Mary shrunk back into her corner with considerably more disgust than if a reptile had possessed itself of the seat opposite.
“This is not quite as it should be, is it?” said Sir Matthew, with a leer. “Perhaps some other may have a better right here than I?” And a very expressive smile accompanied the words.
“Sir?” said Miss Brotherton.
“Come, come, my dear child, you must not look vexed at any of my little jokes. You know how we all dote upon you! Dear creature! How beautiful that sweet blush makes you look! He, he! there goes poor Augustus looking very much as if he could wring his papa’s neck off. But his turn, we will hope, may come by and by. And now, my dear, I’ll tell you what I am come here for. We all want you, and your good Mrs. Tremlett too, if she likes it, to come over to us quite en famille to-morrow. I don’t know what love-powder you have been scattering amongst us, but there is not a single individual of the family who does not positively dote upon you. Tell me, my pretty Mary, do you feel a little kindness for some of us in return?”
An attempt to take her hand accompanied this speech; and Mrs. Tremlett, who estimated pretty nearly her young lady’s affection for Sir Matthew and his race, actually trembled for the consequences. But, to her great surprise, Mary answered, after the pause of a minute, “Oh, dear Sir Matthew! you are only laughing at me!” in a voice so exceedingly childish and silly, that it might, under similar circumstances, have made the fortune of a comic actress; and though she did not permit him to touch the hand he attempted to take, she placed it, together with its fellow, so playfully behind her, that Sir Matthew could only laugh and call her, “dear pretty creature!”
Meanwhile the carriage proceeded to penetrate through the dirty dismal streets, which, in that direction, formed the suburb of Ashleigh.
“I must get out here,” said Miss Brotherton, suddenly pulling the check-string.
“Here? Impossible, my dear child!”
“Nothing is impossible to me, that I choose to do, sir,” said the young lady, springing to the ground the moment the door was opened. The knight was fain to follow, the animated Augustus threw himself from his horse at the same instant, and Mrs. Tremlett held herself suspended on the step of the carriage to learn what she was required to do.
“I wish to know what is the matter with these miserable-looking children,” said Mary, approaching a half-open door, at each side of which, crouching on the stone step, sat a pale and squalid-looking girl. The eldest might be ten years old, the youngest was certainly not more than six.
“Gracious Heaven! you are not going to speak to those creatures, Miss Brotherton?” exclaimed Sir Matthew, while his son instinctively backed his horse into the middle of the street.
“And why not, Sir Matthew?” said Mary.
“You are not aware of what you are doing; I give you my honour you are not. You have no conception what these sort of creatures are. My dear, dear Miss Brotherton, get into your carriage — get into your carriage, I conjure you!
Mary looked at him, but said not a word in reply.
“What ails you, my little girl?” said she, putting her hand upon the shoulder of the youngest child.
“Billy-roller,” answered the little creature.
“The billy-roller smashed her,” said the eldest girl, “but ’twas falling asleep against the machinery as lamed me.”
“Are you mad, Miss Brotherton!” exclaimed Sir Matthew. “Surely, Mrs. Tremlett, you ought to prevent your young lady from exposing herself to such scenes as these.”
“Good morning, Sir Matthew, do not let me detain you,” said the heiress, suddenly assuming the tone and style of a woman of fashion who chose to have her own way. “These sick little creatures quite interest me. Besides, I must positively find out who Billy Roller is.”
“It is an instrument used in the works, Miss Brotherton. You know not to what you are exposing yourself — fraud, filth, infection, drunkenness! I give you my sacred honour that I think you are very likely to be robbed and murdered if you approach the thresholds of such dwellings as these.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir Matthew,” replied the heiress, “but you must excuse me if I obstinately persevere in judging for myself; I know I am a spoiled child, neither more nor less; and as such you must either give me up or bear with me. Permit me to wish you good morning; I shall do more than approach the threshold of this dwelling — I shall enter it.”
