The Story of Jessie Part 17

"I'm coming, mother, I'm coming," he called, and went indoors.

"I expect it's pretty nigh tea-time, isn't it?" he asked, with affected cheerfulness; "the fire only wants a stir, and the kettle'll boil in no time."

Patience nodded and took up the poker. She was very slow of speech in those days, but it was a grand relief to know that she could speak at all, and break the silence which had held her for weeks and months after the stroke of paralysis which had seized her on that dreadful day when Harry Lang had stolen Jessie from them.

Thomas, coming back from market that night, had found his wife unconscious and helpless, and when at last she had recovered her senses it was long before she could speak and explain something of the terrible happenings of that afternoon; and even now, at the end of two years, her speech was still thick and slow, and her limbs on one side partially helpless.

Thomas spread the cloth on the table, and placed the china on it for her to arrange. The old man waited on his wife like a mother on her child, and nothing could exceed his patient devotion. With her he was always bright and cheery, and only his bowed back and snow-white hair and altogether aged appearance told of his own consuming grief and anxiety.

He cut the bread and b.u.t.ter, and made the tea with all the deftness of a woman. Patience watched him with the tears smarting behind her lids. When he had filled their cups he sat down, facing the window, and looking out along the garden to the little gate. They did not talk much. Thomas's mind had gone back to that morning when he had looked out and seen Daniel Magor at the gate with letters in his hand--that wonderful letter which had so altered and beautified their existence for a time, only to blight them both cruelly.

"I believe it's Miss Grace I see coming in," he said presently, rousing with a start. "She's at the gate, and--yes, she's unfastening it. I'll go and meet her."

On his way through the garden he saw a cat lazily basking on his best wall-flower seedlings, and drove her away; the excitement of it prevented his noticing the expression of Miss Grace's face, the anxious, excited look in her eyes.

"Good-evening, Mr. Dawson," she said, as she came close. "I was at the post office getting my letters, and there was one lying there for you, so I said I would bring it, as it was marked 'Urgent.'

It seemed wrong to leave it there until to-morrow, I thought it might be important."

She handed him the envelope, but she did not turn and go. "I think I'll step in and speak to Mrs. Dawson for a moment or so," she said quietly, "just while you look at your letter, then I'll go, that you may talk it over with her."

She felt that her little scheme was rather a clumsy one, but she had a strong conviction that it might be well for her to be there just then. "I will go inside," and she left him standing there in the autumn sunlight staring at the letter he held in his trembling hands.

He turned it over several times before he would make up his mind to open it. There was always a dread overshadowing him in those days of what he might have to hear.

Miss Grace had barely got through her first greetings, and declined Patience's offer of a cup of tea "fresh-made," when the door was flung open and Thomas almost fell in. In trouble he would have remembered his wife's affliction, and have hedged her round with every care, but joy was another thing. It was on joy that he had built his hopes of restoring her to her former self--and here it was, in his grasp!

"Mother!--Jessie!--I've heard from her!! Mother, mother, do you hear, there's news of her at last?"

Miss Grace stepped nearer and stood by the poor old woman, laying a firm hand on her shoulder, she could see how she was shaking.

"If it is good news, tell her quickly," she said anxiously.

Thomas read the expression of Miss Grace's face, and recovered himself at once. His care for Patience was always his first thought.

"Good! My dear, yes, good as good can be. Better than I ever hoped for. She is well, and she's coming back, to _us_, mother! do you hear? She is coming back for good. It doesn't seem possible, it doesn't seem as though it can be true, yet it says so on the letter.

Hark to it--in't it like the dear child herself speaking?"

The terrified look which had come into Patience's face died away.

She could not speak, but she put out one shaking hand and thrust it into that of her husband, and so they read the glad news. It was a curious, excited, incoherent letter, but it told them all they wanted to know, for the time, at any rate.

"My Dearest Granp,

"I have been longing to write all this time and tell you where I am, but I could not, and now father is dead and Charlie, and mother wants to go home to live with her father, and I am coming home to you! Mother told me to write and ask if I may, and I am very well and happy, but, oh, I am longing to see you and granny. I nearly broke my heart at first, but I am coming home again, and I am so happy, only I am sorry, too, to leave here, and the lady who has been so kind to me. She is old and feels very miserable at being left all alone. Good-bye, granp and granny. I shall come as soon as ever I can when I hear from you. Please write soon. Give my love to granny, I hope she'll soon get better,

"From your loving,"

"Jessie Lang."

It was well that Miss Grace stayed by the old couple, for they both needed her by the time the letter was read.

"She is well, and she must have met with kindness, or she would not be sorry to leave," she said cheerfully. "Now, Mrs. Dawson, we shall have her back with us almost at once, so it behoves us to set about getting everything ready for her," she went on, in her sensible, matter-of-fact way, for she felt that the best thing for both of them was to keep them busy with preparations.

Patience caught her spirit at once. "You must write to-night, Thomas," she said eagerly, "you mustn't delay, for the child is waiting for a word and she mustn't be disappointed, whatever happens.

