Chapter Fifteen
Miss Mary
The next morning Flo watched Mrs Jenks very narrowly, wondering and hoping much that she would show some sorrow at the thought of the coming parting. A shade, even a shade, of regret on the little woman’s face would have been pleasing to Flo; it would have given her undoubted satisfaction to know that Mrs Jenks missed her, or would be likely to miss her, ever so little. But though she watched her anxiously, no trace of what she desired was visible on the bright little woman’s features. She was up earlier than usual, and looked to Flo rather more brisk and happy than usual. She went actively about her work, singing under her breath for fear of disturbing Flo, whom she fancied was still asleep, some of the hymns she delighted in.
“Christ is my Saviour and my Friend,
My Brother and my Love,
My Head, my Hope, my Counsellor,
My Advocate above,”
sang Mrs Jenks, and while she sang she dusted, and tidied, and scrubbed the little room; and as she polished the grate, and lit the small fire, and put the kettle on for breakfast, she continued —
“Christ Jesus is the heaven of heaven;
My Christ, what shall I call?
Christ is the first, Christ is the last,
My Christ is all in all.”
No, Mrs Jenks was not sorry about anything, that was plain; there was a concealed triumph in her low notes which almost brought tears to the eyes of the listening child. Perhaps she would have sobbed aloud, and so revealed to Mrs Jenks what was passing in her mind, had not that little woman done something which took off her attention, and astonished her very much. When she had completed all her usual preparations for breakfast, she took off her old working gown, and put on her best Sunday-go-to-meeting dress.
This surprised Flo so utterly that she forgot she had been pretending to be asleep and sat up on her elbow to gaze at her.
Over the best dress she pinned a snowy kerchief, and putting on finally a clean widow’s cap, drew up the blinds and approached Flo’s side.
“I’ll just see about that poor foot now,” she said, “and then, while I am frying the herring for breakfast, you can wash and dress yourself, dearie.”
But poor Flo could not help wondering, as Mrs Jenks in her brisk clever way unbandaged her foot, and applied that pleasant strengthening lotion, who would do it for her to-morrow morning, or would she have any lotion to put. She longed to find courage to ask Mrs Jenks to allow her to take away what was left in the bottle, perhaps by the time it was finished her foot would be well.
And Flo knew perfectly, how important it was for her, unless she was utterly to starve, that that lame foot should get well. She remembered only too vividly what hard times Janey, even with a father and mother living, had to pull along with her lame foot, but she could not find courage to ask for the lotion, and Mrs Jenks, after using a sufficient quantity, corked up the remainder and put it carefully away.
“There’s an improvement here,” said the little woman, touching the injured ankle. “There’s more nerve, and strength, and firmness. You’ll be able to walk to-day.”
“I’ll try, ma’am,” said Flo.
“So you shall, and you can lean on me – I’ll bear your weight. Now get up, dearie.”
As Flo dressed herself she felt immensely comforted. It was very evident from Mrs Jenks’ words, that she intended going with her to her cellar, she herself would take her back to her wretched home.
To do this she must give up her day’s charing, so Flo knew that her going away was of some importance to the little woman, and the thought, as I have said, comforted her greatly.
She dressed herself quickly and neatly, and after kneeling, and repeating “Our Father” quite through very softly under her breath, the three – the woman, child, and dog – sat down to breakfast. It would be absurd to speak of it in any other way.
In that household Scamp ate with the others, he drew up as gravely to every meal as Mrs Jenks did herself.
His eyes were on a level with the table, and he looked so at home, so assured of his right to be there, and withal so anxious and expectant, and he had such a funny way of cocking his ears when a piece of nice fried herring was likely to go his way, that he was a constant source of mirth? and pleasure to the human beings with whom he resided.
Mrs Jenks was one of the most frugal little women in the world; never a crumb was wasted in her little home, but she always managed to have something savoury for every meal, and the savoury things she bought were rendered more so by her judicious cooking. Her red herrings, for instance, just because she knew where to buy them, and how to dress them, did not taste at all like poor Flo’s red herrings, cooked against the bars, and eaten with her fingers in the Duncan Street cellar.
