Where Love Shines (10 page)

Mr. Neville, implacable as always, swallowed a bite of roast potato. “The girl seems to have come through the experience quite unscathed.”

“I’m not so certain about that, husband. Not so certain at all.” The lace lapettes on her cap bobbed up and down as Mrs. Neville regarded her daughter.

Jennifer herself wondered just how unscathed she was. Outwardly, now that her complexion had recovered and her wardrobe had been updated, she appeared little changed. But inside she knew she had grown up far more than any young woman who had remained safe in the comfortable world of London’s upper middle class. And she was beginning to see how uncomfortable that could make her.

By Thursday afternoon the matter was still unsettled, and Jennifer was wondering just how far she could or should go in opposing her mother’s wishes. Then Hinson announced the arrival of Mr. Arthur Nigel Merriott. “Arthur!” Jennifer flung her embroidery aside and hurried to greet him.

Mrs. Neville followed close behind her daughter, ordering that a tea tray be brought in. Between sips of tea and bites of rich, dark fruitcake, Arthur told them about his factory inspection. “…And although some factory owners are too short-sighted to see the truth,” he gestured with a piece of cake, “I’m convinced that the new factory laws will be for the good of industry and the good of England. It’s common sense. Healthier, happier workers will build a stronger, happier nation. Such laws are a protection against the kind of revolution they have had on the continent.”

Mrs. Neville paled and flung her hand to her chest. “Surely you aren’t suggesting those horrid Chartists might actually get the upper hand. Arthur, you don’t expect revolution
here?
”

“I think revolutionaries would find limited support here, ma’am, because we are seeing to reform through our laws.”

The color returned to Mrs. Neville’s cheeks as she refilled her teacup. Jennifer smiled. She could imagine Arthur making that very speech on the hustings as a candidate for Parliament. Already he spoke of the laws as if he had a hand in shaping them.

“By the way,” Arthur continued, changing the subject, “I had an interesting experience on this trip. I went to Ashley Downs—you know, the orphanage George Muller runs outside Bristol? I delivered an offering from All Souls to the orphanage and took a meal with them while there.” He shook his head. “It was most amazing really. That fellow Muller takes the phrase ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ quite literally. The larders rarely contain more than a day’s supply of food. And yet the children tell me they have never gone hungry. Muller will never tell any person about their needs—only the Lord in prayer. Then when the need is filled, it’s certain that it was by no human means.”

“You sound skeptical, Arthur.”

“It seems a bit helter-skelter, you must admit.”

“But the Scriptures say we’re to live by faith.”

“Well, yes, faith for our salvation, of course. But a bit of vigorous energy on our part seems to be required for the rest of life. How would it be if the rest of us just went along doing good and expected the Lord to take care of us? What would happen to business, to industry, to the poor whose lot we’re trying to improve?”

Here was Jennifer’s opening. “Arthur, there’s a ragged school in Westminster, and I was just telling Mama and Papa that I would so very much like to teach there.” After his defense of the need for personal action, he could hardly back down now.

Arthur looked from one face to another and seemed to grasp the situation, especially the reason behind the thin line of Mrs. Neville’s mouth. “By all means, a noble idea. But in a very bad area. Mrs. Neville, perhaps it would ease your mind if I were to accompany Miss Neville.”

And so it was that only a few hours later, Jenny sat in a corner of the mission schoolroom. With six barefoot, half-naked urchins around her, she began unlocking for them the mysteries of the strange markings and sounds that made up the English language. Each child had copied a wobbly large
B
and small
b
onto a slate and was happily experimenting with the plosive sound of the letter. Suddenly the proceedings were interrupted by the entrance of a tall, thin man with a mass of jet-black curly hair.

A small, ragged scrap of humanity followed behind the man in the well-pressed black suit, but it was the gentle smile on the man’s rather large mouth and the kindness in his light blue deep-set eyes that took Jennifer’s attention. Strangely, the children did not cower before so dignified a figure, but were instinctively drawn to him.

