Part 8

They are engaged. Some time, but not just yet, they will marry. They work separately all the week, but on the Sunday they are free to go about together. Of all the days that make the week they dearly love but one day--namely the day that lies between the Saturday and Monday. Now that the voice of the Sabbatarian has sunk to a whisper or a whine; now that we have learned to recognize the beauty, the priceless boon, the true holiness of the Sunday, which not only rests body and brain, but may be so used as to fill the mind with memories of lovely scenes, of sweet and confidential talk, of love-making and of happiness, we ought to determine that of all the things which make up the British liberties, there is nothing for which the working man should more fiercely fight or more jealously watch than the full freedom of his Sunday--freedom uncontrolled to wander where he will, to make his recreation as he chooses.

If the church doors are open wide, let the doors of the public galleries and the museums and the libraries be opened wide as well. Let him, if he choose, step from church to library. But if he is wise, when the grass is long and the bramble is in blossom, and the foliage is thick and heavy on the elms, he will, after dinner, repair to the country, if it is only to breathe the air of the fields, and lie on his back watching the slow westering of the sun and listening to the note of the blackbird in the wood.

Two by two they stroll or sit about Hempstead Heath on such an evening. If you were to listen (a pleasant thing to do, but wrong) to the talk of these couples you would find that they are mostly silent, except that they only occasionally exchange a word or two. Why should they talk? They know each other's cares and prospects; they know the burden that each has to bear--the evil temper of the boss, the uncertainties of employment, the difficulties in the way of an improved screw, and the family troubles--there are always family troubles, due to some inconsiderate member or other. I declare that we have been teaching morality and the proper conduct of life on quite a wrong principle--namely, the selfish principle.

We say, "Be good, my child, and you will go to heaven." The proposition is no doubt perfectly true. But it proposes a selfish motive for action. I would rather say to that child, "Be good, my dear, or else you will become an intolerable nuisance to other people." Now, no child likes to consider himself an intolerable nuisance.

These lovers, therefore, wander about the Heath, sometimes up to their knees in bracken, sometimes sitting under the trees, not talking much, but, as the old phrase has it, "enjoying themselves" very much indeed. At the end of the Spaniards' Road--that high causeway whence one can see, in clear weather, the steeple of Harrow Church on one side and the dome of St. Paul's on the other--there is a famous clump of firs, which have been represented by painters over and over again. Benches have been placed under these trees, where one can sit and have a very fine view indeed, with the Hendon Lake in the middle distance, and a range of hills beyond, and fields and rills between.

On one of these benches were sitting this evening two--Adam and Eve, boy and girl--newly entered into paradise. Others were sitting there as well--an ancient gentleman whose thoughts were seventy years back, a working man with a child of three on his knee, and beside him his wife, carrying the baby. But these lovers paid no heed to their neighbors. They sat at the end of the bench. The boy was holding the girl's hand, and he was talking eagerly.

"Lily," he said, "you must come some evening to our debating society when we begin again and hear me speak. No one speaks better. That is acknowledged. There is to be a debate on the House of Lords in October. I mean to come out grand. When I'm done there will be mighty little left of the Lords." He was a handsome lad, tall and well set up, straight featured and bright eyed. The girl looked at him proudly. He was her own lad--this handsome chap. Not that she was bad-looking either. Many an honest fellow has to put up with a girl not nearly so good-looking, if you were to compare.

He was a clerk in the city. She was in the post-office. He attended at his office daily from half-past nine to six, doing such work as was set before him for the salary of a pound a week. She stood all day long at the counter, serving out postal orders, selling stamps, weighing letters, and receiving telegrams. When I add that she was civil to everybody you will understand that she was quite a superior clerk--one of the queen's lucky bargains. It is not delicate to talk about a young lady's salary, therefore I shall not say for how much she gave her services to the British Empire.

