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Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. IX.—February, 1851.—Vol. II.
Her lover was a class-mate, apprenticed to a shoemaker, with two years of his apprenticeship still to run. On inquiry he was found to be thoroughly respectable as to character, diligent in his business, and likely to be an able workman. So he was allowed to call for Jemima on class evenings, and to come now and then to the house. The Barclays knew when he was there by hearing a man's voice reading in the kitchen, when the door was opened, or by the psalm-singing, which needed no open doors to make itself heard.
Jemima was now, however, unsettled; not at all by her engagement, for nothing could be more sober and rational than the temper and views of the young people as regarded each other and their prospects; but the poor girl felt that she was living in a sort of bondage, while yet she could blame nobody for it. She sighed for freedom to lead the sort of religious life she wished, without interruption from persons of a different way of thinking. I believe she was nineteen or twenty when she told Mrs. Barclay what she had been planning; and Mrs. Barclay was not altogether sorry to hear about it, for Jemima had lost much of her openness and cheerfulness, bounced about when doing her work, and knocked hard with her brushes when cleaning floors overhead. There was evidently an internal irritation, which might best be relieved by total change.
The plan was for Jemima and a pious friend, about her own age, to take a room and live together, maintaining themselves by working for the upholsterers. The girls thought they could make money faster this way than at service, as both were good workwomen, and could live as cheaply as any body could live. If they found themselves mistaken they could go back to service. Jemima avowed that her object was to lay by money, as Richard and she had resolved not to marry till they could furnish their future dwelling well and comfortably. This might have been a rash scheme for most girls; but these two friends were so good and so sensible, and knew their own purposes so well, that nobody opposed their experiment.
It was really a pleasure to go and see them when they were settled. They chose their room carefully, for the sake of their work, as well as their own health. Their room was very high upstairs; but it was all the more airy for that, and they wanted plenty of light. And very light it was – with its two windows on different sides of the room. The well-boarded floor looked as clean as their table. There were plants in the windows; and there was a view completely over the chimneys of the city to the country beyond. Their most delicate work could get no soil here. They were well employed, and laid by money as fast as they expected.
Still it seemed, after a time, that Jemima was not yet happy. Her face was anxious, and her color faded. She often went to work at the Barclays; as often as Mrs. B. could find any upholstery, or other needlework, for her to do. One object was to give her a good hot dinner occasionally; for it seemed possible that she might be living too low, though she declared that this was not the case. One day she happened to be at work in the dining-room with Mrs. Barclay, when one of the young ladies went in. Jemima was bending over her work; yet Miss B. saw that her face was crimson, and heard that her voice was agitated. On a sign from her mother, the young lady withdrew. One evening the next week Richard called, and saw Mrs. Barclay alone. Little was said in the family; but in many parts of the city it became presently known that the preacher who had so revived religion among the young people was on bad terms with some of them. Either he was a profligate, or some dozen young women were slanderers. Jemima was growing thin and pale under the dread of the inquiry which must, she knew, take place. Either her own character must go, or she must help to take away that of the minister. It was no great comfort to her that Richard told her that Mrs. Barclay could and would carry her through. She had many wretched thoughts that this certainty could not reach.
It was some weeks before the business was over. The Miss Barclays and Jemima were sitting at work together, with the parlor-door open, when there was a knock, and then the shuffling of the feet of four gentlemen in the hall, just as Mrs. Barclay was coming down stairs. She invited them into the drawing-room; but the spokesman (an acquaintance of the Barclays) declined, saying that a few words would suffice; that he and his friends understood that Mrs. Barclay was thoroughly well acquainted with Jemima Brooks, and they merely wished to know whether Jemima was, in that house, considered a well-conducted young woman, whose word might be trusted. All this was heard in the parlor. Jemima's tears dropped upon her needle; but she would not give up; she worked on, as if her life depended on getting done. The young ladies had never seen her cry; and the sight moved them almost as much as their mother's voice, which they clearly heard, saying,
"I am glad you have come here, Mr. Bennett; for I can speak to Jemima Brooks's merits. She lived in my family for some years; and she is in the house at this moment. There is no one in the world whom I more cordially respect; and, when I say that I regard her as a friend, I need not tell you what I think of the value of her word."
