Chapter Four.
“Kettles.”
Pennie was haunted for days after the fair by the bright pages of “Siegfried the Dragon Slayer,” for she became more and more conscious that she had made a useless sacrifice. She might just as well have bought it, she sadly reflected; none of the others seemed the least likely to help her in her plan, and certainly she could not carry it out alone. The more she thought of it the more injured and disappointed she felt. It was certainly a good plan, and it was certainly right to sacrifice one’s self; of those two things she was sure, and it both hurt and surprised her to be unable to impress this on her brothers and sisters. Pennie was used to command, and accustomed to success in most of her little schemes, and it seemed hard to be deserted in this way. She stood on a lonely height of virtue, conscious of setting a good example of generosity; but it was not a cheerful position, and, besides, no one seemed to notice it, which was vexatious and trying. This made her by turns condescending and cross, so that she was neither so happy herself nor so pleasant a companion as she had been.
“I can’t think why you’re so disagreeable,” said Nancy at last. “If it’s because you’ve put all your money into the box, I wish you’d take it out again and be as you were before.”
“You don’t understand,” said Pennie, “you never give up anything.”
“Yes, I do,” replied Nancy quickly, “I’ve given up three weeks’ money for that broken window.”
“That wasn’t sacrifice,” answered Pennie; “you had to do that. Sacrifice means giving up something you like for the sake of other people.”
“Well, if it makes you cross and tiresome I wish you wouldn’t sacrifice things,” replied Nancy; “I don’t see the good of it. Do you know,” she added, seizing hold of David’s black kitten, “that mother says we may go and see old Nurse?”
Pennie’s brow cleared at once, the peevish look left her face.
“Oh, when?” she exclaimed joyfully.
“This afternoon,” said Nancy. “Mother’s going to drive into Nearminster, and leave us at the College while she goes to see Miss Unity. Isn’t it jolly?”
“I suppose we shall have tea with Nurse,” said Pennie; “but,” she added, “I hope Dickie isn’t to go this time. She does spoil everything so.”
“Only you and me,” said Nancy, rolling the kitten tightly up in a newspaper so that only its head appeared. “Doesn’t it look like a mummy cat? There’s one just like it at Nearminster. It would do for the boys’ museum.”
“It wouldn’t stay there long,” said Pennie, as the kitten writhed and wriggled itself out of the paper. “I am real glad we’re going to see old Nurse.”
“Do you like going in winter or summer best?” asked Nancy.
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Pennie. “I like both. But I think perhaps it looks nicer in summer, because you see the flowers are in bloom and the old people are sitting on the benches, and all that.”
“I like winter best,” said Nancy, “because of making the toast.”
All the year round a visit to old Nurse was one of the children’s greatest pleasures, but it was specially so to Pennie. She now felt quite cheerful and happy in the prospect, not only because she was very fond of her, but because she lived in such an extremely delightful and interesting place. For Mrs Margetts, who had been Mrs Hawthorne’s nurse when she was a child, had now left service for many years and taken up her abode in the almshouse at Nearminster, or The College as it was called. Next to the cathedral Pennie thought it the nicest place she had ever seen, and there was something most attractive to her in its low-arched massive doors, its lattice windows with their small leaded panes, and its little old chapel where the pensioners had a service and a chaplain all to themselves.
The College was built in the form of a quadrangle, one side of which faced the High Street, so that though they were snugly sheltered within from noise and turmoil, the inmates could still look out upon the busy life they had quitted. As you passed the entrance you caught glimpses of bright green turf, of trim borders of flowers, of neat gravel paths and quaint old figures standing about, or sitting on stone benches against the walls. Over it all rested the air of peace and stillness. It was a place where neither hope nor fear, labour nor struggle could come. These were left outside in the troublesome world, and all who entered here had nothing more to do with them. They might sit in the sun with folded hands, talk over their past hardships, grumble a little at their present aches and pains, gossip a great deal, and so get gently nearer and nearer to the deepest rest of all.
The bishop, who had founded the College long ago, still stood carved in stone over the doorway, crozier in hand, watching the many generations of weary old souls who crept in at his gate for refuge. Pennie thought he had an expression of calm severity, as if he knew how ungrateful many of them were for his bounty, how they grumbled at the smallness of the rooms, the darkness of the windows, and the few conveniences for cooking. It must be hard for him to hear all those murmurs after he had done so much for them; but he had at any rate no want of gratitude to complain of in old Nurse, who was as proud of her two tiny rooms as though they had been a palace.
