A Girl of the People by L. T. Meade (distant reading TXT) 📕

of the crowded pit, and stood leaning against the wall. A dreadfully tired-looking woman touched her arm.

"I've got out, Hetty Wright—he's at the public, and I'm here. Ain't it fine?"

"What have you done with the children?" asked Hester. "Yes, I'm glad you're in for a bit of pleasure, Mrs. Jones."

"See," said Mrs. Jones, pushing aside her shawl with a triumphant smile, "you overlooked her, the crowd's so great, but little Sarah's here. I put the others to bed, and neighbor Bryce will feed Tommy if he cries; but I brought little Sal along o' me. My! ain't she peart with delight? We're both that starved to see a bit of real gentry life, and to hear a good song or two."

Sal was a very minute maiden of eight years of age. Her whole small face was radiant with anticipation, but she could see nothing over the heads of the crowd. Instantly Hester lifted her into her arms.

"Lean on me, Sal," she said, "and look your fill. See, the curtain is up, and the play is going to begin."

It was a new piece and alas! only half prepared. A wretched performance it would have been at its best, badly put on, badly acted—coarse, common, the reverse of all that was lifelike; but, nevertheless, these eager, hungry, expectant people would have been abundantly content with the most extravagant representations if they had only been carried on with the smallest show of life or spirit. The actors, however, who none of them knew their parts, struggled on miserably for a scene or two, and then broke down utterly. It does not cost much to go to a penny theatre, but the people who frequent such places are, of all those in the world, the most anxious to get their money's worth. There was instantly an uproar and a clamor, and the house resounded with hisses, which but for a small incident would quickly have broken into yells.

The incident was this: Just when the piece was wavering to its miserable and final crash, Hester felt some hot, soft tears dripping on her face.

"I don't like it," said little Sal, "And they don't sing. I'm hungry to hear 'em sing—I'm hungry to hear 'em sing just one song."

"Yes, it's a biting disappointment," whispered the mother. "Sal ha' been telling of nothing else all day. She'd give all the world to hear jest a song, and it seems to me as they can't do nothing—not even speak."

Just then the crash came. The curtain was lowered, and the manager, purple in the face, came hastily and eagerly to the front. Little Sal put her head down on Hester's neck and wept bitterly, and then began the hisses and the cries of "Shame!"

"Never mind, Sal—I'll sing to you," whispered Hester. Quick as thought her resolve was taken. She was not the least self-conscious, but she was full of pity for the people. If every child in the room—and there were several—wanted a song as badly as Sal did, she could satisfy the small disappointed hearts.

She pushed her way through the crowd, saying to each who tried to hinder her—

"Let me pass, I'll sing to you; you know I can sing."

Her words were caught up, and cheers for Hester Wright ran through the house from her friends—and most there knew her, and were her friends—long before she reached the wings, and joined the astonished manager, who stood wavering, and in a considerable state of terror, on his deserted stage.

"I'll sing," said Hester, speaking to him eagerly and quickly. "The children are bitterly disappointed, and a song or two will quiet the whole house. Let me; I know how."

The manager was a stranger in the town, and had no acquaintance with the dark-eyed, intense woman who addressed him. The crowd, however, cheered and vociferated. Their ill-humor was changed into the most hearty approval.

"Just like Hetty, bless her," whispered Susan Jakes to her sweetheart. "Just like Hetty," resounded all over the small house. Be the woman mad or not, the manager saw she was popular, and his brow cleared.

"Yes, sing—sing anything," he responded, in a voice of intense relief. "I'll pay you anything in reason—only sing, and keep them quiet. This is an awful minute for me."

"I'll sing for the children, and not for money," said Hester, flashing an angry glance at him; and then her magnificent voice arose, and filled the house.

For some reason, the ballad which she and her cousin had sung together for Bet the night before was still ringing in her head. It rose easily to her lips, and she sang it first, giving point and meaning to the words in a way which took the manager by storm. What would he not give to secure such a treasure as Hester Wright for his house? "Home, sweet Home," came next; and then why she could not tell, perhaps because of a pain which was tugging at her heart, perhaps because of the weary look on some of the faces, and because a whole tide of memories was thronging before her, she chose "The Land o' the Leal." Such words, such melody, had never been heard before in that penny theatre. The women looked wistful, and many of them wept. Hester seemed to sing straight into their very hearts. The men shuffled uneasily, and one or two of them wiped their rough hands across their eyes.

"And oh, we'll all meet
In the Land o' the Leal."

sang Hester, and then her voice died away, and she turned and whispered something to the manager and hastily disappeared.

The men and women went home quietly; tender and long-forgotten feelings had been briefly aroused, and very few who had visited The Cleopatra went near the public-house that night.

"Them was blessed words," whispered little Sal's mother, "and she's a blessed gel. Talk of saints, I call Hester Wright one, though she never preached no sarmon. The 'Land o' the Leal'—why, it's there as our Johnny's gone. Bless her heart! The world ain't quite without comfort, when one thinks of bits of words like them."

CHAPTER VII.

