The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

“I think Kitty ought to have her own way, father. She has set her heart on Harry Bradley and no one can say a word against Harry.”

“Perhaps not, from thy point of view. Dick, it is a bit hard on a father and mother, when their children, tenderly loved and cared for, turn their backs on such love and go and choose love for themsens, even out of the house of their father’s enemies. I feel it badly, Dick. I do that!” And the squire looked so hopeless and sorrowful, Dick could not bear it. He threw his arm across his father’s shoulder, and their hands met, and a few words were softly said, that brought back the ever ready smile to the squire’s face.

“It is only thy mother,” continued the squire, “that I am anxious about. Kitty and Harry are in the same box as thysen; they will mebbe help thee to talk thy love hunger away. But I wouldn’t say a word to thy aunt. However she takes it she will be apt to overdo hersen. It is only waiting till the Bill is passed and that will soon happen. Then we shall go home, and mother will be too busy getting her home in order, to make as big a worry of Faith, as she would do here, where Jane and thy aunt would do all they could to make the trouble bigger.”

Then Dick went to look for Harry. He could not find him. A clerk at the Club told him he “believed Mr. Bradley had gone to Downham Market in Norfolk,” and Dick fretfully wondered what had taken Harry to Norfolk? And to Downham Market, of all the dull, little towns in that country. Finally, he concluded to go and see Kitty. “She is a wise little soul,” he thought, “and she may have added up mother by this time.” So he went to Lady Leyland’s house and found Kitty and Harry Bradley taking lunch together.

“Mother and Jane are out with Aunt Josepha,” she said, “and Harry has just got back from Norfolk. I was sitting down to my lonely lunch when he came in, so he joined me. It is not much of a lunch. Jane asked me if a mutton patty-pie, and some sweet stuff would do, and I told her she could leave out the mutton pie, if she liked, but she said, ‘Nonsense! someone might come in, who could not live on love and sugar.’ So the pies luckily came up, piping hot, for Harry. Some good little household angel always arranges things, if we trust to them.”

“What took you to Norfolk, Harry? Bird game on the Fens, I suppose?”

“Business, only, took me there. We heard of a man who had some Jacquard looms to sell. I went to see them.”

“I missed you very much. I am in a lot of trouble. Faith and I are engaged, you know.”

“No! I did not know that things had got that far.”

“Yes, they have, and Mr. Foster behaved to us very unkindly at first, but he has seen his fault, and repented. And father was more set and obdurate than I thought he could be, under any circumstances; and I wanted your advice, Harry, and could not find you anywhere.”

“Was it about Faith you wanted me?”

“Of course, I wanted to know what you would do if in my circumstances.”

“Why, Dick, Kitty and I are in a similar case and we have done nothing at all. We are just waiting, until Destiny does for us what we should only do badly, if we tried to move in the matter before the proper time. I should personally think this particular time would not be a fortunate hour for seeking recognition for a marriage regarded as undesirable on either, or both sides. I am sorry you troubled your father just at this time, for I fear he has already a great trouble to face.”

“My father a great trouble to face! What do you mean, Harry? Have you heard anything? Is mother all right? Kitty, what is it?”

“I had heard of nothing wrong when mother and Jane went out to-day. Harry is not ten minutes in the house. We had hardly finished saying good afternoon to each other.”

“I did not intend to say anything to Kitty, as I judged it to be a trouble the squire must bear alone.”

“Oh, no! The squire’s wife and children will bear it with him. Speak out, Harry. Whatever the trouble is, it cannot be beyond our bearing and curing.”

“Well, you see, Dick, the new scheme of boroughs decided on by the Reform Bill will deprive the squire of his seat in Parliament, as Annis borough has been united with Bradley borough, which also takes in Thaxton village. Now if the Bill passes, there will be a general election, and there is a decided move, in that case, to elect my father as representative for the united seats.”

“That is nothing to worry about,” answered Dick with a nonchalant tone and manner. “My dad has represented them for thirty years. I believe grandfather sat for them, even longer. I dare be bound dad will be glad to give his seat to anybody that hes the time to bother with it; it is nothing but trouble and expense.”

“Is that so? I thought it represented both honor and profit,” said Harry.

