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Title: The youngest princess
or, Little means to big ends
Author: Jennie Chappell
Release date: August 8, 2026 [eBook #79303]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Blackie & Son, Limited, 1890
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79303
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNGEST PRINCESS ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
THE YOUNGEST PRINCESS:
OR
LITTLE MEANS TO BIG ENDS.
BY
JENNIE CHAPPELL
Author of "Berne's Bargain;" "Little Radiance;"
"The Man of the Family;" &c.
[Illustration: Lucem Libris • Disseminumus.]
LONDON:
BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 49 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
GLASGOW, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN.
CONTENTS.
————
Chap.
I. MINNIE, MAUD, AND MARGERIE
II. DESERTED
III. EXPLANATIONS
IV. ANXIOUS TIMES
V. MARGERIE'S ADVENTURE
VI. BLACK-EYED AND BAREFOOT
VII. GRANDMOTHER
VIII. AWAY FROM HOME
IX. A MYSTERY
X. THE COAL-CELLAR WINDOW
XI. "NED'S ENOUGH!"
XII. A BRAVE CONFESSION
XIII. SITTING ON A PLANK
XIV. REUNION
[Illustration]
THE YOUNGEST PRINCESS.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
MINNIE, MAUD, AND MARGERIE.
OUT in the quiet street the soft, cold snow lay thick; the round
middle bed in the small front garden of Briar Cottage gleamed smooth
and white in the gathering dusk like the top of a giant Twelfth-cake;
the path was hidden, the bushes were loaded, the windowsill was
piled high with a downy drift, yet the crystal flakes were still
falling—falling—falling. Silently, ceaselessly they floated by millions
through the breathless air, that was strangely lightened by their
whiteness, and there were millions more to come. Long afterwards, that
January evening which was then closing in was remembered as "the night
of the great snowstorm."
Within the crimson-curtained window that made a spot of glowing
radiance in the weird, pale, out-of-door gloaming, the firelight was
ruddy, the shadows deep and soft. One of three small figures cosily
huddled together on the rug thrust the poker into the heart of the
biggest lump of coal, and then—! What a sudden leaping and dancing of
the freed flame-sprites, what a mingling and bobbing of bright and
dark in the corners of the room, what responsive gleams from spotless
table-cloth and flashing tea-pot and glittering cups and spoons! Not to
speak of the softer shining of three golden heads and the sparkle of
six starry eyes. Soon the illumination grew more steady.
"Go on reading now, Maudie," begged Minnie, the eldest of the three.
"Read us that piece of poetry about 'The King's Daughters,'—it looks
pretty. Father must be home, I should think, by the time you have done."
Maud—studious, twelve year old Maud—lifted a book that was lying at her
feet, and turning so that the amber glow might irradiate the open page,
read in a sweet, precise voice, but with little or no feeling, the
graceful story of the three young princesses, who—
"' . . . 'Neath the palace windows straying,
Had fallen into earnest talk that put an end to playing;—'"
and of how these little ladies vied with one another in expressing the
greatest love for the king, their father.
"'It is I who love our father best,' the eldest daughter said;
'I am the oldest princess,' and her pretty face grew red;
'What is there none can do without? I love him more than bread.'"
The second princess, despising so poor a comparison, declared, (they
didn't wear the blue ribbon in that far country!)—
"'I love him more than wine!'"
Then came the turn of "the little youngest daughter, with her eyes
of steadfast gray," and she, as many of my readers know, aroused the
derisive laughter of the other two by asserting only that she loved him
"more than 'salt!'"
The king, too, who overheard them, was grieved that he should be thus
lightly held in the affections of his favourite child. But the cook,
who also had been listening, decided to prove to his master that this
"little quiet thing" knew more than either of her sisters. So, by and
by, at dinner-time, every dish came on the table "minus" salt.
The surprise and displeasure of the king, who yet could not discover
what was wrong, and the subsequent explanation by the youngest
daughter, were very prettily told in the verses Maud read. The last one
ran as follows:
"'Great love through smallest channels will find its surest way;
It waits not state occasions, which may not come, or may;
It comforts and it blesses hour by hour and day by day.'"
"I wonder why it is always the 'youngest' princess who says and does
the clever things?" observed Minnie in a somewhat dissatisfied tone,
when Maud had finished. Minnie had already entered her teens, and was
enjoying the first flush of dignity which that stage of advancement
confers.
"Because it is only a story, I suppose; and it wouldn't do for stories
to be too like real," said Maud, who appeared to have a rather poor
opinion of the verisimilitude of fiction generally.
"And there's always three of them, isn't there?" said little Margerie.
"Just three. Suppose 'we' all had to choose something, or say
something."
"You wouldn't distinguish yourself much," observed Minnie.
"No, I expect Maud would be the best. Suppose you had to tell how much
you loved our father," continued Margerie, addressing the reader, "what
would you say you liked him better than?"
"The last new story!" answered Minnie for her sister. "Maud has always
got her nose in a book."
"'You' would say the last new fashion!" retorted Maud. "Minnie has
always got her nose in the glass."
"I should be sorry to see myself there without it," laughed Minnie,
who, though she had a knack of upsetting other people's tempers, was
generally good-humoured herself.
"After all," remarked Margerie, reflectively gazing into the fire as
she sat on a low stool, elbows on knees, and her round little face
resting in the palms of her hands, "the youngest is very often the
worst. See what a torment the littlest Symmons is."
"Positive little, comparative less, superlative least," quoted Maud,
didactically.
"Well, then, the least Symmons.—Oh, Maud, I don't believe that's
right!—She's always crying and screaming about something or other."
"That's because the little and the less Symmonses have always been
made to give her all her own way, just because she is the least," said
Minnie.
"Don't be ridiculous!" said Maud, rather crossly.
"And there was father's youngest brother, too," pursued Margerie, who
seldom heeded these frequent passages of arms between her elders.
"Going and running away from home like he did."
"That was chiefly grandma's fault, though," remarked Maud. "Mother says
so. She was so dreadfully strict and peculiar."
"She must have been an awfully exacting kind of person," said Minnie,
"to have quarrelled with father on such slight grounds."
"She couldn't really have not liked mother, could she?" questioned
Margerie. "Nobody could help loving her, I should think."
"It was jealousy," answered Maud. "When Tom, the middle one of the
three, was dead, and after Harry had run away, all her affections were
wrapped up in father. And she thought he would keep single and let her
be first with him all his life. So when father got acquainted with
mother and wanted to marry her, she was as angry as could be. She would
give him up altogether rather than share him with anyone else."
"Funny sort of love, wasn't it?" said Margerie. "You would have thought
that if she cared for him so very much, she would have been glad for
somebody else to be fond of him too, especially anybody like mother."
"And he asked her to come and live with them and all," added Minnie.
"He would have given her a nice room in his house, and made her as
comfortable as could be, but she wouldn't. I'm glad enough she didn't,
though. What a time of it we should have had with her!"
"Mother wouldn't have let her hurt us," said Margerie. "I think it is
very sad for poor father to lose his own mother like that; because he
is fond of her, and she was very good to him until he got married. And
it is as bad as having her die, almost, not to know anything about her,
or ever to hear from her, and not even to know where she lives."
"Mother says it all comes of selfishness," observed Maud. "If grandma
had loved father truly, she would have cared ever so much more for him
to have a nice, good wife to make him happy than to keep him all to
herself. And I'm sure she can't feel satisfied to be estranged like
this."
"No, she has punished herself the most, like proud and selfish people
always do," said Minnie. "Here comes mother!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
DESERTED!
"A QUARTER to six, and father not home yet!" exclaimed Mrs. Grace,
glancing at the clock as she struck a match for the gas. "What can be
keeping him?"
She was a rather short, rather stout lady, with wavy light brown hair,
large sweet gray eyes, and a face that would be pretty all her life
long, for love and kindliness and gentle mirth gave expression to every
line. Margerie was the most like her of the three little girls.
The moment the light came, Maud reopened her book, Minnie stood up
to "tidivate" a pet curl on her forehead by the chimney glass, and
Margerie, hanging herself basket-fashion on her mother's arm, pressed a
soft cheek against her shoulder with a look that said, "How nice it is
to have someone to cuddle!"
"Perhaps father lost the train," suggested Minnie, pulling out and
tying afresh the smart little bow of pink ribbon at her throat.
Minnie would have been, with her shining fair hair and delicate
complexion, an extremely attractive looking girl, but her little
self-conscious airs and graces spoilt it all. She seemed never to
forget that she was pretty, and in consequence, other people found it
difficult to remember.
"Traffic may be delayed by the drifts of snow," observed Mrs. Grace. "I
think we may as well have tea, girls."
"Let's wait just five minutes longer," pleaded Margerie. "Father always
likes to have tea with us on his early evening. He is sure to get home
if he can."
"The next train will be in at three minutes past six," said Minnie.
"That's two trains later than he usually is on a Thursday evening."
"That will be three—eight—thirteen minutes longer," observed Margerie;
"only thirteen, mother. And I can be making some toast, can't I? Father
is so fond of my toast with all the crust cut off."
"Very well," smiled Mrs. Grace, well pleased, and she whisked out her
stocking-basket wherewith to improve the interval. Maud, buried in her
book, was lost to all around, oblivious of tea, and unconscious that
any discussion whatever had been taking place.
"There!" cried Margerie, with uplifted finger, as she stood her fourth
delicately-browned slice in the china rack. "That's the train coming
in now; don't you hear it? It will only take father two minutes to get
from the station to our door."
"You might allow him half a minute extra on account of the weather,"
suggested Minnie.
"Yes, to be sure," Margerie gravely agreed. And seating herself on the
corner of a chair with her toasting-fork held trident-fashion, like a
small Britannia, she fixed her eyes upon the dial of the time-piece.
It was probably because their father was already overdue, and they had
worked themselves up into an unusual state of expectancy by so closely
calculating the time, but never in her life before had Margerie Grace
watched the clock with anything like the nervous anxiety she did then.
"Half a minute is gone," she said. "He's out of the train and up the
stairs. Now he's getting past the ticket man. Now he's putting up his
umbrella at the door."
Years afterwards she still recollected the peculiar thrill of those
almost breathless moments.
"He must have turned our corner by this time, but we sha'n't be able to
hear his footsteps till he gets quite close, because of the snow."
She jumped from her chair in a feverish kind of way, and ran to the
window. Parting the red curtains, she looked out. Nothing could
she discern through the veil of white flakes that were falling, if
possible, more thickly than ever in the darkness. Every moment it
seemed that the muffled thud of footsteps must reach her ear, and the
welcome form take shape amid that strange chaos without. But eye and
ear were alike strained in vain.
"Put the curtain down, Margie dear; there is such a draught," said her
mother at length.
Margerie obeyed. The clock was pointing to seventeen minutes past
six. The child slowly and silently came back to the fireside, then to
everyone's surprise suddenly burst into tears.
"My dear child!" exclaimed Mrs. Grace. "You must not be so much upset
about a little thing. Father has been detained at the office, no doubt.
If you set your heart so upon things turning out just as you expect,
you are sure to meet with disappointment."
"What is the matter with Margie?" asked Maud, coming out of the realm
of fiction with the dazed air of a person awaking from a dream.
"She made sure father would come by the 6.3 train, and he hasn't,"
answered Minnie.
"That was just the way to keep him away," said Maud sententiously. "The
things we make so sure of, are the very things that never happen. I've
noticed it over and over again."
"Quite so," rejoined teasing Minnie. "You seem to be making sure that
by reading a storybook all this evening you'll keep top of the French
class to-morrow."
"I won't make sure again," said Margerie, wiping her eyes—she hardly
knew herself what had brought that irrepressible gush of tears; "and
then perhaps he'll come."
But the next train, and the next, and still another—seven o'clock,
half-past seven, eight o'clock came, and yet Mr. Grace had not returned.
His wife herself was beginning to feel no small anxiety about him,
for as a rule his hours were most regular. But she would not let the
children see how much she was troubled.
Nine year old Margerie, after fruitless protests, went to bed as usual
at eight o'clock, her sisters an hour later.
She was still awake when they came up. "Father hasn't come home?" she
said.
"No. I can see mother is getting to feel awfully worried about his
being so late," replied Minnie. "I wanted to sit up and keep her
company, but she wouldn't let me. It is dreadful to think of father
being out somewhere in that lonely snow! I feel almost as if we
oughtn't to go to bed and leave him."
