The house at Easney was merrier and more noisy than it had been for some
time on the day of Pennie's return, but the house at Nearminster went
back at once to its old gravity and silence. Had it always been so
still and quiet? Miss Unity wondered. If so, she had never noticed it
until Pennie had come and gone. Now it seemed so strange and
unaccustomed that it made her quite restless and unable to settle down
to her usual morning employments. She tried them one after another in
vain. It was of no use. She could neither add up her accounts, nor
read her newspaper, nor do her wool-work with the least satisfaction.
Almost without knowing it she went aimlessly into her bed-room, and from
there into the little pink-chintz room which had been Pennie's. Betty
had already made it so neat and trim that it looked forlornly empty with
no signs of its late owner. So Miss Unity thought at first, but
glancing round it she saw that careless Pennie had left her thimble on
the table, and one of her dancing shoes in a corner.
Miss Unity picked up the thimble and fitted it absently on to the top of
her own finger. How Pennie had disliked sewing, and dancing too, and
how very very glad she had been to go home that morning! How she had
flung herself upon Nancy and smothered her with kisses; how happy and
smiling her face had looked as she drove away from the door, talking so
eagerly to her sister that she had almost forgotten to wave a last
good-bye to Miss Unity at the window.
"Well, it was natural, I would not have it otherwise," said Miss Unity
to herself as she finished her reflections; "it is right that the child
should love her home best."
But she sighed as she went back to the sitting-room and took up her work
again. Opposite to her was the high-backed chair in which Pennie had
spent so many weary hours, bending with a frown over Kettles' garments.
But the chair was empty, and there was something in the way it stood
which so annoyed Miss Unity that she pushed it up against the wall
almost impatiently. Then her eye fell on a pile of white clothes neatly
folded on a side-table. Pennie had finished them all, and Miss Unity
had promised that she and Nancy should come over and present them to
Kettles before long. From this her thoughts went on to Kettles herself,
and Anchor and Hope Alley. At this moment Betty appeared at the door
with a face full of woe.
"I've just had an accident, Miss," she said.
Betty's accidents usually meant broken china, but this time it was
something worse. She had sprained her wrist badly.
"You must go at once to the doctor, Betty," said Miss Unity, looking
nervously at the swollen member; "and, oh dear me! it's your right one
isn't it?"
"Yes, Miss, worse luck," said Betty.
"We must have someone in," continued Miss Unity still more nervously;
"you ought not to use it, you know, for a long time."
"I don't want no strangers, Miss," said Betty with a darkening face,
"they break more than they make. I can make shift, I daresay, with my
left hand."
"Now you know that's quite out of the question, Betty," said her
mistress, doing her best to speak severely, "you couldn't lift a
saucepan, or even make a bed. You must certainly have someone. Some
nice respectable char-woman."
"There's ne'er a one in the town," said Betty, "as you'd like to have in
the house. I know what they are--a lazy gossiping set."
Miss Unity rose with decision.
"I shall go and ask Mrs Margetts at the College to tell me of someone
trustworthy," she said, "and I do beg, Betty, that you will go at once
to the doctor."
But though she spoke with unusual firmness Miss Unity was inwardly very
much disturbed, and she quite trembled as she put on her bonnet and
started off to see old Nurse. For Betty, like many faithful old
servants, was most difficult to manage sometimes. She had ruled Miss
Unity's house single-handed so long that she could not endure the idea
of help, or "strangers in the kitchen," as she called it. Miss Unity
had never dared to suggest such a thing until now, and she felt very
doubtful as to its success, for she foresaw little peace in the house
for some time to come. Complaints, quarrels, changes, wounded feelings
on Betty's part, and so on; a constant worry in the air which would be
most distressing to anyone of an orderly and quiet mind. Poor Miss
Unity sighed heavily as she reached the College and climbed Nurse's
steep staircase.
Nurse was full of sympathy, but before she could bring her mind to the
question of charwomen she had to go over all her experience of sprains
and what was best for them--how some said this, and some said exactly
the opposite, and how she herself, after trying all the remedies, had
finally been cured by some stuff which folks called a quack medicine,
but she thought none the worse of it for that. Miss Unity sat patiently
and politely listening to all this, and at last gently repeated:
"And do you know of a respectable woman, Mrs Margetts, who would come
in and help Betty for a time?"
Nurse shook her head. "There's no one, I'm afraid, Miss, not one that
Betty would like to have. You see she's rather particular, and if a
person isn't _just so_, as one might say, it puts her out."
Miss Unity knew that only too well.
"I must have someone," she said; "you see Betty will be helpless for
some time; she can't do much with one hand."
