it was saturday night in honey fair. a night when the ladies were at leisure to abandon themselves to their private pursuits. the work of the past week had gone into the warehouses; and the fresh work brought out would not be begun until monday morning. some of them, as mrs. buffle has informed us, did not begin it then. the women chiefly cleaned their houses and mended their clothes; some washed and ironed—honey fair was not famous for its management—not going to bed till sunday morning; some did their marketing; and a few, careless and lazy, spent it in running from house to house, or congregated in the road to gossip.
about half-past eight, one of the latter suddenly lifted the latch of a house door and thrust in her head. it was joe fisher's wife. her face was red, and her cap in tatters.
"is our becky in here, mrs. carter?"
mrs. carter was busy. she was the maternal parent of miss betsy. her kitchen fire was out, her furniture was heaped one thing upon another; a pail of water stood ready to wash the brick floor, when she should have finished rubbing up the grate, and her hands and face were as grimy as the black-lead.
"there's no becky here," snapped she.
"i can't find her," returned mrs. fisher. "i thought her might be along of your betsy. i say, here's your husband coming round the corner. there's mark mason and robert east and dale along of him. and—my! what has that young 'un of east's been doing to hisself? he's black from head to foot. come and look."
mrs. carter disdained the invitation. she was a hard-working, thrifty woman, but a cross one. priding herself upon her cleanliness, she perpetually returned loud thanks that she was not as the dirty ones around her. she was the pharisee amidst many publicans.
"if i passed my time staring and gossiping as some does, where 'ud my work be?" was her rebuke. "shut the door, suke fisher."
suke fisher did as she was bid. she turned her wrists back upon her hips, and walked to meet the advancing party, having discerned their approach by the light of the gas-lamps. "be you going to be sold for a blackamoor?" demanded she of the boy.
the boy laughed. his head, face, shoulders, hands, were ornamented with a thick, black liquid, not unlike blacking. he appeared to enjoy the treat, as if he had been anointed with some fragrant oil.
"he is not a bad spectacle, is he, dame fisher?" remarked the young man, whom she had called robert east.
"what's a-done it?" questioned she.
"him and jacky brumm got larking, and upset the dye-pot upon themselves. we rubbed 'em down with the leather shreds, but it keeps on dripping from their hair."
"won't charlotte warm his back for him!" apostrophised mrs. fisher.
the boy threw a disdainful look at her, in return for the remark. "charlotte's not so fond of warming backs. she never even scolds for an accident."
the boy and robert east were half-brothers. they entered one of the cottages. robert east and his sister were between twenty and thirty, and the boy was ten. their mother had died early, and the young boy's mother, their father's second wife, died when the child was born. the father also died. how robert and his sister, the one then seventeen, the other fourteen, had struggled to make a living for themselves, and to bring up the baby, they alone knew. the manner in which they had succeeded was a marvel to many; none were more respectable now than they were in all honey fair.
charlotte, neat and nice, sat by her bright kitchen fire, a savoury stew cooking on the hob beside it. it was her custom to have something good for supper on a saturday night. did she make home attractive on that night to draw her brother from the seductions of the public-house? most likely. and she had her reward: for robert never failed to come. the cloth was laid, the red bricks of the floor were clean, and charlotte's face, as she looked up from her stocking-mending, was bright. it darkened to consternation, however, when she cast her eyes on the boy.
"tom, what have you been doing?"
"jacky brumm threw a pot of dye over me, charlotte."
"there's not much real damage, charlotte," interposed her brother. "it looks worse than it is. i'll get it out of his hair presently, and put his clothes into a pail of water. what have you got to-night? it smells good."
he alluded to supper, and took off the lid of the saucepan to peep in. she had some stewed beef, with carrots, and the savoury steam ascended to robert's pleased face.
very few in honey fair managed as did charlotte east. how she did her housework no one knew. not a woman, married or single, got through more glove-sewing than charlotte. not one kept her house in better order: and her clothes and her brother's were neat and respectable, week-days as well as sundays. her work was taken into the warehouse on saturday mornings, and her marketing was done. in the afternoon she cleaned her house, and by four o'clock was ready to sit down to her mending. no one ever saw her in a bustle, and yet all her work was done; and well done. perhaps one great secret of it was that she rose very early in the morning, winter and summer.
"look, robert, here is a nice book i have bought," said she, putting a periodical into his hands. "it comes out weekly. i shall take it in."
robert turned over the leaves. "it seems very interesting," he said presently. "here's a paper that tells all about the holy land. and another that tells us how glass is made; i have often wondered."
