Chapter 6

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_ CHAPTER VI

In the morning Grannie got up as usual. She was very white and shaky, but she had no intention of complaining. The pain from which she was suffering had somewhat abated, but the poor hand and arm felt tired and very feeble. She longed for the comfort of a sling, but decided not to wear one; the children would all notice it and pass remarks, and Grannie could not bear to be commented upon. She did not want to add trouble to trouble just now. She resolved to forget herself in thoughts of Alison and the others. She was early in the kitchen, but to her relief and pleasure found David there before her. Next to Alison, David was Grannie's favorite. He was thoughtful and considerate. He was a great big manly fellow, but there was also a very sweet feminine element in him; he could be domestic without being in the least girlish. He was devoted to Grannie, and often, tired as he was when he went to bed, got up early in the morning to save her work. He had turned on the gas, and the first thing he noticed now, when she came in, was her worn, puckered little face.

"Why, Grannie, you are out of sorts," he said. "Why did you get up so early? Surely Ally and me can manage the bit of work. But, I say, you are all of a tremble. Set down, and I'll get ye a cup of tea in a minute."

"No, Dave, no!" said the old woman, "'twill soon pass--'twill soon pass; the rheumatis in my hand and arm has been bothering me all night, and it makes me a bit shaky; but 'twill soon pass, Dave. We mustn't waste the tea, you know, lad; and I won't have a cup--no, I won't."

"Well, set there and rest," said the young man. "Thank goodness, I aint ashamed to work, and I'm real proud to put the kitchen straight and tidy. See how bright the fire is already; you warm your toes, Grannie, and you'll soon be better."

"So I will, to be sure," said Mrs. Reed, rubbing her hands and sinking into the chair which David had brought forward.

She gazed into the cheery flames, with her own bright-blue eyes, clear and steady. Then she looked straight up at David, who was in the act of filling the kettle and placing it on the top of the stove.

"David," she said, "stoop down a minute; I have a word or two to say."

David dropped on his knees at once, and put his hand on Grannie's shoulder.

"You aint likely to have a rise in your wages soon, are you, Dave?"

"Oh, yes, I am! arter a bit," he answered. "Mr. Groves is real pleased with me. He says I am a steady lad, and he often sets me to cast up accounts for him, and do little odds and ends of jobs. He says he has always railed against the School Board, but sometimes, when he sees how tidy I can write, and how well I can read and spell, he's inclined to change his mind."

"And what rise will he give?" said Grannie, whose mind was entirely fixed on the money part of the question.

"Well, maybe a shilling more a week, when the first year is out."

"And that 'll be----"

"Next March, Grannie; not so long coming round."

"Yes," she replied, "yes." In spite of herself, her voice had a sad note in it. "Well, you see, Dave, you can't keep yourself on half a crown a week."

"I wish I could," he answered, looking dispirited, "but I thought you were content. Is there anything that worries you, old lady?"

"No, that there aint, my brave boy. You stick to your work and please your master; you're safe to get on."

"I wish I could support myself," said David. "I wish I knew shorthand; that's the thing. A lad who knows shorthand, and can write and spell as well as I can, can earn his ten shillings a week easy."

"Ten shillings a week," said Grannie. "Lor' save us, what a power of money!"

"It's true," said David; "there's a lad who was at school with me--his name was Phil Martin--he managed to pick up shorthand, and he's earning ten shillings a week now. He's a bit younger than I am, too. He won't be fifteen for two months yet."

"Shorthand?" said Grannie, in her reflective voice; "that's writing, aint it?"

"Why, to be sure, Grannie; only a different sort of writing."

"Still, you call it writing, don't you?"

"To be sure I do."

"Then, for the Lord's sake, don't have anythink to do with it, David. Ef there is a mischievous, awful thing in the world, it's handwriting. I only do it twice a year, and it has finished me, my lad--it has finished me out and out. No, don't talk of it--keep your half a crown a week, and don't be tempted with no handwriting, short or long."

David looked puzzled and distressed; Grannie's words did not amuse him in the least--they were spoken with great passion, with a rising color in the little old cheeks, and a flash of almost fever in the bright eyes. Grannie had always been the perfect embodiment of health and strength to all the grandchildren, and David did not understand her this morning.

