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

"Ah!" Rebekah saw that this was not a practical answer. "But you don't know yet the competition of the East End, and the straits we are put to. It is not as at the West End."

The golden West is ever the Land of Promise. No need to undeceive; let her go on in the belief that the three thousand girls who wait and work about Regent Street and the great shops are everywhere treated generously, and paid above the market-value of their services. I make no doubt, myself, that many a great mercer sits down, when Christmas warms his heart, in his mansion at Finchley, Campden Hill, Fitz John's Avenue, or Stoke Newington, and writes great checks as gifts to the uncomplaining girls who build up his income.

"She would learn soon," said Rebekah, hoping that the money would last out till the ship was fairly launched.

She was not suspicious, but there was something "funny," as Nelly said, in a girl of Miss Kennedy's stamp coming among them. Why did she choose Stepney Green? Surely, Bond Street or Regent Street would be better fitted for a lady of her manners. How would customers be received and orders be taken? By herself, or by this young lady, who would certainly treat the ladies of Stepney with little of that deferential courtesy which they expected of these dressmakers? For, as you may have remarked, the lower you descend, as well as the higher you climb, the more deference do the ladies receive at the hands of their trades-folk. No duchess sweeps into a milliner's showroom with more dignity than her humble sister at Clare Market on a Saturday evening displays when she accepts the invitation of the butcher to "Rally up, ladies," and selects her Sunday piece of beef. The ladies of Stepney and the Mile End Road, thought Rebekah, looked for attentions. Would Miss Kennedy give it to them? If Miss Kennedy herself did not attend to the showroom, what would she do?

On this evening, after they had walked over the whole house, visited the asphalted garden, and looked into the great glass-room, Angela unfolded her plans.

It was in the workroom. She stood at the head of the table, looking about her with an air of pride and anxiety. It was her own design – her own scheme; small as it was, compared with that other vast project, she was anxious about it. It had to succeed; it must succeed.

All its success, she thought, depended upon that sturdy little fanatical seventh-day young person. It was she who was to rule the place and be the practical dressmaker. And now she was to be told.

"Now," said Angela, with some hesitation, "the time has come for an explanation of the way we shall work. First of all, will you, Rebekah, undertake the management and control of the business?"

"I, Miss Kennedy? But what is your department?"

"I will undertake the management of the girls" – she stopped and blushed – " out of their work-time ."

At this extraordinary announcement the two girls looked blankly at their employer.

"You do not quite understand," Angela went on. "Wait a little. Do you consent, Rebekah?"

The girl's eyes flashed and her cheeks became aflame. Then she thought of the sudden promotion of Joseph, and she took confidence. Perhaps she really was equal to the place; perhaps she had actually merited the distinction.

"Very well, then," Miss Kennedy went on, as if it was the most natural thing in the world that a humble workwoman should be suddenly raised to the proud post of manager. "Very well; that is settled. You, Nelly, will try to take care of the workroom when Rebekah is not there. As regards the accounts – "

"I can keep them, too," said Rebekah. "I shall work – on Sundays," she added with a blush.

Miss Kennedy then proceeded to expound her views as regards the management of her establishment.

"The girls will be here at nine," she said.

Rebekah nodded. There could be no objection to that.

"They will work from nine till eleven," Rebekah started. "Yes, I know what I mean. The long hours of sitting and bending the back over the work are just as bad a thing for girls of fifteen or so as could be invented. At eleven, therefore, we shall have, all of us, half an hour's exercise."

Exercise? Exercise in a dressmaker's shop? Was Miss Kennedy in her senses?

"You see that asphalt. Surely some of you can guess what it is for?" She looked at Harry.

"Skittles?" he suggested frivolously.

"No. Lawn tennis. Well! why not?"

"What is lawn tennis?" asked Nelly.

"A game, my dear; and you shall learn it."

"I never play games," said Rebekah. "A serious person has no room in her life for games."

"Then call it exercise, and you will be able to play it without wounding your conscience." This was Harry's remark. "Why not, indeed, Miss Kennedy? The game of lawn tennis, Nelly," he went on to explain, "is greatly in vogue among the bloated aristocracy, as my cousin Dick will tell you. That it should descend to you and me and the likes of us is nothing less than a social revolution."

Nelly smiled, but she only half understood this kind of language. A man who laughed at things, and talked of things as if they were meant to be laughed over, was a creature she had never before met with. My friends, lay this to heart, and ponder. It is not until a certain standard of cultivation is reached that people do laugh at things. They only began in the last century, and then only in a few salons . When all the world laughs, the perfection of humanity will have been reached, and the comedy will have been played out.

"It is a beautiful game," said Angela – meaning lawn tennis, not the comedy of humanity. "It requires a great deal of skill and exercises a vast quantity of muscles; and it costs nothing. Asphalt makes a perfect court, as I know very well." She blushed, because she was thinking of the Newnham courts. "We shall be able to play there whenever it does not rain. When it does, there is the glass-house."

"What are you going to do in the glass-house?" asked Harry; "throw stones at other people's windows? That is said to be very good exercise."

"I am going to set up a gymnasium for the girls."

Rebekah stared, but said nothing. This was revolutionary indeed.

"If they please, the girls can bring their friends; we will have a course of gymnastics as well as a school for lawn tennis. You see, Mr. Goslett, that I have not forgotten what you said once."

"What was that, Miss Kennedy? It is very good of you to remember anything that I have said. Do you mean that I once, accidentally, said a thing worth hearing?"

"Yes: you said that money was not wanted here so much as work. That is what I remembered. If you can afford it, you may work with us, for there is a great deal to do."

"I can afford it for a time."

"We shall work again from half-past eleven until one. Then we shall stop for dinner."

"They bring their own dinner," said Rebekah. "It takes them five minutes to eat it. You will have to give them tea."

"No: I shall give them dinner too. And because growing girls are dainty and sometimes cannot fancy things, I think a good way will be for each of them, even the youngest, to take turns in ordering the dinner and seeing it prepared."

Rebekah groaned. What profits could stand up against such lavish expenditure as this?

"After an hour for dinner we shall go to work again. I have thought a good deal about the afternoon, which is the most tedious part of the day, and I think the best thing will be to have reading aloud."

"Who is to read?" cried Rebekah.

"We shall find somebody or other. Tea at five, and work from six to seven. That is my programme."

"Then, Miss Kennedy," cried her forewoman, "you will be a ruined woman in a year."

"No" – she shook her head with her gracious smile – "no, I hope not. And I think you will find that we shall be very far from ruined. Have a little faith. What do you think, Nelly?"