A SUNDAY AT HEATHER ROAD.
'Stella! Stella! wake up! the sun is shining, and I can see a tree, and
hear birds singing, and I feel so happy that I really must get up,
although it is Sunday morning and we have not to go off to the City!'
cried Vava the next morning.
Stella opened her eyes and looked at her sister, smiling. 'One might
almost be in the country--everything looks so fresh and clean; we must
try and keep it so, and help nursie as much as we can, for she is not
used to much housework,' she replied.
'I don't mind how much I do to save her as long as we can have her with
us. I think I had better get up and light the fire for her; I dare say
she will be tired this morning,' observed Vava, sitting up in bed.
There was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Morrison, bearing a tray, came
into the room with a cheery, 'Good-morning, young leddies!'
'Oh nursie, I meant to light the fire and get breakfast ready for you!'
cried Vava.
'What would you do that for? I am not tired; it's you that must be
worn-out, so here's your breakfasts for you, and you can just stay where
you are for a while, and get up in time for the kirk, which is not far
off, I hear,' replied Mrs. Morrison, unfolding their table-napkins, and
waiting on them as she used to do when they were children.
Suddenly Vava exclaimed, 'Nursie, I must get up; the others will be
hungry too!'
'And why will they be hungry, when they are eating their breakfasts
quite comfortably?' inquired the good woman quietly.
'That is good of you, nursie; but you must not wait upon us strong
people!' protested Stella.
'That's only for to-day, because you are all just worn-out, and I knew
you would oversleep yourselves. Next week I'll be obliged if you will
just make your own beds and tidy your own rooms a bit,' nurse answered.
'Have we overslept ourselves?' inquired Stella; and, taking out her
watch, she exclaimed with surprise, 'A quarter to nine! How could we
have slept so late?'
'I expect it's the quiet after the noise of Westminster and the exciting
day we had yesterday,' said Vava, who was enjoying her breakfast in bed.
It was a very happy day. Stella, Vava, and Mrs. Morrison went to their
own church, and Amy went to hers alone, for Eva was not up.
When Eva came down to dinner she said with a yawn, 'You are energetic,
you good people; I hope you feel better for having been to church; you
looked most frightfully righteous coming in with large prayer-books in
your hands. For my part, I think one can be just as religious without
ever going to church at all.'
'Perhaps, but I think if one can go to church one should, and I do feel
better for having been this morning,' said Stella quietly.
When she found herself alone with Amy she asked her whether Eva really
never went to church.
Amy looked worried as she replied, 'I am afraid she has got into bad
habits lately. She says she is tired on Sunday mornings, and that it is
the only day she can rest, and that she does not notice that people are
any the better for going; in fact, she says, they generally come back
cross and complaining of the heat or cold of the church or the length of
the sermon.'
'That's the kind of things people always say when they want to defend
themselves for not going to church. But if she is tired in the morning,
surely she can go in the evening?' suggested Stella.
'Perhaps you will be able to persuade her; I cannot,' responded Amy.
But Stella shook her head. 'I shall not try; I do not believe in arguing
about such things. We must try by our own example to make her see that
churchgoing does make us feel better. I know it made me feel ashamed of
my discontent these last three months. I have hated my life here and
every one around me; and I certainly don't deserve things to have turned
out so well,' she said humbly.
'And the funny part of it is that Eva has really been the person to
bring it about, and--I don't like saying so--she managed to twist what I
said, and what you said, so as to make us each believe that the one was
quite willing for the move and was only kept back by the other,'
observed Amy, who had resented this management when she found it out.
'It has happened to answer in this case, but it does not generally
answer, and I am sorry for her sake that she has succeeded in getting
her way by rather crooked means,' said Stella.
The girls had yet to learn that 'the mills of God grind slowly, but they
grind exceeding small,' and that the experiment which had started in so
promising a manner might turn out a failure, and that Eva had time yet
to repent of her 'clever management.' At present, however, everything
was _couleur de rose_, and after tea they all sat round the fire in the
Whartons' sitting-room, while Stella played hymns on her piano, and Eva,
who had a very pretty voice, joined in very heartily, to Mrs. Morrison's
delight.
'Let's go for a walk; I've got my presentiment again,' announced Eva,
shutting up her hymn-book and jumping up from her chair.
Mrs. Morrison looked at her over the top of her spectacles. 'What might
you have?' she inquired, thinking that Eva was complaining of not
feeling well.
'The hump, Mrs. Morrison, and I want a walk to shake it off,' she
replied.
Mrs. Morrison did not understand this slang; but she understood that Eva
felt depressed, and said, 'A walk will do you all good, and you will
just have time to go over the hill yonder before church.'
Eva did not like to say that she was not going to church, but she
privately decided to return home and amuse herself by trying over some
waltzes while the rest were all at church.
The four accordingly set out for their walk; and, as Eva was a very
entertaining companion, Vava enjoyed the walk with her. Amy and Stella
were becoming such fast friends that they had dropped the formal 'Miss'
in speaking to each other, and they enjoyed the walk. Mrs. Morrison had
told them she should go straight to church. On the way back they passed
the Presbyterian Church; and the two Whartons, remarking that they were
only five minutes too early, turned in there.
'Won't you come to church with me, Eva?' asked Amy as the two walked on
together.
'No, thank you; I have something to do at home. It's so jolly having a
home that I prefer to stay in it. I sha'n't plague you to come to the
pictures every night now,' replied Eva, going off.
