CHAPTER IV

HOW TO MAKE ENDS MEET

"THERE'S an awful lot of letters this time, Mr. Bristow," said Arthur one morning as the chief accountant entered the office where he was busy sorting them.

"Ah, there is a heavy post!" remarked that gentleman. "You must be careful, Murray, that none of them go astray, for there was a fine bother over that a few months ago. That is why we get the letter-bag brought here. The messenger used to do it, but he got so careless at last, and made so many blunders, that Mr. Brading said that the letters must be placed in more responsible hands. Be careful, and take your time over the sorting."

"There'll be a grumble then if the bags are five minutes late downstairs."

"Let them grumble. I'll tell Mr. Brading, if there is any complaint, that the post was unusually heavy."

And Mr. Bristow seated himself at his desk, and Arthur went on with his letter-sorting.

Before he had finished, a messenger came in and apologized for not having emptied the waste-paper basket that morning before the arrival of the gentlemen. He took it to the door and shot its contents into a sack, and Arthur soon followed him downstairs with the letter-bags.

The lad had been a month in his situation now, the trial month agreed upon when he first went, and that afternoon, Mr. Brading called him into his private room and asked if he thought he would like to continue in his employment, now that he knew what the work was like.

"Yes, sir; if I give satisfaction I shall be very glad to stay," said Arthur eagerly.

"Well, I think you fully bear out the character Dr. Robinson gave me of you," said Mr. Brading.

Arthur opened his eyes. "I did not know—" he began.

"I see you thought my son's recommendation, and the name you bore, would be sufficient for me. But, you see, I wanted a lad who was not only quick and accurate at figures, but also possessed other qualifications—who was steady and reliable, because the work required this. Dr. Robinson told me you had greatly improved in these particulars, as well as in your actual school-work, during the past few months. I tell you this, Murray, that you may understand exactly how things stand between us. Now the arrangement I am prepared to make is that from this time I will pay you forty pounds a year, and at the end of six months I will make it fifty, if Mr. Bristow can assure me that you are worth it."

"Thank you, sir," answered Arthur, overjoyed at the thought of being able to contribute a little more money to the family income. He would take his first two sovereigns home this evening for his four weeks' salary, for he had preferred to be paid monthly rather than receive the ten shillings every week.

Now that he could do this, and tell Annie that he would be able to bring forty pounds a year towards the household expenses, he hoped she would agree to sit down with him and look the thing fairly in the face, so as to fall in agreeably with Mr. Andrews suggestion that they should live strictly within the income he could allow them, and yet keep up the payment of the interest on the various mortgages with which the estate was encumbered.

Up to the present, Annie had maintained that it was quite impossible, considering that her mother was an invalid requiring many expensive delicacies.

The same argument was brought forward this evening when Arthur laid the two sovereigns before her, and asked if she did not think they could manage on the fifty pounds a year Mr. Andrews could let them have if he added another forty from his earnings.

"But what are you going to do for clothes, and boots, and pocket-money?" asked Molly. "Say you can let us have thirty, and keep ten for yourself. Don't you think you might manage with that, Annie?" pleaded her sister.

"I don't see why Mamma should be stinted of her little comforts. I think we ought to be willing to spend all her seventy-five pounds on these if she wants them."

"Don't you think if the cats had their food downstairs it might be managed?" suggested Arthur.

At this moment Mrs. Murray's bell rang violently, and Annie ran upstairs in a fright to see what was the matter, closely followed by Molly.

"My poor dear Tuffy, my poor dear Tuffy!" wailed Mrs. Murray. "That wicked girl downstairs has been beating her. I could hear it up here!"

"Well, Mamma, she deserved it, I am sure; and if a cat can't be taught how to behave herself, she will have to go."

"Go!" repeated Mrs. Murray in an excited tone. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Alice told me this morning that either she or the cats would have to leave, and she is such a nice, handy girl that we cannot afford to part with her."

"Now, Mamma," interrupted Arthur, "you cannot spare your pet, of course, but she would be more healthy and not give so much trouble if she was downstairs more. Let her come down to the kitchen to be fed, and have a run round two or three times a day, and then she would be glad to come back to you to be petted."

Mrs. Murray shook her head at the suggestion of this compromise at first, but Molly insisted that the cat must be killed before long if something was not done, and this brought her to reason; and she agreed before they went downstairs that in future she would not feed the cats from her plate, but let them be fed in the kitchen.

"Now we shall save a good many titbits," said Molly, "for in reckoning for Mamma we always had to consider the cats."

This was said when they were once more seated in the dining-room, considering the subject of ways and means for the future.

"This little maid you have got does not cost so much as Hannah?" commented Arthur.

"We only pay her ten pounds a year, and she does not insist that she must have this and that to cook the dinner, because she is willing to do things as we tell her; and we don't have to hear that she has never been used to 'mean, stingy ways.'" Molly laughed as she said this, but Arthur could understand how many little stings poverty had brought into the daily life of his sisters of which he knew nothing, and from which everybody agreed to shelter his mother.

"Then if Alice is so helpful to you, we must certainly try to keep her; and we must try to persuade Mamma that it would not hurt her if she came downstairs a bit too, as well as the cats."

"Oh, we'll be content with the cats at first," said Molly. "I believe I could like them a bit myself if they were more like what cats should be."

"Very well; with a little less spent on the servant and the cats, don't you think you could manage, Annie?" asked Arthur.

