On the Threshold

Front matter

n BY ISABELLA O. FORD, AUTHOR OF "MISS BLAKE OF MONKSHALTON.*' EDWARD ARNOLD, PubltsSIjrr to tljc Iirti.a ©ffirr, LONDON: NEW YORK: 37, Bedford Street. 70, Fifth Avenue. 1895. " There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbours good. One person I have to make good : myself. But my duty to my neighbour is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy — if I may." R. L. Stevenson. "Amelioration is one ofthe earth's words." W. Whitman.

Chapter I

Beatrice Ratcliffe was the name of the maid of-all-work in our London lodgings. Her name was not in the least descriptive, for she was short and stunted, with a pale, flat face, small brown eyes, that occasionally twinkled with a knowing expres sion, a broad, turned-up nose, and extremely rough, red hands. I and my friend Kitty Manners had come up to London one January to study Art, of course some what against the wishes of our parents, for parents in my young days regarded any kind of study, or student-life, for their daughters, with considerable aversion. Kitty was at a School of Art ; I was studying music. It was before the days of ladies' chambers and cheap flats, so, because our means were limited, painfully limited, we had settled into three small, dark rooms in a street in Bloomsbury.

It was the first time that we had ever been in lodgings, or had any kind of liberty in our lives ; we had hitherto lived entirely under our respec tive parental roofs, and had not been allowed to hold any opinions of our own, at least not openly, or to have any action of liberty whatever. We were, in short, as absolutely ignorant, and self opinionated, and, I suppose, as uninteresting, as are most well-brought-up young Englishwomen of twenty-two and twenty-four. I was the elder. We of course thought that these three dark rooms were the most beautiful rooms we had ever seen, for they were to us as palaces of liberty. The hard, stiff sofa, the hideous sideboard, the one comfortable chair, comfortable only because the bottom was gradually bursting out, seemed like enchanted furniture out of fairy-land, the fairy-land of freedom, where no authoritative and disapprov ing eye was perpetually on us.

The view from the window on to a macadamized road, with dingy houses opposite, each exactly alike — a road perpetually blocked with heaps of sharp stones and a snorting, road-mending engine — was like the outlook from the windows of a house in Paradise, and the engine was like a band of silver trumpets blowing triumphant hymns to Liberty. Beatrice, however, was a slight blot on our dreams of beauty ; she was not quite like an angel of sweetness and light, and her ideas about life we found a little damping. We thought they seemed wanting in moral tone. We were quite sure that the oppressed in this world were the good, and the oppressors, the bad. We had hitherto only lived with the oppressors, and we were quite sure from what we had seen of life, which seemed to us a great deal — that, for instance, children were better than parents, women than men ; and we were therefore convinced that a maid-of-all-work must be on a distinctly higher moral plane than a landlady.

This superior good ness on the part of the oppressed was our reason for espousing their cause. However, after we had known Beatrice a few days, Kitty suddenly announced that our creed had changed — I always followed Kitty's lead — and that henceforward we must understand, first, that people who are oppressed are often more wicked than their oppressors, and, second, that wicked people require more love and help than good ones. I did not quite follow her in this rapid change of front, but I pretended that I did, and I resolved to live up to it without any argument. When we first arrived in our rooms, we were much struck by Beatrice's extreme meekness and willingness to do anything for us. She helped us to unpack, expressing the most vivid interest in our dresses ; she carried our things down from our bedrooms to our ground-floor sitting-room ; she ran errands for us.

" How charming she is, Lucretia ! " said Kitty to me ; " don't you think she is charming? So kind and thoughtful — poor girl!" At tea that evening — we had resolved to have meat tea every evening — meat tea, with shrimps, watercresses, and sprats, for all these things represented to us the land of freedom, as compared with late dinner and entrees in the land of bondage — at tea, Kitty began to question Beatrice about her life and general views about things. " Have you lived here long, Beatrice ? " "Oh yes, miss, I've lived here a year. Mrs. Mount took me when Mrs. Robinson died. Mrs. Robinson lived across the street, at No. 31. She was a kind missus, was Mrs. Robinson, miss. She give me a sovereign just afore she died. She used to drink." "Used to drink! How dreadful, Beatrice!" said Kitty, her eyes dark with compassion.

