From the moment she lay down in her little white bed, Mona had slept the whole night through. She had risen early the day before—early at least, for her, for her grandmother always got up first, and lighted the fire and swept the kitchen before she called Mona, who got down, as a rule, in time to sit down to the breakfast her grandmother had got ready for her.
On this first morning in her home she woke of her own accord, and half-waking, half-sleeping, and with not a thought of getting up, she turned over and was about to snuggle down into the cosy warmth again, when across her drowsy eyes flashed the light from her sunny window.
"Why, how does the window get over there?" she asked herself, and then recollection came pouring over her, and sleepiness vanished, for life seemed suddenly very pleasant and interesting, and full of things to do, and see, and think about.
Presently the clock in the church-tower struck seven. "Only seven! Then I've got another hour before I need get up! But I'll just have a look out to see what it all looks like. How funny it seems to be back again!" She slipped out of bed and across the floor to draw back the curtains. Outside the narrow street stretched sunny and deserted. The garden, drenched with dew, was bathed in sunshine too. But it was not on the garden or the street that her eyes lingered, but on the sea beyond the low stone wall on the opposite side of the way. Deep blue it stretched, its bosom gently heaving, blue as the sky above, and the jewels with which its bosom was decked flashed and sparkled in the morning sunshine.
"Oh-h-h!" gasped Mona. "Oh-h-h! I don't know how anyone can ever live away from the sea!"
In spite of the sun, though, the morning was cold, with a touch of frost in the air which nipped Mona's toes, and sent her scuttling back to her bed again. She remembered, joyfully, from the old days, that if she propped herself up a little she could see the sea from her bed. So she lay with her pillow doubled up under her head, and the bedclothes drawn up to her chin, and gazed and gazed at the sea and sky, until presently she was on the sea, in a boat, floating through waves covered with diamonds, and the diamonds came pattering against the sides of the boat, as though inviting her to put out her hands and gather them up, and so become rich for ever. Strangely enough, though, she did not heed, or care for them. All she wanted was a big bunch of the forget-me-nots which grew on the opposite shore, and she rowed and rowed, with might and main, to reach the forget-me-nots, and she put up a sail and flew before the wind, yet no nearer could she get to the patch of blue and green.
"But I can smell them!" she cried. "I can smell them!" and then remembered that forget-me-nots had no scent and realised that the scent was that of the wallflowers growing in her own garden; and suddenly all the spirit went out of her, for she did not care for what she could reach, but only for the unattainable; and the oars dropped out of her hands, and the diamonds no longer tapped against the boat, for the boat was still, and Mona sat in it disappointed and sullen. The sun went in too, and nothing was the same but the scent of the flowers. And then, through her sullen thoughts, the sound of her father's voice came to her.
"Mona! Mona! It's eight o'clock. Ain't you getting up yet? I want you to see about the breakfast. Your mother isn't well."
Mona jumped up with a start, and felt rather cross in consequence. "All right, father," she called back. "I'll come as soon as I can," but to herself she added, in an injured tone, "I s'pose this is what I've been had home for! Hard lines, I call it, to have to get up and light the fire the very first morning."
Her father called through the door again. "The fire's lighted, and burning nicely, and I've put the kettle on. I lighted it before I went out. I didn't call 'ee then, because I thought I heard you moving."
Then her father had been up and dressed for an hour or two, and at work already! A faint sense of shame crossed Mona's mind. "All right, father," she called back more amiably, "I'll dress as quick as I can. I won't be more than a few minutes."
"That's a good maid," with a note of relief in his voice, and then she heard him go softly down the stairs.
It always takes one a little longer than usual to dress in a strange place, but it took Mona longer than it need have done, for instead of unpacking her box the night before, and hanging up her frocks, and putting her belongings neatly away in their places, she had just tumbled everything over anyhow, to get at her nightdress, and so had left them. It had taken her quite as long to find the nightdress as it would have to lift the things out and put them in their proper places, for the garment was almost at the bottom of the box, but Mona did not think of that. Now, though, when she wanted to find her morning frock and apron, she grew impatient and irritable. "Perhaps if I tip everything out on the floor I'll find the old things that way!" she snapped crossly. "I s'pose I shan't find them until they've given me all the trouble they can," and she had actually thrown a few things in every direction, when she suddenly stopped and sat back on her heels.
"I've half a mind to put on my best dress again, then I can come and look for the old one when I ain't in such a hurry." The dress—her best one— was lying temptingly on a chair close beside her. She hesitated, looked at it again, and picked it up. As she did so, something fell out of the pocket. It was her purse, the little blue one her granny had bought for her at Christmas. She picked it up and opened it, and as she did so the colour rushed over her face. In one of the pockets was the eighteenpence which had been given to her to pay John Darbie with. "I—I suppose I ought to have given it to mother, but it went right out of my head." She completed her dressing in a thoughtful mood, but she did find, and put on, her old morning dress. "I suppose I had better tell her—about the money." She put the blue purse in a drawer, however, and tossed in a lot of things on top of it.
When at last she got downstairs it was already past half-past eight, and the fire was burning low again. "Oh, dear," she cried, irritably, "how ever am I going to get breakfast with a fire like that and how am I to know what to get or where anything is kept. I think I might have had a day or two given me to settle down in. I s'pose I'd better get some sticks first and make the fire up. Bother the old thing, it only went out just to vex me!"
She was feeling hungry and impatient, and out of tune with everything. At Hillside she would have been just sitting down to a comfortable meal which had cost her no trouble to get. For the moment she wished she was back there again.
As she returned to the kitchen with her hands full of wood, her mother came down the stairs. She looked very white and ill, and very fragile, but she was fully dressed.
"I thought you were too bad to get up," said Mona, unsmilingly. "I was going to bring you up some breakfast as soon as I could, but the silly old fire was gone down——"
"I was afraid it would. That was why I got up. I couldn't be still, I was so fidgeted about your father's breakfast. He'll be home for it in a few minutes. He's had a busy morning, and must want something."
