A Life's Secret Part 33

'Things seem to be getting pretty low with us all. I wish there could be a change,' continued Mary.

'How can there be, while the masters and the Unions are at loggerheads?'

he asked. 'Us men be between the two, and between the two we come to the ground. It's like sitting on two stools at once.'

Mary proceeded to the shop where jelly was sold, an oilman's, bought a sixpenny pot, and took it back to Mrs. Darby's, handing it in at the door. 'Why did you do it, Mary? You cannot afford it.'

'Yes, I can. Give it to w.i.l.l.y, with my love.'

'He will only be out of a world of care, if G.o.d does take him,' sighed Mary to herself, as she bent her steps homeward. 'Oh, father!' she continued aloud, encountering John Baxendale at their own gate, 'I wish this sad state of things could be ended. There's the poor little Darbys worse instead of better. They are all lying in one room, down with fever.'

'G.o.d help us if fever should come!' was the reply of John Baxendale.

'It is not catching fever yet. They have given up their top chambers, and are all sleeping in that back room. Poor Willie craved for a bit of jelly, and Mrs. Darby could not get it him.'

'Better crave for that than for worse things,' returned John Baxendale.

'I am just a walking about here, because I can't bear to stop indoors. I _can't_ pay the rent, and the things must go.'

'No, father, they need not. He said if you would get up two pounds towards it, he would give time for the rest. If----'

'Two pounds!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed John Baxendale, 'where am I to get two pounds from? Borrow of them that have been provident, and so are better off, in this distress, than me? No, that I never will.'

Mary opened her hand, and displayed two sovereigns held in its palm.

They sparkled in the gaslight. 'The money is my own, father. Take it.' A sudden revulsion of feeling came over Baxendale--he seemed to have pa.s.sed from despair to hope.--'Child,' he gently said, 'did an angel send it?' And Mary, worn with weakness, with long-continued insufficient food, sad with the distress around her, burst into tears, and, bending her head upon his arm, sobbed aloud.

CHAPTER III.

'I THINK I HAVE BEEN A FOOL.'

The Shucks had got a supper party. On this same Sat.u.r.day night, when the wind was blowing outside, and the rain was making the streets into pools, two or three friends had dropped into Sam Shuck's--idlers like Sam himself--and were hospitably invited to remain. Mrs. Shuck was beginning to fry the liver and bacon she had just brought in, with the accompaniment of a good peck of onions, and Sam and his friends were staying their appet.i.tes with pipes and porter. When Mary Baxendale and her father entered--Mary having lingered a minute outside, until her emotion had pa.s.sed, and her eyes were dry--they could scarcely find their way across the kitchen, what with the clouds from the pipes, and the smoke from the frying-pan. There was a great deal of laughter going on. Prosperity had not yet caused the Shucks to change their residence for a better one. Perhaps that was to come: but Sam's natural improvidence stood in the way of much change.

'You are merry to-night,' observed Mary, by way of being sociable.

'It's merrier inside nor out, a-wading through the puddles and the sharp rain,' replied Mrs. Shuck, without turning round from her employment.

'It's some'at new to see you out such a night as this, Mary Baxendale!

Don't you talk about folks wanting sense again.'

'I don't know that I ever do talk of it,' was the inoffensive reply of Mary, as she followed her father up the stairs.

Mrs. Baxendale was hushing a baby when they entered their room. She looked very cross. The best-tempered will do so, under the long-continued embarra.s.sment of empty purses and empty stomachs. 'Who has been spreading it up and down the place that _we_ are in trouble about the rent?' she abruptly demanded, in no pleasant voice. 'That girl of Ryan's was here just now--Judy. She knew it, it seems, and she didn't forget to speak of it. Mary, what a simpleton you are, to be out in this rain!'

'Never mind who speaks of the rent, Mrs. Baxendale, so long as it can be paid,' said Mary, sitting down in the first chair to get her breath up, after mounting the stairs. 'Father is going to manage it, so that we shan't have any trouble at present. It's all right.'

'However have you contrived it?' demanded Mrs. Baxendale of her husband, in a changed tone.

'Mary has contrived it--not I. She has just put two pounds into my hand.

