A Girl of the People

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A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE

BY

L. T. MEADE

CHAPTER I.

"You have kept us waiting an age! Come along, Bet, do."

"She ain't going to funk it, surely!"

"No, no, not she,--she's a good 'un, Bet is,--come along, Bet. Joe
Wilkins is waiting for us round the corner, and he says Sam is to be
there, and Jimmy, and Hester Wright: do come along, now."

"Will Hester Wright sing?" suddenly demanded the girl who was being
assailed by all these remarks.

"Yes, tip-top, a new song from one of the music halls in London. Now
then, be you coming or not, Bet?"

"No, no, she's funking it," suddenly called out a dancing little sprite
of a newspaper girl. She came up close to Bet as she spoke, and shook
a dirty hand in her face, and gazed up at her with two mirthful,
teasing, wicked black eyes. "Bet's funking it,--she's a mammy's
girl,--she's tied to her mammy's apron-strings, he-he-he!"

The other girls all joined in the laugh; and Bet, who was standing
stolid and straight in the centre of the group, first flushed angrily,
then turned pale and bit her lips.

"I ain't funking," she said; "nobody can ever say as there's any funk
about me,--there's my share. Good-night."

She tossed a shilling on to the pavement, and before the astonished
girls could intercept her, turned on her heel and marched away.

A mocking laugh or two floated after her on the night air, then the
black-eyed girl picked up the shilling, said Bet was a "good 'un,
though she wor that contrairy," and the whole party set off singing
and shouting, up the narrow street of this particular Liverpool slum.

Bet, when she left her companions, walked quickly in the direction of
the docks; the pallor still continued on her brown cheeks, and a dazed
expression filled her heavy eyes.

"They clinched it when they said I wor a mammy's girl," she muttered.
"There ain't no funk in me, but there was a look about mother this
morning that I couldn't a-bear. No, I ain't a mammy's girl, not I.
There was never nought so good about me, and I have give away my last
shilling,--flung it into the gutter. Well, never mind. I ain't tied
to nobody's apron-strings--no, not I. Wish I wor, wish I wor."

She walked on, not too fast, holding herself very stiff and erect now.
She was a tall girl, made on a large and generous scale, her head was
well set on a pair of shapely shoulders, and her coils of red-brown
hair were twisted tightly round her massive head.

"Bet," said a young lad, as he rushed up the street--"ha-ha, handsome
Bet, give us a kiss, will ye?"

Bet rewarded him with a smart cuff across his face, and marched on,
more defiant than ever.

As she paused at a certain door a sweet-looking girl with a white face,
dressed in the garb of a Sister, came out.

"Ah, Elizabeth, I am glad you have arrived," she said. "I have just
left your mother; she has been crying for you, and--and--she is very
ill indeed."

"Oh, I know that, Sister Mary; let me go upstairs now."

Bet pushed past the girl almost rudely, and ascended the dark rickety
stairs with a light step. Her head was held very far back, and in her
eyes there was a curious mixture of defiance, softness and despair.
Two little boys, with the same reddish-brown hair as hers, were playing
noisily on the fourth landing. They made a rush at Bet when they saw
her, climbed up her like little cats, and half strangled her with their
thin half-naked arms.

"Bet, Bet, I say, mother's awful bad. Bet, speak to Nat; he stole my
marble, he did. Fie on you, Cap'n; you shouldn't have done it."

"I like that!" shouted the ragged boy addressed as "Cap'n." "You took
it from me first, you know you did, Gen'ral."

"If mother's bad, you shouldn't make a noise," said Bet, flinging the
two little boys away, with no particular gentleness. "There, of course
I'll kiss you, Gen'ral--poor little lad. Go down now and play on the
next landing, and keep quiet for the next ten minutes if it's in you."

"Bet," whispered the youngest boy, who was known as "Cap'n," "shall
I tell yer what mother did this morning?"

"No, no; I don't want to hear--go downstairs and keep quiet, _do._"

"Oh, yer'll be in such a steaming rage! She burnt yer book, yer _Jane
Eyre_ as yer wor reading--lor, it were fine--the bit as you read
to the Gen'ral and me, but she said as it wor a hell-fire book, and
she burnt it--I seed her, and so did the Gen'ral--she pushed it between
the bars with the poker. She got up in her night-things to do it, and
then she got back to bed again, and she panted for nearly an hour
after--didn't she, Gen'ral?"

"Yes--yes--come along, come along. Look at Bet! she's going to strike
some 'un--look at her; didn't we say as she'd be in a steaming rage.
Come, Cap'n."

