Collected works of j s f.., p.25
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 25
We inserted the advertisement, as in duty bound, in the Friday’s paper, and next morning had several hundred letters in answer thereto. Alas, for our modern state of society, when young women are glad to go into slavery for a miserable weekly wage of half-a-sovereign! Ten hours a day of unhealthy toil in a close shop for as many shillings per week!
It was impossible for Tom Christmas and myself, whom Mr. Spivey had appointed judges in this important matter, to see all the candidates for the vacant offices, and we accordingly spent a busy day that Saturday in opening and reading the tremendous pile of applications, putting all envelopes aside which gave evidence of bad or slovenly handwriting.
“There’s a pretty ‘fist,’ Tom,” I remarked, showing him a square envelope ornamented by a neat Italian style of caligraphy. “I should say that the girl who wrote this is a lady.”
He took it from me and looked at it musingly.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s a much better style than most of these young females indulge in. We must lay that aside, Len. Ah, there’s a portrait in here.”
“Out with it,” I said. “I wish we had told them all to send their portraits. What a collection we should have had!”
Tom cut the envelope open and slowly drew forward the photograph. I bent over and looked at it as he held it in his hands. It was just a small carte-de-visite size and showed the head and bust. A pretty girl, with just a trace of sadness about the corners of the mouth, and yet with dimples in her cheeks which showed that there was some fun somewhere in her disposition, and that she would like to laugh and sing if only the exigencies of life would admit of it.
“That’s a pretty girl,” I said, critically regarding the portrait. “She looks good and sensible, too. I think she would meet Spivey’s definition. Nice, respectable, well - educated, Christian young woman. Put it aside, Tom.”
“Let us see the letter while we are about it,” he answered. “It is a nice style of handwriting, too, and would look well for our invoices.”
“Or in a billet-doux, Tom Christmas.”
“Bah! Let us see what this young lady says.”
They are much of a muchness, the letters which any employer of labour receives whenever he advertises for a female clerk. There is generally something about having been reduced in circumstances, attending school with the Misses Slogo, daughters of Sir Pomponius Slogo, twice Lord Mayor, and being remarkably proficient in all and every branch of arithmetic. There is also, generally, about six mistakes in spelling and half-a-dozen grammatical errors; and there is sure to be a postscript.
The letter which Tom Christmas was unfolding, however, bore none of these time-borrowed characteristics. It was well-written, the writer conveyed her meaning clearly and concisely, and had evidently remembered that hers would not be the only letter which we should receive.
“What’s her name?” I said, trying to read the signature. “Margaret Primrose, eh? Um, that’s a pretty name, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Sweet Maggie Primrose,” he answered, looking dreamily at the letter. “What a capital title for a novel or a poem. A little ballad, you know, with a L’Envoi and a head-piece with two Cupids and some hieroglyphics scrawled about it.
Sweet Maggie Primrose went one day
Into the meadows a-making hay.
Fair was the land and fair the sea;
But nothing was half so fair as she!
Does ‘she’ and ‘sea’ rhyme, Len? Lord, it is so long since I tagged rhymes together that I forget. Lie there, sweet Maggie Primrose’s letter, and take thy chance. See, Len, Maggie Primrose is a neighbour of ours. She resides in that busy thoroughfare yclept the High Street.”
“Then she is the Primrose of Islington,” I replied.— “And some day ruthless man will come by and pluck this primrose and cast it from him to die on the river’s brim.”
“And what may that mean, unrazored philosopher, or, as I ought to say, seeing that some folk never do shave, beardless boy?”
“It means,” I said, “that it is a poor look-out for anybody who wants to become a clerk on ten shillings a week, and that an oak-tree would stand the storm better than a primrose.”
And that suggested to him certain thoughts about the Position of Women, and from that he got to lecturing me on Social Science; and we forgot Maggie Primrose and only remembered her again when we had waded through the many hundred letters and selected two dozen applications.
“Len,” said Tom, “these young ladies must come here on Monday, and out of the two dozen we must select twelve from whom Spivey must make his choice. It sounds something like the jargon of the slave-market, this, does it not? We can’t help it, however. I am afraid Spivey will not regard the feelings of these young women so tenderly as we shall. Now, one thing is certain — they must not all call at the same time. Get four-and-twenty post-cards, Len. — Now, write.— ‘Miss Matilda Smith — Dear Madam, will you please call here at nine o’clock sharp’ — underline sharp, Len—’ on Monday morning, and oblige, yours faithfully, Joseph Spivey.’ ‘Miss Mary Ann Jones’ — ditto, except that you’ll say a quarter-past nine. ‘Miss Emily Harriett Spooner’ — ditto, and halfpast nine. ‘Miss Deborah Robinson’ — ditto, and a quarter to ten. ‘Miss’ — ah, here’s sweet Maggie Primrose. Ten o’clock, Len. Why don’t they all have names like that?”
“What was the barmaid’s name, Tom Christmas?”
“The barmaid’s name, Len? It was, I think, Ruby, or perhaps it was Pearlie, or possibly it was Tottie. But in reality it was Elizabeth Brown — a good name enough, but not poetic.”
