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Good Luck, a fiction by L. T. Meade |
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Chapter 13 |
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_ CHAPTER XIII 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. _ |
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