no finery, no luxuries;
and with the rest of the week's money begin to pay up. You'd be clear in
no time."
Mrs. Cross stared in consternation. "You be a Job's comforter,
Charlotte! Dry bread and taters! who could put up with that?"
"When poor people like us fall into trouble, it is the only way that I
know of to get out of it. I'd rather mortify my appetite for a year than
have my rest broken by care."
"Your advice is good enough for talking, Charlotte, but it don't answer
for acting. Cross must have his bit o' meat and his beer, his butter and
his cheese, his tea and his sugar--and so must the rest on us. But about
this five shillings?--do lend it me, Charlotte! It is for the landlord:
we're almost in a fix with him."
"For the landlord!" repeated Charlotte involuntarily. "You must keep
_him_ paid, or it would be the worst of all."
"I know we must. He was took bad yesterday--more's the blessing!--and
couldn't get round; but he's here to-day as burly as beef. We haven't
paid him for this three weeks," she added, dropping her voice to an
ominous whisper; "and I declare to you, Charlotte East, that the sight
of him at our door is as good to me as a dose of physic. Just now, round
he comes, a-lifting the latch, and me turning sick the minute I sees
him. 'Ready, Mrs. Cross?' asks he, in his short, surly way, putting his
brown wig up. 'I'm sorry I ain't, Mr. Abbott, sir,' says I; 'but I'll
have some next week for certain.' 'That won't do for me,' says he: 'I
must have it this. If you can't give me some money, I shall apply to
your husband.' The fright this put me into I've not got over yet,
Charlotte; for Cross don't know but what the rent's paid up regular. 'I
know what's going on,' old Abbott begins again, 'and I have knowed it
for some time. You women in this Honey Fair, you pay your money to them
Bankeses, which is the blight o' the place, and then you can't pay me.'
Only fancy his calling Bankeses a blight!"
"That's just what they are," remarked Charlotte.
"For shame, Charlotte East! When one's way is a bit eased by being able
to get a few things on trust, you must put in your word again it! Some
of us would never get a new gown to our backs if it wasn't for Bankeses.
Abbott's gone off to other houses, collecting; warning me as he'd call
again in half an hour, and if some money wasn't ready for him then he'd
go straight off to Jacob, to his shop o' work. If you can let me have
one week for him, Charlotte--five shillings--I'll be ever grateful."
Charlotte rose, unlocked a drawer, and gave five shillings to Mrs.
Cross, thinking in her own mind that the kindest course would be for the
landlord to go to Cross, as he had threatened.
Mrs. Cross took the money. Her mind so far relieved, she could indulge
in a little gossip; for Mr. Abbott's half-hour had not yet expired.
"I say, Charlotte, what d'ye think? I'm afraid Ben Tyrrett and our Mary
Ann is a-going to take up together."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Charlotte. "That's new."
"Not over-new. They have been talking together on and off, but I never
thought it was serious till last Sunday. I have set my face dead against
it. He has a nasty temper of his own; and he's nothing but a jobber at
fifteen shillings a week, and his profits of the egg-whites. Our Mary
Ann might do better than that."
"I think she might," assented Charlotte. "And she is over-young to think
of marrying."
"Young!" wrathfully repeated Mrs. Cross. "I should think she is young!
Girls are as soft as apes. The minute a chap says a word to 'em about
marrying, they're all agog to do it, whether it's fit, or whether it's
unfit. Our Mary Ann might look inches over Ben Tyrrett's head, if she
had any sense in her. Hark ye, Charlotte! When you see her, just put in
a word against it; maybe it'll turn her. Tell her you'd not have Tyrrett
at a gift."
"And that's true," replied Charlotte, with a laugh, as her guest
departed.
A few minutes, and Charlotte received another visitor. This was the wife
of Mark Mason--a tall, bony woman, with rough black hair and a loud
voice. That voice and Mark did not get on very well together. She put
her hands back upon her hips, and used it now, standing before Charlotte
in a threatening attitude.
"What do you do, keeping our Carry out at night?"
Charlotte looked up in surprise. She was thinking of something else, or
her answer might have been more cautious, for she was one of those who
never willingly make mischief.
"I do not keep Caroline out. She is here of an evening now and then--not
often."
Mrs. Mason laughed--a low derisive laugh of mockery. "I knew it was a
falsehood when she told it me! There she goes out, night after night,
night after night; so I set Mark on to her, for I couldn't keep her in,
neither find out where she went to. Mark was in a passion--something had
put him out, and Carry was frightened, for he had hold of her arm
savage-like. 'I am at Charlotte East's of a night, Mark,' she said. 'I
shall take no harm there.'"
Charlotte did not lift her eyes from her work. Mrs. Mason stood
defiantly.
"Now, then! Where is it she gets to?"
"Why do you apply to me?" returned Charlotte. "I am not Caroline Mason's
keeper."
"If you bain't her keeper, you be her adviser," retorted Mrs. Mason.
"And that's worse."
"When I advise Caroline at all, I advise her for her good."
"My eyes are opened now, if they was blind before," continued Mrs.
