Chapter IX: Farther Apart, Yet Nearer

"I DON'T know why Jessie and Alice Mitchell should begin bothering about you going to Sunday school," said Mrs. Livesey in a sharp tone. "Their mother doesn't want them. She has a girl, and can go out herself when she likes. What has started them now? You've gone to school for a year without being together on Sundays."

"They have often asked me, but I said you wanted me," whimpered Maggie.

"They might know that without telling," said Mrs. Livesey, and at the moment she gave Maggie's newly washed hair a tug which brought tears into the child's eyes.

"There, there! I didn't mean to hurt you. It's no use talking about Sunday school. You haven't a hat and frock fit to go there in, so say no more about it."

Maggie knew better than to disobey. She crept upstairs to bed in silence, and only indulged in the luxury of a few quiet tears. But she was too tired to remain long awake, and she soon forgot her troubles in dreamless sleep.

What had set Jessie and Alice Mitchell into a state of anxiety to take their friend to school was this.

On the previous Sunday, the anniversary, nearly every scholar had been present, and yet there were some empty seats, and room to place more. The clergyman had called the children's attention to this, and said, "Now, if every two girls or boys would join to try and bring one more scholar, we should have our rooms full, even if all did not succeed. And you, dear children, having tried, would have the happiness of thinking that you had done what you could."

Hence the renewed efforts of Maggie's two friends.

Hence, too, a modest, half-frightened tap at Adam Livesey's door on the following morning, which Maggie junior shrank from answering, whilst the roses fled from her cheeks, for fear of consequences.

Mrs. Livesey opened the door and saw Jessie and Alice, "morals of neatness," as she described them, and in such pretty frocks that her own motherly heart was touched with admiration of the effect produced, and regret that she could not "turn out" her children after the same fashion.

"Please will you let Maggie go to school with us?"

That was all the spokeswoman could say to Mrs. Livesey, but she gave a knowing little nod to her friend, and added, "You see, we've come to call for you, though we never told you we should."

This was a fortunate remark, for Mrs. Livesey was at first inclined to think that Maggie expected this visit, and had kept it a secret.

"It's very kind of you, and I wish my little girl could go, but she can't."

"Why not, Mrs. Livesey? Do, please, let her," pleaded both children, whilst Maggie's face was turned to her mother in mute appeal.

"Why, just look at her frock and hat. Do you think if your mother knew they were her best, she would like such smart little girls to go out with her on Sunday?"

"I'm sure Maggie is always nice. Our mother always says she is quite a pattern, and we like her in any frock. Please let her come."

"But I shouldn't like her to go as she is, thank you all the same," said Mrs. Livesey, with decision.

"When she gets a new hat and frock may she come?" said Alice; and Mrs. Livesey, feeling that the promise might be safely made, answered, "Yes."

The children had to go, or they would be late for school, and they said "good-bye" with considerable cheerfulness, feeling that something had been gained. The time must come even for Maggie to have new clothes, though she made hers last a very long while. It was only consent deferred, and children are very hopeful.

But to Maggie this promise and the sound of the door closing behind her friends were as the death-knell to all her hopes. The child was far above a ragged school, and, it seemed, as far below a regular Sunday school. There was no place just right for Maggie.

In the afternoon, Adam fulfilled the whispered promise made to the child on the day before. He took her out with him, "all by herself, except baby."

Something, he could hardly tell what, attracted him towards Aqueduct Street, and he thought he would just pass the Mission Room, since he could go that way to the park. But, when he would have joined a little group that were hanging round the door, Maggie loudly protested against losing any more time.

"You've come the longest way," she said, "and I don't want to stop here, father."

So, in obedience to the childish hand which drew him, Adam went off towards the park, rather glad, after all, that there was no familiar face amongst the people at the door of the Mission Room.

