CHAPTER XIX.
HER STORY.
Thereupon Miss Clare began. I do not pretend to give her very words, but I
must tell her story as if she were telling it herself. I shall be as true
as I can to the facts, and hope to catch something of the tone of the
narrator as I go on.
"My mother died when I was very young, and I was left alone with my father,
for I was his only child. He was a studious and thoughtful man. It _may_
be the partiality of a daughter, I know, but I am not necessarily wrong
in believing that diffidence in his own powers alone prevented him from
distinguishing himself. As it was, he supported himself and me by literary
work of, I presume, a secondary order. He would spend all his mornings for
many weeks in the library of the British Museum,--reading and making notes;
after which he would sit writing at home for as long or longer. I should
have found it very dull during the former of these times, had he not early
discovered that I had some capacity for music, and provided for me what I
now know to have been the best instruction to be had. His feeling alone had
guided him right, for he was without musical knowledge. I believe he could
not have found me a better teacher in all Europe. Her character was lovely,
and her music the natural outcome of its harmony. But I must not forget it
is about myself I have to tell you. I went to her, then, almost every day
for a time--but how long that was, I can only guess. It must have been
several years, I think, else I could not have attained what proficiency I
had when my sorrow came upon me.
"What my father wrote I cannot tell. How gladly would I now read the
shortest sentence I knew to be his! He never told me for what journals he
wrote, or even for what publishers. I fancy it was work in which his brain
was more interested than his heart, and which he was always hoping to
exchange for something more to his mind. After his death I could discover
scarcely a scrap of his writings, and not a hint to guide me to what he had
written.
"I believe we went on living from hand to mouth, my father never getting
so far ahead of the wolf as to be able to pause and choose his way. But I
was very happy, and would have been no whit less happy if he had explained
our circumstances, for that would have conveyed to me no hint of danger.
Neither has any of the suffering I have had--at least any keen enough to
be worth dwelling upon--sprung from personal privation, although I am not
unacquainted with hunger and cold.
"My happiest time was when my father asked me to play to him while he
wrote, and I sat down to my old cabinet Broadwood,--the one you see there
is as like it as I could find,--and played any thing and every thing I
liked,--for somehow I never forgot what I had once learned,--while my
father sat, as he said, like a mere extension of the instrument, operated
upon, rather than listening, as he wrote. What I then _thought_, I cannot
tell. I don't believe I thought at all. I only _musicated_, as a little
pupil of mine once said to me, when, having found her sitting with her
hands on her lap before the piano, I asked her what she was doing: 'I am
only musicating,' she answered. But the enjoyment was none the less that
there was no conscious thought in it.
"Other branches he taught me himself, and I believe I got on very fairly
for my age. We lived then in the neighborhood of the Museum, where I was
well known to all the people of the place, for I used often to go there,
and would linger about looking at things, sometimes for hours before my
father came to me but he always came at the very minute he had said, and
always found me at the appointed spot. I gained a great deal by thus
haunting the Museum--a great deal more than I supposed at the time. One
gain was, that I knew perfectly where in the place any given sort of thing
was to be found, if it were there at all: I had unconsciously learned
something of classification.
"One afternoon I was waiting as usual, but my father did not come at the
time appointed. I waited on and on till it grew dark, and the hour for
closing arrived, by which time I was in great uneasiness; but I was forced
to go home without him. I must hasten over this part of my history, for
even yet I can scarcely bear to speak of it. I found that while I was
waiting, he had been seized with some kind of fit in the reading-room, and
had been carried home, and that I was alone in the world. The landlady, for
we only rented rooms in the house, was very kind to me, at least until she
found that my father had left no money. He had then been only reading for
a long time; and, when I looked back, I could see that he must have been
short of money for some weeks at least. A few bills coming in, all our
little effects--for the furniture was our own--were sold, without bringing
sufficient to pay them. The things went for less than half their value, in
consequence, I believe, of that well-known conspiracy of the brokers which
they call _knocking out_. I was especially miserable at losing my father's
books, which, although in ignorance, I greatly valued,--more miserable
even, I honestly think, than at seeing my loved piano carried off.
"When the sale was over, and every thing removed, I sat down on the floor,
amidst the dust and bits of paper and straw and cord, without a single
idea in my head as to what was to become of me, or what I was to do next.
