Then came a break of misfortune.Their lodgers left,and no one succeeded to them.After some months they had to remove to a smaller house;and Alice's tender conscience was torn by the idea that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law,but ought to go out and seek her own maintenance.And leave her child!The thought came like the sweeping boom of a funeral bell over her heart.
Bye-and-bye,Mr.Openshaw came to lodge with them.He had started in life as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse;had struggled up through all the grades of employment in the place,fighting his way through the hard striving Manchester life with strong pushing energy of character.Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to self-teaching.He was a capital accountant,a good French and German scholar,a keen,far-seeing tradesman;understanding markets,and the bearing of events,both near and distant,on trade:and yet,with such vivid attention to present details,that I do not think he ever saw a group of flowers in the fields without thinking whether their colours would,or would not,form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring muslins and prints.He went to debating societies,and threw himself with all his heart and soul into politics;esteeming,it must be owned,every man a fool or a knave who differed from him,and overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language than the calm strength if his logic.There was something of the Yankee in all this.Indeed his theory ran parallel to the famous Yankee motto--"England flogs creation,and Manchester flogs England."Such a man,as may be fancied,had had no time for falling in love,or any such nonsense.At the age when most young men go through their courting and matrimony,he had not the means of keeping a wife,and was far too practical to think of having one.And now that he was in easy circumstances,a rising man,he considered women almost as incumbrances to the world,with whom a man had better have as little to do as possible.His first impression of Alice was indistinct,and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct."A pretty yea-nay kind of woman,"would have been his deion of her,if he had been pushed into a corner.He was rather afraid,in the beginning,that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of character which would have been exceedingly discordant to his active energetic nature.But,when he found out the punctuality with which his wishes were attended to,and her work was done;when he was called in the morning at the very stroke of the clock,his shaving-water scalding hot,his fire bright,his coffee made exactly as his peculiar fancy dictated,(for he was a man who had his theory about everything,based upon what he knew of science,and often perfectly original)--then he began to think:not that Alice had any peculiar merit;but that he had got into remarkably good lodgings:his restlessness wore away,and he began to consider himself as almost settled for life in them.
Mr.Openshaw had been too busy,all his life,to be introspective.
He did not know that he had any tenderness in his nature;and if he had become conscious of its abstract existence,he would have considered it as a manifestation of disease in some part of his nature.But he was decoyed into pity unawares;and pity led on to tenderness.That little helpless child--always carried about by one of the three busy women of the house,or else patiently threading coloured beads in the chair from which,by no effort of its own,could it ever move;the great grave blue eyes,full of serious,not uncheerful,expression,giving to the small delicate face a look beyond its years;the soft plaintive voice dropping out but few words,so unlike the continual prattle of a child--caught Mr.
Openshaw's attention in spite of himself.One day--he half scorned himself for doing so--he cut short his dinner-hour to go in search of some toy which should take the place of those eternal beads.Iforget what he bought;but,when he gave the present (which he took care to do in a short abrupt manner,and when no one was by to see him)he was almost thrilled by the flash of delight that came over that child's face,and could not help all through that afternoon going over and over again the picture left on his memory,by the bright effect of unexpected joy on the little girl's face.When he returned home,he found his slippers placed by his sitting-room fire;and even more careful attention paid to his fancies than was habitual in those model lodgings.When Alice had taken the last of his tea-things away--she had been silent as usual till then--she stood for an instant with the door in her hand.Mr.Openshaw looked as if he were deep in his book,though in fact he did not see a line;but was heartily wishing the woman would be gone,and not make any palaver of gratitude.But she only said:"I am very much obliged to you,sir.Thank you very much,"and was gone,even before he could send her away with a "There,my good woman,that's enough!"For some time longer he took no apparent notice of the child.