Kitty had lovely eyes — dark grey, full of shadows and depths, and at the same time possessing a mysterious light which shone when she was much moved. " Oh no, miss," answered Beatrice, " she was always quiet when she had been drinking, and she used to lie as still as a little child while I undressed her and put her to bed. Now, there was her niece, miss, she was a reg'lar bad un she was ; she didn't drink, but she was a reg'lar bad un." " Oh, Beatrice, but surely you think it wrong to drink ! " exclaimed Kitty. " Yes, miss," replied Beatrice, meekly, but with a twinkle in her eyes. " A great many people does it," she added ; " it's the custom : my mother drank, and father too." "But that doesn't make it right, Beatrice," urged Kitty, though a little timidly, evidently anxious not to be disrespectful to Beatrice's parents.

" No, miss," said Beatrice with great readiness. So interested were they in their talk, that neither observed when Beatrice abruptly deposited the tray she was carrying, on the table, so close to my elbow, that she upset the contents of my tea cup partly on to the floor, but mostly into my lap. It would have been more fair I thought, if the accident had happened to Kitty, particularly as for some time she took no notice of my mis fortune. " I am afraid the tea has stained the front of my dress," I said at last, determined to have some sympathy or attention shown me. Beatrice had left the room, and Kitty was therefore perfectly able to listen to me, if she chose. " I wonder how you can think about your dress, Lucretia, after what Beatrice has told us ! Think of it — both her parents drank !

" " I don't care if they did ! I don't care if Beatrice drinks, if every one drinks ! I must think about my, dress, Kitty. I am so poor, so horribly poor. I can't afford to have tea spilt all over my dresses ! " I felt bold and desperate, and so miserable that a lump rose in my throat as I stood by the fire and surveyed the dark stain which reached all down the front breadth. Kitty sprang from her seat and fell on her knees beside me, making frantic attempts to rub my dress. " Dear Lucretia, I am so sorry, so truly sorry ! We'll buy a piece of something and put it down the front, and it will look quite nice, like a kind of stripe. I will buy it for you, dear Lucretia — I am not so very poor. Are you very, very poor ? Did your father give you nothing ? " " No," I said, swallowing down the lump in my throat, " I only have what is over from my quarter's allowance.

Mother gave me a little money secretly, and my sister paid my music school fees, and my aunt gave me ten shillings : it all mounts up to ten pounds." " Oh, I have fourteen pounds, so I am much richer." And Kitty rose from her knees and put her arm protectingly round my shoulders, for she is taller than I am. "My father did give me a little money," she went on. "Of course he hated my coming ; of course men always think that women's studies and lives generally, are mere fads. Men aren't nice, are they, Lucretia ? They wouldn't be happy and feel like kings in rooms like these, and with only sprats for tea ! They always require so much. Beatrice says her mother drank, but I dare say her father drank much more." " Well, I don't know," I said, anxious to be just ; "people say that when women do drink they are even worse than men — more difficult to stop."

" Yes," said Kitty, sympathetically, " that is so nice of them ; it shows they are so much more thorough about everything they do than men are ! " I felt a little shocked at this, but after Kitty's kindness about the dress I refrained from disagreeable comment, and we finished our meal in blissful content, revelling in the sprats and in the water cresses, and in our entrance into the great world. We each pressed a sprig of watercress between the leaves of our favourite books, to remind us of this great night. Of course Kitty's book was Mill's " Subjection of Women," mine was a volume of Shelley. To this day the dried watercress is one of my most precious possessions, for there is surely no happiness so great or so satisfying as is the first moment of freedom to the caged animal !