Mrs Margetts was in all matters disposed to think herself one of the most fortunate people upon earth. For instance, to be settled so near her dear “Miss Mary,” as she still called Mrs Hawthorne, and to have the pleasure of visits from the little “ladies and gentlemen,” was enough to fill anyone’s heart with thankfulness. What could she want more? She was indeed highly favoured beyond all desert. Other people may have thought that a life of faithful service and unselfish devotion to the interests of her employers had well earned the reward of a few quiet years at its end. But old Nurse did not look upon her good fortune as due to any merits of her own, but to the extraordinary kindness and generosity of others, so that she was in a constant state of surprise at their thoughtfulness and affection.
Not less did she cherish and respect the memory of the days which came before Mrs Hawthorne’s marriage, and this was what the children liked best to hear. Stories of Miss Mary, Master Charles, Miss Prissy, and the rest, who were now all grown-up people, never became wearisome, and certainly Nurse was never tired of telling them. Her listeners knew them almost by heart, and if by any chance she missed some small detail, it was at once demanded with a sense of injury.
Pennie, in particular, drank in her words eagerly, and would sit entranced gazing with an ever-new interest at the relics of the “family” with which the little room was filled. Hanging by the fireplace was a very faded kettle-holder, worked in pink and green wool by Miss Mary, now Mrs Hawthorne; on the mantel-piece a photograph of a family group, in which Miss Mary appeared at the age of ten in a plaid poplin frock, low in the neck and short in the sleeves, with her hair in curls; on each side of her stood a brother with a grave face and a short jacket.
There was a great deal to be told about this picture. Nurse remembered, she said, as if it was yesterday, the day it was “took.” Master Owen had a swollen cheek, and had cried and said he did not want his picture done, but he had been promised a pop-gun if he stood still, and had then submitted. And that was why he stood side-face in the photograph, while Master Charles faced you. It was almost past belief to Pennie and Nancy that Uncle Owen, who was now a tall man with a long beard, had ever been that same puffy-cheeked little boy, bribed to stand-still by a pop-gun.
There were also on the mantel-piece two white lions or “monsters,” as Nurse called them, presented by Miss Prissy, and quite a number of small ornaments given from time to time by the Hawthorne children themselves. But perhaps the crowning glory of Nurse’s room was a sampler worked by herself when a girl. Pennie looked at this with an almost fearful admiration, for the number of tiny stitches in it were terrible to think of. “I’m glad people don’t have to work samplers now,” she often said. This was indeed a most wonderful sampler, and it hung against the wall framed and glazed as it well deserved, a lasting example of industry and eyesight. At the top sat the prophet Elijah under a small green bush receiving the ravens, who carried in their beaks neat white bundles of food. Next came the alphabet, all the big letters first, and then a row of small ones. Then the Roman numerals up to a hundred, then a verse of poetry:—
“Time like an ever-rolling stream
Bears all its sons away,
They fly forgotten as a dream
Dies at the break of day.”
And then Nurse’s name, “Kezia Margetts,” and the date when this great work was completed.
Dickie’s favourite amongst all Nurse’s curious possessions was what she called her “weather-house,” a building of cardboard covered with some gritty substance which sparkled. The weather-house had two little doors, out of one of which appeared an old woman when it was fine, and out of the other an old man when it was going to be wet. They had become rather uncertain, however, in their actions, because Dickie had so often banged the naughty old man to make him go in, supposing him to have a bad influence on the weather. Nurse spoiled Dickie dreadfully, the other children considered, and they were pleased when she did not make one of the party.
“I suppose Nurse knows we’re coming?” said Pennie, as they were driving from Miss Unity’s house, where they had left their mother, to the College.
“Of course,” replied Nancy; “you know we never take her by surprise, because she always likes to get something for tea.”
“I don’t think surprises are nice,” said Pennie. “I like to have lots of time to look forward to a thing. That’s the best part.”
“I like to surprise other people though,” said Nancy; “it’s great fun, I think. Here we are!”
There were no old people standing about in the garden, and all the benches were empty, for it was a chilly autumn afternoon. As the children crossed the quadrangle they saw here and there, through the latticed panes, the cheerful glow of a fire.
“It must be very nice to be an old woman and live here,” said Pennie.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Nancy. “How would you like to be Mrs Crump?”
Mrs Crump was a discontented old lady who lived in the room beneath Nurse. For some reason Nancy took a deep interest in her, and even in the middle of Nurse’s best stories she was always on the alert for the least sound of the sharp complaining tones below.
“Oh, of course not!” said Pennie hastily; “I mean some contented, good-natured old woman.”
