The House by the Works. By E. G

Front matter

"I AM QUITE A STRANGER HERE."— p. 45. Frontispiece. THE HOUSE BY THE WORKS BY EDWAED GARBETT AUTHOR OP " OCCUPATIONS OF A RETIRED LIFE," ETC, ETO. TEIRD EDITION LONDON T. FISHEE UNWIN 26, PATEENOSTEE SQUABS 1884. ■TO MY FRIEND, A. E. R. WHO KNOWS THAT ALL LOST COINS BEAR THE KING'S IMAGE, AND ARE WORTHY TO BE SOUGHT FOR AND REJOICED OVER WHEN FOUND. CONTENTS. CHAP. PACE I. A CHAPTER WITHOUT A NAME .... 1 II. F1EST IMPRESSIONS 18 III. TIIE HEART OF A STRANGER .... 42 IV. lois's OWN WILE _ . 54 V. MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING? 73 VI. PLEBEIAN PRIDE 97 VII. A PROMISE 112 VIII. GOOD SAMARITANS 132 IX. NEW LIGHTS ON OLD WAYS 147 X. THE WOMAN WHO WAS A SINNER . . .157 XI. TWO GUILELESS GIRLS 177 XII. A PEUFORD INTERIOR 206 XIII. ON CULSTEAD COMMON 230 XIV. TWO LOVE LETTERS 249 XV. THE POOR RICH MAN 262 XVI.

THE LAST OF THE BIG HOUSE .... 279 XVII. CHANGES ..... 288 XVIII. A MEMORABLE DAY [.04 THE END . . ... ... THE HOUSE BY THE WOEKS. " Our life is turned Out of her course, wherever man is made An offering, or a sacrifice, a tool Or implement, a passive thing, employed As a brute mean, without acknowledgment Of common right, or interest in the end ; Used or abused as selfishness may prompt." Wordsworth.

Chapter I

A CHAPTER WITHOUT A NAME. STRETCH of sea-shore. In the foreground, is a low sea-wall skirting a gorse-clad height, on the top of which glimmer the white huts of a military encamp ment. In the front, a little hack from the sea, lies a straggling village, whose red roofs only peer above the uneven ground. Farther off is a reach of shingle terraced by the waves, but- THE HOUSE BY TEE WORKS. 2 tressed here and there by great black piles, and backed by bare green hills, with a few meagre trees screening the one or two houses which redeem the scene from utter desola tion. Farther still, rises the noble spire of a church standing in a town out of sight, ex cept for that faint haze which tells of house hold work and welfare. Great martello towers stand frowning by the sea ; and farther yet, looming but dimly between sea and sky, stretches a headland whose name is written on many a broken heart — a cruel coast, which is strewn with skeleton ships and the relics of drowned men.

Far as the eye can see along that bare shore, there seems to be but one living figure. It is scarcely pleasant to walk leisurely on that rough shingle, but ever and anon this one scrambles on as swiftly as if somebody pursued her. Yet she is in no haste, for at intervals she stands quite still and gazes out upon the sea. It is a lovely spring morning. There were wild wind and rain last night, so that there is something plaintive in the brightness of to-day, like the look of a kind man when he fears that he has been angry over-much. But the eyes that gaze out on the great light over the sea take no note of sunshine, except to feel that it mocks a heart whence sunshine has gone out. On and on she goes ; and she throws up her arms and cries out aloud where there are none to hear her, and the pitiful waves muffle her voice.

The edge of her dress is torn and jagged on the shingle ; the sea-breeze catches the rim of her hat and bends it • she heeds neither. What can such things matter to her any more ? She stretches out her left hand, and the sunshine flashes over something on the third finger. She kisses it once, twice, thrice, and then she snatches the gleam from her hand, and holds it high above her head and hurls it from her, and it drops, glittering, into the great waves of the ebbing tide. Then, as the big wave retreats, she springs forward and eagerly scans the wet sand. Ah ! how gladly would she retrieve what she threw away ! Then she turns and looks on the still green hills behind her. How far she is from any human being, and what peace she feels to know it ! She has heard bitter taunts this morning. Why should she risk hearing bitter 1— a taunts again?

Why should she not walk down into those grey waves and be at rest for ever? If anybody saw her, none could be in time to save her . and perhaps the water would never bring her back, and nobody — not one — would ever know what had become of her. She had had her share of theological teaching, poor thing ! She had learned her cate chism, not very readily, and her hymns easily enough. She had been taught what catechisms teach of God and heaven and hell . but in her despair she learned something which no cate chism had taught. "Hell!" she cried. "Why need I fear hell ? I am in hell already !" And then she started. She stood close above a huge black pile, from whose farther side the shingle was somewhat hollowed ; and in that shelter, and so hidden from her as she came along, two little children had spent the morning at play.