Nurse nodded, and pursed up her lips in deep thought.
"You wouldn't like a little gal, Miss?" she asked suddenly.
"A little girl!" repeated Miss Unity in some dismay.
"I was thinking p'r'aps that it wouldn't put Betty about so much,"
continued Nurse. "You see she could make a girl do things her way where
she couldn't order about a grown woman, and really there's some girls of
fourteen or so'll do as much work, and do it most as well with someone
to look after 'em."
"But," said Miss Unity, "don't they break things dreadfully?"
Nurse laughed. "Why there's all sorts, Miss," she said. "Some are
naturally neat-handed and sharp. It's the dull stupid ones that has the
heavy hands in general."
"Well," said Miss Unity hesitatingly, "supposing Betty should like the
idea--do you know of one who could come?"
She had a sort of feeling that Nurse was thinking of Kettles, so that
her answer was hardly a surprise.
"There's the little girl Miss Pennie was so set on. She could come, for
her mother's about again now, and a decent woman she is, though she's so
badly off."
A month ago the bare idea of having anyone from Anchor and Hope Alley
into her house would have been impossible to Miss Unity; but Pennie had
made her so familiar with the name and affairs of Kettles, and she had
taken so much interest in making her clothes, that it no longer seemed
so strange. Still, what would Betty say? A girl out of Anchor and Hope
Alley, who had never been in a decent house before! It was surely too
bold a step.
"You see, Miss," went on Nurse, "it isn't as if you wanted her to wait
on you, or to open the door or such like. All she's got to do is to
help Betty below stairs, and to make beds, and so on. She'll soon
learn, and I'll be bound she'll answer better than a char-woman."
Miss Unity took her departure with this bold idea becoming more and more
fixed in her mind. There was a great deal in what Nurse had said, if
she could only induce Betty to look at it in the same way; and above all
how delighted Pennie would be, when she next came, to find Kettles not
only wearing the clothes she had made; but actually established in the
house. It all seemed to fit in so well that Miss Unity gathered
courage. She had come out that morning feeling depressed and worried,
and as though everything would go wrong; but now, as she turned into the
Close, wondering how she should best open the subject to Betty, she was
quite stirred and interested.
Betty had come back from the doctor with her arm in a sling. She was to
keep it as still as possible, and on no account to try to use it.
"So you see, Betty," said Miss Unity earnestly, "the importance of
having someone to help you in your work."
"Yes, Miss," said Betty, with suspicion in every feature, and quite
prepared to object to any person her mistress had secured.
"And I have made up my mind," went on Miss Unity, "not to have a
char-woman."
"Ho, indeed, Miss!" said Betty, still suspicious.
"I know you object to them," said her mistress, "and Mrs Margetts
advises me to try a little girl she knows, who lives near here."
If possible she would avoid the mention of Anchor and Hope Alley.
"It's for you to please yourself, Miss," said Betty stiffly.
"Of course it would be an immense advantage to the girl to be under a
competent servant like yourself, for although she's intelligent she has
never been in service before. Miss Pennie was very much interested in
her," added Miss Unity as an afterthought.
If Betty had a soft corner in her heart for anyone but her mistress it
was for Pennie. She did not at all approve of Miss Unity's taking up
with these new fancies, but to please Pennie she would put up with a
good deal. It was with something approaching a smile that she said:
"Oh, then, it's the little girl out of Anchor and Hope Alley, isn't it,
Miss? Her as Miss Pennie made the clothes for and used to call
Kettles?"
"Well," said Miss Unity reluctantly, "I am sorry to say she does live
there, but Mrs Margetts knows her mother well, and she's a very
deserving woman. We sha'n't call the girl Kettles--her name is Keturah.
You'll have to teach her, you know, Betty," she added apologetically.
As to that, Betty had no objection. She had a deal rather, she said,
have a girl who knew nothing and was willing to learn, than one who had
got into wrong ways and had to be got out of them. In short, she was
quite ready to look with favour on the idea, and to Miss Unity's great
surprise it was settled without further difficulty that Kettles was to
come on trial.
With her usual timidity, however, she now began to see the other side of
the question, and to be haunted by all sorts of misgivings. When she
woke in the middle of the night dreadful pictures presented themselves
of Kettles' father stealing upstairs with a poker in his hand in search
of the plate-basket. She could hear the dean saying when the theft was
discovered:
"Well, Miss Unity, what can you expect if you will have people in your
house out of Anchor and Hope Alley?"
It would no doubt be a dreadful risk, and before she went to sleep again
she had almost decided to give up the plan altogether. But morning
brought more courage, and when she found Betty ready to propose that the
girl should come that very day she could not draw back.