"Quite enough, Mrs. Barclay. Quite enough. We have nothing more to ask. We are greatly obliged to you, ma'am. Good morning – good morning."
When Mrs. Barclay had seen them out, and entered the parlor, the quick yet full gaze that Jemima raised to her face was a thing never to be forgotten. Mrs. Barclay turned her face away; but immediately put on her thimble, sat down among the party, and began to tell her daughters the news from London. Jemima heard no more of this business. It is probable that the gentlemen received similar testimony with regard to the other young people implicated; for the preacher was dismissed the city, without any ceremony, and with very brief notice.
From this time might clearly be dated the decline of Jemima's spiritual pride and irritability of temper. She was deeply humbled; and from under the ruins of her pride sprang richly the indigenous growth of her sweet affections. She was not a whit less religious; but she had a higher view of what religion should be. Her smile, when she met any of the Barclays in the street, and the tenderness in her voice when she spoke to them, indicated a very different state of mind from that in which she had left them.
She was looking well, and her friend and she were doing well, and Richard and she were beginning to reckon how many months, at their present rate of earning, would enable them to furnish a dwelling, and justify their going home to it, when they were called upon for a new decision, and a new scene opened in Jemima's life.
The eldest of Mrs. Barclay's sons, who had been married about two years before, was so ill as to be ordered to Madeira to save his life. There was more rashness formerly than there is now about sending persons so very ill far away from their own homes; and Madeira was then a less comfortable residence for Englishmen than it has since been made. A large country-house was taken for the invalid and his family; and all that forethought could do was done for their comfort. The very best piece of forethought was that of Mrs. Barclay, when she proposed that Jemima should be asked to go as one of their servants. Jemima asked a few days to consider; and during those few days the anxiety of the family increased as they saw how all-important the presence of such a helper would be. Nothing could be more reasonable than Jemima's explanation, when she had made up her mind. She said that if she was to engage herself for two years, and defer her marriage, it must be for the sake of some advantage to Richard, and to their affairs afterward, that she would make such a sacrifice. It was Richard's object and hers to save at present; if, therefore, she went to Madeira it must be on high wages. She would devote herself to do the best she could for the family: but she must see that Richard did not suffer by it. Of course, this was agreed to at once, and she went to Madeira.
It is always a severe and wearing trial to servants to travel in foreign countries, or remain long abroad. They usually have all the discomfort without the gratifications which their employers seek and enjoy. Their employers can speak the languages of the people among whom they go; and they have intellectual interests, historical, philosophical, or artistical, which their servants know nothing about. Thus we hear of one lady's maid who cried all through Italy, and another who scolded or sulked all the way up the hill and down again; and another who declared every morning for some weeks in the Arabian deserts that she would bear it no longer, but would go straight home – that she would. Jemima and her fellow-servants had much to bear, but she and another bore it well. The voyage was trying, the sea-sickness was bad enough; but a worse thing was, that the infant, five months' old, got no proper sleep, from the noises and moving on board; and the foundation was thus laid for brain disease, of which he died in the winter. Then, when they landed, the great house was dreadfully dirty, and wanted airing; as it was not like a dirty house in England, which can always be cleaned when desired. The Portuguese at Madeira were found to have no notion of cleanliness; and as they could speak no English, and the servants no Portuguese, the business was an irritating one. There were great privileges about the abode. The view over land and sea was most magnificent; and there was in the grounds a hedge several hundred yards long of geraniums, fuchsias, and many glorious foreign blossoms, in flower and fragrance all the winter through; and the air was the most delicious that could be breathed; but Jemima would have given all these things, at any moment, for English food, and English ways, and the sound of English church bells, or the familiar voice of her own preacher. Her master visibly declined, on the whole, and the infant pined and died. She could not but know that she was the mainstay of the party, as to their external comfort. She must have had some sweet moments in the consciousness of this. When she considered, however, the great luxury of all was watching for the English packet from the top of the house. The house itself was on the mountains, and when she and a fellow-servant went up to the flat roof, and steadied the telescope on the balustrade, they could see very far indeed over the ocean, and sometimes watched the approach of the vessel, in which she knew there was a letter from Richard, for some hours before it reached the harbor. These days of the arrival of letters were the few days of animation and good cheer of that dreary and mournful season, which was more dismal among sunshine, and flowers, and sweet airs, than the gloomiest winter the party had ever known in England. If it had been for an unlimited time, even Jemima's steady spirits could hardly have borne it; but she said to herself that it was only for two years, and she should never repent it.
