Chapter IV: Brother and Sister

"RHODA, would your mother object to you going a little way off to get a situation, if you were sure of a comfortable place?"

Mrs. Wright had an open letter in her hand that Tom had taken from the postman as he came in to breakfast.

Several weeks had passed, but Rhoda still came in and out to help Mrs. Wright, and had told her she wanted to get a situation that she might help her mother.

Rhoda's plan had been to get the situation first, and then tell her mother what she wanted to do. But to go away from home altogether was not what she had anticipated, and she stood silent, scarcely knowing what to answer.

"I should be very glad if you could go, Rhoda," said Mrs. Wright. "My sister is ill, and wants a girl at once to nurse the baby. You would find it a comfortable place; there is only a baby and a little boy eight years old."

"Where is it?" asked Rhoda, thinking her mother "might" perhaps let her go to Mrs. Wright's sister.

"At Rilchester, a pretty little town about twenty miles off. My sister is very kind, and you would find it a nice place for a beginning. Run and ask your mother to come and see me about it."

Rhoda put away the lamps she had just brought downstairs and went out. But she did not "run" home, for as she closed the street door, her brother came up, and Rhoda was very glad to meet him.

"Oh, Frank, what do you think? Mrs. Wright wants me to go and live with her sister to nurse a baby, and—"

"No, no," interrupted Frank, "you can't go, it wouldn't be fair. You must stay at home with mother, and I 'must' get a place somewhere."

"But you've tried, Frank," said Rhoda sadly. "I tell you, one of us must help mother a bit, and I think if she'll let me go, I'll try this place at Rilchester. It need not be for ever, you know, and I am the oldest."

"Yes, but I am the boy, and it's always a boy's place to help his mother and sister."

"Well, you shall, by-and-by," said Rhoda; "you will be able to help us all the better for a little more schooling. That was what mother said when you was so disappointed about Mortimer's. So look here, you help me persuade mother about this, and then I'll promise to come home by-and-by when you get a place."

"I don't like it," murmured Frank. "I'd always meant to work for you and mother too, but I can see how mother worries sometimes about the work and the money, and keeping the rent paid, and so perhaps, if you could get a place for a little while—"

"Yes, that's it, just for a little while, till you can get work and earn money enough to keep us both," said Rhoda cheerfully.

This was the plea she urged with her mother, for Mrs. Morris needed some coaxing before she would agree to the plan. Like her children, she had thought, if Frank could get a place and earn a little, Rhoda might stay at home and keep the house comfortable, and get the meals ready for them both, and help her, perhaps, occasionally with the sewing.

It is not easy to give up a long-cherished plan, and it was a disappointment to Rhoda and her mother to have to abandon theirs, and accept what seemed to be forced upon them by circumstances.

"I don't like it, Rhoda, but we must believe that God knows what is best for us, and certainly I would rather you went to Mrs. Wright's sister than to a stranger. Yes, I will go in and talk to her presently. And now you had better make haste to school, for if you are not to go there much longer, you had better learn all you can now."

An hour later, Mrs. Morris went in to see Mrs. Wright about her proposal. And before she left, it was settled that Rhoda should go the very next day to Rilchester.

When Rhoda called at Mrs. Wright's on her way home from school, she heard how the matter had been settled. And Mrs. Wright had written a few words which she wanted Rhoda to take to the nearest post office and copy on to a telegraph form, and send it, that her sister might know without delay that Rhoda was coming.

She read the words as she went along again and again:

"Rhoda Morris coming to-morrow; meet 4.30 train."

It did not seem possible that such a change in her circumstances could happen so soon.

When she got home, she found her mother busy getting her things together, in readiness for the next day.

"You can only take a few, Rhoda, just enough for a week. But the rest shall be sent on, if you are going to stay."

"'Going to stay'? Why, of course I mean to stay, mother," said Rhoda, but with a sob in her voice that she instantly tried to smother.

Her mother would not notice it, for she understood Rhoda well enough to know that she was trying to keep up a cheerful appearance for her sake.

When Frank came home, she met him with the news of her speedy departure, and that she was to have six pounds a year to begin with, and seven after she had been there six months.

"Think how I shall be able to help mother," she exclaimed, without giving him any time for comment. "I shall be able to pay nearly half the rent out of my wages, and it will not cost more than half as much for bread, because I always eat so much."

