the worst of anybody who is not a regular author or authoress trying to write out incidents of their life, or things that they know about which they think will be interesting, is that there is always some interruption or other just as one is getting to the point.
when i was writing my “memoirs” as a servant, of course, it was dreadful, for anybody who knows anything about it knows how little time a servant gets to herself, and when she does have a quiet half-hour to sit still in the kitchen, writing is out of the question, because there is no quiet if you are with other servants; and if you are by yourself there is sure to be plenty for you to do.
how i ever managed to get those “memoirs” done at all will always be a mystery to me; and the more i look back on the difficulties i had to encounter, the more wonderful it seems.
when i began to put down things about our life and adventures in the ‘stretford arms,’ i thought to myself, “now i am my own mistress, i shall be able to have a quiet hour now and then, and to take more trouble with my composition;” but, bless you, i am not sure that i am not worse off, so far as authorship is concerned, now than when i was a servant.
i declare i never get a real quiet hour, for there is always something to be seen to, or somebody wanting to see me; and if it isn’t that, it’s baby or harry.
to tell you the truth, i sometimes think harry is a little jealous of my writing. i don’t mean jealous in a{156} bad sense; but, from one or two remarks he has let drop, he doesn’t like my going and shutting myself away and writing. he says when we have half an hour to spare we might as well spend it together.
of course i am always glad to have a quiet hour with my husband, but it’s no good my trying to write while he’s in the room. he will keep on talking to me, and nothing will stop him; and if he doesn’t speak, i think every minute that he is going to, and that’s worse, for it makes me nervous and fidgety, and the ideas all get mixed up in my head together, and i can’t tell my story straightforward, as i always like to do.
sometimes it is a whole fortnight before i get a chance of writing anything in my book that i keep, and it has been even longer than that.
this is what a real author or authoress never has to put up with. i believe, from what i’ve heard, that they have a beautiful room full of dictionaries for the hard words and the foreign words, and maps hung all round the room, and they sit in it all day long quite quiet, and nobody is allowed to come in and interrupt.
i should think anybody could write like that. it must be very easy, if you’ve got anything in you at all. but it’s very different when you’ve got a house, and an hotel, and servants, and a baby, and a husband to look after, and if you take your eyes off for a minute, something is bound to go wrong.
once or twice while i have been sitting in my own room writing, having given orders that i was not to be disturbed, something has gone wrong, and harry has said, “you were writing your book, i suppose;” and i’ve said, “yes”; and then he’s said, “it’s my opinion, my dear, that if you don’t make haste and finish that book, that book will finish us.”
of course to anybody who hates what they call “pens and ink”—and some people do, like poison—writing seems dreadfully silly and a waste of time; and i’m afraid that harry, with all his good qualities, hasn’t much respect for literature. he certainly hasn’t the slightest idea how difficult it is to write. i once said to him that i believed he thought i could make out a bill with one{157} hand and write my “memoirs” with the other, and talk to a customer at the same time, and all he said was, “why not?”
“why not!” it really made me so cross i could have cried with vexation; for it was just when i had got in rather a muddle with my book about the ‘stretford arms,’ finding that the housemaid had taken a lot of pages that i had written notes on and lighted the fire with them, and i couldn’t for the life of me remember what the notes were.
all i remembered that was on them was some things i had taken down about tom dexter, our odd man, the one whose story i began to tell you when i was interrupted; but what the others were it was weeks before i remembered, and i quite wore myself out trying to think.
if there is one thing that annoys me more than another, it is trying to think of something i particularly want to think of and can’t.
sometimes harry will say, “what was the name of that man, or that woman, or that gentleman, or that lady,” as the case may be; and if i can’t think of it, it worries me all day, and i keep saying, perhaps, dozens of names, and not the right one; and after the house is closed and we’re gone to bed, it keeps me awake, and i keep on saying names over and over till harry gets quite wild, and says, “oh, bother the name! do go to sleep, my dear. i want to be up at six to-morrow morning.”
