The Paper Cap. A Story of Love and Labor

“Stephen need not think himself first,” she instantly decided, “this new girl was watching for the man Stephen put back. A handsome man! He’ll get ahead yet! He’s made that way.”

Then Lady Leyland joined them and De Burg detained her as long as possible, delighting himself with the thought of Harry’s impatience. When they moved forward he explained his motive and laughed a little over it; but Agatha quickly damped his self-congratulation.

“Stephen,” she said, “the young man waiting was not at all uncomfortable. I saw Miss Annis give him her hand and also a look that some men would gladly wait a day for.”

“Why, Gath, I saw nothing of the kind. You are mistaken.”

“You were too much occupied in reciting to her the little speech you had composed for the occasion. You know! I heard you saying it over and over, as you walked about your room last night.”

“What a woman you are! You hear and see everything.”

“That I am not wanted to hear and see, eh?”

“In this house I want you to see and hear all you can. What do you think of the young lady?”

“Why should I think of her at all?”

“For my sake.”

“That plea is worn out.” She smiled as she spoke and then some exigency of the ball separated them.

Miss De Burg was not a pretty woman and yet people generally looked twice at her. She had a cold, washed-out face, a great deal of very pale brown hair and her hair, eyebrows, and eyes were all the same color. There was usually no look in her eyes and her mouth told nothing. It was a firm and silent mouth and if her face had any expression it was one of reserve or endurance. And Katherine in the very flush of her own happy excitement divined some tragedy below this speechless face, and she held Agatha’s hand and looked into her eyes with that sympathy which is one of youth’s kindest moods. This feeling hesitated a moment between the two women; then Agatha surrendered, and took it into her heart and memory.

Now balls are so common and so natural an expression of humanity that they possess both its sameness and its variability. They are all alike and all different, all alike in action, all different in the actors; and the only importance of this ball to Katherine Annis was that it introduced her to the mere physical happiness that flows from fresh and happy youth. In this respect it was perhaps the high tide of her life. The beautiful room, the mellow transfiguring light of wax candles, the gayly gowned company, the intoxicating strains of music, and the delight of her motion to it, the sense of her loveliness, and of the admiration it brought, made her heart beat high and joyfully, and gave to her light steps a living grace no artist ever yet copied. She was queen of that company and took out what lovers she wished with a pretty despotism impossible to describe; but

Joy’s the shyest bird,Mortals ever heard.

And ere anyone had asked “What time is it?” daylight was stealing into the candle light and then there was only the cheerful hurry of cloaking and parting left, and the long-looked-for happiness was over. Yet after all it was a day by itself and the dower of To-morrow can never be weighed by the gauge of Yesterday.

“Right! There is a battle cry in the word. You feel as if you had drawn a sword. A royal word, a conquering word, which if the weakest speak, they straight grow strong.”

CHAPTER VII – IN THE FOURTH WATCH

LADY LEYLAND had ordered breakfast at ten o’clock and at that hour her guests were ready for it. Mistress Temple and Katherine showed no signs of weariness, but Lord Ley-land looked bored and Mistress Annis was silent concerning the squire and his manner of passing the night. Then Leyland said:

“By George! Madam, you are very right to be anxious. The company of ladies always makes me anxious. I will go to my club and read the papers. I feel that delay is no longer possible.”

“Your breakfast, Fred,” cried Katherine, but Fred was as one that heard not, and with a smile and a good-by which included all present, Leyland disappeared, and as his wife smilingly endorsed his

“Love puts out all other cares.”

and anxious but soon voiced her trouble in a wish forget everything else but now if I can be excused apologies, no one made the slightest attempt to detain him. Certainly Mistress Annis looked curiously at her daughter and, when the door was closed, said:

“I wonder at you, Jane – Leyland had not drank his first cup of coffee and as to his breakfast it is still on his plate. It is not good for a man to go to politics fasting.”

“O mother! you need not worry about Fred’s breakfast. He will order one exactly to his mind as soon as he reaches his club and he will be ten times happier with the newspapers than with us.”

Just at this point the squire and his son entered the room together and instantly the social temperature of the place rose.

“I met Leyland running away from you women,” said the squire. “Whatever hev you been doing to him?”

