Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories/Fundamental Sociology
VI.—FUNDAMENTAL SOCIOLOGY.
IT must be regarded for many reasons as unfortunate that Mrs. Crossley, the Archdeacon's wife, had no children. The lot of her husband's parishioners would have been pleasanter, and the Archdeacon himself would have been spared a great deal of anxiety and worry if there had been eight or ten young Crossleys. The lady herself would have been much happier, because she would have escaped the heartbreak of discovering the vanity of human enthusiasms.
Mrs. Crossley was vigorous and energetic. No one had ever known her rest from the effort to accomplish some great work. Once she was smitten with a wish to eliminate drunkenness from among the scourges which afflict humanity. She argued, most logically, that if everyone were a total abstainer there would be no drunkards, and having reached this conclusion, set about persuading and coercing people into signing pledges. A women's temperance guild, consisting for the most part of the wives and daughters of dissenting ministers, welcomed an Archdeacon's wife as a valuable recruit, and she was promptly elected president. For two years she preached her crusade to rather scanty audiences in Methodist and Presbyterian chapels, and her husband was worried by other Archdeacons with strong Church principles and peaceable wives. Afterwards she took to drinking a bottle of porter in the middle of the day, and looking after the manners, morals, and health of the curate and the organist. She walked into their lodgings at inconvenient hours of the day and night, gave them excellent advice when they were well; entangled them both in matrimonial engagements, and doctored them when she thought they looked harassed or pale. This also was a cause of considerable annoyance to the Archdeacon. The two young men wearied her at length by their ingratitude, and she passed from them to the production of beautiful furniture. There is a kind of art called Dutch Marquetrie work, which consists of staining squares, circles, and stars on white wood, and afterwards making the whole surface sticky with a varnish composed of turpentine and other ingredients. The wood thus treated can afterwards be made into small tables and fragile stools very exquisite to look at. Mrs. Crossley created large numbers of these, and laid the Archdeacon's books on them. It was after she had exhausted the possibilities of artistic endeavour that she fell under the spell of physical culture. She did exercises with pulleys, discarded garments she had always been accustomed to, and gave up her bottle of stout. She became unpopular with the younger women because she inveighed against their favourite clothes, and with men by urging them, unnecessarily and insultingly as they thought, to take baths. People became shy of calling at the rectory after she insisted on teaching a bank clerk to breathe, laying him flat on his back on the drawing-room floor for the purpose. This misguided boy believed that he could breathe well enough for all practical purposes before the lesson.
Mrs. Crossley was still a comparatively young woman when she read a book about the way the poor live in York. She was fascinated by the bud- gets of weekly expenditure, the statistics about the number of people who slept in one bedroom, and the dirt and disease consequent on insufficient water supply. She ransacked library catalogues for more books of the same kind, and for weeks feasted her soul on detailed descriptions of common lodging-houses, casual labour-homes, and institutions called "shelters." She acquired quite easily a taste for sordidness, and began to yearn to extend her knowledge by experimental investigation. She came to the conclusion that she was studying a science called sociology, and was, above all things, anxious that her knowledge of it should be fundamental. The word had always been a favourite one with her. She had flung it at the heads of people who would not sign pledges, and her devotion to it was responsible for the insult to the bank clerk. Combined with a really splendid noun like sociology it afforded her intense satisfaction. "Physical culture" had been a good phrase in its day, and "artistic handicraft" not without its inspiration, but "fundamental sociology" surpassed them both.
For a long time she hesitated over the choice of a field for her investigations. She desired to be original to scan some kind of life hitherto shrouded from public view. It was also essential that sordid details should reward her pains, and that she should come face to face with the sort of things which are only hinted at in print. She cherished a golden hope of posing afterwards as the guardian angel, the Elizabeth Fry, of some class of pariahs.
It was while walking home from the harbour one afternoon in early spring that the great idea flashed upon her. It happened to be the day on which the steamer sails from Ardnamore to Glasgow, and she met a crowd of rough country girls on their way to embark. She knew very well what they were and where they were going. They came from the poorer parts of the country, inland; from among the mountains and the bogs where holdings of land are small, and it is impossible for a family to get a living. Therefore, young men and women, often old men, too, go off to Scotland and England, there to work in the fields for six months of the year, and to live It was at this point that Mrs. Crossley became really interested. How did they live? Once as a girl she had spent a week with some friends in a house they had rented on the western shores of the island of Bute. She remembered a Scottish farmer coming to them one evening and asking them if they would care to go round to his place and see the Irish. She had a very vivid recollection of the scene which he displayed to them. A large fire burned in the middle of his yard, and round it were clustered the savages from her native land, cooking their food, drying their clothes, and talking to each other in unintelligible Gaelic. They took no notice of the staring tourist group, behaving with a contempt for their curiosity which reminded her of the nobler kinds of animals in zoological gardens.