then i leave off trying to think the name out loud, and i think it to myself, and perhaps, after about an hour’s agony, i suddenly recollect it, and then i’m obliged to get it off my mind by waking harry up and telling it him before i forget it.
it’s bad enough with a name, but it’s worse with a thing. i remember once in service tying a piece of cotton round my finger to remind me to do something that i particularly didn’t want to forget, and i went to bed with the cotton on my finger, and never thought any more about it until the next afternoon, and then i was a whole day trying to remember what i’d tied the cotton round my finger for; and go mad over it i really thought i should, it kept me on such tenter-hooks all the time.
what was in the notes that stupid girl destroyed i{158} don’t suppose i shall ever remember: that is, not anything worth remembering.
the notes about our odd man, of course, i recollected, because they didn’t matter, he being in our service still at the time, and i could get all i wanted about him by talking to him.
when i was interrupted i had told you as far as where he went into the casual ward, with his wife and little girl, and how he came out.
it must have been a dreadful experience for him, poor fellow, seeing that it was not his own fault that the misery and ruin had come to him, after years of hard work.
when he got out of the casual ward, he and his wife and child walked along the streets, and his wife began to cry and to say it was all her fault, and she had brought him to it, and if she was dead he would be a happier man.
he tried to comfort her, and said it was no use talking about being dead. she could make him much happier by living, if she’d only give up the dreadful drink. he said they couldn’t go much lower than they’d got; now was the time to begin to go up again. if he tried and got work, would she keep straight, so that they could get a home together again?
“no; she knew she couldn’t,” she said. “it was no use. if she ever got any money again, she knew the temptation would be too strong for her—she’d tried over and over again to stop herself, and it was no use. she’d go away and leave tom free, and then he might have a chance, and perhaps, some day, it might all come right; but she was sure, if she stopped with him, she would only keep him down as low as he was now, and perhaps bring him to worse, for she might bring him to crime.”
tom didn’t argue any more with her, because it was no use: she was in that weak, low, dreadful state that people are in who have drunk a great deal and then can’t get it. sometimes, in cases i have known of the sort, i’ve thought it would be a mercy, if people with that awful curse upon them, settled themselves quickly, for the sake of their friends and relations and those about them. if they are treated very skilfully when force is used to make them{159} leave off, or if they are kept where they can’t get anything, and taken very great care of, they may, and do sometimes, get cured; but, as a rule, all the trouble and anxiety are of no use, and the dreadful end comes.
i have known such sad cases—most people in our line do know of them—that my heart has bled to think about them. it is such an awful thing—that slow, deliberate suicide by drink, those awful living wrecks, hardly human in their horribleness, that the poor victims of the disease—for it must be a disease—become.
i thought of what i knew while tom dexter was telling me his story, and i quite understood what an awful position it was for a man to be placed in: loving his wife as he did, and she loving him, and it all having come about through her grief at the loss of her boy, made it doubly terrible.
really, it makes you shudder sometimes when you think what awful tragedies there are in some people’s lives; and oh, how thankful we ought to be who live peacefully and happily, and never know the dark and awful side that there is to life!
tom told me that he himself almost gave up when he heard his wife talk like that, and the thought came into his head that it would be much better if they all three went to some nice quiet part of the canal, that was near where they were, and dropped in, and then there would be no more trouble for any of them.
he was thinking that when, as they were walking along, he met an old friend of his that he hadn’t seen for a long time—a man that had worked with him, but had married a widow who kept a public-house, and was now well off.
he saw that things were bad with tom at a glance—he saw it by his face and his clothes, and the clothes of his wife and child; but he was a good fellow, and instead of passing by on the other side, as many would have done, he came up to tom, and took his hand, and said, “hullo, old fellow! i’m sorry to see you under water. what does it mean?”
