Chapter XXII (2)

For want of this trifle, of which neither the fashionable colonel nor his fashionable tailor had leisure to think, the poor weaver and his whole family were reduced to the last degree of human misery--to absolute famine. The man had exerted himself to the utmost to finish a pattern, which had been bespoken for a tradesman who promised upon the delivery of it to pay him five guineas in hand. This money he received; but four guineas of it were due to his landlord for rent of his wretched garret, and the remaining guinea was divided between the baker, to whom an old bill was due, and the apothecary, to whom they were obliged to have recourse, as the weaver was extremely ill. They had literally nothing now to depend upon but what the wife and daughter could earn by needlework; and they were known to be so miserably poor, that the _prudent_ neighbours did not like to trust them with plain work, lest it should not be returned safely. Besides, in such a dirty place as they lived in, how could it be expected that they should put any work out of their hands decently clean? The woman to whom the house belonged, however, at last procured them work from Mrs. Carver, a widow lady, who she said was extremely charitable. She advised Anne to carry home the work as soon as it was finished, and to wait to see the lady herself, who might perhaps be as charitable to her as she was to many others. Anne resolved to take this advice: but when she carried home her work to the place to which she was directed, her heart almost failed her; for she found Mrs. Carver lived in such a handsome house, that there was little chance of a poor girl being admitted by the servants farther than the hall-door or the kitchen. The lady, however, happened to be just coming out of her parlour at the moment the hall-door was opened for Anne; and she bid her come in and show her work--approved of it--commended her industry--asked her several questions about her family--seemed to be touched with compassion by Anne’s account of their distress--and after paying what she had charged for the work, put half-a-guinea into her hand, and bid her call the next day, when she hoped that she should be able to do something more for her. This unexpected bounty, and the kindness of voice and look with which it was accompanied, had such an effect upon the poor girl, that if she had not caught hold of a chair to support herself she would have sunk to the ground. Mrs. Carver immediately made her sit down--“Oh, madam! I’m well, quite well now--it was nothing--only surprise,” said she, bursting into tears. “I beg your pardon for this foolishness--but it is only because I’m weaker to-day than usual, for want of eating.”

“For want of eating! my poor child! How she trembles! she is weak indeed, and must not leave my house in this condition.”

Mrs. Carver rang the bell, and ordered a glass of wine; but Anne was afraid to drink it, as she was not used to wine, and as she knew that it would affect her head if she drank without eating. When the lady found that she refused the wine, she did not press it, but insisted upon her eating something.

“Oh, madam!” said the poor girl, “it is long, long indeed, since I have eaten so heartily; and it is almost a shame for me to stay eating such dainties, when my father and mother are all the while in the way they are. But I’ll run home with the half-guinea, and tell them how good you have been, and they will be so joyful and so thankful to you! My mother will come herself, I’m sure, with me to-morrow morning--she can thank you so much better than I can!”

Those only who have known the extreme of want can imagine the joy and gratitude with which the half-guinea was received by this poor family. Half-a-guinea!--Colonel Pembroke spent six half-guineas this very day in a fruit-shop, and ten times that sum at a jeweller’s on seals and baubles for which he had no manner of use.

When Anne and her mother called the next morning to thank their benefactress, she was not up; but her servant gave them a parcel from his mistress: it contained a fresh supply of needlework, a gown, and some other clothes, which were directed _for Anne_. The servant said, that if she would call again about eight in the evening, his lady would probably be able to see her, and that she begged to have the work finished by that time. The work was finished, though with some difficulty, by the appointed hour; and Anne, dressed in her new clothes, was at Mrs. Carver’s door just as the clock struck eight. The old lady was alone at tea; she seemed to be well pleased by Anne’s punctuality; said that she had made inquiries respecting Mr. and Mrs. White, and that she heard an excellent character of them; that therefore she was disposed to do every thing she could to serve them. She added, that she “should soon part with her own maid, and that perhaps Anne might supply her place.” Nothing could be more agreeable to the poor girl than this proposal: her father and mother were rejoiced at the idea of seeing her so well placed; and they now looked forward impatiently for the day when Mrs. Carver’s maid was to be dismissed. In the mean time the old lady continued to employ Anne, and to make her presents, sometimes of clothes, and sometimes of money. The money she always gave to her parents; and she loved her “good old lady,” as she always called her, more for putting it in her power thus to help her father and mother than for all the rest. The weaver’s disease had arisen from want of sufficient food, from fatigue of body, and anxiety of mind; and he grew rapidly better, now that he was relieved from want, and inspired with hope. Mrs. Carver bespoke from him two pieces of waistcoating, which she promised to dispose of for him most advantageously, by a raffle, for which she had raised subscriptions amongst her numerous acquaintance. She expressed great indignation, when Anne told her how Mr. White had been ruined by persons who would not pay their just debts; and when she knew that the weaver was overcharged for all his working materials, because he took them upon credit, she generously offered to lend them whatever ready money might be necessary, which she said Anne might repay, at her leisure, out of her wages.

“Oh, madam!” said Anne, “you are too good to us, indeed--too good! and if you could but see into our hearts, you would know that we are not ungrateful.”

“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 gratitude. 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 pass upon such as you for a good woman.”

“To pass 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 God 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 fashion, 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 snatched 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 God and man, as far as we are able?--My child,” continued he, catching Anne in his arms, “I have you safe, and I thank God 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 passed 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 petition. “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 petition 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 petition, 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 petition 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 petition, 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 petitions 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 petitions 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 compassion.

