Little Miss Joy

CHAPTER X.

"ONLY A LITTLE BOX."

Uncle Bobo was sitting at the door of his shop one golden September day, when the atmosphere of the row was oppressive, and his heart was heavy within him.

Little Miss Joy was mending – so the doctors said; for Uncle Bobo had declared two heads were better than one, and had insisted on calling in a second opinion.

Yes; they all said little Miss Joy was better. But in what did this betterness consist? She was still lying in that upper chamber, whence she had always smiled her good-morning on Patience Harrison, and sang her hymn of thanksgiving as the little birds sing their matins to the rising sun.

Better! yes, she was better; for there was now no danger to her life. But the fall had injured her back, and she could not move without pain. The colour was gone from her rosy lips, and the light from those lovely gentian eyes was more soft and subdued. Little Miss Joy, who had been as blithe as a bird on the bough and so merry and gladsome, that she deserved her name of "Little Sunbeam," was now a patient sick child, never complaining, never fretful, and always greeting Uncle Bobo with a smile – a smile which used to go to his heart, and send him down to his little shop sighing out – as to-day —

"Better – better! I don't see it; the doctor doesn't know! What are doctors for, if they can't make a child well? I pay enough. I don't grudge them their money, but I expect to see a return for it. And here comes Patience Harrison to tell me what I don't see – that my little sunbeam is better."

Patience Harrison was crossing the row to Uncle Bobo's door as he spoke. Her face wore the same expression of waiting for something or some one that never came, as it did on the morning when we first saw her looking up and looking down the row for Jack.

It was a wonderfully warm September. No news had been brought of the wanderer: the news for which her soul thirsted. George Paterson, it is true, had heard an inkling of news, but it was not anything certain. He had heard from a sailor that Jack Harrison had been seen aboard the Galatea by a passenger who had been put ashore as the Galatea passed the Lizard; and tidings had come that the Galatea had been lost off the coast of Spain, and only nine of the crew or passengers aboard had survived to tell the tale! That the Galatea was lost seemed certain, but that Jack was aboard her was not proved. The man who reported that he had seen him could not be sure of his name. He heard him called Jack, but so were hundreds of other boys. He had understood that he was a runaway, kept on sufferance by the captain to please the second mate; but that was all, and it was not much. Certainly not enough to warrant adding to Patience Harrison's heavy burden of sorrow. So George Paterson kept the suspicion to himself, and waited for confirmation of the report before he mentioned it.

Patience Harrison had nursed and cared for Joy as if she had been her own child, and Uncle Bobo was not ungrateful.

"Well," he said, as she leaned against the door, a variety of articles making a festoon over her head, and a bunch of fishing-tackle catching a lock of her abundant hair, which was prematurely grey: – "Well, is the grand affair coming off to-morrow?"

"Yes, they are to be married to-morrow at ten o'clock; but there's to be no fuss. They are going to Cromer for a few days, and I have promised to keep shop till they come home."

"And what's Joy to do without you?"

"I shall run over early every morning and late every evening, and poor Bet Skinner is out of her wits with delight because I said I thought you would let her stay by day and take my place."

"To be sure! to be sure! Only don't expect me to hold out a hand to that old lady, Skinner's mother. Is she to be present at the wedding?"

"Yes, and so is Bet; and I have excused myself on account of looking after the shop."

"Well, your poor sister is making a pretty hard bed for herself to lie on, and I am afraid she will live to repent it; though, to be sure, we can't call it marrying in haste. That sly fellow has been sneaking about here for a long time. What's the mother going to do?"

"She will live where she is for the present, and everything will go on the same, except that I cannot live with Skinner. I shall look out for a situation in a shop, as soon as Joy is well again, and does not want me. Or maybe I shall take one of the small houses on the Denes, and let lodgings to folks who can put up with humble accommodation."

"You oughtn't to do any such thing," said Mr. Boyd. "You have been a widow now between eleven and twelve years. A good man wants to make you his wife – and," said Uncle Bobo, slapping his knee, "and why shouldn't he?"

"Please do not speak of it, Mr. Boyd," Patience said. "Do you think that I could ever marry any man while I am waiting for my husband's return, and now, too, for my boy's? No! it is only pain to me to think that any of my friends could think I should forget."

"You'll see the boy safe and sound before long, and you'll find the salt water has washed a lot of nonsense out of him. He will come back, but the other – never!"

Mrs. Harrison said no more, but climbed up the narrow staircase to Joy's room.

"Oh, Goody dear! I am so glad you are come," Joy said, stretching out her little thin arms and winding them round her friend's neck. "I have been fidgeting so, hearing you talking to Uncle Bobo downstairs. And I've been very snappy to Susan, because she will have it I ought to try to stand. Goody dear, I can't."

