Good Luck

The women who could work got out their needlework, and began to perform their allotted tasks in a very perfunctory manner. Grannie's fingers quite longed and ached for something to do. She was sent for presently to see the doctor, who examined her hand, said it would never be of any use again, ordered a simple liniment, and dismissed her. As Grannie was returning from this visit, she met the labor matron in one of the corridors.

"I wish you would give me something to do," she said suddenly.

"Well, what can you do?" asked the matron. "Has the doctor seen your hand?"

"Yes."

"And what does he say to it?"

"He says it will never be any better."

"Never be any better!" The labor matron fixed Grannie with two rather indignant eyes. "And what are you wasting my time for, asking for work, when you know you can't do it?"

"Oh, yes; I think I can, ma'am – that is, with the left hand. I cannot do needlework, perhaps, but I could dust and tidy, and even polish a bit. I have always been very industrious, ma'am, and it goes sore agen the grain to do nothin'."

"Industrious indeed!" muttered the matron. "If you had been industrious and careful, you wouldn't have found your way here. No, there is no work for you, as far as I can see. Some of the able-bodied women do out the old women's ward; it would never do to trust it to an incapable like yourself. There, I can't waste any more time with you."

The matron hurried away, and Grannie went back to her seat by the fire, in the company of the other old women. They were curious to know what the doctor had said to her, and when she told them they shook their heads and groaned, and said they all knew that would be the case.

"No one hadvanced in life gets better here," said Mrs. Peters; "and you are hadvanced in life, aint you, ma'am?"

"Not so very," replied Grannie indignantly. She felt quite young beside most of the other old paupers.

"Well now, I calc'late you're close on eighty," said Mrs. Peters.

"Indeed, you are mistook," replied Grannie. "I aint seventy yet. I'm jest at the age when it is no expense at all to live, so to speak. I were sixty-eight last November, and no one can call that old. At least not to say very old."

"You look seventy-eight at the very least," said most of the women. They nodded and gave Grannie some solemn, queer glances. They all saw a change in her which she did not know anything about herself. She had aged quite ten years since yesterday.

The one variety in the old women's lives was their meals. Dinner came at half-past twelve, and supper at six. All the huge old family went up to bed sharp at eight. There could not possibly be a more dreary life than theirs. As the days passed on, Grannie recovered from her first sense of chill and misery, and a certain portion of her brave spirit returned. It was one of the rules of the workhouse that the pauper women of over sixty might go out every Sunday from half-past twelve to six. They might also go out for the same number of hours on Thursday. Those who were in sufficiently good health always availed themselves of this outing, and Grannie herself looked forward quite eagerly to Sunday. She scarcely slept on Saturday night for thinking of this time of freedom. She had obtained permission to wear her own neat dress, and she put it on with untold pride and satisfaction on this Sunday morning. Once again some of the spirit of the Simpsons and Phippses came into her. She left the workhouse quite gayly.

"I feel young again," she murmured to herself as she heard the ugly gates clang behind her.

She walked down the road briskly, took an omnibus, and by and by found herself at Bayswater. She had asked Alison to wait in for her, telling the girl that she might be able to pay her a little visit on Sunday. When she rang, therefore, the servants' bell at Mrs. Faulkner's beautiful house, Alison herself opened the door.

Alison looked handsomer than ever in her neat lady's-maid costume.

"Oh, Grannie," she exclaimed. "It is good for sore eyes to see you. Come in, come in. You can't think how kind Mrs. Faulkner is. She says I'm to have you all to myself, and you are to stay to dinner, and David is here; and the housekeeper (I have been telling the housekeeper a lot about you, Grannie) has given us her little parlor to dine in, and Mrs. Faulkner is out for the day. Oh, we'll have quite a good time. Come downstairs at once, dear Grannie, for dinner is waiting."

"Well, child, I am pleased to see you so spry," said Grannie. Her voice felt quite choking when she entered the big, luxurious house. "I'll be able to keep it up fine," she murmured to herself. "Lor', I'm a sight better; it was the air of that place that was a-killin' me. I'll keep it up afore the chil'en, and ef I can manage to do that, why bless the Lord for all his mercies."