“He wanted to see the papers, father,” said Katherine.

“It was a bit of bad behavior,” said Madam Temple.

“Oh, dear, no,” Jane replied. “Fred is incapable of anything so vulgar. Is he not, father?”

“To be sure he is. No doubt it was a bit of fine feeling for the women present that sent him off. He knew you would want to discuss the affair of last night and also the people mixed up in it and he felt he would be in everybody’s way, and so he was good-natured enough to leave you to the pleasure of describing one another. It was varry agreeable and polite for Fred to do so. I hedn’t sense enough to do the same.”

“Nay, nay, Antony, that isn’t the way to put it. Dick, my dear lad, say a word for me.”

“I could not say a word worthy of you, mother, and now I came to bid you good-by. I am off as quick as possible for Annis. Father had a letter from Mr. Foster this morning. It is best that either father or I go there for a few days and, as father cannot leave London at this crisis, I am going in his place.”

“What is the matter now, Dick?”

“Some trouble with the weavers, I believe.”

“Of course! and more money needed, I suppose.”

“To be sure,” answered the squire, with a shade of temper; “and if needed, Dick will look after it, eh, Dick?”

“Of course Dick will look after it!” added Madam Temple, but her “of course” intimated a very different meaning from her sister-in-law’s. They were two words of hearty sympathy and she emphasized them by pushing a heavy purse across the table. “Take my purse as well as thy father’s, Dick; and if more is wanted, thou can hev it, and welcome. I am Annis mysen and I was born and brought up with the men and women suffering there.”

She spoke with such feeling that her words appeared to warm the room and the squire answered: “Thy word and deed, Josepha, is just like thee, my dear sister!” He clasped her hand as he spoke, and their hands met over the purse lying on the table and both noticed the fact and smiled and nodded their understanding of it. Then the squire with a happy face handed the purse to Dick, telling him to “kiss his mother,” and be off as soon as possible. “Dick,” he said in a voice full of tears – “Dick, my lad, it is hard for hungry men to wait.”

“I will waste no time, father, not a minute,” and with these words he clasped his father’s hand, leaned over and kissed his mother, and with a general good-by he went swiftly on his errand of mercy.

Then Jane said: “Let us go to the parlor. We were an hour later than usual this morning and must make it up if we can.”

“To be sure, Jane,” answered Mistress Temple. “We can talk as well in one room as another. Houses must be kept regular or we shall get into the same muddle as old Sarum – we shall be candidates for dinner and no dinner for us.”

“Well, then, you will all excuse me an hour while I give some orders about household affairs.” The excuse was readily admitted and the squire, his wife, sister and daughter, took up the question which would intrude into every other question whether they wished it or not.

The parlor to which they went looked precisely as if it was glad to see them; it was so bright and cheerful, so warm and sunny, so everything that the English mean by the good word “comfortable.” And as soon as they were seated, Annie asked: “What about The Bill, Antony?”

“Well, dearie, The Bill passed its third reading at seven o’clock this morning.”

“Thou saw it pass, eh, Antony?”

“That I did! Why-a! I wouldn’t hev missed Lord Grey’s final speech for anything. He began it at five o’clock and spoke for an hour and a half – which considering his great age and the long night’s strain was an astonishing thing to do. I was feeling a bit tired mysen.”

“But surely the people took its passing very coldly, Antony.”

“The people aren’t going to shout till they are sure they hev something to shout for. Nobody knows what changes the lords may make in it. They may even throw it out again altogether.”

“They dare not! They dare not for their lives try any more such foolishness,” said Josepha Temple with a passion she hardly restrained. “Just let them try it! The people will not allow that step any more! Let them try it! They will quickly see and feel what will come of such folly.”

“Well, Josepha, what will come of it? What can the people do?”

“Iverything they want to do! Iverything they ought to do! One thing is sure – they will send the foreigners back to where they belong. The very kith and kin of the people now demanding their rights founded, not many generations ago, a glorious Republic of their own, and they gave themsens all the rights they wanted and allays put the man of their choice at the head of it. Do you think our people don’t know what their fathers hev done before them? They know it well. They see for themsens that varry common men can outrank noble men when it comes to intellect and courage. What was it that Scotch plowboy said: —

“A king can mak’ a belted knight,A marquis, duke and a’ that,But an honest man’s aboon his might —

and a God’s mercy it is, for if he tried it, he would waste and spoil the best of materials in the making.”