She looked at a second group of girls with more interest. It occurred to her that it would be intensely exciting to discover how they lived in Scotland. She recollected having heard that they went from one farm to another in gangs; all slept together in barns, and lived for months with no change of clothes but what the little bundles in their hands contained. She saw in these girls the very field for investigation she desired. No one had ever before sounded the depths of harvesting. She scented disgusting details, half hoped for the unspeakable, and foresaw the blaze of triumph in which she would make her revelations to the public. No doubt, later on, when the conditions of their servitude were ameliorated—Mrs. Crossley had adopted the habit of thinking in long words—her work would be recognised, and all Connaught would hail her as a heroine.
Recollecting her great phrase, she determined to be as fundamental as possible in her study of this interesting branch of sociology. She herself would become, for a week, or a month if necessary, a harvester. On her way home she ordered a rough tweed skirt to reach a little above her ankles; a blue serge bodice; a shawl for her shoulders, and two large red handkerchiefs—one to cover her head, the other to carry her change of clothes. She also bought two pairs of the roughest knitted stockings, thick boots, and—this was, indeed, fundamental,—an irreducible minimum of cheap flannelette underclothing. This she felt must be the proper outfit; but to complete her fitness for her task, she called on the woman who supplied her with milk, and learnt from a servant girl the Irish for "God bless you."
One great difficulty presented itself as the day of the steamer's departure drew near. She feared that if she walked through the streets of Ardnamore in her new custome a crowd would follow her, and she would be made to appear ridiculous. The Archdeacon might, of course, drive her to the quay in the carriage, and escort her, heavily cloaked, on board the steamer. But she disliked taking him into her confidence. He would be certain to oppose her plan. Besides, it would be hardly fair to ask his help. It was one thing for an Archdeacon afterwards to bask in the reflected glory of a wife who had proved her eminence as a fundamental sociologist— quite another thing for him to lend the countenance of gaiters and apron to a lady in a skirt of extreme brevity and a head handkerchief. To add to her perplexity the steamer sailed in the glaring publicity of three o'clock in the afternoon.
The plan which suggested itself in the end was ingenious. She made up her harvesting clothes into a brown paper parcel, and walked to the steamer in her ordinary costume, timing herself to arrive two hours before it sailed. She planned to change her clothes in the cabin before any of the harvesting girls arrived. There was only one drawback. She would be obliged to conceal her dress and hat somewhere, and might never be able to recover them. But, then, no great work can be accomplished without some sacrifice. On her way down she posted a letter to the Archdeacon explaining her plans fully. She knew that it would not be delivered until she was far out of reach of expostulation.
She approached an officer who was blasphemously assisting in the embarkation of some bullocks, and asked him for the harvesters' cabin.
"Bless my soul, ma'am, the company doesn't provide cabins for the likes of them."
"But the women, my good man. You don't mean to say that the women spend the whole night on deck?"
It appeared, however, that they did. Mrs. Crossley was seriously embarrassed. The prospect of a chilly and exceedingly uncomfortable night daunted her very little; but the impossibility of changing her clothes in public was obvious.
"Will you kindly direct me," she said, "to the ladies' cabin? I mean that reserved for first-class passengers."
The officer, whose temper was being tried by the bullocks, told her, with unnecessary emphasis, that the steamer did not carry first-class passengers, and had no ladies' cabin of any sort. Mrs. Crossley was a determined woman. She reflected that there must be some place on the steamer sufficiently screened from public view for her purpose. She went in search of it. Under the main deck, she discovered a similar enclosure, empty, shut off from the after portion of the ship by a whitewashed wooden partition about six feet high. It seemed, if not an ideal ladies' dressing-room, at least free from any observation, except that of the neighbouring cattle. She unpacked her parcel, and laid the garments ready at her feet. She divested herself of her hat and jacket. She unfastened her blouse. Then she was startled by a sudden sound of hoofs trampling down the narrow passage which led to her refuge. She looked round. A bullock came rushing, as it seemed furiously, with lowered head. For a moment the creature hesitated, not unnaturally, for he could not have expected to come face to face with a lady in the act of undressing; then, urged by the horns of his fellows behind, and the sound of sticks and curses not far off, he plunged forward. But Mrs. Cassidy had not hesitated at all. Leaving her harvesting outfit, and even her own proper hat and jacket to be trampled or horned, she made a leap to grasp the top of the whitewashed partition. Then her physical culture proved its value. She dragged herself to comparative safety. But the top of a wooden partition is not comfortable, nor was the attitude she was forced to adopt one in which an archdeacon's wife ought to be seen even by a bullock. She cast one regretful look towards the clothes, which already were under the feet of the cattle, and dropped on the iron place outside the engine-room door. Fortunately the engineer was engaged with an oil-can somewhere in the bowels of his machinery.