Mona looked glummer than ever. "I never had to get up early at granny's," she said in a reproachful voice. "I ain't accustomed to it. I s'pose I shall have to get so."
"Did you let your grandmother—did your grandmother come down first and get things ready for you?" asked Lucy, surprised; and something in her voice, or words, made Mona feel ashamed, instead of proud of the fact.
"Granny liked getting up early," she said, excusingly. Lucy did not make any comment, and Mona felt more ashamed than if she had.
"Hasn't father had his breakfast yet?" she asked presently. "He always used to come home for it at eight."
"He did to-day, but you see there wasn't any. The fire wasn't lighted even. He thought you were dressing, and he wouldn't let me get up. When he'd lighted the fire he went off to work again. He's painting his boat, and he said he'd finish giving her her first coat before he'd stop again; then she could be drying. I'll manage better another morning. I daresay I'll feel better to-morrow."
Lucy did look very unwell, and Mona's heart was touched. "I wish father had told me earlier," she said in a less grumbling tone. "I was awake at seven, and got up and looked out of the window. I never thought of dressing then, it seemed so early, and I didn't hear father moving."
"Never mind, dear, we will manage better another time. It's nice having you home, Mona; the house seems so much more cheerful. You will be a great comfort to us, I know."
Mona's ill-temper vanished. "I do want to be," she said shyly, "and I am glad to be home. Oh, mother, it was lovely to see the sea again. I felt—oh, I can't tell you how I felt when I first caught a glimpse of it. I don't know how ever I stayed away so long."
Lucy laughed ruefully. "I wish I loved it like that," she said, "but I can't make myself like it even. It always makes me feel miserable."
A heavy step was heard on the cobbled path outside, and for a moment a big body cut off the flood of sunshine pouring in at the doorway. "Is breakfast ready?" demanded Peter Carne's loud, good-tempered voice. "Hullo, Lucy! Then you got up, after all! Well—of all the obstinate women!"
Lucy smiled up at him bravely. "Yes, I've got down to breakfast. I thought I'd rather have it down here with company than upstairs alone. Isn't it nice having Mona home, father?"
Peter laughed. "I ain't going to begin by spoiling the little maid with flattery, but yet, 'tis very," and he beamed good-naturedly on both. "Now, then, let's begin. I'm as hungry as a hunter."
By that time the cloth was laid, a dish of fried bacon and bread was keeping hot in the oven, and smelling most appetisingly to hungry folk, and the kettle was about to boil over. Through the open doorway the sunshine and the scent of wallflowers poured in.
"Them there wallflowers beat anything I ever came across for smell," remarked Peter as he finished his second cup of tea.
"I dreamed about wallflowers," said Mona, "and I seemed to smell them quite strong," and she told them her dream—at least a part of it. She left out about the forget-me-nots that she rowed and rowed to try and get. She could not have told why she left out that part, but already a vague thought had come to her—one that she was ashamed of, even though it was so vague, and it had to do with forget-me-nots.
All the time she had been helping about the breakfast, and all the time after, when she and her stepmother were alone again, she kept saying to herself, "Shall I give her the money, shall I keep it?" and her heart would thrill, and then sink, and inside her she kept saying, "There is no harm in it?—It is all the same in the end." And then, almost before she knew what she was doing, she had taken the easy, crooked, downhill path, with its rocks and thorns so cleverly hidden.
"Mona, haven't you got any print frocks for mornings, and nice aprons?"
Mona's thoughts came back suddenly from "Shall I? Shall I not?" and the eyes with which she looked at her mother were half shamed, half frightened. "Any—any what?" she stuttered.
"Nice morning aprons and washing frocks? I don't like to see shabby, soiled ones, even for only doing work in."
"I hadn't thought about it," said Mona, with more interest. "What else can one wear? I nearly put on my best one, but I thought I hadn't better."
"Oh, no, not your best."
"Well, what else is there to wear? Do you always have a print one like you've got on now?"
"Yes, and big aprons, and sleeves. Then one can tell when they are dirty."
"Oh, I thought you put on that 'cause you were wearing out what you'd got left over. You were in service, weren't you, before you married father?"
"Yes."
"I haven't got any print dresses. I haven't even got a white one. I've two aprons like this," holding out a fanciful thing trimmed with lace. "That's all, and I never saw any sleeves; I don't know what they are like."
"I'll have to get you some as soon as father has his next big haul. You'd like to wear nice clean prints, if you'd got them, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yes!" eagerly. But after a moment she added: "I do want a summer hat, though, and I don't s'pose I could have both?" Her eyes sought her mother's face anxiously. Lucy looked grave and a little troubled. "Wasn't that your summer hat that you had on yesterday? It was a very pretty one. I'm so fond of wreaths of daisies and grasses, aren't you?"
"Yes—I was—I'm tired of them now. I wore that hat a lot last summer."
"Did you? Well, you kept it very nicely. I thought it was a new one, it looked so fresh and pretty."
"I'd like to have one trimmed with forget-me-nots this year," Mona went on hurriedly, paying no heed to her mother's last remarks.
"They are very pretty," agreed Lucy, absently. In her mind she was wondering how she could find the money for all these different things.
"I've got eighteenpence," broke in Mona, and the plunge was taken. She was keeping the eighteen-pence, though she knew it belonged either to her granny or to Lucy. As soon as the words were spoken she almost wished them back again, but it was too late, and she went on her downhill way.
"Mother, if you'll get me the hat, I'll buy the wreath myself. They've got some lovely ones down at Tamlin's for one and five three. There are some at one and 'leven three, but that's sixpence more, and I haven't got enough."
"Very well, dear, we'll think about it. It's early yet for summer hats." She was trying to think of things she could do without, that Mona might have her hat. If she had been her own child, she would have told her plainly that she did not need, and could not have a new one, but it was not easy—as things were—to do that.