Having said this, she waited no further parley, but taking a ragged child in each hand set her little foot against the door which already stood ajar, pushed it open, and walked in.
Her first idea on looking round her was that perhaps Sir Matthew was in the right. Filth she saw; infection might lurk under it; and who could tell if fraud and drunkenness might not enter the moment after, to complete the group?
But there was little of selfishness and much of courage in the heart of Mary Brotherton, so she presently forgot every notion of personal danger, and was thus enabled to see things as they really were.
On one side of the small bare chamber, and in some degree sheltered by the door which opened against it, stood a rickety machine once intended for a bedstead. Two of the legs had given place to brickbats, and instead of a bed the unsteady frame now supported only a thin layer of very dirty straw, with the body of a dying female stretched upon it. The only other article of furniture in the room was an old deal box without a cover, but having a couple of planks, each about three feet long, laid across it; serving either for table or chairs as occasion might require. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, and the remnant of a window, were all alike begrimed with smoke and dirt.
It took not long to make this inventory, and having completed it, the young lady, still holding in each hand a staring child, turned towards the inhabitant of this miserable den, and said, “Are you ill, my good woman?”
The being she addressed raised her heavy eyes, and in a voice so low as to be scarcely intelligible, answered “Yes.”
“Have you no assistance, nobody to nurse you?”
“Nobody but these,” pointing to the children.
“Has any doctor seen her?” demanded Mary of the eldest child.
“No ma’am,” replied the little girl.
“And how long has she been ill?”
“Ever since she corn’d from the mill.”
“And how long is that?”
“A twelvemonth,” said the little one.
“I don’t know,” said the elder.
“But, my poor children, you are not the only people that live with her, I suppose? Have you got any father?”
« Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“At the mill.”
“Have you got any body else belonging to you?” said Miss Brotherton, shuddering.
“There’s Sophy, and Dick, and Grace,” replied the eldest child.
“Where are they all?” again inquired Miss Brotherton. “At the mill,” was again the answer.
“Are Sophy and Grace grown up?”
“Sophy is,” answered the child, “and Grace, almost.”
“Then why do they not stay at home, one of them at least, to take care of this poor woman?”
“‘Cause they mustn’t. I ‘tends mother.”
“You are not big enough to take care of her, my poor child. Why don’t you go to the factory, and let one of the bigger ones stay at home?”
“They won’t have me now, ‘cause of this.” — And as she spake, the child held up a little shrivelled right-hand, three fingers of which had a joint deficient. “I can’t piece now, and so they won’t let me come.”
“And Sophy won’t let me go, ‘cause of this,” said the little one, slipping her arm out of a bedgown (which was the only garment she had), and displaying the limb swollen and discoloured, from some violent contusion.
“My poor little creature! how did you do this?” said Mary, tenderly, taking the little hand in hers, and examining the frightful bruise.
“’Twas th
e billy-roller,” said the little girl, in an accent that seemed to insinuate that the young lady was more than commonly dull of apprehension.
“But how did it happen, my child? Did some part of the machinery go over you?”
“No! — That was me,” cried the elder, with a loud voice, and again holding up her demolished fingers. “Twas the stretcher’s billy-roller as smashed Becky.”
“’Twas, cause I was sleepy,” said the little one, beginning to cry, for she construed Mary’s puzzled look into an expression of displeasure.
“They beats ’em dreadful ma’am,” said the sick woman, evidently exerting herself beyond her strength. “She’s a good little girl for work; but they will fall asleep, all of ’em at times, when they be kept so dreadful long.”
“But these bruises could not be the effect of beating,” said Mary, again examining the arm, “it is quite impossible.”
“Why, ma’am, the billy-roller as they beats ’em with, is a stick big enough to kill with; and many and many is the baby that has been crippled by it.”
There was something so hollow, so sunken in the woman’s voice, that Miss Brotherton felt terrified. The fact that a child of the size of the baby before her should have been beaten with such a weapon, and with such violence, seemed wholly incredible. Again she thought of Sir Matthew Dowling’s warning, and wished that she were not alone.
