BLACK COUNTRY ROSES
THAT first day at Daisy Bank was a fair sample of many others which
followed it. Bit by bit order was restored to the once untidy and
comfortless house. Mrs. Holtby's room was made as sweet and cheerful as
it was possible for any room in such a neighbourhood to be; the floor
was washed, the carpet shaken, clean white curtains were hung in the
window, and fresh hangings on the bed; whilst upon the table stood a
vase, which was filled with spring flowers, a constant supply of which
was sent regularly by Phyllis from the dear home garden.
Then Marjorie took another room in hand, and, with Bessie's and Patty's
help, worked the same reformation there, and so by degrees the house
looked more home-like and far less dreary. But it was a hard life to
which she had come, and sometimes she felt inclined to despair.
Work as hard as she might, from early in the morning till late at
night, she could never keep pace with the darning and patching, the
clearing and dusting, which seemed always waiting to be done. Her feet
were weary with running up and down stairs; her head ached with the
noise of the children, and at times she longed terribly for a single
day's holiday and rest; but of this she saw no prospect whatever.
Beyond a daily run over the pit mounds, she never got out, and she saw
no one in these walks to whom she could speak. Her thoughts were her
only companions, and they were anxious ones at times.
The home letters sounded bright, as a rule, but now and again some
sentence in her mother's made her feel how much she was missed there.
Her own letters were as cheerful as she could make them, although she
wrote a truthful account of the place to which she had come, for she
had promised her mother that she would do so.
As Marjorie wandered over the wilderness of ashes day after day, she
thought of them all and of her pretty home, and a terrible yearning
came over her to see them again, and to look even for five minutes
at the scenes she loved so well. And then her thoughts would wander
to Captain Fortescue. She had kept her promise to him before leaving
home; she had written to tell him where she was going, but she had
never received an answer; sometimes she wondered whether her letter had
ever reached him. What was he doing now? Had he left the army? Was he
happy la the new life upon which she supposed he must have entered? She
thought of his words to her mother,—
"I shall allow myself in no luxury until all is paid."
What a hard life that would mean, if he kept his word! And she believed
that he would keep his word; she felt that he was a man to be trusted.
Over and over again her busy thoughts returned to this subject, and
in her prayers for those at home, his name was added. It could not be
wrong to pray for him, surely.
One day when spring weather was beginning, and when even Daisy Bank
looked a degree less dismal, Marjorie found a friend. As she passed
one of the tumble-down cottages, she noticed an old man who was coming
out of it with a rose-tree in his arms, and then she saw that a row of
similar pots stood in the sunshine against the discoloured wall of the
house. The roses were just coming into leaf, and she noticed that the
old man was bending lovingly over them, loosening the soil near their
stems, and giving each of them some water from a jug which was standing
on the doorstep. Marjorie felt that at last she had found something in
Daisy Bank at which it was pleasant to look. She went up to the old
man and admired his roses, and he showed them to her with great pride,
telling her the name and the colour of each.
"Would you like to see my garden, miss?" he asked.
He took her through the kitchen, which was quite clean, although bare
of paint and whitewash, and led her to the back of his cottage. There
he showed her his lawn, a tiny strip of green about three feet long and
two feet broad, covered with grass. This he watered daily, to keep it
from being blackened by the smoke-laden atmosphere, and kept it short
by cutting it every evening with a pair of scissors. He was intensely
proud of it, however, and of a row of hardy plants which were leading
a struggling existence under the wall of the house. London Pride was,
perhaps, the only one which did not appear to be depressed by its
surroundings, and which might justly have changed its name to Daisy
Bank Pride.
But the old man was proud of them all, and beamed with delight when
Marjorie stooped to examine them. That tiny garden was the joy of his
heart, as dear to him as the lovely home garden had been to her, and
quite as beautiful in his eyes.
"It's a wonder that anything will grow here," she said.
"Ay, it's unlikely soil; but the Lord's plants do thrive sometimes in
that."
"Yes," said Marjorie, for she did not quite see what he meant.
"There was old Dan'el in Babylon, and Obadiah, him as lived in
Jezebel's time, and there was saints in Nero's household. They had bad
soil, all of 'em, but they was faithful 'trees of the Lord's planting,'
that He might be glorified."
