You may guess I felt squeamish, but mine weren’t the first song, and th’ music sounded like a friend’s voice telling me to take courage. So, to make a long story short, when it were all o’er th’ lecturer thanked me, and th’ managers said as how there never was a new singer so applauded (for they’d clapped and stamped after I’d done, till I began to wonder how many pair o’ shoes they’d get through a week at that rate, let alone their hands). So I’m to sing again o’ Thursday; and I got a sovereign last night, and am to have half-a-sovereign every night th’ lecturer is at th’ Mechanics’.’
‘Well, Margaret, I’m right glad to hear it.’
‘And I don’t think you’ve heard the best bit yet. Now that a way seemed open to me, of not being a burden to any one, though it did please God to make me blind, I thought I’d tell grandfather. I only tell’d him about the singing and the sovereign last night, for I thought I’d not send him to bed wi’ a heavy heart; but this morning I telled him all.’
‘And how did he take it?’
‘He’s not a man of many words; and it took him by surprise like.’
‘I wonder at that; I’ve noticed it in your ways ever since you telled me.’
‘Ay, that’s it! If I’d not telled you, and you’d seen me every day, you’d not ha’ noticed the little mite o’ difference fra’ day to day.’
‘Well, but what did your grandfather say?’
‘Why, Mary,’ said Margaret, half smiling, ‘I’m a bit loth to tell yo, for unless yo knew grandfather’s ways like me, yo’d think it strange. He was taken by surprise, and he said: “Damn yo!” Then he began looking at his book as it were, and were very quiet, while I telled him all about it; how I’d feared, and how downcast I’d been; and how I were now reconciled to it, if it were th’ Lord’s will; and how I hoped to earn money by singing; and while I were talking, I saw great big tears come dropping on th’ book; but in course I never let on that I saw ’em. Dear grandfather! and all day long he’s been quietly moving things out o’ my way, as he thought might trip me up, and putting things in my way as he thought I might want; never knowing I saw and felt what he were doing; for, yo see, he thinks I’m out and out blind, I guess – as I shall be soon.’
Margaret sighed in spite of her cheerful and relieved tone.
Though Mary caught the sigh, she felt it was better to let it pass without notice, and began, with the tact which true sympathy rarely fails to supply, to ask a variety of questions respecting her friend’s musical début, which tended to bring out more distinctly how successful it had been.
‘Why, Margaret,’ at length she exclaimed, ‘thou’lt become as famous, maybe, as that grand lady fra’ London, as we see’d one night driving up to the concert-room door in her carriage.’
‘It looks very like it,’ said Margaret, with a smile. ‘And be sure, Mary, I’ll not forget to give thee a lift now and then when that comes about. Nay, who knows, if thou’rt a good girl, but mayhappen I may make thee my lady’s maid! Wouldn’t that be nice? So I e’en sing to mysel th’ beginning o’ one o’ my songs –
“An’ ye shall walk in silk attire,
An’ siller hae to spare.”’
‘Nay, don’t stop; or else give me something rather more new, for somehow I never quite liked that part about thinking o’ Donald mair.’
‘Well, though I’m a bit tired I don’t care if I do. Before I come, I were practising well-nigh upon two hours this one which I’m to sing o’ Thursday. The lecturer said he were sure it would just suit me, and I should do justice to it; and I should be right sorry to disappoint him, he were so nice and encouraging like to me. Eh! Mary, what a pity there isn’t more o’ that way, and less scolding and rating i’ th’ world! It would go a vast deal further. Beside, some o’ th’ singers said, they were a’most certain that it were a song o’ his own, because he were so fidgety and particular about it, and so anxious I should give it th’ proper expression. And that makes me care still more. Th’ first verse, he said, were to be sung “tenderly, but joyously!” I’m afraid I don’t quite hit that, but I’ll try.
“What a single word can do!
Thrilling all the heart-strings through,
Calling forth fond memories,
Raining round hope’s melodies,
Steeping all in one bright hue –
What a single word can do!”
Now it falls into th’ minor key, and must be very sad-like. I feel as if I could do that better than t’other.
“What a single word can do!
Making life seem all untrue,
Driving joy and hope away,
Leaving not one cheering ray,
Blighting every flower that grew –
What a single word can do!”’
Margaret certainly made the most of this little song. As a factory worker, listening outside, observed, ‘She spun it reet* fine!’ And if she only sang it at the Mechanics’ with half the feeling she put into it that night, the lecturer must have been hard to please, if he did not admit that his expectations were more than fulfilled.
When it was ended, Mary’s looks told more than words could have done what she thought of it; and partly to keep in a tear which would fain have rolled out, she brightened into a laugh, and said, ‘For certain th’ carriage is coming. So let us go and dream on it.’
* ‘Wick’, alive. Anglo-Saxon, cwic. ‘The quick and the dead.’ – Book of Common Prayer.
† ‘At after.’ ‘At after souper goth this noble king.’ – CHAUCER, The Squire’s Tale.
* ‘Ritling’, probably a corruption of ‘ricketling’, a child that suffers from the rickets – a weakling.
* ‘Cotched’, caught.
* ‘Letting on’, informing.
* ‘Reet’, right; often used for ‘very’.
‘A life of self-indulgence is for us,
A life of self-denial is for them;
For us the streets, broad-built and populous,
For them unhealthy corners, garrets dim,
And cellars where the water-rat may swim!
For us green paths refreshed by frequent rain,
For them dark alleys where the dust lies grim!
Not doomed by us to this appointed pain –
God made us rich and poor – of what do these complain?’
MRS NORTON’S ‘CHILD