He was a clever boy, who read and thought. That is to say, he thought that he thought--which is more than most do. As he took his facts from the newspapers, and nothing else, and as he was profoundly ignorant of English history, English law, the British Constitution, the duties of a citizen, and the British Empire generally, his opinions, after he had done thinking, were not of so much value to the country, it is believed. But still a clever fellow, and able to spout in a frothy way which carried his hearers along, if it never convinced or defeated an opponent.

To this kind of clever boy there are always two or three dangers. One is that he should be led on to think more and more of froth and less of fact; another, that he should grow conceited over his eloquence and neglect his business. A third temptation which peculiarly besets this kind is that he should take to drink. Oratory is thirsty work, and places where young men orate are often in immediate proximity to bars. As yet, however, Charley was only twenty. He was still at the first stage of everything--oratory, business, and love; and he was still at the stage when everything appears possible--the total abolition of injustice, privilege, class, capital, power, oppression, greed, sweating, poverty, suffering--by the simple process of tinkering the constitution.

"Oh," he cried, "we shall have the most glorious, the most splendid time, Lily! The power of the people is only just beginning; it hasn't begun yet. We shall see the most magnificent things...." He enumerated them as above indicated. Well, it is very good that young men should have such dreams and see such visions. I never heard of any girl being thus carried out of herself. The thing belongs exclusively to male man in youth, and it is very good for him. When he is older he will understand that over and above the law and the constitution there is something else more important still--namely, that every individual man should be honest, temperate, and industrious. In brief, he will understand the force of the admonition: "Be good, my child, or else you will become an intolerable nuisance to everybody."

The sun sank behind Harrow-on-the-Hill. The red light of the west flamed in the boy's bright eyes. Presently the girl rose.

"Yes, Charley," she said, less sympathetic than might have been expected; "yes, and it will be a very fine time, if it comes. But I don't know. People will always want to get rich, won't they? I think this beautiful time will have to come after us. Perhaps we had better be looking after our own nest first."

"Oh, it will come--it will come!"

"I like to hear you talk about it, Charley. But if we are ever to marry--if I am to give up the post-office, you must make a bigger screw. Remember what you promised. The shorthand and the French class. Put them before your speechifying."

"All right, Lily dear, and then we will get married, and we will have the most splendid time. Oh, there's the most splendid time for us--ahead!"

II.

It is six months later and mid-winter, and the time is again the evening. The day has been gloomy, with a fog heavy enough to cause the offices to be lit with gas, so that the eyes of all London are red and the heads of all London are heavy.

Lily stepped outside the post-office, work done. She was going home.

At the door stood her sweetheart, waiting for her. She tossed her head and made as if she would pass him without speaking. But he stepped after and walked beside her.

"No, Lily," he said, "I will speak to you; even if you don't answer my letters you shall hear me speak."

"You have disgraced yourself," she said.

"Yes, I know. But you will forgive me. It is the first time. I swear it is the first time."

Well, it was truly the first time that she had seen him in such a state.

"Oh, to be a drunkard!" she replied. "Oh, could I ever believe that I should see you rolling about the street?"

"It was the first time, Lily, and it shall be the last. Forgive me and take me on again. If you give me up I shall go to the devil!"

"Charley"--her voice broke into a sob--"you have made me miserable--I was so proud of you. No other girl, I thought, had such a clever sweetheart; and last Tuesday--oh! it's dreadful to think of."

"Yes, Lily, I know. There's only one excuse. I spoke for more than an hour, and I was exhausted. So what I took went to my head. Another time I should not have felt it a bit. And when I found myself staggering I was going home as fast as possible, and as bad luck would have it, I must needs meet you."

"Good luck, I call it. Else I might never have found it out till too late."

"Lily, make it up. Give me another chance. I'll swear off. I'll take the pledge."

He caught her hand and held it.

"Oh, Charley," she said, "if I can only trust you."

"You can, you must, Lily. For your sake I will take the pledge. I will do whatever you ask me to do."