Mr. Walker, who had just concluded a service in the meeting room, bustled in. “My Lord, what an unexpected honor. I have so little to offer you—perhaps a cup of coffee?”

The newcomer smiled, making his prominent nose appear even sharper. “On the contrary, Walker, you have everything to offer me. No coffee, thank you. It is more than nourishment to me to see your fine work here. And your dedicated workers.”

Walker took the hint and presented Jennifer to the Earl of Shaftesbury, the man who had done more than any other in England to promote the work of ragged schools. Jennifer was immediately warmed by his kind face, intelligent eyes, and rather wistful smile. Then the earl propelled the small lad from behind his leg. “I have brought a new student for you, Miss Neville. Although perhaps we might postpone his lessons for tonight in favor of his being given a bath.”

The child’s skin tones seemed to be of two colors: red and black. His hands, feet, elbows, and knees were such a bright blood red as to appear to be entirely without skin. Indeed, Jennifer gasped when she looked at his knees, thinking the kneecaps completely gone. The rest of his body, as most of it was exposed beneath his rags, was the deep black of ground-in soot. Tears sprang to Jennifer’s eyes. Even from the battlefields of the Crimea, she had not seen a sorrier sight. She bent down to his level. “Welcome to our school. And what’s your name?”

“Joshua, ma’am.” The voice came out in a whisper.

“Mrs. Watson!” The mission director summoned from the kitchen a sturdy, capable-looking woman with her hair tucked under a close-fitting cap.

Jennifer gasped and then flew to the woman in greeting. “Mrs. Watson—my dear Edith! When did you return from Scutari?” It was obvious that small talk would have to wait, but Jennifer could think of no more comforting a personage to take charge of the pitiful scrap of humanity that was Joshua than Edith Watson.

Joshua apparently thought so, too, because he placed his hand in hers to be led off to strong soap and warm water. “Calamine lotion. I have a fresh jug of it in here—just the thing for those knees and elbows.” Joshua gave a little hopping skip to keep up with her vigorous walk.

The earl urged the class to continue with the lessons he had interrupted. He would hear them recite. None of the students could have been as nervous as Jennifer, but her small charges made appropriate “A-A-A” and “B-B-B” sounds for the man who for ten years had led the Ragged School Union. In that time hundreds, even thousands, of vagabond boys and girls had been rescued from the stinking slums squatting behind London’s fine thoroughfares.

Arthur returned for Jennifer before classes were dismissed, and so made up part of the group gathered around the Earl of Shaftesbury to hear Joshua’s story. “Day before yesterday I happened to rise earlier than usual. Standing by the window at the back of my house in Upper Brook Street, I saw this small boy, his limbs twisted and his back bent beneath the bundle of rods and brushes he was obliged to carry for his employer, who cuffed him as they walked back from work. But I knew from the soot and blood covering him that this lad did more than carry brushes. He had been sent naked up the chimneys to dislodge the soot.”

Jennifer leaned forward and listened with fascinated horror. She had been only a child herself when the man before her had led the fight in Parliament to pass the Climbing Boys Bill, but she remembered vaguely the uproar it had caused among the housewives who gathered in her mother’s parlor. Clean chimneys were essential to their very lives. More than one London house burned every winter, and often the neighboring buildings as well, from soot in the chimney catching fire. It was a pity if children were made uncomfortable in the effort—but what were they to do? Surely Parliament didn’t mean to let London burn.

Jennifer came back from those long-ago memories to the earl’s voice continuing. “And I knew from looking into the matter when our bill was before Parliament that the child was prepared for his work by being rubbed all over with salt water in front of a hot fire to toughen his skin. Skin that broke and bled would be rubbed with brine again and again until it was hard.”

He paused, and Arthur urged him on. “Tell them about setting the fires, my Lord.”

Shaftesbury nodded. “Climbing boys often stick in the chimneys, whether from the narrowness of the passage or their own terror. The sweep will light a fire of straw under him to cause him to struggle violently enough to free himself. Of course, if he doesn’t come unstuck, the child suffocates.” There was great sadness in the earl’s voice, as if he felt personal responsibility for all the children he had been unable to rescue.

