Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/719

 . 22, 1860.] and supporters of the household, and to her excited imagination the hearts of the dwellers there were warmer, and their lives more orderly, than those around her. She therefore determined to go to Yorkshire. She had no settled plan of action, nor even any clear notion of what she would do when she arrived there. She would be among friends or acquaintances, for she was sure that all the old neighbours could not have forgotten the family, and if all else failed there was the factory. By the disposal of all such articles as she could possibly dispense with, she raised the sum required for taking her down.

Towards the end of August, after a long and tedious journey, as the sun was drawing westwards—its bright, dazzling rays shining on her face as she looked out anxiously from the narrow window of a third-class carriage, she began to recognise the scenes by which she passed. On her left were the bleak heights, pitted with quarry-holes and scarred with heaped-up clearings and stone-dressings, beyond which was Idle; down in the valley was the inky and torpid canal; and then a sudden turn, and on the right—seen for a minute between two brown hills—was the vale which led to Shipley, and then the dark-blue, dye-polluted brook, the steep narrow bridge, the clustering factories, and beyond them, hills dotted with greystone houses, and with mills blackened with smoke. To one coming from an agricultural district the scene might be unpleasing and suggestive only of bustle, smoke, and dirt, but to her it spoke of home. The affections of her childhood shed a charm over it, and dimly in her poetic heart were hintings that in it was a manifestation of the glory of labour, and of the multitudinous sorrows and joys of the tens of thousands of busy, industrious fellow-creatures who had transformed the old wastes into new things of wealth and power. A few minutes more rapid travelling between long, dull warehouses, round the doors of which were white cotton flakes and tufts of scattered wool; past the corners of jutting mills; beneath the many bridges which flew past with a sudden shriek; by dilapidated cottages; alongside a dusty road, thronged with wool-ladened drays, and busy crowds hurrying home; beneath unsightly slopes of rubbish, with glimpses of pleasant villas and large mansions rising above the verdant fields and trim gardens which slope up towards Manningham, and then she was at her journey’s end, and stood lonely in the noisy, bustling, and dingy Railway Station at Bradford.

She stood awhile, doubtful where to go; the firmness of her purpose shaken as the decisive moment arrived. For the first time she became aware of the vagueness of her intentions. She hesitated when it was too late for hesitation to avail her anything. She looked round in an impotent desire to see a familiar face. The place began to assume a cold, dispiriting appearance—to repel her—to tell her that she had no friends—no home. The hardness of the world and the difficulties of life began to be realities, and to damp her courage.

“I wish Julie was with me,” was her sorrowful thought; “but I’ve begun, and must go on. I must weave out my piece, but it’s a tangly web.”

She walked slowly up the Station. A good-tempered porter, who had been watching her, inquired if she had any luggage.

“No,” replied she, and added to herself, “none but my own burden, and that I am afraid will be a sad load to get through with.”

She passed through the open gates into the dusty, dirty, disorderly yard, turned up Kirkgate, looking vacantly at the objects she passed, but scarcely conscious of what she saw. As she passed the watchmaker’s, near the Manor Market, she noticed that it was nearly seven o’clock. Night would soon come on, and she must get a lodging somewhere. She went slowly on till she came to the end of Westgate. Towards the outskirts of the town a relation of her father’s used to live—she might still be there. Susan would go there. She reached the place, weary and faint. She went to the house. It was one of a long low row of dingy plain stone houses, along which ran an unpaved road with a causeway of hard flags, which, with the proverbial house-cleanliness of Yorkshire, were daily washed, scoured with light-coloured stone, and sprinkled with bright red sand. Her heart rose as she knocked at the door. When it was opened she had no need to make an inquiry, for she saw the familiar face of her relative—an elderly woman, with sharp, expressive features, piercing and suspicious eye, her mouth puckered at the corners, and telling of a strong will, and if not of selfishness, yet of self-care and self-esteem. She looked keenly at Susan, as the latter stood silent on the step, and she then sharply said, “Can’t ye say what ye want?”

Susan was chilled with her manner, and at the moment wished she was back with her sister, and half turned away, when the woman said, in a most repelling tone,

“Is she deaf or demented? bothering one in this way. Who do ye want?” and then looking in her face and observing and misconstruing her palorpallor [sic] and agitation, added, “there’s no lad here, my lass, thou’st made a mistake.”

The inuendo conveyed by these words was felt by Susan as expressing a reproach, and turning to the woman with tearful eyes, she looked her boldly in the face and said, “I don’t want any lads. I’m come from London, and I thought my aunt would not have turned me away—but ye can’t be Bessy Womersley, or ye would have known Susan Moore, your own brother’s lass.”

Mrs. Womersley sprang forwards, seized Susan by the arm, turned her face to the light, looked scrutinisingly at her, and then said, in a cool tone,

“I know thee now, lass. Come in.”

Susan entered. Though it had been a hot, autumnal day, there was a blazing fire, and the hearth was heaped up with ashes and cinders.

“Tak’ thy things off,” said her aunt, as she left her and went towards the fire.

Susan obeyed, and then stood uncertain what next to do. Looking round, she saw that her aunt was examining the articles she took off.

“Is that bundle all thou’s got?” said her aunt, indicating by a nod the little bundle which Susan had brought.

“Yes, aunt.”