HER NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR
Late one night Bessie took her favourite low seat close by the fire, and
closer still to Phebe, occupying the same position Phebe did in her
confidences with Nanna.
"What's the matter, Bessie, dear?" Phebe was very quick to note any
change in Bessie's manner, and try as she might Bessie never could hide
her feelings.
"I don't know how it is," said Bessie, with a sigh, "but try as I may I
can't get on with mother," and then there came something like a sob.
"Is there any fresh trouble?"
"Yesterday was mother's birthday," went on Bessie, in a low voice, "so I
thought I would give her a little present; it's ever so long since I've
done so. I bought a brooch--I could not afford a gold one--and when I
gave it her--she said she never wore sham jewellery----" Bessie's voice
was too choked to go on any further.
"Poor old girl!" said Phebe tenderly, taking hold of her hand; "never
mind, you must keep on trying; love-work often goes slowly at first.
You'll see, she will wear that brooch on Sunday, mark my words."
"But that was not all she said," went on Bessie; "she said I was getting
far too much of a saint for her; she wondered I had anything to do with
such a wicked woman as she was,--but she believed it was only some
clever trick I was up to,--mother even said I could act a sham to you,
but she was not so easily gulled."
"Something had surely been worrying her."
"No, I don't suppose so, that's just mother. What is the good of me
trying! I feel as if I'd never go in home again, that I do!"
"Do you think that would be acting a daughter's part?"
"No,"--very faintly.
"Then your course is very clear, dearie."
"Yes," with a deep sigh.
"Don't despair, Bessie, darling," said Phebe, stooping down and kissing
the girl's brow. "It's a difficult piece of work you have to do, but
there'll be all the more joy when it is completed."
There was a long silence between them, and the subject was not referred
to again that evening. But Phebe sat long after Bessie had retired for
the night thinking things over. The thought uppermost in her mind was
this:
"I plead for visitors to go to zenanas in India, but what is my duty to
Mrs. Marchant? All the years she has been my neighbour I have never even
prayed for her, or tried to pass on to her any helpful message! Fancy
that! And I call myself a Christian!"
When Nanna came into the room to bid her good-night, she said: "I wonder
what her majesty is turning over so seriously in her mind!"
"Her majesty's subject," with special emphasis on the last word, "is
thinking sadly of a neglected duty."
"Well!" exclaimed Nanna, laughing, "if the late lamented Mrs. Caudle
had an eye for a bloater, my Phebe certainly has an eye for duties!"
"But, Nanna, when I tell you what it is, you will not laugh."
"Yes, I shall. I belong to the Guild of Gladness, and there's something
to be glad about in everything,--if you look for it. If even this duty
is a very solemn one, I am glad you have at last thought of it."
"I know I can never get you in a corner." And then she told Nanna her
thoughts.
"You are quite right," was Nanna's reply, "we have both been to blame;
we have thought so much of winning Bessie, we have lost sight of the
mother."
"I shall make 'a dash for it,' as Bessie says, to-morrow. And trust for
guidance, at the moment as to the right thing to say."
So the very next afternoon she went in to see her neighbour, and found
her, of course, as busy--not as a bee, but, rather, as a cloud of dust.
"I wish I had your easy life, Mrs. Waring! I am never done," she
exclaimed, sinking down into a chair with a load of freshly mangled
towels in her arms. "And as for troubles,--it seems as if my life was
made up of them."
"But I think you will acknowledge that I have had a few troubles lately,
Mrs. Marchant, don't you think so?"
"Yes; but then troubles slip off some people like rain off a
cabbage-leaf, but it soaks into me like it does into a sponge. I can't
shake it off nohow. I don't know how it is, I'm sure," and she put her
bundle down on her lap and began to smooth the towels with her hands.
"You are very highly strung," began Phebe.
"Yes, I know that, but you're about the first one that has said so;
everybody seems to think I ought to be made of cast-iron. I'm sure the
trouble that Bessie of mine's been to me nobody knows. And then to think
she can be such an angel to you while to her own mother she can never be
anything but a worry!--it's exasperating! It makes me wild when I think
of it."
"I am sorry you feel like that. I know Bessie loves you dearly, and she
is gaining so much more control that I thought you would have noticed a
real improvement in her. Of course I know she is rather thoughtless--but
there, you are proud of her for all that, and she is a girl any mother
might be proud of!"
"I don't know about that," but a little pleasanter look came on to her
face which seemed to contradict her words.
"But I did not come in to talk about Bessie," went on Phebe, "I came in
to speak to you about yourself. I was saying to Nanna last night I did
not think I had acted the neighbour's part to you; I have seldom ever
been in even to ask how you were."
"I am sure it is very kind of you," put in Mrs. Marchant, and she really
meant it. We all like to be made of some importance.
"I think housewives need all the cheer and sunshine they can
get,"--Phebe suddenly paused, for Phill just at that moment came into
the room, and Phebe then noticed, what she had not done before, that
dinner for one was laid at the end of the table. Evidently Phill had
come in with the intention of sitting down there; if so, it was
"good-bye" to all private talk with his mother. After a few scattered
remarks Phebe departed.
"You have not been long," remarked Nanna; "what success have you had?"
"Not any," answered Phebe; "just as I was drawing near to say something
helpful Phill came in, and then my opportunity had gone. His arrival on
the scene quite spoilt my little plan."
But had it? If Phebe had known a little more of the Unseen Hand which
shapes our lives, she would not have been quite so sure her little plan
was spoilt.
