In the daytime the cottages were in the hands of the wives. Towards nightfall the men returned: those who had money enough were drunk; those who were sober envied those who were drunk. Both drunk and sober found scolding wives, squalid homes, and crying children. Both drunk and sober lay down with curses, and slept till the morning, when they awoke, and went forth again with the jocund curse of dawn.
Nothing so beautiful as the civilisation of the period. Half a mile from Agatha L'Estrange and Phillis Fleming were these cottages. Almost within earshot of a house where vice was unknown, or only dimly seen like a ghost at twilight, stood the hovels where virtue was impossible, and goodness a dream of an unknown land. What notion do they have of the gentle life, these dwellers in misery and squalor? What fond ideas of wealth's power to procure unlimited gratification for the throat do they conceive, these men and women whose only pleasure is to drink beer till they drop?
One day Phillis went there with Agatha.
It was such a bright warm morning, the river was so sparkling, the skies were so blue, the gardens were so sunny, the song of the birds so loud, the laburnums so golden, and the lilacs so glorious to behold, that the girl's heart was full of all the sweet thoughts which she had learned of others or framed for herself—thoughts of poets, which echoed in her brain and flowed down the current of her thoughts like the swans upon the river; happy thoughts of youth and innocence.
She walked beside her companion with light and elastic tread; she looked about her with the fresh unconscious grace that belongs to childhood; it was her greatest charm. But the contentment of her soul was rudely shaken—the beauty went out of the day—when Mrs. L'Estrange only led her away from the leafy road and took her into her "Row." There the long arms of the green trees were changed into protruding sticks, on which linen was hanging out to dry; the songs of the birds became the cry of children and the scolding of women; for flowers there was the iridescence on the puddles of soap-suds; for greenhouse were dirty windows and open doors which looked into squalid interiors.
"I am going to see old Mr. Medlicott," said Mrs. L'Estrange cheerfully, picking her accustomed way among the cabbage-stalks, wash-tubs, and other evidences of human habitation.
The women looked out of their houses and retired hastily. Presently they came out again, and stood every one at her door with a clean apron on, each prepared to lie like an ambassador for the good of the family.
In a great chair by a fire there sat an old woman—a malignant old woman. She looked up and scowled at the ladies; then she looked at the fire and scowled; then she pointed to the corner and scowled again.
"Look at him," she growled in a hoarse crescendo. "Look at him, lying like a pig—like a pig. Do you hear?"
"I hear."