"I can soon run her up a cotton frock, and she can have one of my
aprons, and there's all her other clothes nice and ready," said Betty in
a business-like tone.
So Kettles came, newly clothed from top to toe and provided with plenty
of good advice by old Nurse. At first Miss Unity hardly knew she was in
the house, for Betty kept her strictly in the background, and hurried
her away into corners whenever her mistress appeared in the kitchen.
Judging, however, from the absence of complaint that things were going
on well, she at last ventured to inquire how Betty liked her new help.
"She's a sharp little thing, Miss," said Betty. "Of course she's
strange to the ways of a house, coming from where she does. But she's
willing, that's the great thing."
"Can the child read and write?" was Miss Unity's next question.
But Betty seemed to think she had nothing whatever to do with this part
of Kettles' education.
"I'm sure I don't know, Miss," she said. "I've enough to do to teach
her to sweep a room properly."
Upon inquiry it was found that Kettles did not even know her letters.
"I never had no time to go to school," she said, "and I don't want to,
either."
"But," said Miss Unity, greatly distressed, "you can't read your Bible,
then, Keturah."
"Mother, she reads the Bible," said Kettles, as though that were
sufficient.
Miss Unity went upstairs full of uneasy thought. What could be done?
She could not send Keturah to school. It would be absurd to provide
Betty with help, and then to take it away for half the day. She could
not ask Betty to teach her. Finally, she could not let the child remain
in this dreadful state of ignorance. There was one way out of the
difficulty which stared Miss Unity in the face, however much she tried
to avoid seeing it. She could teach Keturah herself in the evening
after her work was done. Miss Unity shrank from it. She had never been
brought close to poor people, and she had never taught anyone anything
in her life. She was as shy of Kettles as though she were a grown-up
woman, and it was altogether a most distasteful idea. Do what she
would, however, she could not get rid of it. Her sense of duty at
length conquered, as usual, and Keturah, with very clean hands and an
immense white apron, appeared in the sitting-room one night to take her
first lesson.
Miss Unity felt very nervous at first, and it was strange to have
Kettles so close to her, but by degrees this wore off, and she even
began to feel a sort of pleasure in the lessons. It was no trouble to
teach her, for, as Betty said, she was "one of the sharp ones," and was,
besides, eager to do her best. Not because she wished to know how to
read, which she rather despised, but because she wanted very much to
please her mistress, for whom she had a great admiration.
So things went on very well at Nearminster, both upstairs and
down-stairs, and the time soon came when Miss Unity found herself
looking forward to the knock at the door, which was followed by the
appearance of Kettles and her spelling-book. This interest partly made
up for the loss of Pennie, which had left a sad blank in Miss Unity's
life at first. Here was another little living creature she could teach,
rebuke, praise, and care for, and if Kettles could not fill Pennie's
place in Miss Unity's heart, she could at least give it enough to do to
keep it warm and active.
Although she would not have confessed it, her interest in the black
children of Karawayo began to fade just now, and though she still
attended the Working Societies and kept the missionary-box on her hall
table, she was much more really concerned about Keturah's first
pot-hooks and hangers.
Meanwhile the new maid showed such marked progress in household matters
that Betty gradually allowed her to appear upstairs, and on some
occasions to open the door to visitors.
"What a nice, bright little maid you have!" said Mrs Merridew, who was
calling one afternoon. "One of the Easney school-children, I suppose.
Country girls are so superior."
"I've always noticed that," said the dean, as Miss Unity paused before
replying, "the town children are sharp enough, but they're generally
wicked. And the country children are honest and steady enough, but as a
rule they're so dull."
Miss Unity listened with the respect she always showed to any remarks of
the dean as he went on to enlarge on the subject. Once she would have
agreed with him as a matter of course, but now she had a sort of feeling
that she really knew more about it than he did. What would he say if he
knew that the bright little maid Mrs Merridew had admired came from the
very depths of Anchor and Hope Alley?
Time went quickly by, till it was nearly a month since Pennie had gone
away, and Keturah had come to help Betty. She had come "on trial" as a
stop-gap only, but no one said a word about her leaving yet. Certainly
Betty's wrist was still weak, and this gave Miss Unity an excuse she was
glad to have. She almost dreaded the day when Betty should put off her
sling and declare herself quite well, for that would mean that there was
no longer any reason for keeping Keturah.
"I am thinking, Betty," she said one morning, "of asking the young
ladies from Easney to come over to tea to-morrow. Miss Pennie will be
interested to see how well Keturah has got on."
Betty brightened up at once.
"I'll see and make some hot-cakes then, Miss," she said; "them as Miss
Pennie likes."
