MONEY MATTERS.
“Mother,” said Madge, as she and Mrs. Kayll were making the beds on the
next Monday morning, “I wish you would talk to Jem. He is determined to
leave his place, and it does seem such a pity.”
“Leave!” cried Mrs. Kayll, stopping in the act of shaking up a pillow.
“Why, I thought he liked it so much!”
“So he did at first, but he’s tired of it already, just as he always
is, after a month or so.”
Mrs. Kayll sighed wearily, and laid the pillow in its place, taking
care that the hole in the much-patched cover should go underneath and
out of sight.
“Tiresome boy! He is so unsettled. I’ll talk to him to-night; but it’s
not much good when he has once taken a dislike to his work. He’ll never
go on with it with any pleasure. I don’t know what would become of us
if Jack were the same. Heigh-ho! You children are a constant anxiety to
me. We really can’t afford to have Jem at home on our hands just now,
when your father’s doing so badly--really I don’t think he ever did so
badly before.”
“Yet,” said Madge thoughtfully, straightening the patchwork quilt, made
long since by her own hands, “Jem is so good in his way, and seems
much more fond of us all than either Bob or Jack, and plays with the
children without teasing them like Jack does.”
“Yes, he’s a dear affectionate boy,” sighed her mother, “but I wish
his affection made him consider us a little more and himself a little
less.”
At this point, as they had finished the bed they were making, Madge
picked up the baby--who had been sitting in a corner all the time,
contentedly sucking a knob which had come off a chest of drawers, and
looking on at his mother and sister while they were busy--and conveyed
him into the next room, where he had again to sit with his back to the
wall and amuse himself as well as he could.
“Never mind. Don’t get unhappy about it, mother dear,” said Madge in
her quiet philosophical way. “As long as we’re all well, that’s the
chief thing, isn’t it? Being poor isn’t half so bad as being ill.”
From which it will be seen that, like most other people, Madge saw the
world with quite different eyes when she was fresh and bright in the
morning, from those with which she looked at it when she was tired and
depressed at night.
“Ah, it’s all very well for you, child,” said her mother, who seemed to
think poverty was quite bad enough, as she looked at the girl’s worn
blue dress, and remembered how hard it had been to make the children
look anything like respectable for church yesterday--“It’s all very
well for you, but when you come to my age you will wish you too had a
little leisure, and need not grind, grind, slave and pinch from year’s
end to year’s end. But there, Madgie, it’s of no use grumbling. I don’t
really mind, only I get tired of it now and then.”
And she smiled, and then sighed as a few more disagreeable reflections
came crowding into her mind. Her husband’s coat was very very shabby,
and he ought to have another, just to keep up his character in his
business. The coals were getting low, too, and the summer was drawing
to its close; there was no saying how soon the days might turn cold.
And there was very little food in the larder. She must really turn her
thoughts to providing dinner.
“Madge,” she said suddenly, “your father has a sale to-day, and won’t
be home to dinner, so we’ll not cook anything but some potatoes,
because there’s a jar of nice beef dripping, and you all like potatoes
and dripping.”
“Yes, mother,” Madge answered, apparently scarcely giving the matter a
thought.
It was well for Mrs. Kayll that her eldest daughter was so amiable
and easy of disposition. Nothing came wrong to Madge. She took life
quietly, with a kind of stolid good-temper, and was one of those people
of whom everyone else expects a great deal, and gets it, without being
surprised, or particularly grateful. She worked hard from morning to
night, uncomplainingly, and it was not until she was very tired, and
had more on her hands than she could do, that she was sometimes led
into speaking a little sharply to her young brothers and sisters.
Ever since she left off going to school, Madge had been nurse, cook,
needlewoman, and in part teacher, for in so large a family as this,
where no servant could be kept, there was always more than enough
employment for both her mother and herself, with keeping the house
tidy, everyone’s clothes clean and in good repair, preparing meals and
clearing them away, and taking care of the baby.
The children who were at school came in for their simple dinner, and
ran off again; the afternoon was passed in the same way as usual, with
washing up, straightening, and making all comfortable and ready for tea.
To this meal Jack, Jem, and the three girls came home, but Mr. Kayll
and Bob were not expected until nine or ten. So the mother poured out
tea, and Madge cut bread and dripping for everybody with untiring
patience.
Suddenly, in the middle of the meal, Jem remarked in a matter-of-fact
tone:
“I’ve left.”
“What?” cried Jack.
“Oh, Jem, you don’t mean that!” exclaimed Mrs. Kayll.
“I do, though; but don’t you bother about it, mother, I’ll soon get
something else to do.”