“Oh, it may do! I do not think father cares a button about what honor and profit it possesses. However, I am going to look after father now, and, Kitty, if the circumstances should in the least be a trouble to father, I shall expect you to stand loyally by your father and the family.” With these words he went away, without further courtesies, unless a proud upward toss of his handsome head could be construed into a parting salute.

A few moments of intense silence followed. Katherine’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes cast down. Harry looked anxiously at her. He expected some word, either of self-dependence, or of loyalty to her pledge of a supreme love for himself; but she made neither, and was – Harry considered – altogether unsatisfactory. At this moment he expected words of loving constancy, or at least some assurance of the stability of her affection. On the contrary, her silence and her cold manner, gave him a heart shock. “Kitty! My darling Kitty! did you hear, did you understand, what Dick said, what he meant?”

“Yes, I both heard and understood.”

“Well then, what was it?”

“He meant, that if my father was hurt, or offended by his removal from his seat in The House, he would make father’s quarrel his own and expect me to do the same.”

“But you would not do such a thing as that?”

“I do not see how I could help it. I love my father. It is beyond words to say how dear he is to me. It would be an impossibility for me to avoid sympathizing with him. Mother and Dick would do the same. Aunt Josepha and even Jane and Ley-land, would make father’s wrong their own; and you must know how Yorkshire families stand together even if the member of it in trouble is unworthy of the least consideration. Remember the Traffords! They were all made poor by Jack, and Jack’s wife, but they would not listen to a word against them. That is our way, you know it. To every Yorkshire man and woman Kindred is Kin, and Love is Love.”

“But they put love before kindred.”

“Perhaps they do, and perhaps they do not. I have never seen anyone put strangers before kindred. I would despise anyone who did such a thing. Yes, indeed, I would!”

“Your father knows how devotedly we love each other, even from our childhood.”

“Well, then, he has always treated our love as a very childish affair. He looks upon me yet, as far too young to even think of marrying. He has been expecting me during this season in London, to meet someone or other by whom I could judge whether my love for you was not a childish imagination. You have known this, Harry, all the time we have been sweethearts. When I was nine, and you were twelve, both father and mother used to laugh at our childish love-making.”

“I wonder if I understand you, Kitty! Are you beginning to break your promise to me?”

“If I wished to break my promise to you, I should not do so in any underhand kind of way. Half-a-dozen clear, strong words would do. I should not understand any other way.”

“I am very miserable. Your look and your attitude frighten me.”

“Harry, I never before saw you act so imprudently and unkindly. No one likes the bringer of ill news. I was expecting a happy hour with you and Dick; and you scarcely allowed Dick to bid me a good afternoon, until you out with your bad news – and there was a real tone of triumph in your voice. I’m sure I don’t wonder that Dick felt angry and astonished.”

“Really, Kitty, I thought it the best opportunity possible to tell you about the proposed new borough. I felt sure, both you and Dick would remember my uncertain, and uncomfortable position, and give me your assurance of my claim. It is a very hard position for me to be in, and I am in no way responsible for it.”

“I do not think your position is any harder than mine and I am as innocent – perhaps a great deal more innocent – of aiding on the situation as you can be.”

“Do you intend to give me up if your father and Dick tell you to do so?”

“That is not the question. I say distinctly, that I consider your hurry to tells the news of your father’s possible substitution in the squire’s parliamentary seat, was impolite and unnecessary just yet, and that your voice and manner were in some unhappy way offensive. I felt them to be so, and I do not take offense without reason.”

“Let me explain.”

“No. I do not wish to hear any more on the subject at present. And I will remind you that the supplanting of Squire Annis is as yet problematic. Was there any necessity for you to rush news which is dependent on the passing of a Bill, that has been loitering in parliament for forty years, and before a general election was certain? It was this hurry and your uncontrollable air of satisfaction, which angered Dick – and myself:” – and with these words, said with a great deal of quiet dignity, she bid Harry “good afternoon” and left the room.

And Harry was dumb with sorrow and amazement. He made no effort to detain her, and when she reached the next floor, she heard the clash of the main door follow his hurrying footsteps. “It is all over! All over!!” she said and then tried to comfort herself, with a hearty fit of crying.

