by Ellen Wood
“How ill you must have been!” said Mrs. Philip, with sympathy.
“Oh, awful — dreadful! I remember some of ’em did run for some gin, frightened, maybe, lest I should be dying, and they drenched me with it. It must be the remains of that, forgotten, all this while, in my closet. Oh yes, I can scent it here,” added Glisson, sniffing, “sure enough it’s gin — nasty smelling stuff! I’ll see to it when you are gone, ma’am.”
“Good-by,” whispered Mrs. Philip to the child: and then Glisson told what mischief he had nearly caused.
“You very treacherous little marplot!” laughed Mrs. Philip, as she gave him a shower of silent kisses. “Good-by, nurse; good-by, Jessy.” And, with a light foot, she tripped along the corridor and down the stairs, and escaped, unseen by its new mistress, from Danesbury House.
CHAPTER V.
EVILS.
Certain changes, in course of time, took place at Danesbury House. Few persons could be less alike than the late Miss St. George and the present Mrs. Danesbury: they were as two separate and distinct women, especially in the matter of temper, and Mr. Danesbury could not fail to observe that they were. The servants experienced it to their cost, and Isabel also, to hers.
Isabel and her new mamma did not certainly get on well together, and yet Isabel was a sweet-tempered child, remarkably lady-like and graceful. Glisson spoke out openly, and in the hearing of her master: “It was Mrs. Danesbury’s fractiousness.” Mr. Danesbury knew that his wife was in delicate health, and he believed that must be the reason of her being so cross and irritable; but so far as Isabel was concerned, he speedily set about a remedy. A gentlewoman of superior mind and manners was taken into the house as her governess, and he gave the little girl into her companionship and charge. “It will be less trouble for you,” was the excuse he offered to his wife. Mrs. Danesbury seemed inclined to rebel: she did not want a governess in the house, she said; Isabel might be sent to a first-class school: but Mr. Danesbury was perfectly firm upon the point, and his wife saw that he was, and submitted. Arthur was away at school, having been placed out in the spring: strictly speaking, it could not, however, be called a school: a clergyman received half a dozen select pupils, and Arthur made one. Mr. Danesbury was one of those wise-judging fathers, who deem no money wasted that is spent upon education.
With the coming winter, a boy was born to the second Mrs. Danesbury. It was named Robert, and Glisson was constituted its nurse, the care of little Master William being turned over to Jessy. But before this could be effected, Glisson and her mistress nearly came to a battle royal. In the first place, Glisson, though ready and willing enough to take to an infant of Mr. Danesbury, had an insuperable objection to be charged with any child of Mrs. Danesbury; and, secondly, she vowed and protested that she would not give up William. But Glisson, like her betters, found her-self obliged to yield to circumstances. She was at liberty to remain in the house and attend to William, if she pleased, but not as head nurse, for whoever took charge of the infant must fill that post. Of course, for Glisson to remain in the Danesbury nursery, and not be its head, was out of the question; therefore, with much outward crustiness and inward heart-burning, she did at length consent to make the change. All this unpleasantness — and in Glisson’s opinion it had been nothing but unpleasantness for the past year — did not tend to improve Glisson’s patience, nor yet her self-restraint.
One evening when spring was drawing on, and the infant was three or four months old, Mr. Danesbury being absent on a journey, Mrs. Danesbury retired to her room early, not feeling well. She heard the baby cry an unusual length of time, so, throwing on a shawl, for she was partially undressed, she proceeded to the night nursery. There sat Glisson, fast asleep. Mrs. Danesbury took up her struggling, crying child, and turned to the nurse.
“Glisson!”
Glisson took no notice.
“Glisson! what is the matter with you? How dare you sleep like this, when the child’s screaming? He might have been choked.”
She shook the woman roughly by the arm, and Glisson opened her eyes. Alas! she had been taking something which rendered it difficult to’ awake readily from her state of stupidity. Mrs. Danesbury stood confounded: and in the same moment she became conscious of a strong smell of gin, and saw an empty glass and spoon on the floor.
Glisson rose up from her seat, staggered, and sank down in it again. Mrs. Danesbury rang the bell violently, and Jessy came running up.
“Jessy,” cried her mistress, “do you see this woman? She has been drinking. She is drunk.”
