Chapter V: A Renovated Home

MRS. BROWN was surprised to find how steadily Jessie kept on with her work of house-cleaning. Of course, it was something new and novel, and Mrs. Brown thought that when the novelty wore off, Jessie would get tired of sweeping and scrubbing and making things tidy, especially as she also had to run up and down stairs to wait upon her mother.

But she never flagged in this duty. She made fresh barley-water every day, and when the doctor ordered beef-tea she asked her new-found friend how it was to be made, and was most careful to see that the saucepan was quite clean before she put the meat into it.

Of course, the cleaning was far from perfect. The windows were not as clear and bright as well-cleaned windows should be, and the floor had streaks of dirt in places, as well as other failures that a careful housewife like Mrs. Brown could not fail to notice; but she was careful to say little of these failings just at first, but to commend Jessie for trying to make home more comfortable now that she was free to do it. Mrs. Brown soon discovered from chance words that Mrs. Collins not only disliked house-cleaning herself, but hated anything to be disturbed by other people doing it. So Jessie had never been taught or encouraged to try and do anything beyond running errands for her mother and washing a few tea-things occasionally.

By Saturday night, however, the house had been cleaned from top to bottom, and when Collins walked into the kitchen, with its bright, clean grate, he stared with amazement at the changed appearance of his home.

"I hope mother ain't no worse than when you sent to tell me she was ill," he said, wondering what the change might portend.

"No, father, she's better," said Jessie, who had just come down from her mother's room. "I'm making her some beef-tea," she added proudly, lifting the lid of the steaming saucepan on the hob.

"And who told you to do that?" asked Collins, putting his basket down in the corner. "And who told you to have this rout out?" he asked, with another look at the renovated kitchen.

"Why, the doctor said I must rub things a bit, and have clean things for mother; and Mrs. Brown lent me the sheets I wanted."

"Mrs. Brown! What made you go there to that proud set?" asked her father, angrily.

"Just because she offered to lend them, and Mrs. Satchell didn't," replied Jessie, sharply. "What was I to do? The doctor said I must have clean things for mother if she was ever to get better, and I ran out to get them, for ours are all dirty. I went for Mrs. Satchell, and found her talking to Mrs. Brown at their gate. I said I wanted the sheets for mother; but no one spoke for a minute, and I was afraid I wasn't going to get the sheets, when Mrs. Brown said she would lend them, and come and help me make mother comfortable."

"Ah! And she put you up to turning the place out," grumbled Collins.

"It was the doctor said it first," answered Jessie.

"Well, now, look here. I ain't going to have your mother interfered with and found fault with by no Mrs. Brown, there now."

"Dad, you're a fool!" said Jessie, in an angry tone. "And it's my belief mother would have died if I hadn't happened to see Mrs. Brown that night."

Collins went upstairs to see his wife, closely followed by Jessie.

"Look here, I ain't going to have mother upset," she whispered, with her hand on the door-handle.

"Who wants to upset her?" roughly asked her father; and as he spoke he gave the girl a push, which sent her reeling, and she fell down the stairs with her foot doubled under her, which caused her such pain that she fainted, and lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs until her father, hearing her moans, came down and found her.

"There, wake up, Jess! Wake up!" he said, as he lifted her in his arms, and seated her on a chair in the kitchen. "There, it's all right," he said soothingly. "Your mother says Mrs. Brown ain't got no fault-finding ways about her, and so, if she likes—"

But Jessie's only answer was another groan, that frightened her father, and he went to the street door to look for Polly.

She was coming up the street, and ran forward when she saw him.

"Ain't we got everything nice?" she called out before she reached the door; for Jessie had said, again and again, how pleased her father would be when he saw the nice clean kitchen.

"Come in, come in," called Collins. "There's something the matter with Jessie; she's fell downstairs and hurt herself, though I don't see no blood anywhere."

Polly ran through the passage, and was almost as frightened as her father when she saw her sister leaning back in the chair, white, and looking as though she was dead.

"Oh, father, what is it—what is the matter?" she screamed. "Let me fetch Mrs. Brown!" And without waiting for her father to speak, she flew off to fetch the friend who had helped them so much the last week.

Mrs. Brown was just going out for her Saturday marketing, when Polly dashed in, crying—

"Oh, come, Mrs. Brown, come directly to our Jess, she's fell downstairs and killed herself!"

Mrs. Brown did not believe anything so terrible as this had happened; but she could see Polly was very frightened, and without stopping to ask any questions, she set down her basket at once, and hurried away with her.

When they saw Jessie, Mrs. Brown said, "We had better send for the doctor at once, Mr. Collins; but I will lay her down on the couch until he comes."