Mona's heart leaped with joy. Though she had known Lucy such a little while, she somehow felt that she could trust her not to forget. That when she said she would think about a thing, she would think about it, and already she saw with her mind's eye, the longed-for hat, the blue wreath, and the bow of ribbon, and her face beamed with happiness.
"I can do without the aprons and the print frocks," she said, in the generosity of her heart, though it gave her a wrench. But Lucy would not hear of that. She had her own opinion about the grubby-looking blue serge, and the fancy apron, which were considered 'good enough' for mornings.
"No, dear, you need them more than you need the hat. If ever anyone should be clean it's when one is making beds, and cooking, and doing all that sort of thing, I think, don't you?"
Mona had never given the subject a thought before. In fact, she had done so little work while with her grandmother, and when she 'kept house' herself had cared so little about appearance or cleanliness, or anything, that it had never occurred to her that such things mattered. But now that her stepmother appealed to her in this way she felt suddenly a sense of importance and a glow of interest.
"Oh, yes! and I'll put my hair up, and always have on a nice white apron and a collar; they do look so pretty over pink frocks, don't they?"
"Yes, and I must teach you how to wash and get them up."
"Oh!" Mona's interest grew suddenly lukewarm. "I hate washing and ironing, don't you, mother?"
"I like other kinds of work better, perhaps. I think I should like the washing if I didn't get so tired with it. I don't seem to have the strength to do it as I want it done. It is lovely, though, to see things growing clean under one's hand, isn't it?"
But Mona had never learnt to take pride in her work. "I don't know," she answered indifferently. "I should never have things that were always wanting washing."
Lucy rose to go about her morning's work. "Oh, come now," she said, smiling, "I can't believe that. Don't you think your little room looks prettier with the white vallance and quilt and the frill across the window than it would without?"
"Oh, yes!" Mona agreed enthusiastically. "But then I didn't have to wash them and iron them."
"Well, I had to, and I enjoyed it, because I was thinking how nice they would make your room look, and how pleased you would be."
"I don't see that. If you were doing them for yourself, of course, you'd be pleased, but I can't see why anyone should be pleased about what other people may like."
"Oh, Mona! can't you?" Lucy looked amazed. "Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'there is more pleasure in giving than in receiving'?"
"Yes, I think I've heard it," said Mona, flippantly, "but I never saw any sense in it. There's lots of things said that ain't a bit true."
"This is true enough," said Lucy quietly, "and I hope you'll find it so for yourself, or you will miss half the pleasure in life."
"Well, I don't believe in any of those old sayings," retorted Mona, rising too. "Anyway, receiving's good enough for me!" and she laughed boisterously, thinking she had said something new and funny.
A little cloud rested for a moment on Lucy's face, but only for a moment. "It isn't nice to hear you speak like that, Mona," she said quietly, a note of pain in her voice, "but I can't make myself believe yet that you are as selfish as you make out. I believe," looking across at her stepdaughter with kindly, smiling eyes, "that you've got as warm a heart as anybody, really."
And at the words and the look all the flippant, silly don't-careishness died out of Mona's thoughts and manner.
Yet, presently, when in her own little room again, she opened her little blue purse and looked in it, a painful doubt arose in her mind. It was nice to be considered good-hearted, but was she really so? And unselfish? "If I was, wouldn't I make my last year's hat do? Wouldn't I give back the eighteenpence?" What tiresome questions they were to come poking and pushing forward so persistently. Anyhow, her mother knew now that she wanted a hat, and she knew that she had the money, and that she was going to spend it on herself—and yet she had called her unselfish!
And downstairs, Lucy, with an anxious face, and a weight at her heart, was thinking to herself, "If Mona had lived much longer the idle, selfish life she has been living, her character would have been ruined, and there is so much that is good in her! Poor child, poor Mona! She has never had a fair chance yet to learn to show the best side of her, and I doubt if I'm the one to teach her. I couldn't be hard with her if I tried, and being her stepmother will make things more difficult for me than for most. I couldn't live in the house with strife. I must try other means, and," she added softly, "ask God to help me."
For a while, after that talk with her mother, Mona worked with a will. She swept, and scrubbed, and polished the stove and the windows and helped with the washing and ironing, until Lucy laughingly declared there would soon be nothing left for her to do.
"That's just what I want," declared Mona. "I want you not to have anything to do. Perhaps I can't manage the cooking yet, but I'll learn to in time." Excited by the novelty and change, and buoyed up by the prospect of her new hat, and new frocks and aprons too, she felt she could do anything, and could not do enough in return for all that was to be done for her, and, when Mona made up her mind to work, there were few who could outdo her. She would go on until she was ready to drop.
As the spring days grew warmer, she would get so exhausted that Lucy sometimes had to interfere peremptorily, and make her stop. "Now you sit right down there, out of the draught, and don't you move a foot till I give you leave. I will get you a nice cup of tea, and one of my new tarts; they're just this minute ready to come out of the oven."
A straight screen, reaching from floor to ceiling, stood at one side of the door, to keep off some of the draught and to give some little privacy to those who used the kitchen. Mona dried her hands and slipped gratefully into the chair that stood between the screen and the end of the table.
"Oh, mother, this is nice," she sighed, her face radiant, though her shoulders drooped a little with tiredness.
"Isn't it beautiful? I love these sunny, quiet afternoons, when everything is peaceful, and the sea quite calm." Her eyes looked beyond the little kitchen to the steep, sunny street outside, and beyond that again to where the blue sea heaved and glittered in the distance. The little window, as well as the door, stood wide open, letting in the scent of the sun-warmed wallflowers, and box, and boy's love. The bees buzzed contentedly over the beds. One made his way in to Lucy's plants in the window.
"I seem to smell the sea even through the scent of the flowers," said Lucy.
"I am sure I do. I can't think how people can choose to live inland, can you, mother?"
"I don't suppose they choose, they just live where God has seen fit to place them—where their work lies."
"Well, I hope my work will always be in some place near the sea," said Mona decidedly. "I don't think I could live away from it."
