It was Mr. Furze's custom on Sunday to go to sleep for an hour between
dinner and tea upstairs in what was called the drawing-room, while Mrs.
Furze sat and read, or said she read, a religious book. On hot summer
afternoons Mr. Furze always took off his coat before he had his nap, and
sometimes divested himself of his waistcoat. When the coat and waistcoat
were taken off, Mrs. Furze invariably drew down the blinds. She had
often remonstrated with her husband for appearing in his shirt-sleeves,
and objected to the neighbours seeing him in this costume. There was a
sofa in the room, but it was horsehair, with high ends both alike, not
comfortable, which were covered with curious complications called
antimacassars, that slipped off directly they were touched, so that
anybody who leaned upon them was engaged continually in warfare with
them, picking them up from the floor or spreading them out again. There
was also an easy chair, but it was not easy, for it matched the sofa in
horsehair, and was so ingeniously contrived, that directly a person
placed himself in it, it gently shot him forwards. Furthermore, it had
special antimacassars, which were a work of art, and Mrs. Furze had
warned Mr. Furze off them. "He would ruin them," she said, "if he put
his head upon them." So a windsor chair with a high back was always
carried by Mr. Furze upstairs after dinner, together with a common
kitchen chair, and on these he slumbered. The room was never used, save
on Sundays and when Mrs. Furze gave a tea-party. It overlooked the
market-place, and, although on a Sunday afternoon the High Street was
almost completely silent, Mrs. Furze liked to sit so near the window that
she could peep out at the edge of the blind when she was not dozing. It
is true no master nor mistress ever stirred at that hour, but every now
and then a maidservant could be seen, and she was better than nothing for
the purpose of criticism. A round table stood in the middle of the room
with a pink vase on it containing artificial flowers, and on the
mantelpiece were two other pink vases and two great shells. Over the
mantelpiece was a portrait of His Majesty King George the Fourth in his
robes, and exactly opposite was a picture of the Virgin Mary, which was
old and valuable. Mr. Furze bought it at a sale with some other things,
and did not quite like it. It savoured of Popery, which he could not
abide; but the parson one day saw it and told Mrs. Furze it was worth
something; whereupon she put it in a new maple frame, and had it hung in
a place of honour second to that occupied by King George, and so arranged
that he and the Virgin were always looking at one another. On the other
side of the room were a likeness of Mr. Eaton in hunting array, with the
dogs, and a mezzotint of the Deluge.
Mr. Furze had just awaked on the Sunday afternoon following the day of
which the history is partly given in the first chapter.
"My dear," said his wife, "I have been thinking a good deal of Catharine.
She is not quite what I could wish."
"No," replied Mr. Furze, with a yawn.
"To begin with, she uses bad language. I was really quite shocked
yesterday to hear the extremely vulgar word, almost--almost,--I do not
know what to call it--profane, I may say, which she applied to her dog
when talking of it to Mr. Gosford. Then she goes in the foundry; and I
firmly believe that all the money which has been spent on her music is
utterly thrown away."
"The thing is--what is to be done?"
"Now, I have a plan."
In order to make Mrs. Furze's plan fully intelligible, it may be as well
to explain that, up to the year 1840, the tradesmen of Eastthorpe had
lived at their shops. But a year or two before that date some houses had
been built at the north end of the town and called "The Terrace." A new
doctor had taken one, the brewer another, and a third had been taken by
the grocer, a man reputed to be very well off, who not only did a large
retail business, but supplied the small shops in the villages round.
"Well, my dear, what is your plan?"
"Your connection is extending, and you want more room. Now, why should
you not move to the Terrace? If we were to go there, Catharine would be
withdrawn from the society in which she at present mixes. You could not
continue to give market dinners, and gradually her acquaintance with the
persons whom you now invite would cease. I believe, too, that if we were
in the Terrace Mrs. Colston would call on us. As the wife of a brewer,
she cannot do so now. Then there is just another thing which has been on
my mind for a long time. It is settled that Mr. Jennings is to leave,
for he has accepted an invitation from the cause at Ely. I do not think
we shall like anybody after Mr. Jennings, and it would be a good
opportunity for us to exchange the chapel for the church. We have
attended the chapel regularly, but I have always felt a kind of prejudice
there against us, or at least against myself, and there is no denying
that the people who go to church are vastly more genteel, and so are the
service and everything about it--the vespers--the bells--somehow there is
a respectability in it."
