Chapter 22 #2
Her father returned, looking just as downhearted as before.
“There’s not anywhere I can go without getting an earful of suffering and weakness.
I’ve told ’em a thousand times that it would be hard, but we must hold firm.
The masters must give in soon. I know there are orders that lie undone.
” He spoke to the room, gesturing with flailing hands. The girls watched him silently.
A rapping at the door made him hunch over with his hands on his thighs as he braced himself for what would surely be more of the same complaints. Then he straightened himself and went to the door.
Addy Boucher burst into the room as soon as he opened it. Her thin brown hair hung loosely down her dusty calico dress; her eyes glinted with a wild pain, and her jaw was firmly set with a deep frown.
“My John must return to his work. We cannot abide the strike one more day!” Her adamant request rose into a desperate outcry. She let out a great sob and collapsed to the floor weeping, the outburst of rage having drained her energy.
“Addy! Addelaide” her husband called out for her before he swept into the room through the open doorway. John Boucher clutched his infant son to his chest. The child made pitiful sounds, unable to make the full-throated cries of a well-fed babe.
“You see what you’ve done to my wife—to my children!
” John Boucher shouted, holding out the writhing baby as proof of their misery.
“You told us it would be two weeks. Two weeks! And it’s coming on three now.
And what are we to do with your blasted Union rules?
I told you I couldn’t abide your plan, but you forced it on all of us! ”
He crouched down to help his wife up from the floor.
“It were all we could do to feed our eight children when I had work. And now…this is what we’ve become!
My wife is near about crazy with worry and crying.
You’d be the same if you heard the wails and whimpering from our children night and day.
” At this outburst, his wife began to sob, clinging to her husband’s arm.
Margaret’s stomach clenched tight as she watched this scene unfold.
Nicholas Higgins lowered his head and clutched the table as if gathering the strength to answer.
“And I told you we must be in this all together or not at all. The Union pays to cover some of your needs for the duration. And if some need more to get by, by God, I’ll give my own over to make it right!
Here!” he said, tipping a few coins from a tin cup on the shelf behind him into his hand and offering them to the struggling parents.
John Boucher grabbed the coins, but spat out his rebuke of this meager aid.
“I’ve eight children at home! Eight! And they’re all layin’ abed for weakness.
And for what? We were getting by afore this damned strike, which I ne’er wanted to join!
And now my family is to die for it? I curse you and your Union for what yo’ve done! ”
“Get out of my house!” Higgins growled, thrusting his arm towards the open door.
“Stop it! I can’t stand it anymore!” Bessy cried out, covering her ears in great distress.
“I’ll not have anyone disturb my girl no more! I’ll give yo’ what I can, but don’t bring your wailing here!” Higgins warned as he bade the Bouchers leave.
Bessy rocked back and forth in her bed as Margaret rubbed her back to soothe her.
Nicholas observed the care Margaret gave his daughter, and his heart swelled with a bittersweet pain. “I’ll not forget yo’r kindness to my daughter,” he said softly in the silence after the tumultuous scene.
Margaret nodded her acknowledgment of his words but kept her attention on the pitiful girl at her side.
“They’re gone now, Bessy. I’ll have my father send the Bouchers a basket of food.
Do not trouble yourself with worry. I’m certain the strike must be over soon,” she said hopefully, coaxing Bessy to lie down again.
Nicholas retired to a corner of the house for some quiet.
“Shall I read you some Scripture?” Margaret offered, reaching for the worn leather book on a wooden chair.
“Aye,” Bessy sighed, folding her hands to rest on her stomach. “I like to think on the new heaven and earth promised in Revelation. I’m sorely tired of this old world.”
So the vicar’s daughter read from the back pages of that old familiar book, as she had done many a time in Helstone with cottagers who needed comfort.
After a time, she closed the book quietly in her lap when she saw that Bessy was asleep.
She studied the peaceful face of the girl whose life had been filled with hardship.
Her heart twisted with deep affection and sorrow.
Gently shutting the door behind her, Margaret set off toward home, a heavy sadness in her breast which was not alleviated by the haggard faces she met along the dusty pathways in the Princeton district.
Men and women sat on the ground outside their doors to commiserate and escape the stilted and gloomy air of their dwellings.
She passed by outstretched hands with a weak smile. She had given all she had to the Higgins.
She walked more briskly to avoid the plaintive looks until she reached the hill that led closer to her own area of town.
She stopped to take in the expansive view of rooftops, steeples, and chimneys that reached into the sky, but without their usual black offering.
From up here, all seemed peaceful. But she knew that below, there was a great mass of humanity that seethed with fomenting anger, resentment, and desperate fear.
How could she dress up in fine clothes tonight and be served a lavish meal when there was so much suffering here?