Harry went to his club and thought the circumstance over, but he hastily followed a suggestion, which was actually the most foolish move he could have made – he resolved to go and tell Madam Temple the whole circumstance. He believed that she had a real liking for him and would be glad to put his side of the trouble in its proper light. She had always sympathized with his love for Katherine and he believed that she would see nothing wrong in his gossip about the squire’s position. So he went to Madam at once and found her in her office with her confidential lawyer.

“Well, then?” she asked, in her most authoritative manner, “what brings thee here, in the middle of the day’s business? Hes thou no business in hand? No sweetheart to see? No book or paper to read?”

“I came to you, Madam, for advice; but I see that you are too busy to care for my perplexities.”

“Go into the small parlor and I will come to thee in ten minutes.”

Her voice and manner admitted of no dispute, and Harry – inwardly chafing at his own obedience – went to the small parlor and waited. As yet he could not see any reason for Dick’s and Katherine’s unkind treatment of him. He felt sure Madam Temple would espouse his side of the question, and also persuade Katherine that Dick had been unjustly offended. But his spirits fell the moment she entered the room. The atmosphere of money and the market-place was still around her and she asked sharply – “Whativer is the matter with thee, Harry Bradley? Tell me quickly. I am more than busy to-day, and I hev no time for nonsense.”

“It is more than nonsense, Madam, or I would not trouble you. I only want a little of your good sense to help me out of a mess I have got into with – ”

“With Katherine, I suppose?”

“With Dick also.”

“To be sure. If you offended one, you would naturally offend the other. Make as few words as thou can of the affair.” This order dashed Harry at the beginning of the interview, and Madam’s impassive and finally angry face gave him no help in detailing his grievance. Throughout his complaint she made no remark, no excuse, neither did she offer a word of sympathy. Finally he could no longer continue his tale of wrong, its monotony grew intolerable, even to himself, and he said passionately —

“I see that you have neither sympathy nor counsel to give me, Madam. I am sorry I troubled you.”

“Ay, thou ought to be ashamed as well as sorry. Thou that reckons to know so much and yet cannot see that tha hes been guilty of an almost unpardonable family crime. Thou hed no right to say a word that would offend anyone in the Annis family. The report might be right, or it might be wrong, I know not which; but it was all wrong for thee to clap thy tongue on it. The squire has said nothing to me about thy father taking his place in the House of Commons, and I wouldn’t listen to anyone else, not even thysen. I think the young squire and Katherine treated thee a deal better than thou deserved. After a bit of behavior like thine, it wasn’t likely they would eat another mouthful with thee.”

“The truth, Madam, is – ”

“Even if it hed been ten times the truth, it should hev been a lie to thee. Thou ought to hev felled it, even on the lips speaking it. I think nothing of love and friendship that won’t threep for a friend, right or wrong, for or against, true or untrue. I am varry much disappointed in thee, Mr. Harry Bradley, and the sooner thou leaves me, the better I’ll be pleased.”

“Oh, Madam, you utterly confound me.”

“Thou ought to be confounded and I would be a deal harder on thee if I did not remember that thou hes no family behind thee whose honor – ”

“Madam, I have my father behind me, and a nobler man does not exist. He is any man’s peer. I know no other man fit to liken him to.”

“That’s right. Stand by thy father. And remember that the Annis family hes to stand up for a few centuries of Annis fathers. Go to thy father and bide with him. His advice will suit thee better than mine.”

“I think Dick might have understood me.”

“Dick understood thee well enough. Dick was heart hurt by thy evident pleasure with the news that was like a hot coal in thy mouth. It pleased thee so well thou couldn’t keep it for a fitting hour. Not thou! Thy vanity will make a heart ache for my niece, no doubt she will be worried beyond all by thy behavior, but I’ll warrant she will not go outside her own kith and kin for advice or comfort.”

“Madam, forgive my ignorance. I ask you that much.”

“Well, that is a different thing. I can forgive thee, where I couldn’t help thee – not for my life. But thou ought to suffer for such a bit of falsity, and I hope thou wilt suffer. I do that! Now I can’t stay with thee any longer, but I do wish thou hed proved thysen more right-hearted, and less set up with a probability. In plain truth, that is so. And I’ll tell the one sure thing – if thou hopes to live in Yorkshire, stand by Yorkshire ways, and be leal and loyal to thy friends, rich or poor.”