"Still," he said, "I can't agree with you about shorthand; it's a grand thing--it's a trade in itself; but there's no chance of my getting to know it, for I aint got the money. Now, hadn't I better get breakfast? Ally will be out in a minute."

"No, no; there's time enough. Look here, Dave, Harry must leave school altogether--he's old enough, and he has passed the standard. He must earn somethink. Couldn't he go as one of them messenger boys?"

"Perhaps so, Grannie; but why are you in such a hurry? Harry's really clever; he's got more brains than any of us, and he earns a shilling or so a week now in the evenings helping me with the figures at Mr. Groves'."

"Do you think Mr. Groves would take him on altogether, Dave?"

"No, he'd do better as a messenger boy--but don't hurry about him leaving school. He'd best stay until midsummer, then he'll be fit for anything."

"Midsummer," said the old woman to herself, "midsummer! Oh, good Lord!"

She bent her head down to prevent David seeing the tears which suddenly softened her brave eyes.

"What's all this fuss about Alison?" said David suddenly.

At these words Grannie rose to her feet.

"Nothing," she said, "nothing--it's nothing more than what I'd call a storm in a tea-cup. They have lost a five-pound note at Shaw's and they choose, the Lord knows why, to put the blame on our Ally. Of course they'll find the note, and Ally will be cleared."

"It seems a pity she left the shop," said David.

"Pity!" said Mrs. Reed. "You don't suppose that Ally is a Phipps and a Reed for nothink. We 'old our heads high, and we'll go on doing so. Why, Dave, they think a sight of Alison in that shop. Mr. Shaw knows what she's worth; he don't believe she's a thief, bless her! Yesterday, when I went to see him, he spoke of her as genteel as you please, and he wanted her back again."

"Then why, in the name of goodness, doesn't she go?" said David.

"Being a Phipps and Reed, she couldn't," replied Grannie. "We, none of us, can humble ourselves--'taint in us--the breed won't allow it. Ally was to say she was sorry for having done nothing at all, and, being a Phipps and a Reed, it wasn't to be done. Don't talk any more about it, lad. Shaw will be going on his knees to have her back in a day or two; but I have a thought in my head that she may do better even than in the shop. There, you've comforted me, my boy--you are a real out-and-out comfort to me, David."

"I am glad of that," said the young fellow. "There's no one like you to me--no one."

He kissed her withered cheek, which was scarcely like an apple this morning, being very pale and weary.

"Grannie," he said, "is it true that Ally is going to marry Jim Hardy?"

"It's true that Jim Hardy wants her to marry him," replied Grannie.

"I wonder if he does?" replied David, in a thoughtful voice. "They say that Clay's daughter is mad for Jim, and she'll have a tidy sight of money."

"She may be as mad as she pleases, but she won't get Jim. Now, do hurry on with the breakfast. What a lad you are for chattering!"

Poor David, who had certainly been induced to chatter by Grannie herself, made no response, but rose and set about his work as kitchen-maid and cook with much deftness. He stirred the oatmeal into the pot of boiling water, made the porridge, set the huge smoking dish on the center of the table, put the children's mugs round, laid a trencher of brown bread and a tiny morsel of butter on the board, and then, having seen that Grannie's teapot held an extra pinch of tea, he poured boiling water on it, and announced the meal as ready. The younger children now came trooping in, neat and tidy and ready for school. Grannie had trained her little family to be very orderly. As the children entered the room they came up to her one by one, and bestowed a kiss on her old lips. Her salutation to them was always simple and always the same: "Bless you, Polly; bless you, Susie; bless you, Kitty." But immediately after the blessing came sharp, quick words.

"Now, no dawdling; set down and be quick about it--sup up your porridge without letting a drop of it get on your clean pinafores, or I'll smack you."

Grannie never did smack the children, so this last remark of hers had long fallen flat. Alison came in almost immediately after the children, and then, after a longer interval, Harry, looking red and sleepy, took his place by the table. Harry was undoubtedly the black sheep of the family. Both Alison and David bestowed on him one or two anxious glances, but Grannie was too absorbed in some other thought to take much notice of him this morning. Immediately after breakfast the children knelt down, and Grannie repeated the Lord's Prayer aloud. Then came a great scampering and rushing about.