"you can read it to us of an evening while i work," said she. "it will be quite a help to our getting on tom: almost as good as sending him to school. i gave——"
the words were interrupted. the door was violently burst open, and a woman entered the kitchen; knocking at doors before entering was not the fashion in honey fair. the intruder was mrs. brumm.
"i say, robert east, did you see anything of my husband?"
"i saw him go into the horned ram."
"then i wish the horned ram was into him!" wrathfully retorted mrs. brumm. "he vowed faithfully he'd come home with his wages the first thing after leaving work. he knows i have not a thing in the place for to-morrow—and dame buffle looking out for her money. i have a good mind to go down to the horned ram, and be on to him!"
robert east offered no opinion upon this delicate point. he remembered the last time mrs. brumm had gone to the horned ram to be "on" to her husband, and what it had produced. a midnight quarrel that disturbed the slumbers of honey fair.
"who was along of him?" pursued she.
"three or four of them. hubbard and jones, i saw go in: and adam thorneycroft."
a quick rising of the head, as if startled, and a faint accession of colour, told that one of those names had struck, perhaps unpleasantly, on the ear of charlotte east. "where are your own earnings?" she asked of mrs. brumm.
"i have had to take them to bankes's," was the rueful reply. "it's a good deal now, and they're in a regular tantrum this week, and wouldn't even wait till monday. they threatened to tell brumm, and it frightened me out of my seventeen senses. and now, for him to go into that dratted horned ram with his wages! and me without a pennypiece! it's not more for the necessaries i want to get in, than for the things that is in pawn. i can't iron nothing: the irons is there."
charlotte, busy still, turned round. "i would not put in irons, and such things, that i wanted to use."
"i dare say you wouldn't!" tartly responded mrs. brumm. "one has to put in what one's got, and the things our husbands won't miss the sight of. it's fine to be you, charlotte east, setting yourself up for a lady, and never putting your foot inside the pawn-shop, with your clean hands and your clean kitchen on a saturday night, sitting down to a hot supper, while the rest of us is a-scrubbing!"
charlotte laughed good-humouredly. "if i tried to set myself up for a lady, i could not be one. i work as hard as anybody; only i get it done betimes."
mrs. brumm sniffed—having no ready answer at hand. and at that moment tom east, encased in black, peeped out of the brewhouse, where he had been sent by charlotte to wash the dye off his hands. "sakes alive!" uttered mrs. brumm, aghast at the sight.
"jacky's worse than me," responded tom, rather proud of having to say so much. robert explained to her how it had happened.
"and our jacky's as bad as that!" she cried. "won't i wring it out of him!"
"nonsense," said robert; "it was an accident. boys will be boys."
"yes, they will: and it's not the men that have to wash for 'em and keep 'em clean!" retorted mrs. brumm, terribly wrathful. "and me at a standstill for my irons! and that beast of a brumm stopping out."
"i will lend you my irons," said charlotte.
"i won't take 'em," was the ungracious reply. "if i don't get my own, i won't borrow none. brumm, he'll be looking out for his sunday clean shirt to-morrow, and he won't get it; and that'll punish him more than anything else. there's not a man in honey fair as likes to go sprucer on a sunday than brumm."
"so much the better," said charlotte. "when men lose pride in their appearance, they are apt to lose it in their conduct."
"you must always put in your word for folks, charlotte east, let 'em be ever so bad," was mrs. brumm's parting salutation, as she went off and shut the door with a bang.
meanwhile timothy carter, mrs. carter's husband, had turned into his own dwelling, after leaving robert east. the first thing to greet him was the pail of water. mrs. carter had completed her grate, and was dashing her water on to the floor. timothy received it on his legs.
"what's that for?" demanded timothy, who was a meek and timid little man.
"why do you brush in so sharp, then?" cried she. "who was to know you was a-coming?"
timothy had not "brushed in sharp;" he had gone in quietly. he stood ruefully shaking the wet from his legs, first one, then the other, and afterwards began to pick his way on tiptoe towards the fireplace.
"now, it's of no use your attempting to sit down yet," rebuked his wife, in her usual cross accents. "there ain't no room for you at the fire, and there ain't no warmth in it; it's but this blessed minute lighted. sit yourself on that table, again the wall, and then your legs'll be in the dry."
"and there i may sit for an hour, for you'll be all that time before you have finished, by the looks on't," he ventured to remonstrate.
