Читать книгу The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor - Barr Amelia E. - Страница 5

KATHERINE’S letters bore little fruit. Lady Brierley sent fifty pounds to buy food, but said “she was going to Bourmouth for the spring months, being unable to bear the winds of the Yorkshire wolds at that time.” Mrs. Craven and Mrs. Courtney were on their way to London, and Mrs. Benson said her own large family required every hour of her time, especially as she was now only able to keep one servant. So the village troubles were confided to the charge of Faith Foster and her father. The squire put a liberal sum of money with the preacher, and its application was left entirely to his judgment.

Nor did Annis now feel himself able to delay his journey until April. He was urged constantly by the leaders of the Reform Bill to hasten his visit to the House. Letters from Lord Russell, Sir James Grahame and Lord Grey told him that among the landlords of the West Riding his example would have a great influence, and that at this “important crisis they looked with anxiety, yet certainty, for his support.”

He could not withhold it. After his enlightenment by Mr. Foster, he hardly needed any further appeal. His heart and his conscience gave him no rest, and in ten days he had made suitable arrangements, both for the care of his estate, and the relief of the village. In this business he had been greatly hurried and pressed, and the Hall was also full of unrest and confusion, for all Madam’s domestic treasures were to pack away and to put in strict and competent care. For, then, there really were women who enjoyed household rackets and homes turned up and over from top to bottom. It was their relief from the hysteria of monotony and the temper that usually attends monotony. They knew nothing of the constant changes and pleasures of the women of today – of little chatty lunches and theater parties; of their endless societies and games, and clubs of every description; of fantastic dressing and undressing from every age and nation; beside the appropriation of all the habits and pursuits and pleasures of men that seemed good in their eyes, or their imaginations.

So to the woman of one hundred years ago – and of much less time – a thorough house-cleaning, or a putting away of things for a visit or a journey was an exciting event. There was even a kind of pleasure in the discomfort and disorder it caused. The unhappy looks of the men of the house were rather agreeable to them. For a few days they had legitimate authority to make everyone miserable, and in doing so experienced a very actual nervous relief.

Madam Annis was in some measure influenced by similar conditions, for it takes a strong and powerfully constituted woman to resist the spirit and influence of the time and locality in which she lives. So the Hall was full of unrest, and the peaceful routine of life was all broken up. Ladies’ hide-covered trunks – such little baby trunks to those of the present day – and leather bags and portmanteaus littered the halls; and the very furniture had the neglected plaintive look of whatever is to be left behind.

At length, however, on the twenty-third of March, all was ready for the journey, and the squire was impatient to begin it. He was also continually worrying about his son. “Whereiver is Dick, I wonder? He ought to be here helping us, ought he not, mother?” he asked Madam reproachfully, as if he held her responsible for Dick’s absence and Madam answered sharply – “Indeed, Antony, thou ought to know best. Thou told Dick to stay in London and watch the ways of that wearisome Reform Bill and send thee daily word about its carryings on. The lad can’t be in two places at once, can he?”

“I hed forgotten mysen, Annie. How near art thou and Katherine ready to start?”

“Katherine and I are now waiting on your will and readiness.”

“Nay, then, Annie, if ta hes got to thy London English already, I’ll be quiet, I will.”

“I doan’t like thee to be unjust to Dick. He is doing, and doing well, just what thou told him to do. I should think thou couldn’t ask more than that – if thou was in thy right mind.”

“Dick is the best lad in Yorkshire, he is all that! Doan’t thee care if I seem a bit cross, Annie. I’ve been that worrited all morning as niver was. Doan’t mind it!”

“I doan’t, not in the least, Antony.”

“Well, then, can thou start to-morrow morning?”

“I can start, with an hour’s notice, any time.”

“I wouldn’t be too good, Annie. I’m not worth it.”

“Thou art worth all I can do for thee.”

“Varry good, dearie! Then we’ll start at seven to-morrow morning. We will drive to Leeds, and then tak t’ mail-coach for London there. If t’ roads don’t happen to be varry bad we may hev time enough in Leeds to go to the Queen’s Hotel and hev a plate o’ soup and a chop. I hev a bit o’ business at the bank there but it won’t keep me ten minutes. I hope we may hev a fairish journey, but the preacher tells me the whole country is in a varry alarming condition.”

