“That is scarcely wonderful, considering that I have done nothing else for more than twenty years; but here are some seams to be run up, if you have nothing better to do.”
Joan took the seams and began to run them; indeed, she “ran” until her back ached with stooping.
“You are getting tired, my dear,” said Mrs. Bird, “as I expected you would, not being accustomed to the work,” and she peered at her kindly through her spectacles. “Now you had better rest awhile and talk. What part of England do you come from?”
“From the Eastern counties,” answered Joan.
“Dear me! that is strange—quite a coincidence, I declare. I come from the East coast myself. I was born at Yarmouth, though it is many and many a year since I have seen a herring boat. You see, my story is a very simple one. I was an orphan girl, for my dear father was drowned in an October gale when fishing at sea, and I came to London with a family as nursemaid. They did not treat me kindly—even now I cannot say that they did, although I wish to be charitable—for they discharged me because I was not strong enough to do the work, and if I had not been taken in out of pity by a widow woman, a dressmaker and my predecessor in this very house, I do not know what would have become of me. My husband was her only child, and it was part of my duty, and indeed of my pleasure, to look after him in his affliction so far as I was able. Then when his mother died I married him, for I could not make up my mind to leave him alone, and this of course I must have done unless I became his wife. So you see, my dear, I took him on and the business with him, and we have been very happy ever since—so happy that sometimes I wonder why God is so good to me, who am full of faults. One sorrow we have had, it is true, though now even that seems to have become a joy: it was after Sally was born. She was a beautiful baby, and when for the first time I grew sure that she would be deaf and dumb also, I cried till I thought my heart would break, and wished that she might die. Now I see how wicked this was, and every night I thank Heaven that I was not taken at my word, for then my heart would have broken indeed.” And the dear little woman’s eyes filled with tears as, putting her arm round the child’s waist, she kissed her tenderly.
There was something so beautiful in the scene that Joan almost cried in sympathy, and even Jim, who seemed to understand everything, for one moment ceased to smile, and having wiped away a tear from his round blue eye, stretched out his great arms and swept both the mother and the daughter into a confused embrace.
“You say that you are full of faults,” said Joan, turning her head until the three of them had recovered their composure, “but I think you are an angel.”
“If to tend and care for those whom one loves is to be an angel, I think that we shall most of us get to heaven,” she answered, shaking her head; then added, “Oh! you wretched Jim, you have broken my spectacles—the new ones.”
Jim, watching his wife’s lip and the damaged glasses, looked so comically distressed that Joan burst out laughing, while Sally, seeing what was the matter, ran to the back room to fetch another pair.
“And now, my dear,” Mrs. Bird said presently, “you say that you have come to London to get work, though why you should want work if you have plenty of money I do not quite understand. What kind of employment do you wish to take? For my part I cannot think, for, to be frank with you, my dear, you seem too much of a lady for most things.”