Margaret Dunmore: or, a Socialist home

Front matter

MARGARET DUNMORE OR, A Socialist Home MARGARET DUNMORE OS xV SOCIALIST HOME BY J. H. CLAPPERTON AUTHOR OF "SCIENTIFIC MELIORISM." Surely the trixer time shall come When thin fine overplus uf might. A~0 longer 3itlleti t xlow, txtul dumb, Shall hop (o music and to light. Iii that new rhiliHiood of the earth Life of itself shall dmice and play ; Ft'tfih bfood in Time's shrunk rtirts wake mirth. And labour meet delight half way." James Russell Losvbll- SECOND EDITION LONDON : SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. PATERNOSTER SQUARE. Crown 8vo, 413 pages, price 8s. 6d. SCIENTIFIC MELIORISM, AND THE EVOLUTION OF HAPPINESS, EY JANE HUME GLAPPERTON. " In the author we recognise an advanced thinker of a rare and high order." — Westminster Review. 44 We earnestly advise all . . to read this admirable book."— Weekly Dispatch. KEOAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., LONDON.

Chapter I. The School Friends

Leeds, Slay 5th, 1890. SlY DEAREST VERA, I obey an impulse to write to you on this my twenty-seventh birthday. Yes, dear, I am twenty-seven to day ; and I wdl tell you a secret, Vera — not the echo of a whisper of an offer of marriage has ever come my way ! I smile when I look back to the period of my teens and remember my dear mother's useless caution, spoken in Scotch — you remember her Scotch, Vera ? — it brings tears to my eyes when I hear it now : " Let a' the lads alane, an' your own gude man wdl come to ye." No gudeman ever came to me ; so I must belong, doubtless, to that surplus million of women for whom dame Nature, affluent as she is, has nevertheless provided no husbands. The absence of courtship disappointed me, however ; romance was what I looked for in my girlish life, and I confess I was often very, very miserable until the lucky day, about two years ago, when the railway accident near Settle made an era in my life, by giving me my precious friend, Sliss Jose.

B I I have never told you much about her, Vera, because you must see and know her for yourself, and because you could not understand what she has become to me, without my giving you a history of my thoughts and feelings — and that is a difficult thing to do. When we passed a long night together in that snowed-up train, I was in the " sturm und drang " period of existence, and plu-ged — to use George Sand's phrase — in egoistic sorrow. I was weary of culture, for what to do with it I could not clearly see ; frivolous pleasures had palled upon me ; romance was nowhere, except on the pages of novels, which I despised myself for reading ; religion had ceased to comfort, being mixed with a theology my intellect questioned and doubted at every point ; and as for life itself, with all its refreshing breezes of altruistic interest in human welfare — individual, social, political, universal, — it, alas ! was utterly over shadowed by my own insignificant little personality, and I suspect my mood was one of — Perish all mankind, since I, Margaret Dunmore, am unhappy.

" There's nothing in the world can make me joy : Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man." How Miss Joseplucked out the secret of my discontent I cannot tell. She asked me no questions, so far as I remember, but, next day when we parted, with mutual wish and resolve to meet again, I am convinced that my innermost being was like an open book before her mind's eye, although not one incident of my outward history had she learned from my lips. Well, dear, since then we have had frequent and intimate inter course, and whether I attribute it to that alone, or not, I now declare to you I am no longer Slargaret the unhappy, but, a Margaret whose youth has been restored to her, and' who is printing with enthusiasm to greet her early friends and bid them good cheer.

Why have you and I been silent so long, my Vera? " Is all the counsel that we two have shared — The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent — Is all forgot ?" Not so : our natures are faithful and true to the core, and the motion, whatever it is, that has drifted us.fipart, is a surface current only, under which there flows the stream of our deep affection, calm and undisturbed. Last night I was at a concert in our Town Hall, and, strange to say, there sat next me our old school companion, Jessie Blair. She it was who told me Vera is about to be married, and I suffered a pang half remorseful, half jealous — Has Margaret in her preoccupation neglected her Vera ? or has Vera forgotten Slargaret 1 Write to me, dear, and show me your heart, as I wish with all my heart to show you mine. Your faithful friend, SIargaret Dunmore.

Liverpool, Slay 6th, 1890. Dear old Margaret, Twenty-seven is old, is it not? But I don't mean that, only that old times came back to me when I read your darling letter, and I would have liked to fling myself into your arms and have a good cry. Jessie Blair's tale is not true ; but it is true, and an awful secret, that I am engaged. She meant Mr. Scott, a horrid old bachelor who bores me with his talk whenever I meet him, and has taken me to the theatre once or twice. I was awfully silly to let him, but Joe cannot bear me to mope. He says he ought never to have told me how he loves me, since it is impossible for us to marry for ever so long ; and that I must not stay at home and be miserable on his account, but go about B— The School Frienda. like other girls, and keep dear mother cheerful.