“I am afraid that you are very ill,” said she, “and I know not how I can help you. Money I can give, but there is nobody here to make use of it for you.”
“Money!” murmured the sinking woman from her layer of straw. “Money, you can give money? Oh! give it, give it. Give it to her — give it to the child; she knows what it is, she knows I am dying for the want of it. It is too late for me, but give it, give it, and may God—”
Here the miserable creature’s strength wholly failed; her eyes closed, and to all appearance, she was already a corpse.
“Oh! this is very dreadful!” cried poor Mary, wringing her hands, “nurse will know better than me,” and so saying, she turned eagerly towards the door.
“She be gone, mother, and haven’t gived nothing,” said the eldest girl, in a voice so mournfully expressive of disappointment, that, spite of her alarm, Mary stopped to take half-a-crown from her purse which she put into the child’s hand.
She looked at the coin, and in a half-whisper ejaculated, “Oh!” Then creeping to the bed, she put it into the palm of her mother’s hand, pressing the fingers down upon it, and in an accent of interrogation uttered the word “Bread?”
This Mary heard, but not the answer to it, for she had quitted the scene before it was uttered. On opening the door of the house, she started at seeing Sir Matthew Dowling still within a dozen yards of it; he was standing beside the carriage, with one arm extended to keep the door of it open, and the other resting against the vehicle on the opposite side of the opening, while his head thrust forward within an inch of good Mrs. Tremlett’s nose effectually prevented her following her young lady, however much she might have wished to do so. He had, indeed, upon Miss Brotherton’s disappearance reseated the good woman almost by force, and then addressed her in such a strain as was rapidly working her up to make an attempt to escape from the other side of the carriage, when the reappearance of the young lady released her from her thraldom.
“Mrs. Tremlett!” he said, “are you aware, of the awful responsibility which will rest upon you if any thing unfortunate happens to your amiable, but most headstrong young lady? All the neighbourhood know, Mrs. Tremlett, that she has, as it were, placed herself for protection in your hands, refusing all other counsel, and shutting her ears to all other advice, and it is thus that you perform your duty!”
“Good God, sir! what do you mean?” said the good woman, in great agitation. “Let me out if you please, sir. If my young, lady is in any danger, it is wicked to keep me sitting here. Let me out, sir!”
“I will let you out, Mrs. Tremlett,” replied the knight, still firmly retaining the position which so effectually kept her in, “I will let you out; but first, for her sake and your own, it is my duty to tell you in a few words the sort of place she has now thought proper to enter. Don’t struggle, Mrs. Tremlett, but hear me. It is not possible they can do her any personal injury as long as I am so near the door of the house as at present. Be very sure that from some hole or corner of the filthy premises, some spying eyes are at this moment watching us. There is no danger of her being murdered now, but as sure as you sit there, Mrs. Tremlett, murdered she will be, if she goes without the protection of a powerful arm within such dens of sin and iniquity as she has entered now. One short moment more, Mrs. Tremlett — one short moment, while I tell what the creatures are among whom she has thrown herself. The house is notorious as one of the very worst in Ashleigh. The man is an habitual drunkard, whom I, and my excellent servant Parsons, have endeavoured in every possible way to reform — but in vain. — The moment he has got his wages, he goes to the gin-shop, and often and often he won’t work at all, which of course prevents his family from being in the comfortable easy circumstances which they ought to be. If he happens to be in the house now, I dare say there is no species of indecent language to which your young lady will not be obliged to listen. As to the mother of the family, I believe she is dying in consequence of a life passed in all sorts of the most abominable wickedness. Indeed I believe she is now half mad, for I have been told by some of my people whom I have sent upon charitable visits of inquiry to her, that she lies in her bed inventing the strangest lies imaginable. Indeed some think that notwithstanding she is so near death she still drinks, and that it is nothing but drunken lies that she makes people listen to.”
