The Story of Jessie Part 11

"Well, do that first. You needn't wash more than two cups and plates. I'd better lend you something to put on over your clean ap.r.o.n, or you'll be wanting another before the day is out."

"I've got my overalls here," said Jessie, with pride. "Granny made me two," and she stepped to the old bag and lifted out a dark-blue galateen pinafore which covered her all up to the hem of her frock.

When she came back from was.h.i.+ng the dishes she brought the sweeping-brush with her, and, as a matter of course, began to sweep up the littered floor. Mrs. Lang opened her mouth to tell her to stop, then apparently thought better of it, and let her go on.

The kitchen swept, Jessie asked for a duster to dust the chairs and other things, which needed it badly enough!

"A duster! Don't bother me about such things. We haven't got any."

Jessie looked nonplussed. "May I have this?" she asked at last, picking up a bit of rag from a pile of things untidily heaped on a chair. Mrs. Lang, though, was gone, and did not hear her.

Jessie looked at the rag, and pondered. At last, however, the temptation to wipe off some of the dust became too much for her, and she used it. "I can wash out the rag again," she comforted herself by thinking. "I wonder what I had better do next," for Mrs. Lang had not returned. "I s'pose I'd better sweep out the pa.s.sage and brush down the steps. Oh, I do want some breakfast!" she added, with a sigh.

While she was sweeping down the steps before the front door, her stepmother came into the kitchen again. The semblance of a smile crossed her face as she looked at the neatly-arranged chairs, and heard the broom going in the distance.

"We're to be kept tidy, now, I s'pose," she muttered, with a laugh.

"I wonder how long it'll last. She won't get much encouragement here."

Jessie came into the kitchen with her broom, and found her stepmother frying bacon. It smelt very good, and Jessie was ravenously hungry.

"Does father have to go to work every day as early as this?" she asked.

"Work!" cried Mrs. Lang, with a scornful laugh. "Work! I've never known your father work since he crossed my path! It's the races he's off to; you wouldn't find him get up at this hour for anything else."

Jessie stared wide-eyed. "Doesn't he ever work?" she gasped.

"How does he live, then?"

"Well you may ask!" snapped Mrs. Lang bitterly. "He's kept. I do the work, and he finds that more to his taste. I've got the house full of lodgers, and I can tell you it takes me all my time, and more, to look after them. I never get any pleasure, and your father never gets any work, and he thinks that is just as it should be."

Jessie stood for a moment looking very thoughtful. Everything in this house seemed to her wrong. Just as it all used to be in her old home before she went to her grandfather's; but she knew nothing better then, she was too young. Now she was older and better able to understand, for she had had a long and happy experience of what a home could and should be, where each did a share, and thought always of others first. She felt suddenly a great pity for her stepmother, and a liking such as she had not thought possible an hour or so ago.

Perhaps she could do something, she thought, to make her less unhappy; at any rate she could help her.

"I will help you," she said, looking up at her with a smile.

"It won't be so hard with two of us to see to things."

Mrs. Lang's face softened a little, and a smile actually gleamed in her eyes as she glanced from the frying-pan to Jessie. "Yes, you can help a bit, I expect, you seem to know how to set about things.

Did you help your grandmother?"

"Oh yes, a lot," said Jessie, and at the recollection the tears brimmed up in her eyes. "I wonder how she is, and how granp is!

Oh, I expect he was in a dreadful way when he came home, and heard what had happened!" and at the thought poor Jessie's tears overflowed, and she sobbed bitterly.

"Hush, don't make that noise," said her stepmother quickly, but not unkindly. "Be quiet, child, your father's coming, and he'll beat you if you go on like that. Oh, it's you, Tom," as a young man lounged heavily into the kitchen, "I thought 'twas Harry."

Tom Salter dropped into a chair by the table with a tired yawn.

"Yes, it's me; I'm up, but I ain't awake," he said, with a laugh.

"Hullo," as he caught sight of Jessie, "is this the little girl you was telling me about?"

"Yes, this is Jessie."

He looked at Jessie and smiled, and she smiled back. He had a good-tempered face and kind eyes, and she thought she should like him.

"Bit tired, I expect?"