“Antony, I am a little tired of the preacher’s alarm bell. He is always prophesying evil. Doan’t thee let him get too much influence over thee. Before thou knows what thou art doing thou wilt be going to a class meeting. What does the curate say? He has been fifty miles south, if not more.”

“He told me the roads were full of hungry, angry men, who were varry disrespectful to any of the Quality they met.”

Here Katherine entered the room. “Mother dear,” she said in an excited voice, “mother dear! My new traveling dress came home a little while ago, and I have put it on, to let you admire it. Is it not pretty? Is it not stylish? Is it not everything a girl would like? O Daddy! I didn’t see you.”

“I couldn’t expect thee to see me when tha hed a new dress on. I’ll tell thee, howiver, I doan’t like it as well as I liked thy last suit.”

“The little shepherd plaid? Oh, that has become quite common! This is the thing now. What do you say, mother?”

“I think it is all right. Put it on in the morning. We leave at seven o’clock.”

“Oh, delightful! I am so glad! Life is all in a mess here and I hate a tossed-up house.”

At this point the Reverend Mr. Yates entered. He had called to bid the squire and his family good-bye, but the ladies quickly left the room. They knew some apology was due the curate for placing the money intended for relieving the suffering in the village in the preacher’s care, and at his disposal. But the curate was reasonable, and readily acknowledged that “nearly all needing help were members of Mr. Foster’s church, and would naturally take relief better from him than from a stranger.”

The journey as far as Leeds was a very sad one, for the squire stopped frequently to speak to groups of despairing, desperate men and women: – “Hev courage, friends!” he said cheerfully to a gathering of about forty or more on the Green of a large village, only fourteen miles south of Annis. “Hev courage a little longer! I am Antony Annis, and I am on my way to London, with many more gentlemen, to see that the Reform Bill goes through the Lords, this time. If it does not then it will be the duty of Englishmen to know the reason why. God knows you hev borne up bravely. Try it a bit longer.”

“Squire,” said a big fellow, white with hunger, “Squire, I hevn’t touched food of any kind for forty hours. You count hours when you are hungry, squire.”

“We’re all o’ us,” said his companion, “faint and clemmed. We hevn’t strength to be men any longer. Look at me! I’m wanting to cry like a bairn.”

“I’m ready to fight, squire,” added a man standing near by; “I hev a bit o’ manhood yet, and I’d fight for my rights, I would that! – if I nobbnd hed a slice or two o’ bread.”

At the same time a young woman, little more than a child, came tottering forward, and stood at the side of Mistress Annis. She had a little baby in her arms, she did not speak, she only looked in the elder woman’s face then cast her eyes down upon the child. It was tugging at an empty breast with little sharp cries of hungry impatience. Then she said, “I hev no milk for him! The lile lad is sucking my blood!” Her voice was weak and trembling, but she had no tears left.

Madam covered her face, she was weeping, and the next moment Katherine emptied her mother’s purse into the starving woman’s hand. She took it with a great cry, lifting her face to heaven – “Oh God, it is money! Oh God, it is milk and bread!” Then looking at Katherine she said, “Thou hes saved two lives. God sent thee to do it” – and with the words, she found a sudden strength to run with her child to a shop across the street, where bread and milk were sold.

“It’s little Dinas Sykes,” said a man whose voice was weak with hunger. “Eh! but I’m glad, God hes hed mercy on her!” and all watched Dinas running for milk and bread with a grateful sympathy. The squire was profoundly touched, his heart melted within him, and he said to the little company with the voice of a companion, not of a master, “Men, how many of you are present?”

“About forty-four men – and a few half grown lads. They need food worse than men do – they suffer more – poor lile fellows!”

“And you all hev women at home? Wives and daughters?”

“Ay, squire, and mothers, too! Old and gray and hungry – some varry patient, and just dying on their feet, some so weak they are crying like t’ childer of two or four years old. My God! Squire, t’ men’s suffering isn’t worth counting, against that of t’ women and children.”

“Friends, I hev no words to put against your suffering and a ten pound note will be better than all the words I could give you. It will at least get all of you a loaf of bread and a bit of beef and a mug of ale. Who shall I give it to?”

“Ben Shuttleworth,” was the unanimous answer, and Ben stepped forward. He was a noble-looking old man just a little crippled by long usage of the hand loom. “Squire Annis,” he said, “I’ll gladly take the gift God hes sent us by thy hands and I’ll divide it equally, penny for penny, and may God bless thee and prosper thy journey! We’re none of us men used to saying ‘thank’ee’ to any man but we say it to thee. Yes, we say it to thee.”