"Susan knows that as well as I do, dearie. I think she tries to make you out much stronger than you are, to comfort Uncle Bobo."

"Dear Uncle Bobo!" the child said. "I wish he would not fret about me. Goody! I was dreaming of a horse tearing after me, just as that horse did that evening; and then it wasn't a horse at all, but it was great roaring waves, and I thought Jack was with me, and we were going to be drowned."

The lines on Mrs. Harrison's forehead deepened, and she tried to say cheerfully —

"Dreams do not mean anything, dear; and it is said they always go by contrary, you know."

Then Mrs. Harrison began to settle Joy's pillows, and put back the curtains so that she might see from her bed the strip of blue sky above the opposite roofs and through a slight aperture between the two houses, where Joy could on clear nights see two or three stars, and at certain, and what seemed to her very long intervals, the moon, on her lonely way through the heavens.

"Susan says the wedding will be to-morrow, and that you will have to stay to keep shop while Miss Pinckney is away."

"Yes, dear; and Bet is coming to be with you."

Joy sighed, and said softly —

"Poor Bet! she does love me very much; but, dear Goody, I don't love her as I love you. When Jack comes home, I shall tell him how kind you have been to me, and we shall be so happy; only I expect Jack will be vexed to see me lying here, instead of running out to meet him."

Mrs. Harrison could only turn away her head to hide her tears as Joy went on:

"Uncle Bobo said the other day, when he came up and found me crying, just a little bit, 'Why, I shall have to call you little Miss Sorrowful!' And then he seemed choked, and bustled away. I made up my mind then I would try to smile always when he came. I should not like him to call me little Miss Sorrowful, it seems to hurt him so. And then he always says he ought to have snatched hold of me when the horse came galloping after us, and that he ought to have been knocked down, not me. But that is quite a mistake. Uncle Bobo is wanted in the shop, and I don't think I could have done instead of him; and then it would have been worse for him to bear the pain than it is for me; for when he had the gout in his toe, he did shout out, and threw the things about when Susan went to bathe it. So it is best as it is," was little Miss Joy's conclusion; "isn't it Goody?"

The wedding came off the next day, and the row was greatly excited by the event.

Miss Pinckney was dressed in a cream-coloured cashmere, trimmed with lace, and she wore an apology for a bonnet, with orange blossoms, and a large square of tulle thrown over it.

Susan, who reported the appearance of the wedding party, which she watched leaning out of Joy's window, exclaimed:

"All in white, or next to white! Deary me! If I was fifty, and had a yellow skin, I wouldn't dress like a young girl. There she goes mincing down the row, and there's a coach waiting at the end with white horses. And there goes Mrs. Skinner looking like a lamp-post, dressed in a grey alpaca; she looks as grim as ever. And there's poor Bet – well, to be sure, what a frock and bonnet! They belonged to her mother, let alone her grandmother, or p'r'aps to that pretty daughter of hers, who ran off – she was that ill-treated by her mother she couldn't bear it! Ah! they are a queer lot, those Skinners; they do say Joe Skinner is a queer customer, and that he is so hard up, that's why he's married that old lady. He will make her money spin, and there won't be much left at the end of a year. Serve her right. I've no patience with folks making themselves ridiklous at her time of life. Why, my dear!" Susan said, growing confidential, as she drew her head in from the window, when the little following of girls and boys who lived in the row had returned from seeing the last of Miss Pinckney – "Why, my dear! I could have married, last fall, the lamplighter who has looked after the lamps in the row for years. But I knew better. I told him I was forty-eight, and he was scarce thirty-eight, and I was not going to make myself a laughing-stock. And he went and married a young girl, and has made a good husband. So that's all right!"

It was the same afternoon that Mrs. Harrison, being installed in her sister's place at the shop, Bet came breathlessly up the narrow stairs to say —

"Grandmother wants to see you."

"Oh! I'd rather not, please. I feel so afraid of your grandmother. Don't, please don't let her come."

But it was too late. Mrs. Skinner's spare figure was already at the door. She was dressed in her wedding gown and bonnet, and came to Joy's bed, standing there like a grey spectre, her bonnet and face all of the same dull grey as the gown.

Joy turned up her wistful eyes to the hard, deeply-lined face, and her lips quivered.

"If you please," she said, "I am glad you will spare Bet, while Goody is so busy."

But Mrs. Skinner did not speak – not a word. "I am getting better," Joy continued; "at least the doctors say so; but – but I can't stand or walk yet, so I am glad to have Bet."

Mrs. Skinner had all this time been scanning little Miss Joy's features with a keen scrutiny. Then, after a few minutes, she jerked out:

"I hope you'll soon get about again; you are welcome to keep Bet;" and then she turned, and her footfall on the stairs was heard less and less distinct, till the sound ceased altogether.

