Chapter X: Mr. Simmons

ABOUT ten days after this, father said to us one morning that we were to have a nice dinner ready, for he was going to bring home a friend with him. He would not tell us who it was. "Nobody you know," he said. So we did as we were told, and asked no questions.

The friend was one that we had never seen before. He was a little bit of a man, with a soft smooth manner of speaking, and grey eyes that had a sharp trick of seeing everything and yet that never looked anybody straight in the face. He had a smart ring on his little finger, and studs that looked like big diamonds. Mother thought him "quite a gentleman," and was as proud as could be to have him at her table. But grannie laughed when mother called him so; for grannie had been in good service when she was young, and she knew well enough the difference between a gentleman and not a gentleman.

However, it was plain that Mr. Simmons thought himself a grand person, and counted it a condescension to dine in our cottage. He and father seemed to know a deal about one another that nobody else knew. I didn't like the way he nodded and winked at some things that were said between them. And I liked still less the sort of sneer that came over his face, when grannie once made mention of the Bible.

After dinner father went off with Mr. Simmons, and did not come back till late. When he did, he pulled out his purse and said, "It's all right," and handed mother a five-pound note.

"Has the money come?" asked mother. She was always asking that question.

"No, but it won't be long," father said. "And I've a friend now, willing to advance whatever we need till it does come."

"What makes him willing to do that, Miles?" says grannie, quite sharp-like.

"Why, just in a friendly way," said father.

"Is it only in a friendly way?" says grannie. "That's odd, when he don't know us, and has no particular call to do the kindness. Do you mean to say he don't look to turn a penny by it?"

"Oh, well,—of course there's the interest," father said carelessly. "A man couldn't be expected to put himself to inconvenience for nothing at all."

"How much is the interest?" asked grannie.

"Well, he did speak of fifteen or twenty per cent for small sums, but that was before we got so friendly together. I don't doubt but he'll make it lower now. You needn't fidget, grannie. It's a mere song, just a few pounds and odd shillings."

Grannie waited a minute or two, thinking to herself, and then she said in a slow sort of way—

"Miles, Mr. Simmons is a bad man."

"Now mother!" said he.

"Mr. Simmons is a bad man," repeated grannie, "and you may take my word for it."

"That's charity, isn't it?" said father. "A man you've never seen in your life before, and one as is just doing me a good turn."

"I don't want to be uncharitable," grannie said. "But I know a bad man when I see him, and he's one. And he'll get you into trouble, as sure as you have to do with him."

"I'm not a boy to be lectured, mother," says he very short. "I hope I'm of an age to choose my own friends, and not be meddled with. I can tell you Simmons is a clever fellow and no mistake. Dear me, I don't know what there is he don't know."

"That may be," grannie said. "But cleverness isn't goodness. I wish it was. The world would be a better world than it is."

And then she dropped the subject, and said no more. That was always her way. She spoke out where she counted it right, but she didn't go on bothering where her words had no power.

Mother was so pleased to have her five-pound note, that she seemed to care very little for what was being said. She went off that same afternoon, and got some new roses for her bonnet, and a smart ribbon, and a big brooch. Father laughed when he saw them, and said he had meant the money for the butcher and baker and milkman, for we had been having things on credit since he left off work; but he went on to add that it didn't matter, for there was plenty more. And next day he brought another five-pound note, and gave it to grannie, and told mother to do what she liked with the other. Every penny of it went in dress. Grannie said to herself, "It's a sort of madness;" but I do not think she meant me to hear.

Another three or four months went by, and still the money did not come. More five-pound notes followed the first, and money had to be borrowed fur the rent of the new house, as well as for our every-day expenses. Mother said one day that she could not see why we should not go into it straight off, and get rid of the old cottage. What was the good of waiting? she asked. It would not cost us much more to live in the house than in the cottage. Perhaps there was some truth in this as we were now living; for father was getting to be very particular about having the best of everything at table; and he and mother seemed quite careless how many bills they ran up.

Grannie said nothing, only she went very white again. But father took up the notion at once. He said it was folly to be keeping up two homes, and the quicker we moved the better. So the bills were run up higher still, in getting lots of new things to make the other house quite ready; for mother was set on having all "genteel," as she said. It was settled that we were to get in before Christmas Day, and father began trying to find somebody to buy the cottage.

Grannie was very loth to have the cottage sold. She stood out for awhile, and it could not be done without her consent. She wanted it to be only let; so that it might be ours still, if we ever wanted it again. But father was very much vexed, for he wanted the ready money; and he told her she always thwarted him in everything, and he threatened to go and borrow a hundred pounds right away from Mr. Simmons. Grannie gave in at last, but how she did cry! I think she and I both hoped father would not succeed. But he did, for there was a run upon the place in those days; and he was in such a hurry to get the matter settled, that he was willing to take less than the real value of the cottage, on condition that he should have quick payment. It was not long before he came in and told us that the thing was done.

"Grannie, are you very sorry?" I asked of her that night, when we were up in our little room, and she sat down in a sort of tired-out way on the foot of the bed.

"Mayhap I shouldn't be," she said. "It's no real harm for me to have my heart pulled loose from this world, and set on things higher." And she began to murmur, in a sort of half-singing voice, which quavered a little—

"'My rest is in heaven, my rest is not here;
Then why should I murmur when trials are near?
Be hushed, my dark spirit, the worst that can come
But shortens thy journey, and hastens thee home.'"

"O don't, please, grannie," I said. "I don't want you to think of that."

"I'm always thinking of it," she said. "That's my only home now, Phœbe. I've no home again in this world. You young things can take to fresh places easy enough, and it's only right. But I can't. I'm like an old tree pulled up by the roots. It'll never take kindly to another soil. I think uprooting means dying in such a case. Not that I'm murmuring, my dear. One must have trouble. And if it wasn't for the change in Miles, I could stand other things easier."

"You aren't so very old, grannie," I said. "I wish you wouldn't talk about dying, please. You work ever so much harder than mother does. And we'll all be together, and I'll be such a good girl, and I think we shall be happy. Don't you think so? Won't you try, grannie?" And I know I looked at her in a beseeching sort of way.

"O yes, I'll try," said she. "I don't doubt but what I'll be happy. I couldn't be aught else, with the thought of God loving and caring for me. But it won't be home, Phœbe, my dear."

And I knew she spoke truth, though I tried not to think it.