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:--

“You can gain nothing by your present obstinacy--you are the cause of your father’s lying in jail, and of your mother’s being as she is, nearly starved to death. You can relieve them from misery worse than death, and place them in ease and comfort for the remainder of their days. Be assured, they do not speak sincerley to you, when they pretend not to wish that your compliance should put an end to their present sufferings. It is you that are cruel to them--it is you that are cruel to yourself, and can blame nobody else. You might live all your days in a house as good as mine, and have a plentiful table served from one year’s end to another, with all the dainties of the season, and you might be dressed as elegantly as the most elegant lady in London (which, by-the-bye, your beauty deserves), and you would have servants of your own, and a carriage of your own, and nothing to do all day long but take your pleasure. And after all, what is asked of you?--only to make a person happy, whom half the town would envy you, that would make it a study to gratify you in every wish of your heart. The person alluded to you have seen, and more than once, when you have been talking to me of work in my parlour. He is a very rich and generous gentleman. If you come to Chiswell-street about six this evening, you will find all I say true--if not, you and yours must take the consequences.”

* * * * *

Coarse as the eloquence of this letter may appear, Anne could not read it without emotion: it raised in her heart a violent contest. Virtue, with poverty and famine, were on one side--and vice, with affluence, love, and every worldly pleasure, on the other.

Those who have been bred up in the lap of luxury; whom the breath of heaven has never visited too roughly; whose minds from their earliest infancy have been guarded even with more care than their persons; who in the dangerous season of youth are surrounded by all that the solicitude of experienced friends, and all that polished society, can devise for their security; are not perhaps competent to judge of the temptations by which beauty in the lower classes of life may be assailed. They who have never seen a father in prison, or a mother perishing for want of the absolute necessaries of life--they who have never themselves known the cravings of famine, cannot form an adequate idea of this poor girl’s feelings, and of the temptation to which she was now exposed. She wept--she hesitated--and “the woman that deliberates is lost.” Perhaps those who are the most truly virtuous of her sex will be the most disposed to feel for this poor creature, who was literally half famished before her good resolutions were conquered. At last she yielded to necessity. At the appointed hour she was in Mrs. Carver’s house. This woman received her with triumph--she supplied Anne immediately with food, and then hastened to deck out her victim in the most attractive manner. The girl was quite passive in her hand. She promised, though scarcely knowing that she uttered the words, to obey the instructions that were given to her, and she suffered herself without struggle, or apparent emotion, to be led to destruction. She appeared quite insensible--but at last she was roused from this state of stupefaction, by the voice of a person with whom she found herself alone. The stranger, who was a young and gay gentleman, pleasing both in his person and manners, attempted by every possible means to render himself agreeable to her, to raise her spirits, and calm her apprehensions. By degrees his manner changed from levity to tenderness. He represented to her, that he was not a brutal wretch, who could be gratified by any triumph in which the affections of the heart have no share; and he assured her, that in any connexion which she might be prevailed upon to form with him, she should be treated with honour and delicacy.

Touched by his manner of speaking, and overpowered by the sense of her own situation, Anne could not reply one single word to all he said--but burst into an agony of tears, and sinking on her knees before him, exclaimed, “Save me! save me from myself!--Restore me to my parents, before they have reason to hate me.”

The gentleman seemed to be somewhat in doubt whether this was _acting_ or nature: but he raised Anne from the ground, and placed her upon a seat beside him. “Am I to understand, then, that I have been deceived, and that our present meeting is against your own consent?”

“No, I cannot say that--oh, how I wish that I could!--I did wrong, very wrong, to come here--but I repent--I was half-starved--I have a father in jail--I thought I could set him free with the money----but I will not pretend to be better than I am--I believe I thought that, beside relieving my father, I should live all my days without ever more knowing what distress is--and I thought I should be happy--but now I have changed my mind--I never could be happy with a bad conscience--I know--by what I have felt this last hour.”

Her voice failed; and she sobbed for some moments without being able to speak. The gentleman, who now was convinced that she was quite artless and thoroughly in earnest, was struck with compassion; but his compassion was not unmixed with other feelings, and he had hopes that, by treating her with tenderness, he should in time make it her wish to live with him as his mistress. He was anxious to hear what her former way of life had been; and she related, at his request, the circumstances by which she and her parents had been reduced to such distress. His countenance presently showed how much he was interested in her story--he grew red and pale--he started from his seat, and walked up and down the room in great agitation, till at last, when she mentioned the name of Colonel Pembroke, he stopped short, and exclaimed, “I am the man--I am Colonel Pembroke--I am that unjust, unfeeling wretch! How often, in the bitterness of your hearts, you must have cursed me!”

“Oh, no--my father, when he was at the worst, never cursed you; and I am sure he will have reason to bless you now, if you send his daughter back again to him, such as she was when she left him.”

“That shall be done,” said Colonel Pembroke; “and in doing so, I make some sacrifice, and have some merit. It is time I should make some reparation for the evils I have occasioned,” continued he, taking a handful of guineas from his pocket: “but first let me pay my just debts.”

“My poor father!” exclaimed Anne; “to-morrow he will be out of prison.”

“I will go with you to the prison, where your father is confined--I will force myself to behold all the evils I have occasioned.”

Colonel Pembroke went to the prison; and he was so much struck by the scene, that he not only relieved the misery of this family, but in two months afterwards his debts were paid, his race-horses sold, and all his expenses regulated, so as to render him ever afterwards truly independent. He no longer spent his days, like many young men of fashion, either in DREADING or in DAMNING DUNS.

_Edgeworthstown_, 1802.

THE END.