tom stopped a minute and talked to him, and told him as well as he could without “rounding on his missus,” as{160} he called it, and then his friend said, “well, tom, i’m awfully sorry, old fellow. look here! let me lend you a couple of sovereigns, and you can pay me back as soon as you get a bit straight.”
the tears came into tom’s eyes, and his throat swelled up; but, before he could say anything, his friend had turned off sharp and gone away.
tom showed the sovereigns to his wife, and said, “there, my lass, look at that! there’s a chance for us to make another start. it’s a bit of good luck, and it’s a good omen; it means what the old proverb says, that when things are at the worst they will mend. let us both try; we’ve had a rough lesson, and if we’ve learnt it, perhaps it will be all the better for us for the rest of our lives.”
tom’s wife didn’t say anything, but only turned her head away.
that night he got a bit of a lodging for himself and his wife and his child, and he went to bed full of hope and faith in the future, and he determined the first thing in the morning to get out and look for work.
but when he woke up in the morning his wife was gone. she had got up quietly, while he was fast asleep, and had gone away, and left a bit of a note saying she was sure she should bring him to ruin again, and she didn’t want to do it now he had another chance. for his own sake and the sake of the child it was better he should be rid of her, for she was only a burden and a curse to him. if ever she cured herself, and felt that she could trust herself, she would come back to him; but if she didn’t, it was just as well he should never know what had become of her.
it was an awful letter for poor tom to find just as everything looked so promising, and it dashed his hopes to the ground and made him very miserable.
he told me that when he read that letter he felt so low that the temptation came to him to go out and drink to drown his trouble and black thoughts that came into his mind. then he thought of the little girl—the poor little girl, that had suffered so much already—and he made up his mind that he would do his duty by her, and{161} be father and mother to her both, now her mother had gone away and left her; and he knelt down by her bed-side where she was fast asleep, and made a vow that he would never touch a drop of drink again as long as he lived.
he spent the whole of the first day trying to find some trace of his wife, but it was no good. nobody knew them where they had taken the lodging, and no one had noticed the woman go away. he had a dreadful idea that she would kill herself, and he went to the police-station, and everywhere he could think of for days after that, to find out if anybody had been found in the water; or anything of the sort.
but while he was doing this he looked for work too, and after two days he got taken on for a short time at some works, and, when that job was over, he got another to help in a mews; and then, through somebody that knew him, he got a better place offered him down in the country at a little hotel, but it was one where he would have to sleep on the premises.
by this time he had given up all hope of tracing his wife, for he had been unable to find out anything concerning her, and now he was worried what to do about his little girl. he couldn’t take her into the country, because there would be no home for her, and, besides, there would be nobody to look after her.
but his good luck, which had never failed since those two sovereigns got him out of the difficulty, came to his aid now. he was able to get his little girl into a capital school, where she would be educated and trained for domestic service, and he felt it was the best thing for her to grow up like that under proper control, and with good people; and, though he felt parting with her very much, he was glad to think she would be so well cared for, and get such a good start in life.
when he had said good-bye to his little girl, and taken her to the school, which was a little way out of london, he felt that he was really making a fresh start. he went to his place, and was there till the house was given up as an hotel and turned into something else, and then, with a good character, he went to another place as outdoor man,{162} and it was from this place that harry, who had heard of him when he was inquiring for a trustworthy man, took him, and he came to us.
i didn’t know all his story at first, because he didn’t know it himself then. the most wonderful part of it happened after he was with us.
i knew he must make a good bit of money, because most of the visitors gave him something when they left, as he put their luggage on to the fly if they had one, and if they didn’t he wheeled it up to the station; and as he never drank, and was very careful, and hardly seemed to spend anything, i wondered what he was doing with his money.
but one day he told me that he was putting it all in the bank, and saving it, so that he might have a good home for his little girl when she was old enough to come home; and if she went into service, then it would be for her when he died or when she married.