"Don't, Rhoda; don't talk like that!" said Frank in a pained voice, looking at his mother to see how she bore the prospect of this separation.

But Mrs. Morris did not raise her eyes from the stocking she was darning. She and Mrs. Wright had talked the whole matter over, and the influence it might have in correcting Rhoda's faults of manner and behaviour, and improving her whole character, until her mother saw that such a discipline as this might prove to be a great blessing to her daughter. But it made the parting none the less painful, and she could not expect Frank to see all that she did.

The brother and sister had always been strongly attached to each other, and it had been Frank's day-dream for years to keep Rhoda at home and work for her. And now for her to have to go out, and he remain at school, was bitter indeed to the boy, she knew.

"Rhoda, I wish you and Frank would go and get me some chips this afternoon," she said, after a pause. "I dare say the men would let you pick them up about the common."

It was not the chips she was thinking of, but her children themselves. A long afternoon together would be a comfort to both of them. While they were with her, both would strive to keep up an appearance of cheerfulness for her sake, but once by themselves, they would pour out their hearts to each other and feel comforted. She, too, might indulge in a few tears when they were away, which she dare not do now.

And so, when the bread and cheese dinner was eaten, Rhoda took a basket and Frank a bag, and they wended their way across the common to where a saw-pit had lately been set up.

Once left to themselves, it was not long before they threw off the thin disguise of cheerfulness with which they had tried to cheat each other with so little success.

"If it wasn't for mother, I would never leave you, Frank!" sobbed Rhoda, fairly bursting into tears, and dropping her basket, to throw her arms round her brother's neck.

There was no one to see, and so Frank could return his sister's embrace, and indulge in a few tears on his own account.

"It is hard," he said with a gasp; "if I had only got that place at Mortimer's, you needn't have gone away. Oh, Rhoda, why does God let things happen like this, when it would be so easy for Him to alter it?"

Rhoda shook her head and choked back her sobs. "I won't believe God likes to make us unhappy," she said; "of course He just has to manage the best way He can with people, to make things fit in one with the other—things that are often so cross-grained and contrary that there seems no making them fit at all. It would be easy enough, I dare say, for God to make everybody happy and comfortable, if people were all good. But when we will upset everything with our badness, why, He just has to do the best He can for us all round. That's what I mean to believe," concluded Rhoda.

It was poor comfort to her brother just now, who was bent on deploring his own last chance of helping the household, until Rhoda reminded him that it was of no use crying over spilt milk, and the only sensible thing they could do was to bear the pain of parting as bravely and cheerfully as they could, and look forward to the time when they should meet again.

"And then there will be letters, you know, Frank. Every time I see the postman, I shall wonder whether he has brought me one from you and mother, and then I shall have to write to you. Tom Wright is going to give me a packet of paper and envelopes before I go away—I like Tom," added Rhoda.

"I don't," said Frank decisively.

"Why not?" asked his sister with widely opened eyes.

"Well, look here, don't say anything about it, but I believe it was Tom Wright that prevented me getting that place at Mortimer's; he's there, you know."

"Frank!" uttered Rhoda in astonishment.

"Well, I do, Rhoda. He always looks at me so sheepish when I meet him."

"What nonsense! You wouldn't say so if you knew Tom. I believe he only wants to speak to you, and don't know how to begin, because you always march on with your head in the air when you are in the street."

It was Frank's turn to laugh now. "I've got a lot to hold my head up about, certainly," he said, "when my sister's going to service, and I have to stay at school, because I can't get a place."

"Well, I wish you knew Tom. You'll have to speak to him when I am gone, for I shall want you to tell me all the news about the Wrights in your letters. You know all sorts of inquiries are being made about Esther in London, for Mr. Wright feels sure she was carried off there that night when she left Mary Coppinger, and Tom would tell you how they were getting on, if you told him you wanted to let me know."

Frank gave a grumbling assent at last, but only because he would have nothing to write about, he said, if he did not get some news from the neighbours. "Nothing is ever likely to happen to me and mother, and you know exactly how everything goes on here every day. Of course it will be different with you. Everything will be new at once, and we shall wonder what sort of a house you are living in, and where it is, and all about it. Be sure you tell us everything, Rhoda."