David was waiting in the housekeeper's room when Grannie got downstairs. Grannie had never known before what a power of comfort there was in David's strong young step, and the feel of his firm muscular arms, and the sensation of his manly kiss on her cheek.

"Aye, Dave," she said, "I'm a sight better for seeing you, my lad."

"And I for seeing you," replied the boy. "We have missed Grannie, haven't we, Ally?"

"Don't talk of it," said Alison, tears springing to her blue eyes.

"Well, we're all together again now," said Grannie. "Bless the Lord! Set down each side of me, my darlin's, and tell me everything. Oh, I have hungered to know, I have hungered to know."

"Mine is a very good place," said Alison. "Mrs. Faulkner is most kind."

"And ef it weren't for thinking of you, Grannie, and missing you," said David, "why, I'd be as happy as the day is long."

"But tell us about yourself, dear Grannie," said Alison. "How do you like the country, and are Mr. Williams' friends good to you?"

"Real good! that they are," said Grannie. "Why, it's a beautiful big place."

"They are not poor folks, then?" said David.

"Poor!" said Grannie. "I don't go for to deny that there are some poor people there, but they as owns the place aint poor. Lor' bless yer, it's a fine place. Don't you fret for me, my dearies. I'm well provided for, whoever aint."

"But how long are you to stay?" said David. "You can't always be on a visit with folks, even if they are the friends of Mr. Williams."

"Of course I can't stay always," said Grannie, "but Mr. Williams has arranged that I am to stay for a good two or three months at least, and by then, why, we don't know what 'll turn out. Now, chil'en, for the Lord's sake don't let us waste time over an old body like me. Didn't I tell you that I have come to the time o' life when I aint much 'count? Let's talk of you, my dearies, let's talk of you."

"Let's talk of dinner first," said David. "I'm mighty hungry, whoever aint."

The dinner served in Mrs. Faulkner's housekeeper's room was remarkably nourishing and dainty, and Grannie enjoyed the food, which was not workhouse food, with a zest which surprised herself. She thought that she had completely thrown her grandchildren off the scent, and if that were the case, nothing else mattered. When dinner was over the sun shone out brightly, and Alison and David took Grannie out for a walk. They went into Kensington Gardens, which were looking very bright and pretty. Then they came home, and Grannie had a cup of tea, after which she rose resolutely and said it was time for her to go.

"I will see you back," said David, in a determined voice. "I have nothing else to do. I don't suppose those friends of Mr. Williams who are so good to you would mind me coming as far as the door."

"Yes, they would," said Grannie, "they wouldn't like it a bit."

"Now, Grannie, that's all nonsense, you know," said the young man.

"No it aint, my lad, no it aint. You've just got to obey me, David, in this matter. I know what I know, and I won't be gainsaid."

Grannie had suddenly put on her commanding air.

"I am on a visit with right decent folks – people well-to-do in the world, wot keep up everything in fine style – and ef they have fads about relations comin' round their visitors, why shouldn't they? Anyhow, I am bound to respect 'em. You can't go home with me, Dave, but you shall see me to the 'bus, ef you like."

"Well," said Dave, a suspicious, troubled look creeping up into his face, "that's all very fine, but I wish you wouldn't make a mystery of where you are staying, dear Grannie."

"I don't want to," said Grannie. "It's all Mr. Williams. He has been real kind to me and mine, and ef he wants to keep to himself what his friends are doing for me, why shouldn't I obleege him?"

"Why not, indeed?" said Alison. "But are you sure you are really comfortable, Grannie?"

"And why shouldn't I be comfortable, child? I don't look uncomfortable, do I?"

"No, not really, but somehow – "

"Yes, I know what you mean," interrupted David.

"Somehow," said Alison, "you look changed."

"Oh, and ef I do look a bit changed," said the old woman, "it's cause I'm a-frettin' for you. Of course I miss you all, but I'll get accustomed to it; and it's a beautiful big place, and I'm in rare luck to have got a 'ome there. Now I must hurry off. God bless you, my dear!"

Alison stood on the steps of Mrs. Faulkner's house, and watched Grannie as she walked down the street. The weather had changed, and it was now bitterly cold; sleet was falling, and there was a high wind. But Grannie was leaning on Dave's arm, and she got along bravely.