"Yes, thank you, I am," said Jessie shyly.

"Hullo, missis, been having a spring clean?" he asked comically, as he glanced about him. "The place looks so tidy I hardly knew it."

Mrs. Lang looked half annoyed. "New brooms sweep clean," she said shortly, "and two pairs of hands can do what one can't."

"That's true," said the young man soothingly. "I don't know how you ever managed to get through it all by yourself."

Mrs. Lang looked mollified. "It would have been all right if Harry would have lent a hand now and then," she said, "but he won't even clean his own boots, let alone any one else's; while as for bringing in a scuttle of coal, or going an errand, or putting a spade near the garden, he'd think himself disgraced for ever if he did either.

Disgraced! He!" with a bitter laugh, and the meaning in her voice should have made her self-satisfied husband feel very small--if anything could have that effect on him.

Just at that moment heavy footsteps were heard approaching and conversation ceased.

"Here's your father coming," said Mrs. Lang in a lowered tone to Jessie. Then, as she stooped down to the oven to get out the dish of bacon for him, "We won't have ours now," she whispered to Jessie; "you and me'll have ours after they're gone, when there's a little peace and quietness," and Jessie, in spite of her hunger, which was making her feel quite sick and faint, felt glad.

"While you are waiting will you run up and talk to Charlie?" she asked kindly, for she saw Jessie's dread of her father, which was only too plainly written on her face.

"Who is Charlie?" Jessie asked, "and where is he? I'd like to go."

"You go up-stairs, and on the second landing from this you'll see four doors, one of the back ones is our bedroom, and the next one is Charlie's. He is my son, you know, he's just about your age, but he's--he's very delicate." Mrs. Lang hesitated a little, and turned her face away from Jessie for a moment. "He's got to lie in bed all the time, it is very dull for him, and he'll be glad to see you, he knows you are come."

The door was banged open and banged shut again. "What's the use of my taking the trouble to get up, in such weather as this, and shave myself, and--and put myself out like this," grumbled the master of the house, entering half dressed, half asleep, and more than half angry. "No horses can run--"

Jessie crept to the door and escaped as swiftly and silently as possible. At the sight of her father all her old terror of him rushed over her again, and she felt she could not face him.

Up the stairs she hurried as fast as the darkness and her own ignorance of the house would let her, then stopped suddenly. She did not know how many landings she had pa.s.sed, or where to go. She tried to remember, but it was no good. "I'll go on a little further, though," she thought, "it will be better than going back again," and she groped her way carefully up another little flight of stairs.

Round the bend of them a light gleamed from a partly open door.

She went on further and looked in. The room was empty and very untidy, but there was a light burning in it. It was the one her father had just left. In the dimness she made out a smaller door beside it. Was this Charlie's? She listened for a moment, then a small thin voice called out, "Is anybody there? Who is it?

Mother, is that you?"

Jessie stepped over to the door and knocked. "It is me--Jessie," she called back. "Your mother sent me up to see you. May I come in?"

"Yes, please."

Jessie turned the handle very carefully. She felt painfully shy now that she was actually here, but it was too late to turn back, so she sidled in around the door, wondering very much what she should see, and what she should say.

What she saw was an untidy room with a small bed in it, and a large window just opposite the bed. There were a few fairly good pieces of furniture in it as well, but the whole place looked neglected, untidy and comfortless. Jessie did not notice this so much just at first, though, for the little figure in the bed claimed most of her attention.

Charlie was really of the same age as herself, but he was so thin and worn and helpless, he looked much younger, and his pale little face wore something of the appealing look of a baby.

A great, great pity for him swelled up in Jessie's heart, and drove out most of her shyness. "I am _so_ sorry you are ill," she said sympathetically. "Are you always like it?"

"Yes," said Charlie, looking at her with very shy, but very great interest. "I have been for a long time. I think it is seven years now. I fell backwards off a 'bus and hurt my back."

"Oh, what a dreadful thing!" exclaimed Jessie. "Couldn't a doctor cure you?"

"No. I was in hospital for nearly a year, but mother wanted me; she didn't like my being there, and when they said they couldn't make me well, mother said she would have me come home with her. She wanted me."