"Hush!" said Maud. "You'll make Margie cry again."
Margerie's eyes were filling with tears, but she said: "God is out in
the snow, though, isn't He? Just the same as in here. Perhaps more
even, because of people wanting Him more."
Like a little prophetess she had spoken a word of comfort to them all,
and resting on it as on a pillow soft and firm, the three sisters soon
fell asleep. The love and power of our Father pervades every inch
of the universe; it must be so, or He could not be God. He was with
everybody's dear ones out in that terrible storm, He was guarding the
children under their safe home-roof, He was sustaining the trembling
watcher in the room below. But oh! the loneliness, the fear-filled
stillness of the house when the maid too had gone up to her attic, and
midnight drew on, and Mrs. Grace was the only one awake! And still her
husband did not come.
Early in the small hours Maud awoke with the toothache. She bore it
quietly for some time, hearing the clock strike two, meanwhile. But
as it did not get better and she could not go to sleep, she slipped
out of bed, wrapped herself in a shawl, and tip-toed to her mother's
chamber-door. She had no doubt that both her parents were by this time
asleep within.
She tapped, but received no answer. She tapped again. She opened the
door a little way and said, "Mother!"
She repeated the word a little louder—when before had it failed to meet
with a ready response?—but all was silence. She peeped in. The blinds
were still up, and the pallid gleam from the snow outside fell upon a
smooth and vacant bed. No one was there!
A strange terror at her heart frightening the toothache away, she sped
with trembling limbs down the stairs. The lower part of the house was
in total darkness. The parlour door stood open; the gas was turned
down; a dull red spot indicated the position of the grate, but the
dying ashes seemed to have been untended for hours.
"Mother!" she cried aloud, in a horror of desertedness. "Mother!
'Mother!'"
Not a sound came in response but the weird moan of the snow-bringing
wind, and the soft pat of great icy flakes against the pane. Even the
clock had stopped, and the house was as silent as a tomb.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
EXPLANATIONS.
NEVER will Maud forget the unutterable sense of desolation that
swallowed her up at that moment of realizing that her mother was
nowhere within call; that she had left them, and gone out into the
woeful storm, out alone, as the girl at first believed, to seek their
missing father.
Minnie, awakened in terror by Maud's last piercing cry of "Mother!" met
her white and trembling on the landing as she went back to the bed-room.
"Oh, Maud, what is it? What is the matter?" she distressfully
questioned.
"Mother's gone!"
"Gone! Gone where? You must have been dreaming, child!" exclaimed the
elder girl.
"I've not. I wish I was!" answered Maud between her chattering teeth.
"Father has never been home—their room is empty—and now I can't find
mother!"
Shivering though she was with cold and fright, poor Maud sat down on
the top stair, and began to cry.
"Sh-sh! Don't make a noise; go back to bed both of you!" said the voice
of Ellen the servant from above. "You'll catch your deaths standing out
there."
"Where's mother, then?"
"Gone to the hospital, to see your pa. Go right back into bed, now, if
you want me to tell you. Lawkamussy, what a night I'm having! We shall
all be laid up to-morrow."
Thus adjured, the girls huddled down beneath the bed-clothes again.
"What's happened to father? What hospital? Has he had an accident?"
they queried breathlessly.
"Hush now! Don't wake your poor little sister," said Ellen in a loud
whisper. "Let her sleep on in peace, if she may. Your ma came up to
me," continued the girl, seating herself on the side of the bed,
"just as I was dropping off to sleep—near upon twelve it was, for
somehow I couldn't forget myself, try all I might, which isn't like
me, particular after a hironin' day—and says that a gentleman from
St. Mercy's Hospital had come to tell her as how your pa had met with
a haccident, and been took there, and there was just time for her to
catch the last train."
"To go to him! Oh, Ellen, is he much hurt?" asked the girls in tones of
dread. "How did it happen? When? Where?"
"I don't know no more than I've told you," said the maid. "Your ma was
off again like a shot, but as quiet as a mouse.
"'I do hope those poor children won't wake,' she said.
"And now I am going to bed again," concluded Ellen. "I declare every
bone in my body's a-shakin'. Get to sleep again as fast as you can.
It's no manner of use for you to go frettin' and making yourselves ill."
"Oh, don't go yet, Ellen!" begged Maud, clutching the girl's sleeve.
"Do you think it's anything very serious?"
"Well, I should reckon it is by their sending for your ma at twelve
o'clock at night, and such a night as this."
"Oh, what 'shall' we do? Whatever shall we do?" wailed Minnie.
"Go to sleep again, I tell you, and not keep me standin' here while
my very feet freeze to the floor!" returned Ellen, with not wholly
inexcusable brusqueness. "I've told you all I know; so, good-night!"
And away she sped.
Little Margerie had lain undisturbed through it all; her soft, regular
breathing telling of peaceful sleep.
"Oh! Isn't it 'dreadful?' Oh, Maudie, what shall we do?" said Minnie
again, as the sisters clung together. "What 'can' have happened to
father? Fancy poor dear mother being fetched to go to him like that!
Hark at the wind! Oh, Maudie, I do wish I'd helped mother mend the
stockings last night instead of doing up that lace thing!"
"I wish I'd gone and helped father on with his greatcoat in the morning
instead of sticking over the fire reading!" rejoined Maud. "And now,
perhaps, he'll ne-ever want his greatcoat again!"
And overcome with these self-reproachful recollections—such as ever
cut the most deeply of all in times of trouble—the girls mingled their
tears and sobs in each other's arms.
"We haven't been nearly as good to father and mother as we ought, have
we?" whispered Minnie, still burdened by the thought of admonitions
disregarded and duties left undone. "If only God will have mercy on us,
and let them both come safe back to us, we will be better—won't we,
Maudie?"
"Yes," answered Maud. Then she suggested:
"Let's say the Lord's Prayer together, Minnie. And—and that one,
'Lighten our darkness;' shall we?"
So, holding fast each other's hands, they murmured together in broken
whispers these brief and simple prayers, adding of their own accord
to the evening collect the names of those precious parents for whom
the "perils and dangers" of that night seemed to their small hearts so
fearsome and great.
Then by and by, they once more forgot their anxieties in slumber.
The morning dawned clear, cold, and dazzlingly white. Very comfortless
and empty looked the parlour when the sisters went downstairs, albeit
the breakfast was all laid, and a blazing fire strove to warm the flood
of blue-shadowed light that poured in from the snow-mantled outer world.
"I don't want any breakfast," said Margerie tearfully; "I want mother!"
"Oh, you must eat something, dearie; I'm going to," returned Minnie,
beginning to act upon last night's good resolution by putting on a
cheerful air for the sake of her little sister. "It would worry poor
mother dreadfully if she thought we neglected ourselves because she
isn't here to see after us."
"I wonder if father is able to eat any breakfast," was Margerie's next
remark, as with unwilling throat she gulped down scarcely-tasted bites
of bread and marmalade.
Minnie silently wiped her eyes, and neither of the sisters made any
reply.
"Come, Maudie," said Minnie presently, "your coffee is poured out."
Maud was standing at the window gazing with wide sad eyes and drooping
mouth at the pall-like waste of snow that reflected a cold, white light
on her already pallid face. Suddenly, however, even as Minnie spoke,
her countenance became radiant with a brightness from within.
"Here's mother!" she cried.
They ran hurriedly to the door.
"Oh, mother—mother, 'dear!'" and six eager arms embraced that weary
form. "Oh, mother! It is good to have you back. How is father?"
"My poor dears, how cruel it seemed to desert you!" said Mrs. Grace
sinking down on the first chair she found. "You didn't know it till
this morning, did you?"
"Maud and I woke in the night, and Ellen told us," answered Minnie
briefly. "Mother, dearest, what has happened to father?"
"He had a fall at a railway-station coming home last night," replied
Mrs. Grace, in a voice which she strove to keep steady.
Margerie was untying her bonnet-strings, and tenderly smoothing her
wind-tossed hair.
"It was in the City. I think the snow must have frozen on the heels of
his boots. He fell from the top to the bottom of a flight of steps."
"Oh, mother! Is he—is he 'much' hurt?"
"He was insensible for some hours—that is how it was they could not let
us know any sooner. He did not happen to have a card or anything about
him. As soon as he became conscious for a little while, he managed to
tell them where he lived."
"Isn't he conscious now?" asked Maud, catching apprehensively at what
was implied in her mother's words.
"Not when I came away. I want to get back again as soon as possible.
But," added Mrs. Grace with a tearful smile, "I felt I must come and
peep at my three poor deserted chicks."
"Mother, darling, drink this; it's nice and sweet," said Margerie,
holding a cup of coffee to her mother's lips, while she cuddled her
dear head so close that to comply with the request was impossible. "And
I'll make you a slice of my very best toast with all the crust cut off."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
ANXIOUS TIMES.
FOR days and weeks the three girls and their mother lived in a state
of the greatest anxiety. Mr. Grace had sustained injuries of so severe
a character that the hospital authorities could not allow him to be
removed to his home, much as his wife would have desired to have him
under her own sole care. Mrs. Grace spent her whole time, therefore, in
a sort of hopeless endeavour to be in two places at once. When sitting
with her husband in the private room at St. Mercy's which she had
engaged for his better accommodation, more than half her thoughts were
with her girls at home. When spending a few hours at Briar Cottage,
setting right the things which inevitably went wrong in her absence,
and preparing again to leave them, her heart was yearning towards the
precious invalid to whom her presence, she knew, was essential comfort
and rest.
Between these conflicting cares, pulling her, as they did, in opposite
directions, the poor lady found herself at length on the verge of an
illness which threatened to hinder her from the performance of either
duty. Then, and not till then, did she realize that she had been,
albeit half unconsciously, trying to do what is beyond the power of any
human being, and what God would never have us do. More strength than
the actual work demanded of her, consumed, had been wasted, in useless
worry; no wonder she so nearly broke down.
Mothers and fathers are but children of the great Father above, and are
learning of Him as long as they live. Mrs. Grace received a lesson at
this time which she never afterwards forgot. She saw where her mistake
had been, and seeking help from above strove to cease fretting, and
while doing her best wherever she might be, to leave all other care to
God. Then her fevered brain grew cooler, her nerves once more regained
their wonted firmness, and she was able to do for all her dear ones
everything that was required.
"If you will but profit by my experience, girls," she told her
daughters, "you may rely upon it that we never need try to do more
than we can. Only let us make sure that we are calmly and faithfully
fulfilling our present duty, and we may be quite content to abandon to
the Infinite care everything beside."
The sisters, too, learned much during that season of trouble. The
servant was a steady young woman, and did by them in the absence of
superintendence as well as could possibly be expected. But for all
that, they missed their mother sorely. Never had they half appreciated
her tender and unfailing care until for a time they had to do without
it. But that they were good girls in the main is proved by the fact
that they became more scrupulously obedient to the known wishes of
their parents, and more solicitous for each other when thus left to
themselves than ever they had been before when helped by constant
reminding.
Maud always now changed her damp boots directly she came in—a
troublesome point with her—lest she should catch cold and add to her
mother's trouble, and never once took a book to bed with her. Minnie,
on her part, no longer sat up in her room when she ought to have been
asleep, trying new ways of doing her hair. This was a weakness to which
she frequently gave way, when Mrs. Grace was at home to come up and
chide her for having the candle so long burning. But on the nights
that mother was away, she would not have done so for the world. They
both, too, were very good to little Margerie, and she tried not to
rebel against an occasional approach to amiable tyranny which their
well-meant endeavours took.
But the best was that each and all were drawn towards their heavenly
Father as they had scarcely imagined possible until now. In the
loneliness, especially, of going to bed without a parent's tender
"good-night" kiss, the comfort of kneeling down with their arms around
each other, in the presence of a love that neither slumbers nor sleeps,
was such that none but those who have experienced it can know. It was
worth more than all the grief and suspense, and well-nigh orphaned
feeling of that sad time, to realize the blessed truth of the Lord's
pity for, and nearness to, all who are suffering and sad. And of the
three, Margerie, because herself the most pitiful and loving, knew it
the most.
It was not until nearly the end of March that Mr. Grace was allowed to
return to his own home. Even then, he was but as a wreck of his former
self: so hollow his eyes and wasted his cheeks, so pale and thin his
hands. There had been only a suspicion of gray in his hair and beard
when the year began, now there were more white hairs visible than
brown; and his once firm, elastic footstep tottered as he walked from
the cab at the gate of Briar Cottage to the front door.
