'Oh, ma'am!' Hender broke in, 'you can't think how amusing it was last night! I never enjoyed myself so much in my life. The place was crammed! Such a house! And Miss Leslie got three encores and a call after each act.'
'And what was Mr. Lennox like?'
'Oh, he only played a small part—one of the policemen. He don't play Pom-poucet; I was wrong. It's too heavy a part, and he's too busy looking after the piece. But Joe Mortimer was splendid; I nearly died of laughing when he fell down and lost his wig in the middle of the stage. And Frank Bret looked such a swell, and he got an encore for the song, "Oh, Certainly I Love Clairette." And he and Miss Leslie got another for the duet. To-morrow they play theCloches.'
'But now you've seen so much of the theatre I hope you'll be able to do a little overtime with me. I've promised to let Mrs. Barnes have her dress by to-morrow morning.'
'I'm afraid I shan't be able to stay after six o'clock.'
'But surely if they're doing the same play you don't want to see it again?'
'Well 'tisn't exactly that, but—well, I prefer to tell you the truth; 'tisn't the piece I go to the theatre for; I'm one of the dressers, and I get twelve shillings a week, and I can't afford to lose it. But there's no use in telling Mrs. Ede, she'd only make a bother.'
'How do you mean, dressing?'
'The ladies of the theatre must have someone to dress them, and I look after the principals, Miss Leslie and Miss Beaumont, that's all.'
'And how long have you been doing that?'
'Why, about a month now. Bill got me the place.'
This conversation had broken in upon a silence of nearly half an hour; with bent heads and clicking needles, Kate and Hender had been working assiduously at Mrs. Barnes's skirt.
Having a great deal ofpassementerieornamentation to sew on to the heading of the flounces, and much fringe to arrange round the edge of the drapery, Kate looked forward to a heavy day. She had expected Miss Hender an hour earlier, and she had not turned up until after nine. An assistant whose time was so occupied that she couldn't give an extra hour when you were in a difficulty was of very little use; and it might be as well to look out for somebody more suitable. Besides, all this talk about theatres and actors was very wrong; there could be little doubt that the girl was losing her character, and to have her coming about the house would give it a bad name. Such were Kate's reflections as she handled the rustling silk and folded it into large plaitings. Now and again she tried to come to a decision, but she was not sincere with herself. She knew she liked the girl, and Hender's conversation amused her: to send her away meant to surrender herself completely to her mother-in-law's stern kindness and her husband's irritability.
Hender was the window through which Kate viewed the bustle and animation of life, and even now, annoyed as she was that she would not be able to get the dress done in time, she could not refrain from listening to the girl's chatter. There was about Miss Hender that strange charm which material natures possess even when they offend. Being of the flesh, we must sympathize with it, and the amiability of Hender's spirits made a great deal pass that would have otherwise appeared wicked. She could tell without appearing too rude, how Mr. Wentworth, the lessee, was gone on a certain lady in the new company, and would give her anything if she would chuck up her engagement and come and live with him. When Hender told these stories, Kate, fearing that Mrs. Ede might have overheard, looked anxiously at the door, and under the influence of the emotion, it interested her to warn her assistant of the perils of frequenting bad company. But as Kate lectured she could not help wondering how it was that her life passed by so wearily. Was she never going to do anything else but work? she often asked herself, and then reproached herself for the regret that had risen unwittingly up in her mind that life was not all pleasure. It certainly was not, 'but perhaps it is better,' she said to herself, 'that we have to get our living, for me at least'—her thoughts broke off sharply, and she passed out of the present into a long past time.
Kate had never known her father; her mother, an earnest believer in Wesley, was a hard-working woman who made a pound a week by painting on china. This was sufficient for their wants, and Mrs. Howell's only fears were that she might lose her health and die before her time, leaving her daughter in want. To avoid this fate she worked early and late at the factory, and Kate was left in the charge of the landlady, a childless old woman who, sitting by the fire, used to tell stories of her deceptions and misfortunes in life, thereby intoxicating the little girl's brain with sentiment. The mother's influence was a sort of make-weight; Mrs. Howell was a deeply religious woman, and Kate was often moved to trace back a large part of herself to Bible-readings and extemporary prayers offered up by the bedside in the evening.
Her school-days were unimportant. She learnt to read and write and to do sums; that was all. Kate grew, softly and mystically as a dark damask rose, into a pretty woman without conversions or passions: for notwithstanding her early training, religion had never taken a very firm hold upon her, and despite the fact that she married into a family very similar to her own, although her mother-in-law was almost a counterpart of her real mother—a little harder and more resolute, but as God-fearing and as kind—Kate had caught no blast of religious fervour; religion taught her nothing, inspired her with nothing, could influence her in little. She was not strong nor great, nor was she conscious of any deep feeling that if she acted otherwise than she did she would be living an unworthy life. She was merely good because she was a kind-hearted woman, without bad impulses, and admirably suited to the life she was leading.
But in this commonplace inactivity of mind there was one strong characteristic, one bit of colour in all these grey tints: Kate was dreamy, not to say imaginative. When she was a mere child she loved fairies, and took a vivid interest in goblins; and when afterwards she discarded these stories for others, it was not because it shocked her logical sense to read of a beanstalk a hundred feet high, but for a tenderer reason: Jack did not find a beautiful lady to love him. She could not help feeling disappointed, and when theLondon Journalcame for the first time across her way, with the story of a broken heart, her own heart melted with sympathy; the more sentimental and unnatural the romance, the more it fevered and enraptured her. She loved to read of singular subterranean combats, of high castles, prisoners, hair-breadth escapes; and her sympathies were always with the fugitives. It was also very delightful to hear of lovers who were true to each other in spite of a dozen wicked uncles, of women who were tempted until their hearts died within them, and who years after threw up their hands and said, 'Thank God that I had the courage to resist!'
The second period of her sentimental education was when she passed from the authors who deal exclusively with knights, princesses, and kings to those who interest themselves in the love fortunes of doctors and curates.
Amid these there was one story that interested her in particular, and caused her deeper emotions than the others. It concerned a beautiful young woman with a lovely oval face, who was married to a very tiresome country doctor. This lady was in the habit of reading Byron and Shelley in a rich, sweet-scented meadow, down by the river, which flowed dreamily through smiling pasture-lands adorned by spreading trees. But this meadow belonged to a squire, a young man with grand, broad shoulders, who day after day used to watch these readings by the river without venturing to address a word to the fair trespasser. One day, however, he was startled by a shriek: in her poetical dreamings the lady had slipped into the water. A moment sufficed to tear off his coat, and as he swam like a water-dog he had no difficulty in rescuing her. Of course after this adventure he had to call and inquire, and from henceforth his visits grew more and more frequent, and by a strange coincidence, he used to come riding up to the hall-door when the husband was away curing the ills of the country-folk. Hours were passed under the trees by the river, he pleading his cause, and she refusing to leave poor Arthur, till at last the squire gave up the pursuit and went to foreign parts, where he waited thirty years, until he heard Arthur was dead. And then he came back with a light heart to his first and only love, who had never ceased to think of him, and lived with her happily for ever afterwards. The grotesque mixture of prose and poetry, both equally false, used to enchant Kate, and she always fancied that had she been the heroine of the book she would have acted in the same way.