Lucy smiled. "I think you could, dear, if you made up your mind to it! I am sure you are not a coward."
"I don't see that it has got anything to do with being a coward or not," objected Mona.
"But indeed it has. If people can't face things they don't like without grumbling all the time they are cowards. It is as cruel and cowardly to keep on grumbling and complaining about what you don't like as it is brave to face it and act so that people never guess what your real feelings are. Think of my mother now. She loved living in a town, with all that there is to see and hear and interest one, and, above all, she loved London. It was home to her, and every other place was exile. Yet when, after they had been married a couple of years, her husband made up his mind to live right away in the country, she never grumbled, though she must have felt lonely and miserable many a time. Her mother, and all belonging to her, lived in London, and I know she had a perfect dread of the country. She was afraid of the loneliness. Then my father tried his hand at farming and lost all his savings, and after that there was never a penny for anything but the barest of food and clothing, and sometimes not enough even for that. Well, I am quite sure that no one ever heard a word of complaint from mother's lips, and when poor father reproached himself, as he did very often, with having brought ruin on her, she'd say, 'Tom, I married you for better or worse, for richer or poorer. I didn't marry you on condition you stayed always in one place and earned so much a week.'"
"Mother didn't think she was being brave by always keeping a cheerful face and a happy heart—but father did, and I do, now. I understand things better than I did. I can see there's ever so much more bravery in denying yourself day after day what you want, and bearing willingly what you don't like, than there is in doing some big deed that you carry through on the spur of the moment."
Mona sat silent, gazing out across the flowers in the window to the sky beyond. "There's ever so much more bravery in denying yourself what you want." The words rang in her head most annoyingly. Could Lucy have spoken them on purpose? No, Mona honestly did not think that, but she wished she had not uttered them. She tried to think of something else, and, unconsciously, her mother helped her.
"I want to go to see mother on Monday or Tuesday, if I can. Do you think you'll mind being left here alone for a few hours?"
Mona looked round at her with a smile. "Why, of course not! I used to spend hours here alone. I'll find plenty to do while you're gone. I'll write to granny, for one thing. I promised I would. I could take up some of the weeds in the garden, too."
She was eager to do something for her stepmother, so that she herself would feel more easy in her mind about the one thing she could not summon up courage to do.
"Yes, if you'll do a little weeding it'll be fine. I'm ashamed to see our path, and the wallflowers are nearly choked, but I daren't do it. I can't stoop so long."
On Sunday Mona went to Sunday school for the first time, and was not a little pleased to find that her last year's hat, with the daisy wreath, was prettier than any other hat there. With every admiring glance she caught directed at it her spirits rose. She loved to feel that she was admired and envied. It never entered her head that she made some of the children feel mortified and discontented with their own things.
"If they think such a lot of this one, I wonder what they'll think of me having another new one soon!" To conceal the elation in her face, she bent over her books, pretending to be absorbed in the lesson. Miss Lester, the teacher, looked at her now and again with grave, questioning eyes. She was wondering anxiously if this little stranger was going to bring to an end the peace and contentment of the class. "Is she going to make my poor children realise how poor and shabby their clothes are, and fill their heads with thoughts of dress?" She said nothing aloud, however. She was only a little kinder, perhaps, to the most shabby of them all.
Mona, who had been quite conscious of her teacher's glances, never doubted but that they were glances of admiration, and was, in consequence, extremely pleased. She returned home quite elated by her Sunday afternoon's experiences.
The next day, at about eleven, Lucy started on her three mile walk to her mother's.
"Isn't it too far for you?" asked Mona, struck anew by her stepmother's fragile appearance. "Hadn't you better put it off till you're stronger?"
But Lucy shook her head. "Oh, no, I shall manage it. If I go to-day I shall be able to have a lift home in Mr. Lobb's cart. It's his day. So I shall only have three miles to walk, and I do want to see mother. She has been so bad again."
Mona did not try any more to stop her, but bustled around helping her to get ready. "If you hadn't been going to drive back, I'd have come to meet you. Never mind, I expect I'll be very busy," and she smiled to herself at the thought of all she was going to do, and of the nice clean kitchen and tempting meal she would have ready by the time Mr. Lobb's cart deposited Lucy at the door again.
"Now, don't do too much, and tire yourself out, dear," said Lucy, warningly. "There isn't really much that needs doing," but Mona smiled knowingly.
As soon as Lucy had really started and was out of sight, she washed and put away the few cups and plates, and swept up the hearth. Then, getting a little garden fork and an old mat, she sallied forth to the garden. There certainly were a good many weeds in the path, and, as the ground was trodden hard, they were not easy to remove. Those in the flower beds were much easier.
"I'll do the beds first," thought Mona. "After all, that's the right way to begin." So she dug away busily for some time, taking great care to dig deep, and lift the roots right out. "While I am about it, I may as well turn all the earth over to make it nice and soft for the flowers. I don't know how they ever manage to grow in such hard, caked old stuff, poor little things."
Here and there a 'poor little thing' came up root and all, as well as the weed, or instead of it, but Mona quickly put it back again, and here and there one had its roots torn away and loosened. In fact, most of Lucy's plants found themselves wrenched from the cool, moist earth they loved, and their hold on life gone. Presently Mona came to a large patch of forget-me-nots. The flowers were not yet out, but there was plenty of promise for by and by. It was not, though, the promise of buds, nor the plant itself which caused Mona to cease her work suddenly, and sit back on her heels, lost in thought.
"I've a good mind to go down now this minute and get it," she exclaimed eagerly, "while mother's away. Buying a hat won't seem much if she hasn't got to buy the trimmings. And—and if—if I don't get the wreath, Mr. Tamlin may—may sell it before mother goes there."
This fear made her spring from her knees. Without any further hesitation, she rushed, into the house, washed and tidied herself, got her blue purse from the drawer in which it was still hidden, and in ten minutes from the moment the thought first struck her she was hurrying down the street, leaving the mat and the fork where she had been using them. But she could think of nothing. Indeed, she could scarcely breathe for excitement until she reached Tamlin's shop, and, to her enormous relief, saw the blue wreaths still hanging there.