It did not last two years. When the heats came on, in May, the physicians said that the invalid must go home; and in June the family embarked in the only vessel in which they could have a passage – a wine-vessel going to a French port. It was dirty, and almost without comforts. Its discomforts were too great to be dwelt upon. In the Bay of Biscay there was a dead calm, in which they lay suffering for so many days that it seemed as if they were never to get on. Under this the invalid sank. He was buried at sea. The widow and her servants landed at Bordeaux, and traveled homeward through France. Never, perhaps, had Jemima felt so happy as when she saw again the cathedral spire of her native city, and was presently met by Richard, and welcomed by the grateful blessings of the Barclay family. She had well discharged her trust, and now her own domestic life was to begin.
Not immediately, however. It was a season of fearful distress in England – the year 1826, the time of the dreadful commercial crash, which, having ruined thousands of capitalists – from bankers to tradesmen – was now bringing starvation upon hundreds of thousands of artisans and laborers. Richard's business, till now a rising one, had become slack. During the few months longer that the young people waited, they bought what they could get to advantage of good furniture, and despised no small earnings. A certain clock – a thoroughly good one – was to be had for £8, which a year before would have cost £10 at least. Mrs. Barclay saw the longing there was to have this clock; while nothing like £8 was left to buy it with. She offered to buy it for them, and let them work it out; and the offer was gladly accepted. When they married she wished to send it home, but they both said they could never look at the clock in their own house without reproach while it was not truly their own. They actually craved permission to have it stand in Mr. Barclay's warehouse. Once a week they brought what money they could spare, and then they always stepped into the warehouse and took a long look at their clock; and at last the day came when they paid the last shilling, and took it home, where, no doubt, they gave it a longer gaze than ever.
Poor things! they little knew what was before them. Richard had plenty of business; and his stock of leather was used up, again and again; but, as the winter wore on, he could obtain no payment. One of the Miss Barclays, in speaking of the state of the times, thoughtlessly congratulated Jemima on her husband being a shoemaker, saying that one of the last things people could do without was shoes. A sort of spasm passed over Jemima's face when she tried to smile, and she stopped a moment before she said, very quietly, yes, that that was true: people still had shoes; but they could not pay for them. In a little while longer, she was making gowns, or doing any other sewing for any body, for any thing they could pay. As she worked, Richard sat by and read to her. He had no more leather; and there was no use trying his credit when he knew he should not get paid for the shoes he might make. At Christmas, they were sitting thus without a fire. A little later still, the Barclays found Jemima rubbing up her furniture, which was as clean and polished before as it could well be. No careless observer, seeing a neat young woman, in a snow-white cap, polishing substantial furniture, of her own, with a handsome clock ticking in the corner, could have supposed that she was wanting food. But it was so, and there was something in her face – a pinched look about the nose, a quivering about the chin, which betrayed the fact to the Barclays. It was partly to warm herself in the absence of fire, that Jemima was rubbing up her furniture. As for pawning or selling it – it would have gone very hard with the young couple to do that if it had been possible. But it was not possible; and they had no conflict of mind on that point. The furniture brokers had no money – any more than other people; and the pawnbrokers' houses were so crowded, from cellar to garret, that every one of them in the city had for some time refused to take any thing more whatever. The Barclays themselves were sorely embarrassed, and eventually ruined, by the same crash. The very little they could do was needed by multitudes even more than by Richard and Jemima. They found the weaver hanging fainting over his loom, and the reduced schoolmistress sitting on the bottom stair, too dizzy with hunger to mount to her own room. They found the elderly widow too proud to own her need to the district visitors, lending her pitcher, without a handle, to the sinking family above stairs, to fetch the soup from the public kitchen; while they, sinking as they were divined her case, and left some soup at the bottom of the pitcher as if by accident. No one was more ready than Jemima to point out to the Barclays the sufferers who, while saying least about it, most wanted bread. All that her friends could do for her was to get their shoes mended by Richard, and to give her a few days' employment, now and then, by their good fire, and with three good meals in the day.
