THE FLITTING.
We were ruined! What must the discovery have been to poor mamma? She saw
all the monstrous past--the delirium was dissipated. An abyss was
between her and her former life. In the moment of social death, all that
she was leaving had become almost grotesque, incredibly ghastly. Here in
a moment was something worse than poverty, worse even than death.
During papa's life the possibility of those vague vexations known as
"difficulties" and "embarrassments," might have occurred to me, but that
I should ever have found myself in the plight in which I now stood had
never entered my imagination.
Suppose, on a fine evening, a ship, with a crash like a cannon, tears
open her planks on a hidden rock, and the water gushes and whirls above
the knees, the waists, the throats of the polite people round the
tea-table in the state-cabin, without so much as time interposed to say
God bless us! between the warning and the catastrophe, and you have our
case!
Young ladies, you live in a vague and pleasant dream. Gaslight in your
hall and lobbies, wax lights, fires, decorous servants, flowers,
spirited horses, millinery, soups and wines, are products of nature, and
come of themselves. There is, nevertheless, such a thing as poverty, as
there is such a thing as death. We hold them both as doctrines, and, of
course, devoutly believe in them, but when either lays its cold hand on
your shoulder, and you look it in the face, you are as much appalled as
if you had never heard its name before.
Carelessness, indolence, a pleasurable supineness, without any other
grievous fault or enormous mistake, had, little by little, prepared all
for the catastrophe. Mamma was very ill that night. In the morning Mr.
Forrester came again. Mamma could not see him; but I had a long
interview with him. He was very kind. I will tell you, in a few words,
the upshot of our conference.
In the first place, the rather startling fact was disclosed that we had,
in the world, but nine pounds, eight shillings, which mamma happened
still to have in her purse, out of her last money for dress. Nine
pounds, eight shillings! That was all that interposed between us and the
wide republic of beggary. Then Mr. Forrester told me that mamma must
positively leave the house in which we were then residing, to avoid
being made, as he said, "administratrix in her own wrong," and put to
great annoyance, and seeing any little fund that relations might place
at her disposal wasted in expenses and possible litigation.
So it was settled we were to leave the house, but where were we to go?
That was provided for. Near High Holborn, in a little street entered
between two narrow piers, stood an odd and ancient house, as old as the
times of James the First, which was about to be taken down to make way
for a model lodging-house. The roof was sound, and the drainage good,
that was all he could say for it; and he could get us leave to occupy
it, free of rent, until its demolition should be commenced. He had, in
fact, already arranged that for mamma.
Poor papa had owed him a considerable sum for law costs. He meant, he
said, to remit the greater part of it, and whatever the estate might
give him, on account of them, he would hand over to mamma. He feared the
sum would be a small one. He thought it would hardly amount to a hundred
pounds, but in the meantime she could have fifty pounds on account of
it.
She might also remove a very little furniture, but no more than would
just suffice, in the scantiest way, for our bed-rooms and one
sitting-room, and such things as a servant might take for the kitchen.
He would make himself responsible to the creditors for these.
I need not go further into particulars. Of course there were many
details to be adjusted, and the conduct of all these arrangements
devolved upon me. Mr. Forrester undertook all the dealings with the
servants whom it was necessary to dismiss and pay forthwith.
The house was now very deserted. There was no life in it but that
feverish fuss like the preparations that condemned people make for their
executions. The arrangements for our sorrowful flight went on like the
dismal worry of a sick dream. In our changed state we preferred country
servants, and I wrote for good old Rebecca Torkill and one of her rustic
maids at Malory, who arrived, and entered on their duties the day before
our departure. How outlandish these good creatures appeared when
transplanted from the primitive life and surroundings of Malory to the
artificial scenes of London! But how comfortable and kindly was their
clumsiness, compared with the cynical politeness and growing contempt of
the cosmopolitan servants of London!
Well, at last we were settled in our strange habitation. It was by no
means so uncomfortable as you might have supposed. We found ourselves in
a sitting-room of handsome dimensions, panelled with oak up to its
ceiling, which, however, from the size of the room, appeared rather low.
It was richly moulded, after the style of James the First's reign, but
the coarse smear of newly-applied whitewash covered its traceries.
Our scanty furniture was collected at the upper end of the apartment,
which was covered with a piece of carpet, and shut off from the lower
part of the room by a folding screen. Some kind friend had placed
flowers in a glass on the table, and three pretty plants in full blow
upon the window-stones. Some books from a circulating library were on
the table, and some volumes also of engravings. These little signs of
care and refinement took off something of the gaunt and desolate
character which would have, otherwise, made this habitation terrifying.
A rich man, with such a house in the country, might have made it
curiously beautiful; but where it was, tenanted by paupers, and
condemned to early demolition, who was to trouble his head about it?
Mamma had been better in the morning, but was now suffering, again, from
a violent palpitation, and was sitting up in her bed; it was her own
bed, which had been removed for her use. Rebecca Torkill, who had been
for some hours managing everything to receive her, was now in her room.
I was in our "drawing-room," I suppose I am to call it, quite alone. My
elbows rested on the table, my hands were over my eyes, and I was crying
vehemently. These were tears neither of cowardice nor of sorrow. They
were tears of rage. I was one of those impracticable and defiant spirits
who, standing more in need than any other of the chastisements of
Heaven, resent its discipline as an outrage, and upbraid its justice
with impious fury. I dried my eyes fiercely. I looked round our strange
room with a bitter smile. Black oak floor, black oak panelling up to the
ceiling; as evening darkened how melancholy this grew!
