FARTHER APART, YET NEARER.
"I DON'T know why Jessie and Alice Mitchell should begin bothering
about you going to Sunday school," said Mrs. Livesey in a sharp tone.
"Their mother doesn't want them. She has a girl, and can go out herself
when she likes. What has started them now? You've gone to school for a
year without being together on Sundays."
"They have often asked me, but I said you wanted me," whimpered Maggie.
"They might know that without telling," said Mrs. Livesey, and at the
moment she gave Maggie's newly washed hair a tug which brought tears
into the child's eyes.
"There, there! I didn't mean to hurt you. It's no use talking about
Sunday school. You haven't a hat and frock fit to go there in, so say
no more about it."
Maggie knew better than to disobey. She crept upstairs to bed in
silence, and only indulged in the luxury of a few quiet tears. But she
was too tired to remain long awake, and she soon forgot her troubles in
dreamless sleep.
What had set Jessie and Alice Mitchell into a state of anxiety to take
their friend to school was this.
On the previous Sunday, the anniversary, nearly every scholar had been
present, and yet there were some empty seats, and room to place more.
The clergyman had called the children's attention to this, and said,
"Now, if every two girls or boys would join to try and bring one more
scholar, we should have our rooms full, even if all did not succeed.
And you, dear children, having tried, would have the happiness of
thinking that you had done what you could."
Hence the renewed efforts of Maggie's two friends.
Hence, too, a modest, half-frightened tap at Adam Livesey's door on the
following morning, which Maggie junior shrank from answering, whilst
the roses fled from her cheeks, for fear of consequences.
Mrs. Livesey opened the door and saw Jessie and Alice, "morals of
neatness," as she described them, and in such pretty frocks that her
own motherly heart was touched with admiration of the effect produced,
and regret that she could not "turn out" her children after the same
fashion.
"Please will you let Maggie go to school with us?"
That was all the spokeswoman could say to Mrs. Livesey, but she gave a
knowing little nod to her friend, and added, "You see, we've come to
call for you, though we never told you we should."
This was a fortunate remark, for Mrs. Livesey was at first inclined to
think that Maggie expected this visit, and had kept it a secret.
"It's very kind of you, and I wish my little girl could go, but she
can't."
"Why not, Mrs. Livesey? Do, please, let her," pleaded both children,
whilst Maggie's face was turned to her mother in mute appeal.
"Why, just look at her frock and hat. Do you think if your mother knew
they were her best, she would like such smart little girls to go out
with her on Sunday?"
"I'm sure Maggie is always nice. Our mother always says she is quite a
pattern, and we like her in any frock. Please let her come."
"But I shouldn't like her to go as she is, thank you all the same,"
said Mrs. Livesey, with decision.
"When she gets a new hat and frock may she come?" said Alice; and Mrs.
Livesey, feeling that the promise might be safely made, answered, "Yes."
The children had to go, or they would be late for school, and they said
"good-bye" with considerable cheerfulness, feeling that something had
been gained. The time must come even for Maggie to have new clothes,
though she made hers last a very long while. It was only consent
deferred, and children are very hopeful.
But to Maggie this promise and the sound of the door closing behind her
friends were as the death-knell to all her hopes. The child was far
above a ragged school, and, it seemed, as far below a regular Sunday
school. There was no place just right for Maggie.
In the afternoon, Adam fulfilled the whispered promise made to the
child on the day before. He took her out with him, "all by herself,
except baby."
Something, he could hardly tell what, attracted him towards Aqueduct
Street, and he thought he would just pass the Mission Room, since he
could go that way to the park. But, when he would have joined a little
group that were hanging round the door, Maggie loudly protested against
losing any more time.
"You've come the longest way," she said, "and I don't want to stop
here, father."
So, in obedience to the childish hand which drew him, Adam went off
towards the park, rather glad, after all, that there was no familiar
face amongst the people at the door of the Mission Room.
