Sybil, Benjamin Disraeli [books to read for self improvement .txt] 📗

the basket, and gave a piece of sugar to the screaming infant. Her glance was sweeter even than her remedy; the infant stared at her with his large blue eyes; for an instant astonished, and then he smiled.

“Oh! beautiful child!” exclaimed Sybil; and she took the babe up from the mattress and embraced it.

“You are an angel from heaven,” exclaimed the mother, “and you may well say beautiful. And only to think of that infamous girl, Harriet, to desert us all in this way.”

Sybil drew forth the contents of the convent basket, and called Warner’s attention to them. “Now,” she said, “arrange all this as I tell you, and I will go downstairs and speak to them below as you wish. Harold, rest there;” and the dog laid himself down in the remotest corner.

“And is that Gerard’s daughter?” said the weaver’s wife. “Only think what it is to gain two pounds a-week, and bring up your daughters in that way⁠—instead of such shameless hussies as our Harriet! But with such wages one can do anything. What have you there, Warner? Is that tea? Oh! I should like some tea. I do think tea would do me some good. I have quite a longing for it. Run down, Warner, and ask them to let us have a kettle of hot water. It is better than all the fire in the world. Amelia, my dear, do you see what they have sent us. Plenty to eat. Tell Maria all about it. You are good girls; you will never be like that infamous Harriet. When you earn wages you will give them to your poor mother and baby, won’t you?”

“Yes, mother,” said Amelia.

“And father, too,” said Maria.

“And father, too,” said the wife. “He has been a very good father to you all; and I never can understand why one who works so hard should earn so little; but I believe it is the fault of those machines. The police ought to put them down, and then everybody would be comfortable.”

Sybil and Warner re-entered; the fire was lit, the tea made, the meal partaken. An air of comfort, even of enjoyment, was diffused over this chamber, but a few minutes back so desolate and unhappy.

“Well,” said the wife, raising herself a little up in her bed, “I feel as if that dish of tea had saved my life. Amelia, have you had any tea? And Maria? You see what it is to be good girls; the Lord will never desert you. The day is fast coming when that Harriet will know what the want of a dish of tea is, with all her fine wages. And I am sure,” she added, addressing Sybil, “what we all owe to you is not to be told. Your father well deserves his good fortune, with such a daughter.”

“My father’s fortunes are not much better than his neighbours,” said Sybil, “but his wants are few; and who should sympathise with the poor, but the poor? Alas! none else can. Besides, it is the Superior of our convent that has sent you this meal. What my father can do for you, I have told your husband. ’Tis little; but with the favour of heaven, it may avail. When the people support the people, the divine blessing will not be wanting.”

“I am sure the divine blessing will never be wanting to you,” said Warner in a voice of great emotion.

There was silence; the querulous spirit of the wife was subdued by the tone of Sybil; she revolved in her mind the present and the past; the children pursued their ungrudged and unusual meal; the daughter of Gerard, that she might not interfere with their occupation, walked to the window and surveyed the chink of troubled sky, which was visible in the court. The wind blew in gusts; the rain beat against the glass. Soon after this, there was another knock at the door. Harold started from his repose, and growled. Warner rose, and saying, “they have come for the rent. Thank God, I am ready,” advanced and opened the door. Two men offered with courtesy to enter.

“We are strangers,” said he who took the lead, “but would not be such. I speak to Warner?”

“My name.”

“And I am your spiritual pastor, if to be the vicar of Mowbray entitles me to that description.”

“Mr. St. Lys.”

“The same. One of the most valued of my flock, and the most influential person in this district, has been speaking much of you to me this morning. You are working for him. He did not hear of you on Saturday night; he feared you were ill. Mr. Barber spoke to me of your distress, as well as of your good character. I came to express to you my respect and my sympathy, and to offer you my assistance.”

“You are most good, sir, and Mr. Barber too, and indeed, an hour ago, we were in as great straits⁠—”

“And are now, sir,” exclaimed his wife interrupting him. “I have been in this bed a-week, and may never rise from it again; the children have no clothes; they are pawned; everything is pawned; this morning we had neither fuel, nor food. And we thought you had come for the rent which we cannot pay. If it had not been for a dish of tea which was charitably given me this morning by a person almost as poor as ourselves that is to say, they live by labour, though their wages are much higher, as high as two pounds a-week, though how that can be I never shall understand, when my husband is working twelve hours a day, and gaining only a penny an hour⁠—if it had not been for this I should have been a corpse; and yet he says we were in straits, merely because Walter Gerard’s daughter, who I willingly grant is an angel from heaven for all the good she has done us, has stepped into our aid. But the poor supporting the poor, as she well says, what good