“All such talk is sheer nonsense, Josepha.”

“It is nothing of the kind. Josepha has seen how such sheer nonsense turns out. I should think thou could remember what happened fifty years ago. People laughed then at the sheer nonsense of thirteen little colonies in the wilds of America trying to make England give them exactly what Englishmen are this very day ready to fight for – representation in parliament. And you need not forget this fact also, that the majority of Englishmen at that day, both in parliament and out of it, backed with all the power they hed these thirteen little colonies. Why, the poor button makers of Sheffield refused to make buttons for the soldiers’ coats, lest these soldiers should be sent to fight Englishmen. It was then all they could do but their children are now two hundred thousand strong, and king and parliament hev to consider them. They hev to do it or to take the consequences, Antony Annis! Your father was hand and purse with that crowd and I knew you would see things as they are sooner or later. For our stock came from a poor, brave villager, who followed King Richard to the Crusades, and won the Annis lands for his courage and fidelity. That is why there is allays a Richard in an Annis household.”

“I believe all you say, Josepha, and our people, the rich and the poor, both believe it. They hev given the government ivery blessed chance to do fairly by them. Now, if it does so, well and good. If it does not do so, the people are full ready to make them do it. I can tell you that.”

“I am so tired of it all,” said Annie wearily. “Why do poor, uneducated men want to meddle with elections for parliament? I can understand and feel with them in their fight about their looms – it means their daily bread; but why should they care about the men who make our laws and that sort of business?”

“I’ll tell thee why. They hev to do it or else go on being poor and ignorant and of no account among men. Our laws are made to please the men who have a vote or a say-so in any election. The laboring men of England hev no vote at all. They can’t say a word about their rights in the country for through the course of centuries the nobles and the rich men hev got all the votes in their awn pockets.”

“Maybe there is something right in that arrangement, Antony. They are better educated.”

“Suppose that argument stood, Annie; still a poor man might like one rich man better than another, and he ought to be able to hev his chance for electing his choice; but that, however, is only the tag-end of the question.”

“Then what is the main end?”

“This: – In the course of centuries, places once of some account hev disappeared, as really as Babylon or Nineveh, and little villages hev grown to be big cities. There is no town of Sarum now, not a vestige, but the Chatham family represent it in parliament to-day or they sell the position or give it away. The member for the borough of Ludgershall is himself the only voter in the borough and he is now in parliament on his awn nomination. Another place has two members and only seven voters; and what do you think a foreigner visiting England would say when told that a green mound without a house on it sent two members to Parliament, or that a certain green park without an inhabitant also sent two members to Parliament? Then suppose him taken to Manchester, Bradford, Sheffield, and other great manufacturing cities, and told they had no representative in Parliament; what do you suppose he would think and say?”

“He would advise them to get a few paper caps among their coronets,” said Josepha.

“And so it goes all over England,” said the squire. “Really, my dears, two-thirds of the House of Commons are composed of the nominees of the nobles and the great landowners. What comes of the poor man’s rights under such circumstances? He hes been robbed of them for centuries; doesn’t tha think, Annie, it is about time he looked after them?”

“I should think it was full time,” Josepha said hotly.

“It is a difficult question,” replied Annie. “It must have many sides that require examination.”

“Whatever is right needs no examination, Annie.”

“Listen, women, I have but told you one-half of the condition. There is another side of it, for if some places hev been growing less and less during the past centuries, other places, once hardly known, have become great cities, like Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, and so forth, and have no representation at all. What do you think of that? Not a soul in parliament to speak for them. Now if men hev to pay taxes they like to know a little bit about their whys and wherefores, eh, women?”

“Did they always want to know, father?” asked Katherine.

“I should say so. It would only be natural, Kitty, but at any rate since the days of King John; and I don’t believe but what the ways of men and the wants of men hev been about the same iver since God made men. They hev allays wanted a king and they hev allays been varry particular about hev-ing some ways and means of making a king do what they want him to do.”

