Good Luck

"Good-by, child," she said, nodding to her granddaughter. Then she trotted downstairs and out into the street.

There was no fog to-day – the air was keen and bright, and there was even a very faint attempt at some watery sunbeams. There wasn't a better bargainer in all Shoreditch than Mrs. Reed, but to-day her purchases were very small – a couple of Spanish onions, half a pound of American cheese, some bread, a tiny portion of margarine – and she had expended what money she thought proper.

She was soon at home again, and dinner was arranged.

"I may as well get the dinner," said Alison, rising and taking the basket from the old woman.

"My dear, there aint nothing to get; it's all ready. The children must have bread for dinner to-day. I bought a stale quartern loaf – I got a penny off it, being two days old; here's a nice piece of cheese; and onions cut up small will make a fine relish. There, we'll put the basket in the scullery; and now, Alison, come over to the light and take a lesson in the feather-stitching."

Alison followed Mrs. Reed without a word. They both took their places near the window.

"Thread that needle for me, child," said the old woman.

Alison obeyed. Mrs. Reed had splendid sight for her age; nothing had ever ailed her eyes, and she never condescended to wear glasses, old as she was, except by lamplight. Alison therefore felt some surprise when she was invited to thread the needle. She did so in gloomy and solemn silence, and gave it back with a suppressed sigh to her grandmother.

"I don't think there's much use, Grannie," she said.

"Much use in wot?" said Mrs. Reed.

"In my learning that feather-stitching – I haven't it in me. I hate needlework."

"Oh, Ally!"

Grannie raised her two earnest eyes.

"All women have needlework in 'em if they please," she said; "it's born in 'em. You can no more be a woman without needlework than you can be a man without mischief – it's born in you, child, the same as bed-making is, and cleaning stoves, and washing floors, and minding babies, and coddling husbands, and bearing all the smaller worries of life – they are all born in a woman, Alison, and she can no more escape 'em than she can escape wearing the wedding-ring when she goes to church to be wed."

"Oh, the wedding-ring! that's different," said Alison, looking at her pretty slender finger as she spoke. "Oh, Grannie, dear Grannie, my heart's that heavy I think it 'll break! I can't see the feather-stitching, I can't really." Her eyes brimmed up with tears. "Grannie, don't ask me to do the fine needlework to-day."

Grannie's face turned pale.

"I wouldn't ef I could help it," she said. "Jest to please me, darling, take a little lesson; you will be glad bimeby, you really will. Why, this stitch is in the family, and it 'ud be 'a burning shame for it to go out. Dear, dearie me, Alison, it aint a small thing that could make me cry, but I'd cry ef this beautiful stitch, wot come down from the Simpsons to the Phippses, and from the Phippses to the Reeds, is lost. You must learn it ef you want to keep me cheerful, Ally dear."

"But I thought I knew it, Grannie," said the girl.

"Not to say perfect, love – the loop don't go right with you, and the loop's the p'int. Ef you don't draw that loop up clever and tight, you don't get the quilting, and the quilting's the feature that none of the workwomen in West London can master. Now, see yere, look at me. I'll do a bit, and you watch."

Grannie took up the morsel of cambric; she began the curious movements of the wrist and hand, the intricate, involved contortions of the thread. The magic loop made its appearance; the quilting stood out in richness and majesty on the piece of cambric. Grannie made three or four perfect stitches in an incredibly short space of time. She then put the cambric into her granddaughter's hand.

"Now, child," she said, "show me what you can do."

Alison yawned slightly, and took up the work without any enthusiasm. She made the first correct mystic passage with needle and thread; when she came to the loop she failed to go right, and the effect was bungled and incomplete.

"Not that way; for mercy's sake, don't twist the thread like that!" called Grannie, in an agony. "Give it to me; I'll show yer."

It seemed like profanation to see her exquisite work tortured and murdered. She snatched the cambric from Alison, and set to work to make another perfect stitch herself. At that moment there came the sudden and terrible pain – the shooting agony up the arm, followed by the partial paralysis of thumb and forefinger. Grannie could not help uttering a suppressed groan; her face turned white; she felt a passing sense of nausea and faintness; the work dropped from her hand; the perspiration stood on her forehead. She looked at Alison with wide-open, pitiful eyes.

