A BEGINNING.
The Raymounts lived in no fashionable or pseudo-fashionable part of
London, but in a somewhat peculiar house, though by no means such
outwardly, in an old square in the dingy, smoky, convenient, healthy
district of Bloomsbury. One of the advantages of this position to a
family with soul in it, that strange essence which _will_ go out
after its kind, was, that on two sides at least it was closely pressed
by poor neighbors. Artisans, small tradespeople, out-door servants, poor
actors and actresses lived in the narrow streets thickly branching away
in certain directions. Hence, most happily for her, Hester had grown up
with none of that uncomfortable feeling so many have when brought even
into such mere contact with the poor as comes of passing through their
streets on foot--a feeling often in part composed of fear, often in part
of a false sense of natural superiority, engendered of being better
dressed, better housed, and better educated. It was in a measure owing
to her having been from childhood used to the sight of such, that her
sympathies were so soon and so thoroughly waked on the side of suffering
humanity. With parents like hers she had never been in danger of having
her feelings or her insight blunted by the assumption of such a relation
to the poor as that of spiritual police-agent, one who arrogates the
right of walking into their houses without introduction, and with at
best but faint apology: to show respect if you have it, is the quickest
way to teach reverence; if you do not show respect, do not at least
complain should the recoil of your own behavior be more powerful than
pleasant: if you will shout on the mountain side in spring, look out for
avalanches.
Those who would do good to the poor must attempt it in the way in which
best they could do good to people of their own standing. They must make
their acquaintance first. They must know something of the kind of the
person they would help, to learn if help be possible from their hands.
Only man can help man; money without man can do little or nothing, most
likely less than nothing. As our Lord redeemed the world by being a man,
the true Son of the true Father, so the only way for a man to help men
is to be a true man to this neighbor and that. But to seek acquaintance
with design is a perilous thing, nor unlikely to result in
disappointment, and the widening of the gulf both between the
individuals, and the classes to which they belong. It seems to me that,
in humble acceptance of common ways, we must follow the leadings of
providence, and make acquaintance in the so-called lower classes by the
natural working of the social laws that bring men together. What is the
divine intent in the many needs of humanity, and the consequent
dependence of the rich on the poor, even greater than that of the poor
on the rich, but to bring men together, that in far-off ways at first
they may be compelled to know each other? The man who treats his fellow
as a mere mean for the supply of his wants, and not as a human being
with whom he has to do, is an obstructing clot in the human circulation.
Does any one ask for rules of procedure? I answer, there are none to be
had; such must be discovered by each for himself. The only way to learn
the rules of any thing practical is to begin to do the thing. We have
enough of knowledge in us--call it insight, call it instinct, call it
inspiration, call it natural law, to begin any thing required of us. The
sole way to deal with the profoundest mystery that is yet not too
profound to draw us, is to begin to do some duty revealed by the light
from the golden fringe of its cloudy vast. If it reveal nothing to be
done, there is nothing there for us. No man can turn his attention in
the mere direction of a thing, without already knowing enough of that
thing to carry him further in the knowledge of it by the performance of
what it involves of natural action. Let every simplest relation towards
human being, if it be embodied but in the act of buying a reel of cotton
or a knife, be recognized as a relation with, a meeting of that human
soul. In its poor degree let its outcome be in truth and friendliness.
Allow nature her course, and next time let the relation go farther. To
follow such a path is the way to find both the persons to help and the
real modes of helping them. In fact, to be true to a man in any way is
to help him. He who goes out of common paths to look for opportunity,
leaves his own door and misses that of his neighbor. It is by following
the path we are in that we shall first reach somewhere. He who does as I
say will find his acquaintance widen and widen with growing rapidity;
his heart will fill with the care of humanity, and his hands with its
help. Such care will be death to one's own cares, such help balm to
one's own wounds. In a word, he must cultivate, after a simple human
manner, the acquaintance of his neighbors, who would be a neighbor where
a neighbor may be wanted. So shall he fulfil the part left behind of the
work of the Master, which He desires to finish through him.
Of course I do not imagine that Hester understood this. She had no
theory of carriage towards the poor, neither confined her hope of
helping to them. There are as many in every other class needing help as
among the poor, and the need, although it wear different dresses, is
essentially the same in all. To make the light go up in the heart of a
rich man, if a more difficult task, is just as good a deed as to make it
go up in the heart of a poor man. But with her strong desire to carry
help where it was needed, with her genuine feeling of the blood
relationship of all human beings, with her instinctive sense that one
could never begin too soon to do that which had to be done, she was in
the right position to begin; and from such a one opportunity will not be
withheld.
She went one morning into a small shop in Steevens's Road, to buy a few
sheets of music-paper. The woman who kept it had been an acquaintance
almost from the first day of their abode in the neighborhood. In the
course of their talk Mrs. Baldwin mentioned that she was in some anxiety
about a woman in the house who was far from well, and in whom she
thought Mrs. Raymount would be interested.
"Mamma is always ready," said Hester, "to help where she can. Tell me
about her."
