Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers Part 4

They were not asked to wash or take off their travelling clothes.

Presently a s.l.u.t of a girl appeared with a tray on which there were some ham, a shapeless ma.s.s of b.u.t.ter which looked as if it had been scooped out of a pot, a loaf, a teapot, some cups and saucers, a milk jug, and two plates, with knives and forks. She went to a cupboard, put a black cruet-stand on the table, and as the milk had been spilt over the bread, she took the plate to the fender, emptied it amongst the ashes, and wiped it with her ap.r.o.n. The ap.r.o.n was also used to wipe the b.u.t.ter plate, on which there was an unusually black mark, with lines resembling the imprint of a very big thumb. In about half-an-hour after they had refreshed themselves Uncle Dabb looked in.

"Better be off before it gets dark. Eight o'clock sharp to-morrow morning, Andrew. Sharp's the word. Breakfast before you come. My boy will show you your quarters. Needn't take them unless you like them."

A cab was called, their luggage was put upon it, and they were landed in Nelson Square. The lodgings were three rooms at the back of the house, two of them garrets at the top, and the third a small sitting-room on the ground floor, behind the front parlour. They looked rather dismal, and Miriam inquired whether they could not have front rooms.

"Oh yes, ma'am; but they would come more expensive. Mrs. Dabb told me she didn't think you would like to pay more than thirteen shillings and sixpence a week without extras, which is exceedingly cheap for this part, and the front rooms corresponding would be five-and-twenty shillings."

This settled the question. They had fancied an outlook on a gay promenade, and they had in its place a waste expanse of dirty dull roofs and smoking chimneys. If they looked down below, they saw a series of small courtyards used for the purpose of storing refuse which could not be put in the dustbin--bottles, broken crockery, and odd bits of rusty iron. The first thing was to provide the breakfast for the following morning. This their landlady offered to do for them. The next thing was to go to bed utterly wearied and worn out. They both slept soundly, and both woke much refreshed and full of buoyant hope.

A pleasant and seductive vista lay before them--seductive and pleasant, although they were in Nelson Square, as that which we see in one of Turner's Italian pictures--a temple at the side, a lake in front and beyond it a valley embosomed in woods and mountains, basking in golden light.

They planned the day. Miriam had to lay in her stock of eatables, and of course must call on her aunt. At twenty minutes to eight Andrew started. The way was easy to find, and he was at his uncle's five minutes before his time. The shopmen were already there, and Andrew had rather a rough greeting.

"An't yer brought yer warming-pan with yer, young 'un? You'll find it cool a sittin' still all day long."

Andrew then found out that the desk up aloft was really his appointed post.

"Don't yer be so free, Bill," said the other; "he's the govnor's nevvy.

You'd better mind what you're at, old man, now we've got the nevvy here."

"I suppose you'll be a pardner next week," continued the first with a bow.

The truth was that Mr. Dabb had told his men that he was expecting a nephew "of his missus's," and that "he was took on as a kind of charity like."

Mr. Dabb now appeared.

"Here you are--all right. Sharp's the word--that's my motter. Keep on your coat and hat--you'll want 'em, I can tell you. This isn't a place for coddlin', is it, Bill?" Bill smiled. "You've got to take the money--all ready money here, except a few weeklies. You get a ticket, see as you have the right amount; we keep a duplicate, and so we check you. Things as go in the books you put down. Three-quarters of an hour for your dinner and half-an-hour for tea--not like Cowfold, eh?

You'll see life here--_life_, my boy;" and Mr. Dabb, full of ham, b.u.t.tered toast, and hot coffee, and feeling very well that morning, began to chop with great vigour at the spine of a dead pig suspended by its hind-legs. "Life," he said again--"there isn't such a place in London for life as the Borough; and though I say it, there aren't many more places in the Borough where there's more life than at Dabb's. Now then, mount."

Andrew a.s.sumed his new position. Fortunately for him, he was, like many other youths of his bent, rather quick at arithmetic; Mr. Dabb was not very busy, and whatever his faults may have been, was by no means disposed to be hard upon a beginner. Still the day was insufferably long, and he rejoiced with a foolish extravagance of delight when the hour came for going home. There was nothing exhilarating in the streets through which he raced: there was no certainty of anything particularly pleasant in Nelson Square, and the morrow would inevitably be as to-day. But still he was glad; and as for the morrow, he did not see it.