"I don't like it," said Alison to herself, as she went into the house. "Grannie's hiding something; I can't think what it is. Oh, dear, oh dear, how I wish Jim had been true to me. If he only had, we would have made a home for Grannie somehow. Grannie is hiding something. What can it be?"

Meanwhile David saw Grannie to the omnibus, where he bade her an affectionate "good-by." She arranged to come again to see her grandchildren on the following Sunday if all was well.

"But ef I don't come, don't you fret, Dave, boy," was her last word to the lad. "Ef by chance I don't come, you'll know it's because it aint quite convenient in the family I'm staying with. Now, good-by, Dave. Bless you, lad."

The omnibus rolled away, and Grannie snuggled back into her corner. Her visit to her grandchildren had cheered her much, and she thought that she could very well get through a dreary week in the workhouse with that beacon post of Sunday on ahead. She would not for the world trouble the children on work-a-day Thursday, but on Sunday she might as a rule get a sight of them.

"And they suspect nothin', thank the good Lord!" she said, hugging her secret to her breast.

She left the omnibus at the same corner where she had left it on the previous Monday.

The weather meanwhile had been changing for the worse; snow was now falling thickly, and the old woman had no umbrella. She staggered along, beaten and battered by the great tempest of wind and snow. At first she stepped on bravely enough, but by and by her steps grew feeble. The snow blinded her eyes and took away her breath, it trickled in little pools down into her neck, and seemed to find out all the weak parts of her dress. Her thin black shawl was covered with snow; her bonnet was no longer black, but white. Her heart began to beat at first too loudly, then feebly; she tottered forward, stumbling as one in a dream. She was cold, chilled through and through; bitterly, bitterly cold. Suddenly, without knowing it, she put her foot on a piece of orange-peel; she slipped, and the next moment lay prone in the soft snow. Her fall took away her last remnant of strength; try as she would, she found she could not rise. She raised her voice to call for assistance, and presently a stout laboring man came up and bent over the little prostrate woman.

"Let me help you to get up, ma'am," he said politely.

He caught hold of her swollen right hand. The sudden pain forced a sharp scream from her lips.

"Not that hand, please, sir; the other," she said. She put out her left hand.

"Nay, I'll lift you altogether," he said. "Why, you are no weight at all. Are you badly hurt, ma'am?"

"No, no, it's nothin'," said Grannie, panting, and breathing with difficulty.

"And where shall I take you to? You can't walk – you are not to attempt it. Is your home anywhere near here, ma'am?"

In spite of all her pain and weakness, a flush of shame came into the old cheeks.

"It is nigh here, very nigh," said Grannie, "but it aint my home; it's Beverley workhouse, please, sir."

"All right," said the man. He did not notice Grannie's shame.

The next moment he had pulled the bell at the dreary gates, and Grannie was taken in. She was conveyed straight up to the infirmary.

CHAPTER XV

It wanted but a week to Jim Hardy's wedding day. Preparations were in full swing, and the Clays' house was, so to speak, turned topsy-turvy. Jim was considered a most lucky man. He was to get five hundred pounds with his bride. With that five hundred pounds Louisa proposed that Jim should set up in business for himself. He and she would own a small haberdasher's shop. They could stock it well, and even put by a nest-egg for future emergencies. Jim consented to all her proposals. He felt depressed and unlike himself. In short, there never was a more unwilling bridegroom. He had never loved Louisa. She had always been repugnant to him. In a moment of pique he had asked her to marry him, and his repentance began half an hour after his engagement. Still he managed to play his part sufficiently well. Louisa, whose passion for him increased as the days went on, made no complaint; she was true to her promise, and never mentioned Alison's name, and the wedding day drew on apace. The young people's banns had already been called twice in the neighboring church, the next Sunday would be the third time, and the following Thursday was fixed for the wedding. Jim came home late one evening tired out, and feeling more depressed than usual. A letter was waiting for him on the mantelpiece. He had already given notice to quit his comfortable bedroom. He and Louisa were to live for a time – until they had chosen their shop and furnished it – with the Clays. This arrangement was very disagreeable to Jim, but it did not occur to him to demur; his whole mind was in such a state of collapse that he allowed Louisa and her people to make what arrangements they pleased.

"There's a letter for you upstairs," said his landlady, as he hurried past her.