Kate's taste for novel-reading distressed Mrs. Howell; she thought it 'a sinful waste of time, not to speak of the way it turned people's heads from God'; and when one day she found Kate's scrap-book, made up of poems cut from theFamily Herald, she began to despair of her daughter's salvation. The answer Kate made to her mother's reproaches was: 'Mother, I've been sewing all day; I can't see what harm it can be to read a little before I go to bed. Nobody is required to be always saying their prayers.'
The next two years passed away unperceived by either mother or daughter, and then an event occurred of some importance. Their neighbours at the corner of the street got into difficulties, and were eventually sold out and their places taken by strangers, who changed the oil-shop into a drapery business. The new arrivals aroused the keenest interest, and Mrs. Howell and her daughter called to see what they were like, as did everybody else. The acquaintance thus formed was renewed at church, and much to their surprise and pleasure, they discovered that they were of the same religious persuasion.
Henceforth the Howells and Edes saw a great deal of each other, and every Sunday after church the mothers walked home together and the young people followed behind. Ralph spoke of his ill-health, and Kate pitied him, and when he complimented her on her beautiful hair she blushed with pleasure. For much as she had revelled in fictitious sentiment, she had somehow never thought of seeking it in nature, and how that she had found a lover, the critical sense was not strong enough in her to lead her to compare reality with imagination. She accepted Ralph as unsuspectingly as she hitherto accepted the tawdry poetry of her favourite fiction. And her nature not being a passionate one, she was able to do this without any apparent transition of sentiment. She pitied him, hoped she could be of use in nursing him, and felt flattered at the idea of being mistress of a shop.
The mothers were delighted, and spoke of the coincidence of their religions and the admirable addition dressmaking would be to the drapery business. Of love, small mention was made. The bridegroom spoke of his prospects of improving the business, the bride listened, interested for the while in his enthusiasm; orders came in, and Kate was soon transformed into a hard-working woman.
This change of character passed unperceived by all but Mrs. Howell, who died wondering how it came about. Kate herself did not know; she fancied that it was fully accounted for by the fact that she had no time—'no time for reading now'—which was no more than the truth; but she did not complain; she accepted her husband's kisses as she did the toil he imposed on her—meekly, unaffectedly, as a matter of course, as if she always knew that the romances which used to fascinate her were merely idle dreams, having no bearing upon the daily life of human beings—things fit to amuse a young girl's fancies, and to be thrown aside when the realities of life were entered upon. The only analogy between the past and present was an ample submission to authority and an indifference to the world and its interest. Even the fact of being without children did not seem to concern her, and when her mother-in-law regretted it she merely smiled languidly, or said, 'We are very well as we are.' Of the world and the flesh she lived almost in ignorance, suspecting their existence only through Miss Hender. Hender was attracted by her employer's kindness and softness of manner, and Kate by her assistant's strength of will. For some months past a friendship had been growing up between the two women, but if Kate had known for certain that Hender was living a life of sin with the stage carpenter she might not have allowed her into the house. But the possibility of sin attached her to the girl in the sense that it forced her to think of her continually. And then there was a certain air of bravado in Miss Hender's freckled face that Kate admired. She instituted comparisons between herself and the assistant, and she came to the conclusion that she preferred that fair, blonde complexion to her own clear olive skin; and the sparkle of the red frizzy hair put her out of humour with the thick, wavy blue tresses which encircled her small temples like a piece of black velvet.
As she continued her sewing she reconsidered the question of Hender's dismissal, but only to perceive more and more clearly the blank it would occasion in her life. And besides her personal feeling there was the fact to consider that to satisfy her customers she must have an assistant who could be depended upon. And she did not know where she would find another who would turn out work equal to Hender's. At last Kate said:
'I don't know what I shall do; I promised the dress by to-morrow morning.'
'I think we'll be able to finish it to-day,' Hender answered. 'I'll work hard at it all the afternoon; a lot can be done between this and seven o'clock.'
'Oh, I don't know,' replied Kate dolefully; 'these leaves take such a time to sew on; and then there's all the festooning.'
'I think it can be managed, but we must stick at it.'
On this expression of good-will the conversation ceased for the time being, and the clicking of needles and the buzzing of flies about the brown-paper patterns were all that was heard until twelve o'clock, when Mrs. Ede burst into the room.
'I knew what it would be,' she said, shutting the door after her.
'What is it?' said Kate, looking up frightened.
'Well, I offered to do him a chop or some fried eggs, but he says he must have an omelette. Did you ever hear of such a thing? I told him I didn't know how to make one, but he said that I was to ask you if you could spare the time.'
'I'll make him an omelette,' said Kate, rising. 'Have you got the eggs?'
'Yes. The trouble that man gives us! What with his bath in the morning, and two pairs of boots to be cleaned, and the clothes that have to be brushed, I've done nothing but attend to him since ten o'clock; and what hours to keep!—it is now past eleven.'
'What's the use of grumbling? You know the work must be done, and I can't be in two places at once. You promised me you wouldn't say anything more about it, but would attend to him just the same as any other lodger.'
'I can't do more than I'm doing; I haven't done anything all the morning but run upstairs,' said Mrs. Ede very crossly; 'and I wish you'd take the little girls out of the kitchen; I can't look after them, and they do nothing but look out of the window.'
'Very well, I'll have them up here; they can sit on the sofa. We can manage with them now that we've finished the cutting out.'
Hender made no reply to this speech, which was addressed to her. She hated having the little girls up in the workroom, and Kate knew it.
Kate did not take long to make Mr. Lennox's omelette. There was a bright fire in the kitchen, the muffins were toasted, and the tea was made.
'This is a very small breakfast,' she said as she put the plates and dishes on the tray. 'Didn't he order anything else?'
'He spoke about some fried bacon, but I'll attend to that; you take the other things up to him.'
As Kate passed with the tray in her hand she reproved the little girls for their idleness and told them to come upstairs, but it was not until she motioned them into the workroom that she realized that she was going into Mr. Lennox's room.
After a slight pause she turned the handle of the door and entered. Mr. Lennox was lying very negligently in the armchair, wrapped in his dressing-gown. 'Oh, I beg your pardon, sir; I didn't know—' she said, starting back. Then, blushing for shame at her own silliness in taking notice of such things, she laid the breakfast things on the table.
Mr. Lennox thanked her, and without seeming to notice her discomfiture he wrapped himself up more closely, drew his chair forward, and, smacking his lips, took the cover off the dish. 'Oh, very nice indeed,' he said, 'but I'm afraid I've given you a great deal of trouble; the old lady said you were very, very busy.'
'I've to finish a dress to-day, sir, and my assistant—'
Here Kate stopped, remembering that if Mr. Lennox had renewed his acquaintance with Hender at the theatre, any allusion to her would give rise to further conversation. 'Oh yes, I know Miss Hender; she's one of our dressers; she looks after our two leading ladies, Miss Leslie and Miss Beaumont. But I don't see the bacon here.'
'Mrs. Ede is cooking it; she'll bring it up in a minute or two,' Kate answered, edging towards the door.