An old couch stood in the kitchen, which Mrs. Collins used to lie upon, and Mrs. Brown lifted Jessie on to it, and loosened her clothes and bathed her forehead; but when she touched one of her feet, a deeper groan and shudder of pain made them aware that the injury was there.

However, by the time the doctor arrived, Jessie had recovered consciousness sufficiently to tell them that her foot was in great pain, and when Collins told the doctor how she fell, he saw at once that the girl's ankle was badly twisted, and advised that she should go to the hospital.

"No, no! I can't go there!" said Jessie. "I must stay here, and look after mother."

"But, my girl, you will not be able to go up and down stairs for some time," said the doctor.

"Polly can go for me, and I can tell her what to do. Oh, make my foot better," she implored, as a sharper twinge of pain made her feel faint again.

The doctor turned to her father, who stood looking helplessly at the sufferer.

"I don't know what we shall do without her," he said. "My wife wants looking after, and who is to do it?"

"For your wife it might be managed," said the doctor; "but this girl will have to lie down here on the couch all the time."

"I will do anything you tell me, doctor, if you only let me stay at home," said Jessie. "Polly can help, you know."

"You would be more comfortable at the hospital," said the doctor, making a last effort on Jessie's own behalf; for he knew how tedious the days and nights would be for an active girl like Jessie to endure, and that she would need the care and nursing that would be given to her at the hospital.

He tried to make them all understand this; but Jessie said she would never get well if she did not stay at home, and help nurse her mother.

"I can tell Polly what to do, and we can manage to take care of mother between us," pleaded Jessie; and at last the doctor consented, and proceeded to dress and bandage the injured foot, and placed it as comfortable as the old couch would permit, telling her she must not try to move it, and must lie as still as possible, or he would be compelled to send her to the hospital. Mrs. Brown thought it was a pity the doctor did not insist upon the girl being taken there at once; but she did not dare to say so, for she could see that Collins would rather Jessie stayed at home. And so she held her peace for the present; but when the doctor had gone, she drew him into the passage.

"Mr. Collins, Jessie would have been better at the hospital," she whispered; "but as you have decided that she shall stay at home, couldn't you arrange for one of your wife's old friends to come and sleep in the house, and help the girls a bit in the daytime. I know Jessie was going to wash some clothes next week; but now you must have somebody else to do it," she added.

The man scratched his head in perplexity. "I must go and see if the foreman can let me come back here to work, and let somebody else go and do my job over there. What about your husband, Mrs. Brown?"

"I dare say he would be willing to go, if the managers liked to send him, as you are in such trouble just now," answered Mrs. Brown.

"Oh, never mind my trouble. I hate being under an obligation to anybody, specially my neighbours," said Collins, roughly. "If Brown likes to take my job, I'll speak for him, and it will be something to his advantage, I may tell you. I hear you have been kind to my wife the last few days, and I am thankful for it. Do you want me to say any more?" he demanded.

"I did not want you to thank me! I am always ready to help a neighbour at a pinch, and was glad to do what I could for Jessie," said Mrs. Brown, with a touch of pride and pain in her voice; and, saying a hasty good-bye to Jessie she went home, her eyes full of tears, which she dashed away before she knocked at her own door.

Jessie heard what had passed between her father and Mrs. Brown in the passage, and when he went back to the kitchen she said—

"Now, what are we going to do? You don't suppose Mrs. Brown'll come back and look after us as she has done all the week, after what you said to her to-night."

"What have I said? And what has she said of us? Didn't their girl tell you that you wasn't good enough to go with them. Do you think I've forgotten it?" demanded her father, angrily.

"Of course you haven't! Neither have I! And I didn't go to ask Mrs. Brown to help us; but not even Mrs. Satchell, who has always pretended to be such a friend to mother, would lend us a clean sheet, and if it hadn't been for Mrs. Brown, I believe mother would have died. As to being better than us; why, of course it was true. Their house is clean; but ours is always dirty. They could lend me clean sheets; but we hadn't enough for ourselves."

"I tell you I earn more wages than Brown, let 'em say what they like," vociferated Collins.

"Wages ain't everything," said Jessie. "I tell you the little Browns always looked nicer than we did, though their frocks didn't cost half so much, mother said; but then, they always had tidy boots to wear. And sometimes when I had a new frock, I couldn't have boots, and my toes were all out, or else there were big holes in my stockings; but Mrs. Brown showed Fanny how to mend hers, and I don't believe mother knows how to mend stockings now," said Jessie.

"Don't you say a word agin your mother!" interrupted Collins, sharply. "She was the handsomest woman in this town when I married her."

