Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 36

The girls opened their eyes wider. "Why, Charlotte, what harm do you suppose will come to us? We can take care of ourselves, I hope?"

"It is not that," said Charlotte. "Of course you can. Still it does not sound nice. It is like going to a public-house--you can't call the Alhambra anything else. It is quite different, this, from going there to have tea in the summer. But that's not it, I say. If you go to it, you would be running into debt for all sorts of things at Bankes's, and get into trouble."

"My sister-in-law says you are a croaker, Charlotte; and she's right,"

cried Caroline Mason, with good-humour.

"Charlotte, it is not a bit of use your talking," broke in Mary Ann Cross vehemently. "We shall go to the party, and we shall buy new things for it. Bankes's have some lovely sarcenets, cross-barred; green, and pink, and lilac; and me and 'Melia mean to have a dress apiece off 'em.

With a pink bow in front, and a white collar--my! wouldn't folks stare at us!--Twelve yards each it would take, and they are one-and-eightpence a yard."

"Mary Ann, it would be just madness! There'd be the making, the lining, and the ribbon: five or six-and-twenty s.h.i.+llings each, they would cost you. Pray don't!"

"How you do reckon things up, Charlotte! We should pay off weekly: we have time afore us."

"What would your father say?"

"Charlotte, just hold your noise about father," quickly returned Amelia Cross, in a hushed and altered tone. "You know we don't tell him about Bankes's."

Charlotte found she might as well have talked to the winds. The girls were bent upon the evening's pleasure, and also upon the smart things they deemed necessary for it. A few minutes more and they left her; and trooped down to the shop of the Messrs. Bankes.

Charlotte was coming home that evening from an errand to the town, when she met Adam Thorneycroft. He was somewhat above the common run of workmen.

"Oh, is it you, Charlotte?" he exclaimed, stopping her. "I say, how is it that you'll never have anything to say to me now?"

"I have told you why, Adam," she replied.

"You have told me a pack of nonsense. I wouldn't lose you, Charlotte, to be made king of England. When once we are married, you shall see how steady I'll be. I will not enter a public-house."

"You have been saying that you will not for these twelve months past, Adam," she sadly rejoined; and, had her face been visible in the dark night, he would have seen that it was working with agitation.

"What does it hurt a man, to go out and take a quiet pipe and a gla.s.s after his work's over? Everybody does it."

"Everybody does not. But I do not wish to contend. It seems to bring you no conviction. Half the miseries around us in Honey Fair arise from so much of the wages being wasted at the public-houses. I know what you would say--that the wives are in fault as well. So they are. I do not believe people were sent into the world to live as so many of us live: nothing but scuffle and discomfort, and--I may almost say it--sinfulness. One of these wretched households shall never be mine."

"My goodness, Charlotte! How seriously you speak!"

"It is a serious subject. I want to try to live so as to do my duty by myself and by those around me; to pa.s.s my days in peace with the world and with my conscience. A woman beaten down, cowed by all sorts of ills, could not do so; and, where the husband is unsteady, she must be beaten down. Adam, you know it is not with a willing heart I give you up, but I am forced to it."

"How can you bring yourself to say this to me?" he rejoined.

"I don't deny that it is hard," she faintly said, suppressing with difficulty her emotion. "This many a week I and duty have been having a conflict with each other: but duty has gained the mastery. I knew it would from the first----"

"Duty be smothered!" interrupted Adam Thorneycroft. "I shall think you a born natural presently, Charlotte."

"Yes, I know. I can't help it. Adam, we should never pull together, you see. Good-bye! We can be friends in future, if you like; nothing more."

She held out her hand to him for a parting salutation. Adam, hurt and angry, flung it from him, and turned towards Helstonleigh: and Charlotte continued her way home, her tears dropping in the dusky night.

CHAPTER XXIV.

HARD TO BEAR.

Mrs. Halliburton struggled on. A struggle, my reader, that it is to be hoped, for your comfort's sake, you have never experienced, and never will. She had learnt the st.i.tch for the back of the gloves, and Mr. Lynn supplied her with a machine and with work. But she could not do it quickly as yet; though it was a hopeful day for her when she found that her weekly earnings amounted to six s.h.i.+llings.

Mrs. Reece paid her twenty s.h.i.+llings a week. Or rather, Dobbs: for Dobbs was paymaster-general. Of that, Jane could use (she had made a close calculation) six s.h.i.+llings, putting by fourteen for rent and taxes. Her taxes were very light, part of them being paid by the landlord, as was the custom with some houses in Helstonleigh. But for this, the rent would have been less. Sorely tempted as she was, by hunger, by cold, almost by starvation, Jane was resolute in leaving the fourteen s.h.i.+llings intact. She had suffered too much from non-payment of the last rent, not to be prepared with the next. But--the endurance and deprivation!--how great they were! And she suffered far more for her children than for herself.