'We've nothing to do with the dressers,' said Mr. Lennox, speaking rapidly, so as to detain his landlady; 'but if you're as pressed with your work as you tell me, I dare say, by speaking to the lessee, I might manage to get Miss Hender off for this one evening.'
'Thank you, sir; I'm sure it's very kind of you, but I shall be able to manage without that.'
The lodger spoke with such an obvious desire to oblige that Kate could not choose but like him, and it made her wish all the more that he would cover up his big, bare neck.
''Pon my word, this is a capital omelette,' he said, licking his lips, 'There is nothing I like so much as a good omelette, I was very lucky to come here,' he added, glancing at Kate's waist, which was slim even in her old blue striped dress.
'It's very kind of you to say so, sir,' she said, and a glow of rose-colour flushed the dark complexion. There was something very human in this big man, and Kate did not know whether his animalism irritated or pleased her.
'You weren't at the theatre last night?' he said, forcing a huge piece of deeply buttered, spongy French roll into his mouth.
'No, sir, I wasn't there; I rarely go to the theatre.'
'Ah! I'm sorry. How's that? We had a tremendous house. I never saw the piece go better. If this business keeps up to the end of the week I think we shall try to get another date.'
Kate did not know what 'another date' meant, but Hender would be able to tell her.
'You've only to tell me when you want to see the piece, and I'll give you places. Would you like to come to-night?'
'Not to-night, thank you, sir. I shall be busy all the evening, and my husband is not very well.'
The conversation then came to an irritating pause. Mr. Lennox had scraped up the last fragments of the omelette, and poured himself out another cup of tea, when Mrs. Ede appeared with the broiled bacon. On seeing Kate talking to Mr. Lennox, she at once assumed an air of mingled surprise and regret.
Kate noticed this, but Mr. Lennox had no eyes for anything but the bacon, which he heaped on his plate and devoured voraciously. It pleased Kate to see him enjoy his breakfast, but while she was admiring him Mrs. Ede said as she moved towards the door, 'Can I do anything for you, sir?'
'Well, no,' replied Mr. Lennox indifferently; but seeing that Kate was going too he swallowed a mouthful of tea hastily and said, 'I was just telling the lady here that we had a tremendous success last night, and that she ought to come and see the piece. I think she said she had no one to go with. You should take her. I'm sure you will like theCloches.'
Mrs. Ede looked indignant, but after a moment she recovered herself, and said severely and emphatically: 'Thank you, sir, but I'm a Christian woman. No offence, sir, but I don't think such things are right.'
'Ah! don't you, indeed?' replied the mummer, looking at her in blank astonishment. But the expression of his face soon changed, and as if struck suddenly by some painful remembrance, he said, 'You're a Dissenter or something of that kind, I suppose. We lost a lot of money at Bradford through people of your persuasion; they jolly well preached against us.'
Mrs. Ede did not answer, and after a few brief apologetic phrases to the effect that it would not do for us all to think alike, Kate withdrew to her work-room, asking herself if Mr. Lennox would take offence and leave them. Hender suspected that something had occurred, and was curious to hear what it was; but there sat those idiotic little girls, and of course it wouldn't do to speak before them. Once she hinted that she had heard that Mr. Lennox, though a very nice man, was a bit quick-tempered, a query that Kate answered evasively, saying that it was difficult to know what Mr. Lennox was like. Words were an effort to her, and she could not detach a single precise thought from the leaden-coloured dreams which hung about her.
Click, click, went the needles all day long, and Kate wondered what a woman who lived in a thirty-pound house could want with a ten-pound dress. But that was no affair of hers, and as it was most important she should not disappoint her, Kate kept Hender to dinner; and as compensation for the press of work, she sent round to the public for three extra half-pints. They needed a drink, for the warmth of the day was intense. Along the red tiles of the houses, amid the brick courtyards, the sun's rays created an oven-like atmosphere. From the high wall opposite the dead glare poured into the little front kitchen through the muslin blinds, burning the pot of green-stuff, and falling in large spots upon the tiled floor; and overcome by the heat, the two women lay back on the little red calico-covered sofa, languidly sipping their beer, and thinking vaguely of when they would have to begin work again. Hender lolled with her legs stretched out; Kate rested her head upon her hand wearily; Mrs. Ede sat straight, apparently unheeding the sunlight which fell across the plaid shawl that she wore winter and summer. She drank her beer in quick gulps, as if even the time for swallowing was rigidly portioned out. The others watched her, knowing that when her pewter was empty she would turn them out of the kitchen. In a few moments she said, 'I think, Kate, that if you're in a hurry you'd better get on with your dress. I have to see to Mr. Lennox's dinner, and I can't have you a-hanging about. As it is, I don't know how I'm to get the work done. There's a leg of mutton to be roasted, and a pudding to be made, and all by four o'clock.'
Kate calmed the old woman with a few words, and taking Ralph's dinner from her, carried it upstairs. She found her husband better, and, setting the tray on the edge of the bed, she answered the questions he put to her concerning the actor briefly; then begged of him to excuse her, as she heard voices in the shop. Mr. Lennox had come in bringing two men with him, Joe Mortimer, the low comedian, and young Montgomery, the conductor; and it became difficult to prevent Hender from listening at the doors, and almost useless to remind her of the fact that there were children present, so excited did she become when she spoke of Bret's love affairs.
But at six o'clock she put on her hat, and there was no dissuading her; Mrs. Barnes must wait for her dress. There was still much to be done, and when Mrs. Ede called from the kitchen that tea was ready, Kate did not at first answer, and when at last she descended she remained only long enough to eat a piece of bread and butter. Her head was filled with grave forebodings, that gradually drifted and concentrated into one fixed idea—not to disappoint Mrs. Barnes. Once quite suddenly, she was startled by an idea which flashed across her mind, and stopping in the middle of a 'leaf,' she considered the question that had propounded itself. Lodgers often make love to their landladies; what would she do if Mr. Lennox made love to her? Such a thing might occur. An expression of annoyance contracted her face, and she resumed her sewing. The hours passed slowly and oppressively. It was now ten o'clock, and the tail had still to be bound with braid, and the side strings to be sewn in. She had no tape by her, and thought of putting off these finishing touches till the morning, but plucking up her courage, she determined to go down and fetch from the shop what was required. The walk did her good, but it was hard to sit down to work again; and the next few minutes seemed to her interminable: but at last the final stitch was given, the thread bitten off, and the dress held up in triumph. She looked at it for a moment with a feeling of pride, which soon faded into a sensation of indifference.
All the same her day's labour was over; she was now free. But the thought carried a bitterness: she remembered that there was no place for her to go to but her sick husband's room. Yet she had been looking forward to having at least one night's rest, and it exasperated her to think that there was nothing for her but a hard pallet in the back room, and the certainty of being awakened several times to attend to Ralph. She asked herself passionately if she was always going to remain a slave and a drudge? Hender's words came back to her with a strange distinctness, and she saw that she knew nothing of pleasure, or even of happiness; and in a very simple way she wondered what were really the ends of life. If she were good and religious like her mother or her mother-in-law—But somehow she could never feel as they did. Heaven seemed so far away. Of course it was a consolation to think there was a happier and better world; still—still—Not being able to pursue the thread any further, she stopped, puzzled, and a few moments after she was thinking of the lady who used to read Byron and Shelley, and who resisted her lover's entreaties so bravely. Every part of the forgotten story came back to her. She realized the place they used to dream in. She could see them watching with ardent eyes the paling of the distant sky as they listened to the humming of insects, breathing the honied odour of the flowers; she saw her leaning on his arm caressingly, whilst pensively she tore with the other hand the leaves as they passed up the long terrace.
