"This weather certainly tries the strongest," said Miss Patch, with a sigh. "We will hope for the best, dear. We all of us have our bad days, don"t we? Charlie may be much better to-morrow; we must try to keep his spirits up, and make him as cheerful and happy as we can."
But Jessie, as she went down the stairs again, wondered how that would be possible when she herself felt so far from being either.
Christmas came and went, and the spring came, but without bringing to Charlie the strength and health that Jessie prayed for so earnestly for him. He never again went up to Miss Patch"s room to Sunday-school, so Miss Patch came down to him, and read or sang to him, just as he wished. They had no lessons now, for he could not bear even that slight strain, and, as Miss Patch said, with tears trickling down her worn cheeks--
"What good is my teaching now? He will soon know more than any of us. We can only help and strengthen him for the last hard steps of his journey." And Tom Salter, to whom she spoke, said huskily--
"You"d be a help to anybody, miss; don"t "ee give way now, don"t "ee give way," and all the time he was wiping the back of his hand across his own wet eyes. ""Tisn"t _his_ journey that"ll be the hardest and stormiest, I"m thinking," added Tom, ""tis those he"ll leave behind.
Who is going to break it to his mother? She doesn"t seem to see it for herself--though how she can help it is past my understanding."
Poor Miss Patch"s hands shook, and her tears fell faster. "I can"t, I can"t," she murmured, "but yet--I suppose I ought--there"s n.o.body else to do it."
It was Charlie himself, though, who saved her that pain. "Mother,"
he said one evening, when she came to get him ready for the night, "would you be very unhappy if I went away from you?"
"What do you mean?" she cried, in sudden fear. "You--you--"
"Would you, mother?" he persisted.
"Be unhappy! Why, I should break my heart--you are all I have to care for, or live for, or--"
He put his little wasted arm about her neck, and drew her frightened face down to his. "Mother, when I go away you will know I am happy-- but Jessie has gone away from her poor old granp and granny, and they don"t know--they think she is very unhappy and badly treated, and-- and, mother, I want you to try and get father to let Jessie go back to them again, they must be so dreadfully sad about her. I often think about them--I can"t help it--and it makes me feel so sad."
He was silent for a moment. "I wish I could see them," he added dreamily, "that I could tell them how I love her, and how kind she has been to me, and--and that she isn"t so _very_ unhappy."
Mrs. Lang had stood staring down at him speechless, stricken suddenly numb and dumb with an awful overwhelming terror.
"Charlie--you--you ain"t feeling ill--worse--are you? What"s the matter, dear? Why do you talk so? What do you mean by "when you go away"?" Her lips could scarcely form the last words, for she knew as well as he could tell her. It had come suddenly to her understanding that he was going a long, long journey--and soon; the last journey, from which there was no returning.
With a heart-broken cry she fell on her knees by the bed. "You ain"t going, you shan"t! Charlie, you shan"t go away from me--you must stay with me till I go too--"
"You will come to me, mother, but I shall go first, and I"ll tell G.o.d all about how you have had to work, and how hard it has been for you, and He will understand--"
"You can"t--you mustn"t go! Oh, my dear, my dear, don"t leave me."
"Oh, mother, I am _so_ tired, and I--I think I want to go, but I want you to come too. You will, won"t you, mother?" and he tried again to draw her face down to his.
"I will try," she promised faintly, and then burst into a pa.s.sion of heart-broken sobs.
A month later, when in the country the hedges were full of primroses and violets, and pure little daisies, Charlie took the last steps of his painful journey, and reached the "rest" for which he craved.
It was on a Sat.u.r.day that his brief journey through this life ended, and on the Sunday those whom he had loved--his mother, and Jessie, Miss Patch and Tom Salter--gathered in the little bare, quiet bedroom, with him in the midst of them once more, but so silent now, so very quiet and still.
"I am sure he is with us in spirit, the darling," said Miss Patch softly, as she looked at the worn little face, so peaceful now, and free from the drawn lines of pain they had worn hitherto; and, while they all knelt around his bed, she said a few simple prayers, such as went straight to their sad hearts, and sowed the germs, at least, of comfort there; and while they still knelt, thinking their own sad thoughts, her sweet voice broke softly into song.
"Sleep on, beloved, sleep and take thy rest.
Lay down thy head upon thy Saviour"s breast, We love thee well, but Jesus loves thee best-- Good-night!"
The others knelt, rapt, breathless, afraid to move lest they should break the spell and the sweet singing, or lose one of the beautiful words. Through the whole exquisite hymn she continued until the last verse was reached--
"Until we meet again before His throne, Clothed in the spotless robes He gives His own, Until we know, even as we are known;-- Good-night!"
