Crying for the Light: or, Fifty Years Ago. Volume 1 of 3

‘That was the world for her,’ said the Baronet, whose demeanour was at times most kind and considerate, and who treated her with the respect due from a gentleman to a lady, though occasionally he assumed a boldness which brought the hot blood to her cheek and filled her with alarm.

Once upon a time, it is said, an old Scotch beadle, with the astute utterance of his class, went a-courting. ‘Jeannie,’ said he, as he took the object of his affection into the parochial cemetery, and pointed to some graves in a remote corner, ‘that’s whaur my people lie. Would ye like to lie with them?’ Jeannie answered in the affirmative, and the happy pair soon became man and wife. In the same way the Baronet threw open to the dazzled eyes of this fatherless country girl all the usual resorts of the gay world in all their pomp and glory, and she was delighted, as she had not the experience to tell her how much was tinsel, how little of it was real, how much of it was selfishness, and nothing more. Her heart warmed towards her benefactor. Confident in her beauty and his goodness of heart, she feared no harm. In the circle in which she moved she achieved a complete success. The women were very envious, and the men were as foolish as most men are where a pretty woman is concerned.

Young people think little of what is felt for them by their fathers and mothers. The cynic may say, ‘Why should they? I did not bring myself into existence; and what has life done for me but to make me toil for labour that profiteth not, to clothe me with a carcase that shall soon be dissolved in death, to give me a mind that utterly, after all its endeavour, fails to understand even what passes under my very nose, to say nothing of the mysteries which lie around.’ But most of us feel, nevertheless, that our fathers and mothers have claims on us that we can never sufficiently repay them for – the care and love which rocked us in the cradle, which gave joy and happiness to our early homes, which guarded us in youth, which helped to plant us out in the world – a love the memory of which lasts as long as life. The worst of it is that frequently we do not feel this till it is too late, till we can make no ear that it would rejoice to listen to such with rapture is stilled by the cold hand of death. I can never forget a picture of a girl weeping at her mother’s grave. It was an illustration to one of Jane Taylor’s simple poems, as follows:

‘Oh, if she would but come again,

I think I’d vex her so no more.’

In her new circle Rose had that natural feeling. It was hard for her to live without her mother. That mother might be ill; that mother she knew to be lonely and poor, and in need of her society and aid. It was her duty, she felt, to be by that mother’s side. She intended to return, if not to-day, at any rate to-morrow; to tell her mother all, how, notwithstanding appearances, she was innocent as when she slept under that mother’s roof. But the difficulty was to go back. Her mother would believe her story, but nobody else would; and all her little world would look at her in scorn. She could not face that little world that seems to us so big. What was she to do? Like too many of us in emergencies, she did nothing, and was overcome by the circumstances in which she had weakly allowed herself to be placed.

Yet Rose was not happy in her heart of hearts, and all the while an inner sense of fear, of something sad and sorrowful to come, restrained her natural light-heartedness. Scandal had been busy with her name in her native town. She could not ask, as she had done in her early days, the blessing of God on her life. But she had burnt her boats, and for her there was no return. She was clever, and was determined to cultivate her powers. All her mornings were spent in hard study. She had masters who made up for the defects of early education. The Baronet, who had left London for a while on a shooting tour in North America, was to return, and, of course, would marry her in due time; and then her fair fame would be vindicated, and her mother’s heart would beat for joy. She was a born actress, and her chief delight was to be found in the study of the leading actors and actresses on the stage. Her musical talent was of a high order, and she had a knack of picking up foreign languages that made her the wonder of the extremely bad set in which she lived. She was always busy, always in a whirl of excitement, and had little time to think of what she was and whither she was going. She shrank from being brought face to face with her real self. Whenever she did so she found she really had gained but little, after all. It is true she was not vicious, but, then, she had grown hard and worldly, and that is little better in the Court of Conscience. Often she longed for her early home, her mother’s side, her life of daily drudgery, the God of her early youth.