Hester was excited and overwrought; she could not meet any of the crowd, and took refuge in one of the deserted wings, until, as she hoped, every one had dispersed. As she was quietly leaving the wings she was met, much to her annoyance, by the manager. He was a coarse, florid-faced person, but he took off his hat to Hester, as if she had been the finest lady in the land.

"I thank you most heartily," he said. "You have saved me—you have saved the house. Now, what shall I give you? A pound, two pounds? I'll give them to you—yes, gladly; and I'll engage that you come here every night at a fair salary. What's your address, my good girl, and what's your name? You've got a voice to be proud of, and that I will say."

"I told you I would not sing for money," said Hester, angrily. "Good-night, sir. I'm glad I gave the children and the women a bit of pleasure, but my voice ain't to be bought for no money. You ain't the first as has wanted it, but it ain't for you. Good-night, sir. I'm sorry as you think so little of the people what come here. They have hard lives, and they want their bit of pleasure, and you shouldn't take their money, what ain't easy to get, ef you have nothing to show them for it. I sang for the people to-night, not for you. My voice and me, we belong to the poor folk of Liverpool. Good-night, sir-you have nought to thank me for."

She rushed out of the open door, not heeding the manager's outstretched hand, nor the raised tones with which he sought still to detain her. It was late now, nearly eleven o'clock, and the public-houses would be closed in about a quarter of an hour. A miserable old dame stood shivering by one, and looking wistfully into the warm and brilliantly lighted place. She turned her wan and wretched face round when she heard Hester approaching.

"Good-night, Hetty Wright, and may the Virgin bless you!" she called out.

"Good-night, Mrs. Flannigan—why, how white and starved you look! Here's twopence; go in and get a drop of gin."

Hester dropped the coins into the old dame's hand, and hurried quickly through the damp streets.

The wretched woman gazed at them in a kind of petrifaction. Twopence from a girl as poor as herself, and she was to buy gin with the money? Gin! Never before had she been told to go and buy gin. Why, the missionaries, and all the good folks round, said it was the curse of the land. And so it was: had it not brought her to what she was? had it not sent her only son to an untimely grave? Oh, yes—none knew better than mother Flannigan what gin meant—what cursing and what tears, and what misery it had caused; and yet the girl with the white face and the great dark earnest wistful eyes had given her twopence to buy it, and told her to get warm and comforted. Oh, yes, gin was bad, but it was very comforting; she would have her two-pennyworth, and she would go home, and forget her hunger, and sleep comfortably all night. It was really good of that decent, pale-faced girl to give her twopence to spend in gin. She knew her: she was the girl with the voice, the girl about whom some of the neighbors, even in the Irish quarter, raved.

With the memory of Hester's face firmly fixed on her dazed old brain, Mother Flannigan entered the public-house. Then a queer thing happened. By the side of Hester's pure, highly-wrought face arose the picture of another—of a very suffering, thirsty little grandchild, who lay waiting for her on a bed of straw at home. Instantly the desire for gin departed—the old woman purchased instead two-pennyworth of very blue and watery milk, and hurried away to give her grandson a drink.

When Hester reached her lodgings the overwrought mood was still upon her. She lit her fire, however, and put the kettle on to boil. Then, throwing aside her hat and thin black cashmere shawl, she sat down beside her little deal table, placed her elbows on it, and stared hard before her. Just at that moment she was suffering acutely—a tumult of mingled feelings possessed her; she was unsatisfied, and longing for she knew not what. A weaker woman in such a mood would have relieved her overcharged brain with a flood of tears. Instead of crying, Hester sang. For a woman with no religion, and no belief in religion, the queerest words arose to her lips. She had sometimes listened outside the churches to the swelling organs and the music of the choirs; once, when an anthem was being very exquisitely rendered, she had stolen fascinated inside the church porch. Now the words of this anthem came to her lips, and floated on her splendid voice through the dreary little attic room:

"Oh, rest in the Lord; wait patiently for him—patiently for him; and he will give thee thy heart's—thy heart's desire."

There came a knock at the door, and Hester sprang to her feet.

"Come in," she said. And Will Scarlet stepped into the room.

"Why, Hetty, how lovely you are making the night with that voice of yourn. I didn't rightly catch the words nor the air—what were they?"

"Oh, words I picked up, Will. It's a way of mine never to lose either words or air that take my fancy. But what are you doing in my room, Will Scarlet? I thought you'd be miles away on the waves, in the 'Good Queen Anne,' by now."

"And I wish I were, Hetty. But I've a bit of a yarn to spin on that head. May I sit by your fire for a bit and say my say?"

"To be sure, Will. And you shall have a cup of tea with me, I'm just making a brew. I expect I were a bit lonely at the thought of your being so far away, cousin; and I'll say frankly I'm real glad to have you sitting again by my fireside."

Will smiled. His likeness to Hetty was very marked at this moment, more particularly so as on his usually careless and almost boyish face there sat an unusual cloud of perplexity and trouble.

"The fact is, Het-I may as well have it all out at once-I'm in a bit of a taking. I had a talk with Bet Granger last night, and I offered to wed her. I didn't see how she could do better than to give herself to me. I has set my heart on her for years, and I thought it would be a kind of a