Esther Waters Part 30

He was then a little baby and it didn't matter; we was only there a few months. There's no one that knows of it but me. But he's a growing boy now, he'll remember the workhouse, and it will be always a disgrace."

"How old is he?"

"He was six last May, miss. It has been a hard job to bring him up. I now pay six shillings a week for him, that's more than fourteen pounds a year, and you can't do much in the way of clothes on two pounds a year. And now that he's growing up he's costing more than ever; but Mrs. Lewis--that's the woman what has brought him up--is as fond of him as I am myself. She don't want to make nothing out of his keep, and that's how I've managed up to the present. But I see well enough that it can't be done; his expense increases, and the wages remains the same. It was my pride to bring him up on my earnings, and my hope to see him an honest man earning good money.

But it wasn't to be, miss, it wasn't to be. We must be humble and go back to the workhouse."

"I can see that it has been a hard fight."

"It has indeed, miss; no one will ever know how hard. I shouldn't mind if it wasn't going to end by going back to where it started.... They'll take him from me; I shall never see him while he is there. I wish I was dead, miss, I can't bear my trouble no longer."

"You shan't go back to the workhouse so long as I can help you. Esther, I'll give you the wages you ask for. It is more than I can afford.

Eighteen pounds a year! But your child shall not be taken from you. You shall not go to the workhouse. There aren't many such good women in the world as you, Esther."

XXIII

From the first Miss Rice was interested in her servant, and encouraged her confidences. But it was some time before either was able to put aside her natural reserve. They were not unlike--quiet, instinctive Englishwomen, strong, warm natures, under an appearance of formality and reserve.

The instincts of the watch-dog soon began to develop in Esther, and she extended her supervision over all the household expenses, likewise over her mistress's health.

"Now, miss, I must 'ave you take your soup while it is 'ot. You'd better put away your writing; you've been at it all the morning. You'll make yourself ill, and then I shall have the nursing of you." If Miss Rice were going out in the evening she would find herself stopped in the pa.s.sage.

"Now, miss, I really can't see you go out like that; you'll catch your death of cold. You must put on your warm cloak."

Miss Rice's friends were princ.i.p.ally middle-aged ladies. Her sisters, large, stout women, used to come and see her, and there was a fashionably-dressed young man whom her mistress seemed to like very much.

Mr. Alden was his name, and Miss Rice told Esther that he, too, wrote novels; they used to talk about each other's books for hours, and Esther feared that Miss Rice was giving her heart away to one who did not care for her. But perhaps she was satisfied to see Mr. Alden once a week and talk for an hour with him about books. Esther didn't think she'd care, if she had a young man, to see him come and go like a shadow. But she hadn't a young man, and did not want one. All she now wanted was to awake in the morning and know that her child was safe; her ambition was to make her mistress's life comfortable. And for more than a year she pursued her plan of life unswervingly. She declined an offer of marriage, and was rarely persuaded into a promise to walk out with any of her admirers. One of these was a stationer's foreman, and almost every day Esther went to the stationer's for the sermon paper on which her mistress wrote her novels, for blotting-paper, for stamps, to post letters--that shop seemed the centre of their lives.

Fred Parsons--that was his name--was a meagre little man about thirty-five. A high and prominent forehead rose above a small pointed face, and a scanty growth of blonde beard and moustache did not conceal the receding chin nor the red sealing-wax lips. His faded yellow hair was beginning to grow thin, and his threadbare frock-coat hung limp from sloping shoulders. But these disadvantages were compensated by a clear bell-like voice, into which no trace of doubt ever seemed to come; and his mind was neatly packed with a few religious and political ideas. He had been in business in the West End, but an uncontrollable desire to ask every customer who entered into conversation with him if he were sure that he believed in the second coming of Christ had been the cause of severance between him and his employers.