"Of course, it is much the best way to buy it now and take it home," Mona argued with herself. "It will only get dirty and faded where it is."
She felt a little nervous at entering the big shop by herself, especially as she seemed to be the only customer, and the attendants had no one else at whom to stare. She went up to the one who had the pleasantest smile and looked the least grand of them all.
"Forget-me-nots? Oh, yes, dear, we have some lovely flowers this season, all new in. Perhaps you'd prefer roses. We have some beautiful roses, pink, red, yellow, and white ones—and wreaths, we have some sweet wreaths, moss and rose buds, and sweet peas and grasses." She proceeded to drag out great boxes full of roses of all shapes and kinds. Mona looked at them without interest. "No, thank you I want forget-me-nots."
"Oh, well, there's no harm in looking at the others, is there? I've got some sweet marg'rites too. I'll show you. P'raps you'll change your mind when you see them. Blue ties you so, doesn't it?"
"I've got daisies on a hat already. I'm tired of them. I want something different."
"Of course, we all like a change, don't we? I'll show you a wreath— perfectly sweet it is, apple-blossom and leaves; it might be real, it's so perfect." And away she went again for another box.
Mona felt as though her eighteenpence was shrivelling smaller and smaller. It seemed such a ridiculously small sum to have come shopping with, and she wished she had never done so. The girl dropped a huge box on the counter, and whipped the cover off. She was panting a little from the weight of it. Mona longed to sink out of sight, she was so ashamed of the trouble she was giving, and only eighteenpence to spend after all!
"There, isn't that sweet, and only three and eleven three."
But Mona was by this time feeling so ashamed and bothered and uncomfortable, she would not bring herself to look at the flowers. "Yes, thank you, it's very pretty, but—but—it's too dear—and—I want forget-me-nots."
Then, summoning up all the courage she had left, "You've got some wreaths for one and fivepence three-farthings; it's one of those I want."
The girl's face changed, and her manner too. "Oh, it's one of the cheap wreaths you want, like we've got in the window," and from another box she dragged out one of the kind Mona had gazed at so longingly, and, without handing it to her to look at, popped it into a bag, screwed up the top, and pushed it across the counter. "One and five three," she snapped rudely, and, while Mona was extracting her eighteenpence from her purse, she turned to another attendant who had been standing looking on and listening all the time.
"Miss Jones, dear, will you help me put all these boxes away."
Mona noticed the sneer in her voice, the glances the two exchanged. She saw, too, Miss Jones's pitying smile and toss of her head, and she walked out of the shop with burning cheeks and a bursting heart. She longed passionately to throw down the wreath she carried and trample on it—and as for Tamlin's shop! She felt that nothing would ever induce her to set foot inside it again.
Poor Mona, as she hurried up the street with her longed-for treasure—now detestable in her eyes—all the sunshine and happiness seemed to have gone out of her days. She went along quickly, with her head down. She felt she did not want to see or speak to anyone just then. She hurried through the garden, where the patch of newly-turned earth was already drying under the kiss of the sun, and the wallflowers were beginning to droop, but she saw nothing of it all. She only wanted to get inside and shut and bolt the door, and be alone with herself and her anger.
"There!" she cried passionately, flinging the wreath across the kitchen, "take that! I hate you—I hate the sight of you!" She would have cried, but that she had made up her mind that she would not. "I'll never wear the hateful thing—I couldn't! If I was to meet that girl when I'd got it on I—I'd never get over it! And there's all my money gone; wasted, and— and——" At last the tears did come, in spite of her, and Mona's heart felt relieved.
She picked out the paper bag from inside the fender, and, carrying it upstairs, thrust it inside the lid of her box. "There! and I hope I'll never see the old thing ever any more, and then, p'raps, in time I'll forget all about it."
As she went down the stairs again to the kitchen she remembered that her father would be home in a few minutes to his dinner, and that she had to boil some potatoes. "Oh, dear—I wish—I wish——" But what was the use of wishing! She had the forget-me-nots she had so longed for—and what was the result!
"I'll never, never wish for anything again," she thought ruefully, "but I suppose that wishing you'd got something, and wishing you hadn't forgot something, are two different things, though both make you feel miserable," she added gloomily.
For a moment she sat, overwhelmed by all that she had done and had left undone. The emptiness and silence of the house brought to her a sense of loneliness. The street outside was empty and silent too, except for two old women who walked by with heavy, dragging steps. One of the two was talking in a patient, pathetic voice, but loudly, for her companion was deaf.
"There's no cure for trouble like work, I know that. I've had more'n my share of trouble, and if it hadn't been that I'd got the children to care for, and my work cut out to get 'em bread to eat, I'd have give in; I couldn't have borne all I've had to bear——"
The words reached Mona distinctly through the silence. She rose to her feet. "P'raps work'll help me to bear mine," she thought bitterly. "When my man and my two boys was drowned that winter, I'd have gone out of my mind if I hadn't had to work to keep a home for the others——" The voices died away in the distance, and Mona's bitterness died away too.
"Her man, and her two boys—three of them dead, all drowned in one day— oh, how awful! How awful!" Mona's face blanched at the thought of the tragedy. The very calmness with which it was told made it seem worse, more real, more inevitable. Even the sunshine and peace about her made it seem more awful. Compared with such a trouble, her own was too paltry. It was not a trouble at all. She felt ashamed of herself for the fuss she had been making, and without more ado she bustled round to such good purpose that when her father returned to his meal she had it all cooked and ready to put on the table.
"That's a good maid," he said, encouragingly. "Why, you've grown a reg'lar handy little woman. You'll be a grand help to your poor mother."
"I do want to be," said Mona, but she did not feel as confident about it as her father did. "I'm going to have everything ready for her by the time she gets home."