I dare say we did not think much about Maggie Primrose between then and Monday morning; but when we had seen and dismissed four applicants and the clock began to strike ten, we remembered that she came next on the list and looked for her coming with much interest. She was punctual to the minute, and seemed somewhat surprised to find two young gentlemen waiting to catechise her. My part indeed was to sit by and hear Tom talk, and vastly was I amused by the paternal fashion in which he drew his candidates out. Not one of them came who did not tell him all her little troubles.
Miss Primrose’s story was a very short one. She was an orphan; she had no relations and few friends, and she wished to earn her living. She was at present engaged in a large millinery establishment in the City; but the hours there were from eight till seven, and she would like lighter work. She was dressed neatly, she spoke well, was prettier than her portrait, and would have been very pretty if she had had a little country air to put some colour in her pale cheeks. Tom told her to call next day and hear Mr. Spivey’s decision, and led her out himself. He had not been so attentive to the other four, three of whom had proved to be forward cockney hussies with horrible pronunciation of a’s and o’s and remarkably knowing manners, while the fourth turned up her nose on seeing the establishment and said it wouldn’t suit her.
It was with a feeling of deep thankfulness that we heard the door close on the last of the twenty-four. We had reduced them to twelve, and the successful dozen were to attend at various hours next day in order to see the great Panjandrum himself.
“I hope Spivey will select the Primrose of Islington, Tom Christmas,” I said as we walked home that night.
“So do I, Len, so do I. She is a nice, quiet, modest girl. But Spivey won’t engage her.”
“And why?”
“Because there are two girls coming who have had some previous experience in a publisher’s office, and who would therefore be more useful. If they had not come in the way, Maggie might have got the post. I had thoughts of rejecting them; but I remembered my duty to the good, the generous, the honourable Spivey, and didn’t.”
“I hope you are wrong, then, Tom Christmas.”
But he was right. For Mr. Spivey, on seeing and listening to the two previously-experienced damsels, immediately engaged them, though for some reason or other he insisted on seeing the other ten applicants personally. Perhaps he thought that we were too young to break the bad news, and preferred, being a joined believer, to do it himself. Or perhaps he wished to see what the state of the Female Labour Market was, just as the traveller wishes to see what the slave-market is like at Constantinople.
“I am sorry you have not been successful,” said Tom Christmas when Maggie Primrose emerged from Mr. Spivey’s door. And she smiled and thanked him, and Tom again opened the door for her, all oblivious of the fact that he was attired in a most awfully dilapidated office-coat and certainly not much of an object for any lady’s admiration.
Alas! Poor Tom Christmas had fallen in love.
CHAPTER V.
ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED.
MR. SPIVEY’S EXPERIMENT in female labour was not successful, for the two previously-experienced young women whom he engaged did not turn out such paragons as he expected. They were not one half so careful as even Denton and Jones in reckoning up figures, they took offence if any one in authority ventured to correct them, and upon one celebrated occasion indulged in a grand cry because Mr. Spivey reproved them in the presence of the office-boy. Wherefore they left, and on the following Monday morning Messrs. Jones and Denton, who had often put their heads through the door and asked when they were to come back, were reinstated in their old positions, and everything went on as in former times.
“That female labour experiment was not a success, Christmas,” said Mr. Spivey; “I feared it would not be. However, it’s not done us any harm, and I really think Jones and Denton are improved by their temporary suspension.”
I was not so sure as Mr. Spivey about the amount of harm caused by his experiment in female labour. The experiment had brought Maggie Primrose to our office, and Tom Christinas had fallen in love with her.
I don’t know how it was that I first found it out. I believe I had suspected it all along from the time when the little milliner’s assistant, with her pale, pretty face and ladylike manners, had come to the office and found Tom Christmas very polite, in spite of his old coat and baggy trousers. After Mr. Spivey had made his final selection it was some time before we saw Miss Primrose again; but we often used to talk about her, and wonder if she was still pegging away at the great millinery establishment in the City. And then, one morning, chancing to go to our office by way of Aldersgate instead of through Smithfield, we saw her tripping along with the melancholy crowd of human beings who go every morning into the City to earn their daily bread.
“Look, Tom,” I said, “there’s the Primrose over on the other side. Poor little Primrose, she looks paler than ever.”
He looked across, and I think he blushed, or, at any rate, his cheek put on a little more colour, and his eyes brightened.
“Poor girl,” he said, “I dare say she has to work very hard. I suppose she comes this way to the millinery place every morning. I wonder if she would mind it, supposing we stepped over the way and said good-morning?”
“I don’t think she would, Tom Christmas. But why do you desire to waste two minutes in making your way across a crowded street, in order to say good-morning to a young lady?”
“I — I don’t know, Len. But, you see, the Primrose told us she had no father or mother, and I think no friends. Perhaps there is no one to say good-morning to her.”
“Which do you think is the nearest way from our place to the City, Tom Christmas?” I asked. “You see the Primrose comes this way, whereas we go by way of Smithfield generally. I almost think this is the nearest, and I am sure it is more savoury than the other. There are so many visions of bloody carcases in Smithfield, and I never can help thinking that they may be cutting off arms and legs in St. Bartholomew’s while the other butchers are cutting off shoulders and loins in the Meat Market.”