"And I want you," added Miss Unity, "to let Keturah bring up the
tea-things. The young ladies don't know she is here, and it will be a
nice surprise for them."
Betty entering heart and soul into the plot, which Miss Unity had been
considering for some days, a letter was despatched to Easney, the cakes
made, and Keturah carefully drilled as to her behaviour.
Pennie and Nancy had been expecting the invitation, and were quite ready
for it when it came, with Kettles' new boots and stockings made into a
parcel. Andrew might drive them into Nearminster and leave them at Miss
Unity's for an hour, Miss Grey said, and she hoped they would be sure to
start back punctually.
"How funny it seems," said Pennie as the cathedral towers came in sight,
"to be going back to Nearminster!"
"Would you like to be going to stop there again?" asked Nancy.
"Well of course I like being at home best," answered Pennie, "but there
were some things I liked at Nearminster. Let me see," counting on her
fingers, "there were Miss Unity, and old. Nurse, and Betty, and Sabine
Merridew, and Kettles, and the Cathedral, and the market, and the
College. That's five people and three things. And what I didn't like
were needlework and dancing, and the dean, and Monsieur Deville, and all
the other Merridews."
"I hope Betty's made hot-cakes for tea," said Nancy as the carriage
stopped at Miss Unity's door.
"How can she, with only one hand?" said Pennie; and then the door opened
and there was Betty herself, with her arm still in a sling, and a face
shining with welcome.
"Lor', Miss Pennie, it do seem natural to see you again, to be sure,"
she said with a giggle of delight. "And Miss Nancy's rosy cheeks too.
The mistress is expecting you; run upstairs to her, my dears."
She went towards the kitchen with a shake of the head and a short laugh,
as if she had some inward cause for amusement.
"Betty seems to like having a sprain," said Nancy, looking at her over
the balusters. "I never saw her look so pleased or laugh so much."
Miss Unity's welcome was quite as hearty as Betty's, but she too seemed
a little odd, and inclined to give nervous glances at the door as though
she expected some one to come in.
"Would you like us to go and help Betty bring up tea?" asked Nancy,
noticing this. "We should like it tremendously if you would let us."
She started up as she spoke, and would have rushed down-stairs in
another moment, if Miss Unity had not caught hold of her hand.
"No, my dear; no, thank you; certainly not," she said hurriedly. "Betty
has some one to help her."
A little disappointed, Nancy sat down again. Her eyes fell on the
parcel she held, and she frowned at Pennie to draw her attention to it.
Pennie was looking dreamily round the sitting-room with all its old
familiar objects. She wondered where Kettles' clothes, which she had
left on the side-table, had been put. What a long time it seemed since
she had sat sewing in that high-backed chair! Brought back to the
present by Nancy's deeply frowning glance, she gave a little start and
said hurriedly:
"Nancy and I have brought some new boots and stockings for Kettles. May
we give them to her with the clothes?"
"And will she be at the College?" put in Nancy, "or can we go to Anchor
and Hope Alley?"
Miss Unity's head gave another nervous jerk in the direction of the
door. She had heard a footstep coming upstairs, which was not Betty's.
"We will see about it after tea," she said. "You shall certainly see
the little girl, as I promised you."
The door opened as she spoke, and a small maid-servant in a tall cap
appeared, bearing a tray. Betty hovered in the background with a face
in which pride and laughter struggled together.
Kettles was not used to her new style of dress yet, and held herself
stiffly as though she had been dressed up for a joke. The tangled hair
which used to fall low on her forehead was tightly brushed back and
tucked up in a net. Her face looked bare and unshaded, and several
degrees lighter by reason of yellow soap and scrubbing. It was
surmounted by a cap of Betty's, which had been cut to fit her, but was
still much too tall for such a small person. Nothing remained of the
old Kettles but her eyes, which still had the quick observant look in
them of some nimble animal, as she advanced in triumph with her tray.
The children stared in surprise at this strange little figure without
any idea that they had seen it before, while Miss Unity and Betty
watched them with expectant smiles.
"This is my new little maid," said Miss Unity.
Kettles dropped a curtsy, and having put down her tray, stood with her
arms hanging straight beside her, and her bright eyes fixed on the
children.
All at once Pennie gave her sister a nudge.
"Why, don't you see?" she exclaimed; "I really do believe it's Kettles!"
"We call her Keturah," said Miss Unity smiling kindly. "She is a very
good little girl. Keturah, this is the young lady who made you all
these nice clothes. You must say `thank you' to her."
Pennie hung shyly back. She did not want to be thanked, and she was
quite afraid of Kettles now that she was so neat and clean.