"That's right, I shan't be home till morning, most likely, so you'll have to take care of her. She'll be fairly tired out, what with walking three miles in the sun, and then being rattled about in Mr. Lobb's old cart. The roads ain't fit for a horse to travel over."
"I should think she'd be here about six, shouldn't she, father?"
"Yes, that's about the old man's time, but there's no reckoning on him for certain. He may have to go a mile or more out of his way, just for one customer."
Apparently that was what he had to do that day, for six came and went, and seven o'clock had struck, and darkness had fallen before the cart drew up at Cliff Cottage, and Lucy clambered stiffly down from her hard, uncomfortable seat.
She was tired out and chilly, but at the sound of the wheels the cottage door was flung open, letting out a wide stream of cheerfulness, which made her heart glow and drove her weariness away. Inside, the home all was neat and cosy, the fire burned brightly, and the table was laid ready for a meal. Lucy drew a deep breath of happiness and relief.
"Oh, it is nice to get home again," she sighed contentedly, "and most of all to find someone waiting for you, Mona dear."
And Mona's heart danced with pleasure and happy pride. She felt well repaid for all she had done.
When Mona woke the next morning she felt vaguely that something was missing. "Why it's the smell of the wallflowers!" she cried, after lying for some minutes wondering what it could be. But in her new desire to get dressed and downstairs early she did not give the matter another thought.
Lucy, coming down later, stepped to the door for a moment to breathe in the sunshine and sweet morning air. "Oh," she cried, and her voice rang out sharply, full of dismay, "Oh, Mona, come quick. Whatever has happened to our wallflowers! Why, look at them! They are all dead! Oh, the poor things! Someone must have pulled them up in sheer wickedness! Isn't it cruel? Isn't it shameful!"
Mona, rushing to the door to look, found Lucy on her knees by the dying plants, the tears dropping from her eyes. Only yesterday they were so happy and so beautiful, a rich carpet of brown, gold, tawny, and crimson, all glowing in the sunshine, and filling the air with their glorious scent—and now! Oh, it was pitiful, pitiful.
"I'll fill a tub with water and plunge them all in," cried Lucy, frantically collecting her poor favourites—then suddenly she dropped them. "No, no, I won't, I'll bury them out of sight. I could never give them new life. Oh, who could have been so wicked?"
Mona was standing beside her, white-faced and silent. At her mother's last question, she opened her lips for the first time. "I—I did it," she gasped in a horrified voice. "I—didn't know, I must have done it when I was weeding. Oh, mother, I am so sorry. What can I do—oh, what can I do!"
"You! Oh, Mona!" But at the sight of Mona's distress Lucy forgot her own.
"Never mind. It can't be helped. 'Twas an accident, of course, and no one can prevent accidents. Don't fret about it, dear. Of course, you wouldn't have hurt them if you'd known what you were doing!"
But her words failed to comfort Mona, for in her inmost heart she knew that she should have known better, that she could have helped it. It was just carelessness again.
"They wouldn't have lasted more than a week or two longer, I expect," added Lucy, consolingly, trying to comfort herself as well as Mona. "Now, we'll get this bed ready for the ten-weeks stocks. It will do the ground good to rest a bit. I daresay the stocks will be all the finer for it later on." But still Mona was not consoled.
"If I hadn't run away and left them to go and buy that hateful wreath," she was thinking. "If only I had remembered to press the earth tight round them again—if—if only I'd been more careful when I was weeding, and—if, if, if! It's all ifs with me!" Aloud, she said bitterly, "I only seem to do harm to everything I touch. I'd better give up! If I don't do anything, p'raps I shan't do mischief."
Lucy laughed. "Poor old Paddy," she cried. "Why, you couldn't live and not do anything. Every minute of your life you are doing something, and when you are doing what you call 'nothing' you will be doing mischief, if it's only in setting a bad example. And you can work splendidly if you like, Mona, and youdolike, I know. I shan't forget for a long while how nice you'd got everything by the time I came home last night, and how early you got up this morning."
Mona's face brightened.
"You've got to learn to think, that's all, dear; and to remember to finish off one thing before you leave it to go to another. It's just the want of that that lies at the root of most of your trouble."
A sound of many feet hurrying along the street and of shouting voices made Lucy break off suddenly, and sent them both running to the gate.
"Boats are in sight, missis. Fine catch!" called one and another as they hurried along.
Lucy and Mona looked at each other with glad relief in their eyes. There had been no real cause for anxiety because the little fishing fleet had not been home at dawn, yet now they knew that they had been a little bit anxious, Lucy especially, and their pleasure was all the greater. For a moment Mona, in her excitement, was for following the rest to the quay where the fish would be landed. It was so exciting, such fun, to be in all the bustle of the unloading, and the selling—and to know that for a time, at any rate, money would not be scarce, and rent and food and firing would be secure.
Mona loved nothing better than such mornings as this—but her first step was her last. "I won't remember 'too late' this time," she said to herself determinedly, and turning, she made her way quickly into the house. There would be more than enough to do to get ready. There would be hot water, dry clothes, and a hot breakfast to get for the tired, cold, famished father.
"Now you sit down, mother, and stoke the fire, I'll see to the rest," and for the next hour she flew around, doing one thing after another, and as deftly as a woman. She was so busy and so happy she forgot all about the beach and the busy scene there, the excitement, and the fun.
But before Lucy did any 'stoking' she went out with a rake and smoothed over the rough earth of the empty wallflower bed. "If it's looking tidy, perhaps he won't notice anything's wrong when he first comes home," she thought. "When he's less tired he'll be able to bear the disappointment better." She knew that if he missed his flowers one of his chief pleasures in his homecoming would be gone, and she almost dreaded to hear the sound of his footsteps because of the disappointment in store for him. Because she could not bear to see it, she stayed in the kitchen, and only Mona went out to meet him. Lucy heard his loved voice, hoarse and tired, but cheerful still. "Hullo, my girl!" he cried, "how's mother, and how 'ave 'ee got on? I was 'fraid she'd be troubling. Hullo! Why, what's happened to our wallflowers?"