Jessy made some incoherent reply. She was aware that Glisson, though horror-struck and repentant at the time of her late mistress’s death, had afterward recommenced her habit of drinking gin. But Jessy did not consider that it was her place to betray her, especially as Glisson, so far as Jessy saw, never took sufficient to render her incapable of her duties. Mrs. Danesbury, giving the infant into Jessy’s hands, proceeded to rummage the room, and found the gin bottle. Her passion rose with the sight.
“What am I to do with you, you wicked, drunken woman?”
“No more drunk than you, ma’am,” hiccuped Glisson — who was just well enough to be abusive. “Who says I’m drunk?”
“Jessy,” cried Mrs. Danesbury, “did you see her drinking it?”
“I saw her drink her ale at supper,” replied Jessy.
“I say, did you see her drink this?” sharply repeated Mrs. Danesbury, touching the glass with her foot.
“No, ma’am. I’ve not been up stairs.”
‘‘If you had seen her, and suffered her to drink herself into this state without informing me, I would have turned you away in disgrace along with her,” said Mrs. Danesbury. “This must have been a nightly habit.”
“I do not come into this room at night,” was Jessy’s reply. “ I have nothing to do here.”
“You shameless creature!” continued Mrs. Danesbury, turning to Glisson. “Is not your good strong supper ale enough for you, but you must drink gin upon it? Shameful!”
“Highty tighty!” broke out Glisson, “gin upon ale! Don’t other folks do the same? You have your strong ale, ma’am, at supper, and you can take your spirits after it: sometimes it’s gin, and sometimes it’s brandy, but you don’t go to bed without one of ‘em. It’s shameful, is it, for a poor hard-working servant? What is it for you, ma’am? Where’s the difference? I suppose you can stand it best: more used to it, may be.”
Mrs. Danesbury was struck dumb with rage; and the more especially that she could not contradict the chief facts. For she did drink strong ale at supper, and she did, in general, take a glass of spirits and water afterward. It was the custom to drink spirits at night at Mr. Serle’s, and she had recommenced it after she became Mrs. Danesbury. The comparison was not pleasant, and she began a passionate abuse of Glisson — which might have been more temperate, but for what she had herself taken.
An unseemly quarrel ensued. Glisson was sullen and insolent, Mrs. Danesbury violent. She at length struck Glisson, in her passion, and ordered her to quit the house, then and there.
Glisson refused to go. She was as obstinate as her mistress, and it ended by her remaining; Jessy taking charge of the infant for the night.
Glisson was in her sober senses the next morning, penitent and low-spirited. Mrs. Danesbury, cold, sulky, and unforgiving, stood over her while she packed her boxes, and then ordered one of the men-servants to show her out of the house. This accomplished, she went into the day nursery, where sat Jessy, with William and the infant.
“I have been thinking that I would prefer you to a stranger” said Mrs. Danesbury to Jessy. “Will you take Glisson’s place, and I will engage another for Master William?”
Jessy could only decline. The request gave her courage to say what she had been going to say for two or three weeks past — that she was soon about to leave.
“Have you any fault to find with the house?” imperiously demanded Mrs. Danesbury.
“Oh no, ma’am. B
ut — I suppose I must tell you,” stammered Jessy, “I am thinking of getting married.”
“To whom, pray?”
“To Richard Gould, one of Mr. Danesbury’s men. But I will stay a month or two, or even three, ma’am, if you wish, while you suit yourself.”
Mrs. Danesbury, in her exasperation, thought every thing was going against her, and she turned away without vouchsafing an answer.
Three or four mornings afterward, Mr. Danesbury returned. His wife immediately gave him an account of Glisson’s misconduct; truth to say, an exaggerated one. For, now that she had had time to cool down, she doubted whether her husband would approve of so summary a mode of dealing with an old and respected servant. Mr. Danesbury was proceeding to the factory afterward, when he met Jessy and little William. The child held out his arms, and Mr. Danesbury took him up.
“Jessy,” he exclaimed, “what a strange thing this is about Glisson! How came she to get into such a state!”
“It was very unfortunate, sir.”
“Did she actually strike her mistress?”
“Oh no, sir,” hastily answered Jessy, “she did not do that. It was my mistress—”
“Your mistress — what?” said he, for Jessy had stopped short.