“Pray, pray let me get out, Sir Matthew! Being murdered, sir, is not the only thing from which I should wish to save Miss Brotherton.”
“One word more, Mrs. Tremlett, and I have done. The eldest girl is a notorious prostitute. Another, a year or two younger is going the same way. The boy is suspected of being an extremely skilful thief, and the two younger girls, for they all work at my factory, Mrs. Tremlett, and I know them well, the two younger ones are such depraved little wretches, that for the sake of example we have been obliged to turn them out of the mill, though we are in great want of young hands to do the work. Now, madam, I have done, and I leave it with you to judge how far it will be right and proper for Miss Brotherton to continue such frolics as these.”
Sir Matthew was in the act of pronouncing the last words of this speech as Miss Brotherton opened the door of the house, and stepped out into the street.
On first perceiving her, the knight appeared about to take her hand, for the purpose of replacing her in the carriage; but his attention was called to the sound of many feet suddenly turning the corner of a street which led from a neighbouring factory. It proceeded from the workpeople, who were rushing home in scrambling haste to snatch their miserable dinners.
Gentlemen in Sir Matthew Dowling’s situation, and enjoying the species of influence which belongs to it, take little or no pains to avoid meeting the people they themselves employ. They look not in the young eyes to read what sort of blessing cowers there, nor heed the crippled gait, or pallid visage of those who exist but by the poisonous employment which he gives them. But such gentlemen seldom, if they can avoid it, expose themselves to the remarks of any gangs belonging to their neighbours, and no sooner did Sir Matthew become aware that the mill in the next street was pouring forth its fifteen hundred hands, than he turned from the young lady who had passed by without appearing to see him, and taking his horse from the hand of the groom who held it, sprung with great activity into the saddle, and galloped off the way his indignant son had galloped before him.
Mary Brotherton meanwhile was utterly unconscious of the approaching throng; and intent only upon getting Mrs. Tremlett out of the carriage, turned her eyes neither to the right nor the left, but seizing her by the arm, exclaimed, “Come to me nurse, come to me!”
The good wom
an who was quite as desirous as herself of the reunion, required no second summons, but more quickly than it can be told, was first by the side of her young mistress in the street, and then entering with her the low door of the dwelling so fearfully described by Sir Matthew.
Had Mrs. Tremlett possessed the power, most assuredly she would have turned the steps of her charge the other way, and forever have prevented her from exposing herself to the contemplation of such depravity as she had heard described; but knowing perfectly well that no such power was vested in her, the next wish she conceived, was to give all the assistance and support she could to the dear wilful girl to whom she had devoted herself.
Aware, as she entered the door, that many eyes followed them, nay, that many steps were stayed, apparently, to watch the spectacle so rare in Ashleigh of well-dressed ladies entering the sordid dwelling of operatives, Mrs. Tremlett herself closed the door as soon as they had both passed through it, and looking round upon the desolation of the chamber, trembled with an emotion made up of terror and compassion, at perceiving to what a scene the delicately-nurtured Mary Brotherton had introduced herself.
“This woman is very ill, nurse Tremlett,” said the young lady, drawing her close to the bed. “For God’s sake tell me what we had better do for her?”
“My dear, dear, Miss Mary come away, and send the doctor to her!” answered Mrs. Tremlett; positively shaking from head to foot, as she contemplated the ghastly countenance of the woman, the filthy rag that imperfectly covered her, and the scanty straw upon which her stiffening limbs were stretched. “This is no place for you, Miss Brotherton! come with me I say this moment, and we will send the doctor, and money, and clothes too, if you like it.”
“If I like it! — Do you think I am amusing myself, Mrs. Tremlett? — Feel her hand — feel her pulse! — I believe she is dying.”
These words though spoken very quietly and deliberately, were uttered in a voice so unlike what she had ever heard from the young lady before, that the old woman became dreadfully alarmed.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 182