Tales and Novels Volume IV Part 45

"I am sure _that_ is what you never will be, my dear," said the old lady; "at least such is my opinion of you."

"Thank you, ma'am! thank you, from the bottom of my heart!--We should all have been starved, if it had not been for you. And it is owing to you that we are so happy now--quite different creatures from what we were."

"Quite a different creature indeed, you look, child, from what you did the first day I saw you. To-morrow my own maid goes, and you may come at ten o'clock; and I hope we shall agree very well together--you'll find me an easy mistress, and I make no doubt I shall always find you the good, grateful girl you seem to be."

Anne was impatient for the moment when she was to enter into the service of her benefactress; and she lay awake half the night, considering how she should ever be able to show sufficient grat.i.tude. As Mrs. Carver had often expressed her desire to have Anne look neat and smart, she dressed herself as well as she possibly could; and when her poor father and mother took leave of her, they could not help observing, as Mrs. Carver had done the day before, that "Anne looked quite a different creature from what she was a few weeks ago." She was, indeed, an extremely pretty girl; but we need not stop to relate all the fond praises that were bestowed upon her beauty by her partial parents. Her little brother John was not at home when she was going away; he was at a carpenter's shop in the neighbourhood mending a wheelbarrow, which belonged to that good-natured orange-woman who gave him the orange for his father. Anne called at the carpenter's shop to take leave of her brother. The woman was there waiting for her barrow--she looked earnestly at Anne when she entered, and then whispered to the boy, "Is that your sister?"--"Yes,"

said the boy, "and as good a sister she is as ever was born."

"Maybe so," said the woman; "but she is not likely to be good for much long, in the way she is going on now."

"What way--what do you mean?" said Anne, colouring violently.

"Oh, you understand me well enough, though you look so innocent."

"I do not understand you in the least."

"No!--Why, is not it you that I see going almost every day to that house in Chiswell-street?"

"Mrs. Carver's?--Yes."

"Mrs. Carver's indeed!" cried the woman, throwing an orange-peel from her with an air of disdain--"a pretty come-off indeed! as if I did not know her name, and all about her, as well as you do."

"Do you?" said Anne; "then I am sure you know one of the best women in the world."

The woman looked still more earnestly than before in Anne's countenance; and then, taking hold of both her hands, exclaimed, "You poor young creature! what are you about? I do believe you don't know what you are about--if you do, you are the greatest cheat I ever looked in the face, long as I've lived in this cheating world."

"You frighten my sister," said the boy: "do pray tell her what you mean at once, for look how pale she turns!"

"So much the better, for now I have good hope of her. Then to tell you all at once--no matter how I frighten her, it's for her good--this Mrs.

Carver, as you call her, is only Mrs. Carver when she wants to pa.s.s upon such as you for a good woman."

"To pa.s.s for a good woman!" repeated Anne, with indignation. "Oh, she is, she is a good woman--you do not know her as I do."

"I know her a great deal better, I tell you: if you choose not to believe me, go your ways--go to your ruin--go to your shame--go to your grave--as hundreds have gone, by the same road, before you. Your Mrs.

Carver keeps two houses, and one of them is a bad house--and that's the house you'll soon go to, if you trust to her: now you know the whole truth."

The poor girl was shocked so much, that for several minutes she could neither speak nor think. As soon as she had recovered sufficient presence of mind to consider what she should do, she declared that she would that instant go home and put on her rags again, and return to the wicked Mrs. Carver all the clothes she had given her.

"But what will become of us all?--She has lent my father money--a great deal of money. How can he pay her?--Oh, I will pay her all--I will go into some honest service, now I am well and strong enough to do any sort of hard work, and G.o.d knows I am willing."

Full of these resolutions, Anne hurried home, intending to tell her father and mother all that had happened; but they were neither of them within. She flew to the mistress of the house, who had first recommended her to Mrs. Carver, and reproached her in the most moving terms which the agony of her mind could suggest. Her landlady listened to her with astonishment, either real or admirably well affected--declared that she knew nothing more of Mrs. Carver but that she lived in a large fine house, and that she had been very charitable to some poor people in Moorfields--that she bore the best of characters--and that if nothing could be said against her but by an orange-woman, there was no great reason to believe such scandal.

Anne now began to think that the whole of what she had heard might be a falsehood, or a mistake; one moment she blamed herself for so easily suspecting a person who had shown her so much kindness; but the next minute the emphatic words and warning looks of the woman recurred to her mind; and though they were but the words and looks of an orange-woman, she could not help dreading that there was some truth in them. The clock struck ten whilst she was in this uncertainty. The woman of the house urged her to go without farther delay to Mrs. Carver's, who would undoubtedly be displeased by any want of punctuality; but Anne wished to wait for the return of her father and mother.