So it was with all her food; it was very plain, very inexpensive, but of its kind it was the best, and was so nicely served that appetites far more fastidious than Flo’s would have enjoyed it.
On this morning, however, the three divided their herring and sipped their tea (Scamp had evinced quite a liking for tea) in silence, and when it was over, and Flo was wondering how soon she could break the ice and ask Mrs Jenks when she meant to take her to Duncan Street, she was startled by the little woman saying to her in her briskest and brightest tones —
“I wonder, child, whether I’d best trim up that old bonnet of your mother’s for you to wear, or will you go with yer little head exposed to the sun?
“The bonnet’s very old, that’s certain, but then ’tis something of a protection, and the sun’s ’ot.”
“Please, ma’am,” said Flo, “I can walk werry well wid my head bare; but ef you doesn’t mind I’d like to carry ’ome the bonnet, fur it was mother’s Sunday best, it wor.”
“Lor, child, you’re not going home yet awhile, you’ve got to go and pay a visit with me. Here, show me the bonnet – I’ll put a piece of decent brown upon it, and mend it up.” Which Mrs Jenks did, and with her neat, capable fingers transformed it into by no means so grotesque-looking an object.
Then when it was tied on Flo’s head they set off.
“A lady wishes to see you, Flo, and she wishes to see Scamp too,” explained Mrs Jenks; and calling the dog, they went slowly out of the court.
Flo had very little time for wonder, for the lady in question lived but a few doors away, and notwithstanding her slow and painful walking she got to her house in a very few moments.
It was a tiny house, quite a scrap of a house to be found in any part of the middle of London – a house back from its neighbours, with little Gothic windows, and a great tree sheltering it. How it came to pass that no railway company, or improvement company, or company of something else, had not pounced upon it and pulled it down years ago remained a marvel; however, there it stood, and to its hall door walked Mrs Jenks, Flo, and Scamp, now.
The door was opened by a neat little parlour-maid, who grinned from ear to ear at sight of Mrs Jenks.
“Is your mistress at home, Annie?”
“That she is, ma’am, and looking out for you. You’re all to come right in, she says – the dog and all.”
So Flo found herself in a pretty hall, bright with Indian matting, and some fresh ferns towering up high in a great stone jar of water.
“We was in the country yesterday, ma’am, Miss Mary and me, and have brought back flowers, and them ’igh green things enough to fill a house with ’em,” explained the little handmaid as she trotted on in front, down one flight of stairs and up another, until she conducted them into a long low room, rendered cool and summery by the shade of the great tree outside. This room to-day was, as Annie the servant expressed it, like a flower garden. Hydrangeas, roses, carnations, wild flowers, ferns, stood on every pedestal, filled twenty, thirty vases, some of rarest china, some of commonest delf, but cunningly hid now by all kinds of delicate foliage. It was a strange little house for the midst of the city, a strange little bower of a room, cool, sweet-scented, carrying those who knew the country miles away into its shadiest depths – a room furnished with antique old carvings and odd little black-legged spindle chairs.
On one of the walls hung a solitary picture, a water-colour framed without margin, in a broad gilt frame.
A masterpiece of art it was – of art, I say? something far beyond art – genius.
It made the effect of the charming little room complete, and not only carried one to the country, but straight away at once to the seashore. Those who saw it thought of the beech on summer evenings, of the happy days when they were young. It was a picture of waves – waves dancing and in motion, waves with the white froth foaming on them, and the sunlight glancing on their tops. No other life in the picture, neither ship nor bird, but the waves were so replete with their own life that the salt fresh breeze seemed to blow on your face as you gazed.
The effect was so marvellous, so great and strong, that Flo and Mrs Jenks both neglected the flowers, only taking them in as accessories, and went and stood under the picture.
“Ah! there’s the sea,” said Mrs Jenks with a great sigh, and a passing cloud, not of pain, but of an old grief, on her face.
“The sea shall give up her dead,” said a young voice by her side, and turning quickly, Flo saw one of the most peculiar, and perhaps one of the most beautiful, women she had ever looked at. Was she old? The hair that circled her low forehead was snowy white. Was she young? Her voice was round, flexible, full of music, rich with all the sympathy of generous youth.