I looked out of the window. The ruddy sky of evening was fading into
grey. A grass-grown brick wall, as old as the house perhaps, and
springing from the two piers, enclosed the space once occupied by the
street in which it had stood. Nothing now remained of the other houses
but high piles of rubbish, broken bricks, and plaster, through which,
now and then, a black spar or plank of worn wood was visible in this
dismal enclosure; beyond these hillocks of ruin, and the jagged and worn
brick wall, were visible the roofs with slates no bigger than
oyster-shells, and the clumsy old chimneys of poverty-stricken
dwellings, existing on sufferance, and sure to fall before long beneath
the pick and crowbar; beyond these melancholy objects spread the
expiring glow of sunset with a veil of smoke before it.
As I looked back upon this sombre room, and then out upon the still more
gloomy and ruinous prospect, with a feeling of disgust and fear, and the
intolerable consciousness that we were here under the coercion of actual
poverty, you may fancy what my ruminations were. I don't know whether,
in my family, there was a vein of that hereditary melancholy called
suicidal. I know I felt, just then, its horrible promptings. Like the
invitations of the Erl-king in Goethe's ballad, it "whispered low in
mine ear." There is nothing so startling as the first real allurement
to this tremendous step. There remains a sense of an actual
communication at which mind and soul tremble. I felt it once afterwards.
Its insidiousness and power are felt on starting from the dream, and
finding oneself, as I did, alone, with silence and darkness and
frightful thoughts. I think that, but for mamma, it would have been
irresistible. The sudden exertion of my will, and in spite of my impious
mood, I am sure, an inward cry to God for help, scared away the brood
that had gathered about me with their soft monotonous seduction. Have
you ever experienced the same thing? The temptation breaks from you like
a murmur changed to a laugh, and leaves you horrified. I hated life; my
energies were dead already. Why should I drag on, with broken heart, in
solitude and degradation?
Some pitying angel kept me in remembrance of mamma, sick, helpless, so
long and entirely in the habit of leaning upon others for counsel and
for action. When sickness follows poverty, fate has little left to
inflict. One good thing in our present habitation was the fact of its
being as completely out of sight as the inmost cavern of the catacombs.
That was consolatory. I felt, at first, as if I never should wish to see
the light again. But every expression of life is strong in the young;
energy, health, spirits, hope.
The dread of this great downfall began to subside, and I could see a
little before me; my head grew clearer, and was already full of plans
for earning my bread. That, I dare say, would have been easy enough, if
I could have made up my mind to leave mamma, or if she could have
consented to part with me. But there were many things I could do at
home. Mamma was sometimes better, but her spirits never rallied. She
cried almost incessantly; I think she was heart-broken. If she could
have given me some of her gentleness, and if I could have inspired her
with some of my courage, we should have done better.
The day after our arrival, as I looked out of the window listlessly, I
saw a van drive between the piers. Two men were on the driver's seat.
They stopped before they had got very far. It was difficult navigation
among the promontories and islands of rubbish. The driver turned a
disgusted look up towards our windows, and made some remark to his
companion. They got down and led the horses with circumspection, and
with many turns and windings up to the door, and then began to speak to
our servant; but, at this interesting moment, I was summoned by Rebecca
Torkill to mamma's room, where I forgot all about the van.
But, on returning a few minutes later, I found a piano in our
drawing-room. Our rustic maid had not heard or even asked from whom it
came; and when a tuner arrived an hour later, I found that nothing could
prevail on him to disclose the name of the person or place from which it
had come. It had not any indication but the maker's name and that was no
guide.
Two or three days after our flight to this melancholy place, Mr.
Forrester called. I saw him in our strange sitting-room. It was pleasant
to see a friendly face. He had not many minutes to give me. He listened
to my plans, and rather approved of them; told me that he had some
clients who might be useful, and that he would make it a point to do
what he could with them. Then I thanked him very much for the flowers,
and the books, and the piano. But it was not he who had sent them. I
began to be rather unpleasantly puzzled about the quarter from which
these favours came. Our melancholy habitation must be known to more
persons than we supposed. I was thinking uncomfortably on this problem
when he went on to say:
"As Mrs. Ware is not well enough to see me, I should like to read to you
a draft of the letter I was thinking of sending to-day to Lord
Chellwood's house. He's to be home, I understand, for a day or two
before the end of this week; and I want to hit him on the wing, if I
can."
He then read the letter for me.
"Pray leave out what you say of me," I said.
"Why, Miss Ware?"
"Because, if I can't live by my own labour, I will die," I answered. "I
think it is his duty to do something for mamma, who is ill, and the
widow of his brother, and who has lost her provision by poor papa's
misfortunes; but I mean to work; and I hope to earn quite enough to
support me; and if I can't, as I said, I don't wish to live. I will
accept nothing from him."
"And why not from him, Miss Ware? You know he's your uncle. Whom could
you more naturally look to in such an emergency?"
"He's not my uncle; papa was his half-brother only, by a later marriage.
He never liked papa--nor us."
"Never mind--he'll do something. I've had some experience; and I tell
you, he can't avoid contributing in a case like this; it comes too near
him," said Mr. Forrester.
"I have seen him--I have heard him talk; I know the kind of person he
is. I have heard poor papa say, 'I wish some one would relieve Norman's
mind: he seems to fancy we have a design on his pocket, or his will. He
is always keeping us at arm's-length. I don't think my wife is ever
likely to have to ask him for anything.' I have heard poor papa say, I
think, those very words. Bread from his hand would choke me, and I can't
eat it."
"Well, Miss Ware, if you object to that passage, I shall strike it out,
of course. I wrote a second time to Sir Harry Rokestone, and have not
yet had a line in reply, and I don't think it likely I ever shall. I'll
try him once more; and if that doesn't bring an answer, I think we may
let him alone for some time to come."
And now Mr. Forrester took his leave and was gone. The forlorn old house
was silent again.