Chapter IX: Fanny's Father

BROWN had been away from home since the previous Monday morning, for he was now duly installed in the post previously held by Collins, and was likely to continue there.

It had all come about in the most natural way possible. When Brown went with the other men that first Monday morning, the foreman went to show him where Collins had been working; but almost as soon as the man saw what had been done, he exclaimed, "Collins never did this, surely!" and he called some of the other men to ask what they knew about it.

They each in turn disclaimed having touched this part of the work, and Collins being a more highly skilled workman, was scarcely likely to allow them to do it; but, at the same time, it was equally difficult to understand how he could put such work into this as he had done by what they saw before them.

"What is to be done with it, Brown?" said the foreman, scratching his head in perplexity, for he felt he had neglected his duty in not looking more closely after Collins and his work.

"There is nothing for it but to undo it," replied Brown.

"Unwind all this coil, do you mean?" said the foreman, aghast at the proposal.

"There is nothing else for it that I can see," answered Brown. "To let it pass as it is will never do, for some bad accident may be caused through that bit of scamped work. It's a nasty job, I know, but I should not like to think that the whole station here might come to grief, and lives be lost, for the sake of a day or two's hard work. I will be as quick about it as I can, and say nothing to anybody, for the sake of Collins himself."

"All right. I see you understand how matters are. You had better have one of the boys to give you a hand; but you need not let him know why we are having it undone."

"You may trust me for keeping a still tongue over the whole matter. Collins had a pretty peck of trouble last week," added Brown, "and I expect it was thinking of his wife bad in bed that made him a bit slack with his job."

"It was the whisky, more likely," said the foreman, sharply,—"I hear he was bringing it in as well as being at 'The Blue Posts' every night—that upset him, and I was to blame that I did not look after him more sharply."

The foreman took care that there was no further remissness on his part, and kept a pretty close watch on Brown and the way he worked.

He soon found, however, that the careful, steady way this man did his work was not likely to lead to further trouble, and when the bit of scamped work was put right, Brown proved to be as quick and skilful as ever Collins had been, and at the end of the week Brown learned, to his great satisfaction, that he might consider himself permanently engaged for this class of work, which would mean higher wages and less laborious though more highly skilled tasks for the future. This, perhaps, would mean more to Brown than any other man in the factory, for the long illness of the previous year had left a lingering weakness that hard work had made very trying occasionally. Now quickness of eye, steadiness and deftness of hands, rather than actual strength, was what would be required of him, and he had carefully trained both eyes and hands whenever he had an opportunity, in the hope that some day they might prove useful both to himself and others. The careful mending of the children's shoes at home had been part of this training. The repairing of his wife's sewing-machine now and then had also helped, so that now his fingers could handle the more delicate parts of the work as neatly and deftly as any man in the factory, and he was reaping the fruit of his long and painstaking labours.

When Selina met her father that Saturday afternoon, she was so full of her story about Eliza that she never noticed that he was looking more grave than usual; but Mrs. Brown saw that there was something unusual the moment her eyes met those of her husband.

"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously, as he came in.

"Nothing but what will keep," he said pleasantly.

"Are you going away to work again next week?" asked the inquisitive Selina, who had heard the question.

"To be sure I am, pussy," answered her father.

Mrs. Brown breathed a sigh of relief, for this disposed of her first fear that something had gone wrong with the work, and he would have to go back to his old place once more.

She had prepared a nice little Saturday dinner for him, and this fear relieved, she said—

"There, come along, father, and have your dinner. What did you think of Selina's news?" asked Mrs. Brown, cheerfully, as she set the dinner on the table, and drew her husband's chair to its usual place.

"Oh, the chatterbox was in such a hurry to tell me everything at once that I shall have to hear it over again before I can quite understand all about it."

So Minnie volunteered to give this second and revised version of Eliza's story, and then Mrs. Brown added her share, and told him of the offer made for Eliza to go into the Vicarage nursery.

"Thank God for that!" said Brown, fervently; and his brow cleared, and he looked less anxious, his wife thought, during the remainder of the meal.

What could have happened to trouble him, she wondered. But there was no opportunity to ask him any questions just now, for Jack came in before dinner was over, and he wanted to tell his father all that had been going on at the factory during the week.

"Collins is a fool," was his final comment.

"Well, my boy, if you have to work under him, it is your duty to do the best you can, and hide his folly as far as possible. You could not have a more skilful workman to learn under," added Brown.

"I don't know so much about that," grumbled Jack. "And there is not much skill required in the work we have to do," he added.

"Oh, as to that, you must train your fingers to do better work in all sorts of ways. Take your mother's sewing-machine to pieces. I dare say it wants a good clean, and it will go all the better if you do it," he added, laughing, with a glance at his wife.