She might be thirty – forty – fifty – any age. She had a story – who hasn’t?
She had met with sorrow – who hasn’t? But she had conquered and risen above sorrow, as her pale, calm, unwrinkled face testified. She was a brave woman, a succourer of the oppressed, a friend in the house of trouble, or mourning, as the pathetic, dark grey eyes, which looked out at you from under their straight black brows, declared. Long afterwards she told Flo in half-a-dozen simple words her history.
“God took away from me all, child – father – mother – lover – home. He made me quite empty, and then left me so for a little time, to let me feel what it was like: but when I had tasted the full bitterness, He came and filled me with Himself – brim full of Himself. Then I had my mission from Him. Go feed my sheep – go feed my lambs. Is it not enough?”
“You like my picture, Mrs Jenks,” she said now, “and so does the child,” touching Flo as she spoke with the tips of her white fingers. “Come into this room and I will show you another – there.”
She led the way into a little room rendered dark, not by the great tree, but by Venetian blinds. Over the mantel-piece was another solitary picture – again a water-colour.
Some cows, four beautifully sketched, ease-loving creatures, standing with their feet in a pool of clear water: sedgy, marshy ground behind them, a few broken trees, and a ridge of low hills in the background – over all the evening sky.
“That picture,” said the lady, “is called ‘Repose,’ – to me it is repose with stagnation; I like my waves better.”
“And yet, Miss Mary,” replied the widow, “how restful and trustful the dumb creatures look! I think they read us a lesson.”
“So they do, Mrs Jenks; all His works read us a lesson – but come back to my waves, I want their breezes on my face, the day is stifling.”
She led the way back into the first room, and seated herself on a low chair.
“This is your little girl, and this the dog – Scamp, you call him. Why did you give him so outlandish a name? he does not deserve it, he is a good faithful dog, there is nothing scampish about him, I see that in his face.”
“Yes, ma’am, he’s as decent conducted and faithful a cretur as ever walked. Wot scamp he is, is only name deep, not natur deep.”
“Well, that is right – What’s in a name? Come here, Scamp, poor fellow, and you, little Flo, you come also; I have a great deal to say to you and your dog.” The child and the dog went up and stood close to the kind face. Miss Mary put her arm round Flo, and laid one shapely white hand on Scamp’s forehead.
“So God has taken away your little bed,” she said to the child, “and you don’t know where to sleep to-night.”
“Oh! yes, mum, I does,” said Flo in a cheerful voice, for she did not wish Mrs Jenks to think she missed her bed very much. “Scamp and me, we ’as a mattress in hour cellar.”
Miss Mary smiled.
“Now, Flo,” she said, “I really don’t wish to disappoint you, but I greatly fear you are mistaken. You may have a mattress, but you have no mattress in number 7, Duncan Street, for that cellar, as well as every other cellar in the street, has been shut up by the police three weeks ago. They are none of them fit places for human beings to live in.”
If Miss Mary, sitting there in her summer muslin, surrounded by every comfort, thought that Flo would rejoice in the fact that these places, unfit for any of God’s creatures, were shut up, she was vastly mistaken. Dark and wretched hole of a place as number 7, Duncan Street, was, it was there her mother had died, it was there she and Dick had played, and struggled, and been honest, and happy. Poor miserable shred of a home, it was the only home she had ever possessed the only place she had a right to call her own.
Now that it was gone, the streets or the Adelphi arches stared her in the face. Veritable tears came to her eyes, and in her excitement and distress, she forgot her awe of the first lady who had ever spoken to her.
“Please, mum, ef the cellar is shut up, wot ’ave come of my little bits o’ duds, my mattress, and table, and little cobbler’s stool? – that little stool wor worth sixpence any day, it stood so steady on its legs. Wot ’ave come o’ them, mum, and wot’s to come o’ Scamp and me, mum?”
“Ah!” said the lady more kindly than ever, “that is the important question, what is to become of you and Scamp? Well, my dear, God has a nice little plan all ready for you both, and what you have to do is to say yes to it.”
