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ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS
OF MEN
By WALTER BESANT T HE girl was the greatest heiress in England. On the morrow she was to leave the university where, in anticipation of assuming the responsibility of her fortune, she had acquired all of the theory of political economy that text-books could .give her. Speaking to a girl friend, she summed up the sources of her wealth : "To begin with, there is the brewery. You cannot escape from a big brewery if it belongs to you. You cannot hide it away. Messenger, Marsden & Company's Stout, their XXX, their Old and Mild, their Bitter, their Family Ales (that particularly at eightand-six the nine-gallon cask, if paid for on delivery), their drays, their huge horses, their strong men-these things stare one in the face wherever you go. I am Messenger, Marsden & Company, myself, the sole partner in what my lawyer sweetly calls the Concern." Also there was an unconscionable sum of money in the Funds. And whole streets of houses. They lay all about Whitechapel way. Her grandfather had bought houses just as other people buy apples. Yet Angela Messenger never had been in-side one of her own houses. Never had visited her brewery. She knew all the theories about people, but she didn't know people themselves. She resolved: "I efface myself. I vanish. I disappear. Your Angela will be a dressmaker, and she will live by herself and become-what her great-grandmother was-one of the people." This was in June, 1881. For a long time to come, fashionable Lon-don would see Angela Messenger no more. But in Whitechapel district, a charming young woman claiming the name of Kennedy appeared from nowhere in particular, to open dressmaking-rooms. At Mrs. Bormalack's boarding-house she met the man. The man had all of personal refinement, education, and aristocratic poise that was to be expected in the favorite member of the family of Lord Jocelyn Le Breton. Reaching the age of twenty-three, he had been told the secret of his birth: his only claim upon that home of wealth and social distinction was one of gratitude. For, in truth, he had been the child of a sergeant in the English army; and instead of Le Breton, his name was Goslett-Harry Goslett, the first name being pronounced 'Arry in the neighborhood where he had been born. Free to make his choice, he resolved to go back to his own people. Mrs. Bormalack's boarding-house was old and mean. Everything was old and shabby; everything wanted polishing, washing, brightening up. The boarders numbered an elderly couple from a New Hampshire town, hugging the delusion that they were rightful owners of a peerage, and awaiting the day when their rights would be recognized; a sleight-of-hand performer out of employment, who bored his fellows by practising his magic upon them; a learned scholar from Australia, who claimed the discovery of the original tablets of stone upon which the Ten Com- mandments had been written, but who was deprived of the glory due such an achievement by the jealousy of rival scholars; a clerk in the great brewery, who for thirty years had labored under suspicion of stealing certain valuables from a safe of the Concern -holding on to an ill-paid position through the decades, without hope of promotion or fear of discharge, until guilt might be proven or the missing valuables discovered. In such surroundings, Angela and Harry naturally gravitated toward each other. Without question, they took each other at face value: she, a dressmaker with a little money to set herself up in business; he, a cabinet-maker with wages of a shilling an hour for mending broken furniture and doing similar jobs at the brewery. Their talk naturally would come around to the wealthy Miss Messenger-whom none of those concerned with the story except Miss Kennedy ever had seen. They would speculate as to what they would do with her money, if they had the opportunity. The cabinet-maker, Harry, had ideas. He had observed a lack in the life of the East End of London, with its two millions of people. "We have no pleasures-a theater and a music-hall in Whitechapel Road. That has to serve for two millions of people. Now if this young heiress wanted to do any good, she should build a Palace of Pleasure here." "Let us talk over your Palace of Pleasure," she said. And as time went on they elaborated and amplified the idea, as the needs of the people among whom they lived became more apparent to them. To him it was a fanciful idea, largely of interest because it gave him opportunity to talk with the little dress-maker. To her it was the opportunity for which the greatest heiress in England had gone searching in Whitechapel. But first came the "Stepney Dressmakers' Association." Never before had London seen such a business, conducted upon such extraordinary principles. The young women employees actually were encouraged to leave their work at certain hours, to exercise and play. They were furnished appetizing food at the expense of the shop. Lawn-tennis courts were provided for them. In the evenings they were encouraged to dance and sing. And a share of the earnings of the establishment was theirs. Miss Kennedy's backer in this venture was supposed to be the wealthy Miss Messenger, of the brewery. The young cabinet-maker, already deep in love with the dressmaker, suggested that Miss Kennedy might persuade Miss Messenger to start the Palace of Delight, as he now called it. "What is a Palace of Delight?" he was asked. "Truly wonderful it is," said Harry, "to think how monotonous are the gifts and be-quests of rich men. Schools, churches, alms-houses, hospitals-that is all; that is their monotonous round." Then he proceeded to give his imagination full sway in a day-dream that, unknown to him for the time being, was to become a wonderful reality through the magic of the Messenger millions. While the Palace was growing, Miss Kennedy, through her supposed influence with the unseen Miss Messenger, was bringing sunshine into the lives of the poor folk of Mrs. Bormalack's boarding-house. The seekers for a peerage were set up in the Messenger mansion in the city and had a taste of all that wealth could bestow. The discoverer of the Tablets of Stone had his discovery put into a book, and wis sent home to Australia glowing with joy and pride. The sleight-of-hand man was given opportunity to prove his skill, and proposed marriage in return. All this through the dressmaker's "influence" with the heiress of the brewery. The young cabinet-maker, for his part, found the long-missing valuables and freed the old clerk from the suspicions he had labored under for thirty years. At the same time, Harry discovered proof that he himself was a fairly well-to-do person. He laid his heart and fortune at the feet of the dressmaker. The day for the wedding was set. All this time, be it remembered, the young man had no inkling of the girl's identity; nor did he know that his imaginary Palace of Delight actually was taking form in brick and stone. The girl, however, had long since discovered the secret of Harry's life. Harry saw his Palace of Delight only when all was completed. It contained a great hall where a thousand couples could dance without crowding. On wet days it was to be a playground for children. There was a concert-room, with organ and piano and a platform; billiard-rooms, card-rooms, rooms with chess and dominoes laid out, school- rooms for painting, drawing, wood-carving, and all manner of small arts. "In the Palace of Delight," said Angela, "we shall not be like a troop of revelers, thinking of nothing but dance and song and feasting. We shall learn something every day; we shall all belong to the same class. This is our own palace, the club of the working-people; we will not let anybody make money out of it. We shall use it for our-selves, and we shall make our enjoyment by ourselves." The first notes of the great organ of the Palace were the wedding-march of the girl and the man. The first festivities within the walls attended their wedding-feast. And still the man whose imagination had given birth to these marvels had never guessed that his bride was anything but what she seemed; and he rejoiced in her possession. The truth came to him only when, in the evening, she came to him no longer clad as a simple dressmaker, but radiant in white satin, mystic, wonderful, with white veil and white flowers, and round her white throat a necklace of sparkling diamonds, and diamonds in her hair. "Take her, my boy," said Lord Jocelyn, proudly. "But you have married-not Miss Kennedy at all-but Angela Messenger." Harry took his bride's hand in a kind of stupor. "Forgive me, Harry," she said, "say you forgive me." Then he raised her veil and kissed her forehead before them all. But he could not speak, because all in a moment the sense of what this would mean poured upon his brain in a great wave, and he would fain have been alone. |