Kindred scenes occurred in every village and they did not reach Leeds in time for the mail coach they intended to take. The squire was not troubled at the delay. He said, “he hed a bit of his awn business to look after, and he was sure Katherine hed forgotten one or two varry necessary things, that she could buy in Leeds.”

Katherine acknowledged that she had forgotten her thimble and her hand glass, and said she had “been worrying about her back hair, which she could not dress without one.”

Madam was tired and glad to rest. “But Antony,” she said, “Dick will meet this coach and when we do not come by it, he will have wonders and worries about us.”

“Not he! Dick knows something about women, and also, I told him we might sleep a night or two at some town on the way, if you were tired.”

The next day they began the journey again, half-purposing to stop and rest at some half-way town. The squire said Dick understood them. He would be on hand if they loitered a week. And Madam was satisfied; she thought it likely Dick had instructions fitting his father’s uncertainty.

Yet though the coach prevented actual contact with the miserable famine sufferers, it could not prevent them witnessing the silent misery sitting on every door step, and looking with such longing eyes for help from God or man. Upon the whole it was a journey to break a pitiful heart, and the squire and his family were glad when the coach drew up with the rattle of wheels and the blowing of the guard’s horn at its old stand of Charing Cross.

The magic of London was already around them, and the first face they saw was the handsome beaming face of Dick Annis. He nodded and smiled to his father, who was sitting – where he had sat most of the journey – at the side of the driver. Dick would have liked to help him to the street, but he knew that his father needed no help and would likely be vexed at any offer of it, but Dick’s mother and sister came out of the coach in his arms, and the lad kissed them and called them all the fond names he could think of. Noticing at the same time his father’s clever descent, he put out his left hand to him, for he had his mother guarded with his right arm. “You did that jump, dad, better than I could have done it. Are you tired?”

“We are all tired to death, Dick. Hev you a cab here?”

“To be sure, I have! Your rooms at the Clarendon are in order, and there will be a good dinner waiting when you are ready for it.”

In something less than an hour they were all ready for a good dinner; their faces had been washed, Katherine’s hair smoothed and Madam’s cap properly adjusted. The squire was standing on the hearthrug in high spirits. The sight of his son, the touch of the town, the pleasant light and comfort of his surroundings, the prospect of dinner, made him forget for a few minutes the suffering he had passed through, until his son asked, “And did you have a pleasant journey, father?”

“A journey, Dick, to break a man’s heart. It hes turned me from a Tory into a Radical. This government must feed the people or – we will kick them back – ”

“Dear father, we will talk of that subject by ourselves. It isn’t fit for two tired women, now is it?”

“Mebbe not; but I hev seen and I hev heard these last two or three days, Dick, what I can niver forget. Things hev got to be altered. They hev that, or – ”

“We will talk that over after mother and Kitty have gone to sleep. We won’t worry them to-night. I have ordered mother’s favorite Cabinet pudding for her, and some raspberry cream for Kitty. It wouldn’t be right to talk of unhappy things with good things in our mouths, now would it?”

“They are coming. I can hear Kitty’s laugh, when I can hear nothing else. Ring the bell, Dick, we can hev dinner now.”

There were a few pleasant moments spent in choosing their seats, and as soon as they were taken, a dish of those small delicious oysters for which England has been famous since the days of the Roman Emperors were placed before them. “I had some scalloped for mother and Kitty,” Dick said. “Men can eat them raw, alive if they choose, but women – Oh no! It isn’t womanlike! Mother and Kitty wouldn’t do it! Not they!”

“And what else hes ta got for us, Dick?” asked the squire. “I’m mortal hungry.”

The last word shocked him anew. He wished he had not said it. What made him do it? Hungry! He had never been really hungry in all his life; and those pallid men and women, with that look of suffering on their faces, and in their dry, anxious eyes, how could he ever forget them?

He was suddenly silent, and Katherine said: “Father is tired. He would drive so much. I wonder the coachman let him.”

“Father paid for the privilege of doing the driver’s work for him. I have no doubt of that, my dears,” said Madam. “Well, Dick, when did you see Jane?”