Chapter II

Our landlady was rather terrible. She was polite to us, but we knew it was the politeness of contempt. The tone in which she addressed us as "young ladies" told us that. Kitty said we ought to be sorry for her, because she appeared to be constantly suffering from toothache. During the first week of our stay in her lodgings, she always emerged from her sub terranean kitchen with what looked like an antimacassar tied round her head. During the second week the pain seemed to have abated, for instead of the antimacassar, she wore an old black straw hat tied under the chin with blue strings. We gradually learned, since we never saw her without one of these coverings, that they were sure indicators of the state of her mind. The c antimacassar betokened peculiarly pessimistic views of life and of the world in general, uttered in an exasperatingly plaintive tone of voice, and, what was much worse, it meant overcharging us for coals, or " casters," or " kitchen-fire."

The hat meant a more cheerful frame of mind and a stronger tone of voice, but it also meant outbursts of anger, particularly against Beatrice ; and though during the hat regime our bills were certainly smaller, still their smallness was referred to in an offensive tone of patronage, and with a decided suggestion that we were about the meanest lodgers she had ever met. We never quite decided which mood we disliked most, the antimacassar mood, or the hat mood, though we discussed the matter every week with unfailing regularity. At the end of our first week we were sitting beside our fire, a fire which to our northern eyes seemed like a mass of flameless cinders, whilst Beatrice was slowly clearing away our tea-things. We were both in a state of intense depression, a depression bordering on despair.

We had had a small rabbit pie for our tea that evening, as a great treat. I am rather short sighted, and when I saw something slightly unusual in the pie, I merely supposed that Mrs. Mount had put in some cayenne pepper. Kitty, however, who has an unusually susceptible and delicate mind, made a horrible discovery concerning this cayenne pepper, a discovery which made us leave our meal untouched on our plates and retire in horror to the fireplace. Beatrice was now clearing away in her usual crashing manner. " Ee, miss, but you've eaten no pie ! Mrs. Mount says it's a beautiful pie. She won't be pleased at your leaving it like that." "We cannot eat it, Beatrice," I said — Kitty was too miserable to speak — " we are afraid some thing has got into it." " Beatrice," said Kitty, suddenly rising from her chair and pointing to the unfortunate dish, "do things often get into pies here ?

" " Do you mean them red ants, miss ? " asked Beatrice, calmly ; " why, yes, the larder's just full of 'em — they're everywhere downstairs." " What shall we do, Beatrice ? We cannot stay here, we cannot bear it ! " Kitty's face looked lovely, I thought, as she stood tragically regarding that terrible pie, her slender figure drawn up to its full height, her eyes dark with despair. Her brown hair lay on her forehead in little curls, rumpled up by her hands as we sat by the fire after the great discovery. Kitty has a peculiar horror of ants and beetles ; but she has trained herself never to display any outward or vulgar signs of terror, in order in no wise to weaken the cause of the advancement of women. " Don't you go away, miss, just because of them ants." Beatrice's voice trembled a little.

" You've been so kind to me, miss ; the drawing-room floor never speaks to me. Mrs. Mount's dreadful hard to please, and I have to be up before seven every morning, and I never gets to bed before one o'clock or later. I've no home, and Mrs. Mount says as how she'll turn me out if I don't please her ; she did it to the girl as was here afore me — turned her out on to the doorstep at twelve o'clock at night." Kitty turned and put her hands solemnly on my shoulder. " Lucretia, I wonder what we ought to do ? Ought we not to leave this house at once ? To stay seems like countenancing such wickedness as this." Before I could answer, a wailing sound burst from Beatrice. "Don't you mind what I've said, miss, about Mrs. Mount, don't. She don't mean to be hard ; and don't leave me here, please, miss, for I shall be worse off, if you go away, all along of what I've said."