"Good-by, Grannie--good-by, Ally," came from several pairs of lips.

Then a clatter downstairs, then a silence--even David had gone away. On ordinary occasions Alison would have departed quite an hour before the children, as she always had to be at the shop in good time to display her excellent taste in the dressing of the windows. To-day she and Grannie were left behind together.

"You don't look well, Grannie," began the young girl.

"Now, listen, Alison," said Mrs. Reed, speaking in quite a tart voice, "ef you want to really vex me, you'll talk of my looks. I'm at the slack time o' life, and a little more color or a little less don't matter in the least. Ef I were forty and looked pale, or eighty and looked pale, it might be a subject to worry 'em as love me; being sixty-eight, I have let off pressure, so to speak, and it don't matter, not one little bit, whether I'm like a fresh apple or a piece o' dough. I am goin' out marketing now, and when I come back I'll give you a fresh lesson in that feather-stitching."

A dismayed look crept into Alison's face; she raised her delicate brows very slightly, and fixed her clear blue eyes on Grannie. She was about to speak, but something in the expression on Grannie's face kept her silent.

"You clear up and have the place tidy against I come back," said the little woman. "You might make the beds, and set everything in apple-pie order, ef you've a mind to."

She then walked into her little bedroom, and shut the door behind her. In three minutes she was dressed to go out, not in the neat drawn black-silk bonnet, but in an old straw one which had belonged to her mother, and which was extremely obsolete in pattern. This bonnet had once been white, but it was now of the deepest, most dingy shade of yellow-brown. It had a little band of brown ribbon round it, which ended neatly in a pair of strings; these were tied under Grannie's chin. Instead of her black cashmere shawl she wore one of very rough material and texture, and of a sort of zebra pattern, which she had picked up cheap many and many years ago from a traveling peddler. She wore no gloves on her hands, but the poor, swollen, painful right hand was wrapped in a corner of the zebra shawl. On her left arm she carried her market basket.

"Good-by, child," she said, nodding to her granddaughter. Then she trotted downstairs and out into the street.

There was no fog to-day--the air was keen and bright, and there was even a very faint attempt at some watery sunbeams. There wasn't a better bargainer in all Shoreditch than Mrs. Reed, but to-day her purchases were very small--a couple of Spanish onions, half a pound of American cheese, some bread, a tiny portion of margarine--and she had expended what money she thought proper.

She was soon at home again, and dinner was arranged.

"I may as well get the dinner," said Alison, rising and taking the basket from the old woman.

"My dear, there aint nothing to get; it's all ready. The children must have bread for dinner to-day. I bought a stale quartern loaf--I got a penny off it, being two days old; here's a nice piece of cheese; and onions cut up small will make a fine relish. There, we'll put the basket in the scullery; and now, Alison, come over to the light and take a lesson in the feather-stitching."

Alison followed Mrs. Reed without a word. They both took their places near the window.

"Thread that needle for me, child," said the old woman.

Alison obeyed. Mrs. Reed had splendid sight for her age; nothing had ever ailed her eyes, and she never condescended to wear glasses, old as she was, except by lamplight. Alison therefore felt some surprise when she was invited to thread the needle. She did so in gloomy and solemn silence, and gave it back with a suppressed sigh to her grandmother.

"I don't think there's much use, Grannie," she said.

"Much use in wot?" said Mrs. Reed.

"In my learning that feather-stitching--I haven't it in me. I hate needlework."

"Oh, Ally!"

Grannie raised her two earnest eyes.

"All women have needlework in 'em if they please," she said; "it's born in 'em. You can no more be a woman without needlework than you can be a man without mischief--it's born in you, child, the same as bed-making is, and cleaning stoves, and washing floors, and minding babies, and coddling husbands, and bearing all the smaller worries of life--they are all born in a woman, Alison, and she can no more escape 'em than she can escape wearing the wedding-ring when she goes to church to be wed."

"Oh, the wedding-ring! that's different," said Alison, looking at her pretty slender finger as she spoke. "Oh, Grannie, dear Grannie, my heart's that heavy I think it 'll break! I can't see the feather-stitching, I can't really." Her eyes brimmed up with tears. "Grannie, don't ask me to do the fine needlework to-day."

