CHANGES.
MRS. WINN was very well satisfied with all she saw at Fairfield. It was
early spring, and everything was looking its best. It seemed a cosy
little village. There were one or two shops, a tiny church, and village
schools. She had little time to see more than this, for, of course, as
the general appearance of the place pleased her, she went in search of
a house, and was directed at the general shop where to find a vacant
cottage that the man thought might suit her.
She found it was rather larger than most of those in the village, but
it was a regular country cottage. It had five rooms, and a large garden
at the back. There was a pretty little porch over the front door, and a
tiny flower garden separating it from the road.
It had not been occupied for some time, and the garden, back and front,
were weed-grown, and the house itself needed some repairs.
And after looking at it, she returned the key to the grocer, and then
learned that he owned the cottage, and was not merely the agent as
she supposed, and she found that he was willing to put the house into
thorough repair, when he learned that Mrs. Winn wanted it for herself.
The rent he asked was so much less than what she had ever paid before,
that she could only wonder that it had stood empty a month instead of
nearly a year.
The landlord agreed to have everything ready for them to come in by the
end of March, and promised to have the garden dug and got ready for Tom
to put in some vegetables.
So Mrs. Winn returned home with renewed hope, and a glowing account of
the pretty cottage she had taken; and described the garden with its
apple tree and currant bushes, until Tom and Elsie were almost wild
with delight at the anticipation of living in the country.
Fortunately for Mrs. Winn, houses were in demand just now in this
London suburb, and so the card bearing the announcement, "This house to
let—" had not been in the window many hours before someone called to
see the house. And in less than a week, the business was settled, and
she was free to make arrangements for moving.
To the children, the whole business was a pleasure and novelty. And
although Tom soon grew too tired to be of much service in the actual
work, Jack Bond came to do his share, and was so strong and willing
that nothing came amiss to him. He took up carpets and beat them; took
down curtains and blinds and pictures, and helped to pack them. In fact
he was so handy in getting the furniture ready for the railway men to
fetch, that Mrs. Winn was spared a good many small expenses she must
otherwise have incurred, and the whole business was a sort of indoor
picnic to the young folks, who had never before known the bustle and
excitement of a move.
Of course, to Mrs. Winn, who had spent a good many happy years in this
house, there was pain as well as pleasure in the removal, but there
was so much to done, and so little time to do it in, that there was no
leisure for fretting, even if she had had the disposition to indulge in
it.
To friends and neighbours, it seemed that the move was very sudden,
and they wondered why Mrs. Winn should be in such a hurry to get away
from the neighbourhood, for they thought she might have sent Tom to the
seaside to recruit his health, and waited a little longer for work to
come in. But the fact was, as one or two of her more intimate friends
guessed, she had spent nearly all the little stock of money she had
when her husband died, and if she had waited longer, she might not have
had the means to move at all.
Everybody felt sorry for the Winns, and their hasty move gave rise to
all sorts of surmises; and some even whispered that they might have got
into debt during Tom's long illness, and it was because she could not
pay her creditors that Mrs. Winn was going away.
Fortunately for her peace of mind, the widow knew nothing of these
surmises, and she and her family went away in blissful ignorance that
anyone supposed they had done a strange thing in going.
The cottage looked very charming the bright spring day when Tom and
Elsie first saw it. They went into raptures over the woodbine-covered
porch, and there never was such a garden and apple tree as the one
they possessed now. Then there was all the delight of unpacking and
arranging the furniture in the quaint old rooms, where they all agreed
it looked much nicer than in their old house.
For the first few days, they were so busy doing this that they failed
to notice that their own was almost the largest house in the village,
and Elsie was the first to remark that the cottages about them were
rather poor and small; and the women she saw standing about, when she
went through the village street, did not look as though they would want
much dressmaking done for them, and she ventured to say as much to her
mother one evening.
"Their frocks are like sacks, with a couple of holes for their arms,"
said Tom, in a disparaging tone. "There certainly is not much more
shape in them," laughed his mother.
"But I did not expect to find my customers among the village folk," she
added.
"But there don't seem to be any other people living here," said Tom,
who had explored the neighbourhood as far as the end of the village
street.
"Not close at hand, perhaps; but there are gentlemen's houses round the
neighbourhood, and that is where I shall find my customers I hope. When
we have got straight, and I am ready to begin, I shall have to go and
see some of these ladies, and ask them to give me some work."
Tom did not like this suggestion. "You did not have to go and beg for
work before," he said.
"No, my boy; I had friends all round me, and I just told them what I
thought of doing, and they asked me to do their work. That is all the
difference."
"It means that we haven't got any friends about here," said Elsie.