“I hope, Madam, to be leal and loyal to all men.”

“That is just a bit of general overdoing. It was a sharp wisdom in Jesus Christ, when he told us not to love all humanity, but to love our neighbor. He knew that was about all we could manage. It is above what I can manage this afternoon, so I’ll take my leave of thee.”

Harry left the house almost stupefied by the storm of anger his vanity and his pride in his father’s probable honor, had caused him. But when he reached his room in The Yorkshire Club and had closed the door on all outside influences, a clear revelation came to him, and he audibly expressed it as he walked angrily about the floor: —

“I hate that pompous old squire! He never really liked me – thought I was not good enough for his daughter – and I’ll be glad if he hes to sit a bit lower – and I’m right glad father is going a bit higher. Father is full fit for it. So he is! but oh, Katherine! Oh, Kitty! Kitty! What shall I do without you?”

In the meantime, Dick had decided that he would say nothing about the squire’s probable rival for the new borough, until the speech to be made that evening had been delivered. It might cause him to say something premature and unadvised. When he came to this conclusion he was suddenly aware that he had left his lunch almost untouched on his sister’s table, and that he was naturally hungry.

“No wonder I feel out of sorts!” he thought. “I will go to The Yorkshire and have a decent lunch. Kitty might have known better than offer me anything out of a patty-pan. I’ll go and get some proper eating and then I’ll maybe have some sensible thinking.”

He put this purpose into action at once by going to The Yorkshire Club and ordering a beefsteak with fresh shalots, a glass of port wine, and bread and cheese, and having eaten a satisfying meal, he went to his room and wrote a long letter to Faith, illustrating it with his own suspicions and reflections. This letter he felt to be a very clever move. He told himself that Faith would relate the story to her father and that Mr. Foster would say and do the proper thing much more wisely and effectively than anyone else could.

He did not know the exact hour at which his father was to meet some of the weavers and workers of Annis locality, but he thought if he reached the rendezvous about nine o’clock he would be in time to hear any discussion there might be, and walk to the Clarendon with his father after it. This surmise proved correct, for as he reached the designated place, he saw the crowd, and heard his father speaking to it. Another voice appeared to be interrupting him.

Dick listened a moment, and then ejaculated, “Yes! Yes! That is father sure enough! He is bound to have a threep with somebody.” Then he walked quicker, and soon came in sight of the crowd of men surrounding the speaker, who stood well above them, on the highest step of a granite stairway leading into a large building.

Now Dick knew well that his father was a very handsome man, but he thought he had never before noticed it so clearly, for at this hour Antony Annis was something more than a handsome man – he was an inspired orator. His large, beautiful countenance was beaming and glowing with life and intellect; but it was also firm as steel, for he had a clear purpose before him, and he looked like a drawn sword. The faces of the crowd were lifted to him – roughly-sketched, powerful faces, with well-lifted foreheads, and thick brown hair, crowned in nearly every case with labor’s square, uncompromising, upright paper cap.

The squire had turned a little to the right, and was addressing an Annis weaver called Jonas Shuttleworth. “Jonas Shuttleworth!” he cried, “does tha know what thou art saying? How dare tha talk in this nineteenth century of Englishmen fighting Englishmen? They can only do that thing at the instigation of the devil. Why-a! thou might as well talk of fighting thy father and mother! As for going back to old ways, and old times, none of us can do it, and if we could do it, we should be far from suited with the result. You hev all of you now seen the power loom at work; would you really like the old cumbrous hand-loom in your homes again? You know well you wouldn’t stand it. A time is close at hand when we shall all of us hev to cut loose from our base. I know that. I shall hev to do it. You will hev to do it. Ivery man that hes any forthput in him will hev to do it. Those who won’t do it must be left behind, sticking in the mud made by the general stir up.”

“That would be hard lines, squire.”

“Not if you all take it like ‘Mr. Content’ at your new loom. For I tell you the even down truth, when I say – You, and your ways, and your likings, will all hev to be born over again! Most of you here are Methodists and you know what that means. The things you like best you’ll hev to give them up and learn to be glad and to fashion yoursens to ways and works, which just now you put under your feet and out of your consideration.”

