BROTHER AND SISTER.
"RHODA, would your mother object to you going a little way off to get a
situation, if you were sure of a comfortable place?"
Mrs. Wright had an open letter in her hand that Tom had taken from the
postman as he came in to breakfast.
Several weeks had passed, but Rhoda still came in and out to help Mrs.
Wright, and had told her she wanted to get a situation that she might
help her mother.
Rhoda's plan had been to get the situation first, and then tell her
mother what she wanted to do. But to go away from home altogether was
not what she had anticipated, and she stood silent, scarcely knowing
what to answer.
"I should be very glad if you could go, Rhoda," said Mrs. Wright. "My
sister is ill, and wants a girl at once to nurse the baby. You would
find it a comfortable place; there is only a baby and a little boy
eight years old."
"Where is it?" asked Rhoda, thinking her mother "might" perhaps let her
go to Mrs. Wright's sister.
"At Rilchester, a pretty little town about twenty miles off. My sister
is very kind, and you would find it a nice place for a beginning. Run
and ask your mother to come and see me about it."
Rhoda put away the lamps she had just brought downstairs and went out.
But she did not "run" home, for as she closed the street door, her
brother came up, and Rhoda was very glad to meet him.
"Oh, Frank, what do you think? Mrs. Wright wants me to go and live with
her sister to nurse a baby, and—"
"No, no," interrupted Frank, "you can't go, it wouldn't be fair. You
must stay at home with mother, and I 'must' get a place somewhere."
"But you've tried, Frank," said Rhoda sadly. "I tell you, one of us
must help mother a bit, and I think if she'll let me go, I'll try this
place at Rilchester. It need not be for ever, you know, and I am the
oldest."
"Yes, but I am the boy, and it's always a boy's place to help his
mother and sister."
"Well, you shall, by-and-by," said Rhoda; "you will be able to help
us all the better for a little more schooling. That was what mother
said when you was so disappointed about Mortimer's. So look here, you
help me persuade mother about this, and then I'll promise to come home
by-and-by when you get a place."
"I don't like it," murmured Frank. "I'd always meant to work for you
and mother too, but I can see how mother worries sometimes about the
work and the money, and keeping the rent paid, and so perhaps, if you
could get a place for a little while—"
"Yes, that's it, just for a little while, till you can get work and
earn money enough to keep us both," said Rhoda cheerfully.
This was the plea she urged with her mother, for Mrs. Morris needed
some coaxing before she would agree to the plan. Like her children, she
had thought, if Frank could get a place and earn a little, Rhoda might
stay at home and keep the house comfortable, and get the meals ready
for them both, and help her, perhaps, occasionally with the sewing.
It is not easy to give up a long-cherished plan, and it was a
disappointment to Rhoda and her mother to have to abandon theirs, and
accept what seemed to be forced upon them by circumstances.
"I don't like it, Rhoda, but we must believe that God knows what is
best for us, and certainly I would rather you went to Mrs. Wright's
sister than to a stranger. Yes, I will go in and talk to her presently.
And now you had better make haste to school, for if you are not to go
there much longer, you had better learn all you can now."
An hour later, Mrs. Morris went in to see Mrs. Wright about her
proposal. And before she left, it was settled that Rhoda should go the
very next day to Rilchester.
When Rhoda called at Mrs. Wright's on her way home from school, she
heard how the matter had been settled. And Mrs. Wright had written a
few words which she wanted Rhoda to take to the nearest post office and
copy on to a telegraph form, and send it, that her sister might know
without delay that Rhoda was coming.
She read the words as she went along again and again:
"Rhoda Morris coming to-morrow; meet 4.30 train."
It did not seem possible that such a change in her circumstances could
happen so soon.
When she got home, she found her mother busy getting her things
together, in readiness for the next day.
"You can only take a few, Rhoda, just enough for a week. But the rest
shall be sent on, if you are going to stay."
"'Going to stay'? Why, of course I mean to stay, mother," said Rhoda,
but with a sob in her voice that she instantly tried to smother.
Her mother would not notice it, for she understood Rhoda well enough to
know that she was trying to keep up a cheerful appearance for her sake.
When Frank came home, she met him with the news of her speedy
departure, and that she was to have six pounds a year to begin with,
and seven after she had been there six months.
"Think how I shall be able to help mother," she exclaimed, without
giving him any time for comment. "I shall be able to pay nearly half
the rent out of my wages, and it will not cost more than half as much
for bread, because I always eat so much."