“Speak out,” continued Mr. Danesbury, in his kind but commanding way, for Jessy still hesitated. “I wish to know the particulars of this affair.”
“It was my mistress struck her, sir.”
“Did she not strike your mistress?”
“No indeed, sir, she did not so far forget herself as that. She was abusive, and said things which she would not have said had she been sober.”
“Was it a nightly habit with her?”
“I am sure, sir, I hardly know what to say,” was Jessy’s rejoinder. “I’m afraid she took a little occasionally, but I should think she was never like’s she was that night.”
“Where is she gone?”
“No one seems to know where. She has not been seen since.”
Mr. Danesbury put William down again, and was walking off, but turned again.
“Jessy, I hear you are going to leave, too.”
Jessy looked foolish. “Yes, sir.”
“We shall be sorry to lose you, for you have done your duty, but if folks will get married, why they will. Which of the men is it? Mrs. Danesbury forgot the name.”
“It’s Richard Gould, sir,” answered Jenny, with downcast eyes and a crimson face.
“Richard Gould,” slowly repeated Mr. Danesbury, as if pondering over the man’s merits and demerits. “Well, Jessy, he is a clever workman, and may rise to a good post in the establishment. That is, if he pleases — if he will keep steady.”
Scarcely had Mr. Danesbury moved away, when a good-looking young man in a workman’s dress approached Jessy from an opposite direction. It was Richard Gould.
“Jessy, wasn’t that the master?” he asked, before he had well reached her.
“Yes.”
“I must be off into the factory, then. When the master’s eyes are about, there’s no skulking for any body.”
“You ought to be as diligent when he is absent as when he is present, Richard.”
“Oughts don’t count always, my little moralizer. I’m diligent enough.”
“Richard, I saw Mr. Harding yesterday. What do you think he said!”
“Any thing about me?”
“That you were getting to go out with the men to the public-houses after work. And if he saw that you continued to do it, he should write to my father to stop our wedding.”
“I don’t go to the public-houses,” returned Richard Gould.
“He said you were there on Saturday night.”
“Saturday night? Well; I believe I did go in for an hour with Foster. It did not harm me.”
“And on Thursday night also,” she continued.
“What an audacious — Stop,” cried Richard, pulling his speech suddenly up, “don’t let me tell a story. Thursday night? — that was the night I was hunting for Jackson. I had to get instructions from him about the morning’s work, and found him at the Pig and Whistle. I sat the long spell of half an hour with him at the Pig, and drank one glass of ale, which he stood treat for. Much harm that did me, didn’t it?”
“It is not the harm it does now that matters, but the getting into the habit. Uncle Harding says, if men once get into a habit of going to public-houses of a night, they are sure never to get out of it, and they don’t know where it will end; and if no bad ending comes, it runs away with money that might be spent better.”
“That’s all true,” answered the young man, “and Mr. Harding need not fear that I am going to get into it. I shall speak to him about this. Good-by, Jessy.”
Do what they would, they could not hear of Glisson. Mr. Danesbury made inquiry, but was unable to trace her, and a strong, fear, a dread which he would not mention to any one, was beginning to dawn over him — whether, in her grief and despair at the exposure which had taken place, and at being turned from her many years’ home, she might not have committed suicide. In three or four weeks, however, tidings came from Glisson herself. She was in London, and now sent to draw out of Mr. Danesbury’s hands a sum of money which he held for her at interest. It was £130, all she had saved, except the wages paid her by Mrs. Danesbury the morning of her departure. Mr. Danesbury wrote to her, as did Mrs. Philip Danesbury, kind letters, inquiring her plans, and so forth, but Glisson never answered.
Yes; Glisson had found her way to London. She had a brother living there, and she went to seek him. His address was somewhat vague: — Daniel Low, Cow Comer, Commercial Road. Nearly a half day spent Glisson, hunting out Cow Comer, and then nearly another half inquiring after Daniel Low. At last she met a man, who was hawking cauliflowers upon a flat board or barrow, and he, hearing the name, said there was a Dan Low in “his line,” and he lived in Cass Court, Whitechapel. Glisson thought if his line meant crying vegetables about the streets, her brother must have considerably fallen: he used to be a respectable market gardener; or, as they call it in London, a green-grocer.