How they managed it, the young couple could themselves hardly tell; but they got through. The worst times of commercial crisis must come to an end; and the end found the young people somewhat sunk in health and spirits, but clear of debt, and with all their little property safe about them. Of course their credit was good; and when people were again able to pay for their shoes, Richard was as safe as any man can be who is bound up with a system of fluctuations.
As safe, that is, about money matters. But the next autumn showed him by how frail a tenure he held his very best earthly blessing. Jemima was confined; and almost before he had seen his little daughter, his wife was in the last extremity of danger. She well knew it; and the surgeon said afterward that in all his experience, he had never seen such an instance of calm and amiable good sense under the strongest possible circumstances of proof. She understood the case – her affections were all alive – her husband and child were in the room – a bright life was before her – and she was slipping away from all; yet there was no fear, and, amidst excessive exhaustion, no perturbation. The surgeon said she saved her own life, for he could not have saved her. In a few weeks she brought her little daughter to the Barclays' house; and, as she sat there, they could not help thinking that her face was almost as childlike as her infant's. It was at least much the same in its innocence and brightness, as it was on that summer evening, so many years ago, when they found it on their steps, on returning from their walk.
The infant was extremely pretty. In connection with it happened the severest trial that Jemima had ever known; certainly, a severer one than she had looked for in her married life. She wished to have the child vaccinated. Richard objected. He had committed all he had to God, and it would be taking the child out of the hands of Providence to have it vaccinated. Jemima, whose fanaticism had gradually melted all away, saw the mistake he was in. She said, plainly and earnestly what she thought; but, when she saw that her husband's religious feelings were engaged in the matter, and that his will was roused, she let the subject drop. When the child could run about and prattle, and was so pretty that the Quaker-like young mother actually put the glossy hair in papers, and made dressy pinafores for her darling, the dreaded small-pox appeared. The child escaped death, but very narrowly; and her face was pitted and seamed so as to leave no trace of beauty. It did not lighten the affliction, that Richard still declared he was right. She bore it quietly and there was little alteration in her cheerful voice when she spoke of the ravage.
They rose steadily, on the whole, with occasional drawbacks. There were more children; there was a larger business. At last, on Saturday nights there was a respectable shop-front to close and a considerable stock to arrange for Monday morning. On Sundays a group of children came out to walk hand-in-hand to chapel, with their father in good broad cloth, and their mother in black silk behind them. The Barclays left the city long ago; but when one of them pays an occasional visit in the neighborhood, the brisk little woman in black silk, is sure to be seen presently coming up to the house; her innocent face looks in eagerly at the window, and the chirping voice is heard in the hall. There was nothing in her young days so impetuous as the grasp of the hand that the Barclays have from her when they meet at intervals of years.
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE
"I am not displeased with your novel, so far as it has gone," said my father graciously; "though as for The Sermon – "
Here I trembled; but the ladies, Heaven bless them! had taken Parson Dale under their special protection; and, observing that my father was puckering up his brows critically, they rushed boldly forward in defense of The Sermon, and Mr. Caxton was forced to beat a retreat. However, like a skillful general, he renewed the assault upon outposts less gallantly guarded. But as it is not my business to betray my weak points, I leave it to the ingenuity of cavilers to discover the places at which the Author of Human Error directed his great guns.