No one was more startled and shocked at this sorrowful change than
the girls' brother Jamie, a lad of about sixteen, who, as he was
apprenticed to a mathematical instrument maker on the other side of
London, lived away from home, and has had no occasion to figure in our
story hitherto.
"It will be a terrible while before father is able to go to business
again, I should think," the boy observed, looking at the question from
the point of view which presented itself most prominently to his mind.
"Did the doctor say how long?"
"He distinctly said that your father must not attempt the slightest
exertion for at least another two months," replied Mrs. Grace with a
sigh. "And it seems doubtful whether he will even then be equal to his
former occupation."
Jamie was silent for a few minutes. He knew enough to be aware what
such delay might mean.
Then he said: "But his employers are willing to wait for him, aren't
they?"
"They have done so until now, and have shown great consideration in
many ways. But when they hear how uncertain his return to business
appears to be, I fear they may find it necessary to get someone else to
permanently fill his vacant place."
"But they won't hear unless father tells them," objected Jamie. "If
they still think that there is a prospect of his going back soon, they
might keep the post open for him."
Mrs. Grace shook her head decisively. "Your father would not think that
right, I am sure," she said. "He intends, if well enough, to write to
the principal to-morrow, and inform him of the exact state of affairs.
Then the firm will be able to act as they think best in the matter."
"Mother," said Jamie after another pause, during which he had been
thoughtfully examining the end of a pen-holder, "is that what people
would call 'prudent?' If father lets this situation go, he may, when he
gets well, have a great deal of trouble to get another as good."
"That is very possible, Jamie, and no one is more keenly aware of
it than your dear father. But you know it is his aim in all things
to 'seek "first" the kingdom of God and His righteousness,' and no
deception for selfish ends will work with that—not the very smallest.
The kingdom of God is 'truth,' and your father will tell the exact
truth, giving a faithful and accurate representation of his case, and
leave the preservation of this situation or the obtaining of another to
Him whose service he feels to be his only duty."
It proved even as the Graces had feared. The sick man's employers, on
learning how slow was his progress towards health and how doubtful the
prospect that he would ever completely recover from the severe injuries
which he had sustained, decided with many genuine regrets that they
would be compelled to find someone else to take his place.
There is no denying that this was a severe blow. And prepared for it
as Mr. Grace had believed himself to be, the shock caused a serious
relapse in his condition which the most assiduous attention on the part
of his wife and daughters—even a constant supply of Margerie's famous
toast "with the crust cut off"—was powerless to avert.
What were they to do? With the breadwinner laid aside, and instead of
a regular income, a continual extra expense in the shape of doctor's
bills and luxuries for the sick man.
"Do you know, Maud," said Minnie one night, as she twisted her front
hair into a row of little curl-papers before going to bed, "I've been
thinking."
"What about?"
"About father and mother and all of us. And about father losing his
situation, and—and, Maudie, he doesn't seem to get a bit stronger, that
I can see."
"He looks very bad," agreed Maud gravely.
"And he must have things—nourishing things, and all that, you know."
"Yes, of course."
"And they cost money."
"Of course they do."
"And so do other things," pursued Minnie, making a neat little paper
parcel of the last tip of hair. "And," she concluded, giving the ends
a final screw up, and finishing off with an emphatic pat, "one of the
most expensive is Ellen."
"But mother couldn't do without her," said Maud, looking surprised.
"I'm thirteen and five months old," observed Minnie slowly, "and you're
twelve and three months. That's twenty-five and eight months between
us. Ellen is only twenty-four."
"O-oh, I see!" rejoined Maud, catching her sister's meaning, fancifully
though she chose to express it. "And," she added, laughing at her
own continuance of the whim, "I take fives in gloves, and you take
four-and-a-half. That's nine-and-a-half, whereas Ellen wears only
sevens—not to speak of the advantage of two pairs of hands instead of
one."
"You stand-under?" queried Minnie.
"I do."
"Are you willing to mention it to mother?"
"I—don't—know," answered Maud reflectively. "I'll think about it. Give
me till to-morrow evening, and I'll let you know."
"I think we might," said Minnie. "With perhaps a charwoman now and
then. And see what a saving it would be!"
It was on the morning following this talk, while the subject Minnie had
mooted was still under Maud's consideration, that Margerie met with a
rather curious adventure, the importance of which she at the time but
little guessed.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
MARGERIE'S ADVENTURE.
IT was on a bright, changeful April afternoon—a half-holiday, by the
way—that Margerie Grace was sent by her mother to order a parcel of
groceries.
The shop was a large and popular one, and several customers, both
grown-up and juvenile, were waiting to be attended to. Margerie had
been taught that it is unfair (and therefore unladylike) to attempt
to get served out of one's turn, so she stood aside for a while, and
amused herself by looking at the gay picture advertisements, and
ornamental arrangements of pickle jars and jam-pots, with which the
walls were lined.
She was just gazing with wonder and admiration at a gorgeously-coloured
show-card, which set forth the merits of a new baking-powder by
representing a procession of very small children, each bearing aloft
some marvellous achievement in the way of tart or cake—how lovely if
'she' could buy a packet and make a dear little loaf for father's
tea!—when someone rather imperatively pushed her out of the way with a
rolled-up umbrella, and went past her to the counter.
The umbrella was somewhat remarkable, bearing in shape a striking
resemblance to a "Cos" lettuce, and Margerie naturally turned to look
at its proprietor.
She was a little old lady in a dark cloak—so little that she was
really not much taller than the child herself, and so upright that
Margerie could not help being reminded of a china extinguisher in the
form of a tiny woman which graced their bed-room mantelpiece at home.
She, moreover, wore a very big black velvet bonnet, which viewed from
behind—so large and round was the crown—looked like one end of an
old-fashioned sofa-pillow. Margerie felt moved by an unaccountable
curiosity to see the face inside, and presently managed to get into a
position whence she could catch a sideway peep.
It was scarcely an attractive countenance. Perhaps, without being
unkind—as none of my readers actually know the lady—I may admit that
it was rather the reverse, being decidedly large for the size of the
figure it surmounted, very yellow, very much wrinkled, and very thin.
Thick iron-gray hair was plastered down "window-curtain" fashion close
to the corners of the eyes, the very pronounced nose was inclined to a
reddish-purple hue at the tip, and quite a moustache of gray hair hung
about the long, hard-set upper lip. A greater contrast to the faces
Margerie was accustomed to see about her in her home could scarcely be
imagined. She always felt sorry for people who were very plain, and
unconsciously heaved a real sigh.
The old lady looked sharply round. Her hollow eyes were large, black,
and mournful-looking.
Margerie, knowing what her own thoughts had been, coloured beneath
their gaze. She was quite glad that the bulgy umbrella at that moment
falling down gave her an opportunity of hiding her face as she stooped
to pick it up, and also of doing something to make up for thinking the
poor old lady ugly. She wiped the sawdust from its dingy folds with her
own little handkerchief before restoring it to the owner.
"Thank you, child," said the old lady rather brusquely, and stared at
the little girl with her great owl-like eyes until the latter felt as
if she were going to be swallowed up.
Margerie gave her order while the old lady was counting her change,
which seemed to take her a long time, and they left the shop almost
together.
It was then that a rather strange thing happened, or rather began
happening. Mrs. Grace had told Margerie that she need not hurry back,
but, as it was such a fine day, might take "a run round" before going
home. So she thought she would return by way of the Park, which was
near at hand.
But though she skipped about, ran back and forth, loitered to watch
the swans fed, and stood for some time to look at the tennis-players,
that strange old lady kept always in sight. She actually seemed to
be following her, and the idea made Margerie rather uncomfortable.
She was not exactly frightened; one does not generally feel afraid
in broad daylight under a sunny sky. But her pursuer was very
peculiar-looking—not unlike a witch in a fairy-tale—and it was not
nice. So she resolved to go home. She would run all the way, she
thought, and leave the old lady far behind.
But how it was I cannot tell; perhaps, once in the streets again, the
gay shop-windows tempted the little girl to linger, but so it was that
when she by and by glanced backward once more, there was the odd figure
in the long cloak and big bonnet just coming round the corner.
Margerie had a halfpenny to spend, and a thought struck her. She would
go into a sweetmeat shop that was close at hand, and not come out
again until the old lady had gone past, so she would not be able to
follow her any more. This plan she contrived to carry out, and when she
emerged from the shop, she had the satisfaction of seeing the ancient
dame walking before her instead of behind.
The road they were in was one of those thoroughfares one sometimes
finds in the suburbs of London, where shops and places of business
alternate in strange contrast with villa-residences of bygone days,
sitting far back from the rattle and noise amid the bowery seclusion of
their own fine old trees.
For some distance Margerie followed in the steps of her former pursuer.
Then they had to cross another road. The old lady had just stepped
off the curb-stone when a heavy two-horse van came rattling round the
corner. She started back in affright, slipped, and fell upon her right
arm on the edge of the pavement.
A man who was near assisted her to rise, and Margerie, who was only a
few paces behind, instantly forgetting her fear in sympathetic concern,
ran forward to pick up the old umbrella once more, and say in her own
pretty way, "I do hope you are not hurt!"
"I can manage to get home," answered the old lady, though evidently in
great pain, "if you'll carry my parcel. I live close by."
Kind little Margerie gladly complied, and somewhat imperiously
dismissing other offers of help, her new acquaintance went limping
independently on her way.
"Will you take my arm?" ventured Margerie timidly, but full of desire
to help.
"No, child, no! You look after my things, that's enough for you to do,"
was the decisive reply.
Presently they stopped before a rusty, ramshackle iron gate in a high,
blank wall. It had once been a rather grand-looking gate, and a pair of
broken-nosed griffins still guarded it on either side.
"Open it!" commanded the old lady in a voice sharp with pain.
Margerie did so, and a large grass-grown garden was shown within, all
wild, neglected and weedy, with a tangle of bushes surrounding a broken
statue in the centre. Far back stood a strange-looking house, old and
dilapidated, most of the windows of which were curtainless and many of
them broken.
"Feel in my pocket for a latch-key!" groaned the old lady, whose
suffering increased every moment.
Full of wonder at the strangeness of her adventure, Margerie obeyed,
and accompanying her companion up the long, moss-covered path, was
next directed to open the weather-beaten front door, which, by the
way, was shaded by a blackened and crumbling porch. Such a forsaken,
forgotten-looking house and grounds she had never seen before. One
could fancy that all the people who ever lived there had gone miles and
miles away, years and years ago, and that the house had sat waiting for
them to come back until it had grown hopeless and stupid, and fallen
fast asleep.
Margerie was afraid the old lady would ask her to go inside, and had
it been so, I have no doubt that, in spite of the peculiar shrinking
which the "uncanny" appearance of the house and its occupant inspired,
a desire to be of use would have urged her to comply. But as soon as
the door was opened, revealing an interior shabby and comfortless in
the extreme, the old lady took the umbrella and grocery parcel in her
uninjured hand, saying, "That will do. Now go home."
"Can't I do anything more for you?" asked Margerie, half sorry and half
relieved to get her dismissal.
"No, no! I never want anybody to do anything for me," replied the old
lady in a haughty and repellent tone, quite ignoring the service which
our little girl had already performed. "You make haste home!"
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
BLACK-EYED AND BAREFOOT.
WHEN Margerie related her adventure, her mother and father seemed very
much pleased with the way she had behaved. Mr. Grace, especially,
appeared to take a remarkable interest in the little girl's graphic
description of her new acquaintance, which, however, minute though
it was, did not, one would suppose, wholly satisfy him, for he asked
questions respecting further details, some of which she was unable to
answer, such as:
"What did the old lady buy at the grocer's? Did she ask for the best
tea, or a cheaper kind? Did she look like a person in good health? Did
she look happy?"
Margerie thought the first two queries very odd, not like her father
a bit. To the third she answered, "Yes, I think so," but responded to
the fourth with an unhesitating "No!" Child though she was, she had
recognized unmistakable lines of heart-sickness and discontent upon the
stranger's face.
Mr. Grace sighed at her reply, and for some minutes lay back in his
chair, with closed eyes. Margerie thought he was feeling weak and
tired—perhaps she had tired him by talking too loud or too long. She
would not disturb him by speaking again, but softly unclosing the
listless hand that lay upon his knee, pressed two warm little kisses
into the palm and shut it up again. It was one of her quaint, loving
ways.