" That is true," answered Kitty, to my great relief. " I think we had better stay here and fight your battles, Beatrice. I shall speak to Mrs. Mount." " Oh, don't, miss, please don't. She'll nearly kill me if you do ! " " Well, then, what must we do ? " asked Kitty in a bewildered tone ; " we must help you some how." " Speaking to Mrs. Mount won't do me no good, miss, nor leavin' these 'ere rooms won't neither ; but she'll be better to-morrow ; she's in a bad temper to-night, for Mr. Mount when he came home last night brought no wax candles nor nothing." " What do you mean, Beatrice ? " I asked. "Oh, Mr. Mount's a waiter, miss, as goes out waiting at parties, and he brings home lots of things — champagne and all sorts ; but last night he said as they was low sort of people, and the waiters couldn't get nothing."

"Do you mean he steals the things?" asked Kitty in a shocked voice. " Oh no, miss ! " said Beatrice in an equally shocked tone, "he don't steal 'em. All waiters takes things like that ; it's the custom." When Beatrice had left the room, Kitty became very eloquent over the much higher moral tone the girl possessed than did either Mrs. Mount or her husband. I did not agree with her or answer her, for I was sewing the stripe down the front breadth of my tea-stained dress, and feeling bitterly dis appointed, for it looked so very queer, and as I am a bad sewer, the stitches would keep showing as I worked. Kitty had bought me a piece of velveteen to sew on, and she had been so very kind about it, and taken so much trouble to match the colour exactly, that I dared not tell her that I was coming to the ungrateful conclusion that the stain looked less odd than did the stripe.

Her remarks were presently interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Mount with the bill. Mrs. Mount's head was wrapped in the antimacassar. Consequently we were charged one shilling for casters instead of sixpence, and for burning nine scuttles of coal instead of eight. We had not courage to remonstrate with her about these details ; she therefore triumphantly gathered up the money, giving us, as she did so, a short harangue on the subject of Beatrice and her sins. " I must warn you young ladies not to believe Beatrice if she begins complaining to you, for she is an artful girl and causes me a great deal of anxiety. We took her in when Mrs. Robinson of No. 3 1 died, for Mrs. Robinson wouldn't give the girl no character, and she would have had to go to the workhouse ; and Mr. Mount, he's that considerate he always likes to help people, and he said I must take the girl in and be a mother to her."

Here Mrs. Mount's feelings overcame her for a moment. " Of course the poor girl's quite honest," she went on ; "I would never have any thing to do with people as wasn't ; but she's not truthful, and she eats up all the bits. I have to lock up everything : nice bits of pie, such as you had to-night " — here we both blushed crimson — " she'll try and eat 'em all up if she can. Well, good night, young ladies." A depressed silence fell on us when she had left the room. " Lucretia," said Kitty, presently, " perhaps we have misjudged Mrs. Mount a little ; it was rather fine of her to take Beatrice without a character, don't you think it was ? " " Oh yes, very fine," I replied ; " she would get her ever so much cheaper, of course ; I have no doubt she starves her." Sewing always makes me feel vicious, for it produces a sensation of general discomfort and irritation in all my nerves, and it makes my eyes ache horribly.

"But, please, dear Kitty," I went on, "don't talk to me about Mrs. Mount, for I cannot think about anything but this dreadful stripe. How I hate clothes and money ! I wish we were savages and had neither ! " " Would you like me to help you, miss ? " said Beatrice's voice. " I can sew very nicely." Beatrice must have been listening at the door — we found out afterwards that she often did so — for she came in just as I had finished speaking. " Shall I unpick it for you, miss, and iron out the marks of the stitches ? And I can wash out that stain quite easy." I refused her help rather coldly, for I did not think it nice of her to listen outside doors. Kitty, who is afraid of burglars, always locks her door at nights, whereas I, who am afraid of fire, leave my door unlocked. The next morning when I awoke, I saw my dress lying on a chair beside me, the stripe unpicked, and the place ironed, and the tea-stain washed out. Beatrice had sat up half the night doing it for me. From that day forward we were both of us her grateful and devoted admirers.

