Monday came all too quickly. Grannie was very masterful during the few
days which went before. She insisted on all the grandchildren doing
exactly what she told them. There were moments when she was almost
stern; she had always been authoritative, and had a certain commanding
way about her. This week, even Alison did not dare to cross her in the
smallest matter. There was not a single hitch in the arrangements
which Mr. Williams had sketched out. Mrs. Faulkner took a great fancy
to Alison, absolutely believed in her honesty and truth, and engaged
her for a month's trial on the spot. She told her to be sure to be
with her by ten o'clock on Monday to begin her new duties. Grannie
went herself to see Mr. Watson; she had a private talk with him which
no one knew anything about. He told her that David was a boy in a
hundred, that he was certain to do well, for he was both clever and
conscientious. He said that he could easily manage to fit up a bed for
him in the back part of the shop; so he was provided for, and,
according to Grannie and Mr. Watson, provided for well. When Harry
heard of the family's exodus, he left the house without a word. He
came back in the course of two or three hours, and told Mrs. Reed what
he had done.
"I am going to sea," he announced. "I saw the captain of the _Brigand_
down at the West India Docks, and he'll take me as cabin boy. I dare
say the life is a bit rough, but I know I shall like it. I have always
been so keen for adventure. I am off to-morrow, Grannie; so I am out
of the way."
Grannie kissed the boy between his straight brows, looked into his
fearless, dancing, mischievous eyes, and said a word or two which he
never forgot. She sent him off the next morning with the best wardrobe
she could muster, half a crown in his pocket, and her blessing ringing
in his ears.
"'Taint much; it's a rough life, but it's the best that could be done,"
she said to Alison. "Ef he keeps straight he'll have good luck, for
it's in the breed," she continued; then she resumed her preparations
for the little girls.
They went away on Saturday, and Alison, David, and Grannie had Sunday
to themselves. It was a sort of day which Alison could never talk of
afterward. It ought to have been very miserable, but it was not; there
was a peace about it which comforted the much-tried girl, and which she
often hugged to her heart in some of the dark days which were close at
hand.
"Now, chil'en," said Grannie, on the evening of that day, "you two will
please go off early in the morning and leave me the last in the old
house."
"But mayn't we see you as far as the railway station?" said Alison.
"No, my love, I prefer not," was the response.
"But won't you tell us where you are going, Grannie?" said David. "It
seems so queer for us to lose sight of you. Don't you think it a bit
hard on us, old lady?"
Grannie looked very earnestly at David.
"No," she said, after a pause, "'taint hard, it's best. I am goin' on
a wisit; ef it aint comfortable, and ef the Lord don't want me to stay,
why I won't stay; but I'd rayther not speak o' it to-night. You must
let me have my own way, Dave and Alison. We are all suited for, some
in one way and some in t'other, but I'd rayther go away to-morrow with
jest the bit of fun of keeping it all to myself, at least for a time."
"Is it in the country, Grannie?" said Alison.
"I'm told it's a fine big place," replied Grannie.
"And are they folks you ever knew?"
"They're friends o' Mr. Williams," said Grannie, shutting up her lips.
"Mr. Williams knows all about 'em. He says I can go to see you often;
'taint far from town. You won't really be very far from me at all.
But don't let us talk any more about it. When a woman comes to my time
o' life, ef she frets about herself she must be a mighty poor sort, and
that aint me."
Monday morning dawned, and Grannie had her way. Alison and David both
kissed her, and went out into the world to face their new duties. They
were not coming back any more to the little home. Grannie was alone.
"I haven't a minute to waste," she said to herself after they had gone,
bustling about as she spoke. "There's all the furniture to be sold
now. The auctioneer round the corner said he would look in arter the
chil'en were well out o' the way. Oh, I dare say I shall have heaps of
time to fret by and by, but I ain't agoin' to fret now; not I.
There'll be a nice little nest-egg out of the furniture, which Mr.
Williams can keep for Alison; and ef Alison gets on, why, 'twill do for
burying me when my time comes. I think a sight of having a good
funeral; the Lord knows I want to be buried decent, comin' of the breed
I do; but there, I've no time to think of funerals or anything else
now. I had to be masterful this week to 'em darlin's, but 'twas the
only thing to do. Lor' sakes! Suppose they'd begun fussing over me,
what would have become of us all?"
At this moment there came a knock at the door. Grannie knew who it
was. It was the agent who came weekly, Monday after Monday, to collect
the rent.
"Here's your rent, Mr. Johnson," said Grannie, "and I hope you'll get
another tenant soon. It was a right comfortable little flat, and we
all enjoyed ourselves here. We haven't a word to say agen our
landlord, Mr. Johnson."
