Chapter VII: Maggie, Her Best Side Out

Two pairs of eager eyes had long been on the watch, and two eager tongues loudly announced that "father" was coming, as Mr. Drummond approached his own doorstep.

Then there was a rush of the two pairs of feet belonging to the aforesaid, and the hall resounded with welcoming kisses and alternate expressions of delight that he had come at last, and of reproach that he had been so long absent.

The children's faces and voices were not the only ones that told of gladness when Mr. Drummond made his appearance. Their small hands, which had seized both his, were disengaged again. The father had plenty of loving caresses for his little people, but he did not overlook the mother's claims. Putting them aside for a moment, he passed his arm tenderly around her, as he said with a laugh, "Don't be greedy, darlings. Mother must have her share," and then affectionately kissed the fair face in which he could read a whole volume of glad welcome.

"You have thought me long, Edith, though you do not scold me for having kept you waiting."

"I sometimes make up my mind to lecture you, Robert, but when you come, I am so glad to see you that I forget the words I meant to say, and tell you this instead."

Mrs. Drummond's sweet face was so irresistible that again her husband bent his tall head to kiss it. The flush that overspread her cheeks was as bright as that on a girl's, but the colour faded too quickly. It was Robert Drummond's greatest trouble that his wife was not strong. Apart from this, no wedded couple could well be happier.

"Is Mr. Kennedy here?" asked the manager.

"No, but he will be before six o'clock. He must leave again by seven, to be ready for the service. So far, he says, few men have been at the room, though many women have attended. To-night, he hopes it will be the other way, as the men have their half-holiday, and could well spend a portion of it at the mission service."

"If they would. But it is not easy to get them to think so. I have been trying hard to enlist one recruit, but I fear with little success."

Here the children put in their claim to the father's attention, and, as usual, not in vain. Mr. Drummond and the small people were soon in the midst of a romp, and it was hard to say whether they, he, or the mother who looked on, enjoyed it the most.

Then the youngsters were sent off to the nursery, and just after their departure, Mr. Kennedy arrived, and tea was brought in.

During the meal they said little. The mission preacher was tired, and needed to rest both voice and body before the evening's work should begin. But knowing Mr. Drummond's wish to be of use to the large body of workmen placed under his orders, he was most anxious to hear whether he had made any progress. He listened with deep interest to all the manager had to tell, and especially to his account of the recent conversation with Adam Livesey.

Mrs. Drummond's sympathies were also enlisted, especially by what Adam had said about his wife, and the change wrought in pretty Maggie. "You would be just the one to comfort the poor fellow, Robert," she said. "You could enter into his feelings as few men could. He is the same as that silent, rugged-looking workman about whom you told me, as having such a strange attraction for you. It was singular you should meet with him so unexpectedly, and have a chance to talk quietly about so many things."

"It was. We got on very well until I mentioned Sunday, and asked how he spent it. However, we parted good friends, and I have broken the ice between manager and man."

"You will not let it close up again," said Mr. Kennedy, and then he rose to take leave of his hostess.

Mr. Drummond was going with him to the Mission Room. When there, he looked eagerly at each new arrival, but was disappointed in his search for the face of Adam Livesey.

Adam's arrival at home was not marked by such pleasing features as that of Mr. Drummond. He was rather late, and the children, weary with play and the walk to and from the park, were getting fretful, baby included.

"If you didn't want your tea, you might ha' thought these poor little things would, let alone Maggie and me, after being at work all day," said Mrs. Livesey in no amiable tone. "You may well cry, baby. You're almost famished, and father has given you nothing, I'm sure."

Mrs. Livesey might well be sure on this point, for, seeing that Adam had taken no eatables in his pocket, and had handed every farthing of wages into her keeping on the preceding evening, it would have been difficult for him to feed the children.

He was going to say so, but he checked the inclination to defend himself, as he had done on many similar occasions. "She knows as well as I do," thought he. "It's only her way. Least said's soonest mended, and naught said needs no mending."