Mr. Furze was silent. At last he said, "It is a very serious matter. I
must consider it in all its bearings."
It _was_ a serious matter, and he did consider it--but not in all its
bearings, for he did nothing but think about it, so that it enveloped
him, and he could not put himself at such a distance that he could see
its real shape. He was now well over fifty and was the kind of person
with whom habits become firmly fixed. He was fixed even in his dress. He
always wore a white neckcloth, and his shirt was frilled--fashions which
were already beginning to die out in Eastthorpe. His manner of life was
most regular: breakfast at eight, dinner at one, tea at five, supper at
nine with a pipe afterwards, was his unvarying round. He never left
Eastthorpe for a holiday, and read no books of any kind. He was a most
respectable member of a Dissenting congregation, but he was not a member
of the church, and was never seen at the week-night services or the
prayer-meetings. He went through the ceremony of family worship morning
and evening, but he did not pray extempore, as did the elect, and
contented himself with reading prayers from a book called "Family
Devotions." The days were over for Eastthorpe when a man like Mr. Furze
could be denounced, a man who paid his pew-rent regularly, and
contributed to the missionary societies. The days were over when any
expostulations could be addressed to him, or any attempts made to bring
him within the fold, and Mr. Jennings therefore called on him, and
religion was not mentioned. It may seem extraordinary that, without
convictions based on any reasoning process, Mr. Furze's outward existence
should have been so correct and so moral. He had passed through the
usually stormy period of youth without censure. It is true he was
married young, but before his marriage nobody had ever heard a syllable
against him, and, after marriage, he never drank a drop too much, and
never was guilty of a single dishonest action. Day after day passed by
like all preceding days, in unbroken, level succession, without even the
excitement of meeting-house emotion. Naturally, therefore, his wife's
proposals made him uneasy, and even alarmed him. He shrank from them
unconsciously, and yet his aversion was perfectly wise; more so, perhaps,
than any action for which he could have assigned a definite motive. With
men like Mr. Furze the unconscious reason, which is partly a direction by
past and forgotten experiences, and partly instinct, is often more to be
trusted than any mental operation, strictly so-called. An attempt to use
the mind actively on subjects which are too large, or with which it has
not been accustomed to deal, is pretty nearly sure to mislead. He knew,
or it knew, whatever we like to call it, that to break him from his
surroundings meant that he himself was to be broken, for they were a part
of him.
His wife attacked him again the next day. She was bent upon moving, and
it is only fair to her to say that she did really wish to go for
Catharine's sake. She loved the child in her own way, but she also
wanted to go for many other reasons.
"Well, my dear, what have you to say to my little scheme?"
"How about my dinner and tea?"
"Come home to the Terrace. How far is it?"
"Ten minutes' walk."
"An hour every day, in all weathers; and then there's the expense."
"As to the expense, I am certain we should save in the long run, because
you would not be expected to be continually asking people to meals."
"I am afraid that the business might suffer."
"Nonsense! In what way, my dear? Your attention will be more fixed upon
it than it can be with the parlour always behind you."
There was something in that, and Mr. Furze was perplexed. He was not
sufficiently well educated to know that something, and a great deal, too,
can be said for anything, and he had not arrived at that callousness to
argument which is the last result of culture.
"Yes, but I was thinking that perhaps if we leave off chapel and go to
church some of our customers may not like it."
"Now, my good man, Furze, why you know you have as many customers who go
to church as to chapel."
"Ah! but those who go to chapel may drop off."
"Why should they? We have plenty of customers who go to church. They
don't leave us because we are Dissenters, and, as there are five times as
many church people as Dissenters, your connection will be extended."
Mrs. Furze was unanswerable, but her poor husband, after all, was right.
The change, when it took place, did not bring more people to the shop,
and some left who were in the habit of coming. His dumb, dull
presentiment was a prophecy, and his wife's logic was nothing but words.
"Then there are all the rooms here; what shall we do with them?"