"Wot is it, Grannie – what is it, darlin'? For God's sake, wot's wrong?" said the girl, going on her knees and putting her arms round the little woman.

"It's writers' cramp, honey, writers' cramp, and me that never writes but twice a year; it's starvation, darlin'. Oh, darlin', darlin', it's starvation – that's ef you don't learn the stitch."

All of a sudden Grannie's fortitude had given way; she sobbed and sobbed – not in the loud, full, strong way of the young and vigorous, but with those low, suppressed, deep-drawn sobs of the aged. All in a minute she felt herself quite an old and useless woman – she, who had been the mainspring of the household, the breadwinner of the family! All of a sudden she had dropped very low. Alison was full of consternation, but she did not understand grief like Grannie's. She was at one end of life, and Grannie was at the other; the old woman understood the girl – having past experience to guide her – but the girl could not understand the old woman. It was a relief to Grannie to tell out her fear, but Alison did not comprehend it; she was full of pity, but she was scarcely full of sympathy. It seemed impossible for her to believe that Grannie's cunning right hand was going to be useless, that the beautiful work must stop, that the means of livelihood must cease, that the old woman must be turned into a useless, helpless log – no longer the mainspring, but a helpless addition to the strained household.

Alison could not understand, but she did her best to cheer Grannie up.

"There, there," she said; "of course that doctor was wrong. In all my life I never heard of such a thing as writers' cramp. Writers' cramp! – it's one of the new diseases, Grannie, that doctors are just forcing into the world to increase their earnings. I heard tell in the shop, by a girl what knows, that every year doctors push two new diseases into fashion, so as to fill their pockets. But for them, we'd never have had influenza, and now it's writers' cramp is to be the rage. Well, let them as writes get it; but you don't write, you know, Grannie."

"That's wot I say," replied Grannie, cheering up wonderfully. "No one can get a disease by writing two letters in a year. I don't suppose it is it, at all."

"I'm sure it isn't," said Alison; "but you are just tired out, and must rest for a day or two. It's a good thing that I'm at home, for I can rub your hand and arm with that liniment. You'll see, you'll be all right again in a day or two."

"To be sure I will," said Grannie; "twouldn't be like my luck ef I warn't." But all the same she knew in her heart of hearts that she would not.

CHAPTER VII

Both Alison and Mrs. Reed were quite of the opinion that, somehow or other, the affair of the five-pound note would soon be cleared up. The more the two women talked over the whole occurrence, the more certain they were on that point. When Grannie questioned her carefully, Alison confessed that while she was attending to her two rather troublesome customers, it would have been quite within the region of possibility for someone to approach the till unperceived. Of course Alison had noticed no one; but that would not have prevented the deed being done.

"The more I think of it, the more certain I am it's that Clay girl," said Grannie. "Oh, yes, that Clay girl is at the bottom of it. I'll tell Jim so the next time he calls."

"But I don't expect Jim to call – at least at present," said Alison, heaving a heavy sigh, and fixing her eyes on the window.

"And why not, my dearie, why shouldn't you have the comfort of seeing him?"

"It aint a comfort at present, Grannie; it is more than I can bear. I won't engage myself to Jim until I am cleared, and I love him so much, Grannie, and he loves me so much that it is torture to me to see him and refuse him; but I am right, aint I? Do say as I'm right."

"Coming of the blood of the Simpsons, the Phippses and Reeds, you can do no different," said Grannie, in a solemn tone. "You'll be cleared werry soon, Alison, for there's a God above, and you are a poor orphin girl, and we have his promise that he looks out special for orphins; oh, yes, 'twill all come right, and in the meantime you might as well take a lesson in the feather-stitching."

But though Grannie spoke with right good faith, and Alison cheered up all she could, things did not come right. The theft was not brought home to the wicked Clay girl, as Grannie now invariably called her; Shaw did not go on his knees to Alison to return; and one day Jim, who did still call at the Reeds' notwithstanding Alison's prohibition, brought the gloomy tidings that Shaw was seeing other girls with a view to filling up Alison's place in the shop. This was a dark blow indeed, and both Alison and Grannie felt themselves turning very pale, and their hearts sinking, when Jim brought them the unpleasant news.

