THE BATTLES BEGIN
The morning is bright and clear, and just one glint of sunshine has
actually found its way into the room. Betty sits up in bed. She has
slept soundly all night, and feels thoroughly refreshed.
Grannie's daffodils and wallflowers, carefully placed in a large glass
on the little toilet-table, have lifted their drooping heads, and look
almost as bright as they did yesterday morning in their far-away country
home.
"The battle is to begin to-day," Betty thinks, as she springs lightly
out of bed. "Yes, to-day I am to begin to change everything in this
untidy, stuffy old house--to-day I must commence the fight that is not
to end until I have made it a really bright, cosy home.
"Half-past six! I shouldn't wonder if Clara hasn't got up yet; she's
such a lazy girl in the mornings. Never mind, I'll soon shame her out
of that. One of the very first things I have to do is to make every one
in this house understand that they _must_ get up early in the morning."
Betty's mind is so full of this grand idea that she quite forgets to ask
the Lord for His blessing and guidance during the day.
Lucy is sleeping peacefully on her pillow by the side of the bed that
Betty has just left. This will never do.
"Come, Lucy, wake up!" and she shakes her by the arm.
Lucy opens her blue eyes, and blinks at her sleepily. "It isn't time to
get up yet; it can't be," she murmurs.
"Yes, it is. You've all got into fearfully lazy habits in this house.
While I was with Grannie I always got up at half-past six."
"Oh, dear!" sighs Lucy, ruefully.
"Now, make haste. Those children are going to be _properly_ washed and
combed before they go to school this morning; it's a disgrace to see
them sometimes."
"Well, I suppose it is," admits Lucy. "But aren't you dreadfully tired,
Betty, after yesterday?"
"If I am, I'm not going to let that stand in the way of doing my duty,"
answers Betty loftily.
"Oh, dear!" sighs Lucy, feeling quite guilty because she would so much
rather stay in bed one extra half-hour.
But the stern resolution in Betty's face shows no signs of relenting,
and she begins to dress.
Betty splashes vigorously in the cold water, combs her hair back until
not a single hair is out of place, and runs downstairs.
Clara, the little maid-of-all-work, is sleepily laying the kitchen fire.
Her dirty apron has a great "jag" all across the front, and her tumbled
cap is set all askew on her mass of dusty-looking hair.
"What, the fire not alight yet? Really, Clara, this is too bad. How can
you expect to get through your day's work well when you begin it so
badly! Now just get that kettle to boil as soon as possible, and I'll
prepare the porridge and haddock.
"And, Clara, your face is as smutty as anything. Why don't you wash it
properly? And your hair's just dreadful."
Clara tosses her head indignantly, and mutters something about "never
having time for anything in this house."
"There's plenty of time for everything; it's all because you manage so
badly," says Betty severely. "Where's the porridge-pot? Not cleaned; how
shameful! And here's the frying-pan with all the fat in it. How can you
expect to be ready in time at this rate?"
Clara mutters that "Everything would be right enough if some folks would
let her alone."
Betty takes no notice of this just now, for Lucy appearing at this
moment, she orders her off upstairs to wash and dress the younger
children.
By dint of a great deal of most energetic bustling on Betty's part, and
sulky help from Clara, the breakfast is actually ready by eight o'clock,
and the boys and younger girls sent off to school in good time. Betty
feels greatly elated. "What a difference already!" she thinks.
And father, coming in for breakfast, she hurries down to the kitchen for
his fish and tea.
Returning with the tray, she meets her mother coming downstairs.
"What, Betty, up already? I made sure you would like to lie in bed a bit
and hurried down early on purpose."
"_Hurried_ down, mother! Why, I've been up since half-past six, and just
sent the children off to school."
"Dear me. Is it really so late? I made sure the clock struck eight only
a few minutes ago."
"Half an hour, at least, mother," answers Betty, sharply.
"You're going by the kitchen clock--that's always wrong, you know."
"Everything _is_ in this house, it seems to me," snaps Betty, and she
carries father's breakfast into the sitting-room. Mother follows her.
"Where's your father? Why, you don't mean to say you've finished
breakfast? Good gracious me, Betty, the idea of having the window open!
What a shocking draught, enough to blow one away, and I've had the
face-ache all this week. Shut it down directly!"
"It's a lovely fresh morning for this place, and air's better than
anything. Grannie always has _her_ windows open," answers Betty in quite
a hard voice.
"Oh, I daresay; the country's different, and your Grannie is one of the
strongest people I ever saw." And Mrs. Langdale glances nervously at the
window.
"But, mother, the room was horribly stuffy, and Grannie says----"
"How dare you set your Grannie up against me in this way? If that's all
you learned by being with her you'd far better have stayed at home."
"But _any_ doctor would tell you----"
"Look here, Betty, unless you close that window at once I won't stay in
the room!" cries Mrs. Langdale, red with anger.
Betty's face flushes also, and she bangs the window down in a fury.
