SPRINGBROOK AGAIN.
Thomas Dawson was sitting in his chair in the garden enjoying the
warmth of the October sunshine. The weather was unusually warm for
the time of the year, and the little breeze which blew across the
garden was very acceptable. The long graceful tendrils of the
jessamine rose and fell like soft green waves above his head, a
little cloud of dust rose and skidded along the road, to the
annoyance of some lazy cows being driven home to the milking.
But Thomas heeded none of these things, he sat with his head sunk on
his breast, his eyes staring gloomily before him, his thoughts far
away. He had aged ten years and more in the last two. A very slight
sound, though from within the house, roused him in an instant and
brought him to his feet.
"I'm coming, mother, I'm coming," he called, and went indoors.
"I expect it's pretty nigh tea-time, isn't it?" he asked, with
affected cheerfulness; "the fire only wants a stir, and the kettle'll
boil in no time."
Patience nodded and took up the poker. She was very slow of speech
in those days, but it was a grand relief to know that she could speak
at all, and break the silence which had held her for weeks and months
after the stroke of paralysis which had seized her on that dreadful
day when Harry Lang had stolen Jessie from them.
Thomas, coming back from market that night, had found his wife
unconscious and helpless, and when at last she had recovered her
senses it was long before she could speak and explain something of
the terrible happenings of that afternoon; and even now, at the end
of two years, her speech was still thick and slow, and her limbs on
one side partially helpless.
Thomas spread the cloth on the table, and placed the china on it for
her to arrange. The old man waited on his wife like a mother on her
child, and nothing could exceed his patient devotion. With her he
was always bright and cheery, and only his bowed back and snow-white
hair and altogether aged appearance told of his own consuming grief
and anxiety.
He cut the bread and butter, and made the tea with all the deftness
of a woman. Patience watched him with the tears smarting behind her
lids. When he had filled their cups he sat down, facing the window,
and looking out along the garden to the little gate. They did not
talk much. Thomas's mind had gone back to that morning when he had
looked out and seen Daniel Magor at the gate with letters in his
hand--that wonderful letter which had so altered and beautified their
existence for a time, only to blight them both cruelly.
"I believe it's Miss Grace I see coming in," he said presently,
rousing with a start. "She's at the gate, and--yes, she's
unfastening it. I'll go and meet her."
On his way through the garden he saw a cat lazily basking on his best
wall-flower seedlings, and drove her away; the excitement of it
prevented his noticing the expression of Miss Grace's face, the
anxious, excited look in her eyes.
"Good-evening, Mr. Dawson," she said, as she came close. "I was at
the post office getting my letters, and there was one lying there for
you, so I said I would bring it, as it was marked 'Urgent.'
It seemed wrong to leave it there until to-morrow, I thought it might
be important."
She handed him the envelope, but she did not turn and go. "I think
I'll step in and speak to Mrs. Dawson for a moment or so," she said
quietly, "just while you look at your letter, then I'll go, that you
may talk it over with her."
She felt that her little scheme was rather a clumsy one, but she had
a strong conviction that it might be well for her to be there just
then. "I will go inside," and she left him standing there in the
autumn sunlight staring at the letter he held in his trembling hands.
He turned it over several times before he would make up his mind to
open it. There was always a dread overshadowing him in those days of
what he might have to hear.
Miss Grace had barely got through her first greetings, and declined
Patience's offer of a cup of tea "fresh-made," when the door was
flung open and Thomas almost fell in. In trouble he would have
remembered his wife's affliction, and have hedged her round with
every care, but joy was another thing. It was on joy that he had
built his hopes of restoring her to her former self--and here it was,
in his grasp!
"Mother!--Jessie!--I've heard from her!! Mother, mother, do you
hear, there's news of her at last?"
Miss Grace stepped nearer and stood by the poor old woman, laying a
firm hand on her shoulder, she could see how she was shaking.
"If it is good news, tell her quickly," she said anxiously.
Thomas read the expression of Miss Grace's face, and recovered
himself at once. His care for Patience was always his first thought.
"Good! My dear, yes, good as good can be. Better than I ever hoped
for. She is well, and she's coming back, to _us_, mother! do you
hear? She is coming back for good. It doesn't seem possible, it
doesn't seem as though it can be true, yet it says so on the letter.
Hark to it--in't it like the dear child herself speaking?"
The terrified look which had come into Patience's face died away.
She could not speak, but she put out one shaking hand and thrust it
into that of her husband, and so they read the glad news. It was a
curious, excited, incoherent letter, but it told them all they wanted
to know, for the time, at any rate.