"I am very sorry to lose you as a tenant, Mrs. Reed," said Mr. Johnson,
giving the bright-eyed little woman a puzzled glance. "If there is
anything in my power----"
"No, there aint! No, there aint!" said Grannie, nodding. "We has made
fresh arrangements in the fam'ly, and don't require the rooms any
longer. I'll have the furniture out by twelve o'clock to-day, sir, and
then the rooms will be washed out and tidied. A neighbor downstairs
has promised to do it. Will you please tell me where I shall leave the
key?"
"You may leave it with Mrs. Murray on the next flat," said Mr. Johnson.
"Well, I am sorry to lose you as a tenant, Mrs. Reed, and if ever you
do want to settle down in a home again, please let me know, and I'll do
my very best to provide you with a comfortable one."
"I 'spect I won't have to pay no rent for my next home," said Grannie
softly, under her breath, as she turned away from the door. "Oh, Lord,
to think that you're gettin' a mansion in the sky ready for an old body
like me, and no rent to pay neither! Dear Lord, to think it is getting
ready for me now! I am about as happy an old woman as walks--that I
am."
Grannie felt the religion which was part and parcel of her life
extremely uplifting that morning. It tided her safely over an hour so
dark that it might have broken a less stout heart. The auctioneer came
round and priced the furniture. Every bit of that furniture had a
history. Part of it belonged to the Reeds, part to the Phippses, and
part to the Simpsons. It was full of the stories of many lives; but,
as Grannie said to herself, "I'll have heaps of time by and by to fret
about the eight-day clock, and the little oak bureau under the window,
and the plates, and cups, and dishes, and tables; I need not waste
precious minutes over 'em now."
So the auctioneer, who somehow could not cheat those blue eyes, offered
a fair price for the little "bits o' duds," and by twelve o'clock he
sent round a cart and a couple of men to carry them away. The flat was
quite bare and empty before Grannie finally locked the hall door and
took the key down to Mrs. Murray.
Mrs. Murray was very fond of Grannie, and was extremely inclined to be
inquisitive; but if ever Mrs. Reed had been on her full dignity it was
this morning. She spoke about the good luck of the children in having
found such comfortable homes, said that household work was getting a
little too much for her, and that now she was going away on a visit.
"To the country, ma'am?" said Mrs. Murray. "It is rather early for the
country jest yet, aint it?"
"It is to a very nice part, suitable to the season," replied Grannie,
setting her lips firmly. "I'm always in luck, and I'm in my usual good
luck now in findin' kind friends willin' and glad to have me. I will
wish you 'good-day' now, ma'am; I mustn't keep my friends waiting."
"But won't you have a cup of tea afore you go, for you really look
quite shaky?" said Mrs. Murray, who noticed that Grannie's left hand
shook when she laid the key of the lost home on the table.
"No, no, ma'am. I expect to have tea with my friends," was the reply.
"Thank you kindly, I am sure, Mrs. Murray, and I wish you well, ma'am."
Mrs. Murray shook hands with Grannie and looked at her kindly and
affectionately as she tripped down the winding stairs for the last time.
Grannie wore her black silk bonnet, and her snow-white kerchief, and
her neat little black shawl, and her white cotton gloves. Her
snow-white hair was as fluffy as usual under the brim of her bonnet,
and her eyes were even brighter, and her cheeks wore a deeper shade of
apple bloom about them. Perhaps some people, some keen observers,
would have said that the light in the eyes and the bloom on the cheeks
were too vivid for perfect health; but, as it was, people only remarked
as they saw her go down the street, "What a dear, pretty old lady!
Now, _she_ belongs to some of the provident, respectable poor, if you
like." People said things of that sort as Grannie got into the omnibus
presently, and drove away, and away, and away. They did not know, they
could not possibly guess, what Grannie herself knew well, that she was
only a pauper on her way to the workhouse. For Mrs. Reed had kept her
secret, and the keeping of that secret was what saved her heart from
being broken. Mr. Williams had used influence on her behalf, and had
got her into the workhouse of a parish to which she had originally
belonged. It was in the outskirts of London, and was, he said, one of
the best and least severe of the class.
"Provided the children don't know, nothing else matters," thought
Grannie over and over, as she approached nearer and nearer to her
destination. "I am just determined to make the best of it," she said
to herself, "and the children need never know. I shall be let out on
visits from time to time, and I must keep up the story that I am
staying with kind friends. I told Mr. Williams what I meant to do, and
he didn't say it were wrong. Lord, in thy mercy help me to keep this
dark from the children, and help me to remember, wherever I am, that I
was born a Phipps and a Simpson. Coming of that breed, nothing ought
to daunt me, and I'll live and die showing the good stock I am of."
