Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 3

How the Third Floor Knew the Potteries-1

How the Third Floor Knew the Potteries

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I am a plain man, Major, and you may not dislike to hear a plain statement of facts from me.

Some of those facts lie beyond my understanding. I do not pretend to explain them. I only know that they happened as I relate them, and that I pledge myself for the truth of every word of them.

I began life roughly enough, down among the Potteries. I was an orphan; and my earliest recollections are of a great porcelain manufactory in the country of the Potteries, where I helped about the yard, picked up what halfpence fell in my way, and slept in a harness-loft over the stable. Those were hard times; but things bettered themselves as I grew older and stronger, especially after George Barnard had come to be foreman of the yard.

George Barnard was a Wesleyan—we were mostly dissenters in the Potteries—sober, clear-headed, somewhat sulky and silent, but a good fellow every inch of him, and my best friend at the time when I most needed a good friend. He took me out of the yard, and set me to the furnace-work. He entered me on the books at a fixed rate of wages. He helped me to pay for a little cheap schooling four nights a week; and he led me to go with him on Sundays to the chapel down by the river-side, where I first saw Leah Payne. She was his sweetheart, and so pretty that I used to forget the preacher and everybody else, when I looked at her. When she joined in the singing, I heard no voice but hers. If she asked me for the hymn-book, I used to blush and tremble. I believe I worshipped her, in my stupid ignorant way; and I think I worshipped Barnard almost as blindly, though after a different fashion. I felt I owed him everything. I knew that he had saved rue, body and mind; and I looked up to him as a savage might look up to a missionary.

Leah was the daughter of a plumber, who lived close by the chapel. She was twenty, and George about seven or eight-and-thirty. Some captious folks said there was too much difference in their ages; but she was so serious-minded, and they loved each other so earnestly and quietly, that, if nothing had come between them during their courtship, I don’t believe the question of disparity would ever have troubled the happiness of their married lives. Something did come, however; and that something was a Frenchman, called Louis Laroche. He was a painter on porcelain, from the famous works at Sèvres; and our master, it was said, had engaged him for three years certain, at such wages as none of our own people, however skilful, could hope to command. It was about the beginning or middle of September when he first came among us. He looked very young; was small, dark, and well made; had little white soft hands, and a silky moustache; and spoke English nearly as well as I do. None of us liked him; but that was only natural, seeing how he was put over the head of every Englishman in the place. Besides, though he was always smiling and civil, we couldn’t help seeing that he thought himself ever so much better than the rest of us; and that was not pleasant. Neither was it pleasant to see him strolling about the town, dressed just like a gentleman, when working hours were over; smoking good cigars, when we were forced to be content with a pipe of common tobacco; hiring a horse on Sunday afternoons, when we were trudging a-foot; and taking his pleasure as if the world was made for him to enjoy, and us to work in.

“Ben, boy,” said George, “there’s something wrong about that Frenchman.”

It was on a Saturday afternoon, and we were sitting on a pile of empty seggars against the door of my furnace-room, waiting till the men should all have cleared out of the yard. Seggars are deep earthen boxes in which the pottery is put, while being fired in the kiln. I looked up, inquiringly.

“About the Count?” said I, for that was the nickname by which he went in the pottery.

George nodded, and paused for a moment with his chin resting on his palms.

“He has an evil eye,” said he; “and a false smile. Something wrong about him.”

I drew nearer, and listened to George as if he had been an oracle. “Besides,” added he, in his slow quiet way, with his eyes fixed straight before him as if he was thinking aloud, “there’s a young look about him that isn’t natural. Take him just at sight, and you’d think he was almost a boy; but look close at him—see the little fine wrinkles under his eyes, and the hard lines about his mouth, and then tell me his age, if you can! Why, Ben boy, he’s as old as I am, pretty near; ay, and as strong, too. You stare; but I tell you that, slight as he looks, he could fling you over his shoulder as if you were a feather. And as for his hands, little and white as they are, there are muscles of iron inside them, take my word for it.”

“But, George, how can you know?”

“Because I have a warning against him,” replied George, very gravely. “Because, whenever he is by, I feel as if my eyes saw clearer, and my ears heard keener, than at other times. Maybe it’s presumption, but I sometimes feel as if I had a call to guard myself and others against him. Look at the children, Ben, how they shrink away from him; and see there, now! Ask Captain what he thinks of him! Ben, that dog likes him no better than I do.”

I looked, and saw Captain crouching by his kennel with his ears laid back, growling audibly, as the Frenchman came slowly down the steps leading from his own workshop at the upper end of the yard. On the last step he paused; lighted a cigar; glanced round, as if to see whether anyone was by; and then walked straight over to within a couple of yards of the kennel. Captain gave a short angry snarl, and laid his muzzle close clown upon his paws, ready for a spring. The Frenchman folded his arms deliberately, fixed his eyes on the dog, and stood calmly smoking.

He knew exactly how far he dared go, and kepi just that one foot out of harm’s way. All at once he stooped, puffed a mouthful of smoke in the dog’s eyes, burst into a mocking laugh, turned lightly on his heel, and walked away; leaving Captain straining at his chain, and barking after him like a mad creature.

