A Life's Secret: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Daffodil's Delight was in all the glory of the lock-out. The men, having nothing to do, improved their time by enjoying themselves; they stood about the street, or lounged at their doors, smoking their short pipes and quaffing draughts of beer. Let money run ever so short, you will generally see that the beer and the pipes can be found. As yet, the evils of being out of work were not felt; for weekly pay, sufficient for support, was supplied them by the Union Committee. The men were in high spirits—in that sort of mood implied by the words 'Never say die,' which phrase was often in their mouths. They expressed themselves determined to hold out; and this determination was continually fostered by the agents of the Union, of whom Sam Shuck was the chief: chief as regarded Daffodil's Delight—inferior as regarded other agents elsewhere. Many of the more temperate of the men, who had not particularly urged the strike, were warm supporters now of the general opinion, for they regarded the lock-out as an unwarrantable piece of tyranny on the part of the masters. As to the ladies, they were over-warm partisans, generally speaking, making the excitement, the unsettled state of Daffodil's Delight, an excuse for their own idleness (they are only too ready to do so when occasion offers), and collected in groups round the men, or squatted themselves on door steps, proclaiming their opinion of existing things, and boasting that they'd hold out for their rights till death.

It was almost like a summer's day. Seated in a chair at the bottom of her garden, just within the gate, was Mary Baxendale. Not that she was there to join in the gossip of the women, little knots of whom were dotting the street, or had any intention of joining in it: she was simply sitting there for air.

Mary Baxendale was fading. Never very strong, she had, for the last year or two, been gradually declining, and, with the excessive heat of the past summer, her remaining strength appeared to have gone out. Her occupation, that of a seamstress, had not tended to keep her in health; she had a great deal of work offered her, her skill being superior, and she had sat at it early and late. Mary was thoughtful and conscientious, and she was anxious to contribute a full share to the home support. Her father had married again, had now two young children, and it almost appeared to Mary as if she were an interloper in the paternal home. Not that the new Mrs. Baxendale made her feel this: she was a bustling, hearty woman, fond of show and spending, and of setting off her babies; but she was kind to Mary.

The capability of exertion appeared to be past, and Mary's days were chiefly spent in a quiescent state of rest, and in frequently sitting out of doors. This day—it was now the beginning of September—was an unusually bright one, and she drew her invalid shawl round her, and leaned back in her seat, looking out on the lively scene, at the men and women congregating in the road, and inhaling the fresh air. At least, as fresh as it could be got in Daffodil's Delight.

'How do you feel to-day, Mary?'

The questioner was Mrs. Quale. She had come out of her house in her bonnet and shawl, bent on some errand and stopped to accost Mary.

'I am pretty well to-day. That is, I should be, if it were not for the weakness.'

'Weakness, ay!' cried Mrs. Quale, in a snapping sort of tone, for she was living in a state of chronic tartness, not approving of matters in general just now. 'And what have you had this morning to fortify you against the weakness?'

A faint blush rose to Mary's thin face. The subject was a sore one to the mind of Mrs. Quale, and that lady was not one to spare her tongue. The fact was, that at the present moment, and for some little time past, Mary's condition and appetite had required unusual nourishment; but, since the lock-out, this had not been procurable by John Baxendale. Sufficient food the household had as yet, but it was of a plain coarse sort, not suitable for Mary; and Mrs. Quale, bitter enough against the existing condition of things before, touching the men and their masters, was not by this rendered less so. Poor Mary, in her patient meekness, would have subsided into her grave with famine, rather than complain of what she saw no help for.

'Did you have an egg at eleven o'clock?'