“and you know, sometimes, ma’am,” he said, “i think that i may hear of my wife again. i often lie awake at night and wonder what’s become of her, and then the thought will come into my head that we may come together again. god’s mercy is very wonderful, and he brings strange things to pass. oh, if i could only find her, and have my home again, as it used to be!”
“poor fellow!” i said to myself; “he will go on thinking that all his life, and it will never happen.”
i thought so much of poor tom dexter and his story that i told harry all about it, and while i was telling him, mr. wilkins was in the parlour. somehow or other mr. wilkins had never taken to tom—he was the only person about the place that hadn’t; but, after all, it was only human nature, because we had taken tom on instead of somebody mr. wilkins wanted to recommend after dashing dick had turned out so dreadfully.
harry said it was a very sad story, and he felt very sorry for tom, and was glad he had got hold of him; but mr. wilkins was nasty, and said, he dare say that it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, for it was generally the husband’s fault if the wife turned out badly.
i defended tom heartily, and mr. wilkins and me had{163} a few words, because he presumes a little sometimes. what put me out was his saying that he thought i’d better not put tom’s story in my book, as very likely it was all a pack of lies. that made me say i knew very well what to put in my book without mr. wilkins’s advice, and one thing led to another, till mr. wilkins put on his hat and coat and went off in a huff; but not before he had been very objectionable about the scotch whiskey, trying to make out it was not as good as usual, and talking about his having noticed that the spirits were of an inferior quality lately.
that put my back up, and i said i was very sorry that our spirits were not good enough for mr. wilkins; but, of course, if we lost his patronage we should try and bear up with christian resignation under the loss.
i know it was very wrong of me to say that, because in our business you must always keep your temper, and try to please customers and not offend them. and mr. wilkins is really an important local man in his way, and might, if he left us and went to the other house, take a few of the local people with him, though i may say without pride, and not wishing to run my neighbours down, that as the other house is quite a common sort of place, and more used by waggoners and labourers, and with only a very common tap-room, that there wouldn’t be any grave danger of mr. wilkins stopping away long, if he did go.
still, it was not my place to be rude to him, and i never should have been, but for his presuming so much about my “memoirs.” it wasn’t the first time he had done it, as i have told you before; though, of course, in his heart he meant no harm. poor old gentleman, it was only his ignorance!
why i have mentioned about my little difference with mr. wilkins is to explain how tom dexter and his story got impressed on his mind. it was through this that one day mr. wilkins came to me with the morning advertiser, which he had borrowed from our coffee-room, in his hand, and he said, “i say, mrs. beckett, just look at this advertisement.”
i took it and read it, and i said, “dear me, i wonder if it’s the same?{164}”
the advertisement was this:—
“thomas dexter, formerly of —— street, london, if alive, is requested to communicate with mrs. lyons, such and such an address, london.”
of course mr. wilkins must have his joke, and say what nonsense to say “if alive,” as if thomas dexter could communicate with anybody if he was dead; but i didn’t take any notice of him, but went straight out to the stables, where tom was at work, and showed him the advertisement.
he stared at it, and said, “that’s me, right enough, ma’am, for that’s the street we used to live in before things went wrong.”
“what does it mean, tom?” i said.
“what does it mean, ma’am?” he said, his face quite bright with happiness; “why, it means that my prayer’s been answered, and that i’m going to hear of my wife again, after all these years.”
“tom, my good fellow,” i said, “i’m sure i hope it is so, and i don’t want to dispirit you, but don’t build on it too much, for fear it should be something else. it might be—well, it might be to tell you——”
i hesitated to say what was in my mind.