"Do you like them?" she murmured.
Keturah chuckled faintly. "They're fine," she said. "I've got 'em all
on. I don't never feel cold now."
"And," continued Miss Unity, "this other young lady, whom I think you
saw once at Mrs Margetts', has been kind enough to think of bringing
you some nice warm boots and stockings."
She looked at Nancy as she spoke, but for once Nancy remained in the
background, clutching her parcel and staring at Kettles over Pennie's
shoulder. The old Kettles, who had been in her mind all this time, was
gone, and Keturah, clean, tidy, and proper, stood in her place. It was
too surprising a change to be understood in a moment, and Nancy was not
at all sure that she liked it.
Kettles was silent when the parcel was at length opened and presented,
perhaps with excess of joy.
"Well I never!" said Betty, advancing to examine the gift. "Keturah's
in luck I will say. Dear, dear, what nice stout boots, to be sure!
Well, now," with a nudge to the silent figure, "she'll do her best to
deserve such kindness, I know. Haven't you got a word to say to the
dear young ladies?"
But Keturah could not be made to speak a word. She dropped her little
curtsy, and stood as if turned to stone, clasping the boots and
stockings to her chest.
"She ain't tongue-tied; not as a rule," said Betty apologetically to the
children; "but she hasn't been much used to presents, and it's a little
too much for her."
"I think," said Miss Unity coming to the rescue, "that we must have our
tea now, Betty, or the young ladies will have no time--and Keturah can
go and try on her new boots and stockings."
"They're my size," said Nancy, speaking for the first time since
Keturah's appearance. "I think they'll be sure to fit."
Betty and her little maid having hurried out of the room, Miss Unity's
tea-table became the object of interest. It was always very attractive
to the children, because it was so different to school-room tea at
Easney.
The dark deep colours of the old Derby china seemed to match the
plum-cake in richness; there were Pennie's hot-cakes in a covered dish,
and Nancy's favourite jam in a sparkling cut-glass tub. In its way,
though very different, it was as good as having tea with old Nurse at
the College. On this occasion it was unusually pleasant, because there
was so much to ask and hear about Keturah.
"Aren't you glad," said Nancy, when the whole story had been fully
explained, "that you've got Keturah instead of a new mandarin?"
"Nancy!" said Pennie, shocked at this bold question.
But Nancy was quite unabashed.
"You know, don't you," she said to Miss Unity, "that it was Pennie's
first plan to buy you a new one. The boys promised to help, but I
didn't. And then all sorts of things happened, and there was hardly any
money in the box. And then we saw Kettles. And then I made Pennie give
up the plan, and save for the boots and stockings. But we never thought
then that she'd ever have anything to do with you."
"It was very good of Pennie to wish to get me a new mandarin," said Miss
Unity, her eyes resting affectionately on her god-daughter.
"She wanted to ever so much," continued Nancy. "She wouldn't buy a book
she wanted at the fair, on purpose to save her money. But after all,
Kettles is much nicer to have, because you can do all sorts of things
with her, and the mandarin could only nod his head."
"If it had not been for Pennie," said Miss Unity, "I should never have
heard or known anything about Keturah. She has given me a new maid
instead of a new mandarin."
"But she's partly from Nancy too," said Pennie, "because you see she
made me like Kettles and give up the other."
"She's partly from Pennie, and partly from me, and partly from Dickie
too," said Nancy thoughtfully. "If Dickie hadn't had the measles Pennie
wouldn't have stopped here, and if she hadn't stopped here you would
never have heard of Kettles. Dickie _did_ put a penny into the box out
of her slug-money. She took it out again, but she wanted to help with
the mandarin. And after all she's helped to give you Kettles."
"Will she always stay here," asked Pennie, "after Betty's arm gets
well?"
"If Betty finds her useful I should like her to stay," said Miss Unity,
but as she spoke she felt that she should never have the courage to
suggest it.
The matter was, however, taken out of her hands by Nancy, who, as soon
as Betty appeared to take away the tea-things, put the question
point-blank:
"You'll like Kettles to stay, won't you, Betty? because what's the good
of making her look so nice if she's to go back to Anchor and Hope
Alley?"
"I'm quite agreeable to it, Miss Nancy, if it suits the mistress," said
Betty meekly. So the thing was settled at once. Kettles, out of Anchor
and Hope Alley, had become Keturah, Miss Unity's maid in the Close.
"She looks very nice now she's Keturah," said Nancy, as the little girls
drove away, "but she isn't funny any more. There was something I always
liked about Kettles."
And Kettles she always remained to the children at Easney, though the
name was never heard at Nearminster.