"Yes, that is it exactly; but we must make friends as fast as we can,
you know."
Mrs. Winn soon found, however, that this was not so easy, even with the
poorest of her neighbours. They were strangers—that was the only fault
that could be brought against them. But it was sufficient to make them
be regarded with suspicion, if not absolute dislike. For they could not
understand why anybody should want to come and live in their village,
unless it was to spy upon them, or take their work away from them in
some way, or lower the wages that the farmers paid them.
Mrs. Winn smiled when she saw how the village folk avoided having
anything to say to them; but Tom found it no smiling matter when the
street boys called after him, or hung over the fence and laughed at his
attempts to dig and rake over the garden.
Mrs. Winn found, too, that the village school was a long distance from
their cottage; and she feared, from what she heard, that it was a very
different school from the one Tom had been attending.
He was a fairly good scholar for his age, but she knew, if he was ever
to push his way in the world, he would need to be at a good school for
another year or two.
However, she comforted herself with the thought, that when she got
plenty of work, as the rent was so low, she would be able to send Tom
to some good private school; and in the meanwhile, he should go to the
village school, as soon as he had got the front garden in order.
She and Elsie had made the inside of the house neat and comfortable;
and her front parlour, which she decided she would keep to receive her
customers, was quite ready; and so she thought she would go and make
some calls, and leave her cards at the houses of some of the gentry
near at hand.
She had so far prevailed upon some of her neighbours, as to get one
of them to bring her some milk from the farm every morning, and she
contrived to meet this woman one day, and ask her the nearest way to
the Manor House, for that she had heard was one of the best houses in
the neighbourhood.
"The Manor House," repeated Betsy Gunn, staring at Mrs. Winn; "and what
may you be wanting at the Manor House?"
It was Mrs. Winn's turn to stare now, and she said rather stiffly,
"That is my business, I think, I only want you to tell me the best way
to get to it."
"Then I sha'n't tell you," said the woman defiantly. "The folks is all
saying you ain't come to Fairfield for no good; and now I know you
ain't."
"But what can you know about it, Betsy? I only want to go and see the
ladies there."
"And tell 'em all that you sees goin' on here!"
"But what is there to tell?" said the widow, with widely-opened eyes.
"You are all steady, hardworking people; and if you do gossip and
quarrel, sometimes, that is nothing to anyone but yourselves."
"And you want to go and tell old madam that we gossip and quarrel, and
so get our Christmas coals stopped! No! No! Betsy Gunn ain't goin' to
help no such doings as that."
Mrs. Winn wondered for a minute whether the woman had lost her wits,
but she saw plainly enough that she spoke in all earnestness. And she
wondered what she had better do to disarm the suspicion that seemed to
her so senseless, but was to these poor people real enough.
At last she decided that there was nothing like telling the truth,
painful as it was, to make her affairs known to all the village. So
she beckoned Betsy into the parlour, that she and Elsie had taken such
pains to make neat and nice.
"Sit down a minute," she said, "and I will tell you why I have come
here, and what I want to do. I am a widow, and my husband could leave
me very little money when he died; so I am obliged to work for my
children, or they would starve, and it is to get work I have come here."
"What work?" demanded Betsy.
"Dressmaking," said Mrs. Winn.
The woman's hard face relaxed a little. "Us don't do that,—the gentry
and their fine servants send that to London."
"That is just what I was told," said the widow, "but now I am going to
ask some of these ladies to send it to me, instead of sending it to
London; and I want you to tell me the best way to go to Madam Kennaway
lives there the Manor House. I understand, and if I can only see her, I
may be able to get some work."
The woman nodded. "She ain't bad, but old madam is the best. You ask to
see old madam."
"Very well; and you will tell me the way to go?"
Yes, Betsy was so far won over, that she was willing to do this now.
But Mrs. Winn was a little alarmed when she heard that the Manor House
was nearly five miles from Fairfield. Five miles seemed a moderate
distance to Betsy, but Mrs. Winn had not walked so far for many years,
and there was no railway or other conveyance that she could ride back.
Betsy told her which way to go, and Mrs. Winn set out on her walk
early the next morning, resolving to call at other suitable houses on
the way, but chiefly concerned to reach the Manor House and see Mrs.
Kennaway.
She was tired and spent when she at last reached the imposing looking
mansion. But the thought of her children made her overcome the
faintness that crept over her, and she rang the bell, half hoping the
servant would ask her inside the cool hall, to wait while he took her
card and message to his mistress.
But this splendid footman looked at her almost as suspiciously as Betsy
Gunn had done, and then told her to wait outside on the steps, if she
could not leave her card and call again.