He had been at West Kensington a fortnight, had served Esther once with sermon paper, and had already begun to wonder what were her religious beliefs. But bearing in mind his recent dismissal, he refrained for the present. At the end of the week they were alone in the shop. Esther had come for a packet of note-paper. Fred was sorry she had not come for sermon paper; if she had it would have been easier to inquire her opinions regarding the second coming. But the opportunity, such as it was, was not to be resisted. He said--

"Your mistress seems to use a great deal of paper; it was only a day or two ago that I served you with four quires."

"That was for her books; what she now wants is note-paper."

"So your mistress writes books!"

"Yes."

"I hope they're good books--books that are helpful." He paused to see that no one was within earshot. "Books that bring sinners back to the Lord."

"I don't know what she writes; I only know she writes books; I think I've heard she writes novels."

Fred did not approve of novels--Esther could see that--and she was sorry; for he seemed a nice, clear-spoken young man, and she would have liked to tell him that her mistress was the last person who would write anything that could do harm to anyone. But her mistress was waiting for her paper, and she took leave of him hastily. The next time they met was in the evening. She was going to see if she could get some fresh eggs for her mistress's breakfast before the shops closed, and coming towards her, walking at a great pace, she saw one whom she thought she recognised, a meagre little man with long reddish hair curling under the brim of a large soft black hat. He nodded, smiling pleasantly as he pa.s.sed her.

"Lor'," she thought, "I didn't know him; it's the stationer's foreman."

And the very next evening they met in the same street; she was out for a little walk, he was hurrying to catch his train. They stopped to pa.s.s the time of day, and three days after they met at the same time, and as nearly as possible at the same place.

"We're always meeting," he said.

"Yes, isn't it strange?... You come this way from business?" she said.

"Yes; about eight o'clock is my time."

It was the end of August; the stars caught fire slowly in the murky London sunset; and, vaguely conscious of a feeling of surprise at the pleasure they took in each other's company, they wandered round a little bleak square in which a few shrubs had just been planted. They took up the conversation exactly at the point where it had been broken off.

"I'm sorry," Fred said, "that the paper isn't going to be put to better use."

"You don't know my mistress, or you wouldn't say that."

"Perhaps you don't know that novels are very often stories about the loves of men for other men's wives. Such books can serve no good purpose."

"I'm sure my mistress don't write about such things. How could she, poor dear innocent lamb? It is easy to see you don't know her."

In the course of their argument it transpired that Miss Rice went to neither church nor chapel.

Fred was much shocked.

"I hope," he said, "you do not follow your mistress's example."

Esther admitted she had for some time past neglected her religion. Fred went so far as to suggest that she ought to leave her present situation and enter a truly religious family.

"I owe her too much ever to think of leaving her. And it has nothing to do with her if I haven't thought as much about the Lord as I ought to have.

It's the first place I've been in where there was time for religion."

This answer seemed to satisfy Fred.

"Where used you to go?"

"My people--father and mother--belonged to the Brethren."

"To the Close or the Open?"

"I don't remember; I was only a little child at the time."

"I'm a Plymouth Brother."

"Well, that is strange."

"Remember that it is only through belief in our Lord, in the sacrifice of the Cross, that we can be saved."

"Yes, I believe that."

The avowal seemed to have brought them strangely near to each other, and on the following Sunday Fred took Esther to meeting, and introduced her as one who had strayed, but who had never ceased to be one of them.

She had not been to meeting since she was a little child; and the bare room and bare dogma, in such immediate accordance with her own nature--were they not a.s.sociated with memories of home, of father and mother, of all that had gone?--touched her with a human delight that seemed to reach to the roots of her nature. It was Fred who preached; and he spoke of the second coming of Christ, when the faithful would be carried away in clouds of glory, of the rapine and carnage to which the world would be delivered up before final absorption in everlasting h.e.l.l; and a sensation of dreadful awe pa.s.sed over the listening faces; a young girl who sat with closed eyes put out her hand to a.s.sure herself that Esther was still there--that she had not been carried away in glory.