His sister promised readily enough. And before they returned home, both agreed that a new element of interest would enter into their lives through this separation, for both would learn the joy of writing and receiving letters—a pleasure quite unknown to them before.

The afternoon spent out on the common did them both good. The mental atmosphere was cleared by the mutual confidences, and a way had been prepared, though neither knew it then, for the righting of a wrong that had been unwittingly committed.

Tom Wright brought a bundle of little presents for Rhoda that night, after he came home from work,—some holland to make aprons from his mother, the paper and envelopes from himself, and five shillings from his father; for all the family felt they owed Rhoda a debt of gratitude for her rescue of Bobbie, and her willing help to them all afterwards.

This gave her the desired opportunity of getting the two boys to speak to each other. And although they did, as Rhoda expressed it, look very shy and sheepish, and said only a few words, still, the ice was broken, and she was able to tell Tom that she wanted him to send, through her brother, all the news about themselves, and the moment they heard anything of Esther or Lilla, to let her know all about them.

"Oh, you would hear that from Aunt Lizzie," said Tom, "but still I'll let you know, the moment anything turns up. And you must keep your eyes open too, Rhoda. You'd be sure to know Lilla by the mole on her chin, and she's got one on her arm too. I used to tease her about it, and call her 'Spotty,'" said Tom with a sigh, relapsing into gravity as he thought of his little sister and her unknown fate.

Tom did not stay long, but he went home feeling vaguely uncomfortable about Frank, and the part he had taken in preventing him from getting the much-coveted place of errand boy. He did not say a word to his mother, for anything that seemed to reflect upon Esther was doubly painful to her now, he knew.

Life was painful to both mother and father now, and the anxiety they were suffering was showing itself in more ways than one. Mrs. Wright's pretty brown hair was almost white now, while her husband stooped like an old man, and seemed to have lost all the spring and elasticity with which he formerly went about his work. The only energy he was capable of now was in the prosecution of inquiries for his missing children. Esther was in London, he felt sure, and through the police and other agencies inquiries were being made, and each day it was hoped something would be heard of the missing girls.

Every time the postman's knock sounded now, Mrs. Wright waited and listened, hoping he was coming to her with some news of her lost darlings. If it was but to tell her they were dead, would be some relief, but this awful uncertainty as to their fate, this ever-growing anxiety and suspense in which her life was passed, was worse than any positive certainty could be, and sometimes threatened to upset her reason.

She had thought it would do her good to have to do all her household work herself, after Rhoda had gone away. But she soon found that her physical strength was not equal to it now, and she was very glad to accept Mrs. Morris's offer to come in and help her for an hour every morning. Sometimes, too, Mrs. Morris would bring her sewing, and sit with her for an hour or two, or mind the house and Bobbie while she went out with the baby. In this way, the two women came to know each other, and were a mutual help and comfort one to the other.

Nothing but her neighbours' extreme need could ever have drawn quiet Mrs. Morris out of her retirement. And if any one had told Mrs. Wright at one time that she would find her greatest solace in the company of a poor broken-down needlewoman, she would have contradicted the assertion. But the very poverty of Mrs. Morris was the factor that made this friendship possible between them. Mrs. Morris could offer to come in and help with the morning's work, as Esther had done, and Mrs. Wright was glad to accept it because she could pay for it, and "be under no obligation."

But the question of obligation soon fell out of consideration between these two friends. Mrs. Morris had tasted of the cup of sorrow too deeply herself to dare to touch with a rough hand the bleeding heart-wounds of her neighbour. But the silent, watchful sympathy that she was able to give was just what Mrs. Wright needed, and, as she often said afterwards, she could scarcely have lived through this time, but for Mrs. Morris, and what she was able to do for her.

Religion had never been to her before, the practical everyday life that it had become to her poorer neighbour. And so she was ill prepared to sustain such a crushing blow as now fell upon her. But by degrees, by a few timely words spoken now and then, she gradually learned the secret of Mrs. Morris's strength and resignation, and discovered that religion was not merely a theory, or science for the church or Sunday school, but a living principle of life, that must animate all its everyday details, if it was to be of any service in sustaining the soul under sorrow and temptation, and give that trusting faith in a Father's loving care that could alone carry it through the trial.