“Your straight meaning, squire? We want to understand thee.”

“Well and good! I mean this – You hev allays been ‘slow and sure’; in the new times just here, you’ll hev to be ‘up and doing,’ for you will find it a big hurry-push to keep step with your new work-fellows, steam and machinery.”

“That is more than a man can do, squire.”

“No, it is not! A man can do anything he thinks it worth his while to do.”

“The London Times, sir, said yesterday that it would take all of another generation.”

“It will do nothing of the kind, Sam Yates. What-iver has thou to do with the newspapers? Newspapers! Don’t thee mind them! Their advice is meant to be read, not taken.”

“Labor, squire, hes its rights – ”

“To be sure, labor also hes its duties. It isn’t much we hear about the latter.”

“Rights and duties, squire. The Reform Bill happens to be both. When is The Bill to be settled?”

“Nothing is settled, Sam, until it is settled right.”

“Lord Brougham, in a speech at Manchester, told us he would see it settled this session.”

“Lord Brougham thinks in impossibilities. He would make a contract with Parliament to govern England, or even Ireland. Let me tell thee all government is a thing of necessity, not of choice. England will not for any Bill dig under her foundations. Like Time, she destroys even great wrongs slowly. Her improvements hev to grow and sometimes they take a good while about it. You hev been crying for this Bill for forty years, you were not ready for it then. Few of you at that time hed any education. Now, many of your men can read and a lesser number write. Such men as Grey, Russell, Brougham and others hev led and taught you, and there’s no denying that you hev been varry apt scholars. Take your improvements easily, Sam. You won’t make any real progress by going over precipices.”

“Well, sir, we at least hev truth on our side.”

“Truth can only be on one side, Sam, I’m well pleased if you hev it.”

“All right, squire, but I can tell you this – if Parliament doesn’t help us varry soon now we will help oursens.”

“That is what you ought to be doing right now. Get agate, men! Go to your new loom, and make yersens masters of it. I will promise you in that case, that your new life will be, on the whole, better than the old one. As for going back to the old life, you can’t do it. Not for your immortal souls! Time never runs back to fetch any age of gold; and as for making a living in the old way and with the old hand loom, you may as well sow corn in the sea, and hope to reap it.”

“Squire, I want to get out of a country where its rulers can stop minding its desperate poverty, and can forget that it is on the edge of rebellion, and in the grip of some death they call cholera, and go home for their Easter holiday, quite satisfied with themsens. We want another Oliver Cromwell.”

“No, we don’t either. The world won’t be ready for another Cromwell, not for a thousand years maybe. Such men are only born at the rate of one in a millennium.”

“What’s a millennium, squire?”

“A thousand years, lad.”

“There wer’ men of the right kind in Cromwell’s day to stand by him.”

“Our fathers were neither better nor worse than oursens, Sam, just about thy measure, and my measure.”

“I doan’t know, sir. They fought King and Parliament, and got all they wanted. Then they went over seas and founded a big republic, and all hes gone well with them – and we could do the same.”

“Well, then, you hev been doing something like the same thing iver since Cromwell lived. Your people are busy at the same trade now. The English army is made up of working men. They are usually thrown in ivery part of the world, taking a sea port, or a state, or a few fertile islands that are lying loose and uncivilized in the southern seas. They do this for the glory and profit of England and in such ways they hev made pagans live like Christians, and taught people to obey the just laws of England, that hed niver before obeyed a decent law of any kind.”

“They don’t get for their work what Cromwell’s men got.”

“They don’t deserve it. Your mark can’t touch Cromwell’s mark; it was far above your reach. Your object is mainly a selfish one. You want more money, more power, and you want to do less work than you iver did. Cromwell’s men wanted one thing first and chiefly – the liberty to worship God according to their conscience. They got what they wanted for their day and generation, and before they settled in America, they made a broad path ready for John Wesley. Yes, indeed, Oliver Cromwell made John Wesley possible. Now, when you go to the wonderful new loom that hes been invented for you, and work it cheerfully, you’ll get your Bill, and all other things reasonable that you want.”