Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Charlotte East sat in her kitchen one Tuesday afternoon, busy as usual. Her door was shut, but her window was open. Suddenly the latch was lifted and Mrs. Cross came in: not with the bold, boisterous movements that were common to Honey Fair, but with creeping steps that seemed afraid of their own echoes, and a scared face.

Mrs. Cross was in trouble. Her two daughters, Amelia and Mary Ann, to whom you have had the honour of an introduction, had purchased those lovely cross-barred sarcenets, green, pink, and lilac, and worn them at the party at the Alhambra: which party went off satisfactorily, leaving nothing behind it but some headaches for the next day, and a trifle of pecuniary embarrassment to Honey Fair in general. What with the finery for the party, and other finery, and what with articles really useful, but which perhaps might have been done without, Honey Fair was pretty deeply in with the Messrs. Bankes. In Mrs. Cross's family alone, herself and her daughters owed, conjointly, so much to these accommodating tradesmen that it took eight shillings a week to keep them quiet. You can readily understand how this impoverished the weekly housekeeping; and the falsehoods that had to be concocted, by way of keeping the husband, Jacob Cross, in the dark, were something alarming. This was the state of things in many of the homes of Honey Fair.

Mrs. Cross came in with timid steps and a scared face. "Charlotte, lend me five shillings for the love of goodness!" cried she, speaking as if afraid of the sound of her own voice. "I don't know another soul to ask but you. There ain't another that would have it to lend, barring Dame Buffle, and she never lends."

"You owe me twelve shillings already," answered Charlotte, pausing for a moment in her sewing.

"I know that. I'll pay you off by degrees, if it's only a shilling a week. I am a'most drove mad. Bankes's folks was here yesterday, and me and the girls had only four shillings to give 'em. I'm getting in arrears frightful, and Bankes's is as cranky over it as can be. It's all smooth and fair so long as you're buying of Bankes's and paying 'em; but just get behind, and see what short answers and sour looks you'll have!"

"But Amelia and Mary Ann took in their work on Saturday and had their money?"

"My patience! I don't know what us should do if they hadn't! We have to pay up everywhere. We're in debt at Buffle's, in debt to the baker, in debt for shoes; we're in debt on all sides. And there's Cross spending three shilling good of his wages at the public-house! It takes what me and the girls earn to pay a bit up here and there, and stop things from coming to Cross's ears. Half the house is in the pawn-shop, and what'll become of us I don't know. I can't sleep o' nights, hardly, for thinking on't."

Charlotte felt sure that, were it her case, she should not sleep at all.

"The worst is, I have to keep the little 'uns away from school. Pay for 'em I can't. And a fine muck they get into, playing in the road all day. 'What does these children do to theirselves at school, to get into this dirty mess?' asks Cross, when he comes in. 'Oh, they plays a bit in the gutter coming home,' says I. 'We plays a bit, father,' cries they, when they hears me, a-winking at each other to think how we does their father."

Charlotte shook her head. "I should end it all."