I didn't cry,--that I am sure of; but I doubt if in all London there was
a more wretched child than myself just then. The twilight was darkening
down,--the twilight of a November afternoon. Of course there was no fire
in the grate, and I had eaten nothing that day; for although the landlady
had offered me some dinner, and I had tried to please her by taking some,
I found I could not swallow, and had to leave it. While I sat thus on the
floor, I heard her come into the room, and some one with her; but I did
not look round, and they, not seeing me, and thinking, I suppose, that I
was in one of the other rooms, went on talking about me. All I afterwards
remembered of their conversation was some severe reflections on my father,
and the announcement of the decree that I must go to the workhouse. Though
I knew nothing definite as to the import of this doom, it filled me with
horror. The moment they left me alone, to look for me, as I supposed, I
got up, and, walking as softly as I could, glided down the stairs, and,
unbonneted and unwrapped, ran from the house, half-blind with terror.
"I had not gone farther, I fancy, than a few yards, when I ran up against
some one, who laid hold of me, and asked me gruffly what I meant by it. I
knew the voice: it was that of an old Irishwoman who did all the little
charing we wanted,--for I kept the rooms tidy, and the landlady cooked for
us. As soon as she saw who it was, her tone changed; and then first I broke
out in sobs, and told her I was running away because they were going to
send me to the workhouse. She burst into a torrent of Irish indignation,
and assured me that such should never be my fate while she lived. I must go
back to the house with her, she said, and get my things; and then I should
go home with her, until something better should turn up. I told her I would
go with her anywhere, except into that house again; and she did not insist,
but afterwards went by herself and got my little wardrobe. In the mean time
she led me away to a large house in a square, of which she took the key
from her pocket to open the door. It looked to me such a huge place!--the
largest house I had ever been in; but it was rather desolate, for, except
in one little room below, where she had scarcely more than a bed and a
chair, a slip of carpet and a frying-pan, there was not an article of
furniture in the whole place. She had been put there when the last tenant
left, to take care of the place, until another tenant should appear to
turn her out. She had her houseroom and a trifle a week besides for her
services, beyond which she depended entirely on what she could make by
charing. When she had no house to live in on the same terms, she took a
room somewhere.
"Here I lived for several months, and was able to be of use; for as Mrs.
Conan was bound to be there at certain times to show any one over the house
who brought an order from the agent, and this necessarily took up a good
part of her working time; and as, moreover, I could open the door and walk
about the place as well as another, she willingly left me in charge as
often as she had a job elsewhere.
"On such occasions, however, I found it very dreary indeed, for few people
called, and she would not unfrequently be absent the whole day. If I had
had my piano, I should have cared little; but I had not a single book,
except one--and what do you think that was? An odd volume of the Newgate
Calendar. I need hardly say that it had not the effect on me which it
is said to have on some of its students: it moved me, indeed, to the
profoundest sympathy, not with the crimes of the malefactors, only with
the malefactors themselves, and their mental condition after the deed was
actually done. But it was with the fascination of a hopeless horror, making
me feel almost as if I had committed every crime as I perused its tale,
that I regarded them. They were to me like living crimes. It was not until
long afterwards that I was able to understand that a man's actions are not
the man, but may be separated from him; that his character even is not the
man, but may be changed while he yet holds the same individuality,--is the
man who was blind though he now sees; whence it comes, that, the deeds
continuing his, all stain of them may yet be washed out of him. I did not,
I say, understand all this until afterwards; but I believe, odd as it may
seem, that volume of the Newgate Calendar threw down the first deposit of
soil, from which afterwards sprung what grew to be almost a passion in me,
for getting the people about me clean,--a passion which might have done
as much harm as good, if its companion, patience, had not been sent me to
guide and restrain it. In a word, I came at length to understand, in some
measure, the last prayer of our Lord for those that crucified him, and the
ground on which he begged from his Father their forgiveness,--that they
knew not what they did. If the Newgate Calendar was indeed the beginning
of this course of education, I need not regret having lost my piano, and
having that volume for a while as my only aid to reflection.
"My father had never talked much to me about religion; but when he did, it
was with such evident awe in his spirit, and reverence in his demeanor, as
had more effect on me, I am certain, from the very paucity of the words
in which his meaning found utterance. Another thing which had still more
influence upon me was, that, waking one night after I had been asleep for
some time, I saw him on his knees by my bedside. I did not move or speak,
for fear of disturbing him; and, indeed, such an awe came over me, that
it would have required a considerable effort of the will for any bodily
movement whatever. When he lifted his head, I caught a glimpse of a pale,
tearful face; and it is no wonder that the virtue of the sight should never
have passed away.