"I ain't saying a word against her!" retorted Jessie, "and Mrs. Brown ain't either. 'Take good care of your mother, Jessie. Look after your mother, Jessie,' has been her word to me every day, while all the time she's just been trying to make me do the things she taught Fanny long ago. Perhaps mother couldn't help the place getting dirty; perhaps her mother didn't show her how to do it, but it don't make any difference; we are dirty, and the Browns are clean, and Mrs. Brown has been trying to teach me like she did her own Fanny, and—"

"Ah, that was the girl who told Polly she was better than you," interrupted Collins, in whose mind the words seem to rankle still.

"Yes, Fanny said it, I dare say, but I know Mrs. Brown didn't; she wouldn't, though I don't suppose she liked her girls to go with us, because we were dirty and untidy, and played about in the streets at night as long as we liked. She didn't want Fanny to do that, and so I dare say she said, 'Now, you keep away from that Jessie Collins, or she'll want you to run the street with her.'"

"You seem to know all about it," said her father, who could not help smiling as she mimicked the tone and manner of Mrs. Brown.

This was just what Jessie wanted, to win her father back to a better humour; for what should she do if he said Mrs. Brown was not to come again. In the midst of all the bustle and hard work of this last week, she had thought again and again of the talk she had had with her governess, and how Miss Martin said she hoped she would grow up a useful woman, who she would be proud to say had been to her school.

To have Miss Martin proud of her would be something worth working for, and if anybody could show her how to become a useful woman, it would be Mrs. Brown, and so her father must be persuaded to ask Mrs. Brown to come in and out still, though they must have one of her mother's old friends, she feared, to do the washing now.

Collins persuaded himself that they could not do without him at home, and so he went to see the foreman of the work he was doing away from home, to tell him that his wife was ill, and he could not leave again for the whole week, especially as Jessie had sprained her ankle and could not get up and down stairs.

"Well, who can you get to go in your place?" said the foreman. "You told me you didn't mind being away from home, but very few of the fellows like it," added the man.

Collins scratched his head. "There's Brown," he said at last.

"Brown! But I thought you said you would never work with Brown, as he didn't work fair with his mate!" and the foreman looked keenly at Collins as he spoke.

The man fidgeted from one leg to the other, and looked very uncomfortable.

"Brown is the only chap in the shop that understands the work we are doing over there," he said at last.

"Just what I said when it begun; but you gave the fellow such a bad name, that—"

"Well, you see, he had been ill, and perhaps he was weak and not up to the mark," interrupted Collins, who did not want to hear any more of that former talk he had had with his foreman.

After a pause the foreman said, "Well, you will have to go and arrange it with Brown yourself, as it is for your accommodation; but make him understand that the pay is better, and that I shall expect him to stick to it until we have finished, for I don't care to change men in the middle of a ticklish job like that." These last words were said that Collins might understand that if he gave up this job he could not take it on again.

"All right, I know what you mean," he said. "Shall I tell Brown to come round and see you to-night or to-morrow?"

"Oh, I know Brown well enough to know he won't care to come on Sunday, so tell him to come to-night, or join us at the station ready for work on Monday morning."

Collins had hoped that he would be told he need not trouble himself about seeing Brown; but now he had to go to his house, and ask, as something of a favour, that he would take over his job for him, and it was not a pleasant task.

To his relief, however, he heard that Mrs. Brown was out; for when the door was opened to Collins's knock, Brown said—

"The missis is out. I hope your plucky lass is no worse."

The words gratified Collins, and he said, "No, thank ye. Jess is about the same; but I wanted a word with you."

"Come away back, then, and let's hear it. I'm mending some of the youngster's shoes while the missis is out at her marketing." And he led the way through the passage, and handed Collins a seat in the cosy, comfortable kitchen, while he fetched the lamp from the scullery, where he had been doing his shoemaking work.

"Now we can see what we are at," he remarked, as he set it on the table. "Now, what is it I can do for you?" he asked good-naturedly.

"Can you take my job?" asked Collins.

"Your job?" repeated Brown; for he knew that Collins was considered a more highly skilled workman than himself, and received higher wages in proportion, so that to be asked to take up the particular work Collins had been doing greatly surprised him.

"It is a ticklish job, as you know," went on Collins, "and last week there might have been an accident through my hand shaking as it did. Electrical engineering ain't child's play, you know. Well, I had heard that my wife was ill, and that might have caused it; but now I know how bad she is I may be worse, and so I want you to take over the job at once, and let me stay at home and look after things a bit. 'Specially as Jess has got her ankle hurt."

"To be sure you do," said Brown, thoughtfully; and then he added, "but I must see Mr. Thornton, and hear what he says about it."

"Well, go and see him at once. I have just been there, and he told me to come to you. Now, mind what I say, Brown; it is a ticklish job they have got there, so have all your wits about you while you are at work."

Brown thought he understood what the man meant. Collins sometimes followed his wife's example, and took a little more beer than was good for him, and it might be this that had made his hand unsteady; but he thanked Collins for the hint he had given him, and prepared at once to go and see the foreman.