Penelope and the Others Part 26

As to that, Betty had no objection. She had a deal rather, she said, have a girl who knew nothing and was willing to learn, than one who had got into wrong ways and had to be got out of them. In short, she was quite ready to look with favour on the idea, and to Miss Unity's great surprise it was settled without further difficulty that Kettles was to come on trial.

With her usual timidity, however, she now began to see the other side of the question, and to be haunted by all sorts of misgivings. When she woke in the middle of the night dreadful pictures presented themselves of Kettles' father stealing upstairs with a poker in his hand in search of the plate-basket. She could hear the dean saying when the theft was discovered:

"Well, Miss Unity, what can you expect if you will have people in your house out of Anchor and Hope Alley?"

It would no doubt be a dreadful risk, and before she went to sleep again she had almost decided to give up the plan altogether. But morning brought more courage, and when she found Betty ready to propose that the girl should come that very day she could not draw back.

"I can soon run her up a cotton frock, and she can have one of my ap.r.o.ns, and there's all her other clothes nice and ready," said Betty in a business-like tone.

So Kettles came, newly clothed from top to toe and provided with plenty of good advice by old Nurse. At first Miss Unity hardly knew she was in the house, for Betty kept her strictly in the background, and hurried her away into corners whenever her mistress appeared in the kitchen.

Judging, however, from the absence of complaint that things were going on well, she at last ventured to inquire how Betty liked her new help.

"She's a sharp little thing, Miss," said Betty. "Of course she's strange to the ways of a house, coming from where she does. But she's willing, that's the great thing."

"Can the child read and write?" was Miss Unity's next question.

But Betty seemed to think she had nothing whatever to do with this part of Kettles' education.

"I'm sure I don't know, Miss," she said. "I've enough to do to teach her to sweep a room properly."

Upon inquiry it was found that Kettles did not even know her letters.

"I never had no time to go to school," she said, "and I don't want to, either."

"But," said Miss Unity, greatly distressed, "you can't read your Bible, then, Keturah."

"Mother, she reads the Bible," said Kettles, as though that were sufficient.

Miss Unity went upstairs full of uneasy thought. What could be done?

She could not send Keturah to school. It would be absurd to provide Betty with help, and then to take it away for half the day. She could not ask Betty to teach her. Finally, she could not let the child remain in this dreadful state of ignorance. There was one way out of the difficulty which stared Miss Unity in the face, however much she tried to avoid seeing it. She could teach Keturah herself in the evening after her work was done. Miss Unity shrank from it. She had never been brought close to poor people, and she had never taught anyone anything in her life. She was as shy of Kettles as though she were a grown-up woman, and it was altogether a most distasteful idea. Do what she would, however, she could not get rid of it. Her sense of duty at length conquered, as usual, and Keturah, with very clean hands and an immense white ap.r.o.n, appeared in the sitting-room one night to take her first lesson.

Miss Unity felt very nervous at first, and it was strange to have Kettles so close to her, but by degrees this wore off, and she even began to feel a sort of pleasure in the lessons. It was no trouble to teach her, for, as Betty said, she was "one of the sharp ones," and was, besides, eager to do her best. Not because she wished to know how to read, which she rather despised, but because she wanted very much to please her mistress, for whom she had a great admiration.

So things went on very well at Nearminster, both upstairs and down-stairs, and the time soon came when Miss Unity found herself looking forward to the knock at the door, which was followed by the appearance of Kettles and her spelling-book. This interest partly made up for the loss of Pennie, which had left a sad blank in Miss Unity's life at first. Here was another little living creature she could teach, rebuke, praise, and care for, and if Kettles could not fill Pennie's place in Miss Unity's heart, she could at least give it enough to do to keep it warm and active.

Although she would not have confessed it, her interest in the black children of Karawayo began to fade just now, and though she still attended the Working Societies and kept the missionary-box on her hall table, she was much more really concerned about Keturah's first pot-hooks and hangers.

Meanwhile the new maid showed such marked progress in household matters that Betty gradually allowed her to appear upstairs, and on some occasions to open the door to visitors.

"What a nice, bright little maid you have!" said Mrs Merridew, who was calling one afternoon. "One of the Easney school-children, I suppose.

Country girls are so superior."

"I've always noticed that," said the dean, as Miss Unity paused before replying, "the town children are sharp enough, but they're generally wicked. And the country children are honest and steady enough, but as a rule they're so dull."