Perhaps he will see he is wrong when he hears this gossip about Mr. Scott. I knew the Abercrombies and others were saying that he paid me attention, but I did not know they had us engaged yet ! Oh, dear ! what a worry it all is, and how disgusting that a girl can't walk or talk with a man but someone is sure to say she is going to marry him ; and worse still, a girl dares not speak out when she really loves a man, and let him and all the world know it. Secrets are the most hateful things in life ; but, indeed, life is hateful altogether; and I do wish we were back in our chddish years, when you were the clever girl at school, and I her stupid little friend whom she called Sunbeam, because, though not clever, I was at least happy and bright. There is no sunshine in me now, dear, and sometimes I feel wicked.

I am angry with God when I think of dear mother's sufferings, and what happened to her five years ago is what people, you know, call a Providence. But what was the use of a Providence that let a cab-driver get intoxicated and throw down an innocent lady in the streets, and hurt her so much that she is an invalid for life, and suffers pain every day ? Then, why couldn't Joe have had money instead of Sir. Scott ? He doesn't want it much ; I am sure no girl can be waiting to marry him ; and he gives me dreadful frights. Dear mother likes him to come in and sit talking with her in the evenings, but if he were to propose, all that would come to an end, I suppose, and he would be angry and disagreeable, and perhaps mother would find out about Joe. I feel it wrong that mother does not know about Joe, now ; but he says it would be cruel to tell her, since he has only £100 a year, and his little Vera is a lady with white hands unused to labour.

I'm not proud of my white hands myself. I've often stood and watched a workman's wife scouring her doorsteps, or washing her husband's shirts, and thought if I could only do all that, I might be Joe's wife at any time. And after all, what can I do that is better ? I play a little, but you know my music is very poor, and not worth the money and time it has cost to teach me ; and I speak French and German — what is the use of that, when I never go abroad, and foreigners here all speak English 1 I can look like a lady of fashion, but that means that my dress is pulled back in front, and bunched out behind, that my sleeves and gloves are too tight, and my heels are too high. Even Joe laughs with me at some of our silly fashions, but he was vexed one day when I wanted to wear cotton gloves. And if I were to insist on being cook or parlourmaid, and appear before him in a get-up suitable for the work, goodness gracious ! how Joe would frown.

What a bother ; here is Siary, to say Mr. Scott has called and mother wishes me down. Good-bye, dear Margaret. Your loving Vera. P.S. — I was twenty-four last week, and Joe gave me a little gold cross to wear, because, he says, he is my cross. — Dear fellow, I love him so. Leeds, May 8th, 1890. It seemed old days indeed, to get such a nice long letter from my Sunbeam, like herself, very practical, but careless ! You forget, my dear, that I do not even know your Joe's sur name, nor of what nature is his occupation. That he is good and lovable I am quite sure, since my clear-eyed Vera loves him ; and I am prepared to take him to my heart as a brother. Tell him, at once, that I know your secret, and that Slargaret Dunmore will never rest tdl you and he are husband and wife, a happy and humdrum (that means contented) married pair.

Yours tenderly, SIargaret. Scene. A plainly furnished parlour in a small house at New Terrace, Liverpool. A young man stands in a depressed attitude, leaning an elbow on the mantel-piece. He is tall, fair, blue-eyed, with a noble forehead, thin lips, and a gloomy expression. A rapid foot and rustling skirts on the staircase are heard ; the young man's attitude changes — he is a model of manly eagerness and strength. Vera Ward enters, an open letter in her hand, and the light of love in her eyes. " Joe, dear," she cries, and offers a kiss. In responding, Joe Ferrier's countenance alters ; a beam of almost womanly tenderness plays upon the thin lips. " Look here, Joe, you know all about Slargaret Dun more, and how dearly I love her ; see, she has written me these letters, and you will easily understand from the first one, why I told her all about our engagement ; but look, this note came only this morning, and Slargaret says — ' I will never rest till you and he are husband and wife.' What can she mean ?