She gave way, but not without conditions.

"Well," she said, "I will try to think no more about it. But, Charley, remember, I could never, never, never marry a man who drinks."

"You never shall, dear," he replied, earnestly.

"And then, another thing, Charley. This speaking work--oh! I know it is clever and that--but it doesn't help us forward. How long is it since you determined to learn shorthand, because it would advance you so much? And French, because a clerk who can write French is worth double? Where are your fine resolutions?"

"I will begin again--I will practise hard; see now, Lily, I will do all you want. I will promise anything to please you--and do it, too. See if I won't. Only not quite to give up the speaking. Think how people are beginning to look up to me. Why, when we get a reformed House, and the members are paid, they will send me to Parliament--me! I shall be a member for Camden Town. Then I shall be made Home Secretary, or Attorney General, or something. You will be proud, Lily, of your husband when he is a distinguished man. There's a splendid time for us--ahead!"

"Yes, dear. But first you know you have got to get a salary that we can live on."

He left her at her door with a kiss and a laugh, and turned to go home. In the next street he passed a public-house. He stopped, he hesitated, he felt in his pocket, he went in and had a go, just a single go--Lily would never find out--of Scotch, cold. Then he went home and played at practising shorthand for an hour. He had promised his Lily. She should see how well he could keep his promise.

III.

"It is good of you to come, my dear. Of course, I understand that it is all over now. It must be. It is not in nature that you should keep him on any longer. But I thought you would see my poor boy once more."

It was Charley's mother who spoke. He was the only son of a widow.

"Oh, yes, I came--I came," Lily replied, tearfully. "But what is the good? He will promise everything again. How many times has he repented and promised--and promised?"

"My poor boy! And we were so proud of him, weren't we, dear?" said the mother, wiping away a tear. "He was going to do such great things with his cleverness and his speaking. And now--I have seen it coming on, my dear, for a year and more, but I durstn't speak to you. When he came home night after night with a glassy eye and a husky voice, when he reeled across the room, at first I pretended not to notice it. A man mustn't be nagged or shamed, must he? Then I spoke in the morning, and he promised to pull himself up."

"He will promise--ah! yes--he will promise."

"If you could only forgive him he might keep his promise."

Lily shook her head doubtfully.

"I went to the office this morning, my dear. They have been expecting it for weeks. The head clerk warned him. It was known that he had fallen into bad company--in the city they don't like spouters. And when he came back after his dinner he was so tipsy that he fell along. They just turned him out on the spot."

"Mother," said Lily, "it's like this. I can't help forgiving him. We two must forgive him, whatever he does. We love him, you see, that's what it is."

"Yes, dear, yes."

"It isn't the poor, tipsy boy we love, but the real boy--the clever boy behind. We must forgive him. But"--her lips quivered--"I cannot marry him. Do not ask me to do that unless--what will never happen--he reforms altogether."

"If you would, dear, I think he might keep straight. If you were always with him to watch him."

"I could not be always with him. And besides, mother, think what might happen as well. Would you have me bring into the world children whose lives would make me wretched by a drunken father? And how should we live? Because, you see, if I marry I must give up my place."

The mother sighed. "Charley is in his own room," she said, "I will send him to you."

Lily sat down and buried her face in her hands. Alas! to this had her engagement come. But she loved him. When he came into the room and stood before her and she looked up, seeing him shamefaced and with hanging head, she was filled with pity as well as love--pity and shame, and sorrow for the boy. She took his hand and pressed it between her own and burst into tears. "Oh, Charley, Charley!" she cried.

"I am a brute and a wretch," he said. "I don't deserve anything. But don't throw me over--don't, Lily!"

He fell on his knees before her, crying like a little school-boy. A tendency to weep readily sometimes accompanies the consumption of strong drink.