"There! And anybody who knows anything will tell you that's thoroughly
wrong!" she cries.
Perhaps so, Betty. But is there nothing wrong about your method of
trying to put the mistake right?
* * * * *
Betty sits down hopelessly.
She has been home just a week now, and things have gone from bad to
worse.
She has tried hard--in her own fashion, of course--she has been up early
every morning, and bustled about all day. Yet all her grand ideas have
resulted in nothing. It seems to her, as she sits there on the shabby
little sofa, surrounded with piles of unmended stockings, that the
members of her family are determined to fight against any kind of
improvement.
"They won't have the windows wide open; they won't get up early, or try
to be tidy," she thinks, and her heart grows sore and bitter as she
remembers the fruitless struggles of the past two or three days.
"What _is_ the use of trying when no one seems to care whether things
are properly done or not?"
She glances round the room. The carpet is worn and frayed; the
book-shelves dusty, the curtains faded and torn. Her eyes rest on the
piles of unmended stockings. They have been there more than a week
already.
"How horrid it all is--how perfectly horrid! Why can't mother see that
the whole house is a regular disgrace, and the children too--with their
dirty hands and rough hair, and rude, noisy ways? But they won't obey
me, though I scold them ever so--and no wonder, with mother always ready
to take their part, and tell me not to be hard on them! Of course, they
go away and forget everything directly. If mother would only leave them
to me, I'd _make_ them mind!
"Eleven o'clock striking, and mother hasn't been down to the kitchen to
arrange about the dinner yet! There'll be nothing ready for the children
again when they come in from school; and Clara will just muddle through
her work as usual. Oh, dear, how sick I am of the whole thing!
"If I could only live with Grannie--or even go out all day, and earn my
living like other girls. I'm quick at figures. If I could be a clerk in
the City, or something; at least, I should be away from this muddle most
of the day. I should be independent, too, and able to buy things for the
house when I see they're wanted--and that would help father. Nobody
really understands me here, except father.
"Bob was cruel to speak to me as he did this morning; and what I said
was perfectly true--his hands _did_ look as though he hadn't washed them
for a week. It was my duty to tell him that, and he had no right to fly
in a rage, and say I was nagging. Nagging, indeed! Just because I told
him that it was disgraceful and disgusting for a big boy to go about
with dirty hands!
[Illustration: "They make a good heap, don't they?"]
"A quarter past, and mother still over the newspaper--and she told me
she wouldn't be ten minutes! It's too bad. I know just what will
happen. There'll be nothing ready, and Clara will be sent out for some
tinned salmon or something at the last minute. No, I won't have it!"
And Betty jumps up, all aglow with anger, and running down the passage,
flings open the little front parlour door.
"Mother!"--very sharply--"don't you know how late it is?"
Mrs. Langdale looks up rather vacantly. "Late? how can you say so? I'm
sure I haven't been here over a quarter of an hour."
"You've been here a whole hour, and if you don't make the pudding at
once the children will have to do without altogether!"
"How you do hurry and flurry one, Betty. Well, I'll see to it."
Betty goes back to the sitting-room.
"I suppose I must begin at something," she sighs wearily--"not that it
makes much difference."
Again her eyes fall on the stockings. Hours of hard work would not get
rid of that hopeless pile.
On the first evening after her return home, whilst as yet all her good
resolutions were hot in her, she had mended and put away all father's
socks; but since then there has seemed no time for anything.
"I must mend all those stockings to-morrow," mother has said each night;
but there the matter has ended.
Shall she mend some now? or dust? or wash the curtains? or----
The door is flung open, and Clara comes in with a fresh armful of socks
and stockings, barely dry from the kitchen.
"Missis says I'm to put these with the rest," she giggles, in her
irritating way. "They make a good heap, don't they?"
That is the last straw. Betty waits until she is out of the room, and
then gives way altogether.
"I can't bear it--I just can't!" she whispers, tapping her foot on the
floor. "Grannie didn't know what it would be like when she said all that
about loving one's home. I must get away from it--I must!"
The door opens again. "Oh, Betty, I just want you to--why, child, what
is the matter? Are you going to be ill again?"
"No, of course not!" Betty's heart had grown softer as she thought of
her Grannie; but she hardens it directly she hears her mother's voice.
"No, only everything's so horrid at home that I mean to ask father to
let me learn typing."
"Betty, how can you be so ungrateful! Just because things are a bit
behindhand--and that through your being away so long! There, I didn't
think it of you!" And Mrs. Langdale goes angrily out of the room.
Betty had certainly not thought of it in this light. Indeed, she has
been thinking of little lately, save how to get things done in her own
way.
"What could Grannie mean by talking as though I could become a real
power for good in my home?" she thinks bitterly. "I've tried, and tried,
and things only get worse and worse; and I've made Bob angry, and the
children cross, and vexed mother besides. Grannie must have been wrong
after all!"
Was Grannie wrong? Or is it just possible there is still something wrong
with Betty herself?