"On Sundays we went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon, in fine
weather, went out for a walk; or, if it were raining or cold, I played to
him till he fell asleep on the sofa. Then in the evening, after tea, we
had more music, some poetry, which we read alternately, and a chapter of
the New Testament, which he always read to me. I mention this, to show you
that I did not come all unprepared to the study of the Newgate Calendar.
Still, I cannot think, that, under any circumstances, it could have done
an innocent child harm. Even familiarity with vice is not necessarily
pollution. There cannot be many women of my age as familiar with it in
every shape as I am; and I do not find that I grow to regard it with one
atom less of absolute abhorrence, although I neither shudder at the mention
of it, nor turn with disgust from the person in whom it dwells. But the
consolations of religion were not yet consciously mine. I had not yet begun
to think of God in any relation to myself.
"The house was in an old square, built, I believe, in the reign of Queen
Anne, which, although many of the houses were occupied by well-to-do
people, had fallen far from its first high estate. No one would believe,
to look at it from the outside, what a great place it was. The whole of the
space behind it, corresponding to the small gardens of the other houses,
was occupied by a large music-room, under which was a low-pitched room of
equal extent, while all under that were cellars, connected with the sunk
story in front by a long vaulted passage, corresponding to a wooden gallery
above, which formed a communication between the drawing-room floor and the
music-room. Most girls of my age, knowing these vast empty spaces about
them, would have been terrified at being left alone there, even in mid-day.
But I was, I suppose, too miserable to be frightened. Even the horrible
facts of the Newgate Calendar did not thus affect me, not even when Mrs.
Conan was later than usual, and the night came down, and I had to sit,
perhaps for hours, in the dark,--for she would not allow me to have a
candle for fear of fire. But you will not wonder that I used to cry a good
deal, although I did my best to hide the traces of it, because I knew
it would annoy my kind old friend. She showed me a great deal of rough
tenderness, which would not have been rough had not the natural grace of
her Irish nature been injured by the contact of many years with the dull
coarseness of the uneducated Saxon. You may be sure I learned to love her
dearly. She shared every thing with me in the way of eating, and would have
shared also the tumbler of gin and water with which she generally ended the
day, but something, I don't know what, I believe a simple physical dislike,
made me refuse that altogether.
"One evening I have particular cause to remember, both for itself,
and because of something that followed many years after. I was in the
drawing-room on the first floor, a double room with folding doors and a
small cabinet behind communicating with a back stair; for the stairs were
double all through the house, adding much to the _eeriness_ of the place
as I look back upon it in my memory. I fear, in describing the place so
minutely, I may have been rousing false expectations of an adventure; but
I have a reason for being rather minute, though it will not appear until
afterwards. I had been looking out of the window all the afternoon upon
the silent square, for, as it was no thoroughfare, it was only enlivened by
the passing and returning now and then of a tradesman's cart; and, as it
was winter, there were no children playing in the garden. It was a rainy
afternoon. A gray cloud of fog and soot hung from the whole sky. About a
score of yellow leaves yet quivered on the trees, and the statue of Queen
Anne stood bleak and disconsolate among the bare branches. I am afraid I
am getting long-winded, but somehow that afternoon seems burned into me
in enamel. I gazed drearily without interest. I brooded over the past;
I never, at this time, so far as I remember, dreamed of looking forward.
I had no hope. It never occurred to me that things might grow better. I
was dull and wretched. I may just say here in passing, that I think this
experience is in a great measure what has enabled me to understand the
peculiar misery of the poor in our large towns,--they have no hope, no
impulse to look forward, nothing to expect; they live but in the present,
and the dreariness of that soon shapes the whole atmosphere of their
spirits to its own likeness. Perhaps the first thing one who would help
them has to do is to aid the birth of some small vital hope in them; that
is better than a thousand gifts, especially those of the ordinary kind,
which mostly do harm, tending to keep them what they are,--a prey to
present and importunate wants.
"It began to grow dark; and, tired of standing, I sat down upon the floor,
for there was nothing to sit upon besides. There I still sat, long after
it was quite dark. All at once a surge of self-pity arose in my heart.
