Charles Palliser (20 page)

“I don’t think you’re doing the right thing, ma’am,” protested Bissett, but seeing that my mother was resolved, she opened the door and stood back.

In came a woman dressed in a long ragged gown with a woollen shawl over her shoulders which was covered in snow. As she entered, blinking in the sudden light, she staggered slightly. Her drawn face was pale as ashes and I could see why a sudden glimpse of it had so alarmed Sukey. Though she was far from slender, the flesh seemed to hang loosely upon her face. After her came a boy who seemed by his size to be a year or two younger than I and was wearing a long, torn great-coat that hung loosely upon his slight frame.

“Oh, the poor things,” said my mother, and she led them both to chairs onto which they collapsed.

They leaned back and closed their eyes, and I saw that they were both shivering. The woman’s face was lined and careworn, and her hair had streaks of grey, so that she seemed very much older than my mother.

“The little feller seems nigh past it,” said Sukey who had timidly come forward.

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My mother began to chafe the woman’s hands between her own and Sukey did the same for the boy.

“Warm up some broth, please,” my mother said to Bissett.

Disapprovingly, Bissett set about doing so, first stirring the fire which had been banked up for the evening.

“What’s wrong with the boy?” I asked Sukey in a whisper, for he seemed to have fainted away.

“Near starved wi’ cold, Master Johnnie. And his mither, too. Look at them thin clothes. Nobbut rags.”

The woman opened her eyes and looked around her in a dazed manner. When she saw the boy she seized his hands from Sukey and began to rub them vigorously. At last he opened his eyes. The woman began to sob and catching hold of my mother’s hand she carried it to her lips and kissed it: “Oh thank you, thank you, ma’am. You’ve saved us, so you have.”

My mother gently removed her hand and said kindly: “Can you eat now? I think you should.”

Sukey brought over a bowl of the broth that Bissett had heated up, and the woman began to spoon it into the mouth of the boy. Only when he had swallowed enough did she begin to help herself. “I’m beholden to you, ma’am,” she began. “I don’t know what mightn’t have happened to me and Joey if you hadn’t sarved us.”

The food and the warmth revived them. I now saw that the boy was a handsome lad with large brown eyes and a nose that turned up a little at the end. Yet his face had a somewhat watchful, suspicious expression as if he could not quite believe that we meant him no harm.

My mother said: “I know by your speech you’re from London. What are you doing so far from home? And out in such weather clad like this?” The woman closed her eyes and my mother said: “Leave it till tomorrow. You’re too tired now.”

“No, ma’am, I’ll try to make it clear, only my head’s in such a whirl. We’ve been working in Stoniton.” (This is what I shall call the manufacturing town some twenty miles to the north which she named.) “When we come down here, my goodman was took on at the big house in the next village, but there wasn’t no work for Joey and me so we had gone on there to look for a place. Well, we found work of a sort. Then two days back we had word by the carrier that my George had heard some bad tidings and gone back to Town sudden. So we left as soon as we could and come down yesterday morning from Stoniton.”

“Good heavens!” my mother exclaimed. “Did you come so far in this weather in one day! How did you travel?”

“Mostly on foot, ma’am, but we got a ride of about five mile of a good man driving a waggon. The worst of it was what we found waiting for us when we got back to the great house. The reason my man returned so sudden to Town …” Here her voice trembled and I thought she was going to begin weeping. But she mastered herself and went on:

“He’d had word that the other children … are sick of the Irish fever. We’ve three others, you see. So I’ve got to get back as quick as I can.”

“Of course, of course,” my mother murmured. “But even so, was it wise to continue your journey in the snow?”

“The old lady at the big house wouldn’t let us stay, on account of my husband had throwed up his work so sudden, though the young lady there — governess I 88

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believe they call her — tried to persuade her to. We were so cold and hungry that we tried more than a few houses in the village, but they all said they couldn’t do nothin’ for us. So we had no choice but to keep on walking. When we come to the turnpike-road up yonder, I was for walking along it to the next big town, but Joey said we should come into Melthorpe and we’d be sure to find kind people here. Joey pulled me along when I wanted to lay down and die. Like I said, ma’am, we walked all through the village without stopping anywheres, for Joey said he would know which house would be best to stop at as soon as he seen it. So we come to this one. I call it providence, ma’am. There ain’t no other word for it.”