One night, towards the middle of February, she felt very downhearted: almost as if she could not struggle on much longer. With her own earnings and the six s.h.i.+llings taken from Mrs. Reece's money she could count little more than twelve s.h.i.+llings weekly, and everything had to be found out of it. Coals, candles, was.h.i.+ng--that is, the soap, firing, etc., necessary for Miss Betsy Carter to do it with; the boys'

shoe-mending and other trifles, besides food. You will not, therefore, be surprised to hear that on this night they had literally nothing in the house but part of a loaf of bread. Jane was resolute in one thing--not to go into debt. Mrs. Buffle would have given credit, probably other shops also; but Jane believed that her sole chance of surmounting the struggle eventually was by keeping debt, even trifling debt, away. They had this morning eaten bread for breakfast; they had eaten potatoes and salt for dinner; and now, tea-time, there was bread again. All Jane had in her pocket was twopence, which must be kept for milk for the following morning; so they were drinking water now.

They were round the fire; two of the boys kneeling on the ground to get the better blaze, thankful they had a fire at all. Their lessons were over for the day. William had been thoroughly well brought on by his father, in Greek, Latin, Euclid, and in English generally--in short, in the branches necessary to a good education. Frank and Gar were forward also; indeed, Frank, for his age, was a very good Latin scholar. But how could they do much good or make much progress by themselves? William helped his brothers as well as he could, but it was somewhat profitless work; and Jane was all too conscious that they needed to be at school.

Altogether, her heart was sore within her.

Another thing was beginning to worry her--a fear lest her brother should not be able to send the rent. She had fully counted upon it; but, now that the time of its promised receipt was at hand, fears and doubts arose. She was dwelling on it now--now, as she sat there at her work, in the twilight of the early spring evening. If the money did not come, all she could do would be to go to Mr. Ashley, tell him of her ill luck, and that he must take the things at last. They must turn out, wanderers on the wide earth; no----

A plaintive cry interrupted her dream and recalled her to reality. It came from Jane, who was seated on a stool, her head leaning against the side of the mantel-piece.

"She is crying, mamma," cried quick Frank; and Janey whispered something into Frank's ear, the cry deepening into sobs.

"Mamma, she's crying because she's hungry."

"Janey, dear, I have nothing but bread. You know it. Could you eat a bit?"

"I want something else," sobbed Janey. "Some meat, or some pudding. It is such a long time since we had any. I am tired of bread; I am very hungry."

There came an echoing cry from the other side of the fireplace. Gar had laid his head down on the floor, and he now broke out, sobbing also.

"I am hungry too. I don't like bread any more than Janey does. When shall we have something nice?"

Jane gathered them to her, one in each arm, soothing them with soft caresses, her heart aching, her own sobs choked down, one single comfort present to her--that G.o.d knew what she had to bear.

Almost she began to fear for her own health. Would the intense anxiety, combined with the want of sufficient food, tell upon her? Would her sleepless nights tell upon her? Would her grief for the loss of her husband--a grief not the less keenly felt because she did not parade it--tell upon her? All _that_ lay in the future.

She rose the next morning early to her work; she always had to rise early--the boys and Jane setting the breakfast. Breakfast! Putting the bread upon the table and taking in the milk. For twopence they had a quart of skimmed milk, and were glad to get it. Her head was heavy, her frame hot, the result of inward fever, her limbs were tired before the day began; worse than all, there was that utter weariness of mind which predisposes a sufferer from it to lie down and die. "This will never do," thought Jane; "I _must_ bear up."

A dispute between Frank and Gar! They were good, affectionate boys; but little tempers must break out now and then. In trying to settle it, Jane burst into tears. It put an end to the fray more effectually than anything else could have done. The boys looked blank with consternation, and Janey burst into hysterical sobs.

"Don't, Jane, don't," said the poor mother; "I am not well; but do not _you_ cry."

"I am not well, either," sobbed Janey. "It hurts me here, and here." She put her hand to her head and chest, and Jane knew that she was weak from long-continued insufficiency of food. There was no remedy for it. Jane only wished she could bear for them all.

Some time after breakfast there came the postman's knock at the door. A thickish letter--twopence to pay. The penny postal system had come in, but letters were not so universally prepaid then as they are now.

Jane glanced over it with a beating heart. Yes, it was her brother's handwriting. Could the promised rent have really arrived? She felt sick with agitation.

"I have no money at all, Frank. Ask Dobbs if she will lend you twopence."