"Your grandmother is – is not like other people," little Miss Joy ventured to say. "I don't like her; but I beg your pardon, I ought not to say so to you."

"And do you think I like her?" Bet exclaimed vehemently. "At first I thought I'd try, and I did try; but she was always so hard. She loves Uncle Joe, I think, though she is angry with him for marrying Miss Pinckney, and lately I have heard high words between them."

And now Bet took off her wedding bonnet, and sat down by Joy's side, perfectly content that she was thought worthy to be her companion.

"You'll tell me if you want anything," she said. "And you won't mind if I am stupid and blunder, will you?"

"No," Joy said faintly. "Have you got your work, or a book? Give me my crochet. I like to try to do something, though lying flat it is rather tiring."

Bet did as she was told, and then said humbly, "I shan't talk unless you wish me to talk;" and the poor girl settled herself by the window till a bell rang.

"That is for you to go down for my tea," Joy said. "It saves Susan's legs, you know."

Bet was only too happy to be of use, and hurried down stairs at once for the tray.

"Be careful now," Susan said; "and don't fall upstairs and break the crockery. There's a cup for yourself, and Mrs. Harrison has sent over a bit of wedding-cake. It's very black, and I don't like the looks of the sugar; but I dare say it may eat better than it looks."

The day wore on to evening, and the row was quiet, when Joy, who had been lying very still, suddenly said —

"I have been dreaming of Jack again – Jack Harrison. I think he must be coming home."

"Did you care for Jack Harrison very much?"

"Very much," said Joy; "he was always so good to me. That last day before he ran away he lent me that pretty book you were looking at, and said we would learn those verses at the beginning together, and I never saw him again. That was a dreadfully sad time; and then, not content with being very hard on Jack, Miss Pinckney and your uncle said he was a thief. Think of that! Jack a thief! Miss Pinckney said he had got the key of a drawer and taken out a little box, where she kept the money. There were four or five pounds in it."

"A box!" Bet said; "was it a big box?"

"Oh no; dear Goody says it would go into anybody's pocket. A little box with a padlock and a little key. I knew Jack did not take it, but of course as he ran away that very day it looks like it. Even Susan shakes her head, and I never talk of Jack to her. But," said Joy, "I am tired now, and I think I'll take what Uncle Bobo calls 'forty winks.'"

Everything was very quiet after that; and when Bet saw Joy was asleep, she crept downstairs, and in the shop saw Mrs. Harrison.

Miss Pinckney's shutters were closed, and she felt free to come over and have a last look at Joy.

"A little box! a little box!" Bet repeated to herself as she went home. "A box so small it would go into anybody's pocket." And Bet that night lay awake pondering many things, and repeating very often, "A little box!"

CHAPTER XI.

MR. SKINNER IN COMMAND

Mrs. Skinner was more silent than ever during the next few days, and when she spoke it was to scold Bet in a rasping voice.

She was suffering from that very bad mental disease which is beyond the reach of doctors, and is a perpetual torment; and that disease is called remorse.

Of late she had been haunted by the memory of her only daughter, and of her harshness to her. The man she had chosen to marry was good, and to all appearance above the class in which Maggie was born. There was nothing against him but poverty. He had been a travelling photographer, who set up his little van with "Photographic Studio" painted on the canvas cover in large letters, and had sometimes done a brisk trade on Yarmouth sands. One of his first customers had been Maggie Skinner, then in her fresh beauty, and a tempting subject for a photographer or artist.

About the same time a wealthy grocer in Yarmouth, old enough to be her father, had offered to marry her. He had a villa at Gorlestone: possessed a pony-carriage, and was rich and prosperous. But Maggie shrank from marrying him. Mr. Plummer might be rich, and no doubt he meant well and kindly by her, but she could not marry him.

In vain she pleaded with her mother, and with her inexorable brother Joe, that to marry simply for what you were to get by it was a sin – a sin against the law of God, who meant marriage to be a sign and seal of mutual love.

Mrs. Skinner at last said that if she did not do as she bid her, and promise to marry Mr. Plummer, she might go and earn her living for she was not going to keep her in idleness. Many stormy scenes followed; and one night Maggie declared that she could not marry Mr. Plummer, for she had promised to marry Roger Chanter, the photographic artist!

"And if you do, you shall never see my face again," Mrs. Skinner declared. "I'll turn you out of the house, and you may disgrace yourself as you please. I have done with you. Your brother there knows when I say a thing I mean it."

"Oh, mother, you are very cruel!" Ah! how those words sounded sometimes in the dead of night, when Mrs. Skinner lay awake, listening for Joe's return, and to the moaning of the restless sea.