They must have heard her voice, for they both jumped up and faced her. They were little creatures of about seven and nine years of age, boy and girl, and they stood hand-in-hand. They looked so bright and pretty that it shocked her, with a revul sion of feeling so intense that its pain seemed to fill mind and body, to think that they might have heard her dreadful words. But they had not, for they smiled, as if sure that everybody in the world was as pure and as happy as themselves. " I thought it was mamma," said the boy, who was the elder. "Did you think she called you?" asked the stranger. " I thought so ; somebody called ; was it you?" the boy replied. " I was talking to myself," she answered, dropping down wearily on the pile, and sud denly feeling that her limbs were wrung and aching with the rough walk she had had.

The children were neither forward nor shy ; they proceeded to gather up the basketful of shells which they had overturned, talking to each other as they did so. The woman sat and watched them, and thought to herself tbat it would have been a terrible thing if she had fulfilled her wild purpose before their eyes, unwitting of their presence. Their artless sport did not seem to mock her, as did the sunshine and the breeze. She had been a child like them, and they would grow older like her. Like her ! Was it possible this little girl, the pet of somebody's hearth, the prized plaything of her brother, so sheltered by love that she knew of nothing else, and smiled on every stranger as a new friend, could ever be such a thing as she was ? The wild woman knew that it was possible — and she felt that she understood a secret which had often thrilled her with the horror of its unnatural mystery — how it is that mothers sometimes kill their babes !

And still she sat beside them ; and over and over again her mind repeated, in that mechanical way which strained minds have, "A great gulf fixed — a great gulf fixed !" Presently the children had again stored all their treasures, and they looked up at her timidly, as if they felt her to be in some sort their guest, to whom they should show hospitality. "Are you fond of shells? Look !" said the little girl, holding up a pretty pink one so that the sun shone through it. " Do you understand pebbles ?" asked the boy. "Father said that if we had only understood pebbles we might have found some good enough to pay for our holiday." " Don't you live here ?" asked the stranger. " Oh, no ; we live a long, long way off. We came here in a train," he confided, " and we're stopping there," he added, looking back to the town, which from this point showed long lines of grey and dusky red roofs, sloping up the hill-side towards the big church among the trees.

"Mother wasn't well, and the doctor told her to come here." " And is she better ?" asked the lady. " Of course she is," he said. " The doctor said she'd be all right here, so she must be better. I wish we lived here • there's nothing to play with out of doors at Perford." "Is that the name of your home? And do you not like it?" said the stranger, interested out of herself by the little delicate faced children, whose pale cheeks the sea breeze could only touch into a dim shell pink. " Oh, I like it !" answered the boy. " Father says that Perford's the place, after all. Only the water's all dirty because of the works, and sometimes mother says it smells ; and flowers won't grow in our garden." " And where do you play when you're at home V she asked again, strangely unwilling to drop the conversation, lest the children should propose to run back to the town.

"In the parlour," he replied. "Mother won't let us go into the streets without her, and there aint anywhere else. The garden's full of blacks, and it's never dry, because it doesn't catch the sun. But father takes us to Culstead after chapel on Sunday, and mother says that's a lovely walk." " What happy children you are to be with such kind parents !" she said. There must have been something in her voice which puzzled the boy, for he said, with childish sympathy, " Haven't you got a father and mother ?" " No," she said ; " I have had no father or mother for a long time." " Grown-up people don't," he observed consolingly. " Sometimes little children don't, and that's very bad ; but mother says, ' Then God takes care of them, and if there's brothers and sisters, they must look after each other."

The woman sprang up. The boy shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out to sea, thinking she saw a sail ■ but he could not see anything. Presently she sat down again. " Are there any others at home beside you two V she asked. "No; just Sue and me. There was a little baby, but he did not come to stay. They all said he never came to stay, but when he went, mother cried just as much as if she thought he had." " How you and Sue must love each other !" said the lady. " Of course we do," the lad answered ; " and I teach her my games, so that she's nearly as good as a boy." She plays marbles splendid, and aint bad with a kite. Father calls her 'Tomboy.' Mother says I'm to take care of her as long as she wants me, and never to forget that I'm the biggest and strongest." "And wont you always be very kind to any poor little girls who may have nobody at all to be kind to them ?"