"Well, you see, miss," replied Mrs. Baldwin, "we're not in the way of
having to do with such people, for my husband's rather particular about
who he lets the top rooms to; only let them we must to one or another,
for times is hard an' children is many, an' it's all as we can do to pay
our way an' nothing over; only thank God we've done it up to this
present; an' the man looked so decent, as well as the woman, an' that
pitiful-like--more than she did--that I couldn't have the heart to send
them away such a night as it was, bein' a sort o' drizzly an' as cold as
charity, an' the poor woman plainly not in a state to go wanderin' about
seekin' a place to lay her head; though to be sure there's plenty o'
places for such like, only as the poor man said himself, they did want
to get into a decent place, which it wasn't easy to get e'er a one as
would take them in. They had three children with them, the smallest o'
them pickaback on the biggest; an' it's strange, miss--I never could
compass it, though I atten' chapel reg'lar--how it goes to yer heart I
mean, to see one human bein' lookin' arter another! But my husban', as
was natural, he bein' a householder, an' so many of his own, was shy o'
children; for children, you know, miss, 'cep' they be yer own, ain't
nice things about a house; an' them poor things wouldn't be a credit
nowheres, for they're ragged enough--an' a good deal more than
enough--only they were pretty clean, as poor children go, an' there was
nothing, as I said to him, in the top-rooms, as they could do much harm
to. The man said theirs weren't like other children, for they had been
brought up to do the thing as they were told, an' to remember that
things that belonged to other people was to be handled as sich; an',
said he, they were always too busy earnin' their bread to be up to
tricks, an' in fact were always too tired to have much spare powder to
let off; so the long an' short on it was, we took 'em in, an' they've
turned out as quiet an' well-behaved a family as you could desire; an'
if they ain't got jest the most respectable way o' earnin' their
livelihood, that may be as much their misfortin as their fault, as my
husband he said. An' I'm sure it's not lettin' lodgin's to sich I ever
thought I should come to--though, for the matter o' that, I never could
rightly understand what made one thing respectable an' another not."
"What is their employment then?" asked Hester.
"Something or other in the circus-way, as far as I can make out from
what they tell me. Anyway they didn't seem to have no engagement when
they come to the door, but they paid the first week down afore they
entered. You see, miss, the poor woman she give me a kind of a look up
into the face that reminded me of my Susie, as I lost, you know, miss, a
year ago--it was that as made me feel to hate the thought of sending her
away. Oh, miss, ain't it a mercy everybody ain't so like your own! We'd
have to ruin ourselves for them--we couldn't help it!"
"It will come to that one day, though," said Hester to herself, "and
then we sha'n't he ruined either."
"So then!" Mrs. Baldwin went on, "the very next day as was, the doctor
had to be sent for, an' there was a babby! The doctor he come from the
'ospital, as nice a gentleman as you'd wish to see, miss, an' waited on
her as if she'd been the first duchess in the land. 'I'm sure,' said my
good husban' to me, 'it's a lesson to all of us to see how he do look
after her as'll never pay him a penny for the care as he's takin' of
her!' But my husban' he's that soft hearted, miss, where anything i' the
baby-line's a goin' on! an' now the poor thing's not at all strong, an'
ain't a-gettin' back of her stren'th though we do what we can with her,
an' send her up what we can spare. You see they pay for their
house-room, an' then ain't got much over!" added the good woman in
excuse of her goodness. "But I fancy it's more from anxiety as to what's
to come to them, than that anything's gone wrong with her. They're not
out o' money yet quite, I'm glad to say, though he don't seem to ha' got
nothing to do yet, so far as I can make out; they're rather close like.
That sort o' trade, ye see, miss, the demand's not steady in it. It's
not like skilled labor, as my husban' says; though to see what them
young ones has to go through, it's labor enough an' to spare; an' if it
ain't just what they call skilled, it's what no one out o' the trade can
make a mark at. Would you mind goin' up an' havin' a look at her, miss?"
Hester begged Mrs. Baldwin to lead the way, and followed her up the
stairs.
The top-rooms were two poor enough garret ones, nowise too good, it
seemed to Hester, for the poorest of human kind. In the largest, the
ceiling sloped to the floor till there was but just height enough left
for the small chest of drawers of painted deal to stand back to the
wall. A similar washstand and a low bed completed the furniture. The
last was immediately behind the door, and there lay the woman, with a
bolster heightened by a thin petticoat and threadbare cloak under her
head. Hester saw a pale, patient, worn face, with eyes large,
thoughtful, and troubled.
"Here's a kind lady come to see you, Mrs.!" said her landlady.
This speech annoyed Hester. She hated to be called kind, and perhaps
spoke the more kindly to the poor woman that she was displeased with
Mrs. Baldwin's patronizing of her.
"It's dreary for you to lie here alone, I'm afraid," she said, and
stroked the thin hand on the coverlid. "May I sit a few minutes beside
you? I was once in bed for a whole month, and found it very wearisome. I
was at school then. I don't mind being ill when I have my mother."