At the sound of the dismay in his voice, Lucy had to go out. "Poor Mona," she thought, "it's hard on her! Why, father!" she cried brightly, standing in the doorway with a glad face and happy welcome. "We're so glad to see you at last. Make haste in, you must be tired to death, and cold through and through. Mona's got everything ready for you, as nice as can be. She's worked hard since we heard the boats were come. We've all got good appetites for our breakfast, I guess."
Then, in his pleasure at seeing his wife and child again, Peter Carne forgot all about his flowers. Putting his arms around them both, he gave them each a hearty kiss, and all went in together. "I ain't hardly fit to," he said, laughing, "but you're looking as fresh and sweet as two daisies this morning."
Diving his hand deep into his pocket, he drew out a handful of gold and silver. "Here, mother, here's something you'll be glad of! Now, Mona, my girl," as he dropped into his arm-chair, "where's my old slippers?"
Mona picked them up from the fender, where they had been warming, and, kneeling down, she pulled off his heavy boots. Once more she was filled with the feeling that if she could only do something to make up for the harm she had done she would not feel so bad.
"Thank'ee, little maid. Oh, it's good to be home again!" He leaned back and stretched his tired limbs with a sigh of deep content. "But I mustn't stop here, I must go and have a wash, and change into dry things before I have my breakfast. I can tell you, I'm more than a bit hungry. When I've had it I've got to go down and clean out the boat."
"Oh, not till you've had a few hours' sleep," coaxed Lucy. "You must have some rest, father. I've a good mind to turn the key on you."
Her husband laughed too. "There's no need for locks and keys to-day," he said, ruefully. "If I was to start out I believe I'd have to lie down in the road and have a nap before I got to the bottom of the street. I'll feel better when I've had a wash."
As he stumbled out of the kitchen Lucy picked up the coins lying on the table, and put them in a little locked box in the cupboard. Mona, coming back into the kitchen from putting her father's sea-boots away, saw that there seemed to be quite a large sum.
"Shall I have my new hat?" she wondered eagerly. "There's plenty of money now." But Lucy only said, "I'll have to get wool to make some new stockings for your father, and a jersey, and I'll have to go to Baymouth to get it. Mr. Tamlin doesn't keep the right sort. Can you knit stockings, Mona?"
"Ye—es, but I hate——" She drew herself up sharply. "Yes, I can, but I'd rather scrub, or sweep, or—or anything."
"Never mind, I'll make them. I'm fond of all that kind of work. I'll have to be quick about the jersey, for I see that one he's got on has a great hole in the elbow, and he's only got his best one besides. I'd better go to Baymouth on Wednesday. It won't do to put it off."
"I wish I could take you with me," she said to Mona regretfully when the Wednesday came, and she was getting ready to start. "I would, only your father thinks he'll be back about tea-time, and he'll need a hot meal when he comes. Never mind, dear, you shall go next time."
"Oh—h—that's all right." Mona tried to speak cheerfully, but neither face nor voice looked or sounded all right! The thought uppermost in her mind was that there was no chance of her having her new hat. Her mother could not get that unless she was there to try it on.
She saw her mother off, and she did try to be pleasant, but she could not help a little aggrieved feeling at her heart.
"Granny would have bought me one before now," she said to herself. She did really want not to have such thoughts. She still felt mean and uncomfortable about the wreath, and in her heart she knew that her stepmother was kinder to her than she deserved.
When she had done the few things she had to do, and had had her dinner, and changed her frock, she went out into the garden. It would be less lonely there, she thought, and she could weed the path a little. She would never touch one of the flower beds again! Before she had been out there long, Millie Higgins came down the hill. At the sight of Mona, Millie drew up. "So you ain't gone to Baymouth too?" she said, leaning over the low stone wall, and evidently prepared for a talk. "I saw your mother starting off. Why didn't she take you with her? You'd have liked to have gone, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," Mona admitted.
"Well, why didn't you?"
"Somebody had to be here to look after father. He'll be home before mother gets back."
Millie Higgins snorted sarcastically. "Very nice for some people to be able to go off and enjoy themselves and leave others to look after things for them! If I were you I'd say I'd like to go too."
Mona resented Millie's tone. A sense of fairness rose within her too. "If I'd said I wanted to go, I daresay I could have gone," she retorted coldly. "I'm going another time."
"Oh, are you? Well, that's all right as long as you are satisfied," meaningly. "Good-bye," and with a nod Millie took herself off. But before she had gone more than a few paces she was back again.
"Come on out and play for a bit, won't you?"
"I'd like to," Mona hesitated, "but I don't know for certain what time father'll get back."
"Well, I do! I know they won't be home yet awhile. They'll wait till the tide serves. Come along, Mona, you might as well come out and play for half an hour as stick moping here. You might spend all your life waiting about for the old boats to come in, and never have a bit of pleasure if you don't take it when you can. We'll go down to the quay, then you'll be able to see the boats coming. After they're in sight there'll be heaps of time to run home and get things ready."
The temptation was great, too great. Mona loved the quay, and the life and cheerfulness there. Towards evening all the children in the place congregated there, playing 'Last touch,' 'Hop-Scotch,' and all the rest of the games they loved, to a chorus of shouts, and screams, and laughter. Then there was the sea to look at too, so beautiful and grand, and awe-inspiring in the fading light. Oh, how dearly she loved it all!
In her ears Millie's words still rang: "You might spend all your life waiting about for the old boats, and never have a bit of pleasure, if you don't take it when you can."
"Wait a minute," she said eagerly, "I'll just put some coal on the fire and get my hat."
She banked up a good fire, unhung her hat, and, pulling the door after her, ran out to Millie again, "I'm ready now," she said excitedly.
When they arrived at the quay they received a very warm welcome; they were just in time to take part in a game of 'Prisoners.' After that they had one of 'Tip,' and one or two of 'Hop-Scotch,' then 'Prisoners' again; and how many more Mona could never remember, for she had lost count of time, and everything but the fun, until she was suddenly brought to her senses by a man's voice saying, "Well, it's time they were in, the clock struck seven ten minutes agone."