The little boys scuttled downstairs, shouting and tumbling over one
another in their flight. Bet stood perfectly still on the landing. The
boys were right when they said she would be in a rage; her heart beat
heavily, her face was white, and for an instant she pressed her forehead
against the door of her mother's room and clenched her teeth.

The book burnt! the poor book which had given her pleasure, and which
she had saved up her pence to buy--the book which had drawn her out
of herself, and made her forget her wretched surroundings, committed
to the flames--ignominiously destroyed, and called bad names, too.
How dared her mother do it? how dared she? The girls were right when
they said she was tied to apron-strings--she was, she was! But she
would bear it no longer. She would show her mother that she would
submit to no leading--that she, Elizabeth Granger, the handsomest
newspaper girl in Liverpool, was a woman, and her own mistress.

"She oughtn't to have done it," half-groaned Bet "The poor book! And
I'll never know now what's come to Jane and Rochester--I'll never know.
It cuts me to the quick. Mother oughtn't to take pleasure from one
like that, but it's all of a piece. Well, I'll go in and say 'good
night' to her, and then I'll go back to the girls. I'm sorry I've lost
my evening's spree, but I can hear Hester Wright sing, leastways; and
mebbe she'll let me walk home with her."

With one hand Bet brushed something like moisture from her eyes; with
the other she opened the door of her mother's room, and went in. Her
entrance was noisy, and as she stood on the threshold her expression
was defiant. Then all in a second the girl's face changed; a soft,
troubled, hungry look filled her eyes; she glided forward without even
making the boards creak. In Bet's absence the room had undergone a
transformation. A bright fire burned in a carefully polished grate;
in front of the hearth a thick knitted rug was placed; the floor was
tidy, the two or three rickety chairs were in order, the wooden
mantel-piece was free of dust. Over her mother's bed a soft crimson
counterpane was thrown, and her mother, half sitting up, rested her
white face against the snowy pillows. A little table stood near the
bedside, which contained some cordial in a glass. The sick woman's
long thin hands lay outside the crimson counterpane, and her eyes,
dark and wistful, were turned in the direction of the door. Bet went
straight up to the bed: the transformation in the room was nothing to
her; she saw it, and guessed quickly that Sister Mary had done it; but
the look, the changed look on her mother's face, was everything. She
forgot her own wrongs and the burnt book; her heart was filled with
a wild fear, a dreary sense of coming desolation seized her, and
clasping her mother's long thin fingers in her own brown strong hands,
she bent down and whispered in a husky voice,

"Mother--oh, mother!"

The woman looked up and smiled.

"You've come back, Bet?" she said. "Give me a drop of the cordial. I'm
glad you've come back. I thought it might have been the will of Him
who knows best that I should die without seeing of you again,
Elizabeth."

"Oh, no, mother--of course I've come back. I hurried home. I didn't
stay for nobody. How nice the room looks, mother--and the kettle boils.
I'll make you a cup o' tea."

"No, Bet, I don't want it; stoop down, and look at me. Bet, look me
in the eyes--oh, my girl, my girl!"

Bet gazed unflinchingly at her mother. The two faces were somewhat
alike--the same red gleam in the brown eyes, the same touch of red on
the abundant hair; but one face was tired, worn out, and the other was
fresh and full and plump. Both faces had certain lines of hardness,
certain indications of stormy, troublous souls looking through the
eyes, and speaking on the lips.

"I'm going to die, Bet; Fin going back to the good God," panted Mrs.
Granger." he doctor have been, and he says mebbe it'll last till
morning, mebbe not. I'm going back to Him as knows best,--it's a rare
sight of good fortune for me, ain't it?"

"I don't believe you're going to die," said Bet. She spoke harshly,
in an effort to subdue the emotion which was making her tremble all
over. "Doctors are allays a-frightening folks. Have a cup o' tea,
mother?"

"It don't frighten me, Bet," said Mrs. Granger. "I'm going away, and
He's coming to fetch me; I ain't afeard. I never seemed more of a poor
sort of a body than I do to-night, but somehow I ain't afeard. When
He comes He'll be good--I know He'll be good to me."

"Oh, you're ready fast enough, mother," said Bet, with some bitterness.
"No one has less call to talk humble than you, mother. You was allays
all for good, as you calls it."

"I was reg'lar at church, and I did my dooty," answered Mrs. Granger.
"But somehow I feels poor and humble to-night. Mebbe I didn't go the
right way to make you think well on religion, Bet. Mebbe I didn't do
nothing right--only I tried, I tried."