Where did you get it, child?'--'It does not signify your knowing that, father.'

'If I don't know it, I shan't use the money,' he answered, shortly.--'Why, surely, father, you can trust me!' she rejoined.

'That is not it, Mary,' said John Baxendale. 'I don't like to use borrowed money, unless I know who it has been borrowed from.'

'It was not borrowed, in your sense of the word, father. I have only done what you and Mrs. Baxendale have been doing lately. I pledged that set of coral ornaments of my mother's. Had you forgotten them?'

'Why, yes, I had forgot 'em,' cried he. 'Coral ornaments! I declare they had as much slipped my memory, as if she had never possessed them.'

'c.o.x would only lend me two pounds upon them. Father, I hope I shall some time get them redeemed.' John Baxendale made no reply. He turned to pace the small room, evidently in deep thought. Mary, her poor short breath gathered again, took off her wet cloak and bonnet. Presently, Mrs. Baxendale put the loaf upon the table, and some cold potatoes.

'Couldn't you have brought in a sausage or two for yourself, Mary, or a red herring?' she said. 'You had got a shilling in your pocket.'

'I can eat a potato,' said Mary; 'it don't much matter about me.'

'It matters about us all, I think,' cried Mrs. Baxendale. 'What a delicious smell of onions!' she added in a parenthesis. 'Them Shucks have got the luck of it just now. Us, and the children, and you, are three parts starved--I know that, Mary. _We_ may weather it--it's to be hoped we shall; but it will just kill you.'

'No, it shan't,' said John Baxendale, turning to them with a strangely stern decision marked upon his countenance. 'This night has decided me, and I'll go and do it.'

'Go and do what?' exclaimed his wife, a sort of fear in her tone.

'I'll go to WORK, please G.o.d, Monday morning comes,' he said, with emphasis. 'The thought has been hovering in my mind this week past.'

'It's just the thing you ought to have done weeks ago,' observed Mrs.

Baxendale.

'You never said it.'--'Not I. It's best to let men come to their senses of their own accord. You mostly act by the rules of contrary, you men; if I had advised your going to work next Monday morning, you'd just have stopped away.'

Pa.s.sing over this conjugal compliment in silence, John Baxendale descended the stairs. He possessed a large share of the open honesty of the genuine English workman. He disdained to do things in a corner. It would not suit him to return to work the coming Monday morning on what might be called 'the sly;' he preferred to act openly, and to declare it to the Trades' Union previously, in the person of their paid agent, Sam Shuck. This he would do at once, and for that purpose entered the kitchen. The first instalment of the supper was just served: which was accomplished by means of a tin dish placed on the table, and the contents of the frying-pan being turned unceremoniously into it. Sam and the company deemed the liver and bacon were best served hot and hot, so they set themselves to eat, while Mrs. Shuck continued to fry.

'I have got just a word to say, Shuck; I shan't disturb you,' began John Baxendale. But Shuck interrupted him.

'It's of no use, Baxendale, your remonstrating about the short allowance. Think of the many mouths there is to feed. It's hard times, we all know, thanks to the masters; but our duty, ay, and our pride too, must lie in putting up with them, like men.'

'It's not very hard times with you, at any rate,' said John Baxendale, sniffing involuntarily the savoury odour, and watching the tempting morsels consumed. 'My business here is not to remonstrate at anything, but to inform you that I shall resume work on Monday.'

The announcement took Sam by surprise. He dropped the knife with which he was cutting the liver, held upon his bread--for the repast was not served fashionably, with a full complement of plates and dishes--and stared at Baxendale--'What!' he uttered.

'I have had enough of it. I shall go back on Monday morning.'

'Are you a fool, Baxendale? Or a knave?'

'Sometimes I think I must be a fool,' was the reply, given without irritation. 'Leastways, I have wondered lately whether I am or not: when there has been full work and full wages to be had for the asking, and I have not asked, but have let my wife and children and Mary go down to starvation point.'

'You have been holding out for principle,' remonstrated Sam.

'I know; and principle is a very good thing when you are sure it's the right principle. But flesh and blood can't stand out for ever.'