The end of the year drew near—the end of that last year of '81, which, whatever its shortcomings, its burning heat of July and its wretched rain of August, went out in sweet and gracious sunshine, and a December like unto the April of a poet.
For six months Angela had been living among her girls. The place was become homelike to her. The workwomen were now her friends—her trusted friends. The voice of calumny about her antecedents was silent, unless it was the voice of Bunker. The Palace of Delight (whose meaning was as yet unknown and unsuspected,) was rising rapidly, and indeed was nearly complete—a shell which had to be filled with things beautiful and delightful, of which Angela did not trust herself to speak. She had a great deal to think of in those last days of the year '81. The dressmaking was nothing—that went on. There was some local custom, and more was promised. It seemed as if (on the soundest principles of economy) it would actually pay. There was a very large acquaintance made at odd times among the small streets and mean houses of Stepney. It was necessary to visit these people and to talk with them.
Angela had nothing to do with the ordinary channels of charity. She would help neither curate nor Sister of Mercy, nor Bible-woman. Why, she said, do not the people stand shoulder to shoulder and help themselves? To be sure, she had the great advantage over professional visitors that she was herself only a work-woman, and was not paid for any services; and, as if there was not already enough to make her anxious, there was that lover of hers.
Were she and Harry keeping company? Dick Coppin asked this question; and Angela (not altogether truthfully) said that they were not. What else were they doing, indeed? No word of love now. Had he not promised to abstain? Yet she knew his past—she knew what he had given up for her sake, believing her only a poor dressmaker; all for love of her, and she could not choose but let her heart go forth to so loyal and true a lover. Many ladies, in many tales of chivalry, have demanded strange services from their lovers: none so strange as that asked by Angela when she ordered her lover not only to pretend to be a cabinet-maker, and a joiner, but to work at his trade and to live by it. Partly in self-reproach—partly in admiration—she watched him going and coming to and from the Brewery, where he now earned (thanks to Lord Jocelyn's intervention) the sum of a whole shilling an hour. For there was nothing in his bearing or his talk to show that he repented his decision. He was always cheerful, always of good courage—more, he was always in attendance on her. It was he who thought for her; invented plans to make her evenings attractive; brought raw lads (recruits in the army of culture) from the Advanced Club and elsewhere, and set them an example of good manners; and was her prime minister, her aide-de-camp, her chief vizier.
And the end of it all—nay, the thing itself being so pleasant, why hasten the end? And, if there was to be an end, could it not be connected with the opening of the Palace? Yes. When the Palace was ready to open its gates then would Angela open her arms.
For the moment it was the sweet twilight of love—the half-hour before the dawn. The sweet uncertainty, when all was certainty. And, as yet, the palace was only just receiving its roof. The fittings and decorations, the organ and the statues, and all, had still to be put in. When everything was ready, then—then—Angela would somehow, perhaps, find words to bid her lover be happy, if she could make him happy.
There could be but one end.
Angela came to Whitechapel incognito—a princess disguised as a milkmaid; partly out of curiosity, partly to try her little experiment for the good of work-girls, with the gayety and light heart of youth—thinking that before long she would return to her old place, just as she had left it. But she could not. Her old views of life were changed, and a man had changed them. More than that—a man whose society, whose strength, whose counsel had become necessary to her.
"Who," she asked herself, "would have thought of the Palace except him? Could I, could any woman? I could have given away money—that is all. I could have been robbed and cheated; but such an idea—so grand, so simple; it is a man's, not a woman's. When the Palace is completed; when all is ready for the opening, then——" And the air became musical with the clang and clash of wedding bells—up the scale, down the scale; in thirds, in fifths; with triple bob-majors and the shouts of the people, and the triumphant strains of a wedding march.