The woman gazed up at her with eyes that looked like the dry wells of
tears.
"It's very kind of you, miss!" she said. "It's a long stair to come
up."
She lay and gazed, and said nothing more. Her life was of a negative
sort just at present. Her child lay asleep on her arm, a poor little
washed-out rag of humanity, but evidently dear from the way she now and
then tried to look at it, which was not easy to her.
Hester sat down and tried to talk, but partly from the fear of tiring
one too weak to answer more than a word now and then, she found it hard
to get on. Religion she could not talk off-hand. Once in her life she
had, from a notion of duty, made the attempt, with the consequence of
feeling like a hypocrite. For she found herself speaking so of the
things she fed on in her heart as to make them look to herself the
merest commonplaces in the world! Could she believe in them, and speak
of them, with such dull dogmatic stupidity? She came to the conclusion
that she had spoken without a message, and since then she had taken care
not to commit the offence again.
A dead silence came.
"What can be the good of a common creature like me going to visit
people?" she said to herself. "I have nothing to say--feel nothing in
me--but a dull love that would bless if it could! And what would words
be if I had them?"
For a few moments she sat thus silent, growing more and more
uncomfortable. But just ere the silent became unendurable, a thought
appeared in the void.
"What a fool I am!" she said again to herself. "I am like little Mark
when he cried because he had only a shilling and saw a boy spend a penny
on a lovely spotted horse! Here have I been all my life wanting to give
my fellow-creatures a large share of my big cake, and the first time I
have an opportunity, I forget all about it! Here it lies locked in my
chest, like a dead bird in its cage!"
A few more moments she sat silent but no longer embarrassed thinking how
to begin. The baby woke and began to whimper. The mother, who rarely let
him off her arm, because then she was not able to take him till help
came, drew him to her, and began to nurse him; and the heart of the
young, strong woman was pierced to the quick at sight of how ill fitted
was the mother for what she had to do. "Can God be love?" she said to
herself. "If I could help her! It will go on like this for weeks and
months, I suppose!"
She had yet to learn that the love of God is so deep he can be satisfied
with nothing less than getting as near as it is possible for the Father
to draw nigh to his children--and that is into absolute contact of heart
with heart, love with love, being with being. And as that must be
wrought out from the deepest inside, divine law working itself up
through our nature into our consciousness and will, and claiming us as
divine, who can tell by what slow certainties of approach God is drawing
nigh to the most suffering of his creatures? Only, if we so comfort
ourselves with such thoughts as to do nothing, we, when God and they
meet, shall find ourselves out in the cold--cold infinitely worse than
any trouble this world has to show. The baby made no complaint against
the slow fountain of his life, but made the best he could of it, while
his mother every now and then peered down on him as lovingly as ever
happy mother on her first-born. The same God is at the heart of all
mothers, and all sins against children are against the one Father of
children, against the Life itself.
A few moments only, and Hester began to sing--low and soft. Having no
song sought out for the occasion, she took a common hymn, sung in all
churches and chapels, with little thought or feeling in it, the only one
she could think of. I need not say she put into it as much of sweetness
and smoothing strength as she could make the sounds hold, and so perhaps
made up a little for its lack. It is a curious question why sacred song
should so often be dull and commonplace. With a trembling voice she
sang, and with more anxiety and shyness than she remembered having ever
felt. It was neither a well-instructed nor critically disposed audience
she had, but the reason was that never before had she been so anxious
for some measure of success. Not daring to look up, she sat like one
rebuked, with the music flowing over her lips like the slow water from
the urn of some naiad of stone fountain. She had her reward; for when
the hymn was done, and she at length ventured to raise her eyes, she saw
both mother and babe fast asleep. Her heart ascended on a wave of thanks
to the giver of song. She rose softly, crept from the house, and
hastened home to tell her mother what she had heard and seen. The same
afternoon a basket of nice things arrived at the shop for the poor
lodger in the top-room.
The care of the Raymounts did not relax till she was fairly on her feet
again; neither till then did a day pass on which Hester did not see her,
and scarcely one on which she did not sing to her and her baby. Several
times she dressed the child, singing to him all the time. It was
generally in the morning she went, because then she was almost sure to
find them alone. Of the father she had seen next to nothing. On the few
occasions when he happened to be at home, the moment she entered he
crept out, with a shy, humble salutation, as if ashamed of himself. All
she had ever had time to see was that he was a man of middle height,
with a strong face and frame, dressed like a workman. The moment he rose
to go, his three boys rose also, and following him from the room seemed
to imitate his salutation as they passed her--all but the youngest, who
made her a profound bow accompanied by a wonderful smile. The eldest was
about the age of twelve, the youngest about seven. They were rather
sickly looking, but had intelligent faces and inoffensive expressions.
Mrs. Baldwin continued to bear the family good witness. She confessed
they never seemed to have much to eat, but said they paid their lodgings
regularly, and she had nothing to complain of. The place had indeed been
untidy, not to say dirty, at first, but as soon as the mother was about
again, it began to amend, and now, really, for people in their position,
it was wonderfully well.