"Set down, Jim Hardy, set down," said Grannie, but her lips trembled with passion as she spoke. "I don't want to see anyone in my house that I don't offer a chair to, but I can't think much of your detective powers, lad, or you'd have got your own gel cleared long ere this."

"I aint his own girl, and he knows it," said Alison, speaking pertly because her heart was so sick.

Jim hardly noticed her sharp words – he was feeling very depressed himself – he sank into the chair Grannie had offered him, placed his big elbows on his knees, pushed his huge hands through his thick hair, and scratched his head in perplexity.

"It's an awful mystery, that it is," he said; "there aint a person in the shop as don't fret a bit for Ally – she was so bright and genteel-looking; and no one thinks she's done it. If only, Alison, you hadn't gone away so sharp, the whole thing would have blown over by now."

"Coming of the blood – " began Grannie; but Alison knew the conclusion of that sentence, and interrupted her.

"Bygones is bygones," she said, "and we have got to face the future. I'll look out for another post to-day; I'll begin to study the papers, and see what can be done. It aint to be supposed that this will crush me out and out, and me so young and strong."

"But you'll have to get a character," said Jim, whose brow had not relaxed from the deep frown which it wore.

Alison gave her head another toss.

"I must do my best," she said. She evidently did not intend to pursue the subject further with her lover.

Jim was not at all an unobservant man. He had seen many signs which distressed him, both in Grannie's face and Alison's; he knew also that Harry had been taken from school quite a year too soon; he knew well that Alison's bread winnings were necessary for the family, and that it was impossible to expect an old body like Grannie to feed all those hungry mouths much longer.

"Look here," he said, rising suddenly to his feet, "I have got something to say."

"Oh, dear, dear, why will you waste our time?" said Alison.

"It aint waste, and you have got to listen – please, Mrs. Reed, don't go out of the room; I want you to hear it too. Now, you look at me, Alison Reed. I am big, aint I, and I'm strong, and I earn good wages, right good – for a man as isn't twenty-five yet. I'm getting close on two pounds a week now, and you can see for yourselves that that's a good pile."

"Bless us!" said Grannie, "it's a powerful heap of money."

"Well, I'm getting that," said Jim, with a sort of righteous pride on his face, "and no one who knows what's what could complain of the same. Now, this is what I'm thinking. I am all alone in the world; I haven't kith nor kin belonging to me, only an uncle in Australia, and he don't count, as I never set eyes on him. I'd have never come to London but for father and mother dying off sudden when I was but a bit of a lad. I'm sort of lonely in the evenings, and I want a wife awful bad."

"Well, there's Louisa Clay, and she's willing," said Alison, who, notwithstanding that her heart was almost bursting, could not restrain her flippant tone.

Jim gave her a steady look out of his dark gray eyes, but did not reply. She lowered her own eyes then, unable to bear their true and faithful glance.

"What I say is this," said Jim, "that I know you, Alison; you aint no more a thief than I am. Why shouldn't you come home to me? Why shouldn't you make me happy – and why shouldn't I help the lads and Grannie a bit? You'd have as snug a home as any girl in London; and I'd be proud to work for you. I wouldn't want you to do any more shopwork. Why should we wait and keep everybody wretched just for a bit of false pride? Why should you not trust me, Ally? And I love you, my dear; I love you faithful and true."

"I wish you wouldn't say any more, Jim," said Alison.

The note in her voice had changed from sharp petulance to a low sort of wail. She sank on a chair, laid her head on the table which stood near, and burst into tears.

"Grannie, I wish you would try and persuade her," said the young man.

"I'll talk to her," said Grannie; "it seems reasonable enough. Two pounds a week! Lor' bless us! why, it's wealth – and ef you love her, Jim?"

"Need you ask?" he answered.

"No, I needn't; you're a good lad. Well, come back again, Jim; go away now and come back again. We'll see you at the end of a week, that we will."

Jim rose slowly and unwillingly. Alison would not look at him. She was sobbing in a broken-hearted way behind her handkerchief.

"I don't see why there should be suspense," he said, as he took up his cap. "It's the right thing to do; everything else is wrong. And see here, Alison, I'll take a couple of the children; they don't cost much, I know, and it will be such a help to Grannie."

"To be sure, that it will," said Grannie. "That offer about the children is a p'int to be considered. You go away, Jim, and come back again at the end of a week."