And then Marjorie felt that she had found a friend. Old Enoch would
have been stamped as an ignorant man by many, but he knew his Bible
well, and could repeat much of it by heart. It was his daily study, and
he was taught by the Spirit of God. Many and many a time, when things
seemed darker than usual, Marjorie would run in to see him, and she
always came away feeling brighter and better.
It was on the very day upon which she first made old Enoch's
acquaintance that, as she was going back to Colwyn House, she had a
great and most unexpected surprise. Coming along the lane to meet her,
and picking his way amongst the pools which even the spring sunshine
had not dried up, she saw a well-known figure, and her heart danced
with joy at the sight, for it seemed to her like a bit of home put down
amongst the dreariness of Daisy Bank.
It was Louis Verner!
"Oh, Louis, how nice to see you!" she cried. "It is lovely to see a
home face!"
"I thought you would be pleased to see me, Marjorie. I'm on my way
home, and I thought I could tell them about you."
"And you've come out of your way on purpose to see me! How awfully good
of you, Louis!"
"Not at all good; I wanted to come. Marjorie, you're prettier than
ever!"
"Don't talk such nonsense, Louis!" she said. "Tell me about yourself.
How have you been getting on?"
"Oh, fairly well, I think. We've had an awfully jolly term; all sorts
of things going on."
"And what are you going to be?"
"Now, Marjorie, that's too bad! You said you would ask me when you came
home next."
"Very well, I won't scold you to-day, when you've been so good as to
come and see me. How long can you stay?"
"Only an hour."
"Will you come in?"
"I'd rather not," said Louis; "we can't talk if all those people are
there. Can't you come for a walk?"
"I'll ask Mrs. Holtby."
The permission was readily given; and Mrs. Holtby, who was sitting up
in her room, crept to the window, and peeped through the blind with
true feminine curiosity, to see who was the friend from home with whom
her much-valued mother's help was so anxious to go out.
"A very particular friend, I should imagine," she said to herself with
a smile, as the two disappeared together over the pit mounds.
"Marjorie," said Louis, as she joined him, "of all detestable and
hateful places on the face of this earth, I do think Daisy Bank is the
worst!"
"Don't be too hard on it, Louis! You should see it at night, when the
sky is lit up by the furnace lights. We have constant illuminations
here."
"I don't know what Mrs. Douglas will say when I tell her."
"Then you mustn't tell her, Louis. I shall be very angry if you make it
out blacker than it is."
"I couldn't do that," said Louis, laughing, "if I were to try."
"Well, what does it matter, Louis? If I don't mind it, why should
anybody else?"
They came now to one of the large dark pools.
"What a ghastly hole!" he said. "Just the place to tempt a fellow to
commit suicide."
"Now, Louis! That is our best lake, the Derwentwater of these parts."
"Derwentwater, indeed!" said Louis, scornfully. "Look here, Marjorie! I
don't like your being here at all."
"I assure you, Louis, there is no need to pity me."
Then Louis suddenly changed his tone.
"Marjorie."
"Yes, Louis."
"Why do you never write to me?"
"I haven't time, Louis; it's as much as I can do to write home."
"But I do think you might write to me, because I am—well, I really am
awfully fond of you, Marjorie. Do you know I like you better than any
girl I know? Upon my word I do."
"Thank you, Louis," said Marjorie, with a mock bow, "that's a very
pretty compliment."
"It isn't a compliment, Marjorie; at least I mean it's quite a true
one. Did you get the picture postcards I sent you?"
"Yes, thank you, Louis; I asked mother, if she was writing to you, to
thank you for them."
"So she did; but I had rather have had a letter from you, Marjorie."
They were walking towards the railway station when the hour was over,
and Louis's train was almost due, when he said suddenly—
"Marjorie, I'm going away, and you haven't said anything nice to me."
"Now that isn't a compliment!" she said, laughing again. "Look, Louis!
The signal is down; we must hurry."
They ran down the steps, and he had barely time to get his ticket
before the train came in.
As he jumped into the carriage, Marjorie could not help wishing that
she was going with him, or at any rate that she was on her way to the
same destination.