"They will not be back, either of them, these three hours, for your mother is gone to the other end of the town about that old bill of Colonel Pembroke's, and your father is gone to buy some silk for weaving--he told me he should not be home before three o'clock."

Notwithstanding these remonstrances, Anne persisted in her resolution: she took off the clothes which she had received from Mrs. Carver, and put on those which she had been used to wear. Her mother was much surprised, when she came in, to see her in this condition; and no words can describe her grief, when she heard the cause of this change. She blamed herself severely for not having made inquiries concerning Mrs.

Carver before she had suffered her daughter to accept of any presents from her; and she wept bitterly, when she recollected the money which this woman had lent her husband.

"She will throw him into jail, I am sure she will--we shall be worse off a thousand times than ever we were in our worst days. The work that is in the loom, by which he hoped to get so much, is all for her, and it will be left upon our hands now; and how are we to pay the woman of this house for the lodgings?----Oh! I see it all coming upon us at once,"

continued the poor woman, wringing her hands. "If that Colonel Pembroke would but let us have our own!--But there I've been all the morning hunting him out, and at last, when I did see him, he only swore, and said we were all a family of _duns_, or some such nonsense. And then he called after me from the top of his fine stairs, just to say, that he had ordered Close the tailor to pay us; and when I went to him there was no satisfaction to be got from him--his shop was full of customers, and he hustled me away, giving me for answer, that when Colonel Pembroke paid him, he would pay us, and no sooner. Ah! these purse-proud tradesfolk, and these sparks of fas.h.i.+on, what do they know of all we suffer? What do they care for us?--It is not for charity I ask any of them--only for what my own husband has justly earned, and hardly toiled for too; and this I cannot get out of their hands. If I could, we might defy this wicked woman--but now we are laid under her feet, and she will trample us to death."

In the midst of these lamentations, Anne's father came in: when he learned the cause of them, he stood for a moment in silence; then s.n.a.t.c.hed from his daughter's hand the bundle of clothes, which she had prepared to return to Mrs. Carver.

"Give them to me; I will go to this woman myself," cried he with indignation: "Anne shall never more set her foot within those doors."

"Dear father," cried Anne, stopping him as he went out of the door, "perhaps it is all a mistake: do pray inquire from somebody else before you speak to Mrs. Carver--she looks so good, she has been so kind to me, I cannot believe that she is wicked. Do pray inquire of a great many people before you knock at the door."

He promised that he would do all his daughter desired.

With most impatient anxiety they waited for his return: the time of his absence appeared insupportably long, and they formed new fears and new conjectures every instant. Every time they heard a footstep upon the stairs, they ran out to see who it was: sometimes it was the landlady--sometimes the lodgers or their visitors--at last came the person they longed to see; but the moment they beheld him, all their fears were confirmed. He was pale as death, and his lips trembled with convulsive motion. He walked directly up to his loom, and without speaking one syllable, began to cut the unfinished work out of it.

"What are you about, my dear?" cried his wife. "Consider what you are about--this work of yours is the only dependence we have in the world."

"You have nothing in this world to depend upon, I tell you," cried he, continuing to cut out the web with a hurried hand--"you must not depend on me--you must not depend on my work--I shall never throw this shuttle more whilst I live--think of me as if I was dead--to-morrow I shall be dead to you--I shall be in a jail, and there must lie till carried out in my coffin. Here, take this work just as it is to our landlady--she met me on the stairs, and said she must have her rent directly--that will pay her--I'll pay all I can. As for the loom, that's only hired--the silk I bought to-day will pay the hire--I'll pay all my debts to the uttermost farthing, as far as I am able--but the ten guineas to that wicked woman I cannot pay--so I must rot in a jail. Don't cry, Anne, don't cry so, my good girl--you'll break my heart, wife, if you take on so. Why! have not we one comfort, that let us go out of this world when we may, or how we may, we shall go out of it honest, having no one's ruin to answer for, having done our duty to G.o.d and man, as far as we are able?--My child," continued he, catching Anne in his arms, "I have you safe, and I thank G.o.d for it!"

When this poor man had thus in an incoherent manner given vent to his first feelings, he became somewhat more composed, and was able to relate all that had pa.s.sed between him and Mrs. Carver. The inquiries which he made before he saw her sufficiently confirmed the orange-woman's story; and when he returned the presents which Anne had unfortunately received, Mrs. Carver, with all the audacity of a woman hardened in guilt, avowed her purpose and her profession--declared that whatever ignorance and innocence Anne or her parents might now find it convenient to affect, she was "confident they had all the time perfectly understood what she was about, and that she would not be cheated at last by a parcel of swindling hypocrites." With horrid imprecations she then swore, that if Anne was kept from her she would have vengeance--and that her vengeance should know no bounds. The event showed that these were not empty threats--the very next day she sent two bailiffs to arrest Anne's father. They met him in the street, as he was going to pay the last farthing he had to the baker. The wretched man in vain endeavoured to move the ear of justice by relating the simple truth. Mrs. Carver was rich--her victim was poor. He was committed to jail; and he entered his prison with the firm belief, that there he must drag out the remainder of his days.