Then as the vision became more personal and she identified herself with the heroine of the book, she thought of the wealth of love she had to give, and it seemed to her unutterably sad that it should bloom like a rose in a desert unknown and unappreciated.
This was the last flight of her dream. The frail wings of her imagination could sustain her no longer, and too weary to care for or even to think of anything, she went upstairs, to find Mrs. Ede painting her son's chest and back with iodine. He had a bad attack, which was beginning to subside. His face was haggard, his eyes turgid, and the two women talked together. Mrs. Ede was indignant, and told of all her trouble with the dinner. She had to fetch cigars and drinks. Kate listened, watching her husband all the while. He began to get a little better, and Mrs. Ede took advantage of the occasion to suggest that it was time for evening prayers.
In days when speech was possible, it was Ralph who read the customary chapter of the Bible and led the way with the Lord's Prayer; but when words were forbidden to him his mother supplied his place. The tall figure knelt upright. It was not a movement of cringing humility, but of stalwart belief, and as she handed her the Bible, Kate could not help thinking that there was pride in her mother-in-law's very knees.
The old woman turned over the leaves for a few seconds in silence; then, having determined on a chapter, she began to read. But she had not got beyond a few sentences before she was interrupted by the sound of laughing voices and stamping feet.
She stopped reading, and looked from Kate to her husband. He was at the moment searching for his pocket-handkerchief. Kate rose to assist him, and Mrs. Ede said:
'It's shameful! it's disgraceful!'
'It's only Mr. Lennox coming in.'
'Only Mr. Lennox!' At that moment she was interrupted by the lighter laughter of female voices; she paused to listen, and then, shutting the book fiercely, she said, 'From the first I was against letting our rooms to a mummer; but I didn't think I should live to see my son's house turned into a night house. I shall not stop here.'
'Not stop here—eh, eh? We must tell—tell him that it can't be allowed,'Ralph wheezed.
'And I should like to know who these women are he has dared to bring into—People he has met in Piccadilly, I suppose!'
'Oh no!' interrupted Kate, 'I'm sure that they are the ladies of the theatre.'
'And where's the difference?' Mrs. Ede asked fiercely. Sectarian hatred of worldly amusement flamed in her eyes, and made common cause with the ordinary prejudice of the British landlady. Mr. Ede shared his mother's opinions, but as he was then suffering from a splitting headache, his chief desire was that she should lower the tone of her voice.
'For goodness' sake don't speak so loud!' he said plaintively. 'Of course he mustn't bring women into the house; but he had better be told so. Kate, go down and tell him that these ladies must leave.'
Kate stood aghast at hearing her fate thus determined, and she asked herself how she was to tell Mr. Lennox that he must put his friends out of doors. She hesitated, and during a long silence all three listened. A great guffaw, a woman's shriek, a peal of laughter, and then a clinking of glasses was heard. Even Kate's face told that she thought it very improper, and Mrs. Ede said with a theatrical air of suppressed passion:
'Very well; I suppose that is all that can be done at present.'
Feeling very helpless, Kate murmured, 'I don't see how I'm to tell them to go. Hadn't we better put it off until morning?'
'Till morning!' said Mr. Ede, trying to button his dirty nightshirt across his hairy chest. 'I'm not going to listen to that noise all night. Kate, you g-go and tur-r-rn them out.'
'I'm sorry, dearie,' said Mrs. Ede, seeing her daughter-in-law's distress.'I'll soon send them away.'
'Oh no! I'd rather go myself,' said Kate.
'Very well, dear. I only thought you might not like to go down among a lot of rough people.'
The noise downstairs was in the meanwhile increasing, and Ralph grew as angry as his asthma would allow him. 'They're just killing me with their noise. Go down at once and tell them they must leave the house instantly. If you don't I'll go myself.'
Mrs. Ede made a movement towards the door, but Kate stopped her, saying:
'I'll go; it's my place.' As she descended the stairs she heard a man's voice screaming above the general hubbub:
'I'll tell you what; if Miss Beaumont doesn't wait for my beat another night, I'll insist on a rehearsal being called. She took the concerted music in the finale of the first act two whole bars before her time. It was damned awful. I nearly broke my stick trying to stop her.'
'Quite true; I never saw the piece go so badly. Bret was "fluffing" all over the shop.'
Kate listened to these fragments of conversation, asked herself how she was to walk in upon those people and tell them that they must keep quiet.
'And the way Beaumont tries to spoon with Dick. She nearly missed her cue once with sneaking after him in the wings.'
A peal of laughter followed. This sally determined Kate to act; and without having made up her mind what to say, she turned the handle of the door and walked into the room.
The three gas-burners were blazing, wine-glasses were on the table, and Mr. Lennox stood twisting a corkscrew into a bottle which he held between his fat thighs. On the little green sofa Miss Lucy Leslie lay back playing with her bonnet-strings. Her legs were crossed, and a lifted skirt showed a bit of striped stocking. Next her, with his spare legs sprawled over the arm of the easy-chair, was Mr. Montgomery, the thinnest being possible to imagine, in grey clothes. His nose was enormous, and he pushed up his glasses when Kate came into the room with a movement of the left hand that was clearly habitual. On the other side of the round table sat Mr. Joe Mortimer, the heavy lead, the celebrated miser in theCloches. A tall girl standing behind him playfully twisted his back hair. He addressed paternal admonitions to her from time to time in an artificially cracked voice.
'Please, sir,' said Kate pleadingly, 'I'm very sorry, but we cannot keep open house after eleven o'clock.'
A deep silence followed this announcement. Miss Leslie looked up at Kate curiously. Mr. Lennox stopped twisting the corkscrew into the bottle, and the low comedian, seizing the opportunity, murmured in his mechanical voice to the girl behind him, 'Open house! Of course, she's quite right. I knew there was a draught somewhere; I felt my hair blowing about.'
Everybody laughed, and the merriment still contributed to discountenance the workwoman.
'Will he never speak and let me go?' she asked herself. At last he did speak, and his words fell upon her like blows.
'I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Ede,' he said in a loud, commanding voice. 'I made no agreement with you that I wasn't to bring friends home with me in the evening. Had I known that I was taking lodgings in a church I wouldn't have come.'
She felt dreadfully humiliated, and nothing was really present in her mind but a desire to conciliate Mr. Lennox.
'It isn't my fault, sir. I really don't mind; but my mother-in-law and my husband won't have people coming into the house after ten o'clock.'
Mr. Lennox's face showed that his heart had softened towards her, and when she mentioned that her husband was lying ill in bed, turning round to his company, he said:
'I think we are making too much noise; we shouldn't like it ourselves if—'
But just at that moment, when all was about to end pleasantly, Mrs. Ede was heard at the top of the stairs.