"and half another hour to the end of it," answered she. "there's betsy, as ought to be helping, gadding out somewhere ever since she came home at seven o'clock."
"you says to me, says you, 'you come home to-night, tim, as soon as work's over, and don't go drinking!' you know you did," repeated timothy in an injured tone.
"and it's a good thing as you have come, or you'd have heard my tongue in a way you wouldn't like!" was mrs. carter's reply.
timothy sighed. that tongue was the two-edged sword of his life: how dreaded, none but himself could tell. he had mounted the table in obedience to orders, but he now got off again.
"what are you after now?" shrilly demanded mrs. carter, who was on her knees, scouring the bricks.
"i want my pipe and 'baccy."
"you stop where you are," was the imperative answer, "and wait till i have time to get it;" and timothy humbly sat down again.
"you might get this done afore night, 'lizabeth, as i've said over and over again," cried he, plucking up a little spirit. "when a man comes home tired, even if there ain't a bit o' supper for him, he expects a morsel o' fire to sit down to, so as he can smoke his pipe in quiet. it cows him, you see, to find his place in this ruck, where there ain't a dry spot to put the sole of his foot on, and nothing but a table with unekal legs to sit upon, and——"
"i might get it done afore?" shrieked mrs. carter. "afore! when, through that betsy's laziness, leaving everything on my shoulders, i couldn't get in my gloving till four o'clock this afternoon! every earthly thing have i had to do since then. i raked out my fire——"
"what's the good of raking out the fire?" interposed timothy.
"goodness help the simpleton! wanting to know the good of raking out the fire—as if he was born yesterday! can a grate be black-leaded while it's hot, pray?"
"it might be black-leaded at some other time," debated he. "in a morning, perhaps."
"i dare say it might, if i had not my gloving to do," she answered, trembling with wrath. "when folks takes out shop work, they has to get on with that—and is glad to do it. where would you be if i earned nothing? it isn't much of a roof we should have over our heads, with your paltry fifteen or sixteen shillings a-week. you be nothing but a parer, remember."
"there's no need to disparage of me, 'lizabeth," he rejoined, with a meek little cough. "you knowed i was a parer before you ventured on me."
"just take your legs up higher, or you'll be knocking my cap with your dirty boots," said mrs. carter, who was nearing the table in her scrubbing.
"i'll stand outside the door a bit, i think," he answered. "i am in your way everywhere."
"sit where you are, and lift up your legs," was the reiterated command. and timothy obeyed.
cold and dreary, on he sat, watching the cleaning of the kitchen. the fire gave out no heat, and the squares of bricks did not dry. he took some silver from his pocket, and laid it in a stack on the table beside him, for his wife to take up at her leisure. she allowed him no chance of squandering his wages.
a few minutes, and mrs. carter rose from her knees and went into the yard for a fresh supply of water. timothy did not wait for a second ducking. he slipped off the table, took a shilling from the heap, and stole from the house.
back came mrs. carter, her pail brimming. "you go over to dame buffle's, tim, and——why, where's he gone?"
he was not in the kitchen, that was certain; and she opened the staircase door, and elevated her voice shrilly. "are you gone tramping up my stairs, with your dirty boots? tim carter, i say, are you upstairs?"
of course tim carter was not upstairs: or he had never dared to leave that voice unanswered.
"now, if he has gone off to any of them sotting publics, he shan't hear the last of it," she exclaimed, opening the door and gazing as far as the nearest gas-light would permit. but timothy was beyond her eye and reach, and she caught up the money and counted it. fourteen shillings. one shilling of it gone.
she knew what it meant, and dashed the silver into a wide-necked canister on the high mantelshelf, which contained also her own earnings for the week. it would have been as much as meek tim carter's life was worth to touch that canister, and she kept it openly on the mantel-piece. many unfortunate wives in honey fair could not keep their money from their husbands even under lock and key. as she was putting the canister in its place again, betsy came in. mrs. carter turned sharply upon her.
"now, miss! where have you been?"
"law, mother, how you fly out! i have only been to cross's."
"you ungrateful piece of brass, when you know there's so much to be done on a satur-night that i can't turn myself round! you shan't go gadding about half your time. i'll put you from home entire, to a good tight service."
betsy had heard the same threat so often that its effect was gone. had her mother only kept her in one-tenth of the subjection that she did her husband, it might have been better for the young lady. "i was only in at cross's," she repeated.
"what's the good of telling me that falsehood? i went to cross's after you, but you wasn't there, and hadn't been there. you want a good sound shaking, miss."