"My Dearest Granp,
"I have been longing to write all this time and tell you where I
am, but I could not, and now father is dead and Charlie, and
mother wants to go home to live with her father, and I am
coming home to you! Mother told me to write and ask if I may,
and I am very well and happy, but, oh, I am longing to see you
and granny. I nearly broke my heart at first, but I am coming
home again, and I am so happy, only I am sorry, too, to leave
here, and the lady who has been so kind to me. She is old and
feels very miserable at being left all alone. Good-bye, granp
and granny. I shall come as soon as ever I can when I hear
from you. Please write soon. Give my love to granny, I hope
she'll soon get better,
"From your loving,"
"Jessie Lang."
It was well that Miss Grace stayed by the old couple, for they both
needed her by the time the letter was read.
"She is well, and she must have met with kindness, or she would not
be sorry to leave," she said cheerfully. "Now, Mrs. Dawson, we shall
have her back with us almost at once, so it behoves us to set about
getting everything ready for her," she went on, in her sensible,
matter-of-fact way, for she felt that the best thing for both of them
was to keep them busy with preparations.
Patience caught her spirit at once. "You must write to-night,
Thomas," she said eagerly, "you mustn't delay, for the child is
waiting for a word and she mustn't be disappointed, whatever happens.
I expect she's pretty nigh broken her heart many a time longing to
write to us, and--and--her father wouldn't let her. I can read
between the lines. I'm sure 'twas his doings--"
"He is dead now," said Miss Grace softly, "so we will forgive him and
put away all hard thoughts of him, and maybe your little flower was
taken from you just to brighten a dark corner for the time, and bring
happiness to others--perhaps to learn some lesson that will help her
in the future."
"Maybe," said Patience, but more gently; "my little blossom," she
added softly. "P'raps it was greedy to want to keep her to ourselves
always."
Thomas had dropped into a chair by the door. "I've got to write, and
I can't," he said solemnly, looking up with a half comic, half
wistful look in his blue eyes. "My hands is shaking, and my wits is
shaking, and--and--but I must, of course, and I am going to Norton
to-night to post it, so as the child can get it in the morning."
"No--excuse me--you are not," said Miss Grace, shaking her head at
him, laughing, but decisive. "I have my bicycle. I can go there and
back in next to no time. With shaking wits and hands you are not
fit! Besides, what would Mrs. Dawson do all the evening without you?
No, Mr. Dawson, you write the letter and I will do the rest."
She put paper and pens and ink before him on a little table out in
the porch, and she and Patience kept very quiet so that they might
not interrupt him; but it was no good, he could not write, he really
was too much excited and overcome. So at last Miss Grace wrote a
little letter for him, one that brought satisfaction to both of them.
It expressed their amazement, their joy and excitement, and sent
their dearest love, and some little news of them. "Your granny is
stronger and more active than she has been for a long time," she
wrote, "and perhaps your coming will make her quite well and able to
get about again." She felt she ought to prepare Jessie for some of
the change she would see.
"There, that is the business part, as you might call it," she said,
placing the letter in an envelope, "but I am sure she will worry if
there isn't a word from you, Mr. Dawson. Can you write just a tiny
message to slip in with mine?--just to say how glad you are."
"Glad!" cried Thomas; "glad is a poor kind of word for what I feel!"
He had recovered a little, and was as gay as a schoolboy just getting
ready for the holidays. He pulled a piece of paper towards him, and
squaring his elbows, he wrote in large round hand:
"Come home quick to granp, and I'll be there to meet you--
same as before."
"Your loving grandfather,"
"T. Dawson."
"I haven't wrote a letter before for nigh 'pon twenty years, I
b'lieve," he gasped, mopping his brow and stretching his arms with
relief, "and now 'tisn't much of a one. I'm out of practice, but the
little maid'll understand," and he chuckled happily as he handed it
to Miss Grace. "Yes, she'll understand."
Jessie did understand. When the two letters reached her she danced
about the house with glad excitement, then flew to Miss Patch to tell
her all about them, and about that first meeting with granp at
Springbrook station.
Miss Patch listened and sympathized, and rejoiced, too, and in her
calm, sweet old face she showed none of the pain which was filling
her own poor heart. She was losing every one she cared for, not
finding them. All the little daily habits, and pleasures, and
friendlinesses, the trifles that made her life, were being taken from
her. In a few days more she would be a stranger among strangers,
with no one interested enough to care what became of her, and nothing
but her room and her flowers would remain the same. And even for how
long that much would be left her she could not know.
She would have the same room still, for Mrs. Lang had handed over the
house and everything in it, including the lodgers, to some people who
wanted a small lodging-house of the kind; but who they were, or what
they would be like, was all unknown to Miss Patch.
If, though, she did not show her own feelings then, Jessie found them
out a little later. Going unexpectedly up to Miss Patch's room to
present her with a geranium which had been one of her own particular
treasures, given her by Tom Salter, she found the poor old head bowed
on the table, and the poor thin body shaking with sobs. Jessie, in
great distress, dropped her geranium and ran to her.