“And I ’ave brought you here to learn all about it, Flo,” said Mrs Jenks, nodding and smiling at her.
Then Miss Mary made the child seat herself on a low stool by her side, and unfolded to her a wonderful revelation. She, Flo, was no stranger to this lady. Mrs Jenks once a week worked as char-woman in this house, and had long ago told its mistress of her little charge; and Miss Mary was charmed and interested, and wanted to buy Scamp, only Mrs Jenks declared that that would break Flo’s heart. So instead she had contributed something every week to the keep of the two.
Now she wished to do something more. Miss Mary Graham was not rich, and long ago every penny of her spare money had been appropriated in various charitable ways, but about a fortnight ago a singular thing had happened to her. She received through the post a cheque for a small sum with these words inside the envelope —
“To be spent on the first little homeless London child you care to devote it to.”
The gift, sent anonymously, seemed to point directly to Flo, and Miss Graham resolved that she should reap the benefit.
Her plan for her was this, – she and Scamp were to live with Mrs Jenks for at least a year, and during that time Mrs Jenks was to instruct Flo in reading and writing, in fine sewing, and in all the mysteries of household work and cooking, and when Flo was old enough and strong enough, and if she turned out what they earnestly trusted she would turn out, she was to come to Miss Mary as her little servant, for Miss Mary expected that in a year or two Annie would be married and have a home of her own.
“Does this plan suit you, Flo? Are you willing when the time comes to try to be a faithful little servant to any master or mistress you may be with?” Whatever Flo’s feelings may have been, her answer was a softly, a very softly spoken —
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Do you know how you are to learn?”
“No, ma’am; but Mrs Jenks, she knows.”
“Mrs Jenks knows certainly, and so may you. You must be God’s little servant first – you must begin by being God’s little servant to-day, and then when the time comes you will be a good and faithful servant to whoever you are with.”
“Yes, ma’am,” answered Flo, a look of reverence, of love, of wonder at the care God was taking of her, stealing over her downcast face. Miss Mary saw the look, and rose from her seat well satisfied, she had found the child her Heavenly Father meant her to serve.
“But please, mum,” said Flo, “does yer know about Dick?”
“Yes, my dear, I know all about your little brother. Mrs Jenks has told me Dick’s story as well as yours. And I know this much, which perhaps you may not know; his stealing was a bad thing, but his being taken up and sent, not to prison, but to the good reformatory school where he now is, was the best thing that could happen to him. I have been over that school, Flo, and I know that the boys in it are treated well, and are happy. They are taught a trade, and are given a fair start in life.
“Many a boy such as Dick owes his salvation to the school he now is in.
“By the way, did you notice Annie, my little servant?”
“Yes, ma’am,” and a smile came to Flo’s face at the remembrance of the bright, pleasant-looking handmaiden.
“She has given me leave to tell you something, Flo; something of her own history.
“Once my dear, faithful Annie was a little London thief – a notorious little London thief. She knew of no God, she knew of nothing good – she was not even as fortunate as you and Dick were, for she had no mother to keep her right. When not quite ten years old she was concerned in a daring city robbery – she was taken up – convicted – and at last sentenced, first for a month to Wandsworth House of Correction, afterwards for four years to the girls’ reformatory school at that place.
“She has often told me what happened to her on the day she arrived at this school. She went there hating every one, determined never to change her ways, to remain for ever hardened and wicked.
“The matron called her aside and spoke to her thus:
”‘I know what is said of you, but I do not believe half of it —I am going to trust you.
”‘Here is a five-pound note; take this note to such a shop, and bring me back four sovereigns in gold, and one in silver.’
“That noble trust saved the girl. At that moment, as she herself said, all inclination for thieving utterly left her. (A fact.) From that day to this she has never touched a farthing that is not strictly her own. You see what she is now in appearance; when you know her better, you will see what she is in character – a true Christian – a noble woman. All the nobler for having met and conquered temptation.”
Miss Mary paused, then added softly, “What she has become, Dick may become.”
