Littlebourne Lock Part 4

"Well, say ninepence. Now, I and some of my friends are going to buy the materials, and pay you for the work just the difference between the cost of materials and the price we should pay in a shop. Do you see?"

"Yes, miss, I see; but it won't do," and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l shook her head again.

"Why not?"

"Because ladies like to go to a shop and see hundreds of different mantles, and choose the one they like best."

"We shall have dozens of paper patterns to choose from, and the cutting-out will be done by a friend of mine who is very clever at it.

I shall begin by ordering my winter mantle at once. I shall give about eight s.h.i.+llings a yard for the stuff; three yards makes twenty-four s.h.i.+llings; then some braid or something of the sort, say six yards at two s.h.i.+llings; that is twelve; twenty-four and twelve are thirty-six; a few b.u.t.tons and sundries, say five s.h.i.+llings; thirty-six and five are forty-one. I shall give you seven s.h.i.+llings for the work, and I shall have a handsome mantle for two pounds eight s.h.i.+llings. Better than ninepence, and finding your own cotton and sewing-silk. Eh?"

"Yes, Miss Sutton; it is very kind of you. But it won't do. There are too many of us women; and you ladies, you all like to go shopping."

"You see," said Miss Sutton, turning to Mrs. Rowles, "what we want to do is to get rid of the _middleman_. We are going to try if we can persuade the great shop-keepers to come face to face with the people who actually do the work. I don't know how we shall succeed, but we will make an effort, and we will keep 'pegging away' until we get something done. And, one word more, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l; do not bring Juliet up to the slop-work trade. Get her a situation. When your husband is strong again and goes to work, then set the girl up with some decent clothes, and we will find her a little place."

"She wants a little place," said Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l; "but there's no place hereabouts. Our clergyman says he has nine thousand people in his parish, all so poor that his own house is the only one where there is a servant kept."

"You don't say so!" cried Mrs. Rowles, unable to keep longer silence.

"Why, with us there are laundresses that keep servants! and many little places for girls--minding babies and such like."

"Ah, in the country," said Miss Sutton; "I daresay. Oh, this dreadful, ravenous London; it eats up men, women, and children! Well, I must go on to another house. Good-bye, good-bye."

As the lady went away Mrs. Rowles asked, "Where does she come from?"

"She lives in a street near Hyde Park. She and many other ladies, and gentlemen too, have districts in the East-end, because there are no ladies and gentlemen here who could be district visitors; there are only poor people here."

Emma Rowles thought deeply for a few minutes, while Mary Mitch.e.l.l st.i.tched away.

Thomas Mitch.e.l.l had raised himself up, and was saying, "I shall soon be much better. I feel I am going to be strong again. Emma Rowles has given me quite a turn."

"Don't say that, Tom; it is rude," whispered his wife.

"I mean a turn for the better, a turn for the better."

"I wish, oh, I wish," Mrs. Rowles burst out, "how I wish I could turn you all out into the country! Fresh air, fresh water, room to move about! Where the rain makes the trees clean, instead of making the streets dirty, like it does here. Though we have mud up to your eyes in the country too; but then it is sweet, wholesome mud. Ah! what is that?"

A noise of confused voices rose from the street, and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l ran to the window. But these attics were not the whole size of the house, and the window was set so far back that she could not see the pavement on her own side of the street.

"It is that Juliet again, I'll be bound! There never was such a girl for getting into sc.r.a.pes! She seems to have no heart, no spirit, for doing better."

With a hopeless sigh Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l went back to the mantle.

Her sister could not take things so easily. She was not used to the incessant cries and outcries, quarrels, accidents, and miseries of a great city. Mrs. Rowles ran swiftly down the sloppy stairs to the open door, there she found Juliet leaning against the railings, while the baby lay sprawling on the step.

"Whatever is the matter?" asked Mrs. Rowles, breathless with fear.

"Nothing," was Juliet's reply.

"But I heard loud voices."

"That was only when Miss Sutton walked on baby."

"Poor little fellow! How did that happen?"

"Oh, I don't know; he just slipped off my lap at the very moment that she was coming out. He's not hurt."

Mrs. Rowles picked up the baby to make sure that he was not injured, and found no mark or bruise.

"But his spine might be hurt, or his brain, without there being any outside mark. I am afraid you are very careless."

"Yes, I am. I don't care about nothing."

"Now, that's not at all pretty of you, Juliet."

"Don't want it to be pretty."

"And it's not kind and nice."

"Don't want to be kind and nice."

"And I am afraid people will not love you if you go on like this."

"Don't want people to love me."

Mrs. Rowles knew not how to soften this hard heart. "Juliet, don't you want to help your sick father and your hard-working mother, and all your hungry little brothers and sisters?"

"No, I don't. I want to go away from them. I want to have mutton-chops and rice puddings like we used to have when there was not so many of us; and merino frocks, and new boots with elastic sides; and the Crystal Palace."

"Oh, you would like to leave home?"

"Yes, I would. They worrit me, and I worrit them."

"Oh, poor child, poor child!"

The kind-hearted Emma Rowles made curious little noises with her tongue and her teeth, and toiled again up the staircase with baby in her arms, and Juliet silently following as she went. Mrs. Rowles framed short, unworded prayers for guidance at this present crisis; and when she stood again in her sister-in-law's room her resolve was taken.

She put the baby into his father's arms.

"There, Thomas, I do hope you will get about soon. Do you think your trade is a healthy one? My Ned, he always says that it is bad to work by night, and bad to sleep by day, says he."

"Emma Rowles," was Mitch.e.l.l's sharp rejoinder, "does your Ned ever read a newspaper?"

"Yes, most every day. Them pa.s.sing through the lock often give him a _Standard_ or a _Telegraph_."

"Then he'd better not find fault with the printers. If the public would be content with evening papers, we printers might keep better hours."

"There now!" said Mrs. Rowles, venturing on a short laugh "Do you know, I never thought of when the morning papers get printed."

"There's a many as thoughtless as you, and more so."