"Seven!" Mona was thunderstruck. "Did you say seven?" she gasped, and scarcely waiting for an answer she took to her heels and tore up the street to her home. Her mind was full of troubled thoughts. The fire would be out, the house all in darkness. She had only pulled the front door behind her, she had not locked it. Oh, dear! what a number of things she had left undone! What a muddle she had made of things. When, as she drew near the house, she saw a light shining from the kitchen window, her heart sank lower than ever it had done before.
"Father must have come! Oh! and me not there, and—and nothing ready. Oh, I wouldn't have had it happen for anything." She rushed up to the house so fast and burst into the kitchen so violently that her mother, who was sitting in her chair, apparently lost in thought, sprang up in alarm.
"Oh, Mona! it's you! You frightened me so, child. Where's your father," she asked anxiously. "Haven't you seen him?"
"No, he hasn't come yet."
Lucy's face grew as white as a lily. Her eyes were full of terror, which always haunted her. "P'raps he came home while you were out, and went out again when he found the house empty."
"He couldn't. I've been on the quay all the time. The boats couldn't have come in without my seeing them. I was waiting for him. Everybody was saying how late they were. They couldn't think why."
"Yes—they are dreadfully late—but I—I didn't think you'd have gone out and left the house while I was away," said Lucy with gentle reproach. "But, as you did, you should have locked the door behind you. I s'pose Mr. King called before you left?"
"He hasn't been," faltered Mona, her heart giving a great throb. She had entirely forgotten that the landlord's agent was coming for his rent that afternoon. "The money's on the dresser. I put it there."
"Is it? I couldn't see it. I looked for it at once when I found the door wide open and nobody here."
"Open! I shut it after me. I didn't lock it, but I pulled the door fast after me. You can't have looked in the right place, mother. I put it by the brown jug." And, never doubting but that her mother had overlooked it, Mona searched the dressers herself. But there was no money on them, not even a farthing for the baker. "But I put it there! I put it there myself!" she kept repeating more and more frantically. She got upon a chair and searched every inch of every shelf, and turned every jug and cup upside down. "Itmustbe somewhere."
"Yes, somewhere! But it isn't here, and it isn't in Mr. King's pocket." Poor Lucy sank back in her chair looking ready to faint. Five shillings meant much to her. It was so horrible, too, to feel that a thief had been in, and had perhaps gone all over the house. Who could say what more he had taken, or what mischief he had done.
She was disappointed also in her trust in Mona, and she was tired and faint from want of food. All her pleasure in her day and in her homecoming was gone, changed to worry and weariness and disappointment.
"But who can have been so wicked as to take it!" cried Mona passionately. "Nobody had any right to open our door and come into our house. It's hard to think one can't go out for a few minutes but what somebody must come and act dishonest——"
"We can't talk about others not doing right if we don't do right ourselves! Your father and I left you here in charge, and you undertook the charge. We trusted you."
Mona got down from the chair. "It's very hard if I can't ever go anywhere—I only went for a little while. Millie said father wouldn't be here—the boats weren't in sight. And you see she was right! They are ever so late."
"Well, I suppose we are all made differently, but I couldn't have played games knowing that the boats ought to have been in, and not knowing what might have happened to my father."
"I get tired of always sticking around, waiting on the old boats. I never thought of there being any danger, they're so often late. It was only towards the end that people came down looking for them and wondering."
Lucy groaned. "Well, I'm thankful you don't suffer as I do, child. P'raps I'm foolish, but I'm terrified of the sea, and I never get accustomed to the danger of it." And she looked so white and wan, Mona's heart was touched, and some of the sullenness died out of her face and voice.
"I never thought—there was only a little wind," she began, when a sharp rap at the door interrupted her, then the latch was raised, and the door opened briskly. "Boats are in sight, Mrs. Carne! and all's well!" cried a voice cheerfully, and old Job Maunders popped his grizzled head round the screen. "I thought you might be troubling, ma'am, so I just popped 'fore to tell 'ee. I'm off down to see if I can lend a hand."
And before Lucy could thank him, the kindly old man was hurrying away through the garden and down the street.
But what changed feelings he had left behind him! Tired though she was, Lucy was on her feet in a moment and her face radiant. "Come, dear, we've got to bustle round now for a bit. You run and get some sticks and make a good fire, and I'll get out his clean, dry things. Then while I'm cooking the supper you can be laying the cloth."
While she spoke she was gathering up a lot of parcels which were lying scattered over the table.
"I'm longing to show you what I've bought."
"Yes," thought Mona, "and I am longing to see!"
"I wonder if you'll like what I've chosen for you."
"I wonder, too!" thought Mona.
"We'll have a good look at everything when we've had supper. Then we needn't be hurrying and scurrying all the time, and there'll be more room."
In spite of the upset to her feelings, Mona was interested, but all real pleasure was gone. She knew that probably there was something for her in one of the fat parcels, but the thought of taking any more kindness from Lucy, to whom she had behaved so badly, was painful. She wanted, instead, to make amends to replace the lost five shillings. She longed to have the money to pay back, but she had not one penny! All she could do was to work, and to go without things she wanted. She could do the first better than the last, and she would rather. She did not really mind working, but she did mind denying herself things she had set her heart on. "But I will, I will," she thought to herself while the shock of the theft was still on her.
Before very long the fire was burning brightly, the kettle was beginning to sing, and Lucy was cooking the sausages and bacon she had brought back with her from Baymouth. The savoury smell of them wafted through the kitchen and reached the hungry, weary man trudging heavily up the garden. Then Mona caught the sound of his coming, and rushed out, while Lucy stood behind her with radiant face and glowing eyes.
"You must be chilled to the bone, and dead beat," she cried. "Ain't you, father?"
"I thought I was—but I ain't now. It's worth everything just for the pleasure of coming back to a home like mine, my girl."