Very suddenly a change came. Sir Watkin Strahan had left England, not for a shooting tour in North America, as it had been understood, but on account of pecuniary embarrassments, brought on by his extravagant habits. It was hinted that he was about to marry a fortune, ‘but that matters little,’ said the informant to poor Rose; ‘he loves you and you love him. The hard necessities of his situation will compel him to go through the form of matrimony with another, but that is no reason why you two should not be virtually man and wife.’ The Baronet said as much in the impassioned letters which he sent to Rose. He had lost, he regretted to say, heavily on the turf and at play. He had made some unfortunate speculations on the Stock Exchange. He had travelled to repair his losses at Homburg, and Baden, and Spa, and there he had made matters worse. His friends had insisted on his getting married, promising pecuniary assistance if he did. They did more. They found out for him a fitting heiress. A rich merchant had an only daughter whom he was willing to part with for a consideration – that she should be called my lady. As the lady was anxious for a title, and the gentleman was equally anxious to finger her cash, there was little reason for delay. Indeed, it was felt on all sides that the sooner the business was settled the better. The lady and gentleman had met, and been mutually satisfied with one another. The Baronet, so proud of his title, had sold himself for a mess of pottage. That was a very shabby thing to do; but he did something still shabbier, he implied that to Rose it would make no difference – that she would still be the dearest object to his heart. Poor girl! she felt the insult bitterly.

‘It was the way of the world,’ said her new friends. ‘It was only what she need expect. She must have been a fool to think that it would be otherwise.’ So said her London friends to her. Well, she owned she had been a fool. She had never meant to be a rich man’s mistress. The Baronet had overwhelmed her with his wealth and magnificence. He had treated her with such consideration that she never expected anything from him other than what was right and honourable, and she had been prepared to give him all she could in return – her heart. Further than that she could never go. She would never be what he wished her to be for all his wealth. Her dream was over, and she woke to find herself helpless, friendless, poor, and alone. It was a bitter awakening for her. It would have broken her heart, and ruined her life, had it not been for her youthful pluck, and spirit, and pride. The man of the world who believes woman to be as bad as himself, who quotes Pope and tells us that every woman is at heart a rake, will tell me I have drawn an unreal girl. I tell him there are thousands of such in the homes of the poor, and it is because there are such that England is still a nation great and grand.

But to return to our heroine.

When the dishonourable proposal was made to her – a proposal which she could not at first understand, veiled as it was in artful language – all her pride was in arms, her anger was aroused, and her love was turned to hate. In her wrath she left the house, leaving behind her letters, books, jewellery, dresses, everything that had been given her, and, dressed in the simple style of her former life, she went out into the world shedding bitter tears, and not knowing where to go. Sad and mad, she walked the streets of London alone – streets in which it is more dangerous for a pretty girl to walk along, and at night, than it would be among Kaffir or Hottentots. She had given no one any intimation of her going, or as to what her intentions were. She had escaped from the destroyer, that was enough for her. A stranger to London, she wandered wearily about, till she came to a street with a blaze of light streaming from the shop windows on every side, crowded with cabs and carriages, whilst the pavement was so filled up as to render locomotion almost impossible.