One faint hope remained in his wife's heart--she imagined that if she could but prevail upon Colonel Pembroke's servants, either to obtain for her a sight of their master, or if they would carry to him a letter containing an exact account of her distress, he would immediately pay the fourteen pounds which had been so long due. With this money she could obtain her husband's liberty, and she fancied all might yet be well. Her son, who could write a very legible hand, wrote the pet.i.tion.

"Ah, mother!" said he, "don't hope that Colonel Pembroke will read it--he will tear it to pieces, as he did one that I carried him before."

"I can but try," said she; "I cannot believe that any gentleman is so cruel, and so unjust--he must and will pay us when he knows the whole truth."

Colonel Pembroke was dressing in a hurry, to go to a great dinner at the Crown and Anchor tavern. One of Pembroke's gay companions had called, and was in the room waiting for him. It was at this inauspicious time that Mrs. White arrived. Her pet.i.tion the servant at first absolutely refused to take from her hands; but at last a young lad, whom the colonel had lately brought from the country, and who had either more natural feeling, or less acquired power of equivocating, than his fellows, consented to carry up the pet.i.tion, when he should, as he expected, be called by his master to report the state of a favourite horse that was sick. While his master's hair was dressing, the lad was summoned; and when the health of the horse had been anxiously inquired into, the lad with country awkwardness scratched his head, and laid the pet.i.tion before his master, saying--"Sir, there's a poor woman below waiting for an answer; and if so be what she says is true, as I take it to be, 'tis enough to break one's heart."

"Your heart, my lad, is not seasoned to London yet, I perceive," said Colonel Pembroke, smiling; "why, your heart will be broke a thousand times over by every beggar you meet."

"No, no; I be too much of a man for that," replied the groom, wiping his eyes hastily with the back of his hand--"not such a noodle as that comes to, neither--beggars are beggars, and so to be treated--but this woman, sir, is no common beggar, not she; nor is she begging any ways--only to be paid her bill--so I brought it, as I was coming up."

"Then, sir, as you are going down, you may take it down again, if you please," cried Colonel Pembroke; "and in future, sir, I recommend it to you to look after your horses, and to trust me to look after my own affairs."

The groom retreated; and his master gave the poor woman's pet.i.tion, without reading it, to the hair-dresser, who was looking for a piece of paper to try the heat of his irons.

"I should be pestered with bills and pet.i.tions from morning till night, if I did not frighten these fellows out of the trick of bringing them to me," continued Colonel Pembroke, turning to his companion. "That blockhead of a groom is but just come to town; he does not yet know how to drive away a dun--but he'll learn. They say that the American dogs did not know how to bark, till they learnt it from their civilized betters."

Colonel Pembroke habitually drove away reflection, and silenced the whispers of conscience, by noisy declamation, or sallies of wit.

At the bottom of the singed paper, which the hair-dresser left on the table, the name of White was sufficiently visible. "White!" exclaimed Colonel Pembroke, "as I hope to live and breathe, these Whites have been this half-year the torment of my life." He started up, rang the bell, and gave immediate orders to his servant, that _these Whites_ should never more be let in, and that no more of their bills and pet.i.tions in any form whatever should be brought to him. "I'll punish them for their insolence--I won't pay them one farthing this twelvemonth: and if the woman is not gone, pray tell her so--I bid Close the tailor pay them: if he has not, it is no fault of mine. Let me not hear a syllable more about it--I'll part with the first of you who dares to disobey me."

"The woman is gone, I believe, sir," said the footman; "it was not I let her in, and I refused to bring up the letter."

"You did right. Let me hear no more about the matter. We shall be late at the Crown and Anchor. I beg your pardon, my dear friend, for detaining you so long."

Whilst the colonel went to his jovial meeting, where he was the life and spirit of the company, the poor woman returned in despair to the prison where her husband was confined.

We forbear to describe the horrible situation to which this family were soon reduced. Beyond a certain point, the human heart cannot feel compa.s.sion.

One day, as Anne was returning from the prison, where she had been with her father, she was met by a porter, who put a letter into her hands, then turned down a narrow lane, and was out of sight before she could inquire from whom he came. When she read the letter, however, she could not be in doubt--it came from Mrs. Carver, and contained these words:--