I burst out wailing and sobbing, and cried aloud, 'God has forgotten me
altogether!' The fact was, I had had no dinner that day, for Mrs. Conan had
expected to return long before; and the piece of bread she had given me,
which was all that was in the house, I had eaten many hours ago. But I was
not thinking of my dinner, though the want of it may have had to do with
this burst of misery. What I was really thinking of was,--that I could do
nothing for anybody. My little ambition had always been to be useful. I
knew I was of some use to my father; for I kept the rooms tidy for him, and
dusted his pet books--oh, so carefully! for they were like household gods
to me. I had also played to him, and I knew he enjoyed that: he said so,
many times. And I had begun, though not long before he left me, to think
how I should be able to help him better by and by. For I saw that he
worked very hard,--so hard that it made him silent; and I knew that my
music-mistress made her livelihood, partly at least, by giving lessons; and
I thought that I might, by and by, be able to give lessons too, and then
papa would not require to work so hard, for I too should bring home money
to pay for what we wanted. But now I was of use to nobody, I said, and not
likely to become of any. I could not even help poor Mrs. Conan, except by
doing what a child might do just as well as I, for I did not earn a penny
of our living; I only gave the poor old thing time to work harder, that I
might eat up her earnings! What added to the misery was, that I had always
thought of myself as a lady; for was not papa a gentleman, let him be ever
so poor? Shillings and sovereigns in his pocket could not determine whether
a man was a gentleman or not! And if he was a gentleman, his daughter must
be a lady. But how could I be a lady if I was content to be a burden to a
poor charwoman, instead of earning my own living, and something besides
with which to help her? For I had the notion--_how_ it came I cannot tell,
though I know well enough _whence_ it came--that position depended on how
much a person was able to help other people; and here I was, useless, worse
than useless to anybody! Why did not God remember me, if it was only for my
father's sake? He was worth something, if I was not! And I would be worth
something, if only I had a chance!--'I am of no use,' I cried, 'and God has
forgotten me altogether!' And I went on weeping and moaning in my great
misery, until I fell fast asleep on the floor.
"I have no theory about dreams and visions; and I don't know what you, Mr.
Walton, may think as to whether these ended with the first ages of the
church; but surely if one falls fast asleep without an idea in one's head,
and a whole dismal world of misery in one's heart, and wakes up quiet and
refreshed, without the misery, and with an idea, there can be no great
fanaticism in thinking that the change may have come from somewhere near
where the miracles lie,--in fact, that God may have had something--might
I not say every thing?--to do with it. For my part, if I were to learn
that he had no hand in this experience of mine, I couldn't help losing
all interest in it, and wishing that I had died of the misery which it
dispelled. Certainly, if it had a physical source, it wasn't that I was
more comfortable, for I was hungrier than ever, and, you may well fancy,
cold enough, having slept on the bare floor without any thing to cover me
on Christmas Eve--for Christmas Eve it was. No doubt my sleep had done me
good, but I suspect the sleep came to quiet my mind for the reception of
the new idea.
"The way Mrs. Conan kept Christmas Day, as she told me in the morning,
was, to comfort her old bones in bed until the afternoon, and then to have
a good tea with a chop; after which she said she would have me read the
Newgate Calendar to her. So, as soon as I had washed up the few breakfast
things, I asked, if, while she lay in bed, I might not go out for a little
while to look for work. She laughed at the notion of my being able to do
any thing, but did not object to my trying. So I dressed myself as neatly
as I could, and set out.
"There were two narrow streets full of small shops, in which those of
furniture-brokers predominated, leading from the two lower corners of the
square down into Oxford Street; and in a shop in one of these, I was not
sure which, I had seen an old piano standing, and a girl of about my own
age watching. I found the shop at last, although it was shut up; for I knew
the name, and knocked at the door. It was opened by a stout matron, with a
not unfriendly expression, who asked me what I wanted. I told her I wanted
work. She seemed amused at the idea,--for I was very small for my age then
as well as now,--but, apparently willing to have a chat with me, asked what
I could do. I told her I could teach her daughter music. She asked me what
made me come to her, and I told her. Then she asked me how much I should
charge. I told her that some ladies had a guinea a lesson; at which she
laughed so heartily, that I had to wait until the first transports of her
amusement were over before I could finish by saying, that for my part
I should be glad to give an hour's lesson for threepence, only, if she
pleased, I should prefer it in silver. But how was she to know, she asked,
that I could teach her properly. I told her I would let her hear me play;
whereupon she led me into the shop, through a back room in which her
husband sat smoking a long pipe, with a tankard at his elbow. Having taken
down a shutter, she managed with some difficulty to clear me a passage
through a crowd of furniture to the instrument, and with a struggle I
squeezed through and reached it; but at the first chord I struck, I gave
a cry of dismay. In some alarm she asked what was the matter, calling me
_child_ very kindly. I told her it was so dreadfully out of tune I couldn't
play upon it at all; but, if she would get it tuned, I should not be long
in showing her that I could do what I professed. She told me she could not
afford to have it tuned; and if I could not teach Bertha on it as it was,
she couldn't help it. This, however, I assured her, was utterly impossible;
upon which, with some show of offence, she reached over a chest of drawers,
and shut down the cover. I believe she doubted whether I could play at all,
and had not been merely amusing myself at her expense. Nothing was left but
to thank her, bid her good-morning, and walk out of the house, dreadfully
disappointed.