"Call again!" Why, it would take her all day to get home again she
feared, tired as she was. So she stepped back to the top of the terrace
steps and waited—waited until she thought the man must surely have
forgotten her. And she was just going to ring the bell again, when the
door was thrown open and her card handed back to her.
"Madam does not see strangers," he said pompously.
And then the door was closed, and the visit to the Manor House, upon
which she had built so many hopes, was over. And she could only turn
and walk down the smooth white marble steps, wondering how far she
should be able to walk before she fell down utterly exhausted.
Presently she reached a shady knoll where she could sit down and rest;
and while she rested, she wondered what she was to do now, for the
reception she had received had never been expected.
That she might have some little difficulty at first, she had thought
quite possible; but that rich and poor alike should refuse to have
anything to do with her because she was a stranger, seemed almost too
absurd to be believed. And she pinched herself to make sure that she
was wide awake and not dreaming, as she sat there and recalled what had
happened.
Her friend had advised that she should go to the Manor House first, for
she knew Madam Kennaway, and spoke of her as being kind and considerate
in her treatment of servants, and therefore likely to be the same to
others whom she employed.
But it seemed as though there could be no consideration left for a mere
stranger, such as she was, in the place. And her thoughts grew very
bitter as she toiled along in the hot sun.
Still she would persevere; and she made up her mind to call at another
house she had been told of by Betsy, and which lay only a little way
out of her road homeward. This was not such a grand house as the other.
It was not much more than an enlarged and improved edition of her own
cottage; and the doctor for the district lived here.
She could not expect a doctor's wife to do for her what the great Madam
Kennaway might have done; but she resolved to call and see the lady,
unless she, too, would have nothing to say to a stranger.
A little maid-servant took her card and message, when she knocked at
the door. And then she was ushered into a plainly furnished room at the
side, to wait while the servant went in search of her mistress.
"I suppose you have heard that I have a large family of girls and boys,
who are always tearing their clothes," said the lady, when she came in.
She spoke very pleasantly; and then, noticing how pale and tired Mrs.
Winn looked, she asked if she would have a glass of milk and a piece
of cake. And, scarcely waiting for the widow to say yes, she rang the
bell, and told the maid who answered it, to bring the milk as quickly
as she could.
While she rested, and drank her milk, the lady explained that she did
not put out much of her dressmaking as a rule, but that as one of her
girls was going away for several months, she should be very glad of her
help just now. And, when she had recovered from her fatigue a little,
she should be glad if she could take her daughter's pattern, so as to
begin one of the dresses at once.
This chance of getting work seemed to put new life into Mrs. Winn, and
she was able to talk quite freely to Mrs. Perceval, and tell her how it
was she came to Fairfield.
The doctor's wife knew where she lived quite well—had seen the
furniture carried in while she was sitting in her husband's gig,
waiting while he visited a sick man a few doors further on.
"I asked some of the old goodies who was coming to live there, but
they could only tell me they were 'Lunnon people,' and seemed rather
aggrieved that London people should dare to come to their village."
Then Mrs. Winn told her of her encounter with Betsy Gunn, and the two
ladies laughed over the villagers' suspicion and ignorance.
Before she left, she had told Mrs. Perceval of Elsie's scholarship; for
she felt almost as proud of her resigning it, as she did of her gaining
it.
Mrs. Perceval was evidently very favourably impressed with the new
dressmaker. And when she went home, she carried a large parcel of work
with her, the sight of which cheered Tom, who was at the end of the
lane on the look-out for her.
Elsie had got the kettle boiling, ready to make a cup of tea for her
mother, at least an hour before she returned. In fact, the girl had
grown quite anxious over her mother's long absence, and wondered
whether there were robbers in the woods about here now, such as there
used to be years ago. For Betsy Gunn had told them a harrowing tale of
what took place at the other end of the village in her grandmother's
time. If it was not sufficient to frighten Elsie and Tom, it was enough
to make them very glad when their mother got back.
And so, when Tom came rushing in, calling, "Here's mother! Here's
mother!" Elsie, too, ran to the door to kiss and welcome her.
It was only a little thing, perhaps, but this warm, dutiful welcome
from her children cheered and comforted poor Mrs. Winn as nothing else
could have done just now. It is a pity when young people treat their
parents slightingly. They often have to toil by day, and think half
the night how things are to be made smooth and comfortable for their
children. In these matters, perhaps, the children can do nothing to
lighten the burden of life for them. But they could often cheer and
comfort them with little kindly, affectionate attentions, instead of
being rude and abrupt in their manners, as they too often are where
father and mother are concerned.