"Don't, Rhoda; don't talk like that!" said Frank in a pained voice,
looking at his mother to see how she bore the prospect of this
separation.
But Mrs. Morris did not raise her eyes from the stocking she was
darning. She and Mrs. Wright had talked the whole matter over, and the
influence it might have in correcting Rhoda's faults of manner and
behaviour, and improving her whole character, until her mother saw that
such a discipline as this might prove to be a great blessing to her
daughter. But it made the parting none the less painful, and she could
not expect Frank to see all that she did.
The brother and sister had always been strongly attached to each other,
and it had been Frank's day-dream for years to keep Rhoda at home and
work for her. And now for her to have to go out, and he remain at
school, was bitter indeed to the boy, she knew.
"Rhoda, I wish you and Frank would go and get me some chips this
afternoon," she said, after a pause. "I dare say the men would let you
pick them up about the common."
It was not the chips she was thinking of, but her children themselves.
A long afternoon together would be a comfort to both of them. While
they were with her, both would strive to keep up an appearance of
cheerfulness for her sake, but once by themselves, they would pour out
their hearts to each other and feel comforted. She, too, might indulge
in a few tears when they were away, which she dare not do now.
And so, when the bread and cheese dinner was eaten, Rhoda took a basket
and Frank a bag, and they wended their way across the common to where a
saw-pit had lately been set up.
Once left to themselves, it was not long before they threw off the thin
disguise of cheerfulness with which they had tried to cheat each other
with so little success.
"If it wasn't for mother, I would never leave you, Frank!" sobbed
Rhoda, fairly bursting into tears, and dropping her basket, to throw
her arms round her brother's neck.
There was no one to see, and so Frank could return his sister's
embrace, and indulge in a few tears on his own account.
"It is hard," he said with a gasp; "if I had only got that place at
Mortimer's, you needn't have gone away. Oh, Rhoda, why does God let
things happen like this, when it would be so easy for Him to alter it?"
Rhoda shook her head and choked back her sobs. "I won't believe God
likes to make us unhappy," she said; "of course He just has to manage
the best way He can with people, to make things fit in one with the
other—things that are often so cross-grained and contrary that there
seems no making them fit at all. It would be easy enough, I dare say,
for God to make everybody happy and comfortable, if people were all
good. But when we will upset everything with our badness, why, He just
has to do the best He can for us all round. That's what I mean to
believe," concluded Rhoda.
It was poor comfort to her brother just now, who was bent on deploring
his own last chance of helping the household, until Rhoda reminded him
that it was of no use crying over spilt milk, and the only sensible
thing they could do was to bear the pain of parting as bravely and
cheerfully as they could, and look forward to the time when they should
meet again.
"And then there will be letters, you know, Frank. Every time I see the
postman, I shall wonder whether he has brought me one from you and
mother, and then I shall have to write to you. Tom Wright is going to
give me a packet of paper and envelopes before I go away—I like Tom,"
added Rhoda.
"I don't," said Frank decisively.
"Why not?" asked his sister with widely opened eyes.
"Well, look here, don't say anything about it, but I believe it was Tom
Wright that prevented me getting that place at Mortimer's; he's there,
you know."
"Frank!" uttered Rhoda in astonishment.
"Well, I do, Rhoda. He always looks at me so sheepish when I meet him."
"What nonsense! You wouldn't say so if you knew Tom. I believe he only
wants to speak to you, and don't know how to begin, because you always
march on with your head in the air when you are in the street."
It was Frank's turn to laugh now. "I've got a lot to hold my head up
about, certainly," he said, "when my sister's going to service, and I
have to stay at school, because I can't get a place."
"Well, I wish you knew Tom. You'll have to speak to him when I am gone,
for I shall want you to tell me all the news about the Wrights in your
letters. You know all sorts of inquiries are being made about Esther in
London, for Mr. Wright feels sure she was carried off there that night
when she left Mary Coppinger, and Tom would tell you how they were
getting on, if you told him you wanted to let me know."
Frank gave a grumbling assent at last, but only because he would have
nothing to write about, he said, if he did not get some news from the
neighbours. "Nothing is ever likely to happen to me and mother, and you
know exactly how everything goes on here every day. Of course it will
be different with you. Everything will be new at once, and we shall
wonder what sort of a house you are living in, and where it is, and all
about it. Be sure you tell us everything, Rhoda."