" Of course I shall," he answered. " I say, aint it queer? You're not a bit like mother 'cept that you speak as if you were going to cry, when you aint. I often thinks mother's beginning to cry like she did over the baby, but when I look at her, she's laughing. I thought you were beginning just now." THE HOUSE EY THE WORKS. 10 "What is your mother, like, my dear?" asked the girl, dreamily. " She's very nice-looking. She's got pretty brown hair, very smooth, not all curly, like yours. And she's got blue eyes, and she is always doing needlework. What was your mamma like ?" " Very like yours, I think. No, I mean she had curly hair like mine, and black eyes like mine, but she was always doing needle work, and she used to sing, and tell me stories." "And didn't she tell you to be good, too?" asked the boy.

" Mother always does. And she says I must be good whether she's with me to say so or not, and I can't be always ; I forget. But I do tell her when I've been naughty," he added a little wistfully. " And what does she say then ?" asked the stranger. " She says she is very sorry, but I must begin to try again," the boy answered. " She always tells Sue and me to be sure to begin again. She says the worst of being naughty is, that it helps us to go on being naughty. And father made a funny verse." " Do you remember it ?" asked the lady. " He made me say it over and over again till I knew it," said the lad. " If you've forgotten to be good and taken up with sinning, Begin again, begin again ; all life is but beginning." " Begin again, begin again," lilted little Sue, sitting on the shingle with the shells upon her lap.

"And there's mother !" shouted the boy, jumping up. " Where, Will, where ?" cried Sue, as if " mother," familiar as she was, was the most wonderful sight in creation. " Coming along under the trees o' the walk. We'll go and meet her. She won't want to settle here now, it's so near dinner time, and it tires her to come over that rough bit," said Will, with a manly sense of care-taking. " Good-bye, perhaps we'll meet you down here again." " I don't think that is likely," answered the stranger, " so good-bye, — and give my love to your mother." "You don't know her," said serious little Sue. " But I know you," the lady replied. " Give me a kiss, little one, and never forget 'Begin again.' " And the two children scampered off. The stranger herself sat down in their deserted nook, and leaned her head against the rough old pile, and began to cry.

The tears came slowly and gently. The passion had all gone out of her. It was no longer the sunshine and breeze that mocked her in their brightness and sport. It was she who wronged them by her sin and her despair. And her fellow-creatures were no longer represented by hard faces sneering, and bitter voices taunting her where they had no right to blame, but by a vision of gentle goodness, whose only judgment was "Begin again." She could not remember one word her own mother had ever said — not one word. She had died so long before. But she could recall the pretty girlish figure, perhaps kept in remembrance by the growing likeness thereto which she saw when she looked in the mirror. And she could remember the patient stitching fingers, — she still had some baby garments which they had made. She had kept them faithfully through her lonely, cold girlhood, often saying to herself that perhaps there would some day be a little baby, who might wear them on festal occasions in honour of the dead woman whose grandchild it would be.

Recollecting that dream, the tears came faster. She had a more vivid memory of her father, perhaps because his very presence had been an event. She could remember the jolly, laughing man coming in from his voyages, with all sorts of queer things which covered the tables for a day or two, and were then given away to all sorts of people. After her mother was dead, he took longer voyages. He thought his little one was quite safe and happy with the widow of a brother captain. The little one alwaj^s looked bright enough when he came. The little one never told him about sharp words and petty meannesses. The little one knew some sad truths of her father, which the sour woman harshly told her to damp her joy and pride in his coming. The little one knew that her father drank, and went vvith wicked people, and wasted his money — poor father ! the only being who ever kissed her, or dandled her, or planned treats for her !

And when at last the captain sailed away, and his ship was reported as lost with all hands, the sour woman said it was all for the best, and the little one was packed off to an orphan school, carrying from her past experience a strange morality, wherein "good" people were those who were clean and saving, scolding, cruel and self-righteous, and "bad" people were those who drank and squandered, and were merry, kindly and brave. In the orphan school there was nobody of whom she could ask questions. She was no longer the little one, — but the little Number one hundred. The school-people kept her neat and clean, and were kind to her, rather particularly so, for the irrepressible curly hair preserved her individuality in spite of the uniform, and her hands had habits of clinging, and her lips of kissing, which used to make the rough institution servants say, "Bless her little heart."

But her lessons had to stand in her mind, hard and sharp, without any of that sweet mist which individual confi dences and explanations engender. And so it came to pass that she said to herself bitterly that she " supposed " her father was in hell. And then heaven had no attraction for her, and she almost grew to hate the thought of her mother, if she was happy there without him. Those schoolfellows to whom she felt most attracted, told how good their dead fathers had been, and to sympathise with their praises seemed like disloyalty to her father whom nobody would praise. She could love nobody without telling them about him, and she could tell none of these about him ; so, with a heart full of love, she loved nobody. At sixteen, she was placed in a family, as half nurse, half governess, to the younger children.