"Unwilling to go home at once, I wandered about the neighborhood, through
street after street, until I found myself in another square, with a number
of business-signs in it,--one of them that of a piano-forte firm, at sight
of which, a thought came into my head. The next morning I went in, and
requested to see the master. The man to whom I spoke stared, no doubt;
but he went, and returning after a little while, during which my heart
beat very fast, invited me to walk into the counting-house. Mr. Perkins
was amused with the story of my attempt to procure teaching, and its
frustration. If I had asked him for money, to which I do not believe hunger
itself could have driven me, he would probably have got rid of me quickly
enough,--and small blame to him, as Mrs. Conan would have said; but to my
request that he would spare a man to tune Mrs. Lampeter's piano, he replied
at once that he would, provided I could satisfy him as to my efficiency.
Thereupon he asked me a few questions about music, of which some I could
answer and some I could not. Next he took me into the shop, set me a stool
in front of a grand piano, and told me to play. I could not help trembling
a good deal, but I tried my best. In a few moments, however, the tears were
dropping on the keys; and, when he asked me what was the matter, I told
him it was months since I had touched a piano. The answer did not, however,
satisfy him; he asked very kindly how that was, and I had to tell him my
whole story. Then he not only promised to have the piano tuned for me at
once, but told me that I might go and practise there as often as I pleased,
so long as I was a good girl, and did not take up with bad company. Imagine
my delight! Then he sent for a tuner, and I suppose told him a little about
me, for the man spoke very kindly to me as we went to the broker's.
"Mr. Perkins has been a good friend to me ever since.
"For six months I continued to give Bertha Lampeter lessons. They were
broken off only when she went to a dressmaker to learn her business. But
her mother had by that time introduced me to several families of her
acquaintance, amongst whom I found five or six pupils on the same terms. By
this teaching, if I earned little, I learned much; and every day almost I
practised at the music-shop.
"When the house was let, Mrs. Conan took a room in the neighborhood, that
I might keep up my connection, she said. Then first I was introduced to
scenes and experiences with which I am now familiar. Mrs. Percivale might
well recoil if I were to tell her half the wretchedness, wickedness, and
vulgarity I have seen, and often had to encounter. For two years or so we
changed about, at one time in an empty house, at another in a hired room,
sometimes better, sometimes worse off, as regarded our neighbors, until,
Mrs. Conan having come to the conclusion that it would be better for her to
confine herself to charing, we at last settled down here, where I have now
lived for many years.
"You may be inclined to ask why I had not kept up my acquaintance with my
music-mistress. I believe the shock of losing my father, and the misery
that followed, made me feel as if my former world had vanished; at all
events, I never thought of going to her until Mr. Perkins one day, after
listening to something I was playing, asked me who had taught me; and this
brought her back to my mind so vividly that I resolved to go and see her.
She welcomed me with more than kindness,--with tenderness,--and told me I
had caused her much uneasiness by not letting her know what had become of
me. She looked quite aghast when she learned in what sort of place and with
whom I lived; but I told her Mrs. Conan had saved me from the workhouse,
and was as much of a mother to me as it was possible for her to be, that we
loved each other, and that it would be very wrong of me to leave her now,
especially that she was not so well as she had been; and I believe she then
saw the thing as I saw it. She made me play to her, was pleased,--indeed
surprised, until I told her how I had been supporting myself,--and insisted
on my resuming my studies with her, which I was only too glad to do. I
now, of course, got on much faster; and she expressed satisfaction with my
progress, but continued manifestly uneasy at the kind of thing I had to
encounter, and become of necessity more and more familiar with.
"When Mrs. Conan fell ill, I had indeed hard work of it. Unlike most of her
class, she had laid by a trifle of money; but as soon as she ceased to add
to it, it began to dwindle, and was very soon gone. Do what I could for
a while, if it had not been for the kindness of the neighbors, I should
sometimes have been in want of bread; and when I hear hard things said
of the poor, I often think that surely improvidence is not so bad as
selfishness. But, of course, there are all sorts amongst them, just as
there are all sorts in every class. When I went out to teach, now one, now
another of the women in the house would take charge of my friend; and when
I came home, except her guardian happened to have got tipsy, I never found
she had been neglected. Miss Harper said I must raise my terms; but I told
her that would be the loss of my pupils. Then she said she must see what
could be done for me, only no one she knew was likely to employ a child
like me, if I were able to teach ever so well. One morning, however, within
a week, a note came from Lady Bernard, asking me to go and see her.