She must see some way to help us, Joe, else she would never say that." And pleading eyes are raised to the young man, who, with one arm round her waist, is bending over her shoulder to read the words to which she points. A variety of expressions sweep across his face — pleasure, doubt, inquiry, annoyance, irritation, pride. He moves his arm, turns round, and placing his large, sensitive hands on her two shoulders, looks into her eyes and says sternly, — " Slargaret Dunmore is rich : it would ill become me, Vera, to take money from any one, remember that. I must either make a living for my wife myself, or leave her with her mother. How is your mother this morning, my love ? You have not yet told me that — — " For the remainder of the day the Sunbeam droops. Little Vera bears a fresh thorn in the delicate flesh of her most sensitive part — her affections. Yet, of the why and the wherefore of that wound she says nothing, and scarcely knows anything.

Chapter II. Frank And Rose

From Dick Oswald, to Frank Ray, On board the Celestial, bound for China, Slay 6th, 1890. We've had confounded bad luck in weather, Frank ; but for that, I meant to drop you a stave by the " Koh-i-noor," which passed us ten days ago, for, I declare, old fellow, I never saw you so down in the mouth as when we parted in Liverpool Docks. You asked my advice — well, it's briefly this : Marry that girl right away, and emigrate. She is no high-flier, who won't sod her fingers to do a stroke of honest work : and, by Jove, the old country is too crowded by half. I don't say, Try China, where the human swarms like bees ! But be a farmer in the States, man — that's the life for you ; and a deal healthier one, let me tell you, than stewing at figures, these eternal pounds, shdlings, and pence, in a beastly den of an office.

It may suit your new friend, Joe Ferrier, with his smooth chin and well-trimmed nails ; but Ferrier is not Frank Ray. Your father, you say ? Well, there's no denying he wdl feel cut up a bit at first : but look at my mother, now ; you know what she wanted — to keep me tied to her apron-strings, in that blessed old Kenilworth, all my life ! Only think of it, Frank, what a life for me ! When she found it could not be, she gave in Uke a trump ; and now you go and see her at Southport, when I am not present, to blush at the praises of her sailor boy ! Judge for yourself if she be not content. Her crib, too, is ship-shape, and it pleases her, the dear old soul, to show off the kickshaws I pick up for her here and there. Believe me, we can't give in altogether to the old ones ; so pluck up spirit, and carve out a destiny for yourself — that's my advice.

If you go to the States, let me know. Yours heartily, Dick Oswald. Frank's father would indeed have been cut up, had Frank followed the advice of this friend of his school-boy days. Mr. Ray had been brought up in the school of Robert Owen, in whose mills his parents were workers. These, with many others, drifted outwards when the happy settlement at New Lanark was broken up, and Sandy Ray went to sea. At forty he married, and soon after lost his wife in giving birth to their only child. Sandy settled in Liverpool and lived wholly in and for his child. He has always been a sober, cautious, thrifty man, strong in his somewhat narrow affections, and shrewd in his intelligence. He managed to get into a good situa tion in a shipping office, and saved money as well as gave his son an education that surpassed his own, further than his had surpassed that of the boy's grandparents.

Frank is now, externally, a broad-shouldered, fair haired, fine-looking man, and internally, a fellow of culture and taste. He is broadly social too ; not merely in feeling but in intelligence, for, added to the strong mental qualities, there has ever been in him an absence of the reticence which springs from personal vanity or pride, and he revels in that play of intellect — the give and take — that society promotes, and only free natures enjoy. One troublesome element of character mars at intervals his peace of mind, and that is an instinctive impulse and desire to rove. He knows this to be inherited from his father, and fostered by tales of adventure poured into his boyish ears by that father whose one thought had been how to please and gratify the lad. The sensational, originally strong, was a chord well played upon, before Frank was ten years old, and the tones to which it vibrated were all the more delightful that the old sailor ceased to distinguish clearly between the true and the false.

All that brought a smile to his darling's lips seemed true to him. Frank, I have said, has culture, but he is no great Greek or Latin scholar. His father's set idea, persistently harped upon was — " My son is to be a scholar ; " but at fourteen the boy took his father to task on the subject — ■" What is a scholar ? If you mean I'm to keep at Greek and Latin all my life, I will not, Dad, indeed I will not. It is all rot, learning to make Latin verses ; and although I do want to know about these old Greeks and Romans — what they did, and how they lived — I don't care to speak their old language and waste time on learning horrid declensions. I will be a gentleman, if you like, and a well educated one too, but not an old fogie like Dr. Grumpus, who is always reading ; and I know they call him a scholar."