“Mrs Crump says,” continued Nancy, “that she never knew what it was to be quick in her temper till she felt the want of an oven. She thinks it’s the baker’s bread that makes her cross. She turns against it, and that makes her speak sharp.”
“She’s a tiresome old woman,” said Pennie, “and I can’t make out why you like to hear about her, or talk to her. Let’s go up softly, else she’ll come out.”
“I should like her to,” said Nancy as the little girls climbed the steep carpeted stairs which led up to Nurse’s room. “She’s just like an old witch woman.”
The children were warmly received by Nurse, who was waiting for them with all her preparations made. A snug round tea-table, with a bunch of chrysanthemums in the middle, a kettle hissing hospitably on the hob, and something covered up hot in the fender. She herself was arrayed in her best cap, her black silk gown, and her most beaming smiles of welcome.
“It’s my turn to make the toast,” said Nancy, pulling off her gloves briskly. “You’ve got a lovely fire. You cut the bread, Pennie. Thick.”
“And how’s Miss Dickie?” said Nurse, watching these preparations with a delighted face. “Bless her dear little heart, I haven’t seen her this long while.”
“She wanted to come,” said Pennie, “but she’s got a cold, so mother wouldn’t let her.”
“A little dear,” repeated Nurse. She sat with her hands folded on her waist, turning her kind round face first on Pennie and then on Nancy, who, kneeling on the hearth, was making toast in a business-like serious manner.
“How’s Mrs Crump?” inquired the latter.
“Well, she’s rather contrairy in her temper just now, my dear,” answered Nurse.
“She always is, isn’t she?” returned Nancy.
“I can’t altogether deny that, Miss Nancy,” said Nurse, chuckling comfortably; “but you see it’s a constant trouble with her that her room window don’t look on the street. She’s been used to a deal of life before she came here, and she finds it dull, and that makes her short. When you’ve been used to stirring and bustling about, charing and so on, it do seem a bit quiet, I daresay.”
“I should have thought,” said Nancy, “that she’d have been glad to rest after all that; but I think I’d rather have a room looking on the street too. I should like watching people pass.”
Pennie was sitting in her favourite place, the window-seat, where Nurse’s flower-pots stood in a row—a cactus, a geranium, and some musk. She looked out into the garden.
“I think this way’s much the nicest,” she said, “because of the flowers and the grass, and the quietness.”
“Tea’s ready!” exclaimed Nancy, springing up from the fire with one scarlet cheek, and waving the last piece of toast on the top of the toasting-fork.
The little party drew in their chairs, Pennie pouring out tea, as usual on these occasions, for to her own great delight Nurse was always treated rather as a guest than hostess. By the good luck which, she considered, always attended her, she had that very morning received a present of a pot of honey, and she was pressing this on her visitors when the sound of a footstep was heard on the stairs.
“Perhaps it’s Mrs Crump!” exclaimed Nancy eagerly. “If it is, do ask her to tea.”
“It isn’t Mrs Crump,” said Pennie, listening; “it’s somebody whose boots are much too big.”
The steps came slowly up the steep stairs, one at a time, with evident difficulty, and then there was a timid knock at the door.
“I know who it is. You may come in, Kettles,” said Nurse, raising her voice.
The door opened and Kettles came in. She was a little girl of about Nancy’s age, in a tattered frock, an old shawl, and a straw bonnet hanging back from her head by the strings. Her hair fell rough and tangled over her forehead, beneath which a pair of bright grey eyes looked out half suspiciously at the company, and yet with a sort of mouse-like shrewdness, which was increased by the whole expression of her sharp little pointed face. Pennie glanced at once at her feet. She had been right. Kettles’ boots were many sizes too large for her, which accounted for her difficulty in getting upstairs, and indeed everything she wore seemed to belong to a bigger and older person.
The children both stared in surprise at this little dingy figure, and Kettles returned their gaze, shifting her furtive glance from one face to the other with wonderful swiftness as she stood just inside the door, clasping a cracked china jug to her chest.
“You’ve come for my tea-leaves, haven’t you?” said Nurse as she opened her corner cupboard and took out a basin. “How’s your mother to-day?”
“She’s bad,” said Kettles decidedly, shutting up her mouth very tight after she had spoken.
“Is it her head again?” inquired Nurse.
“It’s ’ralgy all down one side of her face—orful,” said Kettles.
“Well, a cup of tea will do her good,” said Nurse as she put the tea-leaves into the jug.
“Her knees is bad too,” added Kettles, as if unwilling to have the matter too slightly treated.
“Ah! I don’t wonder,” said Nurse sympathetically, “kneeling about in the damp so much as she’s forced to.”