The young man's heart beat fast for a moment. Could Alison by any chance have written to him? He struck a light hastily and looked at the letter, which was lying on his table. No, the handwriting was not Alison's, and when he opened it the first thing he saw was a check, which fell out.

"My Dear Nephew [ran the letter], I hope this finds you well, as it leaves me. You must be a well-grown lad now, and, in short, have come to full man's estate. I have done well in Australia, and if you like to join me here, I believe I can put you in the way of earning a good living. I inclose a draft on the City Bank, London, for one hundred pounds, which will pay your passage and something over. If you like to come, you will find me at the address at the head of this paper. I am making lots of money, and if you have a head on your shoulders, you can help me fine in my business. If you don't care to come, you may use the money to start housekeeping when you marry; but if you are wise you will take my advice.

"Your affectionate uncle,"JAMES HARDY."

Jim fingered the check, and looked absently before him.

"Why shouldn't I get clear out of the whole business?" he said. "I could leave the country to-morrow with this money, and go out and join Uncle James, and make my fortune by and by. Why should I stick to Louisa when I hate her? It's all over with Alison and me. Oh, Alison, how could you love another fellow when I loved you so well, and was so true to you? I can't understand it – no, I can't. I don't believe for a moment that she was telling me the truth the other day – why, there is no other fellow. I have made inquiries and I can't hear of anyone. It isn't as if hundreds wouldn't want her, but she is keeping company with no one. I believe it was an excuse she made; there's a mystery at the bottom of it. Something put her out, and she was too proud to let me see what it was. And, oh dear, why was I so mad as to propose marriage to a girl like Louisa Clay? Yes; why shouldn't I get quit of the thing to-night? I have the money now. I can take Uncle James's advice to-night; why shouldn't I do it?"

Jim stood straight up as these thoughts came to him. He slipped the foreign letter into his pocket, walked with a long stride to the window, flung the sash open, and looked out into the night.

"I can't do it," he muttered; "it isn't in me to be an out-and-out scoundrel. She is not the girl I want, but I have promised her, and I must stick to it; all the same, I am a ruined man. Oh, if Alison had only been true to me."

"Now, old chap, what are you grumbling to yourself for?" said a voice just behind him.

He turned abruptly and met the keen-eyed, ferret-looking face of the detective Sampson. Sampson and Jim had not been very friendly lately, and Jim wondered now in a vague sort of way why his quondam friend had troubled himself to visit him.

"Sit down, won't you?" he said abruptly. "There's a chair."

"I'll shut the door first," said Sampson. "I have got a thing or two to say to you, and you may as well hear me out. You aint behaved straight to me, Jim; you did a shabby thing behind my back; but, Lor' bless you, ef it's saved me from a gel like Louisa Clay, why, I'll be obleeged to you to the end of my days. Look here, I was very near committing myself with that girl. 'Twasn't that I loved her, but I don't go for to deny that she was good-looking, and she certainly did tickle my fancy considerable, and then when I thought of the tidy bit of silver that she would have from her father, I made up my mind that she would be a good enough match for me; but mind you, I never thought her straight – I never yet was mistook in any character I ever studied carefully. I couldn't follow out my calling if I did, Jim, old chap; and that you know well."

"I don't suppose you could, George," said Jim; "but I think it only fair to tell you before you go a step further, that I am engaged to Louisa, and I can't hear her run down by anyone now. So you may as well know that first as last."

"Engaged or not," said Sampson, with curious emphasis, "you have got to hear a thing or two about Louisa Clay to-night."

"If it is bad, I won't hear it," said Jim, clenching his big hand.

"Then you are a greater fool than I took you for; but, look here, you've got to listen, for it concerns that other girl, the girl you used to be so mad on, Alison Reed."

Jim's hands slowly unclenched. He turned round and fixed his great dark eyes with a kind of hungry passion in them on Sampson's face.

"If it has anything to do with Alison I am bound to hear it," he said.

"Then you love her still?" said Sampson, in surprise.

"Love her!" replied Jim; "aye, lad, that I do. I am near mad about her."

"And yet you are going to marry Louisa Clay."

"So it seems, George, so it seems; but what's the good of talking about what can't be cured? Alison has thrown me over, and I am promised to Louisa, and there's an end of it."