His sister promised readily enough. And before they returned home, both
agreed that a new element of interest would enter into their lives
through this separation, for both would learn the joy of writing and
receiving letters—a pleasure quite unknown to them before.
The afternoon spent out on the common did them both good. The mental
atmosphere was cleared by the mutual confidences, and a way had been
prepared, though neither knew it then, for the righting of a wrong that
had been unwittingly committed.
Tom Wright brought a bundle of little presents for Rhoda that night,
after he came home from work,—some holland to make aprons from his
mother, the paper and envelopes from himself, and five shillings from
his father; for all the family felt they owed Rhoda a debt of gratitude
for her rescue of Bobbie, and her willing help to them all afterwards.
This gave her the desired opportunity of getting the two boys to speak
to each other. And although they did, as Rhoda expressed it, look very
shy and sheepish, and said only a few words, still, the ice was broken,
and she was able to tell Tom that she wanted him to send, through her
brother, all the news about themselves, and the moment they heard
anything of Esther or Lilla, to let her know all about them.
"Oh, you would hear that from Aunt Lizzie," said Tom, "but still I'll
let you know, the moment anything turns up. And you must keep your eyes
open too, Rhoda. You'd be sure to know Lilla by the mole on her chin,
and she's got one on her arm too. I used to tease her about it, and
call her 'Spotty,'" said Tom with a sigh, relapsing into gravity as he
thought of his little sister and her unknown fate.
Tom did not stay long, but he went home feeling vaguely uncomfortable
about Frank, and the part he had taken in preventing him from getting
the much-coveted place of errand boy. He did not say a word to his
mother, for anything that seemed to reflect upon Esther was doubly
painful to her now, he knew.
Life was painful to both mother and father now, and the anxiety they
were suffering was showing itself in more ways than one. Mrs. Wright's
pretty brown hair was almost white now, while her husband stooped like
an old man, and seemed to have lost all the spring and elasticity with
which he formerly went about his work. The only energy he was capable
of now was in the prosecution of inquiries for his missing children.
Esther was in London, he felt sure, and through the police and other
agencies inquiries were being made, and each day it was hoped something
would be heard of the missing girls.
Every time the postman's knock sounded now, Mrs. Wright waited and
listened, hoping he was coming to her with some news of her lost
darlings. If it was but to tell her they were dead, would be some
relief, but this awful uncertainty as to their fate, this ever-growing
anxiety and suspense in which her life was passed, was worse than any
positive certainty could be, and sometimes threatened to upset her
reason.
She had thought it would do her good to have to do all her household
work herself, after Rhoda had gone away. But she soon found that her
physical strength was not equal to it now, and she was very glad to
accept Mrs. Morris's offer to come in and help her for an hour every
morning. Sometimes, too, Mrs. Morris would bring her sewing, and sit
with her for an hour or two, or mind the house and Bobbie while she
went out with the baby. In this way, the two women came to know each
other, and were a mutual help and comfort one to the other.
Nothing but her neighbours' extreme need could ever have drawn quiet
Mrs. Morris out of her retirement. And if any one had told Mrs. Wright
at one time that she would find her greatest solace in the company
of a poor broken-down needlewoman, she would have contradicted the
assertion. But the very poverty of Mrs. Morris was the factor that
made this friendship possible between them. Mrs. Morris could offer
to come in and help with the morning's work, as Esther had done, and
Mrs. Wright was glad to accept it because she could pay for it, and "be
under no obligation."
But the question of obligation soon fell out of consideration between
these two friends. Mrs. Morris had tasted of the cup of sorrow too
deeply herself to dare to touch with a rough hand the bleeding
heart-wounds of her neighbour. But the silent, watchful sympathy that
she was able to give was just what Mrs. Wright needed, and, as she
often said afterwards, she could scarcely have lived through this time,
but for Mrs. Morris, and what she was able to do for her.
Religion had never been to her before, the practical everyday life that
it had become to her poorer neighbour. And so she was ill prepared to
sustain such a crushing blow as now fell upon her. But by degrees,
by a few timely words spoken now and then, she gradually learned the
secret of Mrs. Morris's strength and resignation, and discovered that
religion was not merely a theory, or science for the church or Sunday
school, but a living principle of life, that must animate all its
everyday details, if it was to be of any service in sustaining the soul
under sorrow and temptation, and give that trusting faith in a Father's
loving care that could alone carry it through the trial.