'I'm a Christian woman, and will not remain in a house where drinking and women—'
This speech changed everything. Mr. Lennox's eyes flashed passion, and he made a movement as if he were going to shout an answer back to Mrs. Ede, but checking himself, he said, addressing Kate, 'I beg that you leave my rooms, ma'am. You can give me warning in the morning if you like, or rather, I'll give it to you; but for this evening, at least, the place is mine, and I shall do what I like.' On that he advanced towards the door and threw it open.
Tears stood in her eyes. She looked sorrowfully at Mr. Lennox. He noticed the pitiful, appealing glance, but was too angry to understand. The look was her whole soul. She did not see Miss Leslie sneering, nor Mr. Montgomery's grinning face. She saw nothing but Mr. Lennox, and, stunned by the thought of his leaving them, she followed her mother-in-law upstairs. The old woman scolded and rowed. To have that lot of men and women smoking and drinking after eleven o'clock in the house was not to be thought of, and she tried to force her son to say that the police must be sent for. But it was impossible to get an answer from him: the excitement and effort of speaking had rendered him speechless, and holding his moppy black hair with both hands, he wheezed in deep organ tones. Kate looked at him blankly, and longed for some place out of hearing of his breath and out of the smell of the medicine-bottles. His mother was now insisting on his taking a couple of pills, and called upon Kate to find the box. The sharp, sickly odour of the aloes was abominable, and with her stomach turning, she watched her husband trying vainly to swallow the dose with the aid of a glass of water. Stop in this room! No, that she couldn't do! It would poison her. She wanted sleep and fresh air. Where could she get them? The mummer was in the spare room; but he would be gone to-morrow, and she would be left alone. The thought startled her, though she soon forgot it in her longing to get out of her husband's sight. Every moment this desire grew stronger, and at last she said:
'I cannot stay here; another night would kill me. Will you let me have your room?'
'Certainly I will, my dear,' replied the old woman, astonished not so much at the request, but at the vehemence of the emphasis laid upon the words. 'You're looking dreadfully worn out, my dear; I'll see to my boy.'
As soon as her request had been granted, Kate hesitated as if she feared she was doing wrong, and she looked at her husband, wondering if he would call her back.
But he took no heed; his attention was too entirely occupied by his breath to think either of her or of the necessity of sending for the police, and he waved his mother away when she attempted to speak to him.
'Are those men going to stop there all night?' Mrs. Ede asked.
'Oh, I really don't know; I'm too tired to bother about it any more,' replied Kate petulantly. 'It's all your fault—you're to blame for everything; you've no right to interfere with the lodgers in my house.'
Mrs. Ede raised her arms as she sought for words, but Kate walked out of the room without giving her time to answer. Suddenly a voice cried in a high key:
'Who do you take me for, Dick? I wasn't born yesterday. A devilish pretty woman, if you ask me. What hair!—like velvet!'
Kate stopped. 'Black hair,' she said to herself—'they must be talking of me,' and she listened intently.
The remark, however, did not appear to have been particularly well-timed, for after a long silence, a woman's voice said:
'Well, I don't know whether he liked her, and I don't care, but what I'm not going to do is to wait here listening to you all cracking up a landlady's good looks. I'm off.'
A scuffle then seemed to be taking place; half a dozen voices spoke together, and in terror of her life Kate flew across the workroom to Mrs. Ede's bed.
The door of the sitting-room was flung open and cajoling and protesting words echoed along the passage up and down the staircase. It was disgraceful, and Kate expected every minute to hear her mother-in-law's voice mingling in the fray; but peace was restored, and for at least an hour she listened to sounds of laughing voices mingling with the clinking of glasses. At last Dick wished his friends good-night, and Kate lay under the sheets and listened. Something was going to happen. 'He thinks me a pretty woman; she is jealous,' were phrases that rang without ceasing in her ears. Then, hearing his door open, she fancied he was coming to seek her, and in consternation buried herself under the bedclothes, leaving only her black hair over the pillows to show where she had disappeared. But the duplicate drop of a pair of boots was conclusive, and assuring herself that he would not venture on such a liberty, she strove to compose herself to sleep.
Next day, about eleven o'clock, Kate walked up Market Street with Mrs. Barnes's dress, meditating on the letter she had received. A very serious matter this angry letter was to Kate, and she thought of what she could say to satisfy her customer. Her anxiety of mind caused her to walk faster than she was aware of, up the hill towards the square of sky where the passers-by seemed like figures on the top of a monument. At the top of the hill she would turn to the left and descend towards the little quasi-villa residences which form the suburbs of Northwood. Ten minutes later Kate approached Mrs. Barnes's door hot and out of breath, her plans matured, determined, if the worst came to the worst, to let the dress go at a reduction. Her present difficulty was so great that she forgot other troubles, and it was not until she had received her money that she remembered Mr. Lennox. He was going. Her rooms would be empty again. She was sorry he was going, and at the top of Market Street she stood at gaze, surprised by the view, though she had never seen any other. A long black valley lay between her and the dim hills far away, miles and miles in length, with tanks of water glittering like blades of steel, and gigantic smoke clouds rolling over the stems of a thousand factory chimneys. She had not come up this hillside at the top of Market Street for a long while; for many years she had not stood there and gazed at the view, not since she was a little girl, and the memories that she cherished in her workroom between Hanley and the Wever Hills were quite different from the scene she was now looking upon. She saw the valley with different eyes: she saw it now with a woman's eyes; before she had seen it with a child's eyes. She remembered the ruined collieries and the black cinder-heaps protruding through the hillside on which she was now standing. In childhood, these ruins were convenient places to play hide-and-seek in. But now they seemed to convey a meaning to her mind, a meaning that was not very clear, that perplexed her, that she tried to put aside and yet could not. At her left, some fifty feet below, running in the shape of a fan, round a belt of green, were the roofs of Northwood—black brick unrelieved except by the yellow chimney-pots, specks of colour upon a line of soft cotton-like clouds melting into grey, the grey passing into blue, and the blue spaces widening. 'It will be a hot day,' she said to herself, and fell to thinking that a hot day was hotter on this hillside than elsewhere. At every moment the light grew more and more intense, till a distant church spire faded almost out of sight, and she was glad she had come up here to admire the view from the top of Market Street. Southwark, on the right, as black as Northwood, toppled into the valley in irregular lines, the jaded houses seeming in Kate's fancy like cart-loads of gigantic pill-boxes cast in a hurry from the counter along the floor. It amused her to stand gazing, contrasting the reality with her memories. It seemed to her that Southwark had never before been so plain to the eye. She could follow the lines of the pavement and almost distinguish the men from the women passing. A hansom appeared and disappeared, the white horse seen now against the green blinds of a semi-detached villa and shown a moment after against the yellow rotundities of a group of pottery ovens.
The sun was now rapidly approaching the meridian, and in the vibrating light the wheels of the most distant collieries could almost be counted, and the stems of the far-off factory chimneys appeared like tiny fingers.
Kate saw with the eyes and heard with the ears of her youth, and the past became as clear as the landscape before her. She remembered the days when she came to read on this hillside. The titles of the books rose up in her mind, and she could recall the sorrow she felt for the heroes and heroines. It seemed to her strange that that time was so long past and she wondered why she had forgotten it. Now it all seemed so near to her that she felt like one only just awakened from a dream. And these memories made her happy. She took pleasure in recalling every little event—an excursion she made when she was quite a little girl to the ruined colliery, and later on, a conversation with a chance acquaintance, a young man who had stopped to speak to her.