Then he made confession, such confession as one makes who puts things as prettily as their ugliness allows. He had given way once or twice; he had never intended to get drunk; he had been overtaken yesterday. The day was close, he had a headache in the morning. To cure his headache he took a single glass of beer. When he went back to the office he felt giddy. They said he was drunk. They bundled him out on the spot without even the opportunity of explaining.

Lily sighed. What could she say or answer? The weakness of the man's nature only came out the more clearly by his confession. What could she say? To reason with him was useless. To make him promise was useless.

"Charley," she said at length, "if my forgiveness will do any good take it and welcome. But we cannot undo the past. You have lost your place and your character. As for the future----"

"You have forgiven me, Lily," he said; "oh, I can face the future. I can get another place easily. I shall very soon retrieve my character. Why, all they can say is that I seemed to have taken too much. Nothing--that is nothing!"

"What will you do? Have you got any money?"

"No. I must go and look for another place. Until I get one I suppose there will be short commons. I deserve it, Lily. You shall not hear me grumble."

She took out her purse. "I can spare two pounds," she said. "Take the money, Charley. Nay--you must--you shall. You must not go about looking half starved."

He hesitated and changed color, but he took the money.

Half an hour later he was laughing, as they all three sat at their simple supper, as light-hearted as if there had never been such a scene. When a man is forgiven he may as well behave accordingly. Only, when he lifted his glass of water to his lips he gasped--it was a craving for something stronger than water which tightened his throat like hydrophobia. But it passed; he drank the water and set down the glass with a nod.

"Good water, that," he said. "Nothing like water. Mean to stick to water in future--water and tea. Lily, I've made up my mind. For the next six months I shall give up speaking, though it's against my interests. Shorthand and French in the evening. By that time I shall get a post worth a hundred--ay, a hundred and twenty--pounds a year, if I'm lucky, and we'll get married and all live together and be as happy as the day is long. You shall never repent your wedding-day, my dear. I shall keep you like a lady. Oh, we will have a splendid time."

At ten o'clock Lily rose to go home. He sprang to his feet and took his hat and went.

"No, no," he said. "Let you go alone? Not if I know it."

She laid her hand on his arm once more, and tried to believe that his promise would be kept this time. He led her home, head in air, gallant and brave. At the door he kissed her. "Good-night, my dear," he said. "You know you can trust me. Haven't I promised?"

On the way home he passed a public-house. The craving came back to him, and the tightness of his throat and the yearning of his heart; his footsteps were drawn and dragged toward the door.

At eleven o'clock his mother, who was waiting up for him, heard him bumping and tumbling about the stairs on his way up. He came in--his eyes fishy, his voice thick. "Saw her home," he said. "Good girl, Lily. Made--(hic)--faithful promise--we are going to have--splendid time!"

IV.

The two women stood outside the prison doors. At eight o'clock their man would be released; the son of one, the lover of the other. The elder woman looked frail and bowed, her face was full of trouble--the kind of trouble that nothing can remove. The younger woman stood beside her on the pavement; she was thinner, and her cheeks were pale; in her eyes, too, you could read abiding trouble.

"We will take him home between us," said the girl. "Not a word of reproach. He has sinned and suffered. We must forgive. Oh, we cannot choose but forgive!"

Alas! the noble boy--the clever boy she loved--was further off than ever. He who loses a place and his character with it never gets another berth. This is a rule in the city. We talk of retrieving character and getting back to work. Neither the one nor the other event ever comes off. The wretch who is in this hapless plight begins the weary search for employment in hope. How it ends varies with his temperament or with the position of his friends. All day long he climbs stairs, puts his head into offices, and asks if a clerk is wanted.

No clerk is wanted. Then he comes down the stairs and climbs others, and asks the same question and gets the same reply. If ever a clerk is wanted a character is wanted with him; and when the character includes the qualification of drink, as well as of zeal and ability, the owner is told that he may move on.

I am told there is a never-ending procession of clerks out of work up and down the London stairs. What becomes of them is never known. It is, however, rumored that short commons, long tramps, and hope deferred bring most of them to the hospitals, where it is tenderly called pneumonia.