The young man gave a loving glance at Alison's sunny head as it rested on the table. His inclination was to go up to her, take her head between his hands, raise the tearful face, kiss the tears away, and, in short, take the fortress by storm. But Grannie's presence prevented this, and Alison would not once look up. The old woman gave him an intelligent and hopeful glance, and he was obliged to be content with it and hurry off.

"I'll come again next Tuesday to get my answer," he said.

Alison murmured something which he did not hear. The next instant he had left the room.

The moment his footsteps had died away Alison raised her tearful face.

"You had no right to do it, Grannie," she said. "It was sort of encouraging him."

"Dry your tears now, child," said Mrs. Reed. "We'll talk of this later on."

"You said yourself I'd have no proper pride to marry Jim at present," continued the girl.

"We'll talk of this later on," said Grannie; "the children will be home in a minute to tea. After tea you and me will talk it over while they are learning their lessons."

Grannie could be very immovable and determined when she liked. Having lived with her all her life, Alison knew her every mood. She perceived now, by her tightly shut up lips, and the little compression, which was scarcely a frown, between her brows, that she could get nothing more out of her at present.

She prepared the tea, therefore; and when the children came in she cut bread and margerine for them, for butter had long ago ceased to appear on Grannie's board.

After tea the children went into Grannie's bedroom to learn their lessons, and the old woman and the young found themselves alone. The lamp was lit, and the little room looked very cheerful; it was warm and snug. Grannie sat with her hands before her.

"I thought I wouldn't tell you, but I must," she said. "It's a month to-day, aint it, Ally, since you lost your place?"

"Yes, a month exactly," replied Alison. "It is close on Christmas now, Grannie."

"Aye," said the old woman, "aye, and Christmas is a blessed, cheerful time. This is Tuesday; Friday will be Christmas Day. We must have a nice Christmas for the children, and we will too. We'll all be cheerful on Christmas Day. Jim might as well come, whatever answer you give him next week. He's all alone, poor lad, and he might come and join our Christmas dinner."

"But we haven't much money," said Alison. "We miss what I earned at the shop, don't we?"

"We miss it," said Grannie, "yes."

She shut up her lips very tightly. At this moment quick footsteps were heard running up the stairs, and the postman's sharp knock sounded on the little door. Alison went to get the letter. It was for Grannie, from a large West End shop; the name of the shop was written in clear characters on the flap of the envelope.

Grannie took it carefully between the thumb and finger of her left hand – she used her right hand now only when she could not help it. No one remarked this fact, and she hoped that no one noticed it. She unfastened the flap of the envelope slowly and carefully, and, taking the letter out, began to read it. It was a request from the manager that she would call at ten o'clock the following morning to take a large order for needlework which was required to be completed in a special hurry. Grannie laid the letter by Alison's side.

Alison read it. She had been accustomed to such letters coming from that firm to Grannie for several years. Such letters meant many of the comforts which money brings; they meant warm fires, and good meals, and snug clothes, and rent for the rooms, and many of the other necessaries of life.

"Well," said the girl, in a cheery tone, "that's nice. You have nearly finished the last job, haven't you, Grannie?"

"No, I aint," said Grannie, with a sort of gasp in her voice.

"I thought I saw you working at it every day."

"So I have been, and in a sense it is finished and beautiful, I am sure; but there aint no feather-stitching. I can't manage the feather-stitching. I can never featherstitch any more, Alison. Maybe for a short time longer I may go on with plain needlework, but that special twist and the catching up of the loop in the quilting part of the feather-stitching, it's beyond me, darlin'. 'Taint that I can't see how to do it, 'taint that I aint willing, but it's the finger and thumb, dearie; they won't meet to do the work proper. It's all over, love, all the money-making part of my work. It's them letters to Australia, love. Oh, dear! oh, dear!"

Grannie laid her white head down on the table. It was a very sad sight to see it there, a much more pathetic sight than it had been to see Alison's golden head in the same position an hour or two ago. There was plenty of hope in Alison's grief, heart-broken as it seemed, but there was no hope at all in the old woman's despair. The last time she had given way and spoken of her fears to Alison she had sobbed; but she shed no tears now – the situation was too critical.

"Ef you had only learned the stitch," she said to her granddaughter. There was a faint shadow of reproach in her tone. "I can't show it to you now; but ef you had only learned it."

