Walter Besant - All Sorts and Conditions of Men - An Impossible Story

"Trust your daughter with me, Captain Sorensen," Angela replied, with tears in her eyes.

"Everybody round here is poor," he went on. "That makes people hard-hearted; there are too many people in trade, and that makes them mean; they are all trying to undersell each other, and that makes them full of tricks and cheating. They treat the work-girls worst because they cannot stand up for themselves. The long hours, and the bad food, and the poisonous air – think a little of your girls, Miss Kennedy. But you will – you will."

"I will, Captain Sorensen."

"It seems worse to us old sailors," he went on. "We have had a hardish life, but it has been in open air. Old sailors haven't had to cheat and lie for a living. And we haven't been brought up to think of girls turning night into day, and working sixteen hours on end at twopence an hour. It is hard to think of my poor girl – " He stopped and clinched his fist. "Better to starve than to drive such a mill!" He was thinking of the place which he had refused.

"Let us try each other, Nelly," she said, kissing her on the forehead.

The captain took his hat to escort her as far as the gate.

"A quiet place," he said, looking round the little court, "and a happy place for the last days of improvident old men like me. Yet some of us grumble. Forgive my plain speech about the work."

"There is nothing to forgive, indeed, Captain Sorensen. Will you let me call upon you sometimes?"

She gave him her hand. He bowed over it with the courtesy of a captain on his own quarter-deck. When she turned away she saw that a tear was standing in his eyes.

"Father!" cried Nelly, rushing into his arms, "did you ever see anybody like her? Oh! oh! do you think I really shall do for her?"

"You will do your best, my dear. It is a long time, I think, since I have seen and spoken with any one like that. In the old days I have had passengers to Calcutta like her; but none more so, Nelly – no, never one more so."

"You couldn't, father." His daughter wanted no explanation of this mysterious qualification. "You couldn't. She is a lady, father;" she looked up and laughed.

"It's a funny thing for a real lady to open a dressmaker's shop on Stepney Green, isn't it?"

Remark, if you please, that this girl had never once before, in all her life, conversed with a lady; using the word in the prejudiced and narrow sense peculiar to the West End. Yet she discovered instantly the truth. Whence this instinct? It is a world full of strange and wonderful things; the more questions we ask, the more we may; and the more things we consider, the more incomprehensible does the sum of things appear. Inquiring reader, I do not know how Nelly divined that her visitor was a lady.

A dressmaker's shop, without a dressmaker to manage it, would be, Angela considered, in some perplexity, like a ship without a steersman. She therefore waited with some impatience the promised visit of Rebekah Hermitage, whom she was to "get cheap," according to Mr. Bunker, on account of her Sabbatarian views.

She came in the evening, while Angela was walking on the Green with the sprightly cabinet-maker. It was sunset, and Angela had been remarking to her companion, with a sort of irrational surprise, that the phenomena coincident with the close of the day are just as brilliantly colored and lavishly displayed for the squalid East as for the luxurious West. Perhaps, indeed, there are not many places in London where sunset does produce such good effects as at Stepney Green. The narrow strip, so called, in shape resembles too nearly a closed umbrella or a thickish walking-stick; but there are trees in it, and beds of flowers, and seats for those who wish to sit, and walks for those who wish to walk. And the better houses of the Green – Bormalack's was on the west, or dingy side – are on the east, and face the setting sun. They are of a good age, at least a hundred and fifty years old; they are built of a warm red brick, and some have doors ornamented with the old-fashioned shell, and all have an appearance of solid respectability, which makes the rest of Stepney proud of them. Here, in former days, dwelt the aristocracy of the parish; and on this side was the house taken by Angela for her dressmaking institution, the house in which her grandfather was born. The reason why the sunsets are more splendid and the sunrises brighter at Stepney than at the opposite end of London, is, that the sun sets behind the great bank of cloud which forever lies over London town. This lends his departure to the happy dwellers of the East strange and wonderful effects. Now, when he rises, it is naturally in the East, where there is no cloud of smoke to hide the brightness of his face.

The Green this evening was crowded: it is not so fashionable a promenade as Whitechapel Road, but, on the other hand, it possesses the charm of comparative quiet. There is no noise of vehicles, but only the shouting of children, the loud laughter of some gaillard 'prentice, the coy giggle of the young lady to whom he has imparted his last merry jape, the loud whispers of ladies who are exchanging confidences about their complaints and the complaints of their friends, and the musical laugh of girls. The old people had all crept home; the mothers were at home putting their children to bed; the fathers were mostly engaged with the evening pipe, which demands a chair within four walls and a glass of something; the Green was given up to youth; and youth was principally given up to love-making.

"In Arcadia," said Harry, "every nymph is wooed, and every swain – "

He was interrupted by the arrival of his uncle, who pushed his way through the crowd with his usual important bustle, followed by a "young person."

"I looked for you at Mrs. Bormalack's," he said to Angela reproachfully, "and here you are – with this young man, as usual. As if my time was no object to you!"

"Why not with this young man, Mr. Bunker?" asked Angela.

He did not explain his reasons for objecting to her companion, but proceeded to introduce his companion.

"Here she is, Miss Kennedy," he said. "This is Rebekah Hermitage; I've brought her with me to prevent mistakes. You may take her on my recommendation. Nobody in the neighborhood of Stepney wants a better recommendation than mine. One of Bunker's, they say, and they ask no more."

"What a beautiful, what an enviable reputation!" murmured his nephew. "Oh, that I were one of Bunker's!"

Mr. Bunker glared at him, but answered not; never, within his present experience, had he found himself at a loss to give indignation words. On occasion, he had been known to swear "into shudders" the immortal gods who heard him. To swear at this nephew, however, this careless, sniggering youth, who looked and talked like a "swell," would, he felt, be more than useless. The boy would only snigger more. He would have liked knocking him down, but there were obvious reasons why this was not to be seriously contemplated.

He turned to the girl who had come with him.

"Rebekah," he said with condescension, "you may speak up; I told your father I would stand by you, and I will."

"Do not, at least," said Angela, in her stateliest manner, "begin by making Miss Hermitage suppose she will want your support."

She saw before her a girl about two- or three-and-twenty years of age. She was short of stature and sturdy. Her complexion was dark, with black hair and dark eyes, and these were bright. A firm mouth and square chin gave her a pugnacious appearance. In fact, she had been fighting all her life, more desperately even than the other girls about her, because she was heavily handicapped by the awkwardness of her religion.

"Mr. Bunker," said this young person, who certainly did not look as if she wanted any backing up, "tells me you want a forewoman."