There was a piteous note in the voice, and a quivering of the thin
austere lips, which came to Bet as a revelation. Her own trembling
increased violently; she threw herself down by the bedside and sobs
shook her.

"Mother, mother, it have all been hateful, hateful," she moaned. "And
oh, mother, why did you burn my book?"

There was no answer. The white thin hand rested with a certain tremble
on the girl's thick hair.

"Why did you burn my book, that gave me pleasure, mother?" said Bet,
raising her head, and speaking with her old defiance.

"I thought," began Mrs. Granger,--"mebbe I did wrong,--mebbe I were
too 'ard. Him that knows best will forgive me."

"Oh, mother, mother! I forgive you from the bottom of my heart."

Bet took one of the thin hands, and covered it with passionate kisses.

"I ain't good," she said, "and I don't want to die. It floors me,
mother, how you can be glad to go down into the grave and stay there--
ugh!"

"I ain't going to stay there," replied the dying woman, in a faint
though confident voice.

She was silent then for a few moments, but there was a shining,
satisfied light in her eyes; and her lips opened once or twice, as if
to speak. Bet held one of her hands firmly, and her own eager hungry
eyes never stirred from the dying, tired-out face.

"Bet."

"Yes, mother."

"You'll make me a bit of promise afore I go?"

"A promise, mother?"

"Yes, a promise. Oh, Bet, a promise from you means an awful lot. You
don't break your word. You're as strong as strong,--and if you promise
me this, you'll be splendid--you'll be--give me a drop of the cordial,
child,--you'll be--I have been praying about it all day, I have been
saying, 'Lord, send Bet in gentle-like, and trackable-like, and with
no anger nourished in her heart, and, and,--another sip, child--the
breath's short--I--you'll make me the promise, won't you, child?"

"Oh yes, poor mother, if I can!"

"Yes, you can; and it'll be so splendid. There, I'm stronger, now. Him
as knows has given me the strength. Why, you're me over again, Bet,
but you're twice as grand as me. You're me without my frets, and my
contrariness. Fancy, Bet, what you'd be in this 'ere place ef you made
that promise. Why, strong?--strong 'ud be no word for it! You, with
never your temper let out like a raging lion! There'd be no one as
could stand agen you, Bet. Your father,--why your father 'd give up
the bad ways and the drink. And the little boys,--the little boys,--oh,
Bet, Bet, ef you'd only make the promise it 'ud save them all from
hell-fire."

"I'll do what I can mother. See, you're wasting all your poor breath.
I'll do what I can. You say it all out, and don't tremble so, poor
mother."

"Hold my hands, then, child; look me in the face, say the words after
me--oh, my poor breath, my poor breath--God give me strength just to
say the words. Bet, you hear. Bet, say them after me--'From this moment
out I promise to take up with religion, so help me, Lord God Almighty!'"

The woman said the words eagerly, with sudden and intense fire and
passion; her whole soul was in them--her dying hands hurt the girl
with the firmness of their grip.

"Bet, Bet--you hain't spoke--you hain't spoke!"

"No, no, mother--I can't--not them words--no, mother."

Bet sat down again by the side of the bed; her face was buried in the
crimson counterpane; a dry moan or two escaped her lips.

"I'd do anything for mother--anything now as she's really going away,
but I couldn't take up with religion," she sobbed. "Oh, it's a
mistake--all a mistake, and it ain't meant for one like me. Why,
_I_, if I were religious--why, I'd have to turn into a hypocrite--why,--
I--I'd scorn myself. Yes, mother, what are you saying? Yes, mother, I'd
do anything to make your death-bed easy--anything but this."

Bet had fancied she had heard her mother speaking; the perfect stillness
now alarmed her far more than any words, and she lifted her head with
a start. Mrs. Granger was lying motionless, but she was neither dead
nor had she fainted. Her restless hands were quiet, and her worn-out
face, although it looked deadly pale, was peaceful. Here eyes looked
a little upwards, and in them there was a contented smile. Bet saw the
look, and nothing in all the world could have horrified her more. Her
mother, who thought religion beyond anything else, had just heard her
say that never, never, even to smooth a dying pillow, could she, Bet,
take up with the ways of the religious; and yet her eyes smiled and
she looked content.

"Mother, you don't even care," said Bet, in an anguish of pain and
inconsistency.

"O, yes, child, I care; but I seem to hear Him as knows best saying
'Leave it to me.' I ain't fretting, child; I has come to a place where
no one frets, and you're either all in despair, or you're as still and
calm and happy"--here she broke off abruptly. "Bet, I want yer to be
good to the little boys--to stand atween them and their father, and
not to larn them no bad ways They're wild little chaps, and they take
to the bad as easy as easy; but you can do whatever yer likes with
them. Your father, he don't care for nobody, and he'd do them an ill
turn; but you'll stand atween them and him--d'ye hear, Bet?"