At the bottom of the valley, right before her eyes, the white gables of Bucknell Rectory, hidden amid masses of trees, glittered now and then in an entangled beam that flickered between chimneys, across brick-banked squares of water darkened by brick walls.
Behind Bucknell were more desolate plains full of pits, brick, and smoke; and beyond Bucknell an endless tide of hills rolled upwards and onwards.
The American tariff had not yet come into operation, and every wheel was turning, every oven baking; and through a drifting veil of smoke the sloping sides of the hills with all their fields could be seen sleeping under great shadows, or basking in the light. A deluge of rays fell upon them, defining every angle of Watley Rocks and floating over the grasslands of Standon, all shape becoming lost in a huge embrasure filled with the almost imperceptible outlines of the Wever Hills.
And these vast slopes which formed the background of every street were the theatre of all Kate's travels before life's struggles began. It amused her to remember that when she played about the black cinders of the hillsides she used to stop to watch the sunlight flash along the far-away green spaces, and in her thoughts connected them with the marvels she read of in her books of fairy-tales. Beyond these wonderful hills were the palaces of the kings and queens who would wave their wands and vanish! A few years later it was among or beyond those slopes that the lovers with whom she sympathized in the pages of her novels lived. But it was a long time since she had read a story, and she asked herself how this was. Dreams had gone out of her life, everything was a hard reality; her life was like a colliery, every wheel was turning, no respite day or night; her life would be always the same, a burden and a misery. There never could be any change now. She remembered her marriage, and how Mrs. Ede had persuaded her into it, and for the first time she blamed the old woman for her interference. But this was not all. Kate was willing to admit that there was no one she loved like Mr. Ede, but still it was hard to live with a mother-in-law who had a finger in everything and used the house like her own. It would be all very well if she were not so obstinate, so certain that she was always right. Religion was very well, but that perpetual 'I'm a Christian woman,' was wearisome. No wonder Mr. Lennox was leaving. Poor man, why shouldn't he have a few friends up in the evening? The lodgings were his own while he paid for them. No wonder he cut up rough; no wonder he was leaving them. If so, she would never see him again. The thought caught her like a pain in the throat, and with a sudden instinct she turned to hurry home. As she did so her eyes fell on Mr. Lennox walking towards her. At such an unexpected realization of her thoughts she uttered a little cry of surprise; but, smiling affably, and in no way disconcerted, he raised his big hat from his head. On account of the softness of the felt this could only be accomplished by passing the arm over the head and seizing the crown as a conjurer would a pocket-handkerchief. The movement was large and unctuous, and it impressed Kate considerably.
'I took the liberty to stop, for you seemed so interested that I felt curious to know what could be worth looking at in those chimneys and cinder-mounds.'
'I wasn't looking at the factories, but at the hills. The view from here is considered very fine. Don't you think so, sir?' she asked, feeling afraid that she had made some mistake.
'Ah, well, now you mention it, perhaps it is. How far away, and yet how distinct! They look like the gallery of a theatre. We're on the stage, the footlights run round here, and the valley is the pit; and there are plenty of pits in it,' he added, laughing. 'But I mustn't speak to you of the theatre.'
'Oh, I'm sure I don't mind! I'm very fond of the theatre,' said Kate hastily.
This indirect allusion to last night brought the conversation to a close, and for some moments they stood looking vacantly at the landscape. Overhead the sky was a blue dome, and so still was the air that the smoke-clouds trailed like the wings of gigantic birds slowly balancing themselves. And waves of white light rolled up the valley as if jealous of the red, flashing furnaces. An odour of iron and cinders poisoned the air, and after some moments of contemplation which seemed to draw them closer together, Mr. Lennox said:
'There is no doubt that the view is very grand, but it is tantalizing to have those hills before your eyes when you are shut up in a red brick oven. How fresh and cool they look! What wouldn't you give to be straying about in those fresh woods far away?'
Kate looked at Mr. Lennox with ravished eyes; his words had flooded her mind with a thousand forgotten dreams. She felt she liked him better for what he had said, and she murmured as if half ashamed:
'I've never been out of Hanley. I've never seen the sea, and when I was a child I used to fancy that the fairies lived beyond those hills; even now I can't help imagining that the world is quite different over there. Here it is all brick, but in novels they never speak of anything but gardens and fields.'
'Never seen the sea! Well, there isn't much toseein it,' Mr. Lennox said, laughing at the pun. 'When you were a little girl you used to come here to play, I suppose?'
'Yes, sir; I was born over in one of those cottages.'
Mr. Lennox, without knowing whether to look sorry or sentimental, listened patiently to Kate, who, proud of being able to show him anything, drew his attention to the different points of view. The white gables that could just be distinguished in the large dark masses of trees was Bucknell Rectory. The fragment of the cliff on the top of the highest ridge half-way up the sky was Watley Rocks; then came Western Coyney, the plains of Standon, and far away in a blue mist the outlines of the Wever Hills. But Mr. Lennox did not seem very much interested; the sun was too hot for him, and in the first pause of the conversation he asked Kate which way she was going. He had to get on to the theatre, and he asked her if she would show him the way there.
'You can't do better than to go down Market Street; but if you like I will direct you.'
'I shall be so glad if you will; but Market Street—I think you said MarketStreet? That is just the way I've come.'
Market Street was where people connected with the theatre generally lived, and Kate knew at once he had been looking for lodgings; but she was ashamed to ask him, and they walked on for some time without speaking. But every moment the silence became more irritating, and at last, determined to know the worst, she said, 'I suppose you were looking for lodgings; all the theatre people put up in that street.'
Mr. Lennox flinched before this direct question.
'Why, no, not exactly; I was calling on some friends; but as you say, some of the profession live in the street, and now you mention it, I suppose I shall have to find some new diggings.'
'I'm sorry, sir, very sorry,' said Kate, looking up into the big blue eyes. 'I ought not to have come down; you are, of course, master in your own rooms.'
'Oh, it wasn't your fault; I could live with you for ever. You mustn't think I want to change. If you could only guarantee that your mother-in-law will keep out of my way.'
Kate felt at that moment that she would guarantee anything that would prevent Mr. Lennox from leaving her house.
'Oh, I don't think there will be any difficulty about that,' she said eagerly. 'I'll bring your breakfast and dinner up, and you are out nearly all day.'
'Very well, then, and I'll promise not to bring home any friends,' he added gallantly.
'But I'm afraid you'll be very lonely, sir.'
'I'll have you to talk to sometimes.'
Kate made no answer, but they both felt that the words implied more than they actually meant, and they remained silent, like people who had come to some important conclusion. Then after a long pause, and without any transition, Mr. Lennox spoke of the heat of the weather and of the harm it was likely to do their business at the theatre. She asked him what he thought of Hanley. Mr. Lennox smiled through his faint moustache and said the red brick hurt his eyes.
Kate did not feel quite satisfied with this last observation, and spoke of the pretty places there were about the town. Pointing down a red perspective backed by the usual hills, she told him that Trentham, the Duke of Sutherland's place, was over there.