Mr. Grace opened his eyes and smiled down at her wistful face; then he
tenderly stroked her soft bright hair.
"I think you will have to go and see that poor old lady again, Margie,"
he said. "You might be able to do something for her; at least we ought
to inquire how she is."
"She might be worse, mightn't she?" observed Margerie. "I'm afraid
she hurt her arm very much. I wonder if she lives in that dreary old
house all alone! Minnie can go with me when I go to see her—can't she,
father?"
"Certainly, my love. And, Margerie, I think you had better call
to-morrow. There is no telling how ill she may be."
Accordingly, on the following evening, after tea, Minnie and Margerie
set out together to find that strange old house buried away in the
busy, bustling street. There was a timber-yard, they found, on one side
of it, and a draper's shop on the other, which had been built-out over
garden ground corresponding to that of the old lady's abode. The latter
was entirely hidden from view by the trees, now veiled in daintiest
spring green, which grew close to gate and wall, and even hung over the
public path beneath.
It was with a strange feeling that Margerie opened the big rusty gate,
and went in. The sound of wheels in the road without seemed instantly
to lull, and the sleepy silence of that old garden sank like a weight
upon her spirit. Instinctively she crept close to Minnie and nestled
her hand in her sister's.
"What a queer place!" whispered the elder girl—one would no more have
thought of talking loud in that garden than in a graveyard or a church.
"Only one of the windows has a blind, and that looks as if it had not
been drawn up or down for about fifty years! Perhaps it is haunted!"
As she spoke, there was a faint rustle among the bushes by the side
wall, and turning, Margerie caught sight of a figure, small and dark,
crouching among them, and a face with great black eyes and unkempt
hair peering watchfully out, like some wild creature hiding from its
pursuers.
With a half-stifled cry, she directed Minnie's attention to the same
object, which now stole in timorous haste behind the shrubs towards the
gate, whence, when reached, it darted in the form of a ragged, barefoot
boy, and disappeared.
"I wonder who he is, and what he has been doing in here?" said Margerie.
The old lady opened the door to them herself, but only to the extent
of about six inches. She looked very straight and very stern, and did
not ask them inside. Her injured arm was in a sling. It was as well as
could be expected, she said. She had not been to a doctor, and did not
mean to. She knew how to manage herself.
"Father was so sorry to hear about it," said Margerie. "He told us to
be sure and ask if we could do anything for you."
"Your father did, eh?" queried the old lady, in a sharp voice, and with
a still sharper look out of her immense black eyes.
"He is ill himself through meeting with an accident," Minnie explained;
"so that makes him sympathize with others. He has been laid up nearly
three months."
The old lady seemed as if she were going to say something, but instead
shut her long thin lips very close, and her back seemed to grow even
stiffer than before.
So the girls, finding that they were decidedly not wanted, bade her a
rather hasty "good-bye" and came away. It was quite a relief to get
out of the "enchanted garden" as Minnie afterwards called it, into the
noisy, everyday street again.
In the shadow of a pile of planks, by the gate of the timber-yard, they
came again upon the ragged fugitive whose presence in the neighbourhood
of the old house had so startled them a few minutes before. He was but
a little bigger than Margerie, yet looked older than Minnie. His face
was shockingly thin, white and hungry-looking, and there was a certain
something in his large, hollow dark eyes which made Margerie feel as
though she had seen them more than once before. The impression was not
a pleasant one.
"Did you see that boy again?" she said to her sister when they had
passed. "He did look at me so. I wonder if he is hungry?"
"He is staring after us now," said Minnie, glancing back. "I shouldn't
wonder."
"I've got a penny," said Margerie. "I think I'll buy him a bun—one of
those nice ones with lemon peel and a sugary top."
"Better buy two plain ones with the money, or three of yesterday's,"
advised Minnie, who was practical.
Margerie looked doubtful. She had an especial weakness herself for
"sugary tops," but wisely decided in favour of the larger quantity.
Oh, how the boy's black eyes shone when she shyly pushed the buns into
his hands. And quite a blush glowed through the dirt on his poor,
wasted cheek.
He was too much taken aback to utter one word of thanks, but Margerie
never missed it. She went dancing back to Minnie, her face radiant
with pleasure. Had she known at that moment all that she was destined
afterwards to discover, her gladness in the poor lad's gladness could
scarcely have been increased.
Mr. Grace listened to the girls' account of their visit with great
attention, asking, as before, more than they could tell. But he did not
suggest that they should make any further inquiries respecting the old
lady's health.
A month passed on; it was drawing near the time for Ellen to leave. For
Maud had agreed to Minnie's suggestion respecting their own ability to
help with the housework, and their mother when consulted had willingly,
nay gladly, given her consent, the more so that Ellen was known to
have long cherished a wish to "better" herself. It yet remained to be
seen, however, whether they possessed sufficient steadfastness and
self-denial to carry out what they had so freely undertaken.
They were each to have regular duties—turn and turn about. The week
that Minnie made the beds and tidied the bed-rooms, Maud was to dust
the parlour and sweep the stairs. To Margerie, who begged to be given
a share in the plan, was assigned the duty of keeping all ledges,
beadings, and hand-rails clean. Mother would tend the invalid, whose
progress was, alas, so very, very slow, and do the cooking ("except
make the toast!" Margerie put in), and a charwoman was to come once a
week to clean the steps, scrub the floors, and perform all the hardest
and roughest labour.
"I wish I were bigger," said Margerie. "I don't seem able to do nearly
as much as the others."
"Willing hands, however small, are never left idle," said her father,
gathering both of hers in his own and giving them a kiss. "Your turn
will come, little one, never fear."
One afternoon when they returned from school, Mrs. Grace herself opened
the door. An unmistakable glow of excitement was flushing her cheeks
and shining in her eyes.
"Go into the parlour all of you," she said in a rather queer voice,
"and be prepared for a great surprise."
"How? Who? What?" they eagerly cried, full in a moment of pleasant
expectation, and crowding one another in.
But the familiar room looked just the same as ever, nor revealed
anything new to their devouring gaze.
"What is it? Is it nice? Is it something good?" they queried, closing
round their mother.
"In some respects it is very good," returned Mrs. Grace, with a smile
that was not wholly free from a cloud of misgiving. "Whether you will
think it nice or not is another thing."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
GRANDMOTHER.
"TELL us quick, mother dear," begged the three girls, their curiosity
respecting the "great surprise" wrought to the highest pitch by their
mother's dubious words.
"Well then," disclosed Mrs. Grace, "Margerie's friend—the old lady—has
been here this afternoon."
Three "Oh's!" greeted this announcement, each in a different key;
Margerie's bright and pleased in tone, Maud's indifferent "Is 'that'
all?" but that of Minnie expressing anticipation of some more weighty
communication yet to come.
"Is her arm well?" asked Margerie. "I wonder how she found out where we
lived."
"Her arm is very far from well," replied Mrs. Grace. "Indeed I fear,
from what she says, that she may lose the use of it entirely."
"How sad!" said Minnie. "But what did she come for, mother?"
"Principally to see your father."
"Fancy! How kind of her. We told her he was ill, Margie, you remember.
But I never should have expected this of her—she was so very 'short'
with us when we called."
"You don't expect either, I daresay, Minnie, to hear that she had a
special reason for coming," said Mrs. Grace with a touch of mischief
in her smile; "to hear, for instance, that this old lady is your own
grandmamma."
"MOTHER!!!"
Three rosy mouths opened with amazement, and forgot to close again,
while as many pairs of sparkling eyes, growing round and dark, focussed
their startled gaze on those of Mrs. Grace.
"It is a fact. Margerie, little as she thought it, was making the
acquaintance of her father's mother, whom he had not seen or heard of
for nearly fifteen years."
"Did she know Margerie? How did she find out? We never told her our
name, for she did not ask."
"She heard Margerie mention the name of Grace when she ordered the
grocery that day—"
"Oh, I know!" broke in the little girl.
"But I believe she had some trouble to discover where we live. In the
end, I think she said, she was forced to make inquiries at the shop."
"What made her think that father was her son?" questioned Maud. "I
mean, how did she come to suspect that Margerie was her grandchild?"
"From her likeness to me, she said," replied Mrs. Grace. "She saw me
several times, years ago, and some people never forget a face."
"What ever did father say?" asked Minnie. "Wasn't he pleased?"
"Why!" exclaimed Margerie, with a sudden light breaking in upon her. "I
do believe father guessed it from the first—from what I told him she
was like."
"Your description was so vivid, Margie, that he could not fail to
recognize it," her mother told her.
"And that was why he sent us to ask how she was!" cried Minnie. "I see
it all now. Well, this 'is' an adventure! The 'youngest daughter' has
distinguished herself once more, you see. Why couldn't it have been one
of us?"
Here, then, was something for the girls to talk about. And talk they
did, nineteen—no, nearer three-and-twenty—to the dozen, all tea-time
and half the evening. On the whole, despite the feelings with which
they had been accustomed to regard this unknown grandmother, they
seemed pleased to be able to add her to their somewhat short list of
near relations.
But they had not heard the whole yet. Mrs. Grace, not wishing to give
them too much to think of all at once, had saved what was perhaps the
most important part of her news until next morning. Then they heard
that "the old lady"—as it still came most natural to call her—who had
for years been living quite alone, wanted one of them to pay her a
visit of indefinite duration, for the purpose, chiefly, of rendering
her such assistance and attendance as her recent disablement had
rendered necessary.
An ominous silence greeted this announcement. Maud looked into her
tea-cup, Minnie out at the window, and Margerie straight up into her
mother's face.
Maud was the first to speak. "Of course you wouldn't let us go," she
said.
"I am not sure of that, if either of you were willing," replied Mrs.
Grace.
"Did she say which of us she wanted?" asked Minnie.
"No, not decisively; either, I think, might do."
"You don't want to send one of us away like that, do you, mother?"
questioned Maud, rather apprehensively.
"It would only be for a time, you know," said Mrs. Grace. "I think,
although your father would not insist upon it were you all very much
disinclined, that it would please him greatly could his mother's
wish be gratified. He feels the loneliness of her position, with her
advancing years, acutely. And she owns that her fall has shaken her
more than she at first supposed."
"We don't know her a bit!" exclaimed Minnie with her eyes full of
tears. "And—and it's such a dreadful, horrible, dead-and-buried sort of
an old house!"
"But it is not so very far from home," said her mother. "Whichever
of you went would see us all pretty often. And, besides," she added
seriously, "your grandmother would provide your board and schooling,
which in our present position is, I assure you, my dears, an object. I
am often very, very anxious about your dear father. Unless he gets on
faster than he has been doing, I really don't know how we shall do."
"You are glad to get rid of us, I do believe!" burst out Maud in a
choking voice.
Minnie mopped her eyes in silence.
Little Margerie was very pale, but she was not crying, and had hitherto
said nothing.
"I think you ought to know your own mother better than that, Maud,"
said Mrs. Grace, reproachfully. "I should miss one of my precious three
more than I could tell. But I have just explained to you how things
stand."
"It'll have to be you, you're the eldest," said Maud to Minnie, as they
prepared for school.
"I sha'n't go! It isn't fair!" cried Minnie. "It was I who first
thought of doing without Ellen. I don't see why all the giving-up sort
of things should come to my share. And I'm going to help such a lot in
the house. Mother could do ever so much better without you."
"You help! You won't do much, I know!" rejoined Maud, wrenching the
buttons off her boots as with crimson face she bent to fasten them.
"You're afraid of soiling your hands. I should be sorry for mother to
be left to you."
"I should be sorry for her to be left to 'you!'" retorted Minnie.
"You'd go about your work with a book in one hand and a broom in the
other. Mother would very soon have to send for Ellen back again."
That same night, when both Minnie and Maud had forgotten in dreamless
sleep the vexed question which had caused them to quarrel so sadly a
few hours before, Margerie lay wide-eyed and wakeful in her bed. Her
mind was full of restless thoughts. Thoughts about father and his long
illness, and the heavy doctor's bill mother said they would have to
pay; thoughts about herself, and the shilling a week for her schooling,
and the piles of bread-and-butter, and plates of meat and potatoes she
consumed—she wondered how many cups of cocoa were worth one basin of
beef-tea; thoughts about the poor, lonely old lady with the sorrowful
dark eyes and the "bad" arm; thoughts about her own dear, happy
home,—and her little pillow grew wet.