Nothing at this stage of her adventure prevented Mrs. Crossley's immediate return to the rectory, except the recollection of the letter she had posted to the Archdeacon. It was written, she remembered, in very noble language. She had expatiated upon lofty aims; upon the glory of the strenuous life; upon the value of fundamental sociology. She had not spared hints of her contempt for the easy and monotonous existence led by Church dignitaries. In the evening the letter would be delivered, and there was no possibility of intercepting it. No self-respecting woman could face the situation. The Archdeacon was not a man with a keen sense of humour, but even he Mrs. Crossley quivered with shame and indignation. It would be better to perish as a martyr—better certainly to voyage to Glasgow without a hat—than to return to a home darkened with the shadow of an unquenchable joke.
She did not emerge from her hiding-place until the steamer started.
She found the girls and men, for whose sake she had attempted the adventure, assembled in the waist of the ship. Under the fore-deck were piled packing-cases and great bales of wool. In the shelter of the after-deck were the bullocks—creatures fortunate in having owners who could sue the company if harm came of exposure during the voyage. Between the wool and the bullocks on the open deck were the harvesters. Some sat chatting, with their backs against the bulwarks. Another group was gathered round a foreseeing boy who had brought a melodeon, and prepared to dance. Others had opened their bundles, and spread food on the deck in front of them. It was uninviting enough—lumps of yellow cake made in the cabin pot-ovens from strong flour; thick soft biscuits, with currants dotted here and there in them; and a few oranges; but the sight of it reminded Mrs. Crossley that she had started before luncheon, and that the steamer took twenty hours to reach Glasgow. Apart from the others stood two girls, who looked wistfully back to the hills they were leaving, and sang softly a plaintive song in Irish. Mrs. Crossley felt that these would be admirable subjects for her first experiment in fundamental sociology. She assured herself that she recollected her Irish phrase, and approached them:
"Gu manny dear hitch," she said, slowly and distinctly.
The girls stopped singing and stared at her. One of them had boisterous red hair and a very freckled face. The other looked anæmic.
"Gu manny dear hitch," repeated Mrs. Crossley, still more distinctly. She addressed herself specially to the anæmic girl, for the other looked very wild.
"She has not the Beurla—the English; and I myself have very little."
It was the red-haired girl that answered her.
Mrs. Crossley realised that something must have gone wrong with her Irish pronunciation, and blamed, quite unjustly, the milk-woman's servant. She turned, intending to try one of the other groups, but the steamer, which had passed out of the shelter of Ardnamore Bay, pitched heavily. She found herself starting at a rapid trot across the deck, and then, with barely time to turn around, trotting still more rapidly back again. The red-haired girl started forward and caught her just in time to prevent a headlong charge against the bulwarks.
"It will be better with you sitting down," she said.
Mrs. Crossley admitted that it would be very much better, and allowed herself to be deposited on the deck. The two girls talked eagerly together; but, except a frequent repetition of words which sounded like "van oozle," she could catch nothing of what they said. Very soon she did not wish to listen or understand. The ship continued to pitch, and a quite intolerable nausea rendered her more wretched than she had ever been before. She gave up the effort to sit upright, and lay prone on the deck. Even in this attitude it became impossible to remain still. As the steamer rolled and plunged she began to roll helplessly from side to side. The anæmic girl sat down on the deck and took the poor lady's head upon her lap. For a long time she lay in a state of comatose misery, wakening at last to consciousness of her surroundings with a feeling of damp and cold. It had begun to rain. The steamer was pitching worse than ever, and salt spray joined with the rain in wetting her. She saw that a group of girls had gathered round, and stood swaying sickeningly with the motion of the ship. She heard again the constant repetition of the words "van oozle." Then one of the girls bent over her:
"Is there cold on you, mistress?"