'What, over those hills? That must be miles away.'
'Oh, not so far as that. Hanley doesn't reach to there. The country is beautiful, once you get past Stoke. I went once to see the Duke's place, and we had tea in the inn. That was the only time I was ever really in the country, and even then we were never quite out of sight of the factories. Still, it was very nice.'
'And who were you with?'
'Oh, with my husband.'
'He's an invalid, isn't he?'
'Well, I'm afraid he suffers very much at times, but he's often well enough.'
The conversation again came to a pause, and both thought of how happy they would be were they taking tea together at the inn at Trentham.
But they were now in the centre of the town, close to the Town Hall, a stupid, square building with two black cannon on either side of the door. Opposite was a great shop with 'Commercial House' written across the second story in gold letters. Bright carpets and coarse goods were piled about the doorway; and from these two houses Piccadilly and Broad Street, its continuation, ran down an incline, and Church Street branched off, giving the town the appearance of a two-pronged fork.
All was red brick blazing under a blue sky without a cloud in it; the red brick that turns to purple; and all the roofs were scarlet—red brick and scarlet tiles, and not a tree anywhere.
'You don't seem to have a tree in Hanley,' Mr. Lennox said.
'I don't think there are many,' she answered, and they gazed at the bald rotundities of the pottery ovens.
He had never seen a town before composed entirely of brick and iron. A town of work; a town in which the shrill scream of the steam train as it rolled solemnly up the incline seemed to be man's cry of triumph over vanquished nature.
After looking about him, Mr. Lennox said, 'What I object to in the town is that there's nothing to do. And it's so blazing hot; for goodness' sake let us get under the shadow of a wall.'
Kate smiled, and as they crossed over they both wiped their faces.
'There are the potteries,' she said, referring to Mr. Lennox's complaint that there was nothing to do in the town. 'Everybody that comes to Hanley goes to see them; but the best are in Stoke.'
'I'm sure I'm not going to Stoke to see potteries,' he answered decisively, 'but if there are any at Hanley I dare say I shall turn in some afternoon. I've heard some of our people say they are worth seeing. But,' he added, as if a sudden thought had struck him, 'I might go now; I've nothing to do for the next couple of hours. How far are the nearest?'
Kate told him that Powell and Jones's works were close by in the High Street. She pointed out the way, but, failing to make Mr. Lennox understand her, she consented to go with him. He had a kind, soft manner of speaking which drew Kate towards him almost as if he had taken her in his arms, and it was astonishing how intimate they had grown in the last few minutes.
'It doesn't look very interesting,' he said, as they stopped before an archway and looked into a yard filled with straw and packing-cases.
'Yes it is, but you must see the different rooms. You must go up to the office and ask for permission to see the works.'
'I don't think I'd care to go by myself. Won't you come with me?'
Kate hesitated; she had very little to do at home, and could say that Mrs.Barnes had kept her waiting.
'Do come,' he said after a pause, during which he looked at her eagerly.
'Well, I should like to see the room where my mother used to work, but we mustn't stop too long. I shall be missed at home.' The matter being so arranged, they entered the yard, and Kate pointed out a rough staircase placed against the wall. 'You must go up there; the office is at the top. Ask for permission to see the works and I'll wait here for you.'
Half a dozen men were packing crockery into crates with spades, and as she watched them she remembered that she used to come to this yard with her mother's dinner, and stand wondering how they could pack the delf without breaking it. She remembered one afternoon particularly well; she had promised to be very good, and had been allowed to sit by her mother and watch her painting flowers that wound in and out and all about a big blue vase. She remembered how she was reproved for peeping over her neighbour's shoulder, and how proud she felt sitting among all the workwomen. She could recall the smell of the paint and turpentine, and her grief when she was told that she was too delicate to learn painting, and was going to be put out to dressmaking. But that time was long ago; her mother was dead and she was married. Everything was changed or broken, as was that beautiful vase, probably. It astonished Kate to find herself thinking of these things. She had passed the High Street twenty times during the last six months without it even occurring to her to visit the old places, and when Mr. Lennox came back he noticed that there were tears in her eyes. He made no remark, but hastily explained that he had been told that there was a party just that minute gone on in front of them, and they were to catch them up.
'This way, then,' she said, pointing to a big archway.
'Oh, I can't run; don't be in such a hurry,' said Mr. Lennox, panting.
Kate laughed, and admitted that the heat was great. Out of a sky burnt almost to white the glare descended into the narrow brick-yards. The packing straw seemed ready to catch fire; the heaps of wet clay, which two boys were shovelling, smoked, emitting as it did so an unpleasant wet odour. On passing the archway they caught sight of three black coats and three soft hats like the one Mr. Lennox wore.
'Oh!' said Kate, stopping, disappointed, 'we'll have to go round with those clergymen.'
'What does that matter? It will be amusing to listen to them.'
'But mother knows all of them.'
'They must be strangers in the town or they wouldn't be visiting the potteries, surely.'
'I hadn't thought of that; I suppose you're right,' and hastening a little, they overtook the party that was being shown round. The Dissenting clergymen looked askance at Mr. Lennox, and as he showed them into a small white cell the guide said, 'You're in plenty of time, sir; these are the snagger-makers.'
Two men were beating a heap of wet clay in order to insure a something in the bakery which nobody understood, but which the guide took some trouble to explain. The clergymen pressed forward to listen. Mr. Lennox wiped his face, and they were then hurried into a second cell, where unbaked dishes were piled all around upon shelves. It was said to be the dishmakers' place, and was followed by another and another room, all of which Mr. Lennox thought equally hot and uninteresting. He strove to escape from the guide, who drew him through the line of clergymen and made plain to him the mysteries of earthenware.
At last these preliminary departments were disposed of, and they were led to another part of the works. On their way thither they passed the ovens. These were scattered over the ground like beehives in a garden. Lennox patted their round sides, approvingly saying that they reminded him of oyster boys in a pantomime, and might be introduced into the next Christmas show. Kate looked at him, her eyes full of wonder. She could not understand how he could think of such things.
In the printing-room they listened to the guide, who apparently considered it important that clergymen, actor, and dressmaker should understand the different processes the earthenware had to pass through before it was placed on toilet or breakfast table. Smoking flannels hung on lines all around, and like laundresses at their tubs, four or five women washed the printed paper from the plates. A man in a paper cap bent over a stove, and as if dissatisfied with the guide's explanation of his work, broke out into a wearisome flow of technical details. At the other end of this vast workroom there was a line of young girls who cut the printed matter out of sheets of paper, the scissors running in and out of flowers, tendrils, and little birds without ever injuring one. The clergymen watched the process, delighted, while Lennox stepped behind Kate and whispered that he had just caught the tall Dissenter winking at the dark girl on the right, which was not true, and was invented for the sake of the opportunity it gave him of breathing on Kate's neck—a lead up to the love-scene which he had now decided was to come off as soon as he should find himself alone with her.