It was a wealthy household, very sumptuous and very decorous, where virtue had three courses for dinner, and snuggled in broad cloth and satin, and wondered how any one did not starve rather than steal. There she learned loneliness, as she could never have learned it had they left her to her cheerless bedroom or the casual friendliness of the servants. Visitors congratulated the mistress of the house on the expansive charity which m#.de her admit the " strange girl " to her luncheon table, and to some corner seat in the evening drawing-room, and wondered whether such admission might not destroy " the snug family feeling." The lady smiled serenely, and said " she had never found it so, and it gave the poor girl an idea of family life." Yes, such an idea of it, and such a passionate longing for it, as one might get for food if it was forever within one's sight and forever withheld.

There has been a history between then and now ; and here she is, weeping, sitting on the desolate shingle. She had cried that she was in hell already, and that nothing worse could be in store for her ; and at that moment, innocent children had smiled on her, like angels, and by their artless prattle had led her into the secret of a sorrow they did not understand themselves. Had her mother felt the shadow of approach ing death, as the poor mother, whose anxious warnings they related, apparently did ? Had she striven to teach her child lessons its ears were too young to catch, or its mind to retain ? Was it possible, aye, for others as well as for herself — that the sentence of judgment would be only " Begin again ?" She did not know all that meant. Yet she knew enough ; for she knew it meant a future harder even than the past which had been so dreadful to her.

Only nothing would be so hard as to fail the prayers of her mother, if haply she had prayed and laboured as this other mother did. " I will go to Perford myself," she said, rising, and drawing herself up with a long breath, like one who shakes himself free from a heavy and disturbed slumber. " I will go straight there to-night. It is full of factories of all sorts, and I shall get some kind of work there. One place will do as well as another for me, so long as I can live in it honestly." It was her ignorant version of the Prodi gal's aspiration, "I will arise and go to my Father."

CHAPTER IL FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

PS||ERFOED EAILWAY STATION jp&l was a verv miserable place. The ' Eailway Company had thought any attempt at comfort there was quite superfluous. Few Perfor d people had much comfort at home, therefore they need not expect any abroad. Culstead Station was on another line, and was planned in quite another way; but with that we have nothing to do now. At Perford, there was no waiting room, the only approach to that luxury being a covered shed, with seats running down each side, but with no door at either end. People whose livelihood depends on their health and strength are never sup posed to object to draughts ; and coughs and rheumatism cannot signify so much to those whom they send to the workhouse as they do to those who can carry them to watering places and winter gardens. No porter ever objected to anybody's smoking in any part of Perford Station, and perhaps the tobacco served to disinfect the ancient dirt which choked up every corner, and which no porter dreamed of disturbing.

Perford was a terminus, which seemed like an ironical suggestion that nobody would ever stop there unless compelled. There was no refreshment room at Perford Station : there were plenty of public houses outside. Third-class carriages were out of all propor tion on the Perford line, but of course there were a few first-class carriages too. For some Culstead people had to use the Perford line sometimes, as it very much shortened their homeward journey to change to it, from one of the great main lines. Then their carriages met them at the door, and waiting friends sauntered up and down the chill, dingy plat form, and wondered how soon the Culstead line would be allied to this, so that they need come no more to " such a wretched hole." Two such people were waiting at Perford now. They were not so squeamish as most of the Culstead folks, for the elder knew the place quite familiarly, because he made all his 2— a money in Perford, and the younger was a boy of sixteen, an age which does not give particular attention to draughts or dustiness.

All the railway officials knew Mr. Pendlebury and his son, for Pendlebury's Works was quite a feature in Perford. They knew the little pony trap, which he used for business pur poses, but they were not so familiar with his private carriage, and they went outside, and took admiring survey thereof, appreciating its luxurious elegance after their own fashion, appraising the fur wraps as worth " two or three weeks' wages," and making very free translations of the Latin motto beneath the crest on the door panel. Mr. Pendlebury was waiting for his sister, and his feelings were mingled. She had been the pet of his boyhood — the trusty confidant of his youth. But Barbara Pendlebury had not lived in England for twenty years. All that time their father had been a doomed invalid, whose one possibility of existence was residence in a warm, southern climate.