"if i wasn't at cross's, i was at mason's," was the imperturbable reply of miss betsy. "i was at mason's first. mark mason came home and turned as sour as a wasp, because the place was in a mess. she was washing her children, and she's got the kitchen to do, and he began blowing up. i left 'em then, and went in to cross's. mason went back down the hill; so he'll come home tipsy."
"why can't she get her children washed afore he comes home?" retorted mrs. carter, who could see plenty of motes in her neighbours' eyes, though utterly blind to the beam in her own. "such wretched management! children ought to be packed out of the way by seven o'clock."
"you don't get your cleaning over, any more than she does," remarked miss betsy boldly.
mrs. carter turned an angry gaze upon her; a torrent of words breaking from her lips. "i get my cleaning over! i, who am at work every moment of my day, from early morning till late at night! you'd liken me to that good-for-nothing het mason, who hardly makes a dozen o' gloves in a week, and keeps her house like a pigsty! where would you and your father be, if i didn't work to keep you, and slave to make the place sweet and comfortable? be off to dame buffle's and buy me a besom, you ungrateful monkey: and then you turn to and dust these chairs."
betsy did not wait for a second bidding. she preferred going for besoms, or for anything else, to her mother's kitchen and her mother's scolding. her coming back was another affair; she would be just as likely to propel the besom into the kitchen and make off herself, as to enter.
she suddenly stopped now, door in hand, to relate some news.
"i say, mother, there's going to be a party at the alhambra tea-gardens."
"a party at the alhambra tea-gardens, with frost and snow on the ground!" ironically repeated mrs. carter. "be off, and don't be an oaf."
"it's true," said betsy. "all honey fair's going to it. i shall go too. 'melia and mary ann cross is going to have new things for it, and——"
"will you go along and get that besom?" cried angry mrs. carter. "no child of mine shall go off to their alhambras, catching their death on the wet grass."
"wet grass!" echoed betsy. "why, you're never such a gaby as to think they'd have a party on the grass! it is to be in the big room, and there's to be a fiddle and a tam——"
"——bourine" never came. mrs. carter sent the wet mop flying after miss betsy, and the young lady, dexterously evading it, flung-to the door and departed.
a couple of hours later, timothy carter was escorted home, his own walking none of the steadiest. the men with him had taken more than timothy; but it was that weak man's misfortune to be overcome by a little. you will allow, however, that he had taken enough, having spent his shilling and gone into debt besides. mrs. carter received him——well, i am rather at a loss to describe it. she did not actually beat him, but her shrill voice might be heard all over honey fair, lavishing hard names upon helpless tim. first of all, she turned out his pockets. the shilling was all gone. "and how much more tacked on to it?" asked she, wise by experience. and timothy was just able to understand and answer. he felt himself as a lamb in the fangs of a wolf. "eightpence halfpenny."
"a shilling and eightpence halfpenny chucked away in drink in one night!" repeated mrs. carter. she gave him a short, emphatic shake, and propelled him up the stairs; leaving him without a light, to get to bed as he could. she had still some hours' work downstairs, in the shape of mending clothes.
but it never once occurred to mrs. carter that she had herself to thank for his misdoings. with a tidy room and a cheerful fire to receive him, on returning from his day's work, timothy carter would no more have thought of the public-houses than you or i should. and if, as did charlotte east, she had welcomed him with a good supper and a pleasant tongue, poor tim in his gratitude had forsworn public-houses for ever.
neither, when mark mason staggered home, and his wife raved at and quarrelled with him, to the further edification of honey fair, did it strike that lady that she could be in fault. as mrs. carter had said, henrietta mason did not overburden herself with work of any sort; but she did make a pretence of washing her four children in a bucket on a saturday night, and her kitchen afterwards. the ceremony was delayed through idleness and bad management to the least propitious part of the evening. so sure as she had the bucket before the fire, and the children collected round it; one in, one just out roaring to be dried, and the two others waiting their turn for the water, all of them stark naked—for mrs. mason made a point of undressing them at once to save trouble—so sure, i say, as these ablutions were in progress, the children frantically crying, mrs. mason boxing, storming, and rubbing, and the kitchen swimming, in would walk the father. words invariably ensued: a short, sharp quarrel; and he would turn out again for the nearest public-house, where he was welcomed by a sociable room and a glowing fire. can any one be surprised that it should be so?
you must not think these cases overdrawn; you must not think them exceptional cases. they are neither the one nor the other. they are truthful pictures, taken from what honey fair was then. i very much fear the same pictures might be taken from some places still.