"I went, and found--a mother. You do not know her, I think? But you must
one day. Good people like you must come together. I will not attempt to
describe her. She awed me at first, and I could hardly speak to her,--I
was not much more than thirteen then; but with the awe came a certain
confidence which was far better than ease. The immediate result was, that
she engaged me to go and play for an hour, five days a week, at a certain
hospital for sick children in the neighborhood, which she partly supported.
For she had a strong belief that there was in music a great healing power.
Her theory was, that all healing energy operates first on the mind, and
from it passes to the body, and that medicines render aid only by removing
certain physical obstacles to the healing force. She believes that when
music operating on the mind has procured the peace of harmony, the peace
in its turn operates outward, reducing the vital powers also into the
harmonious action of health. _How much_ there may be in it, I cannot tell;
but I do think that good has been and is the result of my playing to those
children; for I go still, though not quite so often, and it is music to
me to watch my music thrown back in light from some of those sweet, pale,
suffering faces. She was too wise to pay me much for it at first. She
inquired, before making me the offer, how much I was already earning, asked
me upon how much I could support Mrs. Conan and myself comfortably, and
then made the sum of my weekly earnings up to that amount. At the same
time, however, she sent many things to warm and feed the old woman, so that
my mind was set at ease about her. She got a good deal better for a while,
but continued to suffer so much from rheumatism, that she was quite unfit
to go out charing any more; and I would not hear of her again exposing
herself to the damps and draughts of empty houses, so long as I was able to
provide for her,--of which ability you may be sure I was not a little proud
at first.
"I have been talking for a long time, and yet may seem to have said nothing
to account for your finding me where she left me; but I will try to come to
the point as quickly as possible.
"Before she was entirely laid up, we had removed to this place,--a rough
shelter, but far less so than some of the houses in which we had been. I
remember one in which I used to dart up and down like a hunted hare at one
time; at another to steal along from stair to stair like a well-meaning
ghost afraid of frightening people; my mode of procedure depending in part
on the time of day, and which of the inhabitants I had reason to dread
meeting. It was a good while before the inmates of this house and I began
to know each other. The landlord had turned out the former tenant of this
garret after she had been long enough in the house for all the rest to know
her; and, notwithstanding she had been no great favorite, they all took her
part against the landlord; and fancying, perhaps because we kept more to
ourselves, that we were his _protégées_, and that he had turned out Muggy
Moll, as they called her, to make room for us, regarded us from the first
with disapprobation. The little girls would make grimaces at me, and the
bigger girls would pull my hair, slap my face, and even occasionally
push me down stairs, while the boys made themselves far more terrible in
my eyes. But some remark happening to be dropped one day, which led the
landlord to disclaim all previous knowledge of us, things began to grow
better. And this is not by any means one of the worst parts of London. I
could take Mr. Walton to houses in the East End, where the manners are
indescribable. We are all earning our bread here. Some have an occasional
attack of drunkenness, and idle about; but they are sick of it again after
a while. I remember asking a woman once if her husband would be present at
a little entertainment to which Lady Bernard had invited them: she answered
that he would be there if he was drunk, but if he was sober he couldn't
spare the time.
"Very soon they began to ask me after Mrs. Conan; and one day I invited one
of them, who seemed a decent though not very tidy woman, to walk up and see
her; for I was anxious she should have a visitor now and then when I was
out, as she complained a good deal of the loneliness. The woman consented,
and ever after was very kind to her. But my main stay and comfort was an
old woman who then occupied the room opposite to this. She was such a good
creature! Nearly blind, she yet kept her room the very pink of neatness. I
never saw a speck of dust on that chest of drawers, which was hers then,
and which she valued far more than many a rich man values the house of his
ancestors,--not only because it had been her mother's, but because it bore
testimony to the respectability of her family. Her floor and her little
muslin window-curtain, her bed and every thing about her, were as clean as
lady could desire. She objected to move into a better room below, which the
landlord kindly offered her,--for she was a favorite from having been his
tenant a long time and never having given him any trouble in collecting her
rent,--on the ground that there were two windows in it, and therefore too
much light for her bits of furniture. They would, she said, look nothing
in that room. She was very pleased when I asked her to pay a visit to Mrs.