The sight of Mrs. Waring brought to Phill Marchant's mind a little train
of thought he had been cogitating over lately, and as soon as she left
he remarked to his mother: "Mrs. Waring has got something you haven't
got, mother."
"What's that?" snapped the mother. "I'm as well off as she is any day.
She's got no jewellery to speak of, and goodness knows, her house is
poor enough!"
"Oh, I don't mean that sort of thing."
"Well, what do you mean?"
"She never seems to get into flusters like you do, she seems to have
something that steadies her, somehow; I hardly know how to put it."
Phill saw from the look on his mother's face he was getting on to
dangerous ground, and that made it all the more difficult to clothe his
thoughts in words.
"Flusters, indeed! She'd be flustered right enough if she had the
worries I have."
"I should think she has more to worry her than you have," Phill ventured
to remark.
"That shows all you know about it! Why, she came in this afternoon to
try and cheer me up a bit--she as good as said so just before you came
in."
"Yes, that's just it!" put in Phill eagerly, "she's got the knack of
brightening things up for folks as well as for herself. She makes a
fellow feel cheery like to be with her."
"You'd better go and live with her then, like your sister's done. It's a
fine thing when children take to lecturing their mother! It would be far
more becoming of you to try to lessen your mother's worries than to make
out she is so much worse than her neighbours!"
After that Phill ate his dinner in silence, and took his departure as
quickly as possible. But the thought of the difference between his
mother and Mrs. Waring had taken still deeper root in his mind.
The next time he met Bessie he was specially gracious to her. Bessie did
not know what to make of it.
"It is wretchedly dull at home now you're away, Bess. I do wish you
would come back!"
"Not if I know it!" answered that young lady. "I know when I'm well off.
Besides, I thought you would get on like the steam out of Watts' kettle
with me away!"
"Yes, that's just it, I'm always in hot water," he replied in a doleful
voice.
"Well, what if you are? Isn't hot water better than black beetles? Hot
water is a splendid thing to drink, but it would give you the creeps to
have to eat beetles! Ugh!"
"What a stupid you are, Bess, and just when a fellow wants to be
serious!"
Bessie had it on her lips to say, "Wonders will never cease!"--she had
already raised her hands in a tragic style, but something in Phill's
manner checked her. "What was it you wanted to say, Phill?" she asked
quite kindly, suddenly dropping her hands.
The lad looked up at her, struck with the change in her voice, and was
silent for a moment or so. "Tell me, Bessie, what it is that makes Mrs.
Waring so different to mother?" The sentence was quite shot out.
"How did you find out there was any difference?"
"Find out? It don't take long to find that out! Mrs. Waring don't worry
and fluster like mother does, and yet I should think she's got more to
worry about."
"You're right there."
"Well, what is the difference? I can hear you all laughing like anything
sometimes."
Bessie knew well enough what the difference was, but did not like to put
it into words.
"I wish I could come into Mrs. Waring's of an evening!" went on Phill.
"Well, do," assented Bessie eagerly, "and then you can find out for
yourself what the difference is. I am sure Mrs. Waring will be pleased
for you to come. I'll ask her." Bessie was quite relieved by this way
of avoiding the explanation of "the difference."
Thus it came to pass that another member was added to "Love's Hospital."
Many a bright, merry hour did the lad spend there.
"Have you found it out?" Bessie ventured to ask him after a while.
"Of course I have, and you are pretty dense if _you_ haven't! Why, a
mole could see it!"
"Well, what is it?"
"I believe you know as well as I do."
"Of course I do; I haven't lived with her all these months for nothing."
"Then you tell me," said Phill.
"It is that God counts for something in Mrs. Waring's life," was the
girl's straight answer.
"H'm," said Phill, "I suppose that's it."
"Yes," said Bessie, now quite brave once she had started, "and what she
can't do, she leaves to Him, and knows it will be all right. You see,
when once you get to that point, there's no need of flusters and
worries."
The boy did not answer, but turned thoughtfully away.
Mrs. Marchant was not able to forget Phill's words; even when her
resentment had worn off a little, they were there with haunting power.
"I'd give a good deal to know what it is she has that I haven't!" she
kept saying to herself, "for, oh dear, life at times seems unbearable!
It can't be her religion exactly, for lots of religious people are just
as worried as I am. What can it be, I wonder! I have a good mind to ask
her straight out the next time I see her."
She had not long to wait, for Phebe was on the look-out for another
opportunity of getting close to her neighbour, and Mrs. Marchant, true
to her resolution, put the question to her.
Phebe's heart bounded with joy. How splendidly her way was being opened
up! when,--was it of the Evil One, or was it of God?--that just at that
moment Mr. Marchant should come into the room!
There was no help for it but to again beat a retreat, but before doing
so, she said: "Do come in some afternoon and have a cup of tea with me.
You have never been in yet."
"No, I have no time for visiting," was the abrupt answer. But when she
got to the door with her visitor, she added, "Yes, I'll come."
When Phebe reported progress to Nanna, that dear old body exclaimed:
"Well, that's something to be thankful for! When a woman's got out of
conceit with herself, and has an idea she'd like to be different to what
she is, she is certainly on her way to Joseph's garden!"
"Joseph's garden!" exclaimed Phebe; "you funny, old dear, what is that?"
"Why, don't you know? Mary while at Bethany only listened to the Lord's
message, and gave Him something; but when she got to Joseph's garden,
she said, 'Master!'
"But she had to go by the cross to get there!"