The Sunday was soon over, and the working week had begun. Adam
Livesey's cottage was too far from Rutherford's to allow of his coming
home to breakfast, so he took it in the smithy, boiling the water for
his tea at one of the hearths. He was in the midst of the meal when he
saw the round face of his eldest boy, who was plainly in search of his
father. The eager excited look of the child told that something unusual
must have occurred.
[Illustration]
"Mother's got a letter. It's about grandmother. She's ill, going to
die maybe, for she wants mother to go to see her to-day." Dropping his
voice to a whisper, he added, "She's sent some money, mother says, but
it's only a piece of paper, and you're to get off work, if you can, and
come home with me."
It was not likely that so steady a man as Adam Livesey would have any
difficulty in getting permission to go back with his boy. It was well
known that he never willingly lost an hour's wages, so the foreman
at once said, "Go back with the lad by all means;" and Adam, without
waiting to finish his breakfast, tied up the remains, slipped on his
jacket, and started homeward.
He found his wife excited and tearful. "See," she said, "mother has
sent this. A whole five-pound note. She is very ill, and I am to make
haste, if I want to see her alive. Ann has written the letter. I am to
take baby with me, but how I am to leave the rest of you, I don't know.
Maggie is too little to manage by herself, and I've never been used to
have anybody in, except when there was a new baby to look after. What
am I to do, Adam?"
Mrs. Livesey rarely appealed to her husband, being usually of opinion
that she was quite able to manage her household affairs without
masculine advice or interference.
"You mind your own business, and I'll mind mine," was a very favourite
mode of expression with her.
But the present difficulty, and Adam's mode of dealing with it, showed
her that she might have had a worse counsellor than her usually quiet
husband.
Adam thought for a minute, then said, "There's a nice steady young
woman that comes to Rutherford's sometimes. She brings dinner for
Richard Evans when he doesn't go home. Not always, but now and then.
I've heard him say she's his niece, and a very good girl. She helps his
wife on washing days, when she has nowhere else particular to go."
Richard Evans was the elderly workman who has already been mentioned,
and Mrs. Livesey at once declared that if he spoke well of a girl,
she would be the right sort. So Adam went to see if her help would be
available, and Mrs. Livesey began to prepare for the journey.
She calculated that she might start at two, and reach her mother's home
by about six o'clock, always provided she could get a deputy to leave
with the children.
In the letter she was told to spend a pound or two to make herself
tidy, and in a postscript her sister providently advised her, if she
bought a shawl or bonnet, to get a black one, as it would be "most
useful after."
"Poor mother! If she had seen that bit of writing put in at the finish,
she wouldn't have liked it. She hasn't made much account of you and me
for a long while, but we couldn't have written that. Ann was always
good at contriving for other folks."
"I wouldn't get a black bonnet, if I were you," had been Adam's remark,
when the postscript was read.
"Trust me for that. Why, mother knows I'm not in mourning for anybody,
and if she saw me in a new black bonnet, she would say directly I'd got
it ready, reckoning on her dying soon. I'll buy a neat dark bonnet,
and go in it, and the shawl mother gave me years ago. I've always kept
one decent gown, in case I should be sent for, ever. She'll know the
clothes, though I doubt if she would know me, I'm so altered."
Mrs. Livesey looked at her face in the little glass that hung on the
wall, and truly the image it reflected was very different from that of
Maggie Allison in her girlish days.
"I'm only four-and-thirty now," she thought, "and quite a young woman.
But that face might be fifty years old. Eh, dear! Girls don't know
what's before them when they are so ready to get married."
Though Mrs. Livesey managed to do a good deal of thinking and talking,
she was not idle, but went rapidly on with her preparations. "I should
never get through," she would say, "if I hadn't learned both to talk
and work when I was young."
Maggie junior had to stay from school whilst mother made her purchases,
of which baby had the largest share. By the time she had returned from
the shop, Adam was there also, with Sarah Evans, whose appearance
gladdened Mrs. Livesey's heart. The young woman expressed her
willingness to take immediate charge, and to stay for a couple of days
or weeks, as might be needed. She was not alarmed at the sight of the
five children, for she was one of a large family, and she received with
good-humoured attention all the instructions that Mrs. Livesey could
crowd into the time at her disposal.