Grannie's face turned pale.

"I wouldn't ef I could help it," she said. "Jest to please me, darling, take a little lesson; you will be glad bimeby, you really will. Why, this stitch is in the family, and it 'ud be 'a burning shame for it to go out. Dear, dearie me, Alison, it aint a small thing that could make me cry, but I'd cry ef this beautiful stitch, wot come down from the Simpsons to the Phippses, and from the Phippses to the Reeds, is lost. You must learn it ef you want to keep me cheerful, Ally dear."

"But I thought I knew it, Grannie," said the girl.

"Not to say perfect, love--the loop don't go right with you, and the loop's the p'int. Ef you don't draw that loop up clever and tight, you don't get the quilting, and the quilting's the feature that none of the workwomen in West London can master. Now, see yere, look at me. I'll do a bit, and you watch."

Grannie took up the morsel of cambric; she began the curious movements of the wrist and hand, the intricate, involved contortions of the thread. The magic loop made its appearance; the quilting stood out in richness and majesty on the piece of cambric. Grannie made three or four perfect stitches in an incredibly short space of time. She then put the cambric into her granddaughter's hand.

"Now, child," she said, "show me what you can do."

Alison yawned slightly, and took up the work without any enthusiasm. She made the first correct mystic passage with needle and thread; when she came to the loop she failed to go right, and the effect was bungled and incomplete.

"Not that way; for mercy's sake, don't twist the thread like that!" called Grannie, in an agony. "Give it to me; I'll show yer."

It seemed like profanation to see her exquisite work tortured and murdered. She snatched the cambric from Alison, and set to work to make another perfect stitch herself. At that moment there came the sudden and terrible pain--the shooting agony up the arm, followed by the partial paralysis of thumb and forefinger. Grannie could not help uttering a suppressed groan; her face turned white; she felt a passing sense of nausea and faintness; the work dropped from her hand; the perspiration stood on her forehead. She looked at Alison with wide-open, pitiful eyes.

"Wot is it, Grannie--what is it, darlin'? For God's sake, wot's wrong?" said the girl, going on her knees and putting her arms round the little woman.

"It's writers' cramp, honey, writers' cramp, and me that never writes but twice a year; it's starvation, darlin'. Oh, darlin', darlin', it's starvation--that's ef you don't learn the stitch."

All of a sudden Grannie's fortitude had given way; she sobbed and sobbed--not in the loud, full, strong way of the young and vigorous, but with those low, suppressed, deep-drawn sobs of the aged. All in a minute she felt herself quite an old and useless woman--she, who had been the mainspring of the household, the breadwinner of the family! All of a sudden she had dropped very low. Alison was full of consternation, but she did not understand grief like Grannie's. She was at one end of life, and Grannie was at the other; the old woman understood the girl--having past experience to guide her--but the girl could not understand the old woman. It was a relief to Grannie to tell out her fear, but Alison did not comprehend it; she was full of pity, but she was scarcely full of sympathy. It seemed impossible for her to believe that Grannie's cunning right hand was going to be useless, that the beautiful work must stop, that the means of livelihood must cease, that the old woman must be turned into a useless, helpless log--no longer the mainspring, but a helpless addition to the strained household.

Alison could not understand, but she did her best to cheer Grannie up.

"There, there," she said; "of course that doctor was wrong. In all my life I never heard of such a thing as writers' cramp. Writers' cramp!--it's one of the new diseases, Grannie, that doctors are just forcing into the world to increase their earnings. I heard tell in the shop, by a girl what knows, that every year doctors push two new diseases into fashion, so as to fill their pockets. But for them, we'd never have had influenza, and now it's writers' cramp is to be the rage. Well, let them as writes get it; but you don't write, you know, Grannie."

"That's wot I say," replied Grannie, cheering up wonderfully. "No one can get a disease by writing two letters in a year. I don't suppose it is it, at all."

"I'm sure it isn't," said Alison; "but you are just tired out, and must rest for a day or two. It's a good thing that I'm at home, for I can rub your hand and arm with that liniment. You'll see, you'll be all right again in a day or two."

"To be sure I will," said Grannie; "twouldn't be like my luck ef I warn't." But all the same she knew in her heart of hearts that she would not. _

Read next: Chapter 7

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