Chapter III. When

any of the men of our acquaintance called upon us, we suffered a great deal from Beatrice's want of refinement. We always stayed in on Sunday afternoons hoping for callers (who came but rarely) — it seemed to us so delightfully gay and fashionable to be "at home " entirely on our own account ; — and when ever a certain Mr. Estcourt called, Beatrice was so openly glad to see him, and showed him in with so much fuss and excitement, that at last Kitty felt obliged to speak to her about the impro priety of such conduct and the embarrassment it caused us. Beatrice listened to all Kitty's remarks with extreme meekness and with her eyes bent on the carpet. Suddenly her cheeks crimsoned, and, raising her eyes for a moment to Kitty's face, she said — "Then you don't approve of courtin' and marryin', miss ?

" Kitty was taken aback at this, and hesitated for a moment. Seeing her advantage, Beatrice went on — " Because last summer, miss, Jim and me — Jim's the baker's assistant — was courtin', only for three months, miss, and Mrs. Mount, when she found it out, said if ever I spoke to him again, as she'd send me to the workhouse." Down Beatrice's cheeks rolled two hot tears. "Jim was very kind to me," she went on ; "he took me to the Crystal Palace one day. I asked leave to go and see a cousin of my mother's as lives at Peckham, and we went to the Palace instead, and he bought me that pink cup and saucer, miss," — she pointed to an ugly pink cup and saucer decorated with views of the Crystal Palace, which she had brought in that afternoon for tea, when Mr. Estcourt arrived. " I wanted him to use it, that gentleman, miss, for I thought as how you liked him and would want him to have something real nice to use, and you've always been kind to me, you and Miss Bampfylde ; but I'm sorry as you don't think courtin' and marryin' right."

Kitty was eventually obliged to give it up, for when she explained that she did not consider these things wrong, and expressed a hope that at some future day Jim might have the happiness of being accepted by Beatrice, the latter assumed again her old manner of interest and excitement ; and when Mr. Estcourt called to see us one evening after tea, we had to endure as before the sight of her pride and joy at his visit. I think Kitty liked Mr. Estcourt very much. Of course he liked her, all men did ; but she never varied in her manner to him, or showed any self consciousness when his name was mentioned. Friendships between men and women, which we felt were one of the leavening forces of the world, possessed much more interest for us than falling in love. During the last few weeks of the term, Estcourt used to come and see us one evening every week after tea, and we had exciting conversations on the best way to reform the world, and on the ideal future we each longed for We were all Socialists, more or less, and any disagreement amongst us concerned merely the particular manner in which we believed our ideal future would be realized.

Kitty believed that the awakening of women was the key to the problem. Estcourt believed that the future lay with the people, the wage earners of the country. For weeks we argued on these matters, without arriving at any definite solution. One evening Estcourt came to us with an urgent request that we should go with him that very moment to a small meeting being held at a house near our lodgings. " A new society is to be formed," he explained, "an entirely new society, that will have as its object the reformation of the world on quite new lines. My aunt, Miss Norton, at whose house it is held, particularly begs that you will come, that she may hear your views upon the question." Full of excitement we hurried along the streets, breathless with the joyous certainty that some, if not all, of the world's greatest difficulties were going to be fought with and solved by us that same evening.

There were about a dozen men and some half dozen women in the room when we arrived, and they had already begun the great discussion. The chief points being considered were : who were to be the members of the society, and how it was to be started, and whether a kind of com munistic household would be a good foundation on which to begin. With the instinct of newly fledged things in love with liberty and hitherto unknown happiness, we both, Kitty and I, joined hotly in the con versation when it turned on the advisability of admitting women into the new society on the same terms as men. Kitty, whose courage is dauntless, was soon surrounded by an excited band of objectors. " Woman is a spiritual being, and ought to be treated as such," said a short, fair-haired young man, with blue eyes and a peculiarly childlike expression on his pale face.