At three o'clock Miriam called on her aunt. As she pa.s.sed through the shop she saw her brother, but it was full of people, and she could not speak to him. She found Mrs. Babb still in bed with her nerves in disorder; other things were in disorder too, and Miriam particularly wondered at the dishevelled condition of Mrs. Dabb's hair, nightcaps being the custom at Cowfold for all people who were not girls nor boys.

Miriam was not an orderly person, as we know, but Mrs. Dabb's room was a surprise to her. In one corner was an old green sofa, on which clothes were thrown; on the top of the clothes was a tray with some half-eaten bread and b.u.t.ter, a piece of bacon, and some tea things--we will not, however, go any further.

"I am glad you've come, my dear," said Mrs. Dabb, "although I am afraid I shall not be able to see you so often as I could wish, for my health is not good, and when I am better there is so much to be done."

Miriam thought that if this might be true, there was no reason to put it in the forefront of the reception.

"Your brother, I believe, will do very well. It must be a great relief to him to be freed from his mechanical labours in a provincial town, and to find himself in a more extended circle."

Miriam thanked her aunt, and said that she was sure her uncle would be kind.

"Yes, he will be kind; although I should not say that kindness is the one thing prominent in him. In such large commercial undertakings the feelings are not developed. I am often sensible of it. There is no response in your uncle to what is best in me, yet I must not complain.

Perhaps if we had children it might have been different, and yet who knows? Maternal solicitude might have destroyed the sentiment I now possess. But I must not weary myself by talking--I must bid you good-bye. Come again soon."

Miriam rose, ventured to kiss her aunt, and departed.

Three months pa.s.sed, and Miriam and Andrew agreed that there was vegetation in London as well as in Cowfold. They began indeed to think it was even a little greener in Cowfold than in Nelson Square itself.

Miriam had been out for walks--she had been as far as Regent Street; but Regent Street began to lose its charms, especially as she had no companions. Her landlady, Miss Tippit, was a demure little person of about fifty years, but looking rather younger, for her hair was light.

It was always drawn very tightly over her forehead, and with extreme precision under her ears. She invariably wore a very tight-fitting black gown, and as her lips too were somewhat tightly set, she was a very tight Miss Tippit altogether. It was necessary to be so, for beyond an annuity of 20 pounds a year, she had no means of support save letting her lodgings. She was very good, but her goodness appeared to lack spontaneity. It seemed as if she did everything, and even bestowed her rare kisses, under instructions from her conscience, and every tendency to effusiveness was checked as a crime. Yet the truth was that she was naturally kind and even generous, but disbelieving in nature on the whole, she never would sanction any natural instinct unless she could give it the form of duty. She was an unpleasant companion at times, because she often felt bound to "set things right,"

and made suggestions which were resented as interference. When she visited her friends, for she had two or three, she invariably a.s.sumed the reins, and was provocative by reason of her unauthorised admonitions to the servants or remarks upon defective management.

Another odd thing was that Miss Tippit was a Christian. She went to church regularly twice every Sunday, and it was always her parish church. She might have found something to do her more good if she had gone farther afield; but she considered it her duty to go to her own church as she called it. The parson was not eminent, belonged to no school, and said nothing which was specially helpful; but Miss Tippit listened with respect, heard the Bible read, did her best to join in the hymns with her little thin voice, and prayed the church prayers.

She contrived, through what she heard, and what she sang, and what she prayed, not only to provide herself with an explanation which she did not doubt of the here and hereafter--an explanation which would not probably have been secure against Strauss--but she obtained a few principles by which she regulated this present life--principles of extreme importance, which scepticism must admit if the world is not to go to ruin. In the church, too, in the corner against the wall, when the music sounded, or when the voice of the priest was heard asking for the Divine mercy, the heart of Miss Tippit often moved, notwithstanding the compression of her tight black dress, and something seemed to rebel in her throat against her bonnet-strings. What did she think in those sacred moments? Let us not profane her worship with too minute inquiry. Whatever she thought, those emotions were perfectly valid.