Miss Unity listened with the respect she always showed to any remarks of the dean as he went on to enlarge on the subject. Once she would have agreed with him as a matter of course, but now she had a sort of feeling that she really knew more about it than he did. What would he say if he knew that the bright little maid Mrs Merridew had admired came from the very depths of Anchor and Hope Alley?

Time went quickly by, till it was nearly a month since Pennie had gone away, and Keturah had come to help Betty. She had come "on trial" as a stop-gap only, but no one said a word about her leaving yet. Certainly Betty's wrist was still weak, and this gave Miss Unity an excuse she was glad to have. She almost dreaded the day when Betty should put off her sling and declare herself quite well, for that would mean that there was no longer any reason for keeping Keturah.

"I am thinking, Betty," she said one morning, "of asking the young ladies from Easney to come over to tea to-morrow. Miss Pennie will be interested to see how well Keturah has got on."

Betty brightened up at once.

"I'll see and make some hot-cakes then, Miss," she said; "them as Miss Pennie likes."

"And I want you," added Miss Unity, "to let Keturah bring up the tea-things. The young ladies don't know she is here, and it will be a nice surprise for them."

Betty entering heart and soul into the plot, which Miss Unity had been considering for some days, a letter was despatched to Easney, the cakes made, and Keturah carefully drilled as to her behaviour.

Pennie and Nancy had been expecting the invitation, and were quite ready for it when it came, with Kettles' new boots and stockings made into a parcel. Andrew might drive them into Nearminster and leave them at Miss Unity's for an hour, Miss Grey said, and she hoped they would be sure to start back punctually.

"How funny it seems," said Pennie as the cathedral towers came in sight, "to be going back to Nearminster!"

"Would you like to be going to stop there again?" asked Nancy.

"Well of course I like being at home best," answered Pennie, "but there were some things I liked at Nearminster. Let me see," counting on her fingers, "there were Miss Unity, and old. Nurse, and Betty, and Sabine Merridew, and Kettles, and the Cathedral, and the market, and the College. That's five people and three things. And what I didn't like were needlework and dancing, and the dean, and Monsieur Deville, and all the other Merridews."

"I hope Betty's made hot-cakes for tea," said Nancy as the carriage stopped at Miss Unity's door.

"How can she, with only one hand?" said Pennie; and then the door opened and there was Betty herself, with her arm still in a sling, and a face s.h.i.+ning with welcome.

"Lor', Miss Pennie, it do seem natural to see you again, to be sure,"

she said with a giggle of delight. "And Miss Nancy's rosy cheeks too.

The mistress is expecting you; run upstairs to her, my dears."

She went towards the kitchen with a shake of the head and a short laugh, as if she had some inward cause for amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Betty seems to like having a sprain," said Nancy, looking at her over the bal.u.s.ters. "I never saw her look so pleased or laugh so much."

Miss Unity's welcome was quite as hearty as Betty's, but she too seemed a little odd, and inclined to give nervous glances at the door as though she expected some one to come in.

"Would you like us to go and help Betty bring up tea?" asked Nancy, noticing this. "We should like it tremendously if you would let us."

She started up as she spoke, and would have rushed down-stairs in another moment, if Miss Unity had not caught hold of her hand.

"No, my dear; no, thank you; certainly not," she said hurriedly. "Betty has some one to help her."

A little disappointed, Nancy sat down again. Her eyes fell on the parcel she held, and she frowned at Pennie to draw her attention to it.

Pennie was looking dreamily round the sitting-room with all its old familiar objects. She wondered where Kettles' clothes, which she had left on the side-table, had been put. What a long time it seemed since she had sat sewing in that high-backed chair! Brought back to the present by Nancy's deeply frowning glance, she gave a little start and said hurriedly:

"Nancy and I have brought some new boots and stockings for Kettles. May we give them to her with the clothes?"

"And will she be at the College?" put in Nancy, "or can we go to Anchor and Hope Alley?"

Miss Unity's head gave another nervous jerk in the direction of the door. She had heard a footstep coming upstairs, which was not Betty's.

"We will see about it after tea," she said. "You shall certainly see the little girl, as I promised you."

The door opened as she spoke, and a small maid-servant in a tall cap appeared, bearing a tray. Betty hovered in the background with a face in which pride and laughter struggled together.