“Do you not observe, mother, that I am in evening dress? Jane has a dance and supper to-night. Members from the government side will be dropping in there after midnight, for refreshment. Both Houses are in all-night sittings now.”

“How does Leyland vote?”

“He is tremendously royal and loyal. You will have to mind your p’s and q’s with him now, father.”

“Not I! I take my awn way. Leyland’s way and mine are far apart. How is your Aunt Josepha?”

“She is all right. She is never anything else but all right. Certainly she is vexed that Katherine is not to stay with her. Jane has been making a little brag about it, I suppose.”

“Katherine could stay part of the time with her,” said the squire.

“She had better be with Jane. Aunt will ask O’Connell to her dinners, and others whom Katherine would not like.”

“Why does she do it? She knows better.”

“I suspect we all know better than we do. She says, ‘O’Connell keeps the dinner table lively.’ So he does. The men quarrel all the time they eat and the women really admire them for it. They say ‘Oh!’ at a very strong word, but they would love to see them really fighting. Women affect tenderness and fearfulness; they are actually cruel creatures. Aunt says, ‘that was what her dear departed told her, and she had no doubt he had had experiences.’ Jane sent her love to all of you, and she purposes coming for Katherine about two o’clock to-morrow.”

“Oh!” said Madam, in a rather indifferent way, “Katherine and I can find plenty to do, and to see, in London. Jane told me recently, she had a new carriage.”

“One of the finest turn-outs Long Acre could offer her. The team is good also. Leyland is a judge of horses, and he has chosen a new livery with his new honors – gray with silver trimmings. It looks handsome and stylish.”

“And will spoil quickly,” said Madam. “Jane asked me about the livery, and I told her to avoid light colors.”

“Then you should have told her to choose light colors. Jane lives and votes with the opposition.” In pleasant domestic conversation the hours slipped happily away, but after the ladies had retired, Dick did not stay long. The squire was really weary, though he “pooh-poohed” the idea. “A drive from Leeds to London, with a rest between, what is that to tire a man?” he asked, adding, “I hev trotted a Norfolk cob the distance easy in less time, and I could do it again, if I wanted to.”

“Of course you could, father. Oh, I wish to ask you if you know anything of the M.P. from Appleby?”

“A little.”

“What can you say about him?”

“He made a masterly speech last session, in favor of Peel’s ministry. I liked it then. I hevn’t one good word for it now.”

“He is a very fine looking man. I suppose he is wealthy. He lives in good style here.”

“I know nothing about his money. The De Burgs are a fine family – among the oldest in England – Cumberland, I believe, down Furness way. Why art thou bothering thysen about him?”

“He is one of Jane’s favorites. He goes to Ley-land’s house a deal. I was thinking of Katherine.”

“What about Katherine? What about Katherine?” the squire asked sharply.

“You know Katherine is beautiful, and this De Burg is very handsome – in his way.”

“What way?”

“Well, the De Burgs are of Norman descent and Stephen De Burg shows it. He has indeed the large, gray eyes of our own North Country, but his hair is black – very black – and his complexion is swarthy. However, he is tall and well-built, and remarkably graceful in speech and action – quite the young man to steal a girl’s heart away.”

“Hes he stolen any girl’s heart from thee?”

“Not he, indeed! I am Annis enough to keep what I win; but I was wondering if our little Kitty was a match for Stephen De Burg.”

“Tha needn’t worry thysen about Kitty Annis. I’ll warrant her a match for any man. Her mother says she hes a fancy for Harry Bradley, but I – ”

“Harry is a fine fellow.”

“Nobody said he wasn’t a fine fellow, and there is not any need for thee to interrupt thy father in order to tell him that! Harry Bradley, indeed! I wouldn’t spoil any plan of De Burg’s to please or help Harry Bradley! Not I! Now I hope tha understands that! To-morrow thou can tell me about thy last goddess, and if she be worthy to sit after thy mother in Annis Court, I’ll help thee to get wedded to her gladly. For I’m getting anxious, Dick, about my grandsons and their sisters. I’d like to see them that are to come after me.”

Then Dick went away with a laugh, but as the father and son stood a moment hand-clasped, their resemblance was fitting and beautiful; and no one noticing this fact could wonder at the Englishman’s intense affection and anxious care for the preservation of his family type.