Mason, apostrophizing in no gentle terms the offending Caroline. "Who
gave Carry that there shawl?--who gave, her that there fine gown?--who
gave her that gold brooch, with a stone in it 'twixt red and yaller, and
a naked Cupid in white aflying on it? 'A nice brooch you've got there,
miss,' says I to her. 'Yes,' says she, 'they call 'em cameons.' 'And
where did you get it, pray?' says I. 'And that's my business,' answers
she. Next there was a neck-scarf, green and lavender, with yaller fringe
at its ends, as deep as my forefinger. 'You're running up a tidy score
at Bankes's, my lady,' says I. 'I shan't come to you to pay for it,'
says she. 'No,' thinks I to myself, 'but you be living in our house, and
you may bring Mark into trouble over it,' for he's a soft-hearted gander
at times. So down I goes to Bankes's place last night. 'Just turn to the
debt-book, young man,' says I to the gentleman behind the counter--it
were the one with the dark hair--'and tell me how much is owed by
Caroline Mason.' 'Come to settle it?' asks he. 'Maybe, and maybe not,'
says I. 'I wants my question answered, whether or no.' Are you
listening, Charlotte East?"
Charlotte lifted her eyes from her work. "Yes."
"He lays hold of a big book," continues Mrs. Mason, who was talking her
face crimson, "and draws his finger down its pages. 'Caroline
Mason--Caroline Mason,' says he. 'I don't think we have anything against
her. No: it's crossed off. There was a trifle against her, but she paid
it last week.' Well, I stood staring at the man, thinking he was
deceiving me, saying she had _paid_. 'When did she pay for that shawl
she had in the winter, and how much did it cost?' asks I. 'Shawl?' says
he. 'Caroline Mason hasn't had no shawl of us.' 'Nor a gown at Easter--a
fancy sort of thing, with stripes?' I goes on: 'nor a cameon brooch last
week? nor a scarf with yaller fringe?' 'Nothing o' the sort,' says he,
decisive. 'Caroline Mason hasn't bought any of those things from us. She
had some bonnet ribbon, and that she paid for.' Now, what was I to
think?" concluded Mrs. Mason.
Charlotte did not know.
"I comes home a-pondering, and at the corner of the lane I catches sight
of a certain gentleman loitering about in the shade. The truth flashed
into my mind. 'He's after our Caroline,' says I to myself; 'and it's him
that has given her the things, and we shall just have her a world's
spectacle!' I accused Eliza Tyrrett of being the confidant. 'It isn't
me,' says she; 'it's Charlotte East.' So I bottled up my temper till
now, and now I've come to learn the rights on't."
"I cannot tell you the rights," replied Charlotte. "I do not know them.
I have striven to give Caroline some good advice lately, and that is all
I have had to do with it. Mrs. Mason, you know that I should never
advise Caroline, or any one else, but for her good."
Mrs. Mason would have acknowledged this in a cooler moment. "Why did
that Tyrrett girl laugh at me, then? And why did Carry say she spent her
evenings here?" cried she. "The gentleman I see was young Anthony Dare:
and Carry had better bury herself alive than be drawn aside by his
nonsense."
"Much better," acquiesced Charlotte. "Where is Caroline?"
"Under lock and key," said Mrs. Mason.
"Under lock and key!" echoed Charlotte.
"Yes; under lock and key; and there she shall stop. She was out all this
blessed morning with Eliza Tyrrett, and never walked herself in till
after Mark had had his dinner and was gone. So then I began upon her. My
temper was up, and I didn't spare her. I vowed I'd tell Mark what I had
seen and heard, and what sort of a wolf she allowed to make her presents
of fine clothes. With that she turned wild and flung up to her room in
the cock-loft, and I followed and locked her in."
"You have done very wrong," said Charlotte. "It is not by harshness that
any good will be done with Caroline. You know her disposition: a child
might lead her by kindness, but she rises up against harshness. My
opinion is that she never would have given the least trouble at all had
you made her a better home."
This bold avowal took away Mrs. Mason's breath. "A better home!" cried
she, when she could speak. "A better home! Fed upon French rolls and
lobster salad and apricot tarts, and give her a lady's maid to
hook-and-eye her gown for her! My heart! that beats all."
"I don't speak of food, and that sort of thing," rejoined Charlotte. "If
you had treated her with kind words instead of cross ones she would have
been as good a girl as ever lived. Instead of that you have made your
home unbearable; and so driven her out, with her dangerous good looks,
to be told of them by the first idler who came across her: and that
seems to have been Anthony Dare. Go home and let her out of where you
have locked her in; do, Hetty Mason! Let her out, and speak kindly to
her, and treat her as a sister; and you'll undo all the bad yet."
"I shan't then!" was the passionate reply. "I'll see you and her hung
first, before I speak kind to her to encourage her in her loose ways!"
Mrs. Mason flung out of the house as she concluded, giving the door a
bang which only had the effect of sending it open again. Charlotte
sighed as she rose to close it: not only for any peril that Caroline
Mason might be in, but for the general blindness, the distorted views of
right and wrong, which seemed to obtain amidst the women of Honey Fair.