When Mrs. Grace stole softly into the room to take a last peep at her
girls, Margerie was still awake.
She put up her arms, and drew her mother's face close down to hers.
"Mother, dear," she whispered, "I want to speak to you . . . Do you
think I should be too little to help the old la—to help grandma? Maud
and Minnie hate to go; if they had to, they'd be so miserable. And I
think she likes me. And I would try to be useful. Do you think I could,
mother, dear?"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
AWAY FROM HOME.
MINNIE and Maud were a good deal touched, and somewhat ashamed of
themselves when they heard of little Margerie's self-sacrificing
proposal, but neither they nor their mother supposed it likely
that "grandma" (as they were accustoming themselves to call their
newly-found relative) would agree to taking her. "She is too young to
be of any use," they said.
However, to everybody's surprise, the old lady on being consulted
seemed quite pleased at the idea of having the child. "If she is
quiet and 'biddable,'" she observed—the girls had never heard that
old-fashioned word before, and it struck them as very funny—"I shall
soon get her into the way of being handy. I suppose she has been
brought up to mind what is said to her, and do as she's told?"
Mrs. Grace, junior, "hoped so," but Maud pulled down the corners of her
mouth at Minnie behind a book, and Margerie's gray eyes grew solemn and
round. She could not persuade herself by any device that she "liked"
the prospect of going off with this singular old person, grandmother
though she be, to live in that "eerie" old house all alone. Sometimes
she felt almost as if she should run away and hide somewhere when the
last moment came; even Jamie's admiring remark that she was "a Trojan"
suggested a possible necessity for extraordinary courage that was far
from reassuring. But Minnie and Maud had so positively declared that
they wouldn't go, and poor grandma with her crippled arm and lame
hip must need someone to do things for her, and so—and so—it must be
Margerie.
"You will come and see us every Sunday, you know, my darling, and
we shall come and see you in the week besides," said Mrs. Grace,
when, after accompanying the child to grandma's queer old house, and
inspecting the little bed-room which she was to call her own, she bade
her a final good-bye. "And if you are not happy, we will have you home
directly."
"I feel like a little servant going out to a situation," said Margerie,
with a rather tremulous smile.
One circumstance that made this parting harder than she had at first
anticipated, was the fact that she would no longer go to the same
school as her sisters. It was too far, being quite as long a distance
from Briar Cottage in the one direction as grandma's house was in the
opposite. But Mrs. Grace, senior, undertook that Margerie should at
once commence attending another school as good, and her mother did not
object.
"But I sha'n't be so very, very far-away from you all, shall I?" she
added wistfully.
"Why, no—home is close by," her mother cheerfully responded. "And you
know, Margie dear, the Lord Jesus will be nearer still. His Spirit
comes so close to yours that every thought, every sigh, every throb of
your little heart is felt by His. His power of sympathy is so infinite
and wonderful! I, with my arms clasped round you cannot come anything
like so near to you as He is every moment of your life, because He can
come inside your very soul. And He loves you, Margie, and is pleased
with what you are doing in leaving your dear home. He knows it is to
please father and help grandmother, and because you want to be some
use and comfort in the world. I'm sure His tenderness and love are all
round you, my precious child, so you need never feel lonely, and never
be afraid."
"That's nice!" said Margie, with her face against her mother's breast.
"I like being very near to Him."
But she could not repress a sob when the dear familiar figure of her
mother passed out of the rusty iron gate and disappeared. Mrs. Grace
did not shut the gate behind her, she was too much a mother for that.
Bravely did Margie keep swallowing down the big lump that would rise in
her throat, as she wound worsted for grandma's knitting, and fetched
and carried, and ate her supper of thick bread with a thin scrape of
cheap salt butter on it. She now and then furtively wiped her eyes with
her knuckles, but did not actually break down and cry until she was
alone in the strange little bed in the strange little room upstairs,
amid strange old-fashioned furniture, with forms and shadows that were
unfamiliar to her peering eyes.
It may seem odd, but it was not the thought of parents or sisters that
"set her off" at last—it was the idea that this bed and bed-room didn't
know her or care about her, and that the cosy white crib at home that
had cuddled her every night as long as she could remember, would wait
for her in vain. The poor little empty bed! Margerie stuffed the corner
of the pillow into her mouth and shook with sobs. It did her good,
though, that fit of unrestrained weeping. The pillow, at least, seemed
more friendly after it had been wet with her tears, and with both arms
round it, she by and by fell asleep.
Margerie soon found that grandma was very much in earnest when she said
that she should "get her into the way of being handy." Only three rooms
in the house (besides a kitchen) were occupied: viz. a parlour and the
two bed-rooms. All the others were either empty or shut up and locked.
But the woman who worked for grandma seldom came more than twice a
week, and all the lighter labour which was required in the intervals,
which the old lady before her accident had performed himself, she now
expected our little maid to do. It was a good deal for a child not yet
ten years old, quite as much as Minnie and Maud had undertaken to do
between them at home.
And then mother was so different! She would tell anybody how to do a
thing over and over again, but grandma did not seem to like to have to
show Margerie more than once, or at most, twice. Nevertheless, being
one of those quick, imitative children who delight in copying the
movements of their elders, and really desirous of doing her very best
and being a great deal of use, the little girl soon became surprisingly
deft in her handling of broom and brush, so that if grandma gave her no
praise, she at least rarely found cause for complaint.
One evening the old lady suddenly observed in her sharp, abrupt way, "I
suppose you would very much rather live here than at home?"
This was a "poser." Margerie turned as red as fire, and twisted the
corner of her apron. "I like being able to help you, grandma," she said.
She was not looking at the old lady as she spoke, but out into the
high-walled garden, dim with trees and gathering twilight, or she would
have seen those long, thin lips soften into something more like a smile
than grandma's iron features usually displayed.
"Humph!" the latter said. "But it was your own wish to come, your
mother told me," was the next remark.
"Ye-es!" whispered Margie.
"You were wise. It is a great thing, in your father's present position,
for you to get your board, lodging, and schooling for nothing. An
immense advantage, and one which few children of your age have offered
them. It is more than your father, after the way he behaved towards me
before you were born, had any right to expect. But I am willing to let
bygones be bygones, you see, and behave generously towards you."
If any unprejudiced person had noted the amount of waiting upon, of
sweeping, dusting, washing up, and general attendance Mrs. Grace,
senior, obtained of that one small pair of hands and feet in return for
the said "immense advantage," he might have come to the conclusion that
the balance of indebtedness didn't exactly "bump" down on Margerie's
side. But let that pass. The little girl herself believed she had cause
to be very grateful, and very grateful she earnestly tried to be.
One night, about ten days after her arrival, when the first dreadful
home-sickness had somewhat worn off, Margerie woke up suddenly, while
it was yet quite dark. She did not know what had aroused her, but her
first feeling was of terror and intent listening.
With every sense concentrated into that of hearing, she sat up in bed.
The stealthy opening of a door was audible below, followed by the
softest of footsteps.
Margerie occupied a small room over a built-out scullery. Grandma
slept on the same floor in the front. She sprang out of bed and darted
along a short corridor to the old lady's chamber. The door was ajar,
and grandma's deep, uninterrupted breathing could be heard within. On
the threshold the child paused; should she wake her or not? What could
a poor old lady with a bad arm and a lame hip do to help anybody?
Besides, she was not like mother; she might be very angry if aroused.
While Margerie stood with the handle of the lock in her hand, still
hesitating, a faint glimmer of light became visible, as if moving
noiselessly about the lower part of the house. She sprang half inside
the room with a smothered scream, her eyes still fixed upon the
descending stairs. The light instantly vanished, and the darkness and
silence—save for grandma's snoring—were profound.
The old lady was somewhat hard of hearing when her night-cap was on,
and continued to sleep undisturbed.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
A MYSTERY.
NEITHER light nor footsteps came again, though Margerie stood still,
watching and listening, until she lost all sensation of hands or feet.
Grandma snored on. Gradually the child's fear subsided; daylight was
beginning to peep at the windows. Those spring mornings were chilly,
and she felt very cold. With one fearful glance between the banisters
as she passed, Margerie sped back to her own room, sprang into bed, and
pulled the clothes over her head.
Then it was she recollected what her mother had said about the nearness
of the Lord Jesus. Home-sick though she had often been, she had never
thought about that very much until now. Loneliness and pain and fear
are indeed messengers of God; what we should do without them, I do not
know. Some of us, I am afraid, would never seek our Father's arms at
all.
And Margerie prayed:
"Oh, Lord Jesus, please take care of us. Don't let anything hurt us!"
Over and over again, until she felt confident and trustful enough to
put back the stifling bed-clothes and look out. A golden bar of dawning
sunshine was rippling on the wall.
I think if she could have reached, she would have got up and kissed the
lovely spot, she was so glad. It seemed like a little angel sent to
guard her. Who could be afraid with God's sweet sunshine in the room?
Fixing her loving, grateful eyes upon the growing radiance, she once
more fell peacefully asleep.
As soon as Margerie saw her grandmother in the morning, she told her
of what had occurred. Mrs. Grace eyed her keenly at first, and with
apparent interest, but soon turned away with a careless air, saying,
"You've been dreaming, child. Who should be walking about this house in
the middle of the night? You ate too much supper, that's what it was,
and had the nightmare."
"But, grandma, I'm sure I was awake," persisted Margerie earnestly.
"Nonsense! Don't pretend you know better than I do," rejoined the old
lady sharply. "And don't let me hear of any such foolishness again."
This was on Thursday. Margerie did not expect to see any of her family
until Sunday. The thought once crossed her mind that she would run home
instead of going to school, and pour out her tale of terror into her
mother's ever sympathetic ears. But she did not do so, partly because
she had an instinctive horror of anything underhanded, and partly
because she had an idea that if her grandmother found her out in such
a trick, she would be very angry, and perhaps refuse to have her back
again. And though, other considerations apart, Margerie would have felt
immensely relieved by such a catastrophe, she would not for the world
have done anything whereby the present friendly feeling between her
father and his long-estranged mother might be endangered. The little
girl did not think all this out in so many words, but she felt it, and
like a true little heroine, resolved for the sake of others to endure.
Thursday night and Friday night passed undisturbed, and Margerie was
even beginning to think she perhaps would not worry those at home by
mentioning that one unpleasant experience at all—it might never happen
again—when another strange thing occurred.
She was instructed to rise when grandma rang her chamber bell, which
was usually at half-past six in the morning, go downstairs and set
light to the fire which, under grandma's directions, she "laid" every
night before going to bed, and sweep and dust the parlour while the
kettle got hot, before the old lady came down. On Saturday morning, as
usual she went to wash her hands after these operations while grandma
set the table for breakfast. When she returned to the parlour, Mrs.
Grace said in a very stern voice: "Margerie, where is that currant roll
the baker gave you with the loaf yesterday?"
"I don't know, grandma," replied the little girl. "Isn't it in the
bread-pan?"
"No; or I should not ask you about it!" returned the old lady in a tone
of great displeasure.
Oh, how straight her back was then! Margerie had recently learned that
in most persons the backbone is composed of a great number of small
joints, but she felt sure that grandma's must have been made all in one
hard, stiff piece; there was not a bend in it anywhere.
She was very sorry for the disappearance of that little currant roll—it
was the only thing in the cake or confectionery line which had entered
the house since she had been an inmate, and she had regarded it with
a peculiarly affectionate gaze when putting it away, at grandma's
bidding, the day before. But the unspoken suspicion which Mrs. Grace's
manner reflected was infinitely worse.
On Saturdays they always had the best dinner of the week—the strange
old lady did not believe in very sumptuous fare—consisting of a joint
of meat and some kind of fruit pie, to be eaten cold on Sunday. On the
present occasion, it was shoulder of mutton and gooseberry-tart—one
helping of each. Two three-cornered pieces were thus cut out of the
pie, one for grandma and one for Margerie, and it was then put away.
On Sunday morning when our little girl and her grandmother had returned
from church, the former stood looking out of her bed-room window, and
hoping that the great blue-gray cloud which was gathering up would not
come down in rain until she could get safely home, for that Sunday
home-going was the hope and reward of the whole dreary week. But she
was more than half afraid. The cloud was turning from blue to black,
and the tangle of long grass and untrimmed bushes in the garden grew
every moment more gloomy beneath its shade.