What she saw struck her with astonishment and horror. She had never heard of such a thing, and did not believe it possible. It was night, and yet the place was as busy as if it were day. There were women in full dress from the adjacent theatres, other in couples or hanging on the arms of men, who might have been officers in the army and navy or members of the swell mob. There were similar parties in hansoms and broughams. Intermixed with them were beggars, and pickpockets, and swindlers, and outcasts, and all the riffraff of a London street. Rose watched the broughams, and saw them setting down their inmates at a building which bore to her a name of no meaning. She watched awhile, and then, advancing to the door and paying her shilling, found herself in a dancing casino of a rather superior character. The walls were lined with seats on which men and women were seated. There was a bar at one end at which a good deal of chaffing and smoking and drinking were going on. Up in the gallery was a German band, and, as they played, some danced, while others looked on. Poor Rose was frightened beyond description at the appearance of all around her. The air was full of oaths and laughter, and all were gay, gay as wine could make them, from Lord Tom Noddy drinking himself into del. trem., to the last ticket-of-leave from Her Majesty’s jails. Rose had never seen so many vagabonds collected together under a roof before, and they were all gay – the painted harlots, the City men, the Jew money-lenders, the clerk who had come to spend the proceeds of his latest embezzlement, the scheming M.P., the jockey from Newmarket, the prize-fighter from Whitechapel, the greenhorn from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Pulling her veil over her face, Rose stood in a corner by herself, trembling and alone, afraid to remain, yet afraid to go away, fearing she might be stopped. Already she found herself remarked on and pointed at; already she had seen in the crowded and heated room more than one of the boon companions of her quondam lover. What was she to do? She had never dreamt of such awful degradation as she saw there. She had never believed in its existence. She thought such a place would have never been tolerated by the police, and impossible in a Christian land. Men jeered at her, as she stood with the hot blood crimsoning her cheek, while the made-up women around seemed, to her, grinning over her impending fall. Was she to become one of them – to renounce all modesty and virtue, to drink of the wine-cup offered her on every side, in the delirium of the hour to enlist in the devil’s service, to put on his livery and to take his pay? Well, she was poor, but not so poor as all that – as long as she had the use of her senses. Better poverty itself than a life of shame. For awhile she stood dazed and frightened, forgetting where she was, and that all eyes were upon her. Presently she was recalled to herself by a gentleman coming up and asking her to dance. She refused.

‘Then what the d- are you here for?’ was his rough reply.

She turned away speechless – horror-struck – especially as she saw the amusement of the half-tipsy bystanders.

‘A deuced fine girl, upon my word!’

‘Fresh as Hebe,’ said another.

‘Artfulness itself,’ was the remark of another.

‘Yes; that virtuous air is all put on,’ said one of the women present. ‘You may depend upon it she is no better than she should be, although she looks so shy.’

‘Yes; a very promising filly,’ said the last speaker’s male friend. ‘I’ve half a mind to make up to her myself.’

‘You had better stay where you are, old man,’ replied his female friend, as she gave him a fond caress.

Poor Rose knew by their looks that they were talking at her, and she trembled from head to foot. Oh that she could hide herself, that she could get out of the room! but, no, that was impossible.

CHAPTER X

UNDER THE STARS

What could Rose do in that den of wild men and wilder women, the like of which was to be seen in no other country under heaven, licensed by Act of Parliament, past which bishops drove down on their way to make speeches at Exeter Hall on behalf of the Bible Society, or of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts?

Again and again she wished she were veil out of that inferno, where she was stared at on every side.

‘Surely you will dance, miss,’ said the master of the ceremonies, approaching her respectfully. ‘Allow me to introduce you to Lord – ’

Again Rose declined, much to the annoyance of a debauched, sickly youth, who was ‘my lord,’ and reverenced as such accordingly. My lord revived his spirits with an S. and B., and was soon whirling round the room with another in his arms.

Under the influence of drink a man approached the corner where Rose was sitting, caught hold of her arm, and with an oath attempted to drag her off her seat. Her scream brought a crowd around, but not before her assailant had been knocked down by a gentleman, who was one of the wall-flowers watching the dancers, pretending to enjoy themselves.

The affrighted proprietor of the place rushed up. If there was a row he might lose his license. The police were outside. He brought with him his chuckers-out, and order was restored.

In the confusion attending its restoration Rose managed to find her way to the door, her defender walking by her side.

‘Outside,’ she exclaimed joyfully, ‘thank God!’

‘Ah,’ said her companion, ‘how came you there? That was not the place for you.’

‘No, no,’ she said passionately; ‘I was wretched and I went in; but,’ she added, ‘you – how came you there?’

‘What! do you know me?’

‘Of course I do. You came to Sloville, and you made a speech at the Chartist meeting. You were a minister then, I think.’

‘You are right,’ said Wentworth, for it was he; ‘I was hoping to be a minister then. You may well ask how I came to be in yon place. Know, then, that I am a minister no longer – that illusion is past – that I am now a writer for the press and a man about town.’

‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ said the girl. ‘I thought you made such a good speech at the Chartist meeting, and hoped that you would do a great deal of good in the town. Are you happier now than you were then?’