“Suppose the lords pass The Bill but alter it so much that it is not The Bill, what then, father?”

“Well, Kitty, they could do that thing but as your aunt said, they had better not. Nothing but the whole Bill will now satisfy. No! they dare not alter it. Now you can talk over what I hev told you. I must go about my awn business and the first thing I hev to do is to take my wife home. Come, Annie, I am needing thee.”

Annie rose with a happy alacrity. She was glad to go. To be alone with her husband after the past days of society’s patented pleasures was an unspeakable rest and refreshment. They drove to the Clarendon in silent contentment, holding each other’s hand and putting off speech until they could talk without restraint of any kind. And if anyone learned in the expression of the flesh had noticed their hands they would have seen that Annie’s thumb in the clasp was generally the uppermost, a sure sign that she had the strongest will and was made to govern. The corollary of this fact is, that if the clasping thumb in both parties is the right thumb, then complications are most likely to frequently occur.

Indeed Annie did not speak until she had thrown aside her bonnet and cloak and was comfortably seated in the large soft chair she liked best; then she said with an air of perfect satisfaction, “O Antony! It was so kind and thoughtful of thee to come for me. I was afraid there might be some unpleasant to-do before I got away. Josepha was ready for one, longing for one, and Jane hed to make that excuse about getting dinner ready, in order to avoid it. Jane, you know, supports the whole House of Lords, and she goes on about ‘The Constitution of the British Government’ as if it was an inspired document.”

“Well tha knows, Leyland is a Tory from his head to his feet. I doan’t think his mind hes much to do with his opinions. He inherited them from his father, just as he inherited his father’s face and size and money. And a woman hes to think as her husband thinks – if she claims to be a good wife.”

“That idea is an antiquated lie, Antony. A good wife, Antony, thinks not only for herself, she thinks also for her husband.”

“I niver noticed thee making thysen contrary. As I think, thou thinks. Allays that is so.”

“Nay, it is not. There is many a thing different in my mind to what is in thy mind, and thou knows it, too; and there are subjects we neither of us want to talk of because we cannot agree about them. I often thank thee for thy kind self-denial in this matter.”

“I’m sure I doan’t know what thou art so precious civil about. I think of varry little now but the Reform Bill and the poor weavers; and thou thinks with me on both of them subjects. Eh, Joy?”

“To be sure I do – with some sub-differences.”

“I doan’t meddle with what thou calls thy ‘subdifferences.’ I’ll warrant they are innocent as thysen and thy son Dick is a good son and he thinks just as I think on ivery subject. That’s enough, Annie, on sub-differences. Let us hev a bit of a comfortable lunch. Jane’s breakfast was cold and made up of fancy dishes like oysters and chicken minced with mushrooms, and muffins and such miscarriages of eatable dishes. I want some sensible eating at one o’clock and I feel as if it was varry near one now.”

“What shall I order for you?”

“Some kidney soup and cold roast beef and a good pudding, or some Christ Church tartlets, the best vegetables they hev and a bottle of Bass’ best ale or porter, but thou can-hev a cup of sloppy tea if tha fancies it.”

“I think no better of sloppy things than thou does, Antony. I’ll hev a glass of good, pale sherry wine, and the same would be better for thee than anything Bass brews. Bass makes a man stout, and thou art now just the right weight; an ounce more flesh would spoil thy figure and take the spring out of thy step and put more color in thy face and take the music out of thy voice; but please thy dear self about thy eating; perhaps I am a bit selfish about thy good looks, but when a woman gets used to showing herself off with a handsome man she can’t bear to give up that bit of pride.”

“Well, then, Annie dear, whativer pleases thee, pleases me. Send for number five, and order what thou thinks best.”

“Nay, Antony, thou shalt have thy own wish. It is little enough to give thee.”

“It is full and plenty, if thou puts thy wish with it.”

Then Annie happily ordered the kidney soup and cold roast and the particular tarts he liked and the sherry instead of the beer, and the fare pleased both, and they ate it with that smiling cheerfulness which is of all thanksgiving the most acceptable to the Bountiful Giver of all good things. And as they ate they talked of Katherine’s beauty and loving heart and of Dick’s ready obedience and manly respect for his father, and food so seasoned and so cheerfully eaten is the very best banquet that mortals can ever hope to taste in this life.