“No, indeed,” cried my mother, clapping her hands together. She smiled at the boy who, I thought, scowled slightly. “And what made you try this house?” she asked him.

“Dunno,” he said, looking away.

“Well, I’m very glad you did,” she said.

“It’s getting late,” said Bissett. “You’ll want to be on your way.”

“Of course not,” my mother exclaimed. “They cannot think of going out again tonight.”

“We can stay?” the woman asked.

“Why, of course. But Sukey, it is late. You must go or Mr Passant will have gone to meet the mail and this letter will miss the last post before Christmas.”

“If they must stay, then let them sleep in one of the outhouses,” Bissett whispered to my mother quite audibly.

“Certainly not. They need warmth and comfort. We must make up a proper bed for them. This is the warmest room in the house, so it shall be in here.”

“They’ll dirty the linen,” Bissett hissed.

“No matter,” said my mother.

“You’re too soft, ma’am,” said Bissett indignantly. “I would not suffer them to lie in my beds. Who knows what varmin and nastiness they have broughten with them? To be sure, if they must stay here they may lay upon the floor. You’re too careless of your good things. Those sheets cost good money that will be thrown away.”

Yet although Bissett grumbled she set about her duties once she saw that my mother was determined, and with Sukey’s assistance a mattress and bedclothes were conveyed into the kitchen and arranged in front of the fire. Then Sukey was given the money for the postage and set off home muffled up against the snow and carrying the letter.

Something woke me in the middle of the night. Unsure whether it was my dream or a noise from outside, I lay awake straining to catch any sounds but hearing nothing. Then I remembered our visiters and, wondering if they were all right, I got up and, cold as it was in my night-shirt, went along the passage groping my way in the dark since I had no light. When I reached the door to my mother’s room, which was ajar, I heard her breathing in her sleep. I smelt burning as if a taper had been recently extinguished there, and at that moment I thought I heard a faint noise from below. I crept down the stairs, still in complete darkness, and looked round the kitchen door. In the dim reddish glow of the fire I saw the large form of the woman stretched out on a palliasse before the hearth. But the mattress beside her was empty! I felt my way towards the front of the house and as I entered the hall I saw a faint glow SPECULATIONS

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from the open door of the parlour. Very cautiously I advanced towards it and looked round the edge of the door.

The light came from a rush that the boy was holding. He was standing by my mother’s escritoire and appeared to be running his free hand over the lid and around its sides.

“What are you doing?”

He jumped and as I entered the room presented to me a face of horror: “I wasn’t doin’

nothin’! I was jist lookin’.”

“I could see that. But why?”

“ ’Cause I ain’t nivver seen sich prime stuff. Look at this wood. It’s rare.”

I felt proud to own such things and think nothing of it. “But why did you go into my mother’s room?”

“I nivver done. I haven’t been upstairs.”

“That’s strange, for I smelled a rush on the landing.”

“Well, now that I rec’lleck, I did go jist a little way up them stairs. But I didn’t go into no room.”

“You are silly to come in here in the dark, you know. I could have shewn you everything in the morning.”

He looked at me oddly for a moment and then said: “I nivver thought of that. See, I meant no harm. Don’t tell nobody, will you?”

“Of course not. What is there to tell?”

So, rather puzzled, I returned to my bed while Joey went back to the kitchen.

The next morning I was awoken by Bissett’s brisk: “Good morning, Master Johnnie.”

“Good morning, Bissett,” I said sleepily. “How are they?”

“They’re in the kitchen and eating as big a breakfast as if there’d nivver been nothin’

amiss with them,” she replied dourly as she drew back the curtains. There was thick hoar-ice on the windows that had made frost-flowers, and the light that streamed in had a peculiarly pale brilliance. “Ah,” she said, “just look at that.”

I jumped out of bed and ran over to the window. The light was reflected from the surface of the silent, snow-encumbered landscape. In the distance I heard the sounds of horns that boys always blew on Christmas morning.

“Oh isn’t that lovely!” I exclaimed.

“Well,” said Bissett with a kind of grim pleasure, “there’ll not be much visiting this Christmas for them as likes to go gadding about upon the Lord’s holy day.”