“to tell me she’s dead! no, ma’am, it ain’t that, i’m sure of it. it’s to tell me she’s alive and cured, and ready for the home as i’ve been saving up to give her all these years.”
he was so sure, that i didn’t argue with him any more, but i asked him what he was going to do, and he said, “write to the address at once.”
i got him a sheet of paper and an envelope, and i helped him to compose the letter, for i was quite anxious to know the result. it was only to say that tom dexter was at the ‘stretford arms’ hotel.
i told tom to go and post the letter himself, and he did; and all that evening and the next day we were quite excited. i don’t know which was the worst, tom or me. i could see what a state of mind he was in, though he didn’t show it so much outwardly. for the first time he made a mistake with the luggage, and in the morning he got wrong with the boots, having actually taken them from{165} the doors without chalking the numbers on, and a nice state of confusion it was, for our hotel happened to be quite full at the time, there being a grand ball at a mansion in the neighbourhood the night before, and we having had to put up some of the guests, and that, with our other visitors had filled us quite up.
but i forgave him, though mixing the boots is a dreadful thing in an hotel, and has been done sometimes as a trick in a big hotel by young fellows for a lark, and all the bells have been ringing in the morning, and gentlemen swearing, wanting to catch trains, and everybody having the wrong boots.
tom was awfully sorry, and couldn’t think how he could have been so foolish, but i knew; and between us we got the boots right, being able to guess fairly well, some being patents and some lace-ups and heavies, and you can generally tell the patent-leather customers from the others by their general appearance.
all that day i was on tenter-hooks, and i wasn’t right till the next morning, and when the post came in there was a letter for “mr. dexter.” i took it to tom myself, and my heart almost stood still while he opened it.
“tain’t her writing, ma’am, on the envelope,” he said; and his lip trembled as he tore the envelope open clumsily, as people do who don’t often have letters.
he opened it at last and got the letter out, a bit torn in opening the envelope. he looked at it hard a minute; then he dropped it, and his face went blood-red, then deadly white. then he put his hands up over his face, and cried like a child.
“tom,” i said, “my poor tom! tell me, is she——”
“it’s all right, ma’am,” he said. “i’ve expected it; but it took me a bit aback. she’s alive and well, and she’s waiting for me—waiting to show me that she’s the good, loving little woman of the dear old days—waiting for her husband and her daughter, and the home that she’s going to be the light of and the joy of, please god, for all the rest of her life!”
* * * * *
tom dexter and his wife and their little girl—not very little now—are in a happy home. tom left us, and sorry{166} were we to part with him, and he with us; but it was his wife’s wish that they should be together, and she was housekeeper to the lady who had saved her from ruin, and made a new woman of her, and wanted her always to live near her.
after she left tom, she had gone away to drown herself, and had been taken by the police for trying to do so, but had given a false name to the magistrate, and tom had heard nothing about it. a lady was in court, and had promised to look after the poor woman, if she was given up to her, and, after a week’s remand, this was done. tom’s wife didn’t tell the lady she was married, but said she was a widow; and the lady took her to be her servant, and tried to wean her from the drink. she had lost a sister from it, and devoted her life to good work, as some people do who have a great sorrow.
it was hard work, for mrs. dexter fretted about her husband and her lost home now, and the temptation would come, and then, somehow or other, she would get the drink.
but the lady would not turn her away; she was grieved, but she determined to try and try again, and at last a whole year went by and tom’s wife had kept the pledge she had made.
but she then felt, if she was to go back to her husband, and have her liberty, she might break down again.
she was afraid of herself.
she said she would try another year, and she did, and then she felt safe; and one day she told her mistress all her story, and how strong the yearning had come upon her for her husband and her home again.
and then the lady put that advertisement in the paper, and tom and his wife came together again, as he always believed they would, and now there isn’t a happier home in all england.
tom works on the lady’s estate, and is a great favourite with her, and he has a cottage all his own, with roses and a big garden, and only the other day he sent me the loveliest pumpkin of his own growing, and with it was a letter from his wife thanking me for——
{167}
* * * * *
the beer sour! who says so? mr. wilkins? let me taste it. so it is; it’s the thunderstorm. i suppose the whole lot’s gone wrong. harry! harry! where’s your master? up in the billiard-room? good gracious! isn’t that billiard-table fitted up yet? the men have been at it all day!
