Better than Play Part 20

"Will you have to live in Norton altogether?" asked Margery dolefully, for she did not like the thought of losing Tom and Bella.

Bella, who read her feelings, hastened to comfort her. "Oh no," she cried; "we've only taken the shop and a room behind it. Such a nice little room, Aunt Emma. You will have to come in and have tea there sometimes. The top part of the house is let to some one else. We shall drive in every day with the fresh things to sell, and come home at night.

I think florists and greengrocers--doesn't it sound grand, daddy?--don't do much after the morning, and I should think we could shut the shop at four or five in the afternoon every day but Sat.u.r.days. Don't you, father?"

"May I come in sometimes and serve the customers?" asked Maggie eagerly.

"Of course you shall."

"When I've got a pig to sell will you carry it in too and sell it for me?"

asked Charlie quite gravely. "You would put it in the window for me, wouldn't you, so that people could see it?"

"Of course," answered Tom, with equal gravity, "if you would sit there and make it behave. We don't want the window broken, for we haven't insured it yet, and we don't want all our things spoilt."

"It would be a wonderful attraction," went on Charlie thoughtfully, as though he had not heard his brother; "it would draw crowds, and give you such a start-off. I think you'd have to pay me so much an hour, it would be such a fine advertis.e.m.e.nt."

"It would draw people to the window, but I don't know that it would bring them inside," laughed Bella.

"Of course people would think you were for sale too," said Margery; "it would be awkward if they wouldn't buy the pig unless you went with it----" But her sentence was never finished, for Charlie chased her out of the kitchen, and they finished their dispute in the garden.

"We'll begin tea; we won't wait for those harum-scarums," said Aunt Emma, lifting a tart out of the oven; and the four drew cosily round the table.

Bella always loved those evening meals at the end of the long day in market, when they sat and enjoyed at their leisure the good things Aunt Emma provided, while they talked over all that had happened at home and abroad.

To-day seemed a day set apart, a special day, for had not their father walked to the milestone to meet them? This, in Bella's eyes, was a more important event than the taking of the shop. From the garden came sounds of laughter and screaming, the sober clucking of the hens, and the louder calling of Margery's ducks.

"We shall be very lonely, Emma, when these two are away all day, shan't we? I don't know what we shall do, do you?"

Their father spoke half-jestingly, yet there was something in his tone which was far removed from jesting. Tom looked from Bella to his father and back again. With his eyebrows he seemed to be asking her a question, and evidently she understood and signalled her answer.

"Father," said Tom nervously, for he was always rather shy of speaking before others, "we've thought out a plan, and we wondered if you'd fall in with it, or--be able to, or----"

"Well, my boy, I will if I can, if--well, if it isn't one to benefit me only. It seems to me you're all thinking always what'll be best and pleasantest for me, and I ain't going to have it; I ain't a poor invalid any longer."

"Well, it isn't to benefit you only, father," chimed in Bella eagerly; "we think it will be best for all of us, and I think you'll think so too.

Go on, Tom."

"Well," said Tom, "it's this,--that you go in to the shop every day with Bella; you can keep accounts and do that sort of thing better than I can, and----" he broke off suddenly, almost startled by the look of pleasure which broke over his father's face, the sudden lightening of the sadness which, unconsciously, always showed now in his eyes. To be at work again!

to be able to give real help, to be a working partner! To the man who had for so long borne an enforced idleness, who had had to sit by and see others work beyond their strength because he could do nothing to help--it seemed too good to be true, a happiness almost too great. "Do the work?"

Of course he could do it. It would put new life into him to be a man again and worker.

"But what about you, Tom? It would be a bitter disappointment to give it up, wouldn't it?"

"Disappointment?" cried Tom; "why, there's nothing I'd like better.

You see, if you can be in the shop, I can stay at home and give all my time to the garden, instead of having only the evenings after I get back.

Then Aunt Emma and Charlie and I can look after things here; and, if we run this place, and you and Bella run the other, we ought to get on A1.

Don't you agree, everybody?"

Tom gained courage as he went on, and, indeed, his father's undisguised pleasure in the plan was enough to encourage any one. But Tom was cautious too. He put all the arguments before his father, as though he had shown reluctance, and had to be won over; for what they wanted, above all things, was to make him feel that his help was really needed.

He succeeded in his aim, too, and without any help from Bella, for the pathos of her father's joy brought a lump into her throat and a mist before her eyes that prevented her speaking a word.

"I think I'll go for a little stroll," she said quietly, when she rose from the table, and something in her voice and face prevented any one from hindering her. Out through the garden she went, and along the quiet road, where the soft mist of evening was creeping up and the birds were calling their last good-nights. On she went, and on, until she reached the old grey church, standing so protectingly in the midst of the green graves, which seemed to nestle about its sides as about a mother.

Bella opened the churchyard gate and walked along the path to a far corner, where a white headstone gleamed out distinctly from the dark holly hedge behind it.

"In loving memory of Isabella, wife of William Hender. Aged 29," ran the inscription.

Bella sat down on the curb which outlined the long, narrow grave, and leaned her head against the stone. "Oh, mother, mother, if only you had been here too, everything would have been just right!" She put her arm around the little cross caressingly, and leaned her cheek against it, but the coldness of it brought back to her memory the coldness of her mother's brow when last she had kissed it, and she drew back quickly again.

It seemed so hard and unresponsive. "She knows, though she isn't here.

I am sure she knows," and she turned her face up to the darkening sky, where already the stars were beginning to s.h.i.+ne.

"Like silver lamps in a distant shrine, The stars are all s.h.i.+ning bright, The bells of the City of G.o.d ring out, For the son of Mary is born to-night, The gloom is past, and the morn at last Is coming with Orient Light."

The lines and the haunting air of the old carol came pouring into Bella's mind. "It isn't Christmas, but all the rest fits to-night and--and every time," and there in the gathering darkness she sang softly to herself--

"Faith sees no longer the stable floor, The pavement of sapphire is there, The clear light of heaven streams out to the world, And the angels of G.o.d are crowding the air, And heaven and earth, through the Spotless Birth, Are at peace on this night so fair."

All the way home along the quiet road the lines still haunted her--

"And heaven and earth, through the Spotless Birth, Are at peace on this night so fair."

She was singing softly as she reached her own gate. She did not see her father standing inside and looking over it.

"La.s.sie, that's what I was feeling, but didn't know how to put it into words," he said, with an unusual gentleness in his tone.

"Oh, father, are you here? Isn't it damp for you to be out?" she asked anxiously, for Bella was always nervous for him.

"I couldn't go in, child, till you were home. It seemed to me you weren't happy about something."

Bella, as she tucked her hand through his arm, rea.s.sured him.

"Why, father, I was too happy, that was all! I was so happy I had to go away by myself for a bit, so that I--shouldn't make myself silly, and I've come back happier than ever. There's Aunt Emma at the door calling to us.

There's such a lot to talk about, that if we don't go in and begin we shan't have finished till morning;" and she led him back between the neat flower-beds to the open door, where, in a glow of warm light from within, Aunt Emma stood awaiting them.

The End