Sir. Ray removed his son from the classical to the science course in school, and Frank took to the new training like a duck to the water. Physics, mechanics, geology, chemistry, botany, zoology, physiology — all these presented fields in which that eager young intellect ranged, assimilating mental pabulum, and building up a structure of knowledge fitted to its own individual capacity. Long after leaving school, the young man pursued his studies bv means of evening classes, and at twenty-six the result was culture in no ordinary degree, although Frank would still say, " I am no scholar." This vigorous intellectual life promoted physical health ; pure air and exercise were self-chosen. The lad traversed the neighbourhood in search of natural products, and dedicated all the spare time at his disposal to that health ful and innocent chase.

His absorption, however, presented one danger: the intellect might dominate the heart until the latter should lose vitality, and be unable to throw out delicate tendrils to entwine and cling about his fellows ; and undoubtedly the human being is warped whose nature does not tend to make of life a garden of holy affections, as well as a rich soil and sure footing for the tree of knowledge. Frank had never been in love. But one Sunday in January, 1890, he entered a new phase of life, and the particulars of this transition I am bound to relate. Theological contentions have always been distasteful to Sir. Ray, and whether he holds many or few dogmas, I fancy no man knows and no man would venture to ask. When religion is spoken of, he indicates disapproval and pious veneration by solemn silence, or at most, by a significant shake of the head.

He assumes a devout Sabbatarian aspect when he dons his black clothes, and walks, with measured step, to the Presbyterian chapel, his son accompanying him as a matter of course. Frank had learned to be present there in body, whilst absent in mind. The latter portion of him did not wander upon mountains of vanity, but roved over a wide area at the sea level, peering into many hidden corners of nature's secrets. He had a habit of holding over any problem that specially puzzled him, to be tackled and perhaps solved on these Sunday mornings ; for, strange to say, he was conscious of superior acuteness when in that quiet place, his beloved father at his side, humanity under restraint all around him, and solemnity prevailing. On the Sunday referred to, however, Frank was present, in every sense of the word, his acuteness directed to a phenomenon before his eyes.

At right angles to his father's pew there was one con taining a lady of mature age and rather stern aspect, three children — one of them being lame, — and a girl above twenty, on whose eyelashes trembled two teardrops made brilliant by a sudden gleam of sunshine. These crystal drops are wonderfully significant little finger-posts on Frank's path, altering the course of his destiny ; but of that he knew nothing. Intellectual curiosity is what they have aroused. Why should a girl cry in church ? Every phenomenon has its antecedent cause, but where was the cause of these tears ? The face was turned to the pulpit, and devout attention was its expression. Frank eagerly listened to the preacher's words, then scanned the text : " He said unto his father, Sly head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother.

" Anc1 when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died." Can the sickly-looking child at her side be foredoomed ; and do the teardrops betoken anticipation of his early death ? Frank looks keenly at one after another of the pew occupants, and in a few moments he has discovered that kinship is not the bond of union between Rose Karrattray and Sirs. Benson. Rose is an alien in the family, in some dependent position ; probably (and his guess is a correct one) the lady-help or nursery-governess. Now it belongs to Frank's healthy physical and mental development to make stiff resolves — not hastily, but deliberately, and carry them out perseveringly. He did so now. He resolved that he would get to know the girl, and ascertain from herself why those tears were shed, and if he found some permanent cause of suffering, that he would try to help her.

Three months later he had compassed that end. He had learned from Rose's own lips that the crowded Rectory down in Devonshire, which was her home, was that morning receiving back into its bosom, beaten and battered but not slain, the hero of the family, its pride and joy, her elder brother Basil. He had been a brilliant student, had taken his degree as doctor, and sailed for India. But the action of the climate from the first was deleterious to his highly strung nerves, and a slight sun-stroke was the final catastrophe that left him no resource but to return to the shelter of his childhood and " sponge," as he termed it, upon his already burdened parents, a broken, disappointed man. How Rose and Frank passed through many stages of acquaintanceship into close intimacy in the three months I need not minutely describe.

The gentlemanly youth found ways and means to ap droach the girl without impropriety or offence to her dignity. Sirs. Benson respected the church eldership and social position of Sir. Ray, and made no objection to his son's visits to her house, and occasional walks with Rose and the children, when, with his strong arm propelling the invalid's carriage, extended circuits became possible to the pedes trians, increasing the pleasure of all. Frank was a charming companion to the children, for, whatever attracted their wayward fancy — from the ships to the sea-urchins in their rambles along the shore — from the bird on the wing to the caterpillar or the tiny cup-moss, when the explorations were inland, — he had something to tell of each, which was fairy like in its fascination, although, of the nature of instructive fact.