Days went by, and I, at work in my own department, saw no more of the Count. Sunday came—the third, I think, after I had talked with George in the yard. Going with George to chapel, as usual, in the morning, I noticed that there was something strange and anxious in his voice, and that he scarcely opened his lips to me on the way. Still I said nothing. It was not my place to question him; and I remember thinking to myself that the cloud would all clear off as soon as he found himself by Leah’s side, holding the same book, and joining in the same hymn.

It did not, however, for no Leah was there. I looked every moment to the door, expecting to see her sweet face coming in; but George never lifted his eyes from his book, or seemed to notice that her place was empty. Thus the whole service went by, and my thoughts wandered continually from the words of the preacher. As soon as the last blessing was spoken, and we were fairly across the threshold, I turned to George, and asked if Leah was ill?

“No,” said he, gloomily. “She’s not ill.”

“Then why wasn’t she—?”

“I’ll tell you why,” he interrupted, impatiently. “Because you’ve seen her here for the last time. She’s never coming to chapel again.”

“Never coming to the chapel again?” I faltered, laying my hand on his sleeve in the earnestness of my surprise. “Why, George, what is the matter?”

But he shook my hand off and stamped with his iron heel till the pavement rang again.

“Don’t ask me,” said he, roughly. “Let me alone. You’ll know soon enough.”

And with this he turned off down a by-lane leading towards the hills, and left me without another word.

I had had plenty of hard treatment in my time; but never, until that moment, an angry look or syllable from George. I did not know how to bear it. That day my dinner seemed as if it would choke me; and in the afternoon I went out and wandered restlessly about the fields till the hour for evening prayers came round. I then returned to the chapel, and sat down on a tomb outside, waiting for George. I saw the congregation go in by twos and threes; I heard the first psalm-tune echo solemnly through the evening stillness; but no George came. Then the service began, and I knew that, punctual as his habits were, it was of no use to expect him any longer. Where could he be? What could have happened? Why should Leah Payne never come to chapel again? Had she gone over to some other sect, and was that why George seemed so unhappy?

Sitting there in the little dreary churchyard with the darkness fast gathering around me, I asked myself these questions over and over again, till my brain ached; for I was not much used to thinking about anything in those times. At last, I could bear to sit quiet no longer. The sudden thought struck me that I would go to Leah, and learn what the matter was, from her own lips. I sprang to my feet, and set off at once towards her home.

It was quite dark, and a light rain was beginning to fall. I found the garden-gate open, and a quick hope flashed across me that George might be there. I drew back for a moment, hesitating whether to knock or ring, when a sound of voices in the passage, and the sudden gleaming of a bright line of light under the door, warned me that someone was coming out. Taken by surprise, and quite unprepared for the moment with anything to say, I shrank back behind the porch, and waited until those within should have passed out. The door opened, and the light streamed suddenly upon the roses and the wet gravel.

“It rains,” said Leah, bending forward and shading the candle with her hand.

“And is as cold as Siberia,” added another voice, which was not George’s, and yet sounded strangely familiar. “Ugh! what a climate for such a flower as my darling to bloom in!”

“Is it so much finer in France?” asked Leah, softly.

“As much finer as blue skies and sunshine can make it. Why, my angel, even your bright eyes will be ten times brighter, and your rosy cheeks ten times rosier, when they are transplanted to Paris. Ah I I can give you no idea of the wonders of Paris—the broad streets planted with trees, the palaces, the shops, the gardens!—it is a city of enchantment.”

“It must be, indeed!” said Leah. “And you will really take me to see all those beautiful shops?”

“Every Sunday, my darling—Bah! don’t look so shocked. The shops in Paris are always open on Sunday, and everybody makes holiday. You will soon get over these prejudices.”

“I fear it is very wrong to take so much pleasure in the things of this world,” sighed Leah.

The Frenchman laughed, and answered her with a kiss.

“Good night, my sweet little saint!” and he ran lightly down the path, and disappeared in the darkness. Leah sighed again, lingered a moment, and then closed the door.

Stupefied and bewildered, I stood for some seconds like a stone statue, unable to move; scarcely able to think. At length, I roused myself, as it were mechanically, and went towards the gate. At that instant a heavy hand was laid upon my shoulder, and a hoarse voice close beside my ear, said:

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

It was George. I knew him at once, in spite of the darkness, and stammered his name. He took his hand quickly from my shoulder.

“How long have you been here?” said he, fiercely. “What right have you to lurk about, like a spy in the dark? God help me, Ben—I’m half mad. I don’t mean to be harsh to you.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” I cried, earnestly.

“It’s that cursed Frenchman,” he went on, in a voice that sounded like the groan of one in pain.

“He’s a villain. I know he’s a villain; and I’ve had a warning against him ever since the first moment he came among us. He’ll make her miserable, and break her heart some day—my pretty Leah—and I loved her so! But I’ll be revenged—as sure as there’s a sun in heaven, I’ll be revenged!”