"It certainly does want a good clean," said Mrs. Brown. "I have used it a good deal lately, and now I have finished Eliza's new frock, I shall be able to spare it."

"Are you going to send the new frock to her?" asked her husband.

"She says she does not think she will want it now, as Nurse has found a place where they will wash her new cotton ones very nicely, and she can wear one of them to go to church."

"A clean cotton frock for Sunday!" repeated Jack. "That would not suit Fan, I know," he said.

No one made any comment, but Mrs. Brown noticed that the anxious look returned to her husband's brow, and she wished Jack would go out and give her an opportunity of having a few quiet words with her husband. But Jack had some other news to impart, it seemed, for he did not move from his seat, and presently he said—

"Collins has taken to the drink pretty badly, dad."

"Has he? I am sorry to hear that."

"Oh, well, it isn't to be wondered at, you see; for his wife has done it for years and years, and he has had a pretty bad time with her, the chaps say."

"But she has not had anything lately, I know," said his mother, quickly, "and Jessie is doing all she can to keep things straight and comfortable at home, though the poor girl can't put her foot to the ground yet."

"Oh, well, Jess has had a pretty good fling, being out at all hours of the night, so that it won't hurt her to be tamed down a bit," remarked Jack. "But all the fellows are sorry for Collins himself. Don't you think you could say a word to him, dad, to make him pull up a bit? They say at the factory that you know a thing or two that might make him pull up short, if you said he must."

Brown looked at his son in surprise. "What have you heard, lad?" he asked.

"Nothing very special, only that—There, I won't say what, for, after all, nobody seems to know anything for certain."

"Of course not, where there is nothing to know," said Brown, laughing. "However, if I come across Collins to-night, when I go out marketing with mother, I will see if I can have a word with him, though he may think I have no business to interfere with him and what he does."

Having received this promise from his father, Jack went out, and then Mrs. Brown said—"Now you must tell me what is troubling you."

"Well, wife, I think it is troubling me, and yet it is only a trifle, after all. I had a letter from our Fanny last night, and I don't know what to make of it."

"A letter from Fanny!" repeated his wife. "What did she want?"

"Well, that I can hardly tell you, for it was a rigmarole about not being loved now; but I could see that Eliza's new dress that her aunt sent was at the bottom of the whole trouble."

"But she had no right to it," said Mrs. Brown, in a sharp tone.

"Of course not. But, you see, she always has had the new frocks, and she thinks she always must. Now, it seems to me that through this and other little things we have spoiled her a good deal, and now, the thing is, how are we to undo the mischief?"

"Not by giving way to her in this, for that will make matters worse," said Mrs. Brown, promptly.

"Yes, I see that well enough; but how are we to make her see it, and yet convince her that we love her just as dearly now as when she had the new frocks, and Eliza those she had outgrown?"

His wife shook her head as she recalled the talk she had with Fanny the evening of her first holiday.

"It would not be so difficult if she were different," she said, more to herself than to her husband.

"Different?" he repeated.

He was very proud of Fanny. People had called her "a bonny girl," "a winsome lassie," and friends always noticed her, and he did not like even his wife finding fault with her.

"Different," he repeated again. "What would you have, mother?"

"Well, we have been partly to blame, no doubt, but our Fanny has grown very selfish and wilful. I did not notice it while she was at home, but things have happened since she has been away that has brought out very clearly the faults that were hidden before, and I was quite upset when I first found it out."

"What was there to find out? What has happened to alter our girl so much as all that?" asked Brown, curiously.

"Well now, I did not want to tell you myself, for I hoped Fanny would do it, as I asked her. Mind, I am not saying she is so altered since she has been away, for I suppose the selfishness was there before, only we did not see it, and there was nothing to bring it out. You see, to get Fanny nicely ready for service, with new underclothes, frocks, and aprons, cost me a pretty penny, one way and another, to say nothing of the hours I had to sit sewing to get everything ready. Well, when the Vicar's offer came for Eliza to go to the seaside to help Nurse with the children, I thought at once Fanny's first wages would come in nicely to buy what I wanted to send Eliza away neat and tidy; but when she came home for that first holiday, instead of bringing me the ten shillings, as I had hoped, she had bought a watch with it, which she wore round her neck."

"Bought a watch for ten shillings?" repeated Brown.

"Yes, she told me she had given all her first month's wages for the rubbishing thing." And Mrs. Brown could scarce restrain her tears even now, as she thought of the glittering thing as she saw it on Fanny's neck.

"I suppose you told her it was rubbish, and not worth the money she had paid for it?" said her husband.

"Wouldn't you have told her the same thing? I know you would. What should a girl like her know about buying a watch?"