So, having carefully rubbed his shoes and seen that the youngsters did the same, he went through into the little lean-to scullery to wash his hands. When he sat down at the table, he found his wife full of curiosity about the gentleman who, the children said, "had been sitting talking to father nearly all the time."

"Tom says he was a gentleman from Rutherford's, and that he saw him twice, on days when he brought your dinner. But I told him he must be wrong. No gentleman from Rutherford's would sit talking to a poor labourer like you."

"Tom was right. It was Mr. Drummond, the new manager."

"Well, I never! What's going to happen now? Whatever had he got to say?" inquired Mrs. Livesey, brimming over with curiosity.

"I can hardly tell you, Maggie. He said how pretty baby was, and he kissed her little face, and told me he had one like her at home, and he'd lost the next oldest, same as we did. I told him she favoured her mother, and what a bonny lass you were when I first knew you."

Mrs. Livesey stared in utter astonishment. What could possess him to begin talking such nonsense as that—he that went about in a general way as if he couldn't say "Bo!" to a goose. In the very depths of a heart not yet cold and dead, she was pleased at the nonsense, though she gave a little groan and replied, "You might well say 'was.' My pretty days have been over this long while."

"That's as folk think, Maggie;" and the poor fellow looked at her with a world of kindness in his eyes. Mr. Drummond's words had stirred him strangely, and made him see Maggie in a new light. He had made up his mind that she did not regard him as the thief who had stolen her youth and beauty by bringing her to his own poor home, but as the husband whom she still loved better than herself, and as the father of her children.

Maggie plied him with many questions, but there was no longer any sharpness in her tone or unkindness in her words. Finally, she concluded that the new manager must be a very nice gentleman, and that something good might come of the meeting. Like Adam, she did not think much of being interfered with out of working hours. The very fact of Mr. Drummond's having talked about going to a place of worship, and such-like, inclined her to be suspicious. "If he had promised to raise your wages, there'd ha' been something to think about. Even a shilling a week would ha' been better than nothing."

"I don't suppose he could give me a rise, Maggie, though I daresay he would make things better for everybody if he could. You see I'm only a labourer, and I get same as the rest that do the same work."

"You do more and better, for you stick to it," said Maggie. "But there, it's no good talking."

At this moment, a smart rap at the door interrupted the speaker, and she went to open it. There stood two decently dressed men, strangers, one of whom said, "You'll excuse us disturbing you, missis, please, but there's a lot of us going round in twos, to ask our neighbours to come to the mission service to-night. You'll be kindly welcome, if you'll come, and your master, too. You'll hear something good."

"Eh, dear! It's all very nice, I daresay," replied Maggie, who was quite her best side out, "but I couldn't do it. To-morrow 'll be Sunday, and Saturday night's the busiest in the week, with six of 'em to tub, and ever so many things to do beside."

"Well, missis, I'm glad you see to keeping their little bodies clean and wholesome. It would be a good job if every house we'd looked into were as tidy as yours is. Folks say, 'Cleanliness is next to godliness,' but it don't do to stop at the cleanliness, does it, mate?"

The other man said, "No, that would be a bad lookout," and, turning to Adam, "Will you come along with us, mister?"

Adam shook his head, and Maggie said, "Thank you, we've both enough to do for to-night."

"Well, then, I'll just leave you this little paper. It will tell you all about the mission services. Time and place, and preacher, and everything. If you go to a church or chapel regular, I don't ask you to give up your own service for this. But if you don't happen to be fixed, look in at our place to-morrow. You're safe to have time, and you too, missis, when you have your Saturday's work done so early, and your kitchen floor so as one might eat one's dinner off it."

There was no being angry with such good-tempered, pleasant-spoken visitors. So Maggie took the little handbill and thanked them for it, saying, they would "see about it."

Not that either Adam or his wife had the smallest intention of going near the Mission Room, but they would not say so. They only wanted to rid themselves of their callers in a civil way, and without giving offence by a direct refusal.

So when, after a kindly "good night," the door closed behind the men, they considered they had done with them and their errand also.

But they were mistaken.