Charley began his tramp. After a little--a very little while--his money, the money that Lily lent him, was all gone. He was ashamed to borrow more, because he would have to confess how that money was chiefly spent.

Then he pawned his watch.

Then he borrowed another pound of Lily.

Every evening he came home drunk. His mother knew it, and told Lily. They could do nothing. They said nothing. They left off hoping.

Then his mother perceived that things began to disappear. He stole the clock on the mantel-shelf first, and pawned it.

Then he stole other things. At last he took the furniture, bit by bit, and pawned it, until his mother was left with nothing but a mattress and a pair of blankets. He could not take her money, because all she had was an annuity of fifteen shillings a week, otherwise he would have had that too. He then borrowed Lily's watch and pawned it, and her little trinkets and pawned them; he took from her all the money she would give him.

Both women half starved themselves to find him in drink and to save him from crime. Yes, to save him from crime. They did not use these words--they understood. For now he had become mad for drink. There was no longer any pretence; he even left off lying; he was drunk every day; if he could not get drunk he sat on the bare floor and cried. Neither his mother nor Lily reproached him.

An end--a semicolon, if not a full stop--comes to such a course. Unfortunately not always the end which is most to be desired--the only effectual end.

The end or semicolon which came to this young man was that, having nothing more of his mother's that he could pawn, one day he slipped into the ground floor lodger's room and made up quite a valuable little parcel for his friend the pawnbroker. It contained a Waterbury watch, a seven and sixpenny clock, a mug--electro-plate, won at a spelling competition--a bound volume of "Tit Bits," and a Bible.

When the lodger came home and found out his loss he proved to be of an irascible, suspicious, and revengeful disposition. He immediately, for instance, suspected the drunken young man of the first floor. He caused secret inquiry to be made, and--but why go on? Alas! the conclusion of the affair was eight months' hard.

"Here he comes," said Lily. "Look up, mother; we must meet him with a smile. He will come out sober, at any rate."

He was looking much better for his period of seclusion. He walked home between them, subdued, but ready, on encouragement, for their old confidence.

In fact, it broke out, after an excellent breakfast.

"I have made up my mind," he said, "while I was thinking--oh! I had plenty to think about and plenty of time to do my thinking in. Well, I have made up my mind. Mother, this is no country for me any longer. After what has happened I must go. You two go on living together, just for company, but I shall go--I shall go to America. There's always an opening, I am told, in America, for fellows who are not afraid of work. Cleverness tells there. A man isn't kept down because he's had a misfortune. What is there against me, after all? Character gone, eh? Well, if you come to that, I don't deny that appearances were against me. I could explain, however.

"But there nobody cares about character nor what you've done here"--(this remarkable belief is widely spread concerning the colonies, as well as the United States)--"it's what can you do? not, what have you done? Very well. I mean to go to America, mother. I shall polish up the shorthand and pick up the French grammar again. I mean to get rich now. Oh, I've sown my wild oats! Then you'll both come out to me, and then we'll be married; and, Lily, we'll have a most splendid time!"

V.

Five years later Lily sat one Sunday morning in the same lodgings. The poor old mother was gone, praying her with her last breath not to desert the boy. But of Charley not a word had come to her--no news of any kind.

She was quite alone--in those days she was generally alone; she had kept her place at the post-office, but everybody knew of her trouble, and somehow it made a kind of barrier between herself and her sister clerks. The sorrows of love are sacred, but when they are mixed up with a criminal and a prison there is a feeling--a kind of a feeling--as if, well, one doesn't like somehow to be mixed up with it. Lily was greatly to be pitied, no doubt; her lover had turned out shameful; but she ought to have given up the man long before he got so bad.

She was alone. The church bells were beginning to ring. She thought she would go to church. While she considered this point, she heard a woman's step on the stairs, and there was a knock at the door.