“I don’t think there is much difference in the distance,” he said, still keeping his eye on the neat figure of the Primrose before us; “but we can change our route if you like, Len.”
“I thought, perhaps, that you might like to walk down with the Primrose of Islington, Tom. She has no one to talk to her, and it might cheer her up a little if you took pity on her.”
“I do pity her, Len. I know so much of life’s struggles that I pity any girl who has to keep body and soul together in this wilderness on ten shillings a week.”
As it turned out we were fated to meet Maggie Primrose again that very evening. Walking home at night we passed her in the High Street, and raised our hats, receiving a smile from her in acknowledgment.
“I believe,” said Tom, when we had passed on, “that I have never lifted my hat to a lady for six years. Lord! what a clown I must be! Do I look very ancient and rusty, Len?”
“You look like a small country tradesman, Tom. Your coat does not fit, and your trousers bag at the knees, and are moreover braced up too tightly. The next thing, though, will be that you will lay out five pounds in a grand new suit and go swelling it in Regent Street.”
“I think not” said Tom. “Julia wants a new bonnet and it is really time the dear old marm had a new dress. I wonder what particular form of head-gear Julia will want this time. Something suitable for a joined believer, of course.”
“Do believers ever become joined in any other sense?”
“I suppose they do, Len. But why?”
“Oh, nothing. I was only thinking it would be a jolly good thing if Julia would get joined to Dumbury.”
“Julia marry Dumbury! My dear man, who would keep house for us?”
“Why, the Primrose to be sure, Tom Christmas. And a nice, tidy little housekeeper she would make, I’ll be bound. A pudding prepared by her dainty hands would taste twice as sweet. And, I say, Tom, she would let us smoke downstairs. Oh, let us go and ask Dumbury if it is good for man to live alone?
“And who would ask the Primrose?”
“That would be your business. Confess, now, are you not in love with her, Tom the susceptible?”
“She is a very nice girl,” he said, and would say no more.
A few days after that we came across the Primrose of Islington again. She was walking down the High Street, and so were we. We shook hands with her and walked on together to the City. I think it was Tom Christmas who did the talking. He put questions to her in his nice, quiet, semi-paternal fashion, and she answered them like a child. Was she still employed at Messrs. Snipper and Cuttem’s? She was. He was sorry she did not succeed in obtaining the situation at Mr. Spivey’s. So was she, as she thought the work would not have been so hard. At Messrs. Snipper and Cuttem’s, now, it was very hard, as she had to stand all day long. What, all day long? It was abominable, said Tom, and asked me if I had ever heard of such a scandalous thing. Upon which I said that I never had, and expressed a hope that Messrs. Snipper and Cuttem might some day experience something of the sort themselves. And from that we got to other subjects and chatted cheerily all the way to the General Post Office, where Miss Primrose went one way and we another.
After that it soon became a recognised thing that we should all walk to the City together every morning and home at night into the bargain. — A wondrous fellow feeling exists between young men and women employed in business houses, and it was perhaps this feeling of camaraderie which made us all so friendly. This feeling was deepened when we found that the Primrose’s father had been, like our own paternal parents, a country parson. She never told us, at least in those days, how it was that she came to live alone in London, forced to work so hard for so miserable a pittance. But sometimes as we walked home of an evening, Tom Christmas used to say how grand things would be looking in his native Devon, and I used to swear that Yorkshire was a more beautiful county; and then Maggie Primrose’s brown eyes would grow tender with some memory of better times, and she would tell us about the little seaside village where her father had lived and died.
I knew Tom Christmas would fall in love with her. I could see it from the first. I could see it in his eyes when he first caught sight of her in the spring mornings tripping along to that beastly millinery place; I could see it in the way he held her hand as he bade her goodnight. I also noticed that he took some slight pains to make himself more presentable, brushing his clothes carefully, and tying his cravat in the latest and most approved fashion, although he did not go to the length of purchasing new garments, as I had foretold. And I was certain of it when he took me upstairs with him one night after tea, and, having locked the study door, showed me, with an air of great mystery and deliberation, a handsome brass photo-frame from which looked forth the counterfeit of the Primrose. He set this up on his desk and looked at me in triumph.
“I knew how it would be, Tom Christmas,” I said, dolefully, for I really felt sad. “I warned you, I prophesied unto you, and you laughed me to scorn. And now I shall have to walk to and from the City by myself.”
He smiled and gave my arm a stalwart grip — a habit he had whenever he wished to show his affection or friendship — and answered that that would never be while ever he, Thomas Christmas, had legs wherewith to walk and tongue wherewith to converse.
“But seriously, Tom, have you been and gone and confessed to Miss Primrose that you love her, and would die for her, and all that sort of thing?”
“Not much of that sort of thing, Len. But I have asked her to marry me some day, and she has promised.”
“Hooray!” I said, and seized Tom Christmas’s hand and shook it till my own was tired. “I am as glad, Tom, as if it were I who had been accepted. I say, though, have you told Miss Julia?”