When Mrs Jenks, and Flo, and Scamp came home that morning, Flo, who after all that had happened felt sure that nothing ever could surprise her again, still could not help, when she entered the neat little room – her real home now – starting back and folding her hands in mute astonishment. The rough-looking, untidy mattress was gone, and in its place stood a tiny, bright-looking iron bedstead, on which the smallest of snowy beds was made up.
Over the bedstead, pinned against the wall, was a card with these words printed on it —
“GOD’S GIFT TO FLO.”
Chapter Sixteen
Bright Days
And now began a happy time in a hitherto very dark little life.
All her cares, her anxieties for Dick even, swept away, Flo had stept into a state of existence that to her was one of luxury.
The effect on many a nature, after the first burst of thankfulness was over, would have been a hardening one. The bright sunshine of prosperity, without any of the rain of affliction, would have dried up the fair soil, withered, and caused to die, the good seed.
But on Flo the effect was different; she never forgot one thing, and this memory kept all else straight within her. In counting up her mercies, she never forgot that it was God who gave them to her; and in return she gave Him, not love as a duty, but love rising free and spontaneous out of a warm, strong heart.
And He whom she loved she longed to hear more of, and Mrs Jenks, whose love for God and faith in God was as great as her own, loved to tell her of Him.
So these two, in their simple, unlearned way, held converse often together on things that the men of this world so seldom allude to, and doubtless they learned more about God than the men of this world, with all their talents and cultivated tastes, ever attain to.
It was Mrs Jenks’ simple plan to take all that the Bible said in its literal and exact meaning, and Flo and she particularly delighted in its descriptions (not imagery to them) of Heaven.
And when Mrs Jenks read to Flo out of the 21st and 22nd chapters of the Revelation, the child would raise her clear brown eyes to the autumn sky, and see with that inner sense, so strong in natures like hers, the gates of pearl and golden streets. God lived there – and many people who once were sad and sorrowful in this world, lived there – and it was the lovely happy home where she hoped she and Dick should also live some day.
“And you too, Mrs Jenks, and that poor lad of yours,” she would say, laying her head caressingly on the little woman’s knee.
But Mrs Jenks rather wondered why Flo never mentioned now that other Jenks, her namesake, who was wearing out his slow nine months’ imprisonment in the Wandsworth House of Correction.
Once Flo had been very fond of him, and his name was on her lips twenty times a day, now she never spoke of him.
Why was this? Had she forgotten Jenks? Hardly likely.
She was such a tender, affectionate little thing, interested even in that poor prodigal lad, whose best robe would soon be as ready, and as bright, and fresh, and new, as Mrs Jenks’ fingers could make it.
No, Flo had not forgotten Jenks, but she had found out a secret. Without any one telling her, she had guessed who the lad was who was expected back in the spring; who that jacket, and trousers, and vest were getting ready for. A certain likeness in the eyes, a certain play of the lips, had connected poor Jenks in prison with Mrs Jenks in this bright, home-like, little room. She knew they were mother and son, but as Mrs Jenks had not mentioned it herself, she would never pretend that she had discovered her secret. But Flo had one little fear – she was not quite sure that Jenks would come home. She knew nothing of his previous history, but in her own intercourse with him she had learned enough of his character to feel sure that the love for thieving was far more deeply engrafted into his heart than his gentle, trusting little mother had any idea of. When he was released from prison, bad companions would get round him, and he would join again in their evil ways.
He could not now harm Dick, who was safe at that good school for two or three years, but in their turn others might harm him, and the jacket and trousers might lie by unused, and the crocuses and snowdrops wither, and still Jenks might not come. He might only join in more crime, and go back again to prison, and in the end break his mother’s gentle, trusting heart.
Now Flo wondered could she do anything to bring the prodigal home. She thought of this a great deal; she lay in her little white bed, the bed God had given her, and told God about it, and after a time a plan came into her head.
Three times a week she went to Miss Mary’s pleasant house to be taught knitting by Annie, and reading and writing by that lady herself, and on one of these occasions she unfolded her idea to this kind listener, and between them they agreed that it should be carried out.