I may here remark that the back garden was nearly as large as the
front, with which it communicated by means of a narrow alley on either
side of the house, the latter being wholly detached and standing in its
own ground. Against the wall at the bottom, which a centre tree almost
completely hid from the view of anyone in the house, was a tumble-down
arbour, only held together in the last stage of infirmity by a network
of creepers to which it had once given support.
"Margerie! Margerie!"
Grandma's voice was so extra sharp and imperative that the words
sounded like shots fired from below. The little girl flew down the
stairs to see what could be the matter.
The cloth for dinner was spread upon the table, yet nothing stood upon
it but the gooseberry pie. Grandma pointed to the latter with her
uninjured arm at full length.
"Look at that!" she commanded.
Margerie looked. The cavity in the crust was quite twice as large as it
had been when put away the day before.
Her grave gray eyes travelled in troubled wonderment from the pie to
grandma's stern face, then back to the pie again. She did not speak,
for she did not know what to say.
"What is the meaning of that?" queried the old lady in tones of
suppressed anger, and still pointing stonily to the yawning chasm in
the top crust.
"I—I don't know," faltered the little girl, her lips quivering with
coming tears.
"No falsehoods, wicked child!" exclaimed her grandmother. "You will say
next that I have eaten it myself. To be greedy and to steal is quite
bad enough without adding lies!"
"I'm not telling a falsehood!" sobbed poor Margerie. "I've not touched
the pie. And I didn't eat the currant roll. It—it must be the mice!"
"Mice wouldn't lift the cup to let the juice out," said Mrs. Grace
conclusively. "And that's what has been done here. And they wouldn't
leave the spoon they had used lying by the side. And they wouldn't have
picked the four shortcakes off the top, and carried them away!"
Mrs. Grace was dreadfully in earnest, but unfortunately the series
of pictures her words suggested presented themselves so vividly to
Margie's imagination that, unhappy as she was, she could not stifle a
half-hysterical laugh.
"Hardened little thing!" cried the old lady with increased indignation.
"Go to your room this moment, miss, and don't let me see you again till
you're sent for!"
"I 'didn't' touch the pie! I 'didn't,' I tell you!" protested Margerie,
emphasizing her words with a little stamp of her foot, for she was
totally unused to such accusations as this.
Her grandmother made no reply, but her long stiff arm was now pointing
immovably to the door. Cowed and heart-broken the child crept away,
just as the first flash of lightning illumined the twilight gloom, and
a cascade of rain-drops came rattling against the panes.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X.
THE COAL-CELLAR WINDOW.
STORM inside and storm without—what an afternoon it was! The thunder
rumbled, and Margerie sobbed; the rain fell in cataracts, and so did
our little girl's tears. She was not afraid of the tempest, but it was
a great trouble to her, inasmuch as it prevented her running away home,
as in the present crisis she otherwise certainly would have done.
At tea-time, grandma called her down, with, however, displeasure still
sharp in her tone, and gave her three thick slices of bread—her usual
allowance—but without butter, and a mug of weak milk and water without
sugar. This she was told to take to her room and consume in solitude.
Although embittered by the reflection that it was "punishment diet,"
this meal went down with remarkable relish, as Margerie had had no
dinner. She did not remember ever tasting dry bread that was so sweet
before.
All the evening—that sad, gray evening through which the rain poured
ceaselessly down—the little girl sat alone in her room. How different
from the happy time with father and mother and sisters to which she
had been looking forward! She had believed all her tears were spent,
but this thought puckered her chin once more, and made the dull old
furniture quiver and dance before her swimming eyes.
Yet after all, something suddenly whispered to her, it was not nearly
so bad to be considered naughty when she knew she was not, than to have
people believing her good when all the while she knew herself to be
naughty! Suppose she "had" stolen and been greedy and told stories—the
awful list of grandma's unjust accusations—and no one suspected her!
Suppose she had been going about, a little live lie, with unconfessed
wrong buried in her heart—how horrible "that" would have been! Why,
her present misery was nothing to what that must be. God knew she was
innocent, and mother and all of them would believe what she would tell
them, and everybody would sympathize with her. There wasn't so much to
cry about after all.
So with a feeling of comfort, whose source she did not recognize,
warming her lonely little heart, Margerie went calmly though supperless
to bed. And the rain trickling monotonously down a pipe outside, sang
her a soothing lullaby till she fell asleep.
The next morning rose bright and fair. The loveliest white clouds were
sailing across a sky of pure, clean-washed blue, and the wet green
grass and leaves were sparkling like laughter in the sunshine.
Margerie was awakened as usual by grandma's bell, and on going
downstairs, found that she must lay the fire before lighting it, as in
consequence of her banishment, she had not done so the night before.
But she had so often performed this operation under grandma's guidance
that she knew quite well how to set about it.
First, she drew on a pair of old kid gloves which she had been taught
to wear when doing any work of this kind. Next, she raked out all the
remains of yesterday's fire, carefully picking out all half-burned
coals, and sifting the cinders. Then she filled the lower part of
the grate with a good-sized piece of lightly-crumpled newspaper,
and above it laid a row of the thinnest sticks she could find, and
another row upon them in the opposite direction, like an extended
arrangement of lines for "oughts and crosses." On top of these she
gently placed—exactly as grandma had told her—some of her biggest
cinders, building them up pyramid fashion, with numerous apertures for
the rising flames and smoke to pass through. Lastly she set light to
the paper with a match, and watched with an ever new delight the merry
blaze of the wood, and the thin blue vapour curling upward.
But soon some "nubbly" bits of coal must be added, and these she must
go and find. So taking the shovel, she started for the coal-cellar that
was out beyond the scullery which I have already mentioned. With not a
thought but of the work in hand, Margerie opened the scullery door.
The next moment she started back with a cry of amazement and alarm.
Curled up on the top of the copper was a human form—the form of a
ragged boy, who, awakened from sleep by her scream, stared at her in
a half-dazed fashion out of a pair of large, black eyes. Margerie
recognized him as the lad she had given the buns to a few weeks before.
They gazed at each other for some moments in silence, the trespasser
apparently as much surprised to see Margerie as she was to see him. He
was the first to speak.
"Don't peach, will you?" he begged. "Don't set the bobby on me. I'll
never do it again."
And he jumped down from his strange bed and made for the coal-cellar
door.
"Stop a minute," said Margerie. "Grandma isn't down yet. I won't
tell. But say, did you go along that passage with a candle one night?
Wednesday night it was."
"Yes," the boy reluctantly confessed.
"What for?"
He was silent.
"How do you get in?" was Margerie's next query.
The lad pointed to the small, square window of the coal-place, which
was neither glazed nor barred. No man nor even a good-sized boy could
have possibly squeezed through it, but this intruder was so very, very
slim and thin.
"Did you—did you—?" faltered the little girl diffidently. "Please don't
mind my asking!—Did you happen to see anything of a currant roll about
any night when—when you were here?"
The boy grinned and backed into the coal-collar, but made no reply.
"Or—or a gooseberry pie?" pursued Margerie anxiously.
"Come now, don't be down on a poor fellow," said the lad deprecatingly,
for he believed Margerie's tone to be ironical. "The bits I picked up
here were all I had to live on the whole blessed week. I'll never do it
again. But I was that starving hungry I could 'most have eaten an old
shoe—and that's the solemn truth."
It occurred to Margerie afterwards, though she did not notice it at
the time, that this waif did not use quite such bad grammar as that
attributed to his class in stories she had read. The same impression,
moreover, of the familiarity of his face and eyes which had struck her
when first they met, now returned with renewed force. She felt as if
she must have known him well somewhere before.
"It must be dreadful to be so hungry," said Margerie sympathetically,
recollecting her experience of the previous day. "But it wasn't quite
right of you to help yourself like that. And grandma thinks it's me,
and she's awfully angry with me."
"Thinks it's you been eating the bread and things?" exclaimed the boy.
He was mounted now on a heap of coals just below the window aforesaid,
ready to bolt at the first sound of any new approach.
"I don't know that she has missed any bread," replied Margerie, "but
she believes I ate that currant roll and the pie. And she wouldn't give
me any dinner yesterday, and sent me up to my room."
The lad seemed very much struck by this information, but once again
took refuge in silence.
"You won't come and take anything more, will you?" pursued Margerie.
"That I won't," rejoined the boy emphatically. "Not if I starve to
death!"
"Oh, dear! I hope you won't be so hungry as all that," said Margerie,
in real distress. "It would be so shocking! Perhaps—perhaps I could
do something for you . . . You be just there by the timber-yard—where
you were that day, you remember,—and I'll try and bring you a bit of
something as I go past to school. I believe I hear grandma opening her
door," she hastily added. "You'd better run!"
The boy needed no second warning.
"Don't split, I say!" was his last entreaty, as he pushed his head and
shoulders out of the little window.
"I won't! I promise!" answered Margerie, without calculating what
trouble such an undertaking might involve.
And two muddy bare feet vanished, leaving our little girl marvelling
and alone.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI.
"NED'S ENOUGH!"
WHEN Mrs. Grace entered the kitchen, the newly-lighted fire which
Margerie had left untended during her strange talk with the intruder
was invisible, thus exposing her to fresh reprimands from her still
unreconciled grandmother. But the child's mind was so full of her
startling discovery that these did not impress her so deeply as they
otherwise might; though her grandmother's stern manner caused her to
realize, with some dismay, how she had, by her willingly given promise
not to "tell" of the boy's thefts, cut herself off from the chance of
proving her own innocence.
This, however, troubled her less than the dreadful probability he had
hinted at, that he might actually starve to death! Of course Margerie
had heard of very poor people almost starving in the winter, but the
reality had never before come so close to her as it now did in the
person of that poor boy, with his bony arms and sharpened face, and
pitiful, hungry dark eyes. The trouble of her own unmerited disgrace
seemed to dwindle into nothing beside so terrible a possibility.
Grandma hardly spoke to her during breakfast, but she allowed her the
usual three slices of bread-and-butter. One of these, or rather part of
two, Margerie managed with some difficulty to secrete and carry from
the table under her little apron. And this, let me say, not without
considerable exercise of self-denial, for after her meagre fare of the
day before she could well have eaten more, rather than less, than her
usual portion.
Nobody would have guessed that, however, who saw the bright face
with which, in the shadow of the wood-yard gateway, she brought the
fragments out of her satchel.
"Here's some bread-and-butter," she said. "Perhaps I'll be able to
save you more another time. I'll save you a bit anyhow at tea-time, if
grandma isn't looking. But she's got dreadful sharp eyes!"
"Do you live there?" asked the boy, already munching.
"Yes. But that isn't my home," Margerie told him, loitering with
friendly air and swinging her school-bag. "Mrs. Grace is my
grandmother—"
"Mrs. 'who?'" interrupted the waif, with his mouth inconveniently full.
"Mrs. Grace. I'm Margerie Grace. I'm stopping with her a bit because
she has got a bad arm."
The boy's industrious jaws had suddenly ceased their masticatory
exercises as he put his last query, and only resumed work in a slow,
absentminded sort of way towards the end of Margie's reply. He was
staring hard at her all the while with his owl-like eyes.
"What's your name?" asked the little girl.
He appeared to hesitate for a moment, and then said, "Ned."
"Ned what?"
"Nothing. Ned's enough!" returned the boy, shortly.
Just then the first quarter past nine chimed from a neighbouring
church tower, and simultaneously the last morsel of bread-and-butter
disappeared.
"I must make haste now," said Margerie, "or I shall be late for school.
I'll tell you what. I'll put anything I can save for you out on the
scullery window-ledge last thing to-night. I'll wrap it in paper all
nice so that the cats won't get it, and you'll find it there. But you
won't come in the house any more, will you? Because grandma would be so
angry, and besides that I'm sure it can't be right."
"On my word and honour I won't," Ned assured her. "I'll sleep in that
summer-house place at the end of the garden, like I used. You'll let me
do that and won't peach, won't you?"
"I don't think there can be any harm in that," said Margerie. "But
isn't it a very nasty place to sleep in? All earwigs and things! Have
you slept there often?"
"Off and on for a couple of months or so," Ned confessed. "It's 'most a
wonder the old girl hasn't twigged it before now. I never came inside
the house till that night I came with the candle-end to look for grub.