"Women must be the inspirers of the world," he went on, whilst a vision of Mrs. Mount and Beatrice as inspirers of the world rose up in my mind, " and men must be the workers" (I thought of Mr. Mount and the wax candles), "so that the men in our society must do all the really hard work. If, as I hope we shall, we start a co-operative household, the men must go out into the world and earn money, and the women must — er — must " "Do the cooking and scrubbing, and washing and mending ? " interposed Kitty, as he hesitated. " Won't you ? " he asked gently. "In that case, will you black the boots, and carry up the coals, and, as you express it, do the really hard work ? " " Well, we shall scarcely have time," he said timidly — evidently the expression of Kitty's eye was making him nervous. " You see, we shall be out all day earning our living, I mean the living of all the society, yours and ours " " Oh come, Perchet," broke in Estcourt, " I call that absurd ; if you don't admit the economic independence of women, it's no good listening to you."

" That is the worst of Socialism," said a fair haired girl standing in the group near Kitty, "it takes no more heed of women, and of what they think or want, than does any other creed." " Not Socialism as / understand it." Kitty's eyes were glowing as she spoke. " My Socialism regards men and women as equals, as co-workers, as each other's helpers and friends." I saw Estcourt's face light up as Kitty spoke, and for an instant their eyes met. My heart sank, for I loved Kitty as I loved no one else, and it seemed to me as that look passed between her and Estcourt, something grew up between them which must separate her from me. " I think Mr. Perchet's idea about women being the inspirers of men, is a very beautiful one, and sets a noble task on us women, a task of which we ought to be very proud."

The girl who spoke was attired in a smart evening dress, and was sitting a little apart from the others, surrounded by some young men who gazed at her, whilst she spoke, with deep admiration. Mr. Perchet's face softened as he listened to her. "You will join our society, Miss Merrivale?" he asked in his gentlest tone. " When we start this co-operative household, where we can practically realize our views, you will, of course, become a member of it ? " Miss Merrivale smiled and shook her head. " I should have to live up to such a very high level in yonr household, Mr. Perchet," she said, looking up at him with a gently deprecatory expression, " and I don't feel that I am really good enough for it." Perchet smiled pleasantly, and drawing himself up to his full height, returned to Kitty's end of the room, refreshed and strengthened by Miss Merrivale's charming womanliness.

" We might — the men might, in our household — scrub the floors once a week, on Saturday after noons," he said in a conciliatory tone. " There is still the question of carrying up the coals and blacking the boots," said Miss Burton, the fair-haired girl who had spoken before. A cloud gathered on Perchet's brow, and I hastened to change the subject. " Must we live in a household ? " I asked ; " is it a necessary result of our creed ? for if we do, there will be so many difficulties — for instance, how shall we arrange our meals ? are we all to dine late, or are we to have tea with jam and watercresses ? " " The minority of course will give way to the majority," said Perchet in a worried tone. " And since the minority will, of course, be the women of the household," said Miss Burton, " the women will have to give way to the men — of course," she added bitterly, turning away from the speakers.

" Oh, I hope not, Miss Burton," said Mr. Perchet, politely ; " the men in our society will protect the women ; " and he looked up at her benevolently. " Why not have a kind of debating society and no household ? " asked one of the men sitting round Miss Merrivale. " I don't believe in these D communistic households, they're rotten con cerns. It's awfully worrying to live with a lot of other people, other people's ways arc so tire some." "You don't believe, then, in collectivism ? you are still an individualist ? " Perchet's voice was almost stern. " Individualism, like Christianity, is dead, utterly dead," said a melancholy voice at the back of the room. "I don't care about individualism or collec tivism," answered Miss Mcrrivale's admirer. " I want to organize debates, distribute pamphlets, control the elections, and finally seize thc whole executive power ! capture it, in fact, and then all you fellows who have views can express them in some effective and tangible manner."