Adam went with his wife to the station, and saw her off. As they went
along, she said, "I've just spent two pounds out of the five, and two
I'm taking with me, though going and coming won't cost me that much,
only I shouldn't like mother to think that wanted her to give me more.
You must keep this other pound, Adam. Maybe that young woman won't be
able to make your wages spin out till the week end as I do, and this
journey will lose you full half a day."
Adam's astonishment at being entrusted with the custody of a whole
sovereign, with discretionary powers as to the spending thereof, struck
him with temporary dumbness. He was so used to handing over every
sixpence into his wife's hands, and feeling humbly grateful when she,
now and then, handed him back two or three coppers, which were certain
to be spent on the children, that her present confidence touched him to
the very heart.
Mrs. Livesey was herself not a little moved. She and Adam had never
been parted since their wedding day, and now the railway was going to
put a full hundred miles between them. She felt all the solemnity of
the occasion, and in her very heart wished Adam were going too.
Many a tender thought crossed the minds of both, that neither tongue
expressed, though the man said with an effort, "I'll take care of this
money, and keep it whole, if I can, till you come back."
"As if you need tell me that. Why, there never was such a one as you
for not spending on yourself. I shall tell them all that if Ann and the
others have had more money, they have not had steadier, harder-working
husbands. You've never given me an ill word, Adam."
"Why should I, Maggie, lass? If I've worked out o' th' house, you've
worked in it. I've often been sorry for you. You were a bright, pretty
lass when you married me."
"And I'm not a bright pretty lass now. I look too old for
four-and-thirty. They'll hardly know me."
Adam sighed. This remark touched a sensitive chord in his breast.
"But," continued Maggie, "you're just as fond of me yet, aren't you?"
"Fond of thee, my girl! Why, my one trouble has been, not that I got
thee, but that thee didn't get a man that could give thee more and
better things than I could. You took me, a poor labouring man, of no
account, and naught to look at, and you've made every shilling I've
earned go as far as most folk's eighteen pence. And you've grown old
before your time—all through marrying me, Maggie."
The two were sitting in the railway carriage with the sleeping child in
the mother's arms. They were a quarter of an hour too soon, and one of
the porters, whom Adam knew, had put them into it, that they might be
quiet until train time. They would be all right, he told them, and when
this carriage was brought from the siding and attached to the train,
Adam could get out.
Mrs. Livesey's face never before had on it such an expression as it
wore at that moment. Never in her courting days had she felt so deep
an affection for her homely, rugged-looking partner, as she did now
that they were about to part for the first time. He had bent his head
to kiss the sleeping child that lay on her lap, and as he raised it,
Maggie threw her arm round his and drew his rough face to hers.
"Adam, Adam," she sobbed out, "never you talk of being o' no account to
me. Never you say such words as you did just now. Listen, my man. If I
had it to do again, I'd choose you, mind this, knowing all I know now,
and with all to come that has come. Just think of that while I'm away,
will you? I've tried your temper many a time. I wonder you've stood
it, and not gone off drinking, like many have done. When I come back,
I'm not sure that I shall be a bit better. I shall be the same Maggie,
with the same tongue, and the old place and work before me. But you'll
remember what I've said to-day."
Then there was a shower of kisses on Adam's rugged face, which were
heartily returned, as her clasping arm held him close, and his arms
were round her. Then there was a cry of "All tickets ready," and Maggie
had to produce hers, as Adam left the carriage.
He stood watching the train till it was out of sight, and then went
back to Rutherford's, like a man in a dream. Some of the workmen
noticed the light on his face that afternoon, and Jim, the wag of the
smithy, joked Adam about it.
"He's got rid of his missis for a bit, and he's going to shake a loose
leg. You can tell by his face that he's up to mischief of some sort."
But Adam only smiled and shook his head, saying, "I'll give you all
leave to watch me."
The happy look remained on his face. The daydream in which he was
indulging was evidently a pleasant one.