“The trouble is, this work is done while all decent Londoners are asleep in their beds. And the sweeps keep their boys locked up on Sundays so no one will see them.”

“But is there no alternative?” Jennifer was still puzzling over those conversations recalled from her childhood. “We must have clean chimneys. Is there some way to achieve that without so terrible a cost?”

The earl nodded, his jutting black brows shading his eyes. “New methods are being invented, better brushes developed, new chimneys built with fewer twists and turns that collect soot.

“We shall see the day a Climbing Boys Bill will pass Parliament
and be enforced
, but I fear that even with our best efforts, it is far off. In the meantime I have rescued this boy. It is so little to do when I would do so much.” He paused. “I offered to buy his apprenticeship from his master, but he’d not hear of it. So we tracked down the lad’s father. When he heard I was offering free education for his son, the man was most cooperative.” Again Shaftesbury paused. “But there are so many who go unrescued. Sometimes I hear them crying out to me in my sleep.”

“But, My Lord, you’ve achieved so much.” Arthur’s sandy muttonchops bristled with enthusiasm. “You’ve ended child labor in the coal mines, and our inspection team found matters much improved in the textile mills. I do not think it an overstatement, sir, to say, as I did only this afternoon, that you have saved English society from the revolutions that shook the continent. The work of your committees has given hope to the poor, and the work of missionaries keeps them peaceful.”

Arthur’s words seemed only to make the earl more morose. “My friend, you sound much like the Frenchman who remarked to me that ‘the religion alone of your country has saved you from revolution.’ But that is the very thing that saddens me. Is it all mere ‘religion’ we are practicing? Or is it vital personal faith? Is it for the good of English commerce or for the good of our eternal souls? Do we love cleanliness and order, or do we love God?

“I was brought up in the ‘high-and-dry’ religion that saw the Church of England primarily as a prop of the government and regarded dissenters and Methodists as wicked. I fear there is still much of this at every level of society. Without a strong moral basis and personal faith among our people, no reforms can truly help the nation. No matter how much our compassionate societies achieve, what is done only for the sake of society or a popular cause will do little good in the end.”

With that the Earl of Shaftesbury pulled himself to his full height and shook the hand of each worker, offering words of gratitude for their efforts. He put on his tall black hat, which made him seem more towering yet, and nodded to all before turning to the door.

Long after his departure Jennifer still felt the warm clasp of the earl’s hand. She was strangely moved by his fervency. She had never heard anyone speak so deeply from the heart. Certainly, Florence Nightingale had come close, in her efforts to carry out her vision for nursing and good medical care. But the scope of this man’s accomplishments and his determination to press forward to right all the wrongs he saw was simply breathtaking. She had heard that he had little personal fortune, and yet he invested much of his own money in the work. All this while being an exemplary father to his own large family.

But it was more than his energy and dedication that gripped her. If fervency for social change had been all, Arthur could be said to be a young Shaftesbury. But there was a vital difference. The key must be in the earl’s last words—in the matter of personal faith. And yet how did one sort that out? The Scripture said faith without works was dead, and it seemed that all of polite society was caught up in good works. Did as little of it spring from true faith as the earl indicated?

If so, what hope was there?

J
ennifer stood in the middle of her room a few days later running the dark green satin ribbons of her new bonnet through her fingers. Still she made no motion to put the hat on, even though she knew the carriage had been summoned.

The truth was, she felt guilty. She had held no intention of abandoning Richard or her new friend Livvy, and she had thought of them much during the past days. The business of restructuring her life in London, however, was proving far more trying than she had imagined. The changes in her values and view of life were taking time to sort out. And some days she seemed further than ever from determining what direction the rest of her life was to take.

Stating her objective was simple. She desired to serve God and society, as was expected of all young ladies of her class. But once that was said, what did one then
do?

She had always understood God as one of the pillars of society. One served on His committees as one did those of Lady Eccleson. It was a comforting concept. She meant no disrespect by it. But now she suspected that such a childlike picture would not do to build her life on.