Conan; and as she belonged to a far higher intellectual grade than my
protectress, and as she had a strong practical sense of religion, chiefly
manifested in a willing acceptance of the decrees of Providence, I think
she did us both good. I wish I could draw you a picture of her coming in
at that door, with her all but sightless eyes, the broad borders of her
white cap waving, and her hands stretched out before her; for she was
more apprehensive than if she had been quite blind, because she could see
things without knowing what, or even in what position they were. The most
remarkable thing to me was the calmness with which she looked forward to
her approaching death, although without the expectation which so many
good people seem to have in connection with their departure. I talked to
her about it more than once,--not with any presumption of teaching her,
for I felt she was far before me, but just to find out how she felt and
what she believed. Her answer amounted to this, that she had never known
beforehand what lay round the next corner, or what was going to happen to
her, for if Providence had meant her to know, it could not be by going to
fortune-tellers, as some of the neighbors did; but that she always found
things turn out right and good for her, and she did not doubt she would
find it so when she came to the last turn.
"By degrees I knew everybody in the house, and of course I was ready to
do what I could to help any of them. I had much to lift me into a higher
region of mental comfort than was open to them; for I had music, and Lady
Bernard lent me books.
"Of course also I kept my rooms as clean and tidy as I could; and indeed,
if I had been more carelessly inclined in that way, the sight of the blind
woman's would have been a constant reminder to me. By degrees also I was
able to get a few more articles of furniture for it, and a bit of carpet
to put down before the fire. I whitewashed the walls myself, and after a
while began to whitewash the walls of the landing as well, and all down
the stair, which was not of much use to the eye, for there is no light.
Before long some of the other tenants began to whitewash their rooms also,
and contrive to keep things a little tidier. Others declared they had no
opinion of such uppish notions; they weren't for the likes of them. These
were generally such as would rejoice in wearing finery picked up at the
rag-shop; but even some of them began by degrees to cultivate a small
measure of order. Soon this one and that began to apply to me for help in
various difficulties that arose. But they didn't begin to call me grannie
for a long time after this. They used then to call the blind woman grannie,
and the name got associated with the top of the house; and I came to be
associated with it because I also lived there and we were friends. After
her death, it was used from habit, at first with a feeling of mistake,
seeing its immediate owner was gone; but by degrees it settled down upon
me, and I came to be called grannie by everybody in the house. Even Mrs.
Conan would not unfrequently address me, and speak of me too, as grannie,
at first with a laugh, but soon as a matter of course.
"I got by and by a few pupils amongst tradespeople of a class rather
superior to that in which I had begun to teach, and from whom I could ask
and obtain double my former fee; so that things grew, with fluctuations,
gradually better. Lady Bernard continued a true friend to me--but she never
was other than that to any. Some of her friends ventured on the experiment
whether I could teach their children; and it is no wonder if they were
satisfied, seeing I had myself such a teacher.
"Having come once or twice to see Mrs. Conan, she discovered that we were
gaining a little influence over the people in the house; and it occurred
to her, as she told me afterwards, that the virtue of music might be tried
there with a _moral_ end in view. Hence it came that I was beyond measure
astonished and delighted one evening by the arrival of a piano,--not that
one, for it got more worn than I liked, and I was able afterwards to
exchange it for a better. I found it an invaluable aid in the endeavor to
work out my glowing desire of getting the people about me into a better
condition. First I asked some of the children to come and listen while I
played. Everybody knows how fond the least educated children are of music;
and I feel assured of its elevating power. Whatever the street-organs
may be to poets and mathematicians, they are certainly a godsend to the
children of our courts and alleys. The music takes possession of them at
once, and sets them moving to it with rhythmical grace. I should have been
very sorry to make it a condition with those I invited, that they should
sit still: to take from them their personal share in it would have been to
destroy half the charm of the thing. A far higher development is needful
before music can be enjoyed in silence and motionlessness. The only
condition I made was, that they should come with clean hands and faces, and
with tidy hair. Considerable indignation was at first manifested on the
part of those parents whose children I refused to admit because they had
neglected the condition. This necessity, however, did not often occur; and
the anger passed away, while the condition gathered weight. After a while,
guided by what some of the children let fall; I began to invite the mothers
to join them; and at length it came to be understood that, every Saturday
evening, whoever chose to make herself tidy would be welcome, to an hour or
two of my music. Some of the husbands next began to come, but there were
never so many of them present. I may just add, that although the manners
of some of my audience would be very shocking to cultivated people, and I
understand perfectly how they must be so, I am very rarely annoyed on such
occasions.