The omnibus set Grannie down within a quarter of a mile of her
destination. She carried a few treasures tied up in a silk
handkerchief on her left arm, and presently reached the big gloomy
gates of the workhouse. Mr. Williams had made all the necessary
arrangements for her, and she was admitted at once. A male porter,
dressed in hideous garb, conducted her across a courtyard to a
bare-looking office, where she was asked to sit down. After a few
minutes the matron appeared, accompanied by a stoutly built woman, who
called herself the labor matron, and into whose care Grannie was
immediately given. She was taken away to the bath-room first of all.
There her own neat, pretty clothes were taken from her, and she was
given the workhouse print dress, the ugly apron, the hideous cap, and
the little three-cornered shawl to wear.
"What's your age?" asked the matron.
"Sixty-eight, ma'am," replied Grannie.
"Let me see; surely there is something wrong with that hand."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Grannie solemnly; "it is the hand that has
brought me here. I was good at needlework in my day, ma'am, but 'twas
writing as did it."
"Writing! did you write much?" asked the matron.
"No, ma'am, only twice a year at the most, but even them two letters
cost me sore; they brought on a disease in the hand; it is called
writers' cramp. It is an awful complaint, and it has brought me here,
ma'am."
The labor matron looked very hard at Grannie. She did not understand
her words, nor the expression on her brave face. Grannie by no means
wore the helpless air which characterizes most old women when they come
to the workhouse.
"Well," she said, after a pause, "hurry with your bath; you needn't
have another for a fortnight; but once a fortnight you must wash here.
At your age, and with your hand so bad, you won't be expected to do any
manual work at all."
"I'd rayther, ef you please, ma'am," said Grannie. "I'm not accustomed
to settin' idle."
"Well, I don't see that you can do anything; that hand is quite past
all use, but perhaps the doctor will take a look at it to-morrow. Now
get through that bath, and I'll take you to the room where the other
old women are."
"Good Lord, keep me from thinkin' o' the past," said Grannie when the
door closed behind her.
She got through the bath and put on her workhouse dress, and felt, with
a chill all through her little frame, that she had passed suddenly from
life to death. The matron came presently to fetch her.
"This way, please," she said, in a tart voice. She had treated Grannie
with just a shadow of respect as long as she wore her own nice and
dainty clothes, but now that she was in the workhouse garb, she looked
like any other bowed down little woman. She belonged, in short, to the
failures of life. She was hurried down one or two long passages, then
through a big room, empty at present, which the matron briefly told her
was the "Able-bodied Women's Ward," and then into another very large
room, where a bright fire burnt, and where several women, perhaps fifty
or sixty, were seated on benches, doing some light jobs of needlework,
or pretending to read, or openly dozing away their time. They were all
dressed just like Grannie, and took little or no notice when she came
in. She was only one more failure, to join the failures in the room.
These old women were all half dead, and another old woman was coming to
share their living grave. The matron said something hastily, and shut
the door behind her. Grannie looked round; an almost wild light lit up
her blue eyes for a moment, then it died out, and she went softly and
quietly across the room.
"Ef you are cold, ma'am, perhaps you'll like to set by the fire," said
an old body who must have been at least ten years Grannie's senior.
"Thank you, ma'am, I'll be much obleeged," said Grannie, and she sat
down.
Her bath had, through some neglect, not been properly heated; it had
chilled her, and all of a sudden she felt tired, old, and feeble, and a
long shiver ran down her back. She held out her left hand to the
blaze. A few of the most active of the women approached slowly, and
either stood and looked at her, or sat down as near her as possible.
She had very lately come from life; they were most of them accustomed
to death. Their hearts were feebly stirred with a kind of dim
interest, but the life such as Grannie knew was dull and far off to
them.
"This is a poor sort of place, ma'am," said one of them.
Grannie roused herself with a great effort.
"Ef I begin to grumble I am lost," she said stoutly to herself. "Well,
now, it seems to me a fine airy room," she said. "It is all as it
strikes a body, o' course," she added, very politely; "but the room
seems to me lofty."
"You aint been here long, anybody can see that," said an old woman of
the name of Peters, with a sniff. "Wait till you live here day after
day, with nothin' to do, and nothin' to think of, and nothin' to hear,
and nothin' to read, and, you may say, nothin' to eat."
"Dear me," said Grannie, "don't they give us our meals?"
"Ef you like to _call_ 'em such," said Mrs. Peters, with a sniff. And
all the other women sniffed too. And when Mrs. Peters emphasized her
condemnation of the food with a groan, all the other old women groaned
in concert.
Grannie looked at them, and felt that she had crossed an impassable
gulf. Never again could she be the Grannie she had been when she awoke
that morning.