"What is it? What has happened?" she cried. "Oh, Miss Patch, do tell
me," and throwing her warm little arms about her old friend, she
began to sob, too.
But Miss Patch's self-control had given way at last, and recover
herself she could not. Jessie tried to soothe and coax her, but
without effect, and she stood beside her at last hopeless, helpless.
Her brain was busy, though, and presently light came to her.
"Miss Patch," she said softly, "is it because we are all going away--
and you will be left here alone?" Her own voice quavered at the
thought.
One of Miss Patch's arms crept round Jessie and drew her close in an
almost convulsive grasp. "Yes," she whispered in a choked voice,
"I can't--I can't face it--the loneliness it--it--"
A sudden beautiful idea came to Jessie. "Don't stay!" she cried
impulsively, without a thought as to ways, or means, or any of the
other practical points, "come home with me, come to Springbrook,"
she cried excitedly. "Oh, do, do, Miss Patch, do. I want you to see
granp and granny, and I want them to know you, and--and, oh, it's
_lovely_ there, and you wouldn't be lonely, you'd have me and granp
and granny; and--and it wouldn't cost more, I am sure," she added
practically, "it is ever such a cheap place to live in; and--and we
would find you a nice room, and, oh, the flowers you'd have--"
She had to stop at last from sheer want of breath. But by the time
she had done Miss Patch had checked her tears and raised her head,
and was staring at Jessie with wide, bright, half-frightened eyes,
her face flushed and excited.
"I--it--oh no, it can't be; but--but, oh, how heavenly it sounds to a
lonely body like me!" she gasped.
"But it _can_ be," cried eager Jessie. "I am sure it can, and it
would be lovelier even than it sounds."
"But how could I manage?" gasped Miss Patch, looking dejected again.
"Think of my lameness--and there's my furniture."
Jessie looked about her. "There isn't _very_ much of it," she said
thoughtfully. "I am sure it isn't enough to stop your coming."
And she was right, for, after all, there was but the old-fashioned
bed and chest of drawers, a chair or two and a couple of tables, and
a few boxes and other trifles. "Would you go if your things got
there without any trouble--I mean, without any more trouble than
changing houses would be? You see," she added wisely, "if you don't
like the new people who are coming, you may _have_ to change, after
all, and then you won't have any one to help you."
The look of dread came back into poor Miss Patch's tired eyes.
So gloomy a prospect determined her.
"You are right!" she gasped; "it would be terrible--yes. I'll go--I
do believe I will. Oh, my! it's a dreadfully big undertaking, but--
but I'll go, yes, I will. I will make up my mind; and--and I won't
go back from it. I am terribly given to being a coward, Jessie."
Her mind once made up Miss Patch did not swerve again, and from that
time her face grew brighter. And after all it was not such a very
big undertaking--not nearly as bad as she had feared, for everything
seemed to fall out for her in a perfectly marvellous way, and most of
her troubles were taken off her shoulders before she had been able to
realize them.
A few letters passed between Jessie and Miss Grace, and then between
Mrs. Lang and Miss Grace, and then all seemed to come about so
smoothly and easily that Miss Patch scarcely realized all that was
being accomplished. Mrs. Lang insisted on paying the charges for the
furniture being carried to Springbrook. Tom Salter saw to the
packing of them all and sending them off by train; and then, oddly
enough, Miss Grace Barley found that she had business in London, and
would be returning to Springbrook on the very day Jessie and Miss
Patch were expected there, and would travel down with them.
So, on the morning of that day, a cab drove up to the dingy house in
Fort Street, and Miss Patch, and her eight parcels, and her rosebush
was conveyed to the station in state and comfort, and between Jessie
and Miss Grace and Tom she was taken to the railway carriage and
comfortably ensconced in a corner without any bother as to luggage or
ticket-taking or anything.
In fact, she was so excited and bewildered that she quite forgot all
about everything. "Well!" she exclaimed, as the train moved off into
the strange new country, "I never knew before how delightful and easy
travelling could be! It makes me smile now to think how I shrank
from it, and the fuss I made!"
Jessie, who was still weeping silently after the parting with her
mother and Tom Salter, looked up and smiled sympathetically.
The bustle and responsibility of taking care of Miss Patch had helped
them all through the last sad leave-takings, but when that strain was
over, and they were comfortably settled, and Tom came up to say his
last shy good-bye, the realization rushed over her that she should
never see the dingy grey house again, nor her stepmother, nor Tom--
good, kind, faithful Tom--and it was with tears running down her face
that she threw her arms round the good fellow's neck, and kissed him
as though he were her own kind big brother. Then, subsiding into her
corner sobbing, she left London in grief nearly as great as when she
had arrived there two years before.