Nancy, who had noticed that Kettles’ eyes were straying over the eatables on the table, here nudged Nurse with her elbow.
“Wouldn’t she like some bread and honey?” she whispered.
“This little lady wants to know if you’d like some bread and honey?” repeated Nurse aloud condescendingly.
Kettles made no answer, though there was a sudden gleam in her eyes.
“Perhaps you don’t like honey?” ventured Pennie slyly.
“Don’t know what it is,” answered Kettles. “I like bread and dripping.”
“Oh, I’m sure it must be much nicer than that,” said Nancy. “That doesn’t sound at all nice. May I spread some for her?” she asked eagerly of Nurse.
It is doubtful if Nurse quite liked such a use made of her honey, for she thought dripping more suitable for such as Kettles, but she could not refuse Nancy anything. So she answered readily enough,—“To be sure, my dear,” and made no objection; while Nancy, choosing the biggest piece of toast, proceeded to plaster it thickly with honey. When, however, these preparations being finished, she dragged up a chair and hospitably invited Kettles to take a seat between herself and Pennie, Nurse felt it time to protest.
“Kettles had better run home now, my dear, and eat it on the way. Her mother will want her.”
But there was such an outcry against this from both the girls that she had to give way, and in a moment the energetic Nancy had seated Kettles at the table, taken away her jug of tea-leaves, and placed the bread and honey before her. A strange addition certainly to Nurse’s tea-party, and quite out of keeping with the fresh neatness of the other visitors, the bright ribbons in Nurse’s cap, and her glistening satin apron. From her battered old bonnet to the grimy little claw in which she held her bread, there was nothing neat or fresh or bright about poor Kettles.
Nurse sat looking on at all this with very mixed feelings. She liked to give the children pleasure, and yet what could be more unsuitable than the close neighbourhood of Kettles? If Mrs Hawthorne or Miss Unity “chanced in,” what would they think of finding Pennie and Nancy in such strange company? They would certainly blame Nurse for allowing it, and quite rightly too—even if Kettles had been a neat clean little girl it would not be “the thing;” but as it was, nothing could have been more unlucky than her appearance just at that time.
While these thoughts passed through Nurse’s mind and completely spoilt any enjoyment of her tea, Pennie and Nancy cast sidelong glances, full of curiosity and interest, at their visitor. They were too polite to stare openly at her, and went through the form of a conversation with Nurse in order that she might feel quite at her ease. Presently, however, when she had got well on with her meal, to which she applied herself in a keen and business-like manner, Nancy could not forbear asking:
“Where do you live?”
Kettles held the slice away from her mouth just long enough to say, very quickly:
“Anchoranopally,” and immediately fastened her teeth into it again.
The children looked at Nurse for an explanation.
“It’s the ‘Anchor and Hope Alley,’ she means, my dears, turning out of the High Street just below here.”
Pennie nodded seriously. She knew where the Anchor and Hope Alley was, and also that it was called the lowest quarter in Nearminster. She looked at Kettles with greater interest than ever, and longed to make some inquiries about her home and surroundings. This was so evident in her face that poor Nurse’s uneasiness increased. If Kettles began to talk she might drop into language and mention details quite usual in Anchor and Hope Alley, but also quite unfit for Pennie and Nancy to hear. What was to be done? Kettles’ slice of bread seemed endless, and here was Pennie on the point of speaking to her again. Nurse rushed nervously in with a question, which she repented as soon as she had put it:
“What’s your father doing now, Kettles?”
“Drinkin’,” answered Kettles at once. “He come home last night, and—”
“There, there, that’ll do,” said Nurse hastily. “We don’t want to hear about that just now. You finish your tea and run home to mother.”
And in spite of beseeching looks from the girls, Kettles was shortly afterwards hurried away with her jug of tea-leaves, and Nurse gave a great sigh of relief as the big boots went clumping down the stairs.
“She’s far nicer than Mrs Grump,” said Nancy when they were left alone with Nurse, “only you don’t let her talk half enough. I wanted to ask her lots of things. Is her name really Kettles? and how did you come to know her? and why does she wear such large boots?”
It appeared that Kettles’ real name was Keturah, but being, Nurse explained, a hard sort of name to say, it had got changed into Kettles. “Her mother, a decent, hard-working woman, came to the College to scrub and clean sometimes. She was very poor, and had a great many children and a bad husband.” Here Nurse shook her head.
“What do you give her tea-leaves for?” asked Pennie.
“Why, my dear, when folks are too poor to buy fresh tea, they’re glad enough to get it after it’s been once used.”