She might be snappish, limited, and say ugly things during half the week, but there was something underneath all that which was in communication with the skies. The church was the only mental or spiritual education which Miss Tippit received. Books she never read--she had not time; and if she tried to read one she was instantly seized with a curious fidgetiness--directly she sat down with a volume in her hand it was just as if things went all awry, and compelled her instantly to rise and adjust them. In church all this fidgetiness vanished, and no household cares intruded. It was strange, considering her temper, and how people generally carry their secular world with them wherever they go, but so it was. There was a secret in her history, her friends said, for though they knew nothing of her little bit of private religion, and although she never admitted a soul into the little oratory where the image of her Saviour hung, everybody was aware that there was "a something about her" which took her out of the cla.s.s to which she externally and by much of her ordinary conduct appeared to belong, and of course the theory was an early love disappointment, the only theory which the average human intellect is capable of forming in such cases. It was utterly baseless; and Miss Tippit was touched with this faint touch of supernal grace just because her Maker had so decreed.

Miriam disliked Miss Tippit on account of her primness and old maidishness, and the frequent hints which she gave to keep her room in order. Miriam had picked up an epithet, perhaps from her aunt, perhaps from a book which seemed exactly to describe Miss Tippit--she was "conventional;" and having acquired this epithet, her antipathy to Miss Tippit increased every time she used it. It was really not coin of the realm, but gilded bra.s.s--a forgery; and the language is full of such forgeries, which we continually circulate, and worst of all, pa.s.s off upon ourselves. Thus it happened that although Miss Tippit would have been glad to do Miriam many a service, her offers were treated with, something like disdain, and were instantly withdrawn. The only other lodgers in the house were an old gentleman and his wife on the first floor, whom Miriam never saw, and about whom she knew nothing.

Andrew at last began to feel the wear of London life. When he came home in the evening he suffered from an exhaustion which he never felt in Cowfold. It was not that weariness of the muscles which was a pleasure after a game at cricket or football, but a nervous distress which craved a stimulant. He had confined himself hitherto to a single gla.s.s of beer at supper, but this was not enough, and a gla.s.s of whisky and water afterwards was added to keep company with the pipe. By degrees also he dropped into a public-house as he left Mr. Dabb's for just threepennyworth to support him on his way. Frequently when he went there he met a man of about thirty who also was apparently enjoying a modest threepennyworth to help him home or help him away from it or help him to do something which he could not do without it, and Andrew and he began gradually, under the influence of their threepennyworths, to talk to one another. He was clean shaven, had glossy black hair, a white and somewhat sad face, was particularly neat but rather shabby, and, what at first was a puzzle to Andrew, looked as if he was going to begin work rather than leave it, for his boots were evidently just blacked. He was a music-hall comic singer. His father and mother--fathers and mothers, even the best of them, will do such things--had given him a fairish schooling, but had never troubled themselves to train him for any occupation. They stuck their heads in the sand, believed something would turn up, and trusted in Providence.

Considering the kind and quant.i.ty of trust which is placed in Providence, the most ambitious person would surely not aspire to its high office, and it may be pardoned for having laid down the inflexible rule to ignore without exception the confidence reposed in it. Poor George Montgomery found himself at eighteen without any outlook, although he was a gentleman, and his father was a clergyman. The only appointment he could procure was that of temporary clerk in the War Office during a "scare"--"a merely provisional arrangement," as the Rev. Mr. Montgomery explained, when inquiries were made after George.

The scare pa.s.sed away; the temporary clerks were discharged; the father died; and George, still more unfitted for any ordinary occupation, came down at last, by a path which it is not worth while to trace, to earn a living by delighting a Southwark audience nightly with his fine baritone voice, good enough for a ballad in those lat.i.tudes, and good enough indeed for something much better if it had been properly exercised under a master. He was not downright dissolute, but his experience with his father, who was weak and silly, had given him a distaste for what he called religion; and he was loose, as might be expected. Still, he was not so loose as to have lost his finer instincts altogether, for he had some. He read a good deal, mostly fiction, played the organ, and actually conducted the musical part of a service every Sunday, heathen as he was. His vagrant life of excitement begot in him a love of liquor, which he took merely to quiet him, but unfortunately the dose required strengthening every now and then. He was mostly in debt; prided himself on not dishonouring virtuous women--a boast, nevertheless, not entirely justifiable; and through his profession had acquired a slightly histrionic manner, especially when he was reciting, an art in which he was accomplished.