I expect she's pretty nigh broken her heart many a time longing to write to us, and--and--her father wouldn't let her. I can read between the lines. I'm sure 'twas his doings--"

"He is dead now," said Miss Grace softly, "so we will forgive him and put away all hard thoughts of him, and maybe your little flower was taken from you just to brighten a dark corner for the time, and bring happiness to others--perhaps to learn some lesson that will help her in the future."

"Maybe," said Patience, but more gently; "my little blossom," she added softly. "P'raps it was greedy to want to keep her to ourselves always."

Thomas had dropped into a chair by the door. "I've got to write, and I can't," he said solemnly, looking up with a half comic, half wistful look in his blue eyes. "My hands is shaking, and my wits is shaking, and--and--but I must, of course, and I am going to Norton to-night to post it, so as the child can get it in the morning."

"No--excuse me--you are not," said Miss Grace, shaking her head at him, laughing, but decisive. "I have my bicycle. I can go there and back in next to no time. With shaking wits and hands you are not fit! Besides, what would Mrs. Dawson do all the evening without you?

No, Mr. Dawson, you write the letter and I will do the rest."

She put paper and pens and ink before him on a little table out in the porch, and she and Patience kept very quiet so that they might not interrupt him; but it was no good, he could not write, he really was too much excited and overcome. So at last Miss Grace wrote a little letter for him, one that brought satisfaction to both of them.

It expressed their amazement, their joy and excitement, and sent their dearest love, and some little news of them. "Your granny is stronger and more active than she has been for a long time," she wrote, "and perhaps your coming will make her quite well and able to get about again." She felt she ought to prepare Jessie for some of the change she would see.

"There, that is the business part, as you might call it," she said, placing the letter in an envelope, "but I am sure she will worry if there isn't a word from you, Mr. Dawson. Can you write just a tiny message to slip in with mine?--just to say how glad you are."

"Glad!" cried Thomas; "glad is a poor kind of word for what I feel!"

He had recovered a little, and was as gay as a schoolboy just getting ready for the holidays. He pulled a piece of paper towards him, and squaring his elbows, he wrote in large round hand:

"Come home quick to granp, and I'll be there to meet you-- same as before."

"Your loving grandfather,"

"T. Dawson."

"I haven't wrote a letter before for nigh 'pon twenty years, I b'lieve," he gasped, mopping his brow and stretching his arms with relief, "and now 'tisn't much of a one. I'm out of practice, but the little maid'll understand," and he chuckled happily as he handed it to Miss Grace. "Yes, she'll understand."

Jessie did understand. When the two letters reached her she danced about the house with glad excitement, then flew to Miss Patch to tell her all about them, and about that first meeting with granp at Springbrook station.

Miss Patch listened and sympathized, and rejoiced, too, and in her calm, sweet old face she showed none of the pain which was filling her own poor heart. She was losing every one she cared for, not finding them. All the little daily habits, and pleasures, and friendlinesses, the trifles that made her life, were being taken from her. In a few days more she would be a stranger among strangers, with no one interested enough to care what became of her, and nothing but her room and her flowers would remain the same. And even for how long that much would be left her she could not know.

She would have the same room still, for Mrs. Lang had handed over the house and everything in it, including the lodgers, to some people who wanted a small lodging-house of the kind; but who they were, or what they would be like, was all unknown to Miss Patch.

If, though, she did not show her own feelings then, Jessie found them out a little later. Going unexpectedly up to Miss Patch's room to present her with a geranium which had been one of her own particular treasures, given her by Tom Salter, she found the poor old head bowed on the table, and the poor thin body shaking with sobs. Jessie, in great distress, dropped her geranium and ran to her.

"What is it? What has happened?" she cried. "Oh, Miss Patch, do tell me," and throwing her warm little arms about her old friend, she began to sob, too.

But Miss Patch's self-control had given way at last, and recover herself she could not. Jessie tried to soothe and coax her, but without effect, and she stood beside her at last hopeless, helpless.

Her brain was busy, though, and presently light came to her.

"Miss Patch," she said softly, "is it because we are all going away-- and you will be left here alone?" Her own voice quavered at the thought.

One of Miss Patch's arms crept round Jessie and drew her close in an almost convulsive grasp. "Yes," she whispered in a choked voice, "I can't--I can't face it--the loneliness it--it--"

A sudden beautiful idea came to Jessie. "Don't stay!" she cried impulsively, without a thought as to ways, or means, or any of the other practical points, "come home with me, come to Springbrook,"

she cried excitedly. "Oh, do, do, Miss Patch, do. I want you to see granp and granny, and I want them to know you, and--and, oh, it's _lovely_ there, and you wouldn't be lonely, you'd have me and granp and granny; and--and it wouldn't cost more, I am sure," she added practically, "it is ever such a cheap place to live in; and--and we would find you a nice room, and, oh, the flowers you'd have--"

She had to stop at last from sheer want of breath. But by the time she had done Miss Patch had checked her tears and raised her head, and was staring at Jessie with wide, bright, half-frightened eyes, her face flushed and excited.

"I--it--oh no, it can't be; but--but, oh, how heavenly it sounds to a lonely body like me!" she gasped.

"But it _can_ be," cried eager Jessie. "I am sure it can, and it would be lovelier even than it sounds."