Brown could scarcely help smiling at his wife's evident annoyance, and he concluded that she had said some rather hard words to Fanny, which she had taken to heart, and had grown discouraged since, as she recalled them, and then foolishly concluded that because her mother had spoken angrily, and afterwards refused to let her have the new frock, that she no longer loved her.

"I see it all now," he said, his brow clearing. "You said a few sharp words about this ten-shilling watch, and afterwards refused to let her have the new frock, and she concludes from this that, as she is away from home now, you care less for her than when she was one amongst us."

"She never could be so foolish," said Mrs. Brown.

"Well, we can set matters right with that letter of yours," replied her husband. "Instead of going to our own church to-morrow night, I will go and see Fan, and take the letter with me for her to read. The walk would be too much for you, I know—it upset you before; but it will be good for me, and I can tell her all the news, and let her feel that she is still one of us, though she may be away from home. Now, what time will you be ready to do your marketing to-night?" he asked, for he did not want to say any more about Fanny just now.

"I shall be ready soon after tea; but I must go and see Jessie Collins before I go, for she wants me to bring her some meat from the market."

"How is the poor girl?" asked Brown. "It must be hard for her to lie still after having the run of the street as she has had."

"The worst of it is she doesn't lie still," said Mrs. Brown; "it is almost impossible, I suppose, with only little Polly to do everything. Of course Jessie tries to sit up and help her with things, when she is in a muddle, and, as I tell her, every time she does this she is undoing all the good that has been done, and making her foot worse."

"Ah! she ought to have gone to the hospital when it was first hurt," remarked Brown.

"She should too, if she had been my child; but her father didn't want her to go, you could see, and Jessie wanted to be at home to look after her mother. I never saw a girl so fond of her mother as poor Jessie is, and to think I should have had such a bad opinion of her! I feel vexed with myself when I think of it sometimes," added Mrs. Brown.

"The girl's good qualities have been brought out by her mother's illness," remarked Brown. "How is the poor thing now?" he asked.

"Not much better. She is just a 'poor thing,' and lies there in bed, without any wish to stir herself, and help things downstairs."

"But is she well enough to do that? I thought you said she was very ill."

"So she was at first; but the doctor has told her to try and sit up a little while, and he told me it would do her good if she made some effort to get about. But when I have asked her to try and do as the doctor says, she promises to try to-morrow. But that to-morrow never comes, and she just lies there, day after day, and nothing seems to rouse her; nor will she take the least interest in home affairs. 'Jessie can manage things now,' she says, if I try to persuade her to get up."

"'But Jessie has hurt her foot, and ought to go to the hospital,' I said to her yesterday; but she only sighed, and said things would come right somehow, and 'Jessie liked to stop at home.'"

"Well, it isn't like you, mother," said Brown; "and there's no telling what I might be if I had a wife like Mrs. Collins. It has always been the same ever since they were married, I have heard. Some of the chaps say she was a pretty dressy piece, but had no idea of making home comfortable for her man. She just let things drift as they could, and when she took to the drink it was more because the gossips persuaded her to take it, than that she cared so much for it herself. It was too much trouble to say 'No' and stick to it," commented Brown. "Her husband always said she was a very easy-going woman, and never troubled him much about anything, so long as she got her money every week."

"Easy-going? Yes, I suppose she was; but somebody else was bound to have the trouble. And now, where are the wages? She don't get the wages every week now! Nor Jessie either; for so much of it goes in drink that the poor girl don't know how to make ends meet very often," exclaimed Mrs. Brown, angrily.

"Are things really as bad as that?" exclaimed Brown. "Well, well, I will try and get a word with him to-night, for the poor girl's sake. Don't stay long when you go over there, and if she hasn't got the money for the meat, just find out what she wants, and I dare say we can make it up between us, and be little the worse off. We can afford to help a neighbour, in thankfulness for God's help to our girl," added Brown, reverently.

"All right. I'll find out what Jessie wants, and very soon be back. If I go now, while Minnie gets the tea ready, we can start as soon as it is over, and get back before the market is so crowded."

But to Mrs. Brown's inquiry as to what Jessie wanted from the shop that night, Jessie shook her head, and burst into tears.

"Thank you, all the same, Mrs. Brown," she said, after a minute, "but I shall have to send Polly for a bit of steak over the way. Father hasn't come home yet, so it isn't much of his wages we shall see at home."

"Never mind the money to-night, Jessie; just tell me what you want, for Brown is in a fidget for me to get back. Shall I do the best I can for you, as I should for myself?" she asked.

The next minute Mrs. Brown had gone, for she thought she heard Collins's unsteady footsteps coming down the street, and she beat a hasty retreat by the back door, for she did not want to meet him if he was the worse for drink.