They passed through a brick alley with a staircase leading to a platform built like a ship's deck, and went on through a series of rooms till they came to a place almost as hot as a Turkish bath, filled with unbaked plates and dishes. The smell of wet clay drying in steam diffused from underneath was very unpleasant, and caused one of the ministers to cough violently, whereupon the guide explained that the platemakers' departments were considered the most unhealthy of any in the works; the people who worked there, he said, usually suffered from what is known as the potter's asthma. This interested Kate, and she delayed the guide with questions as to how the potter's asthma differed from the ordinary form of the disease, and when their little procession was again put in motion she told Mr. Lennox how her husband was affected, and the nights she had spent watching at his side. But although Lennox listened attentively, she could not help thinking that he seemed rather glad than otherwise that her husband was an invalid. The unkind way in which he spoke of sick people shocked her, and she opposed the opinion that a person in bad health was a disgusting object, while Lennox took advantage of the occasion to whisper into her ears that she was far too pretty a woman for an asthmatic husband; and, encouraged by her blushes, he even hazarded a few coarse jokes anent the poor husband's deficiencies. How could a man kiss if he couldn't breathe, for if there was a time when breath was essential, according to him, it was when four lips meet.
No one had ever spoken to her in this way before, and had she known how to do so she would have resented his familiarities. Once their hands met. The contact caused her a thrill; she put aside the unbaked plate they were examining and said: 'We'd better make haste or we shall lose them.'
The next two rooms were considered the most interesting they had been through; even the three clergymen lost something of their stolid manner and asked Lennox his opinion regarding the religious character of Hanley, and if he were of their persuasion.
'What is that?' asked Lennox, affecting a comic innocence which he hoped would tickle Kate's fancy.
'We're Wesleyans,' said the minister.
'And I'm an actor; but, I beg your pardon, stage-managing's more my business,' news that seemed to cast a gloom over the faces of the ministers; and leaving them to make what they could of his reply, he drew Kate forward confidentially and pointed to an old man sitting straddle-legged on a high narrow table just on a line with the window. He was covered with clay; his forehead and beard were plastered with it, and before him was an iron plate, kept continually whirling by steam, which he could stop by a pressure of his foot. He squeezed a lump of clay into a long shape not unlike a tall ice, then, forcing it down into the shape of a batter-pudding, he hollowed it. Round and round went the clay, the hands forming it all the while, cleaning and smoothing until it came out a true and perfect jampot, even to the little furrow round the top, which was given by a movement of the thumbs. He had been at work since seven in the morning, and the shelves round him were encumbered with the result of his labours. Everyone marvelled at his dexterity, until he was forgotten in the superior attractions of the succeeding room. This was the turning-house, and Lennox could not help laughing outright, so amusing did the scene appear to him. Women went dancing up and down on one leg, and at such regular intervals that they seemed absolutely like machines. They were at once the motive power and the feeders of the different lathes. It was they who handed the men lumps of dry clay, which they turned into shapes. The strangeness of the spectacle gave rise to much comment. The clergymen were anxious to know if the constant jigging was injurious to health. Lennox inquired how much coin they made by their one-leg dancing. He spoke of their good looks, and this led him easily into the question of morals, a subject in which he was much interested. He wanted to know if this crowding together of the sexes could be effected without danger. Surely cases of seduction must occur occasionally. In answering him the guide betrayed a certain reticence of manner which encouraged Lennox to ask him if he really meant to say that nothing ever befell these young women who were working all day side by side with people of the other sex. Did their thoughts never wander from their work? The guide assured Mr. Lennox that there was no time to think of such nonsense in the factory, and, anxious to vindicate the honour of the establishment, he declared that any who took the smallest liberty with any female would be instantly dismissed from the works. The ministers listened approvingly, although they seemed to think the subject might have been avoided. Kate felt a little embarrassed, and Mr. Lennox watched a big, blonde-haired woman who smiled prettily and seemed quite conscious of her sex, notwithstanding the ludicrous bobbing up and down position she was in. With a courage that surprised herself Kate proposed that they should go on. She was beginning to feel uneasy at the time she had been away from home and certain that Mrs. Ede would be on the doorstep looking up and down the street; and she could well imagine how cross Ralph would be if he heard she had been to the potteries with Mr. Lennox. She felt very sorry for the one and a little resentful towards the other, but the sentimental desire to see the painting-room where her mother used to work prevailed, and with her heart full of recollections she followed the party to the ovens.
Their way thither led them around the building, and they passed through many workrooms. These were generally clean, airy spaces, with big rafters and whitewashed walls. Sometimes a bunch of violets, a book, or a newspaper lying on the table, suggested an absent owner, and a refined countenance was sought for in the different groups of women. There was also a difference in the hats and shawls, and it was easy to tell which belonged to the young girls, which to the mothers of families. Everyone looked healthy and contented. All were nice-looking, as Lennox continued to assert, and all worked industriously at their numberless employments, one of the most curious of which consisted in knocking the roughness off the finished earthenware.
A dozen women sat in a circle; above them and around them were piles of dinner-services of all kinds. Each held with one hand a piece of crockery on her knees, whilst with a chisel she chopped away at it as if it could not by any possibility be broken. As may easily be imagined, the noise in this warehouse was bewildering.
Through this room and others, up and down many narrow staircases, the visiting party went, the guide leading, the three black clergymen following, Kate lingering behind with Mr. Lennox until they came to the ovens. The entrance was from an immense corridor, prolonged by shadow and divided down the middle by presses full of drying earthenware, the smell of which was not, however, as strong as in the platemakers' place, and the difference was noticed by the clergyman with the cough. He said he was not affected to nearly the same extent.
From time to time the visitors had to give way to men who marched in single file carrying what seemed to be huge cheeses, but the guide explained that within these were cups, saucers, bowls, and basins, and men mounted on ladders piled these yellow tubs up the walls of the ovens. When the visitors had peeped into the huge interior, they were conducted to the furnaces; and these were set in the oven's inner shell, which made a narrow circular passage slanting inwards as it ascended like the neck of a champagne bottle. The fires glared so furiously that they suggested many impious thoughts to Lennox, and he proposed to ask the ministers if there were any warmer corners in hell, and was with difficulty dissuaded by Kate, about whose waist he had passed his arm. His constant whispering in her ear, which had at first amused her, now irritated and annoyed her; other emotions filled her mind with a vague tumult, and she longed to be left to think in peace. She begged of him to keep quiet, and as they crossed one of the yards she asked the guide if he could not go straight to the painting-room. He replied that there was a regular order to be observed, and insisted on marching them through two more rooms, and explaining fully three or four more processes. Then, after begging them to be careful and to hold the rail, he led them up a high staircase. The warning caused Kate a thrill, for she remembered that every step of this staircase had been a terror to her mother.
The room itself proved a little disappointing. The tables were not arranged in quite the same way, and these alterations deprived her of the emotions she had expected. Still it gave her a great deal of pleasure to point out to Mr. Lennox where her mother used to work.
But to find the exact spot was not by any means easy. There were upwards of a hundred young women sitting on benches, leaning over huge tables covered with unfinished pottery. Each held in her hand a plate, bowl, or vase, on which she executed some design. The clergy showed more interest than they had hitherto done, and as they leaned to and fro examining the work, one of them discovered the somethingGuardian, a Wesleyan organ, on one of the tables, and hailing his fellows, they began to interview the proprietor. But the guide said they had to visit the store-rooms, and forced them away from their 'lamb.'