The Sunday was soon over, and the working week had begun. Adam Livesey's cottage was too far from Rutherford's to allow of his coming home to breakfast, so he took it in the smithy, boiling the water for his tea at one of the hearths. He was in the midst of the meal when he saw the round face of his eldest boy, who was plainly in search of his father. The eager excited look of the child told that something unusual must have occurred.

"Mother's got a letter. It's about grandmother. She's ill, going to die maybe, for she wants mother to go to see her to-day." Dropping his voice to a whisper, he added, "She's sent some money, mother says, but it's only a piece of paper, and you're to get off work, if you can, and come home with me."

It was not likely that so steady a man as Adam Livesey would have any difficulty in getting permission to go back with his boy. It was well known that he never willingly lost an hour's wages, so the foreman at once said, "Go back with the lad by all means;" and Adam, without waiting to finish his breakfast, tied up the remains, slipped on his jacket, and started homeward.

He found his wife excited and tearful. "See," she said, "mother has sent this. A whole five-pound note. She is very ill, and I am to make haste, if I want to see her alive. Ann has written the letter. I am to take baby with me, but how I am to leave the rest of you, I don't know. Maggie is too little to manage by herself, and I've never been used to have anybody in, except when there was a new baby to look after. What am I to do, Adam?"

Mrs. Livesey rarely appealed to her husband, being usually of opinion that she was quite able to manage her household affairs without masculine advice or interference.

"You mind your own business, and I'll mind mine," was a very favourite mode of expression with her.

But the present difficulty, and Adam's mode of dealing with it, showed her that she might have had a worse counsellor than her usually quiet husband.

Adam thought for a minute, then said, "There's a nice steady young woman that comes to Rutherford's sometimes. She brings dinner for Richard Evans when he doesn't go home. Not always, but now and then. I've heard him say she's his niece, and a very good girl. She helps his wife on washing days, when she has nowhere else particular to go."

Richard Evans was the elderly workman who has already been mentioned, and Mrs. Livesey at once declared that if he spoke well of a girl, she would be the right sort. So Adam went to see if her help would be available, and Mrs. Livesey began to prepare for the journey.

She calculated that she might start at two, and reach her mother's home by about six o'clock, always provided she could get a deputy to leave with the children.

In the letter she was told to spend a pound or two to make herself tidy, and in a postscript her sister providently advised her, if she bought a shawl or bonnet, to get a black one, as it would be "most useful after."

"Poor mother! If she had seen that bit of writing put in at the finish, she wouldn't have liked it. She hasn't made much account of you and me for a long while, but we couldn't have written that. Ann was always good at contriving for other folks."

"I wouldn't get a black bonnet, if I were you," had been Adam's remark, when the postscript was read.

"Trust me for that. Why, mother knows I'm not in mourning for anybody, and if she saw me in a new black bonnet, she would say directly I'd got it ready, reckoning on her dying soon. I'll buy a neat dark bonnet, and go in it, and the shawl mother gave me years ago. I've always kept one decent gown, in case I should be sent for, ever. She'll know the clothes, though I doubt if she would know me, I'm so altered."

Mrs. Livesey looked at her face in the little glass that hung on the wall, and truly the image it reflected was very different from that of Maggie Allison in her girlish days.

"I'm only four-and-thirty now," she thought, "and quite a young woman. But that face might be fifty years old. Eh, dear! Girls don't know what's before them when they are so ready to get married."

Though Mrs. Livesey managed to do a good deal of thinking and talking, she was not idle, but went rapidly on with her preparations. "I should never get through," she would say, "if I hadn't learned both to talk and work when I was young."

Maggie junior had to stay from school whilst mother made her purchases, of which baby had the largest share. By the time she had returned from the shop, Adam was there also, with Sarah Evans, whose appearance gladdened Mrs. Livesey's heart. The young woman expressed her willingness to take immediate charge, and to stay for a couple of days or weeks, as might be needed. She was not alarmed at the sight of the five children, for she was one of a large family, and she received with good-humoured attention all the instructions that Mrs. Livesey could crowd into the time at her disposal.