After breakfast my mother and I went into the kitchen where we found the woman and the boy seated in front of the fire and drinking from big mugs of tea. By the efforts of my mother and with the assistance (unwilling, I believe) of Bissett, a complete new wardrobe had been found for both of them. Several of my clothes had been given to the boy, including a pair of stout walking-shoes. Now rested and in their new clothes they presented a much rosier picture than on the day before. A little colour had returned to their faces though they were still pale and hollow-cheeked. Since the boy was so much slighter than I, my clothes hung somewhat loosely on him, though as they were mainly garments I

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had outgrown, the fit was not too bad. He looked as gloomy as before although his pallor was better.

“Will you tell me your story?” my mother asked.

“Are you sartin you wants to hear it, ma’am?” she said and glanced towards myself.

“I am very curious to do so.”

“Very well,” she said thoughtfully. And so when my mother and I had made ourselves comfortable in two of the other chairs, and the strangers’ mugs of tea had been replenished, she began: “Well, it’s long tale, ma’am, but one that’s little like to interest you to hear minced too fine, for it is a common enough one, pity only knows. Our name is Digweed and we live in Cox’s-square, Spitalfields. My George, the father of that boy, is a time-sarved mason by trade. And a skilled j’iner, too. And don’t hardly take a drop when he’s working. Seen the damage of it in his own dad, he says. And then there’s the young ’uns: Joey here and then his sister, Polly, who is a wonderful child for all she’s only going on ten. Many’s the time she’s saved us from starvation, or the work’us, or nussed us through sickness. Then there’s the other boy, Billy, who’s only seven and a fine lad. And there’s Sally, too, the eldest.” I noticed that her right hand clasped and unclasped as she spoke these words. Then she went on quickly: “Well, until three or four years back we’d been making a dacent living for my George was a paid-up member of his S’iety and respected by his fellows and trusted by the little masters who gived him a deal o’ work. Then the slack time started and George didn’t get no more work. We were all right at fust, though we saw trouble coming to others. At fust, he worked in the dishonourable part of the trade — though he nivver gived short measure. But he was working under the book-price and somehow the S’iety larned this and struck him off.

Arter that the only work he could get was for that new gas-company in Horseferry-road.

He was doing the brick-lining and it was very hot and none too safe, and the wages was mortal low. Why, bless you, we was poor as rats. Well, we was just about making do when our fortins took a turn for the worse. There was some trouble at work and my George was hurt. His arms and leg and his face. He was in the ’Spital for four months and then couldn’t work for another year. Things wasn’t good for the gas wouldn’t do nothin’ for us at fust but then at last they gived us some money as a set-off. But then on account of his arm, George couldn’t get work of no kind at all. It was about this time —

Christmas three year ago — that … a sartin indiwiddle come to us.” Her face darkened.

“Well, he was wery friendly. I reckon he’d heard that George had that money. Mind, I don’t say he meant to do us harm. Mebbe the worst thing he done was he took that boy to live with him to save us another mouth to feed. Joey ain’t nivver been the same boy since, though he wouldn’t nivver tell his dad nor me nothin’ about that time.”

I glanced curiously at Joey who hung down his head guiltily.

“Anyways, what this person done was, he purwailed upon George to set up as a small master himself since the S’iety wouldn’t let him work no more for the honourable masters and to come in with him on a contract to take a lease and build a house in the marsh-lands out beyond Westminster. (That’s the reg’lar way of doing things.) For with the set-off from the gas, we had just enough to do it. Some of the other small masters took on two or three houses but George and his partner only took on one between the two on ’em, though it was a big ’un for they were meant to be fine houses for the gentry.

So they had to

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pay the plaisterers and other j’iners themselves. And all the money went into that. And more, for this indiwiddle didn’t have no blunt at all. We had to feed ourselves and, worst of all, to buy all the building-stuff. And George wouldn’t use nothin’ but the best stock brick, and he had noises with his partner over that. And also on account of how this indiwiddle didn’t do none of the work as he’d promised, but spent all his time drinking with other tradesmen and trying to purwail upon ’em to take up contracts, too. Well, next thing is, arter about six months he says he wants to pull out. And so George bought out his share — oh, it was a fair price but it was more money than we’d bargained for at the start. And so as time went on we pawned almost everything we owned — our few sticks, clothes, bedding, cups and plates — everything save a few clothes and the tools he needed. But we had to raise more money somehow. Well, the pawnbrokers what we’d pledged everything to was willing to lend us money, but at a terrible rate of interest. You wouldn’t know nothin’ about it, ma’am, but there are wicked men in Town what feeds on poor people like us.”