The squire then put out the candles and covered the fire just as he would have done at Annis and while he did so he pondered what Dick had told him and resolved to say nothing at all about it. “Then,” he reflected, “I shall get Katherine’s real opinions about De Burg. Women are so queer, they won’t iver tell you the truth about men unless they believe you don’t care what they think: – and I won’t tell Annie either. Annie would take to warning and watching, and, for anything I know, advising her to be faithful and true to her first love. Such simplicity! Such nonsense!”

Then he went to his room and found Mistress Annis sitting with her feet on the fender, sipping a glass of wine negus, and as she dipped her little strips of dry toast into it, she said, “I am so glad to see thee, Antony. I am too excited to sleep and I wanted a few words with thee and thee only. For three days I hev missed our quiet talks with each other. I heard Dick laughing; what about?”

“I told him I was getting varry anxious about my grandsons, eh?”

Then both laughed and the squire stooped and kissed his wife and in that moment he sat down by her side and frankly told her all he had heard about De Burg. They talked about it for half-an-hour and then the squire went calmly off to sleep without one qualm of conscience for his broken resolution. In fact he assured himself that “he had done right. Katherine’s mother was Katherine’s proper guardian and he was only doing his duty in giving her points that might help her to do her duty.” That reflection was a comfortable one on which to sleep and he took all the rest it gave him.

Madam lay awake worrying about Katherine’s wardrobe. After hearing of her sister’s growing social importance she felt that it should have been attended to before they left Yorkshire. For in those days there were no such things as ready-made suits, and any dress or costume lacking had to be selected from the web, the goods bought, the dressmaker interviewed, and after several other visits for the purpose of “trying-on” the gown might be ready for use. These things troubled Madam. Katherine felt more confidence in her present belongings. “I have half a dozen white frocks with me, mother,” she said, “and nothing could be prettier or richer than my two Dacca muslins. The goods are fine as spider webs, the embroidery on them is nearly priceless, and they are becoming every year more and more scarce. I have different colored silk skirts to wear under them, and sashes and beads, and bows, with which to adorn them.”

There was a little happy pause, then Katherine said, “Let us go and see Aunt Josepha. I have not seen her for six years. I was counting the time as I lay in bed this morning. I was about twelve years old.”

“That is a good idea. We can shop better after we hev hed a talk with her.”

“There, mother! You had two Yorkshireisms in that sentence. Father would laugh at you.”

“Niver mind, when my heart talks, my tongue talks as my heart does, and Yorkshire is my heart’s native tongue. When I talk to thee my tongue easily slips into Yorkshire.”

Then a carriage was summoned, and Madam An-nis and her daughter went to call on Madam Josepha Temple. They had to ride into the city and through St. James Park to a once very fashionable little street leading from the park to the river. Madam Temple could have put a fortune in her pocket for a strip of this land bordering the river, but no money could induce her to sell it. Even the city’s offer had been refused.

“Had not Admiral Temple,” she asked, “found land enough for England, and fought for land enough for England, for his widow to be allowed to keep in peace the strip of land at the foot of the garden he planted and where he had also erected a Watergate so beautiful that it had become one of the sights of London?” And her claim had been politely allowed and she had been assured that it would be respected.

The house itself was not remarkable outwardly. It was only one of those square brick mansions introduced in the Georgian era, full of large square rooms and wide corridors and, in Madam Temple’s case, of numerous cupboards and closets; for in her directions to the Admiral she had said with emphasis:

“Admiral, you may as well live in a canvas tent without a convenience of any kind as in a house without closets for your dresses and mantuas; and cupboards for your china and other things you must have under lock and key:” and the Admiral had seen to the closet and cupboard subject with such strict attention that even his widow sometimes grew testy over their number.

Whatever faults the house might have, the furnishing had been done with great judgment. It was solid and magnificent and only the best tapestries and carpets found a place there. To Madam Temple had been left the choice of silver, china, linen and damask, and the wisdom and good taste of her selection had a kind of official approbation. Artists and silversmiths asked her to permit them to copy the shapes of her old silver and she possessed many pieces of Wedgwood’s finest china of which only a very small number had been made ere the mold was broken.

After the house was finished the Admiral lived but five years and Madam never allowed anything to be changed or renewed. If told that anything was fading or wearing, she replied – “I am fading also, just wearing away. They will last my time.” However the house yet had an air of comfortable antique grandeur and it was a favorite place of resort to all who had had the good fortune to win the favor of the Admiral’s widow.