“Jem, you’re a--” began Jack hotly; but his mother touched his lips
with her hand.
“Don’t call him names, whatever he’s done, Jack. That won’t do any
good. But oh, Jem, it is too bad if you have, when you know how poor we
are, and how little your father has had to do lately.”
“But don’t you see, mother,” said Jem, with a rather superior smile,
“I mean to get something better, so that I shall be more real help.
I’m sure I ought to be making more than four shillings a week, and I
believe I can if you leave me alone.”
“Oh, yes,” put in Edie, who always believed in Jem, and took his
part against the whole world, “he’ll soon find a better place, where
he’ll get on--won’t you, dear? And he has stayed in this one a month
now--that’s longer than he was last time, and next time he’ll stay
longer still.”
Jack gave a sort of grunt that seemed to express disapproval, and the
matter dropped until Bob came in a couple of hours later, very tired
and not in the best of tempers in consequence.
“Father’s coming directly, mother,” he said. “I won’t have anything
till he comes in, and then we’ll have a bit of supper together.”
He sat down, and Bessie, the smallest and palest of the girls, climbed
on his knee, and slipped her arm under his and round his back.
“Well, monster,” he said, for this was his nickname for the slight
little creature, “how have you been getting on? Any news?”
“No,” said Bessie, “except that Jem’s left his place.”
“Left? What, have they sent him off?”
“No. He left of his own accord. He was tired of it.”
“Then he’s a miserable, selfish, stupid, useless creature, and for two
pins I’d give him a thorough thrashing,” cried Bob. “Do you hear that,
Jem?”
Madge tried to check his anger, as her mother was not in the room, but
he would not listen to her.
“No, Madgie,” he went on, “I shall let him hear the truth for once
in his life, as father’s so easy with him. He doesn’t deserve to have
a home to come to when he behaves as he does, caring more for whether
he likes his work, or whether he doesn’t, than for seeing mother slave
till she’s ready to drop. Do you think she _likes_ toiling from morning
to night to keep us all respectable and comfortable, or that father
_likes_ shouting himself hoarse all day before he can make people buy
things for half what they’re worth, or that Madge enjoys sweeping the
stairs and washing up the sauce-pans, or even that Jack or I like our
work? You’re the only one that doesn’t seem to think it’s possible to
do what you ought, whether you like it or not. You seem to think you
were put into the world to enjoy yourself, no matter how inconvenient
that may be for other people.”
Jem looked very cast-down, for he was fond of Bob, and liked to have
his good opinion. Edie put in a word for him.
“Don’t be too hard on him, Bob. He’s much younger than you, you know.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to be too hard,” he answered. “I’m
thoroughly ashamed of him.”
At this point Mrs. Kayll re-entered the room, and directly after the
head of the family arrived, Madge having only just finished setting
the bread and cheese and cold bacon in readiness. Mr. Kayll was
evidently tired out after the day’s hard work, but he had a smile and a
nod for each of the young people in turn, and a kiss for his wife, who
went to the door to meet him.
While he and his eldest boy ate their supper, Madge put the baby off
to sleep in his cradle, and the three little girls said good-night and
went to bed, Edie whispering to Jem as she passed him:
“Never mind, old boy, so long as father isn’t angry.”
When they were gone Mr. Kayll took out his purse, which he handed to
Jack, with:
“Give that to your mother, Jacky. That’ll set her up for a little
while.”
Mrs. Kayll poured the contents into her hand and counted ten sovereigns.
“All for me?” she asked.
“Of course it is. Make much of it. There’s no saying when the next will
come.”
Jack took the empty purse to give back to his father, and turned it
over in his hands, squeezing it, and pretending to try to find some
stray coin that had been overlooked, but really slipping into it two
sovereigns of his own, which he had held in his hand for some time,
looking out for an opportunity of getting them into his father’s
possession without the act being seen.
Poor Jack, who was generally supposed to care very little about his
family, had been saving for a long time, depriving himself of anything
he could so as to put a little aside from his weekly earnings, and had
at last been unable longer to resist the temptation of giving Mr. Kayll
a surprise. Yet his face expressed nothing as he handed back the purse,
which his father weighed in his hand with mock grief.
“Feels terribly light again,” he said, returning it to his pocket as he
believed empty.
Jack laughed inwardly, imagining the expression of his father’s face
when he should find the money, and be unable to guess whence it had
come. He controlled his mouth, and kept a serious face then, but once
or twice afterwards during the evening a stifled chuckle proceeded
from him, the meaning of which no one could discover.
Madge had come down again and was just about to put the food away, when
there came a timid knock at the front door.