"But I do know it," said Alison, in distress.

"Not proper, dear; not as it should be done. I fear that I can never show you now."

"And that is why you want me to marry Jim?" said Alison. "I wonder at you, Grannie – you who have such pride!"

"There are times and seasons," said Grannie, "when pride must give way, and it seems to me that we have come to this pass. I looked at Jim when he was talking to-day, and I saw clear – clear as if in a vision – that he would never cast up to you those words that you dread. If you are never cleared of that theft, Alison, Jim will never call his wife a thief. Jim is good to the heart's core, and he is powerful rich, and ef you don't marry him, my gel, you'll soon be starving, for I can't do the feather-stitching. I can't honestly do the work. I'll go and see the manager to-morrow morning; but it's all up with me, child. You ought to marry Jim, dear, and you ought to provide a home for the two little ones – for Polly and little Kitty."

"And what's to become of you, Grannie, and Dave, and Harry, and Annie?"

"Maybe Jim would take Annie too, now that he is so rich."

"Do you think it would be right to ask him?"

"No, I don't; no, I don't. Well, anyhow, it is good to have half the fam'ly put straight. You will think of it, Ally, you will think of it; you've got a whole week to think of it in."

"I will think of it," said Alison, in a grave voice.

She got up presently; she was feeling very restless and excited.

"I think I'll go out for a bit," she said.

"Do, child, do; it will bring a bit of color into your cheeks."

"Is there anything I can get for you, Grannie – anything for Christmas? You said we were to be happy till after Christmas."

"So we will; I have made up my mind firm on that p'int. We'll have a right good Christmas. There's three pounds in my purse. We'll spend five shillings for Christmas Day. That ought to give us a powerful lot o' good food. Oh, yes, we'll manage for Christmas."

"This is Tuesday," said Alison, "and Christmas Day comes Friday. Shall I get any of the things to-night, Grannie?"

Grannie looked up at the tall girl who stood by her side. She saw the restless, agitated expression on the young face.

"She'll like to have the feel of money in her hands again," thought the little woman. "I'll trust her with a shillin'. Lor', I hope she'll be careful with it. Twelve pennies can do a mint ef they're spent careful."

She went slowly to her cupboard, took her keys out of her pocket, unlocked it with her left hand, and, taking her little purse from a secret receptacle at the back of the cupboard, produced a shilling from her hoard.

"There," she said, "for the Lord's sake don't drop it; put it safe in your pocket. You might get the raisins for the puddin' and the sugar and the flour out o' this. You choose from the bargain counter, and use your eyes, and don't buy raisins what have got no fruit in 'em. Sometimes at bargain counters they are all skin, and good for nothink; but ef you are sharp you can sometimes pick up right good fruity fruit, and that's the sort we want. Now, don't be long away. Yes, for sure, we may as well have the stuff for the puddin' in the house."

Alison promised to be careful. She put on her neat black hat and jacket and went out. She had scarcely gone a hundred yards before she came straight up against Louisa Clay. Louisa looked very stylish in a large mauve-colored felt hat, and a fur boa round her neck; her black hair was much befrizzed and becurled. Alison shrank from the sight of her, and was about to go quickly by when the other girl drew up abruptly.

"Why, there you are," she said; "I was jest thinking of coming round to see yer."

Alison stood still when she was addressed, but she did not make any remark. Her intention was to go on as soon as ever Louisa had finished speaking. Louisa's own intention was quite different.

"Well, I am glad," she continued. "I have a lot of things to say. Do you know your place is filled up?"

"Yes," said Alison, flushing. "Jim told me."

"Jim!" repeated Louisa, with a note of scorn. "Don't you think you are very free and easy with Mr. Hardy? And when did you see him?" she added, a jealous light coming into her eyes.

"He was at our house this afternoon. I must say good-evening now, Louisa. I am in a hurry; I am doing some errands for Grannie."

"Oh, I don't mind walking a bit o' the way with you. You are going shopping, is it?"

"Well, yes; Christmas is near, you know."

Alison felt herself shrinking more and more from Louisa. She hated her to walk by her side. It irritated her beyond words to hear her speak of Jim. She dreaded more than she could tell Louisa finding out how poor they were; nothing would induce her to get the bargain raisins or any of the other cheap things in her presence.