Sirs. Benson saw clearly the bent of the young man's mind, and she was a practical woman, not averse to benefits where her children were the recipients. It so happened that at times the invalid boy was asleep and the little ones at play ; then Frank and Rose were virtually alone, and their intimacy advanced by strides. In temperament Rose resembled Frank, whilst her culture and training had been wholly different. No wonder she presented to him a new study of transcendent interest. Within the Rectory of Westbrook a babe was born at intervals of never more, sometimes less, than eighteen months ; the normal state of the gentle mother was one of feeble health, and Rose had been her prop and stay from very tender years. Self-repression was the daily attitude of the little maid, whilst she made herself generally useful all round.

From her father she inherited a logical cast of mind ; from her mother artistic qualities of no mean order. Her delight in pictures, poetry, and music was in- Frank and R<?se. 15 stinctive ; and, since to make an independent career outside the home was a necessity imposed on her by the numbers within, the Rector would have done well to train and launch Rose as a musician. But economy was an im perative consideration, and the Rector was a man who applied all his logic to the squaring and fitting of practice to old dogmas under new conditions, rather than to the examination of new doctrines in the light of simple truth. Hence the equality, in justice, of his children's claims upon his purse escaped notice ; to be a nursery-governess must suffice for Rose, whilst he strains every nerve to find ways and means of giving his son Basil the expensive college education which ended disastrously, as we have seen.

Rose, however, was educated. Her development took place in a school of experience infinitely preferable to the hard, mechanical, routine-loving day-school or boarding school of the ordinary British maiden. There were no divided interests in her child-life ; all the objects of her love were close within reach, and the per petual promptings to think of and for others and subordinate her own wishes to theirs, increased her power of loving day by day. When I say self-repression was her inward attitude, I may be misunderstood ; it was so to the onlooker only. Rose would have told us she never made sacrifices at home. But in the many little choices that even a child must make day by day, Rose's choice was independent of the ego ; her sweet nature made her wish to do what others would like best ; and thus, when first brought into contact with Frank, she was emotionally of a high type of womanhood ; the best fruit of an advanced civilisation.

Her desultory lessons, given sometimes by a governess. sometimes by her father, were highly prized, and she was permitted to guide the line of study according to her own bent. The æsthetic was what she craved in all directions — to see the beautiful with her inward eye, rather than to collect facts or acquire knowledge. The Rector had travelled in his young days, and could describe to her the treasures of art that Greece and Italy contained. She became familiar with the history of art. The renaissance was the fairy-lore of her imagination, and when the dark-haired curly head bent over the pages of Vasari in the Rector's library, a child's heart beat sym pathetically with the griefs and triumphs of these ancients — the heroes of art, — whilst the memory stored up knowledge of their achievements.

Of the physical sciences Rose knew nothing at all, and for Botany she had, at one time, the prejudiced dislike that often accompanies ignorance. Basil had hurt her æsthetic instincts when he plucked the flowers to pieces to ascertain their structure, bruising brutally, as she thought, the delicate petals and destroying their beauty for ever. Frank taught her differently. His science was full of the reverence that is born of love for the special study ; and as he dissected before her eyes a blossom or an insect, the noble spirit of inquiry, the veneration for truth that dominated the act was a mental atmosphere that Rose could appreciate. Her prejudices were subdued, and she learned to perceive that the sense of beauty should be supported by knowledge of nature's marvellous modes of action, and not deal only with the superficial — the lovely forms and colours that adorn the surface.

To Frank the most thrilling pleasures of his life had come when instructing Rose. Her docile disposition and newly awakened interest in science made her mind like a sensitive plate to every impression, and the varying emotions of his soul were reflected from her violet eyes, to double or treble the force of their original charm. His vanity too was gratified, or rather, I should say, his feeling of male supremacy — that consciousness and love of power which, in barbarous ages was a masculine attribute of supreme importance to the feebler sex, while now it is only obstructive to true union, even when, as in Frank's case, it exists as a rudimentary instinct, nothing more. Frequently, however, the position was wholly altered. If discussion fell upon life, and the conduct of life, Rose was teacher, and Frank the humble disciple.

Great was his surprise when he discovered that, young as she was, her mind had dwelt upon many grave problems of human life with earnestness and philosophic insight : subjects which he was accustomed to turn from indifferently or with an airy lightness ! Her genius for loving made very real to her everything that touched the happiness of mankind ; and although, in her home her sphere of action was very limited, her sphere of thought was by no means so. The pressing questions of the day — the poverty of tne masses ; the vice and misery existing in large towns ; the pressure of competition in industry ; the adulteration of industrial products ; the necessity for emigration ; — were talked of in the Rectory, and Rose's tender heart made her grasp the fact of the vital importance of these ques tions, and place them at once in the sanctity of her gravest thoughts and most religious desires and feelings.