"I have told you; you want more space. Besides, you do not make half
enough show. You ought to go with the times. Why, at Cross's at
Cambridge their upstairs windows are hung full of spades and hoes and
such things, and you can see it is business up to the garret. I should
turn the parlour into a counting-house. It isn't the proper thing for
you to be standing always at that pokey little desk at the end of the
counter with a pen behind your ear. Turn the parlour, I say, into a
counting-house, and come out when Tom finds it necessary to call you.
That makes a much better impression. The rooms above the drawing-room
might be used for lighter goods, so as not to weight the floors too
much."
Mr. Furze was not sentimental, but he shuddered. In the big front
bedroom his father and he had been born. The first thing he could
remember was having measles there, and watching day by day, when he was a
little better, what went on in the street below. His brothers and
sisters were also born there. He remembered how his mother was shut up
there, and he was not allowed to enter; how, when he tried the door,
Nurse Judkins came and said he must be a good boy and go away, and how he
heard a little cry, and was told he had a new sister, and he wondered how
she got in. In that room his father had died. He was very ill for a
long time, and again Nurse Judkins came. He sat up with his father there
night after night, and heard the church clock sound all the hours as the
sick man lay waiting for his last. He rallied towards the end, and,
being very pious, he made his son sit down by the bedside and read to him
the ninety-first Psalm. He then blessed his boy in that very room, and
five minutes afterwards he had rushed from it, choked with sobbing when
the last breath was drawn. He did not relish the thought of taking down
the old four-post bedstead and putting rakes and shovels in its place,
but all he could say was--
"I don't quite fall in with it."
"_Why_ not? Now, my dear, I will make a bargain with you. If you can
assign a good reason, I will give it up; but, if you cannot, then, of
course, we ought to go, because _I_ have plenty of reasons for going.
Nothing can be fairer than that."
Mr. Furze was not quite clear about the "ought," although it was so fair,
but he was mute, and, after a pause, went into his shop. An accident
decided the question. Catharine was the lightest sleeper in the house,
notwithstanding her youth. Two nights after this controversy she awoke
suddenly and smelt something burning. She jumped out of bed, flung her
dressing-gown over her, opened her door, and found the landing full of
smoke. Without a moment's hesitation she rushed out and roused her
parents. They were both bewildered, and hesitated, ejaculating all sorts
of useless things. Catharine was impatient.
"Now, then, not a second; upstairs through Jane's bedroom, out into the
gutter, and through Hopkins's attic. You cannot go downstairs."
Still there was trembling and indecision.
"But the tin box," gasped Mr. Furze; "it is in the wardrobe. I must take
it."
Catharine replied by literally driving them before her. They picked up
the maid-servant, crept behind the high parapet, and were soon in safety.
By this time the smoke was pouring up thick and fast, although no flame
had appeared. Suddenly Catharine cried--
"But where is Tom?"
Tom was the assistant, and slept in an offset at the back. Underneath
him was the kitchen, and beyond was the lower offset of the scullery.
Catharine darted towards the window.
"Catharine!" shrieked her mother, "where are you going? You cannot; you
are not dressed."
But she answered not a word, and had vanished before anybody could arrest
her. The smoke was worse, and almost suffocating, but she wrapped her
face and nose in her woollen gown, and reached Tom's door. He never
slept with it fastened, and the amazed youth was awakened by a voice
which he knew to be that of Miss Furze. Escape by the way she had come
was hopeless. The staircase was now opaque. Fortunately Tom's casement,
instead of being in the side wall, was at the end, and the drop to the
scullery roof was not above four feet. Catharine reached it easily, and,
Tom coming after her, helped her to scramble down into the yard. The
gate was unbarred, and in another minute they were safe with their
neighbours. The town was now stirring, and a fire-engine came, a machine
which attended fires officially, and squirted on them officially, but was
never known to do anything more, save to make the road sloppy. The
thick, brick party walls of the houses adjoining saved them, but Mr.
Furze's house was gutted from top to bottom. It was surrounded by a
crowd the next day, which stared unceasingly. The fire-engine still
operated on the ashes, and a great steam and smother arose. A charred
oak beam hung where it had always hung, but the roof had disappeared
entirely, and the walls of the old bedchamber, which had seen so much of
sweetness and of sadness, of the mysteries of love, birth, and death, lay
bare to the sky and the street.