And all that time the brother and sister had only met for short periods at intervals of two or three years. He had thoroughly enjoyed those holiday visits. The way of hfe had not been a more complete change than the tone of thought. But it struck him now to wonder whether Barbara would find her change to his sphere equally pleasant. Mr. Pendlebury was one of those people who can enjoy pleasures separately which could not exist together. He wondered what Barbara would do under many circumstances which readily arose before his mind's eye. And Barbara would have an active part to play : for their father's will had provided for her with no pension, with no legacy, but with an actual partnership in Pendlebury's Works. In all his suffering and exile, the old gentle man had preserved a lively interest in the business which had been the pride of his early life.

And Barbara had carried on his correspondence, and helped him with the balance-sheets which came in from time to time. She knew about everything. The father and daughter had been all in all to each other during those twenty years. In a solitude apart from the dusty ways of com mon commercial morality, the old man had framed a wider and clearer outlook on life. He looked to Barbara to put into practice many theories, with which she had full sympathy, which, indeed, had often originated with her, and which he felt too feeble and too far away to broach himself. As yet, Mr. Pendlebury knew nothing but that his sister was now his partner. It was a very queer arrangement, he considered, though he did not doubt he should find Barbara docile and reasonable enough. But Barbara had already somewhat startled the Culstead Pendleburys by a movement which she had made quite innocently, but which, like a flying feather, showed the way of the wind.

Like many invalids, old Mr. Pendle bury had died quite unexpectedly at last. According to the sanitary rules of the district where he had lived, his daughter knew that he must be buried almost by the time that news of his death could reach England ; so she calmly desired that nobody should come to her in her trouble, urging that as it was not only too late to see the dead father, but even to follow him to the grave, such ajourney would only be as painful as useless, since she had friendly neighbours who would give her any advice or assistance that she required, and since she intended to join her brother and family as soon as possible. Mrs. Pendlebury was secretly glad that her husband was spared crossing the Channel in such stormy weather, which would have quite knocked him up, even without the rapid rail way journey which must have followed.

But she resented Barbara's self-helpfulness. Cul stead would think it queer ; public opinion would perhaps condemn her husband as negligent. But she consoled herself as well as she could by the strictest attention to the etiquette of mourning. Competent critics stole in to visit her, and pronounced the width of her crape to be correct to an inch, and were interested by her whisper that dear Barbara was a little eccentric, but was the sweetest and most unselfish creature never theless. Mrs. Pendlebury had half wished that her sister-in-law would complete her character for eccentricity by arriving at the halldoor utterly unannounced. Any such startling movement would convince all Culstead that Miss Pendle bury's ways were entirely her own, and that nobody could be held responsible for them. But instead, there came a telegram to the effect that she was leaving the station at Folkestone and would arrive at Perford at a certain hour.

This was a little awkward. Gilbert Pendlebury, the eldest son, had gone off, nobody knew where, after a fashion he had, and probably he would not be home in time to receive his aunt. This distressed his mother. " It would look so undutiful." Gilbert was her favourite son, and she wanted him to stand well with his aunt. " So much depends on first impressions," she said, with a sigh. She never suggested that Peter should take his brother's place, and he had only done so because the carriage overtook him wandering on the edge of Culstead Common, and his father had stopped it and taken him in. And this was how it happened that Mr. Pendlebury and Peter were walking to and fro on Perford platform. There were two or three other people waiting, and they stood back from the rich manufacturer's path.

They knew him, but he did not know them, though they lived on his wages. When the train came in there were very few people in it. Miss Pendlebury was the only first-class passenger. She was a little trim woman in a long cloak, into whose capacious pockets she had gathered all the sundries which accumulate about one in travelling. Her brother and nephew had nothing to do but to hand her out. She dropped nothing, and her hands were free to take both of theirs. Her nephew had seen her before, for he had been taken to visit his grandfather once, many years ago. Somehow he thought she looked younger now, yet then her hair was brown, and now it was white — a beautiful silvery white, which waved and shone. " All this is new to me," she said, looking about her. Perford station had been built the year after she left England.

" Don't judge our British railway stations by this," remarked Mr. Pendlebury. " Wait till you see the Culstead one. Ugh ! there is not a waiting-room fit to put you in while I see after your luggage." " There is nothing to see after," she an swered. " My packages are all directed to the parcels office, to be called for to-morrow, excep' one black portmanteau, which I see the porter is bringing towards us." " We could have had all your things brought up at once, sister," said Mr. Pendlebury; " there are plenty of people about who would be glad enough to help in bringing them." "They will be equally glad to do it to morrow," she answered. " I knew I should not get in till nine o'clock, and by that time man and beast should have left off all labour except works of necessity or love. Are these any of your workpeople ?" she whispered, as they approached the little group passing the ticket porter.