There was, intense cold, but Mrs. Crossley could not say so because of the nausea that came on her afresh. She did the next best thing. She shivered piteously. Then she became suddenly aware that the girl who held her head was also abominably seasick. There was a convulsion, during which she sincerely hoped for a sudden death, and then her head bumped heavily on the deck. In a moment the red-haired girl was down beside her and raised her head.
"It will be better to you if you eat," said one of the girls, and knelt beside her. Mrs. Crossley shuddered helplessly, but could not protest. The girl took an orange from her bundle, bit a large piece off one side, and held the remainder to Mrs. Crossley's lips. The steamer gave a very violent plunge, and the orange was jammed against her mouth, with the weight of a falling girl behind it. The juice trickled over her chin and down her neck. With a convulsive effort she turned her head away.
"It is cold that is on the lady," repeated the girl who had made this discovery first. Several shawls were stripped off, and in a minute or two she was swathed from neck to foot. A faint sense of warmth stole over her. It rained more heavily, and the spray swept across the deck in sheets. The red-haired girl stretched her shawl over her own head and Mrs. Crossley's, making a kind of tent. She stooped low and tucked the two ends of it under her. Then she pressed her rough hands on Mrs. Crossley's forehead.
After this came another period of miserable semi-consciousness. When she woke again it was to feel the tenting shawl suddenly snatched away. The red-haired girl had also succumbed to seasickness. Mrs. Crossley feared that her head would be again deposited on the deck. It was pitch-dark, and no one would see her or rescue her. She foresaw that she would roll across the wet deck, and go on rolling until some merciful blow put an end to life and misery. But the red-haired girl proved herself a heroine. Through her worst spasms she clung to the head, and even at intervals during the night restored the tent.
In the morning, when the steamer entered the comparatively calm waters of the Firth of Clyde, Mrs. Crossley began to revive a little. The desire to live returned to her when passing Wemyss Bay. She disentangled herself from the enveloping shawls, and tried to stand on her feet. It did not surprise her to find that she was weak and shaken. Her protectress made her sit down again, and offered her a slice of bread and an orange. Mrs. Crossley ate the bread hungrily; but the thought of the orange was bitter to her, on account of the stickiness of her neck. She would cheerfully have given a pound for a cup of tea, but no such thing was available. However, the bread gave her back strength and sufficient spirit to be anxious about her personal appearance. Thanks to the shawls in which she had been wrapped, her clothes had suffered nothing worse than a crumpling; but her hair hung down about her shoulders, tangled and wet, and of all the hairpins with which she had started only one remained. By careful searching, in which all the harvesters, men and women, took part, four were recovered from corners of the deck. The girls subscribed five more from their own heads, and Mrs. Crossley, with the help of a borrowed comb, regained a measure of self-respect.
Curiously enough, as it seemed to her, the girls all left her when they could be of no further help. They had sheltered her, nursed her, clothed her, even tried to feed her in the night, when she was helpless. Several of them were wet to the skin, because they had given her their shawls. Others had parted with valuable hairpins in her hour of need. But now, when, as she conceived, her friendship would be an honour and her conversation a privilege, they all shrank from her, incurably shy. After passing Greenock the harvesters gathered into a group, and engaged in what seemed to her an animated debate. When it was over an elderly man, of patriarchal and benevolent appearance, approached her.
"May I be so bold as to speak a word to your ladyship?" he said.
Mrs. Crossley graciously signified her willingness to listen.
"It isn't for the likes of me to be advising you; but I'm an old man, and I've seen a deal of life, being across in America when I was a boy. Sure it will be better for your ladyship to go back to him."
Mrs. Crossley gazed at him in amazement.
"Isn't it you that is the Archdeacon's lady? Many's the time I've seen him in the big town, when I was there for a fair or such like. A fine man he is, God bless him. Indeed now, if he does be a bit foolish at times, and a bad head to you—not that I ever heard that same of him, but your ladyship knows best—isn't it what many a woman has to put up with? and God is good. Indeed now they say, saving your ladyship's presence, that many a time it's the woman's own fault when a man takes a drop too much; and maybe now it would only be at the Christmas or on a fair day. There's plenty wouldn't touch the drink at all only for the way things is carried on at home, not that I'd think it of your ladyship. But, faith, you'd be better going back to him. Musha, God is good."
Mrs. Crossley realised slowly that her fellow-passengers gave her credit for running away from the Archdeacon; that they supposed that the good man had taken to drink; that they suspected her of having driven him to it.