I daresay I might, though, if I'd known it was so jolly easy."
"Well, anyhow, you won't again; that's a promise. Now, good-bye."
With a bright confiding smile, and gay wave of her satchel, Margerie
ran off, turning many times to throw back another pleasant glance ere
she wholly passed from view.
"'Well!'" quoth Ned to himself, never taking his gaze from the little
figure until it disappeared round a bend in the road. "She's a one-er!
She's a—she's a fairy, and no mistake! She's got a face like a flower!
Think I'm going to set myself a-side of 'her?' Not if I know it! She'd
think it was all my cheek. Ned's enough!"
At dinner-time, Margerie actually contrived to slip a piece of the cold
mutton off her plate while grandma's back was turned, the worst that
followed being a reprimand for "bolting" her meat without an adequate
proportion of potatoes. And at tea, she secured another share for Ned
from her own bread-and-butter. She was not conscious of any wrong in
this. After grandma gave it her, it was her own, she thought. And her
motive was so good and pure that it really almost excused the deception
which it involved.
Minnie and Maud came to see her in the evening. Grandma, somewhat to
her surprise, said not a word to them about her supposed naughtiness.
But she also, by taking care to be continually within hearing of the
girls, and peremptorily forbidding Margerie even to accompany them
alone to the gate, debarred her from communicating her version of the
story. Mrs. Grace, senior, had resolved that her daughter-in-law should
be the first to hear of Margerie's delinquencies and from her own lips.
She therefore purposed to call at Briar Cottage as soon as the weather,
just then very showery, should permit.
For the next few mornings Margerie met Ned regularly as she went
to school, and as regularly bestowed upon him a portion of her own
breakfast. And every evening saw a little paper parcel, sometimes
larger, sometimes smaller, according to Margerie's own appetite, lying
on the scullery windowsill. She found it easier to give up the whole
of her supper-slice than any part of her allowance for tea, but more
difficult to evade grandma's eyes. She had sometimes to pretend to be
eating when she was not, and I am glad to say that this dissimulation
was so distasteful to her, that before the close of the second day of
it she was seriously casting about in her mind for a better means of
helping poor Ned.
If we know a thing to be good, it is so much better to do it openly,
even if we get into trouble in consequence, than to deceive. Deceit is
such a mean, ugly sin. Margerie was beginning to feel that it stained
what otherwise would have been a right action, but more than suspecting
that grandma would forbid all further intercourse with the waif if she
were informed of the truth, was much troubled to know what to do.
Meanwhile Ned, too, was growing daily more disturbed in mind. The
knowledge that this sweet little girl was not only denying herself, but
bearing undeserved suspicion for his sake, roused within him the latent
fire of manliness, which a long course of privation and ill-treatment
had well-nigh extinguished.
"I say," he began on the fourth morning of their meeting, "does the old
g—your grandmother still think you ate that pie and things?"
"Oh yes!" returned Margie rather dolefully. "I suppose she always will.
Perhaps mother will be able to persuade her. I think she is coming to
see me to-night. Mother knows I wouldn't do such a thing. I shouldn't
think—" and the little girl's face grew very anxious as she spoke—"I
shouldn't 'think' grandma would be able to make her believe I had."
"Look here," said Ned, with resolution, "I'll make a clean breast
myself. I ain't going on like this—getting you in no end of a row. I'll
come and tell her myself."
"Tell grandma you got into her house and—and 'stole?'" queried
Margerie, half incredulously.
"Yes. I'll chance it. If she walks me off to the lock-up—well, I reckon
I can stand that. But I'm bothered if I can stand your being jacketed
for what I did."
"Oh, Ned, you 'are' brave!" cried Margerie. "It is good of you. I am
so glad! Come when I'm at home, Ned; come this evening when mother
is here. 'She' won't be hard on you, even if grandma is. Mother's
'lovely'—I should like you to see her. You will come, won't you?"
The boy repeated his promise, and Margerie skipped away, lighter in
heart than she had been for many a day.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII.
A BRAVE CONFESSION.
THE evening arrived, and so did Margerie's mother. Oh, what joy and
comfort and "home" it was to nestle once more in her dear arms!
Margerie felt as if nothing could go wrong with her any more.
"But my little girl looks pale," said the younger Mrs. Grace,
anxiously, when the first flush of joy had died from the child's cheek.
"Hasn't she been quite as well as usual?"
"Her conscience has been troubling her, I've no doubt," replied grandma
gruffly. "Children who behave as she has been doing ought not to look
well."
"Why, what is this, then?" questioned the mother, in surprise.
But Margerie cuddled so confidingly to her side, that in spite of the
old lady's words, she felt sure no serious fault was to be revealed.
"I will tell you, and then you can judge for yourself," replied
grandma, and commenced her tale.
In the midst of it, however, just as she was dwelling on "the repeated
falsehoods" which she laid to Margerie's charge, the little girl, who
leaning against her mother's side was also watching the front gate,
suddenly sprang forward.
"Here he is! Here's Ned!" she excitedly cried, and ran out of the room.
Mother and grandmother were equally at a loss to account for her
action. Looking out of the window they beheld a ragged boy coming up
the long path. His boots were odd ones, his coat much too large, and
his face, though evidently washed for the occasion, revealing sundry
streaks and lines of dirt. Notwithstanding these deterrent facts,
Margerie went dancing out to meet him, and actually taking him by the
hand, led him with manifest delight towards the house.
"Why, Margie my dear, what is the meaning of this?" questioned her
mother, following her to the door.
"This is Ned—a boy I know. I'll tell you all about it in a minute,
mother dear," answered Margerie, quite rosy with pleasure. "He's come
to say—But you'll tell it all yourself, won't you, Ned?"
Mrs. Grace, senior, had by this time joined her daughter-in-law in the
porch.
Ned doffed his shabby cap, made an awkward bow, and remained dumb.
"What is it? What do you want, my boy?" asked Margerie's mother.
Ned bowed again and shifted from one leg to the other. "I'm very sorry,
mum," he burst out at length, with a tremendous effort. "But—but—but—"
"Go on, Ned. Mother's here," said Margie encouragingly.
"I took that pie, and the roll, and—and some bread 'n cheese. It wasn't
her at all. There!"
This startling announcement of course required explanation. The soft
spring rain was once more beginning to fall, so the old lady, though
with evident reluctance, asked the boy to come inside. Then by means
of plying him with questions, which he answered in a brief and as some
would have thought sullen fashion, the whole story came out as we
already know it, including the revelation of Margie's self-denial.
The little girl, glancing into her grandmother's face at this point,
saw again that softened look which she had beheld on it only once
before. She went to her side.
"Don't send him to prison, grandma, dear," she said coaxingly.
"'Please' don't. He was dreadfully hungry, else he wouldn't have done
it—would you, Ned? See how thin he is," she added in a whisper.
"But how is it you are in this condition, my boy?" asked the younger
Mrs. Grace. "Have you no friends?"
"Not that I know of," answered Ned. "My mother died before I could
remember her, and my father went abroad to California 'bout four years
ago. I was a little chap of seven, and he left me with a woman to mind.
I know he paid her, because the letters used to come. But she drank
awful. Father didn't know that when he left me. After about a year,
he left off sending the money and then she just did carry on! Well, I
tell you, she made the place so hot for me I bolted, and came, somehow
or other, up to London, and I've been living how I could ever since.
Sometimes I could get a job. I ain't ever been so low as this before—I
mean I never got in a house nor—nor thieved!"
Mrs. Grace, senior, made no remark whatever upon this recital; indeed
she had scarcely spoken a word throughout the whole episode. But the
other listener's motherly heart was touched. She put her hand in her
pocket, and bringing out a shilling which she could ill enough spare,
she gave it to the astonished boy, saying:
"There, get yourself a good supper and a night's lodging. And to-morrow
come to my house—Briar Cottage, King's Road. Perhaps I may be able to
find you some better clothes."
With many bows and scrapes, but stammered thanks, Ned took his leave,
genuinely amazed to find that the assistance of a police-constable had
never once been suggested.
"Isn't he a 'poor' boy?" said Margerie, as he shuffled down the garden.
"You don't mind my giving him bits of my bread-and-butter, do you,
mother dear?"
Mrs. Grace's answer was a tender kiss.
But grandma said, though with only a mild assumption of her usual
sternness: "It would have been much better if, instead of binding
herself to secrecy, Margerie had told the whole truth at first."
"Well, yes," said Margerie's mother. But she could not lose sight of
the fact that when her little girl had been open and candid, she was
not believed.
That night, when our little maid having eaten her supper slipped off
her chair with her usual "Good-night, grandma," the latter said: "Come
to me, Margerie."
She readily obeyed, and went close to her grandmother's knee.
The old lady took her hand, and for several minutes sat regarding her
in silence.
Margerie standing silent, too, and wondering.
Presently grandma began to smile—really smile—though something that
looked like moisture was glittering in her hard black eyes.
Then Margerie smiled back, a dear little cloudless confiding smile,
with a dimple in it.
"Will you kiss me, Margerie?" asked the old lady.
The words had scarcely passed her lips when she experienced the
unwonted sensation of a pair of soft arms clasping round her neck, and
the pressure as of warm, live velvet against her withered cheek.
Long after Margerie was in bed and asleep, the sweet unaccustomed
feeling of those childish arms and lips clung to her grandmother
strangely. It was this, probably, joined to another remarkable
experience which that evening had brought, which caused the latter to
do something the like of which she had not done for many, many years.
Taking a candle in her hand, she unlocked one of the closed doors, and
entered the chamber within. It was well furnished, but every article
was covered to keep it from the dust. Thus had it stood for ten years
past; since first Mrs. Grace, unable to find a tenant for the house
at the rent she was asking—for it was her own—had come to live in it
herself. It was characteristic of the old lady that she would rather do
this at a considerable loss than lower her demand.
She next unlocked an old-fashioned bureau, and after some searching,
drew forth from one of its recesses a small packet, which she carried
back with her into the sitting-room. Here, having lit another
candle—for she was too conservative in her notions to tolerate either
gas or lamp—she proceeded to untie the same, and examine the contents.
These were chiefly letters, the paper of which had grown yellow with
age and the ink brown. They were written in an unformed childish hand.
Mrs. Grace did not pause to read them, merely glancing at each one as
she turned it over in her search for something else. Yet her spectacles
required wiping much more frequently than was their wont.
Presently, she came upon an envelope that appeared to cover an
inclosure somewhat stiffer and heavier than the others, and a sound of
satisfaction broke from her lips. Once more polishing her glasses she
drew forth a carte-de-visite, and bringing both the candles quite close
to her head, proceeded to examine it narrowly by their concentrated
light.
It was the faded photograph of a little boy, attired in the baggy
knickerbockers which were worn when that style of suit first came
into fashion. He was a slender, rather delicate-looking child, with
large, dark, eager eyes, and as the old lady gazed at the picture she
murmured: "Strange, strange! It 'is' most remarkable. Stupid that I
was, not to ask his name! But I could not bring myself to do it before
'her;' I was afraid—but there! I daresay it is nothing in the world
but an accidental resemblance—nothing at all. One may meet with such
instances every day."
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIII.
SITTING ON A PLANK.
MINNIE and Maud were highly indignant at the treatment Margerie had
received from their grandmother. "I wonder you didn't bring her away
there and then, mother," the former said.
"Would either of you have been willing to take her place?" asked Mrs.
Grace suggestively.
"Grandma doesn't deserve to have any of us," said Maud. "I should just
leave her to muddle on by herself."
"If none of us were allowed more help and comfort than we deserve, we
should sometimes come off badly," her mother observed. "That isn't the
way God treats us, and we are to try and be like Him in all things.
I believe our little Margerie will do grandma real good, the more so
because of the misunderstanding which has just been cleared away."
"I don't see that the poor little thing ought to be made a sacrifice
of, even for grandma's good," objected Maud, who was, however, not
unselfish enough to offer herself as a substitute.
"The worst is over now, I'm sure," said Mrs. Grace. "I saw grandma
looking at her with eyes full of love. Who could help loving Margie?
And I asked the child privately whether I should take her home, and
she said quite earnestly, 'Let me stay a little while longer. I'm
getting to sweep just lovely. And I don't think grandma will be so
cross again.' Bless her heart! You'll see they'll get quite fond of one
another yet."
"Do you 'like' grandma?" asked Minnie abruptly.