"Seems to me much more like that you have thrown Alison over," said Sampson. "Why, I was in the room that night of the play-acting, and I saw Alison Reed just by the stairs, looking as beautiful as a picter, and you come up with that other loud, noisy gel, and you talked to her werry affectionate, I must say. I heard what she said to you – that there wasn't a thing in heaven above, or in earth beneath, she wouldn't do for you. Maybe Alison heard them words too; there's no saying. I was so mad at what I thought Louisa's falsehood to me, that I cut the whole concern fast enough. Well, that's not what I have come to talk on to-night; it is this: I think I have traced the theft of that five-pound note straight home at last."

"You haven't?" said Jim. "Oh, but that's good news indeed; and Alison is cleared?"

"She is; but I don't see how it is good news to you, for the theft is brought home to the gel what is to be your wife in less than a week."

"Nonsense!" said Hardy. "I always said you were too sharp on Louisa. She aint altogether to my taste, I am bound to confess, although I have promised her marriage; but she's not a thief. Come, now, you cannot get me to believe she's as bad as that."

"You listen to me, Hardy, and stay quiet," said Sampson. "I can put what I know in a few words, and I will. From the very first I suspected Louisa Clay. She was jealous of Alison, and had a motive for tryin' to do her a bad turn. She was over head and ears in love with you, as all the world could see. That, when I saw her first, I will own, I began to think as she'd be a good mate for myself, and it come over me that I wouldn't push the inquiry any further. It might be well to know a secret about your wife, to hold over her in case she proved troublesome by'm-by. I am not a feller with any high notions, as perhaps you have guessed – anyhow, I let the thing drop, and I went in for Louisa for the sake of her money. When she threw me over so sharp, you may suppose that my feelings underwent a head-to-tail sort of motion, and I picked up the clew pretty fast again, and worked on it until I got a good thread in my hand. I needn't go into particulars here about all I did and all I didn't do, but I managed first of all to pick up with Shaw, your master. I met him out one evening, and I told him that I knew you, and that you were in an awful taking because your gel, Alison Reed, was thought to have stolen a five-pound note. He talked a bit about the theft, and then I asked him if he had the number of the note. He clapped his hand on his thigh, and said what a fool he was, but he had never thought of the number until that moment. He had looked at it when he put the note in the till as he supposed, and by good luck he remembered it. He said off to me what he believed it was, and I entered it in my notebook.

"'I have you now, my fine lady,' I said to myself, and I went off and did a little bit of visiting in the smartest shops round, and by and by I heard further tidings of the note. It had been changed, two days after it had been stolen, by a young woman answering to Louisa Clay in all particulars. When things had come as far as that, I said to myself —

"'Ef there is a case for bluff, this is one. I'll just go and wring the truth from Louisa before she is an hour older.'

"So I went to see her only this morning. I blarneyed her a bit first – you know my style – and then I twitted her for being false to me, and then I got up a sort of pretense quarrel, and I worked on her feelings until she got into a rage, and when she was all hot and peppery, I faced right round on her, and charged her with the theft.

"'You stole that five-pound note from the till in Shaw's shop,' I said, 'and you let Alison Reed be charged with it. I know you stole it, so you needn't deny it. The number of the note was, one, one, one, seven. I have it written here in my note-book. I traced the note to Dawson's, round the corner, and they can swear, if necessary, in a court of justice, that you gave it to them in exchange for some yards of black silk. By the way, I believe that is the very identical silk you have on you this minute. Oh, fie, Louisa! you are a bad 'un.'

"She turned white as one of them egg-shell china cups, and she put her hands before her eyes, and her hands shook. And after a bit she said:

"'Oh, George, don't have me locked up, and I'll tell you everything."

"'Well, you'll have to put it in writing,' I said, 'or I won't have a crumb of mercy on you.'

"So I got the story out of her, Jim. It seems the note had never been dropped into the till at all, but had fallen on the floor just by the manager's desk, and Louisa had seen it and picked it up, and she confessed to hoping that Alison would be charged with it. Here's her confession in this envelope, signed and witnessed and all. So now, you can marry her come Thursday ef you like."

Sampson got up and stretched himself as he spoke.

Jim's face, which had turned from red to white, and from white again to crimson, during this brief narrative, was now stern and dark.