"Yes, mother--I'll make a promise about that, if you like."

"No, no; you never broke your word, and saying it once'll content me."

"Mother," said Bet, suddenly. "Mebbe you'd like the little chaps to
turn religious. As you've allays set such a deal of store on prayers
and sich like, mebbe you'd like it for them?"

"Oh, yes, Bet--oh, my poor gel, has the Lord seen fit to soften yer
hard heart?"

"Look here, mother,"--here the tall, splendidly-made girl stood up,
and throwing back her head, and with the firelight full on her face,
and reflecting a new, strange expression of excitement, she spoke
suddenly: "I can't promise the other, but I'll promise this. The little
boys' lives shall come afore my life--harm shall come to me afore it
touches them; and ef religion can do anything for them, why, they shall
hear of it and choose for themselves. There, I have promised."

CHAPTER II.

MRS. Granger lingered all through that night, but she scarcely said
anything more, and in the cold dawn of the morning her spirit passed
very quietly away. The two little boys opened the room door noisily
at midnight, but they too were impressed, as Bet had been, by the
unusual order and appearance of comfort of the room. Perhaps they were
also startled by the girl's still figure crouching by the bedside, and
by the look on their mother's face as she lay with her eyes closed,
breathing hard and fast. They ceased to talk noisily, and crept over
to a straw mattress on the floor which they shared together. When they
next opened their eyes they were motherless.

Mrs. Granger died between five and six in the morning; and when the
breath had quite left her body Bet arose, stretched herself,--for she
was quite stiff from sitting so long in one position,--and going
downstairs, woke a neighbor who occupied a room on the next floor.

"Mrs. Bennett, my mother is dead; can you take care of the Cap'n and
the Gen'ral this morning? I'll pay you for it when I sell my papers
to-night."

Mrs. Bennett was a wrinkled old woman of about sixty-five. She was
deeply interested in tales of death and calamity, and instantly offered
not only to do what she could for the boys, but to go upstairs and
assist in the laying out of the dead woman.

"No, no; I'll do what's wanted myself," replied Bet; "ef you'll take
the boys I'll bring them down asleep as they are, and I'll be ever so
much obligated. No, don't come upstairs, please. Father'll be in
presently, and then him and me and mother must be alone; for I've a
word to say to father, and no one must hear me."

Bet went back to the room where her mother had died. She was very
tired, and her limbs were stiff and ached badly after the long night's
vigil she had gone through. No particular or overwhelming grief
oppressed her. On the whole, she had loved her mother better than any
other human being; but the time for grief, and the awful sense of not
having her to turn to, had not yet arrived; she was only conscious of
a very solemn promise made, and of an overpowering sense of weariness.
She lay down on the bed beside the dead woman, and fell into a sound
and dreamless slumber.

In about an hour's time noisy steps were heard ascending the stairs.
The littleboys, cuddling close to one another in Mrs. Bennett's bed,
heard them, and clasped each other's hands in alarm; but Bet sound,
very sound, asleep did not know when her father reeled into the room.
He had been out all night--a common practice of his--and he ought to
have been fairly sober now, for the public-houses had been shut for
many hours, but a boon companion had taken him home for a private
carouse. He was more tipsy than he had ever been known to be at that
hour of the morning, and consequently more savage. He entered the room
where his dead wife and his young daughter lay, cursing and
muttering,--a bad man every inch of him--terrible just then in his
savage imbecility.

"Bet," he said, "Bet, get up. Martha, I want my cup of tea. Get it for
me at once--I say, at once! I'm an hour late now for the docks, and
Jim Targent will get my job. I must have my tea,--my head's reeling!
Get up, Martha, or I'll kick you!"

"I'll get you the tea, father," said Bet.

She had risen instantly at the sound of his voice. "Set down in that
chair and keep still; keep still, I say--you'd better."

She pushed him on to a hard wooden chair, shaking him not a little as
she did so.

"There, I'll put the kettle on and make the tea for you--not that I'll
ever do it again--no, never, as long as I live. There, you'd better
set quiet, or not one drop shall pass your lips."

"Why don't the woman get it for me?" growled Granger. "I didn't mean
you to be awoke, Bet. Young gels must have their slumber out. Why don't
the woman see to her duty?"

"She has done her duty, father. You set still, and you shall have the
tea presently."