For a long time her thoughts lingered about the home and the life she
was leaving, her mother, Charlie, her father, the house, the lodgers,
the dingy street, the noise and bustle. How real it all seemed, yet
already how far away! Could she ever have been in the midst of it
with no thought of ever knowing anything else! How strange life was,
and how wonderful! How one short month had changed everything!
Here she was, her dream and her longing realized, going home again to
Springbrook, to the old happy life, the same friends, the same
everything--yet, no, not quite the same, never quite the same,
perhaps. She herself was changed, and--she looked at Miss Patch.
Their eyes met in a happy, affectionate smile. "No, things were not
quite the same, they were better, if anything. She had more now,
more in every way."
The train tore on, and the day wore on. The hedges were growing bare
now, and the leaves on them were turning red and yellow and brown;
but the autumn sun shone, and there were space and air and sunshine
all about them. Oh, what a change after the close, narrow streets,
the gloom and dinginess, the want of space! Jessie's spirits began
to rise. How could she be unhappy in this beautiful world, with home
before her, and granp and granny waiting for her, and the cottage,
and her own dear little bedroom. "Will my rose be alive, do you
think, Miss Grace?" she asked eagerly.
"Yes, dear, your grandfather has cared for it as though it were his
most treasured possession, and your little garden, too. He has kept
everything as though you might return at any moment, and all must be
in readiness. It has been a cruelly long parting for them, and it
has told on them," she added. "You must be prepared to find them
altered. But," she added more cheerfully, "it rests with you to make
them young and happy again, Jessie."
"I will do my very, very best," said Jessie earnestly. "Oh!" she
sighed, "how slowly the train goes, aren't we nearly there, Miss
Grace?"
"Only a few moments now, dear. This is Crossley, the next station to
ours. Don't you recognize any landmarks yet?"
Jessie sprang to the window and remained there, fascinated,
enchanted, drinking it all in, trying to realize that all was not a
happy dream, but glorious reality. She recognized it all now, and
every yard made it more familiar.
The train gave a warning whistle. "Here we are! here we are!" she
screamed in a perfect ecstasy of joy. "Oh, Miss Grace, there is the
road, and--and here is the platform, and--and I do believe I see
granp!"
She drew in her head and shrank back into her corner. "Miss Grace,"
she pleaded excitedly, "when we stop will you and Miss Patch get out
and walk away as if I wasn't here and you had forgotten all about me,
and then granp will come to look for me--like he did the first time,
will you?"
Her eagerness was so great Miss Grace could not refuse her.
"Very well, dear, but"--laughingly--"I must leave all the parcels,
too. I can't manage them as well."
"Oh, no, we will bring those. Now," as the train drew up, "please
get out!"
She drew forward the curtain and hid behind it. Miss Barley and Miss
Patch clambered out and walked away. Half-way down the platform they
met Mr. Dawson, he was pale and trembling, but his blue eyes, bright
with eagerness, looked for one face and figure only, and saw no
other; Miss Patch and Miss Barley passed him quite unobserved; Miss
Grace smiled to herself, and they turned to watch.
Along the platform he went, peering eagerly into every carriage.
Jessie, in her corner, breathless with excitement, thought he would
never come. The time seemed so long, so very long, she began to fear
that the train would move on and carry her with it. In her
excitement she thrust back the curtain, and leaned forward--and the
next minute she was in his arms!
"Not asleep this time, granp!" she cried excitedly, "not asleep this
time! Oh, granp! granp!" and she hugged and kissed him again and
again.
The guard came in at last, to warn them that the train was about to
move, and then there was a hasty gathering up of Miss Patch's eight
parcels and her rose, and Jessie's three parcels and her geranium,
and at last they all stood together on Springbrook platform, with the
sun shining on them, the breeze blowing, the birds singing--and
granny at home waiting to welcome them to the new happy life which
lay before them.
Miss Grace led Miss Patch out, and they got into a carriage which had
been sent from Norton for the purpose, but Jessie and her grandfather
begged to walk back, as on that first occasion. He did not carry her
now, though he leaned on her instead, and seemed glad of the support.
He leaned heavily, too, she noticed, and she realized vaguely that
there was one more change than she had thought of. In the past she
had leaned all her weight on him, now it was he who would lean on
her; and she hoped, with all the strength of her warm little heart,
that she might be able to prove herself a real prop and staff to him
and the dear granny who loved her so.
"God make my life a little staff,
Whereon the weak may rest."
She repeated to herself.
"Here's granny," said granp joyfully, as they reached the garden
gate. Run on to her, child! and--and remember--one arm is helpless
still. You must be her right arm now, Jessie."
"I will," said Jessie eagerly, and the next moment was at her
granny's side.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Jessie, by Mabel Quiller-Couch