“He hadn’t got the look of old bones, that time when he brought his daughter here, when she first came to take the post. A nice, kind sort of man he seemed, and I didn’t wonder at Miss Lorimer setting such store by him,” said Mrs. Nichols.
Nell’s eyes filled with tears; she was thinking of what Gertrude had told her about Abe Lorimer putting her in his prayers during those days of his sickness. No one to her knowledge had prayed for her since her father had died, and it thrilled her heart to feel that one good man felt sufficient interest in her to remember her when he knelt to pray.
“Perhaps I shall be able to get deputy work somewhere else by the time Gertrude is able to come back. If not I must take to housework, or nursing, or anything else that comes handy,” she said, with forced cheerfulness. “Only I won’t go into a big city, if I can get work anywhere else, for it would nearly choke me, I think, to be where there were acres and acres all covered with tall houses stretching right up to the sky nearly.”
“Big cities are all very well to them that like that sort of thing; but no one, not in this country anyhow, need go to live in them if they’d rather stay out in the open. Mind you, I won’t say but wages are better in the big cities, and the work is mostly more lively and cleaner; but the pushing and the struggling, and the dreadful competition, are enough to frighten any one into grey hairs before they’ve years enough to make them middle-aged,” said Mrs. Nichols, with a reflective sigh. Then she put her hand up to smooth her own hair, which showed only here and there a thread of silver; but life had been kind to her.
“Oh, I shall stay in the country, and be satisfied with a small salary,” laughed Nell. Then she added in a graver tone, “It has been delightful living here with you, just like one long holiday; but I shall not be sorry when I have work of my very own to do. I’m nothing but a stop-gap now, you see. Indeed, that is what I seem fated to be. When I was nursing Mrs. Munson, I was doing the work of some one else. It was about the same when I was at Lorimer’s Clearing; I was just filling up their places until they were all well enough to take their own work again, then I just had to move on and stop the next gap.”
“Well, it is honourable work, anyhow, even if the pay isn’t very great. Besides, if you do other people’s work the very best you know, you are morally certain to do your own work all the better when you come to it. But what puzzles me is where all your mother’s money went to, Nell, for Parson Hamblyn wasn’t the sort of man to make ducks and drakes of it,” Mrs. Nichols said, reverting to a subject already well thrashed out between them.
“I don’t think she could have had very much,” the girl said, a little wearily, “for we were always poor when I was a child; we weren’t really pinched, you know, but there was only just enough.”
“No, it might not have been very much, but even a little would make a difference to you, my dear, and if your father supposed you would be able to go on boarding at Mrs. Chapman’s after his death, it is a sure sign that he had not spent all the money. I’m afraid you’ve been tricked out of it somehow by that crafty old Doss Umpey.”
“Never mind, I’d just as soon be without it, for there is no money so sweet as what I earn for myself,” Nell answered cheerfully; but her cheeks paled, for just then she always shivered and felt bad when Mrs. Nichols spoke of the old man.