The man glared at his daughter with his bloodshot eyes. She had been
up all night, and her hair was tossed, and her eyes smarted; but beside
him she looked so fresh, so upright, so brave and strong, that he
himself in some undefinable way felt the contrast, and shrank from
her. He turned his uneasy gaze towards the bed; he would vent his spite
on that weak wife of his--Martha should know what it was to keep a man
with a splitting headache waiting for his tea. He made an effort to
rise, and to approach the bed, but Bet forestalled him.

"Set you there, or you'll drink no tea in this house," she said; and
then, taking a shawl, she threw it over an old clothes-screen, and
placed it between Granger and his dead wife.

The kettle boiled at last, the tea was made strong ang good, and Bet
took a cup to her father. He drained it off at one long draught, and
held out his shaking hand to have the cup refilled. Bet supplied him
with a second draught, then she placed her hand with the air of a
professional nurse on his wrist.

"You're better now, father."

"That I am, gel, and thank you. You're by no means a bad sort, Bet--
worth twenty of her, I can tell you."

"Leave her out of the question, if you please, father, or you'll get
no help from me. You'd like to wash your face, mebbe?"

"Yes, yes, with cold water. Give me your hand, child, and I'll get up."

"Set you still--I'll fetch the water."

She brought it in a tin pail, with a piece of flannel and soap and a
coarse towel.

"Now, wash--wash and make yourself as clean as you can--for you has
got to see summut--leastways you can take the outside dirt away; there,
make yourself clean while I lets the daylight in."

The man washed and laved himself. He was becoming gradually sober, and
Bet's words had a subduing effect; he looked after her with a certain
maudlin admiration, as she drew up the blind, and let the uncertain
daylight into the poor little room. Then she went behind the screen,
and he heard her for a moment or two moving about. He dried his face
and hands and hair and was standing up, looking comparatively fresh
and another man, when she returned to him.

"You're not a bad sort of a gel," he said, attempting to chuck her
under the chin, only she drew away from him. "You know what a man
wants, and you get it for him and don't hurl no ugly words in his face.
Well, I'm off to the docks now. I'll let the old 'ooman sleep on, this
once, and tell her what I think on her, and how much more I set store
by that daughter of hers, tonight."

"You'll let her sleep on, will you?" said Bet.

Her tone was queer and constrained; even her father noticed it.

"She is asleep now; come and look at her; you may wake her if you can."

"No, no, gel; let me get off--Jim Targent will get my berth unless I
look sharp. Let me be, Bet--your mother can sleep her fill this
morning,"

"Come and look at her, father; come--you must."

She took his hand--she was very strong--stronger than him at that
moment, for his legs were not steady, and even now he was scarcely
sober.

"I don't want to see an old 'ooman asleep," he muttered, but he let
the strong hand lead him forward. Bet pushed back the screen, and drew
him close to the bed.

"Wake her if you can," she said, and her eyes blazed into his.

Granger looked. There was no mistaking what he saw.

"My God!" he murmured. "Bet, you shouldn't have done it--you shouldn't
have broke it to me like this!"

He trembled all over.

"Martha dead! Let me get away. I _hate_ dead people."

"Put your hand on her forehead, father. See, she couldn't have got
your tea for you. It were no fault of her'n--you beat her, and you
kicked her, and you made life awful for her; but you couldn't hurt her
this morning; she's above you now, you can't touch her now."

"Let me go, Bet--you're an awful girl--you had no call to give me a
turn like this. No, I won't touch her, and you can't force me. I'm
going out--I won't stay in this room. I'm going down to the docks--I
mustn't lose my work. What do you say--that I shan't go? Where will
you all be if I don't arn your bread for you?"

"Set down there on the side of the bed, father. I'll keep you five
minutes and no more. You needn't be all in a tremble--you needn't be
showing of the white feather. Bless you, she never could hurt you less
than she does now. Set there, and look at her face. I've a word or two
to say, and I can only say it with you looking at her dead face. Then
you can go down to the docks, and stay there for always as far as it
matters to me."

She pushed the man on to the bed. He could see the white, still face
of his dead wife. The tired look had left it; the wrinkles had almost
disappeared. Martha Granger looked twenty years younger than she had
done yesterday.

Around the closed eyelids, around the softly smiling mouth, lay an
awful peace and grandeur. The drunken husband looked at the wife whom
he had abused, whose days he had rendered one long misery, and a lump
arose in his throat; a queer new sensation, which he could not recognize
as either remorse or repentance, filled his breast. He no longer opposed
Bet; he gazed fixedly, with a stricken stare, at the dead woman.

"Speak, gel; say what you have to say," he muttered.

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