Adam went with his wife to the station, and saw her off. As they went along, she said, "I've just spent two pounds out of the five, and two I'm taking with me, though going and coming won't cost me that much, only I shouldn't like mother to think that wanted her to give me more. You must keep this other pound, Adam. Maybe that young woman won't be able to make your wages spin out till the week end as I do, and this journey will lose you full half a day."

Adam's astonishment at being entrusted with the custody of a whole sovereign, with discretionary powers as to the spending thereof, struck him with temporary dumbness. He was so used to handing over every sixpence into his wife's hands, and feeling humbly grateful when she, now and then, handed him back two or three coppers, which were certain to be spent on the children, that her present confidence touched him to the very heart.

Mrs. Livesey was herself not a little moved. She and Adam had never been parted since their wedding day, and now the railway was going to put a full hundred miles between them. She felt all the solemnity of the occasion, and in her very heart wished Adam were going too.

Many a tender thought crossed the minds of both, that neither tongue expressed, though the man said with an effort, "I'll take care of this money, and keep it whole, if I can, till you come back."

"As if you need tell me that. Why, there never was such a one as you for not spending on yourself. I shall tell them all that if Ann and the others have had more money, they have not had steadier, harder-working husbands. You've never given me an ill word, Adam."

"Why should I, Maggie, lass? If I've worked out o' th' house, you've worked in it. I've often been sorry for you. You were a bright, pretty lass when you married me."

"And I'm not a bright pretty lass now. I look too old for four-and-thirty. They'll hardly know me."

Adam sighed. This remark touched a sensitive chord in his breast.

"But," continued Maggie, "you're just as fond of me yet, aren't you?"

"Fond of thee, my girl! Why, my one trouble has been, not that I got thee, but that thee didn't get a man that could give thee more and better things than I could. You took me, a poor labouring man, of no account, and naught to look at, and you've made every shilling I've earned go as far as most folk's eighteen pence. And you've grown old before your time—all through marrying me, Maggie."

The two were sitting in the railway carriage with the sleeping child in the mother's arms. They were a quarter of an hour too soon, and one of the porters, whom Adam knew, had put them into it, that they might be quiet until train time. They would be all right, he told them, and when this carriage was brought from the siding and attached to the train, Adam could get out.

Mrs. Livesey's face never before had on it such an expression as it wore at that moment. Never in her courting days had she felt so deep an affection for her homely, rugged-looking partner, as she did now that they were about to part for the first time. He had bent his head to kiss the sleeping child that lay on her lap, and as he raised it, Maggie threw her arm round his and drew his rough face to hers.

"Adam, Adam," she sobbed out, "never you talk of being o' no account to me. Never you say such words as you did just now. Listen, my man. If I had it to do again, I'd choose you, mind this, knowing all I know now, and with all to come that has come. Just think of that while I'm away, will you? I've tried your temper many a time. I wonder you've stood it, and not gone off drinking, like many have done. When I come back, I'm not sure that I shall be a bit better. I shall be the same Maggie, with the same tongue, and the old place and work before me. But you'll remember what I've said to-day."

Then there was a shower of kisses on Adam's rugged face, which were heartily returned, as her clasping arm held him close, and his arms were round her. Then there was a cry of "All tickets ready," and Maggie had to produce hers, as Adam left the carriage.

He stood watching the train till it was out of sight, and then went back to Rutherford's, like a man in a dream. Some of the workmen noticed the light on his face that afternoon, and Jim, the wag of the smithy, joked Adam about it.

"He's got rid of his missis for a bit, and he's going to shake a loose leg. You can tell by his face that he's up to mischief of some sort."

But Adam only smiled and shook his head, saying, "I'll give you all leave to watch me."

The happy look remained on his face. The daydream in which he was indulging was evidently a pleasant one.