In the meantime, Dick, urged both by his father’s desire and his own wistful longing to see Faith Foster, lost no time in reaching his home village. He was shocked by its loneliness and silence. He did not meet or see a single man. The women were shut up in their cottages. Their trouble had passed all desire for company and all hope of any immediate assistance. Talking only enervated them and they all had the same miserable tale to tell. It might have been a deserted village but for the musical chime of the church clock and the sight of a few little children sitting listlessly on the doorsteps of the cottages. Hunger had killed in them the instinct of play. “It hurts us to play. It makes the pain come,” said one little lad, as he looked with large suffering eyes into Dick’s face; but never asked from him either pity or help. Yet his very silence was eloquence. No words could have moved to sympathy so strongly as the voiceless appeal of his sad suffering eyes, his thin face, and the patient helplessness of his hopeless quiet. Dick could not bear it. He gave the child some money, and it began to cry softly and to whimper “Mammy! Mammy!” and Dick hurried homeward, rather ashamed of his own emotion, yet full of the tenderest pity.

He found Britton pottering about the stable and his wife Sarah trying with clumsy fingers to fashion a child’s frock. “Oh, Master Dick!” she cried. “Why did tha come back to this unhappy place? I think there is pining and famishing in ivery house and sickness hard following it.”

“I have come, Sarah, to see what can be done to help the trouble.”

“A God’s mercy, sir! We be hard set in Annis village this day.”

“Have you a room ready for me, Sarah? I may be here for a few days.”

“It would be a varry queer thing if I hedn’t a room ready for any of the family, coming in a hurry like. Your awn room is spick and span, sir. And I’ll hev a bit of fire there in ten minutes or thereby, but tha surely will hev summat to eat first.”

“Nothing to eat just yet, Sarah. I shall want a little dinner about five o’clock if you will have it ready.”

“All right, sir. We hev no beef or mutton in t’ house, sir, but I will kill a chicken and make a rice pudding, if that will do.”

“That is all I want.”

Then Dick went to the stables and interviewed Britton, and spoke to every horse in it, and asked Britton to turn them into the paddock for a couple of hours. “They are needing fresh air and a little liberty, Britton,” he said, and as Britton loosened their halters and opened the door that led into the paddock they went out prancing and neighing their gratitude for the favor.

“That little gray mare, sir,” said Britton, “she hes as much sense as a human. She knew first of all of them what was coming, and she knew it was your doing, sir, that’s the reason she nudged up against you and fairly laid her face against yours.”

“Yes, she knew me, Britton. Lucy and I have had many a happy day together.” Then he asked Britton about the cattle and the poultry, and especially about the bulbs and the garden flowers, which had always had more or less the care of Mistress Annis.

These things attended to, he went to his room and dressed himself with what seemed to be some unnecessary care. Dick, however, did not think so. He was going to see Mr. Foster and he might see Faith, and he could not think of himself as wearing clothing travel-soiled in her presence. In an hour, however, he was ready to go to the village, fittingly dressed from head to feet, handsome as handsome Youth can be, and the gleam and glow of a true love in his heart. “It may be – it may be!” he told himself as he walked speedily down the nearest way to the village.

When about half-way there, he met the preacher. “I heard you were here, Mr. Annis,” he said. “Betty Bews told me she saw you pass her cottage.”

“I came in answer to your letter, sir. The Bill is at a great crisis, and my father’s vote on the right side is needed. And I was glad to come, if I can do good in any way.”

“Oh, yes, sir, there are things to do, and words to say that I cannot do or say – and the need is urgent.”

“Then let us go forward. I was shocked by the village as I passed through it. I did not meet a single man. I saw only a few sickly looking women, and some piteous children.”

“The men have gone somewhere four days ago. I suppose they were called by their society. They did not tell me where they were going and I thought it was better not to ask any questions. The women are all sick and despairing, the children suffer all they can bear and live. That is one phase of the trouble; but there is another coming that I thought you would like to be made acquainted with.”