"But," said the Captain, "you are a lad of too much spirit, Pisistratus, to keep us always in the obscure country quarters of Hazeldean – you will march us out into open service before you have done with us?"
Pisistratus, magisterially, for he has been somewhat nettled by Mr. Caxton's remarks – and he puts on an air of dignity, in order to awe away minor assailants. – "Yes, Captain Roland – not yet awhile, but all in good time. I have not stinted myself in canvas, and behind my foreground of the Hall and the Parsonage I propose, hereafter, to open some lengthened perspective of the varieties of English life – "
Mr. Caxton. – "Hum!"
Blanche, putting her hand on my father's lip. – "We shall know better the design, perhaps, when we know the title. Pray, Mr. Author, what is the title?"
My Mother, with more animation than usual. – "Ay, Sisty – the title?"
Pisistratus, startled. – "The title! By the soul of Cervantes! I have never yet thought of a title!"
Captain Roland, solemnly. – "There is a great deal in a good title. As a novel-reader, I know that by experience."
Mr. Squills. – "Certainly; there is not a catchpenny in the world but what goes down, if the title be apt and seductive. Witness 'Old Parr's Life Pills.' Sell by the thousand, sir, when my 'Pills for Weak Stomachs,' which I believe to be just the same compound, never paid for the advertising."
Mr. Caxton. – "Parr's Life Pills! a fine stroke of genius! It is not every one who has a weak stomach, or time to attend to it, if he have. But who would not swallow a pill to live to a hundred and fifty-two?"
Pisistratus, stirring the fire in great excitement. – "My title! my title! what shall be my title!"
Mr. Caxton, thrusting his hand into his waistcoat, and in his most didactic of tones. "From a remote period, the choice of a title has perplexed the scribbling portion of mankind. We may guess how their invention has been racked by the strange contortions it has produced. To begin with the Hebrews. 'The Lips of the Sleeping,' (Labia Dormientium) – what book do you suppose that title to designate? – A Catalogue of Rabbinical writers! Again, imagine some young lady of old captivated by the sentimental title of 'The Pomegranate with its Flower,' and opening on a treatise on the Jewish Ceremonials! Let us turn to the Romans. Aulus Gellius commences his pleasant gossiping 'Noctes' with a list of the titles in fashion in his day. For instance, 'The Muses' and 'The Veil,' 'The Cornucopia', 'The Beehive', and 'The Meadow.' Some titles, indeed, were more truculent, and promised food to those who love to sup upon horrors – such as 'The Torch,' 'The Poniard,' 'The Stiletto' – "
Pisistratus, impatiently. – "Yes, sir; but to come to My Novel."
Mr. Caxton, unheeding the interruption. – "You see, you have a fine choice here, and of a nature pleasing, and not unfamiliar to a classical reader; or you may borrow a hint from the early Dramatic Writers."
Pisistratus, more hopefully. – "Ay! there is something in the Drama akin to the Novel. Now, perhaps, I may catch an idea."
Mr. Caxton. – "For instance, the author of the Curiosities of Literature (from whom, by the way, I am plagiarizing much of the information I bestow upon you) tells us of a Spanish gentleman who wrote a Comedy, by which he intended to serve what he took for Moral Philosophy."
Pisistratus, eagerly. – "Well, sir?"
Mr. Caxton. – "And called it 'The Pain of the Sleep of the World.'"
Pisistratus. – "Very comic, indeed, sir."
Mr. Caxton. – "Grave things were then called Comedies, as old things are now called Novels. Then there are all the titles of early Romance itself at your disposal – 'Theagenes and Chariclea,' or 'The Ass' of Longus, or 'The Golden Ass' of Apuleius, or the titles of Gothic Romance, such as 'The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful History of Perceforest, King of Great Britain.'" – And therewith my father ran over a list of names as long as the Directory, and about as amusing.