"I must now glance at another point in my history, one on which I cannot
dwell. Never since my father's death had I attended public worship. Nothing
had drawn me thither; and I hardly know what induced me one evening to step
into a chapel of which I knew nothing. There was not even Sunday to account
for it. I believe, however, it had to do with this, that all day I had been
feeling tired. I think people are often ready to suppose that their bodily
condition is the cause of their spiritual discomfort, when it may be only
the occasion upon which some inward lack reveals itself. That the spiritual
nature should be incapable of meeting and sustaining the body in its
troubles is of itself sufficient to show that it is not in a satisfactory
condition. For a long time the struggle for mere existence had almost
absorbed my energies; but things had been easier for some time, and a
re-action had at length come. It was not that I could lay any thing
definite to my own charge; I only felt empty all through; I felt that
something was not right with me, that something was required of me which
I was not rendering. I could not, however, have told you what it was.
Possibly the feeling had been for some time growing; but that day, so far
as I can tell, I was first aware of it; and I presume it was the dim cause
of my turning at the sound of a few singing voices, and entering that
chapel. I found about a dozen people present. Something in the air of the
place, meagre and waste as it looked, yet induced me to remain. An address
followed from a pale-faced, weak-looking man of middle age, who had no gift
of person, voice, or utterance, to recommend what he said. But there dwelt
a more powerful enforcement in him than any of those,--that of earnestness.
I went again, and again; and slowly, I cannot well explain how, the sense
of life and its majesty grew upon me. Mr. Walton will, I trust, understand
me when I say, that to one hungering for bread, it is of little consequence
in what sort of platter it is handed him. This was a dissenting chapel,--of
what order, it was long before I knew,--and my predilection was for the
Church-services, those to which my father had accustomed me; but any
comparison of the two to the prejudice of either, I should still--although
a communicant of the Church of England--regard with absolute indifference.
"It will be sufficient for my present purpose to allude to the one
practical thought which was the main fruit I gathered from this good
man,--the fruit by which I know that he was good. [Footnote: Something like
this is the interpretation of the word: "By their fruits ye shall know
them" given by Mr. Maurice,--an interpretation which opens much.--G.M.D.]
It was this,--that if all the labor of God, as my teacher said, was to
bring sons into glory, lifting them out of the abyss of evil bondage up to
the rock of his pure freedom, the only worthy end of life must be to work
in the same direction,--to be a fellow-worker with God. Might I not, then,
do something such, in my small way, and lose no jot of my labor? I thought.
The urging, the hope, grew in me. But I was not left to feel blindly after
some new and unknown method of labor. My teacher taught me that the way for
_me_ to help others was not to tell them their duty, but myself to learn
of Him who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. As I learned of him,
I should be able to help them. I have never had any theory but just to be
their friend,--to do for them the best I can. When I feel I may, I tell
them what has done me good, but I never urge any belief of mine upon their
acceptance.
"It will now seem no more wonderful to you than to me, that I should remain
where I am. I simply have no choice. I was sixteen when Mrs. Conan died.
Then my friends, amongst whom Lady Bernard and Miss Harper have ever been
first, expected me to remove to lodgings in another neighborhood. Indeed,
Lady Bernard came to see me, and said she knew precisely the place for me.
When I told her I should remain where I was, she was silent, and soon left
me?--I thought offended. I wrote to her at once, explaining why I chose
my part here; saying that I would not hastily alter any thing that had
been appointed me; that I loved the people; that they called me grannie;
that they came to me with their troubles; that there were few changes in
the house now; that the sick looked to me for help, and the children for
teaching; that they seemed to be steadily rising in the moral scale; that I
knew some of them were trying hard to be good; and I put it to her whether,
if I were to leave them, in order merely, as servants say, to better
myself, I should not be forsaking my post, almost my family; for I knew
it would not be to better either myself or my friends: if I was at all
necessary to them, I knew they were yet more necessary to me.
"I have a burning desire to help in the making of the world clean,--if it
be only by sweeping one little room in it. I want to lead some poor stray
sheep home--not home to the church, Mr. Walton--I would not be supposed to
curry favor with you. I never think of what they call the church. I only
care to lead them home to the bosom of God, where alone man is true man.
"I could talk to you till night about what Lady Bernard has been to me
since, and what she has done for me and my grandchildren; but I have said
enough to explain how it is that I am in such a questionable position.
I fear I have been guilty of much egotism, and have shown my personal
feelings with too little reserve. But I cast myself on your mercy."