Voice and words died away together. Then one by one they rose and, bending over him, kissed him fondly.
"Good-night, little Charlie, "good-night," not "good-bye.""
CHAPTER XI.
TOO LATE.
When Harry Lang was told that Charlie was dead, he looked shocked for the moment, then, having remarked glibly that "it was all for the best," and "at any rate he wouldn"t suffer any more," he told Jessie to make haste and get him some food, and became absorbed in making his own plans for his own comfort.
He hated trouble, and sadness, and discomfort of others" making, and he made up his mind at once to go away out of it for a time, and not return until the funeral, at any rate, was over. So at the end of his meal he announced to Jessie that he had to go away for a week on business. He wouldn"t bother her mother by telling her about it now, while she was worn out and trying to rest, but Jessie could tell her by and by.
What he should have done, of course, was to remain at home and relieve his poor stricken wife of all the painful details that necessarily followed the seeing about the little coffin, the grave, and the funeral. But Harry Lang had trained people well for his own purposes. No one ever expected a.s.sistance of any kind from him; so, instead of missing him, most people felt his absence as only a great relief. Mrs. Lang and Jessie did so now.
At the end of ten days he came back again, expecting to find not only the funeral a thing of the past, but all feelings of loss and sorrow to be put away out of sight and memory.
"You"ll be able to take in another lodger now," he remarked abruptly to his wife as he ate his supper on the night of his return.
"There"s a friend of mine that"ll be glad to take the room, and he"ll have his breakfast and supper here with me, just as Tom Salter does."
Mrs. Lang did not speak until he had finished; then, without looking at him, she answered curtly, "I am not taking any more lodgers."
Her husband looked up in sudden rage and astonishment. He had never heard his wife speak like that before, and it gave him quite a shock.
"Not--not--" he gasped; "and whose house is this, I"d like to know; and who, may I ask, is master here?"
"The house belongs to the one that pays the rent. This house is mine, and I am master here, and mistress too," she answered coldly but firmly; "and if I did want another lodger, I shouldn"t take a friend of yours; I am going to keep my house respectable, as far as I can--or give it up."
Harry Lang"s voice completely failed him, and he sat silently staring at his wife in wide-eyed amazement. He had thought he had long ago killed all the spirit in her, and here she was declaring her independence in the calmest manner possible, and actually defying him--and he could find nothing to say or do! Her tone to him, and the opinion, it was only too evident, she held of him, hurt and mortified him more than he had ever thought possible; for in his own opinion he had always been a tremendously fine fellow, very superior indeed to those poor creatures who went tamely to work, day after day, and handed their money over to their wives; and he thought every one else was of the same opinion.
"I--I think trouble or something has turned your brain!" he stuttered at last, "and you had better look sharp and get it right again, I can tell you, or I"ll know the reason why."
"My brain is all right," said Mary Lang quietly; "trouble has turned my heart, perhaps, and that isn"t likely ever to get right again; but I don"t see that that can matter to you. You never cared for me or my heart, or how I felt, or how anybody else felt, but yourself."
"I care about Bert Snow coming here to lodge, and he"s coming, too!
Do you hear? I told him he could, and I ain"t going to be made to look small--"
"You won"t look any smaller," said his wife rea.s.suringly, and he wondered stupidly exactly what she meant, or if she meant anything.
"You must tell your friend he cannot come here, I haven"t got a room for him. I am not going to have such as he in Charlie"s room.
Jessie is to have it, and it"s about time, I think, that your daughter had a bed and a room fit for her to sleep in," she added scathingly.
Harry Lang did not care in the least whether Jessie had or had not a bed, or if she slept on the doorstep; but he cared very much about his friend, and he meant to have his own way. But though he stormed, and bullied, and even struck his wife, he found her, for the first time, as firm as adamant, and quite as indifferent to him.
His orders meant nothing to her, and the change in her impressed him very much.
So Jessie, for the first time since she left Springbrook, had a real bedroom again, and a place she could call her own. She did not quite like using it, but she felt that her mother wished it. Mrs. Lang would have liked to keep the little room always sacred to the memory of him who had spent most of his little life in it, but rather Jessie should have it than that it should be desecrated by a betting, drinking, gambling stranger, who would pollute it, she felt, by his presence!
So Jessie and her possessions were installed. It was not a long business, for her belongings were very few. She had not had a penny or a gift of any kind since she came to London, except a little book of hymns that Miss Patch had given her, and one of Charlie"s favourite books which he had wished her to have. Her little stock of clothing had never been added to since she came, until now, when her stepmother seemed to find pleasure in providing her with a very thorough outfit of mourning.