He found out that Andrew had a sister, and he gave him a couple of tickets for an entertainment which had been got up by some well-meaning people to draw the poor to his church. They were tickets for the respectable end of the schoolroom, and Andrew having obtained permission to leave an hour earlier, took Miriam in her very best dress, and with one or two little additional and specially purchased articles of finery. It never entered Mr. Montgomery's head to invite even Andrew to the music hall. He was ashamed of it, and he saw that Andrew was not exactly the person to be taken there. Mr. Montgomery had two cla.s.ses of songs, both of which found favour with his ordinary nightly audience. One was coa.r.s.e, and the other sentimental.

Of the coa.r.s.e, his always applauded "Hampstead-Heath Donkey and what he thought of his Customers" might be taken as a sample, but there was just as vigorous clapping when he produced his "Sackmaker's Dream," and this he now sang. Miriam was much affected by it, and dwelt upon it as the three--the singer, Andrew, and herself--walked home to their lodgings whither Mr. Montgomery had been invited to supper.

"Did you write the Sackmaker's Dream yourself?" she asked, as they went along.

"Yes; just by way of a change. It does not pay to sing nothing but comic stuff."

"It is very pathetic. Is it true?"

"Oh, I don't quite know. Founded on fact, as they say, dressed up a bit by the author," and Mr. Montgomery laughed.

"But how did you ever hear of such a thing?"

"Oh, I've heard a good many strange things since I've been knocking about town."

"Then you had some particular person in your eye when you were composing it?"

"Yes, partly, but not much of her," and Mr. Montgomery laughed again.

"How much?"

"How inquisitive you are. Well, to tell you the truth, no more than this, that one night I saw one of these women coming out of a sack factory. She looked awfully wretched, and I made up all the rest."

Miriam was much astonished. She was actually in company with an author, and with one who could invent scenes, descriptions, and characters like those in the novels of which she was now so fond. Mr.

Montgomery was a marvel to her. He, too, was somewhat struck with Miriam; with her beauty, and with a certain freshness in her observations; but a man who had lived as he had lived in London is not likely to admire any woman with much fervour, and indeed the incapacity for genuine admiration of women is one of the strongest arguments against such a life.

They had their supper, and after supper some whisky was produced, and Andrew and Montgomery smoked.

"Talking about sackmakers," said Montgomery, "I can tell you a true story of one, quite true, every word of it. I knew a fellow who had been awfully wild when he was young, but he was converted, as they call it, and turned city missionary. He came to know in this way one of these sackmaking women. She was above the usual run, well-behaved, and very good-looking. He fell desperately in love with her, and she with him, but he always thought she held back a little. At last she told him she had lived with a man, and that he had left her. The missionary said he did not care, and would marry her, but she refused. She was bound, she said, and nothing could get that notion out of her head.

The missionary was in despair; he was trained for foreign service, and went to India. There he married, well enough, I was told, and was happy; but the sackmaker was never forgotten. He became the minister of a big chapel in Calcutta, but he always somehow, through somebody in London, managed to find out what the girl was doing. When he was forty-five, his wife died. They had no children, and he came back to England. One fine morning he knocked at his old friend's door. You may imagine their meeting! The man with whom she had lived was dead.

The missionary and she were married. He gave up his preaching; he had saved up a bit of money, and took his wife and himself off to America.

What do you think of her, Andrew?"

Andrew's notions on social and moral questions were what are commonly called "views." They were not thoughts, and furthermore they were "average views." Having had some whisky, his views were very average--that is to say, precisely what is usual and customary. "I suppose it was the best thing he could do," he somewhat sleepily replied.

"The best thing he could do!" retorted Miriam, with much scorn. "I would have worn that woman like a jewel, if I had been her husband. He ought never to have married his first wife."