‘Happier, no!’

‘Wiser?’

‘Yes, much, and gayer a great deal.’

‘Ah then, your experience is something like my own. We are all alike. As soon as Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they ceased to be happy. I don’t believe there is such a thing as happiness in the world. I was so wretched that I crept in yon den for warmth and shelter, and out of curiosity to see if that sort of thing was happiness.’

‘And what did you think?’

‘Why, that a costermonger’s wife has a happier lot.’

‘“Foolish soul,”’ continued Wentworth, ‘“what Act of Legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all. What if thou wert born and predestined not to be happy, but to be unhappy?”’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Rose. ‘You did not speak to the people in that way at Sloville.’

‘Ah, no! I had not read my Carlyle then. I am quoting you out of “Sartor Resartus.” Behold in me a philosopher.’

‘Well,’ said Rose, with a smile, ‘I can’t say the sight is particularly brilliant or overpowering.’

Just at that moment up comes the policeman – the London policeman, whose chief occupation seems to be to watch men and women when they stop in the streets for a talk, and to keep out of the way when he is wanted to prop up the inebriate, or to lay hold of a pickpocket, or a burglar, or a rough.

‘We must be off,’ said Wentworth, ‘or we shall be run in. Which way are you walking? May I see you home?’

Gradually he was being interested in his companion. Gradually he began to recall to himself the long-lost vision of her lovely face. He had never forgotten it, and here, where he could have least expected, it had come to him once more. Fate had once more thrown her in his way. Was he to miss his chance? he asked himself. ‘Certainly not,’ was the reply of the inward monitor; ‘you would be a fool if you did.’ As he watched her the light seemed to fade out of her countenance, and over it came a cloud.

‘I am afraid you are tired,’ said he; ‘let me offer you some refreshment.’

‘No, no; I can’t eat anything.’

‘Well, then, let me see you home?’

The question recalled Rose to herself. She had no home. She had rushed away in sorrow, and anger, and despair. In all that wilderness of bricks and mortar she had no home. She stood there homeless, friendless, and alone. She hardly felt safe. As they stood talking, men from the clubs, the theatre and dinner-party passed and repassed, staring at her impudently all the while. As soon as Wentworth left her she felt they would seek her, as the lion does his prey.

At length she said in a saddened tone: ‘I have no home – no friends. I know not where to go.’

Wentworth was shocked.

And then she told him her story. She felt that she was safe, that London life had not corrupted him, that there was a true manhood in him, after all.

There was a quiet hotel just by; he took the poor girl there, but the landlady objected. They did not take in single young ladies there who had no luggage, that guarantee of respectability, and who had no recommendation. Had she been known to any of the families who had been in the habit of using her hotel, the case would have been different. As it was they had not an apartment to spare.

They tried other establishments equally in vain. Rose began to realize at last all the dangers and horrors of her situation. There are disadvantages connected with our refined and highly-developed system of civilization. Out on the prairie she might have found shelter for the night in the rude Indian hut, but in Christian London what can a poor girl do? Is it not a fact that a pretty girl cannot walk down Regent Street in broad daylight alone without being insulted by some hoary old debauchee or other?

At length a happy thought came to Wentworth. His laundress, he knew, let lodgings. She lived in one of the small streets at the back of Clifford’s Inn, and he would take his charge there for the night. The woman was glad to oblige him, though she thought it vastly queer; but that was no concern of hers, or of anyone else, she thought, as long as she got the rent. ‘Mr. Wentworth,’ she remarked to her husband as he attempted, as is the manner of men, some deprecating criticism, ‘is a gentleman, and will behave himself as such;’ and she was right, though Wentworth in town had altered a great deal from the Wentworth of the Sloville meeting-house: the man seemed not quite so hopeful, not quite so raw and inexperienced. The laundress had a heart that could feel for another, and she had connections that could aid her. By her help Rose was introduced to an establishment where her services, as a clever hand at dressmaking, were speedily recognised and in the consciousness that she was honestly earning her living, and in the daily routine of duty, she soon forgot the bitterness of her past. She was herself again, perhaps a trifle more serious, but a good deal more wise.