“We’ve enjoyed ourselves tremendously,” said Nancy when, the visit nearly over, she and Pennie were putting on their hats again, “and you’ll ask Kettles to see us next time we come, won’t you?”
But this Nurse would not promise. It was hard, she said, to refuse any of the dear children anything, and she was aware how little she had to give them, but she knew her duty to herself and Mrs Hawthorne. Kettles must not be asked. “To think,” she concluded, “of you two young ladies sitting down to table with people out of Anchor and Hope Alley!”
“We always have tea with the children at the school feasts at home,” said Nancy.
“That’s quite different, my dear, in your dear papa’s own parish,” said Nurse.
“Are they wicked people in Anchor and Hope Alley?” asked Pennie. “Is Kettles wicked?”
“Poor little soul, no, I wouldn’t say that,” said Nurse. “She’s a great help to her mother and does her best. But she sees things and hears things that you oughtn’t to know anything about, and so she’s not fit company for such as you. And now it’s time to go to the gate.”
As they passed Anchor and Hope Alley on their way to Miss Unity’s house in the Close Pennie stretched her neck to see as far down it as she could.
“How dark and narrow it is! Fancy living there!” she said. “Don’t you wonder which is Kettles’ house?”
“Shouldn’t you like to know,” said Nancy, “what it was that her father did when he came home that night? I do so wish Nurse hadn’t stopped her.”
“What a nice little funny face she had!” said Pennie thoughtfully, “such bright eyes! If it was washed clean, and her hair brushed back smooth, and she had white stockings and a print frock, how do you suppose she’d look?”
“Not half so nice,” said Nancy at once, “all neat and proper, just like one of the school-children at Easney.”
And indeed it was her look of wildness that made Kettles attractive to Pennie and Nancy, used to the trim propriety of well-cared-for village children, who curtsied when you spoke to them, and always said “Miss.” There was a freedom in the glance of Kettles’ eye and a perfect carelessness of good manners in her bearing which was as interesting as it was new.
“She’s the sort of little girl who lives in a caravan and sells brushes and brooms,” continued Pennie as the carriage stopped at Miss Unity’s door.
Mrs Hawthorne was accustomed sometimes to read to herself during her frequent drives between Easney and Nearminster, and to-day, when the children saw that she had her book with her, they went on talking very low so as not to disturb her. The conversation was entirely about Kettles, and the subject proved so engrossing that Pennie quite forgot all her late vexations and was perfectly amiable and pleasant. It was indeed long since she and Nancy had had such a comfortable talk together, and agreed so fully in their interests. As they jogged steadily home along the well-known road, new fancies as to the details of Kettles’ life and surroundings constantly occurred to them; there was even a certain pleasure in heightening all the miseries which they felt sure she had to bear.
“In the winter,” said Nancy, “she has chilblains on her feet—broken ones.”
Pennie shuddered. She knew what chilblains were.
“They must hurt her dreadfully,” she said, “in those great, thick boots.”
“And no stockings,” added Nancy relentlessly.
“Oh, Nancy!” said Pennie.
She felt almost as sorry as if Nancy were telling her positive facts.
“Wouldn’t it be a good thing to get one of those thick grey pairs of stockings for her out of the shop at Easney,” said Nancy after a short silence, “and a pair of boots to fit?”
“I’ve got no money,” replied Pennie shortly.
“Well, no more have I now,” said Nancy; “but we could save some. You’d much better give up that stupid mandarin thing. You don’t even know whether Miss Unity would like it.”
Now Pennie was at heart very much attracted by the idea of supplying Kettles with comfortable stockings and boots. It was a splendid idea, but it had one drawback—it was not her own. Her own plan had been cast aside and rejected, and she could not meekly fall in with this new one of Nancy’s, however good it might be. Pennie was a kind-hearted little girl, and always ready to help others, but she liked to do it in her own way. She was fond of leading, advising, and controlling; but when it came to following counsel and taking advice herself she did not find it pleasant. Therefore, because the new mandarin was an idea of her own she was still determined to carry it through, though, in truth, she had almost lost sight of her first wish—to give Miss Unity pleasure.
So now she made no answer, and Nancy, looking eagerly at her, saw a little troubled frown instead of a face covered with smiles.
“You’ll never get enough to buy it alone,” she continued. “And just think how Kettles would like new boots and stockings!”
As she spoke they turned in at the Vicarage gate, and saw just in front of them a figure stepping jauntily up the drive.
“Oh!” cried Nancy. “Mother! Pennie! Look! Phere’s Miss Barnicroft going to call.”
Mrs Hawthorne roused herself at once from her book, for no one could look forward with indifference to a visit from Miss Barnicroft.