"I cannot help feeling very sorry for her," was the reply. "I am sure
she has had many years of unhappiness."
"But it was all her own fault," said Maud.
"Chiefly, perhaps. And she is so much the more to be pitied. No trouble
is so hard to bear as that brought upon us by our own sins or errors,
because there is the additional sting of feeling that it 'need' not so
have been."
"If the way she served Margie is a specimen of her treatment of her
own sons," said Minnie, "I don't wonder at that youngest one running
away. And yet how lonely she must have been all these years! One dead,
and one lost, and the other estranged. It is only natural that father
should be glad to have found her out again, and made it up, for her own
sake."
"He was remarking only yesterday," observed Mrs. Grace, "how plainly
one can see the working of a merciful Providence in this affair. When
we came to Briar Cottage six months ago, we had no idea that grandma
was living in this part of London—she used to reside miles away from
here, but she removed shortly after her last serious disagreement with
your father, and he quite lost sight of her. To think we should have
been led to choose our new abode within so short a distance of her."
"Father seems quite cheered up by this reconciliation, doesn't he?"
said Minnie.
"Yes. I feel sure it has done him a great deal of good. It is what he
has been longing and praying for these many years. And it has given him
such encouragement to hope that the trouble about his health and future
employment may turn out as blessedly in the end."
"But he is getting stronger now, isn't he, mother?"
"Thank God, yes!" said Mrs. Grace fervently. "He is more like himself
than he has been yet since the accident. Our worst fear now is that he
will be lame for life, and only able to move about with the help of a
crutch. And such a disability would be almost certainly fatal to his
obtaining any kind of situation—no one would care to employ a cripple.
Nay, don't look so utterly woeful, children," she concluded, with a
cheery smile. "I am only saying how it appears to human view. God may
see something grandly different. And however it may be, it 'must' be
for the best."
True to the promise made to poor Ned, Mrs. Grace took time the next
morning to look out some of Jamie's old clothes, repair them, and where
needful cut them down to what she roughly guessed would be nearer the
size required by the smaller boy. Busy as she always was, she spent
several hours willingly and even lovingly over this work, for the lad's
neglected appearance had appealed to her tenderest compassion. But the
clothes were never worn.
At breakfast-time that day, Mrs. Grace had said to Margerie: "You can
cut off a slice—a round if you like, for your poor boy. I daresay he
will be looking out for it."
"Oh, thank you, grandma!" cried Margerie, all aglow with pleasure. "How
thick? As thick as that?"
For in consequence of the powerlessness of the old lady's left arm,
Margerie was obliged to cut the bread-and-butter, standing the loaf for
safety's sake on its side, and sawing.
Grandma, however, didn't mention butter, and Margerie was afraid to ask.
Sure enough, there was Ned's towsly black head peeping furtively round
the pillar of the gate. She caught sight of it as she was putting on
her hat and coat for school.
Delighting in the fact that concealment was at an end, and she might do
everything openly, Margerie danced down the path, waving her satchel in
one hand and the inch-and-a-half thick round of bread in the other.
"Ned, Ned!" she cried, quite excitedly. "This is from 'grandma!' She
'gave' it to me on purpose for you. Just think of that!"
"It's all your doing," said Ned, inserting his white teeth in the
slice, as usual, without delay. "Where should I have been last night
without you?"
"And mother," supplemented Margie. "Isn't mother 'sweet?' You are going
to my house to get some nicer clothes to-day, aren't you?"
Ned nodded as he took a fresh bite. He was not a gushing youth by any
means, but his gratitude and appreciation may not have been any the
less for that.
"I'm so glad you told," said Margerie. "Grandma is quite kind and nice
this morning. Aren't you glad yourself, Ned, that you spoke the truth?"
The waif was sitting on the end of a pile of planks, munching with an
air of great satisfaction and swinging one bare foot. Margerie had sat
herself beside him, for she was early that morning. It was not enough
for her great little heart to dispense charity, she must give herself,
in artless friendliness, in frank-spirited sympathy, to sweeten and
enrich the dole.
A stranger passing was attracted first to notice the pair by the
contrast which they presented. Then his gaze wandered from the boy's
grotesquely ragged attire to his face, and rested there with keenest
scrutiny. He walked on however, but after traversing about twenty paces
turned and gazed at them again, earnestly and long.
"I never thought she'd let me off like that," said Ned. "I made sure I
was done for."
"Do you know, Ned," confessed Margerie, after a pause, and twisting the
handles of her bag beneath shy, downcast eyes, "I think I ought to tell
you. I 'did' pray to God so about you yesterday, and asked Him not to
let grandma send you to prison."
"You did?" queried Ned, looking considerably impressed.
"Yes, ever so many times."
"And you think He heard you, and that's why—"
"Of course it was," broke in Margerie, with a conviction of certainty
that admitted of no debate. "He always 'hears' us, you know. And
whenever He can—I don't mean that exactly, because God can do
everything—but—but whenever it won't hurt us, or not be not so good for
us any way, He does just what we ask. Like He did for me, about grandma
and you. Isn't it kind?"
Again Ned nodded, but his deep eyes were full of thought.
"You'll look nice when I see you again, Ned," said Margerie at parting.
"You'll have got your new things on. Perhaps grandma will give me
something for you this evening. Anyhow, you look on the window-ledge
like you always do; 'I' won't forget."
Neither did she; though, grandma not having understood about the supper
arrangement, her provision once more came out of her own private share.
But for the first time the carefully folded parcel lay untouched;
it was still there when Margerie got up in the morning. And to her
real disappointment, no Ned was waiting for her, in the glory of new
apparel, by the wood-yard wall.
She concluded that her mother must have given him so much that he did
not need her offering, or sent him to someone else. But, in truth, the
folks at Briar Cottage were as much perplexed as herself; for although
a neat suit was waiting for him, no Ned had appeared.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIV.
REUNION.
THE family at Briar Cottage were much puzzled by the non-appearance of
Margerie's "protégé," for the next day also passed and nothing was seen
of him. Margerie was quite troubled about it, and worried her small
brains with many fruitless and improbable conjectures as to what had
become of him. But strange to say, the person who seemed most disturbed
in mind by the lad's unexpected disappearance was grandma herself.
The old lady asked Margerie quite anxiously on the latter's return
from school, whether she had seen anything of him. On Sunday morning,
she bade the little girl run down to the gate at breakfast-time to
ascertain if he were loitering anywhere about, and appeared actually
disappointed when she returned with the information,—
"No, grandma, he isn't there."
And if Margerie could have known it, the apparently impassive dame was
watching the clock that same evening in nervous impatience for her
return from home, to learn whether anything was known about him there.
But the other Graces were as much in the dark as themselves.
A street accident seemed the most likely solution of the mystery,
though sudden illness and consequent removal to workhouse or hospital,
and even arrest by the police for some form of misdemeanour, were ideas
which could not fail to present themselves to a grown person's mind.
Margerie's chief fear was that in going as appointed to Briar Cottage,
poor Ned had lost his way, and might have been wandering about the mazy
streets of London ever since.
On Monday morning before school, our little maid was dusting grandma's
bed-room, which, like the parlour, was in the front of the house. If it
had not been for the uncertainty respecting the fate of the poor waif,
I think she would have been really happy, for grandma's manner was far
kinder than at first, indeed it seemed to grow more pleasant every day,
and that morning she had actually remarked that the furniture, with
such good rubbing as "the new housemaid" gave it, was getting quite
bright.
I need scarcely say that after such encouragement as this, Margerie
rubbed "elbow-grease" into the dingy brass-handled chest-of-drawers
upstairs, until she was out of breath and perspiring with the exertion.
It was while she was resting for a minute, and admiring the contrast
she imagined she already discerned between the part she had done and
the part she hadn't, that the far-away "clang" of the old iron gate
caused her to peep between the window shutters, which to save curtains
were always half closed, and see who was coming.
A gentleman was approaching the house, accompanied by a boy. Both were
well dressed, but something in the appearance of the latter instantly
riveted her attention. Thin, pale, with large dark eyes, he was enough
like Ned to have been his twin brother, nay, his very self!
Downstairs flew Margerie. "Grandma, grandma! Here's somebody coming!
And it 'does' look so like Ned!" she cried.
By that time there was a knock at the door.
"Does Mrs. Grace live here?" queried the stranger.
"Yes, sir," answered Margerie, but with her incredulous gaze fastened
upon Ned—for Ned indeed it was, washed, brushed, collared and cuffed,
looking positively gentlemanly in a new gray suit and neat silk tie.
What agency could be responsible for so marvellous a transformation as
this?
Ned coloured and looked half pleased, half shy. Margerie coloured too,
and smiled, but was dumbfounded with amazement.
"Can I see her?" asked the gentleman, recalling the little girl to a
sense of duty.
But as he spoke, Mrs. Grace herself appeared at the parlour door.
There was a short expressive silence, during which she and the visitor
gazed at one another much as Margie and Ned had done.
"Is it—? It—it can't be—" faltered the old lady in trembling accents.
"Your runaway son?" said the stranger. "Indeed it is. And—" (laying a
hand affectionately on Ned's shoulder) "'his' son!"
* * * * * * * * *
Half an hour later a cab drew up at the gate of Briar Cottage. Minnie
and Maud were at school, so they did not see how first of all there
sprang out a nice-looking boy, and next a gentleman, and how the
gentleman handed out first an old lady and then a little girl, how the
little girl ran before and knocked a remarkable knock at the door, how
the gentleman carefully supported the old lady, who was rather lame,
along the garden path, and how the boy followed behind. Minnie and
Maud unfortunately lost all that, but perhaps it was quite as well,
for if their voluble tongues had been added to the buzz of excited
conversation which was presently going on inside the house above named,
the result might have been serious.
"How ever did your father find you out?" asked Margerie, who presently
with Ned subsided into a corner, while questions, answers, and
explanations were actively going on between their elders.
"He saw you and me talking Friday morning—that last time when you sat
down with me, you know," Ned told her; "and he thought I looked like
his boy that he'd lost. And he came back to me after you'd gone, and
asked me a lot of things, and then he knew I was."
"You thought he was dead, didn't you?"
"Why, it was all lies!—I mean what that woman said!" burst out Ned with
sudden energy. "Father had been sending the money for me regular all
the time, and she spent it in drink, and then said he hadn't. Father
only wishes he could catch her, he'd make her pay for it. But when he
wrote to say he was coming home, she took herself off. Oh, she was
a bad 'n! What d'you think? She got her own boy to write letters to
father, pretending they were from me, saying how happy he was and how
awful kind she was, and all that."
Margerie looked shocked. "Just fancy!" she said.
But the thought of this wickedness was soon driven from their minds by
present joy and wonder.
"Only to think of you and I being cousins!" she continued, "It 'does'
seem funny! We never should have guessed it, should we? Not if we'd
guessed for a hundred years. I say, Ned," she added as a new thought
struck her, "is that why you wouldn't tell me your name? Because you
know it was the same as mine, didn't you?"
"I never thought we were relations," said Ned. "It never entered my
mind. Only, somehow, I didn't like to say it was just like yours. It
seemed sort of impudence in a poor chap like me; I thought you wouldn't
like it. If you had happened to ask me my name first, instead of
telling me yours, of course I should have told you. But when I looked
at you, all so nice and pretty—well, there, I couldn't bring it out,
and that's all about it!"
* * * * * * * * *
"Well, the funniest part to my mind," said Minnie a few days later,
"is that our little bit of a Margerie should have been the means of
bringing all this about. Here's grandma united to her two long-lost
sons, and uncle found his boy, and Ned restored to his relations, and
uncle promising to give father just the sort of work he can do, all
quietly and comfortably at home,—everything coming right all round,
like the end of a fairy-tale, and that little midget, who has never set
herself up a bit, is the one who has done it all!"
"The 'youngest princess,' of course!" laughed Maud. "Who else should it
be?"
"And a princess she is!" added their father. "A princess in the
kingdom of heaven. Service in that kingdom is the condition and sign
of greatness. Our little Margerie loves to serve. All the happy events
which have just now been brought about are the direct outcome of her
simple, humble efforts to help those about her—efforts made without
any thought of reward. If loving ministry to others is the patent of
heavenly nobility—and we have the Lord's own word that it is so,—then
our darling is surely a maiden of high rank, a King's daughter, indeed!"
THE END.
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