Wentworth went down to Sloville, and brought back Rose’s mother, and she was happy and content. The mother could find no fault with her girl, as she saw how bravely she had trampled on her past follies, how steadily she worked for her happiness, and her cup of joy was full. It had almost killed her when Rose ran away. What she suffered then she could hardly say, as the dull days and the long nights were spent in anxious watching and waiting for the well-known step at the door. Now she could but thankfully say to herself, ‘This, my precious one, was dead, but is alive again; was lost, but is found.’ Happy the father or the mother who can say as much!

It was a pleasure to Rose to earn her own living; she was a very clever needle-woman, and got good wages in one of the grand emporiums of commerce in Regent Street. It was a pleasure to her to make her mother happy, and they never seemed as if they could do enough for one another. The mother never knew why her daughter, of whose beauty she was so proud, had run away from home, or why she refused to go back to the old home. Rose was young, and in due time recovered from what, for the time, was a crushing blow. She heard of the Baronet occasionally, for his family seat was near Sloville, and her mother loved to gossip of the place and people. He had married a rich wife, and paid all his debts. One son had been the result of the marriage, but that had died in a somewhat mysterious manner. The lady, whose health was very bad, chiefly resided at Elm Court, while her lord and master had returned to his evil courses in town – as a sow that had been washed, as the Bible coarsely puts it, to her wallowing in the mire.

Fortunately, Rose never saw anything of him, and he was nothing to her now. Her mother was a little prying and inquisitive, but Rose, gentle and tender-hearted, had a way of keeping her mouth shut – somewhat rare in her sex – and when she had made up her mind to be silent, no power on earth could make her talk. The old lady got about her in time some of her old friends, with the male part of whom the daughter was as popular as ever, in spite of her mysterious exit from Sloville.

All the young shopmen in the neighbourhood were ready to fall in love with her, but Rose gave them no encouragement, much to the grief of her mother, who was really anxious to see her daughter settled in life. Rose said she was quite comfortable as she was, and her mother had to give way. It was soon clearly understood that Rose was not in the matrimonial market at all, and admiring swains said no more. Rose, as we have seen, was of gentle birth, and that will assert itself in the blood. Successful tradesmen have little time to study the graces of life, and Rose liked refinement; it had come to her hereditarily, as we all know it does. It was not her fault that she turned up her nose at vulgar commonplace admirers, however well off they might be as regards this world’s goods.

It is needless to say that Rose, with her bright face, made many friends. A leading theatrical, in search of attractions for his theatre, got hold of her, and found how full she was of dramatic power. Rose had always been fond of the stage, even as it appeared in such a humble form as that in which it was revealed to her at Sloville, and the finished acting of the London theatre gave her immense satisfaction. At first the pay was small, and her work was hard; excellence on the stage, as excellence everywhere, is not to be won without steady work, but she was an apt learner, and made rapid progress. One day she had, as all of us have at some time or other, a chance. One of the principal actresses was taken ill, and Rose had suddenly to perform her part. Her success was as complete as it was gratifying and unexpected.

As a critic, Wentworth had to record her triumph, and it not a little astonished him to find in the Miss Howard, the new star of the theatre, an old acquaintance. The meeting was mutually gratifying. If in her distress and poverty she needed his protection, much more did she need it in the hour of her triumph. If he admired her as a rustic beauty, much more did he admire her as she shone radiant on the stage.

Since then a couple of years had passed, to both of them precious ones. It is true they had seen little of each, other in the meanwhile; when he had walked with her under the stars from the dancing saloon, he was bent on realizing what pleasure, if any, is to be found in a life of gaiety and dissipation. He had fought his doubts and gathered strength; duty, not pleasure, was to be his aim. The utter dreary formalism of the old-fashioned Evangelical drove many a bold lad into dissipation. Youth fancies that sort of thing attractive, and especially does it come with a tenfold power to all who have lived in a strict home, and amongst strait-laced people. The game is hardly worth the candle. Solomon found it to be so in his time, when he tried the experiment on the most expensive scale, but youth does not care much for Solomon, and has over-weening confidence in self.