It was evening when Glisson emerged from Cow Comer and its alleys, to find out Cass Court, and the street lamps were lighted. It was the first evening she had ever spent in London; moreover, it was Saturday evening, and Glisson was thunderstruck — bewildered, with the noise, the bustle, the glare, and confusion. Every tenth house or so was a flashing gin-shop — a palace, as they are called — and veritable palaces did they appear to the astounded Glisson. She stopped opposite the first she came to, and gazed in mute admiration. Its brilliant lamps were beautiful with colours and devices; and its warm, pleasant stream of light came flashing across the street every time the door opened. Glisson got jostled by the crowd at its doors; but, so intense was her entrancement, that at first she did not notice what an unhallowed crowd it was. Soon she sprang away to avoid their contact. Contact with them! Glisson shuddered, and looked at them. Could they be human beings? The rags and the tatters, the scarce covered nakedness, were not the worst: Glisson had seen that in street beggars; but such forms and faces as these she never had seen. The ghastly squalor of the thin features, the dreadful eyes, the scarlet lips, struck upon her with awe; whiles the countenances gave out that look of apathy, of pallid despair, which told that the crushed, diseased spirit was fast galloping on to death. Glisson drew herself beyond their circle, and stopped again to look at them; and the sight never was erased from her memory during life. Such as had money were pouring in and out at those swinging doors; and such as had not, vented their anger and misery aloud outside. She did well to close her ears with her two fingers; for they had never yet heard such language, sin, and blasphemy, so great as that crowd was shouting — and it was well that ears never should hear it, be they those of man or woman.
Glisson roused herself and continued her way. She seemed to have gazed her fill, both at the palace and its visitors. A few steps farther and she came upon another. “What, another!” uttered Glisson, in
her surprise. Yes, there was; it was on the opposite side of the street, and it emitted the same tempting flood of gorgeous light, and the same sort of hideous mob was blocking up its entrance. A prolonged stare, and on stepped Glisson again; but soon she came to another halt, for there was actually a third. She began to think they must be common; and she was right. They were scattered every where; and not only in that street, but in all the others, round about, and cross again, and down turnings, and up lanes, and were especially prevalent at corners — more dark misery, more raving sin; and a thought darted into the mind of Glisson (whatever her own practice had been) — upon a city so contaminated could the divine blessing rest?
Intemperance is, indeed, as a very plague-spot in the metropolis. It is heard of in mansions — it is seen in dens — it staggers through the streets, lurking in the alleys and the dark comers — it cries aloud from the police courts — it fills the prisons and the hospitals — and it taints with its black infection our homes and hearths. It is the curse of England’s poor. Glisson saw enough of it that night, and of the facilities afforded for its indulgence. How many of that unhappy crowd might have been arrested in their downward course — nay, never have entered upon it, but for the terrible temptations thrust upon them every hour, and at every step, by these meretricious liquor shops! Numbers of them were respectable once, hard-working, and contented, until the stealthy vice insinuated itself upon them. Not all at once did it come, in its full, baleful aspect, but gradually and imperceptibly: moderation grew to deep drinking, deep drinking to excess, excess to an impossibility to abstain; and there they were now, crowding round — fascinated by the subtle glare — the poisonous snares of that destroying place, false as the name given to it!
Glisson, all in a maze, at length reached Cass Court, after many turnings and some misdirections, and at the entrance of Cass Court, Glisson paused, afraid to enter it. It was but one of many other such “Courts,” and the same features were seen in all. The tumble-down, dirty houses nearly touched each other, so narrow was the space between them; while, from the dilapidated windows, hung old cords, on which were stretched, rags to dry. As Glisson went gingerly up it, her skirts lifted, and picking her way, the inhabitants flocked after her, so different was she from the natives usually seen there. A respectable-looking woman in a claret-coloured merino gown, a warm Paisley shawl, and a straw bonnet, lined and trimmed with black velvet, gloves, and an umbrella, was indeed a phenomenon for Cass Court to stare at. Men, some tolerably decent, others whose clothes hung upon them in the best way the dilapidations would permit, leaned against the walls, smoking short pipes; women, worse off still in the matter of garments, stood screaming and scolding, their hair hanging about their ears, as if they had quarrelled with combs and brushes, altogether miserable objects to look upon; and children sat about, or lay in the gutter — such children as Glisson had never seen yet. She piloted her way amid the lot, and addressed herself to a man who wore a civil face.