But Eva had counted without her host, as Mrs. Morrison, having supposed
that they would all go to church, had locked up and gone out, taking the
key with her. As they were not on a main road, the door was not kept
latched, and so they had no latchkeys. There was a light in the hall,
and Eva turned the handle of the door, expecting it to open; but in
vain. Then it flashed upon her that she was locked out, and must either
wait there for an hour and a half or else go to church; neither of which
things did she wish to do. A thought then struck her, and she knocked at
the Hackneys' door; but they were all out, it appeared, for she knocked
in vain. So turning away in annoyance, Eva sauntered back to the main
street where Amy had gone to church.
'I believe that Scotchwoman did it on purpose; she thought I ought to go
to church, and so she locked me out of my own home. But if she thinks
she's going to manage me she's very much mistaken, as she will find, and
I'll just show her that,' she said to herself; for she had just come to
a brilliantly lighted kinematograph show, and made up her mind to go in
there.
It was the first time she had gone there on Sunday, and to make herself
feel more comfortable she had to remind herself that she must put her
foot down and not be dictated to by strangers; and soon the music and
the scenes before her distracted her thoughts, and this was what Eva
really wanted. For some of her thoughts were troubling her, and she
wanted to banish them.
But unfortunately the pictures could not last for ever, and when they
were over there was Mrs. Morrison to face; and though Mrs. Morrison had
a very kindly face, and had been very friendly and nice to Eva, whom she
liked, the latter had a feeling that she could be very stern, and that
she would disapprove of going to an entertainment on Sunday evening. To
her surprise, when she came out there were no churchgoers to be seen in
the streets, and when she passed Amy's church it was in darkness, and
she guessed that it must be past nine o'clock, and that the others would
be home.
'That comes of leaving my watch at home and trusting that man, who said
we should be out before nine,' she muttered to herself, and hurried to
Heather Road.
'Here she is!' cried a voice as Eva opened the gate; and Vava, who was
standing looking out of the bow-window, came running to the door to
greet her.
'We are so very sorry you were locked out! Mrs. Morrison understood you
were both going to church, and she hurried home so as to be back before
you. But it will not happen again; we will have a latch put on, and have
our own keys,' said Stella, apologising.
'It doesn't matter. I had a headache, so did not go to church,' said
Eva.
'And have you been walking about all this time in the dark by yourself?
How horrid; nursie will be vexed!' cried Vava.
'I enjoyed myself very much, thank you,' said Eva, escaping upstairs to
take off her hat and coat.
She had not said where she had been; and though Amy, who knew her, did
not believe she had walked for more than two hours after their long
walk, and guessed what she had done, no one asked any questions. For
that Eva was thankful, and in spite of a bad conscience, which should
have pricked her, she enjoyed the pie which Mrs. Morrison had made the
day before and left in the oven to heat up along with baked potatoes.
'Sunday's dinner and supper always cook themselves,' she explained.
As a kind of amends for her un-Sunday-like day, Eva went into the
kitchen and asked Mrs. Morrison if she might help her to wash-up.
It was on the tip of the good woman's tongue to refuse, and tell her
that she must be too tired to stand about any more; but a glance at
Eva's face showed that the girl was not tired, and some intuition told
her that she had better accept the offer and try and make friends with
this girl, who, after all, was only sixteen, and had no one to keep her
in order. So she said, 'Thank you kindly, Miss Barnes, my dear; if you
take this mop you will not put your hands in the water so much, and as I
never use soda they will not get spoilt, and here 's a nice apron for
you.'
Eva accordingly, enveloped in a large apron, stood at the tub and
conversed with the Scotchwoman, who watched her quick movements with
interest and admiration, for she was very graceful, and she did her work
in a very business-like manner, which pleased the methodical
housekeeper.
'There's a right way and a wrong way of doing everything, but you've got
the right way of washing-up, and it makes a deal of difference, though
folk won't believe it. I can't bear to see a young girl doing a few
things at a time, and then going to find some more, and putting in the
greasy things first, and the glasses and silver last,' she observed.
'My mother taught me that; once a week we went into the kitchen to learn
how to do cooking and kitchen-work,' said Eva, and she gave a sigh.
'She must have been a wise woman and a good mother. Have you lost her
long, my poor bairn?' inquired the housekeeper.
'A year and a half, but it feels like ten,' said Eva; and then she began
to tell Mrs. Morrison about her past life at the pretty home in
Cambridge, of which she had never spoken to Vava. 'Things were very
different then,' she wound up.
'But they are not so bad now, and you have your old friends. Do you
never see them or hear from them?' inquired the housekeeper.
'They have written, but I don't care to answer them. They have asked me
to go and stay with them, and wanted to come and see me; but I had not a
nice place to ask them to come to, and I won't stay with people I can't
ask back.'
'I think you are wrong there; anybody would like to have a bright young
leddie like you as a visitor, and you would like to see your old friends
again, I'm sure. At any rate, now you have a nice home, and we'll soon
have your sitting-room fit to receive a queen,' said Mrs. Morrison.
'I'll write to Mrs. Croker. She often comes to town, and she has a
daughter just my age, only she is still at school and going on to
college, and I am working for my living and not learning anything,' said
Eva, a little bitterly.
'But you should be learning; you can get books anywhere, and can always
improve yourself in the evenings. You shouldn't let Miss Croker get
before you,' said Mrs. Morrison.
The good woman's interest touched Eva, and had its effect; for she
delighted Mrs. Croker by writing to her and telling her where she was,
and what she was doing; and Mrs. Croker said to her husband, 'I am so
glad she has written. I was so vexed at losing sight of her, but she
seemed to want to drop us all.'
'People do when they are poor, and she felt having her education
stopped. You must ask her down for Easter. She has a few days then, I
suppose?' replied the professor.
So the first Sunday at Heather Road did them all good in different ways.