The marriage was carried out, and this was the happy day. Mrs. Cross gave an entertainment in honour of the event, at which the bride and bridegroom assisted—as the French say—with as many others as the kitchen would hold. Tea for the ladies, pipes and ale for the gentlemen, supper for all, with spirits-and-water handed round.
How Mrs. Cross had contrived to go on so long without an exposé, she scarcely knew herself. The wonder was, that she had gone on at all. It took the energies of her life to patch up her embarrassments, and hide her difficulties from her husband. The evil day, however, was only delayed. It could not be averted.
CHAPTER IX.
AN EXPLOSION FOR MRS. CROSS.
The evil day, hinted at in the last chapter, was not long in coming. It might not have fallen quite so soon but for a misfortune which overtook Jacob Cross. The manufacturer for whom he worked died suddenly, and the business was immediately given up—the made gloves being bought by up a London house, and the stock in trade, leather machines, etc., sold by auction. He had been a first-class manufacturer, doing nearly as large a business as Mr. Ashley; and not only Jacob Cross, but many more men in Honey Fair were thrown out of work—one of whom was Andrew Brumm; another, Timothy Carter. This happened only a few months after Mary Ann Cross's marriage.
It struck terror to the heart of Mrs. Cross. Though she had paid some of her debts, she had incurred others: indeed, the very fact of her having to pay had caused her to incur fresh ones. Her position was ominous. She and Amelia had worked for this same manufacturer, now dead, and of course they were at a standstill. Mary Ann Tyrrett had likewise worked for him; but she had left the paternal home; and with her we have nothing just now to do. The position of others was ominous, as well as that of Mrs. Cross. It was the autumn season, and trade was flat. Winter orders had gone in, and there was no necessity to hurry those for the spring; so that the hands thrown out of work, both men and women, stood every chance of remaining out.
A gloom overspread Honey Fair. In many a household the articles least needed went, week after week, to the pawnbrokers, without being redeemed on the Saturday night, as in more prosperous times. Upon the proceeds the families had to exist. It was bad enough for those who were free from debt; but for those already labouring under it—above all, labouring under secret debt—it was something not to be told. Mrs. Cross had nightmares regularly every night. Visions would come over her now and again of running away, if she had only known where to run to. The men would stand or sit at their doors all day, with pipes in their mouths: money was sure to be found for tobacco, by hook or by crook. There they would lounge in gloomy silence, varied by an occasional wordy war with their wives, who wished them anywhere else; or they and their pipes would saunter up and down the road, forming into groups to condole with each other and to abuse the glove trade.
One Monday afternoon there was a small assemblage in the kitchen of Jacob Cross—himself, Andrew Brumm, and Timothy Carter. Brumm and Carter were, in one sense, more fortunate than Cross; inasmuch as that their respective wives worked each for another house, not the one which had closed; therefore they retained their employment. The fact, however, appeared to afford little consolation to the two men, for they were keeping up a chorus of grumbling, when Joe Fisher staggered in—if you have not forgotten him.
Fisher had hitherto managed, to the intense surprise of every one, to keep out of the workhouse. He would be taken on for a job of work now and then; but manufacturers were chary of employing Joe Fisher. For one thing, he gave way to drink. A disreputable-looking object had he become: a tattered coat and waistcoat, pantaloons in rags, and not the ghost of a shirt. People wondered how he found money for drink.