Chapter XIX: A Contrast

MEG awoke the next morning to the sound of dripping rain. She had been dreaming of Friars Court, and had thought she was in the garden listening to the birds. When she awoke she was listening to the rain. Instead of the sun streaming in, making the white wall gleam and shine, the dirty white curtains before her window were blowing on to her bed, and she could see nothing but grey wherever she looked.

A church clock chimed seven, but she was in no hurry to rise although she heard the little widow bustling about in the adjoining room which served for a parlour and kitchen, and last night for a bedroom also, for herself and her boy.

Sounds from the street found their way up through the open window, and the smell of herrings which Mrs. Webb was preparing as a surprise for breakfast, was mingled with the unsavoury atmosphere below.

Meg turned her face to the wall and wept. She wished she could die. There was nothing to look forward to, no work to take up her time, no books with which to beguile the hours away, and the knowledge that the only money she possessed in the world had already somewhat dwindled in her pocket during the journey, was troubling her mind. Well, when that was finished she would have to die. That was all.

The cheery voice of the little widow interrupted her sad thoughts.

"My dear, the breakfast is nearly cooked, and I have to be out at my work in half-an-hour's time. I've brought you some hot water. You're used to that I'll be bound."

"I've a mind to stop in bed," said Meg.

Mrs. Webb looked at her visitor aghast.

"Stop in bed! Ain't you well?"

"Oh yes, I'm well enough I suppose," said Meg drearily. "But I don't see any use in getting up. I haven't got anything to do."

"You've got your work to find," said Mrs. Webb briskly. "It don't do no good to lie and fret. I take it you're just fretting, and that ain't right nor wise. Come, my dear, take my advice and get up. I've ever such a nice herring for you. You want food I guess."

"Very well, I'll get up," said Meg.

When she had dressed and taken her seat at the breakfast table she noticed for the first time that Mrs. Webb had got on her bonnet.

"You're not going out are you?" she asked.

"Why, to be sure I am. I shouldn't get along in this world if I wasn't in good work. And you'll be busy too I take it before you've had time to turn round. What do you mean to do, my dear?"

Meg looked hopeless.

"I can't think. I'm not fitted for service. I only wish I was. But I don't know the commonest things. I can only sing, and I should be frightened to sing in London streets now. My courage is all gone. I shouldn't have had a fear two years ago."

"It'll come back," said Mrs. Webb, cheerfully. "But I tell you what. I wonder if you'd mind giving your room a scrub to-day? It ought to have been done, but this last week I've been away. I'd be ever so grateful if you would."

"I'll do the best I can," said Meg. "But I must look for another room too. I can't let you sleep to-night in here."

"Tut, tut, my dear. Don't you worry about that. And, by the bye, I've got good news. The lady upstairs is leaving I hear, so you can get a room in this house if you've a mind to. It would be nicer for you than to be among strangers."

Meg felt thankful. She had been dreading finding a room for herself and clung to this woman who had befriended her as her one safeguard against all the horrors of London.

So when Mrs. Webb had left, leaving Willie in her charge, Meg set to work to scrub, but never having been taught housework of any kind she found it wearisome and difficult, and moreover grudged working in this way as she was wearing her one and only dress.

Mrs. Webb came home to find the floor of the bedroom wringing wet and with little chance of its drying in the damp weather.

"You've used too much water," she said. "It'll take long to dry I fear. But you don't know no better, poor dear, so don't worry."

"I only wish I'd been taught useful things," sighed Meg, "besides reading and writing. I was only taught to sing."

"Aye, it's a pity," answered Mrs. Webb. "I don't hold with all that they teach in the schools neither. The piano I believe, and drawing and such like; what have we got to do with them things. What the children want to learn is to scrub and dust and sew. I don't hold with the edication now-a-days."

"Anyhow I can read," said Meg. "I could teach Willie his letters if you like."

"That would be real kind of you. But my dear you mustn't sit at home all day. Willie can go along with you and show you the shops in Oxford Street and Regent Street. He knows the way well enough. And this evening I mean to go to our Rector and tell him about your voice."

But though Mrs. Webb managed to get the Rector's sympathy for Meg without any difficulty, and he arranged for her to sing at the next parish meeting, Meg could not fulfil her engagement.

The confinement, close air, and poor food had upset her, and she lay sick for many a day greatly to the poor little widow's concern.

Meg had moved into her own room, having bought a few bits of furniture, and had made it as bright as she could with a pot or two of flowers in the window and a clean curtain, and she kept her window wide open day and night; but the summer was an unusually hot one and the girl drooped before she had been a week in London. One morning as Mrs. Webb came back from her work expecting to find Meg with Willie, she found he had seen nothing of her, and on knocking and getting no answer she opened the door to find the girl in bed in a state of high fever. Mrs. Webb was not aware that Meg, fearing that her money would come to an end before she had earned any with which to replace it, had been living on next to nothing; so that when she was attacked by fever she had no strength to resist it.

The girl was moaning and tossing from side to side.

"You ain't well, my dear," said Mrs. Webb.

"It's my head," groaned Meg. "It's so terrible hot. Can you give me a drink of water?"

"Surely, and I'll send for the doctor right away."

"No, don't send for the doctor. I ain't got no money to pay him. And it don't matter. I want to die. Just leave me."

"I'll get an order for the parish doctor," said Mrs. Webb. "And don't talk so foolish about dying. You're not going to die. Not a bit of it."

Meg groaned.

"I wish I could. I wish I could," she sighed. "No one wants me. No one would care if I died."

"That ain't true my dear. I guess that young man you told me about, your Jem as you call him, would be mighty put about to find you dead. Men don't forget like that."

"Yes they do. Jem has a right to forget because I turned my back upon him. They've all forgotten. Sheila and Miss Gregson and the lot of them. I want to die."

"You'll be better by and bye," said Mrs. Webb, putting a kind though hot hand on the girl's forehead. "And anyway God hasn't forgot you."

"Hasn't He? How do you know? I've prayed many a time 'O God, take care of me,' and look at me now."

"And ain't He answered your prayer?" said Mrs. Webb. "How about that wicked woman that tried to get hold of you? If it hadn't been that I had been sent by that very train where would you be now? Wasn't it God that took care of you then?"

"Yes, I suppose He's given me you," said Meg, the tears coursing down her face. "I'm afraid I've been ever so ungrateful talking like this, you've been more than kind; and you're the only friend I have in the world."

"Come, come, my dear. Don't worry over it, there's a dear. It won't do you no good to cry. I'll go for the parish doctor and see what he says about you."

By the time Mrs. Webb had returned, delirium had set in and Meg was talking softly and hurriedly to herself.

"I'd do anything to please you," she whispered, turning her head restlessly from side to side, "and I'll try hard to talk grammar. It ain't because I don't try. Oh! hark, that's the night hawk. Miss Gregson do go away and leave me, I ain't fit for fine company. Jem! Jem! Jem!"

When the doctor came, he ordered Meg off to the Infirmary.