At length, after a good deal of consideration, she said: "Now I will tell you the whole truth of the matter. I believe, if I could pay all we owe at the shops, so that I was free to go where I liked to buy things, and did not have to pay such high prices for everything, I could manage to keep house on the income Mr. Andrews says he can allow us. But, you see, when we came here we had to deal with the same people as we did before. They expected it, because we still owed them some money, though part of the debts were paid. Then I never quite knew about things, because Hannah used to order what she liked in the way of extras. But now that I can do all that myself, I shall be able to save a good bit in the butcher's bill, and the grocer's too, and the dairy as well, for she would have new-laid eggs for everything."

"Oh, I say! Don't give us stale eggs for breakfast," said Arthur.

"As if I should think of doing such a thing!" exclaimed his sister. "But I have found out that shop eggs are about half the price I have been paying for new-laid ones, and make a pudding just as light, and so I have used them lately for cooking. Alice told me about that."

"Well done Alice! Now about these bills. If you have made up your mind to pay ready money for things, and have no more bills, I think Mr. Andrews would not mind giving us a chance to start fair and square for ourselves, and we have not had that yet."

"No, we haven't," said Molly; "and we always had to go to the most expensive shops for what we wanted, for if we ventured to go anywhere else we were sure to have the old bill we owed sent in, and the messenger who brought it was to wait for the money. Hannah knew how to manage them though. She would send a message back and an order for more things. Sometimes we did not want them, but we had to get them, to have a little peace and not let Mamma be worried."

"Poor Annie! you have had a hard time," said Arthur. "I will certainly go and see Mr. Andrews, and ask him to help us by paying off all these bills somehow. Now the best way will be to get them all together, and when I come home to-morrow I will add them up if you have got them ready, and then I shall know just how much I shall want from Mr. Andrews."

But when the next evening came, Annie had not got the bills ready. Some of the trades-people said they were in no hurry for the settlement of their account. The fact was, some of them had heard that Mr. Andrews was helping the young people, as he and his father before him had always helped the Murrays when things grew desperate. And so they thought the estate could not be so utterly exhausted as people had said it was, and they might as well keep them on their books as customers a little longer on the old methods; and Annie had been able to get only one or two small bills.

The three young people were puzzled to know what they had better do under this unexpected check, until at last Arthur decided to go and see Mr. Andrews again and ask his advice.

The lawyer was very glad to hear the errand he had come upon.

"If your father and grandfather had only made such a resolution, and acted upon it, years ago, the name of Murray would be of better fame, and you young people would not have such a hard task before you."

"I don't think we shall mind it much if we can once get clear of debt," said Arthur.

"Well, we shall see as time goes on. But if you don't feel it so hard, how will it be with your sisters when they want a new dress or a new bonnet? I know the way of the Murray ladies. It has been to send an order to the most fashionable shop, without regard to the cost or where the money was to come from to pay the bill. And I know something of the ways of these trades-people too," said the lawyer with a chuckle. "If they find out I am helping you, they will jump to the conclusion that some of us have found a gold-mine in the Murray woods, and they will smooth the way for you to get into debt. That is how things have gone on for generations, and we have got to convince these people that they are mistaken in their estimate of this last Murray, and his sisters too. Now are your sisters willing to wait for a new frock or a new bonnet until they can pay for it, and so shut off all milliners' and dressmakers bills. This is where the shoe will pinch, Mr. Arthur. But it is no good doing things by halves. If I am to set you on your feet again, I must have every bill to examine myself, and a distinct promise from Mrs. Murray that there shall be no more bills."

"I had forgotten Mamma," murmured Arthur. "You see she is so delicate she cannot bear any worry."

"Yes, yes, I know. But she is not too delicate to order a ten-guinea mantle, and bonnet to match that will cost half as much. You see I have had these people to settle with, so I know all about it, and you must not mind my speaking plainly in the matter. Don't be discouraged, my lad; I am more hopeful of seeing the Murrays on their feet again than I have ever been in my life, for you are the first, I think, who has ever dared to do an unpleasant duty because it was right, and to look things fairly in the face with a resolution to master them."

"Yes, I will if I can, for my sisters' sake,—and—and I feel sure they will help even in the dressmakers' bills. But I should be afraid to talk to Mamma about it just now."

"Well, watch for an opportunity and see what you can do. Tell your sister to get the bills in as soon as she can, and go over them carefully to make sure that she is not charged for goods she has not had. In the meanwhile ask her to pay ready money for what she has, and to go to what shop she likes to get her things. That will bring the bills in," he added, laughing.

Arthur went home to discuss the matter with his sisters, and tell them he felt sure that Mr. Andrews would see to the bills being paid, and give them a fair chance of living within their income, provided there were no milliners' and drapers' bills contracted after the present ones had been paid.

"You must agree to wait for a new dress until you can pay for it," added Arthur.

Annie looked struck with amazement that such a proposal should be made to her. "I never heard of such a thing! To ask a lady to pay for everything when she buys it!"

"Now, Annie, be reasonable. The Murrays are over head and ears in debt, I can hear all round. Don't you think it would be worth while to try and turn over a new leaf? The running into debt has caused trouble enough; you will be no less a lady if you avoid it and wait a bit longer for the new dress."

"Is that what you are going to do about the tailor's bills?" asked Annie, with something like a sneer. "You want a new suit of clothes; aren't you going to order them?"

"No, not yet," said Arthur bravely. "I shall have to take a little more care of my clothes in the future, so as to make them last longer; but what I have got must do for me for the next month or two."

Annie sighed. "Oh, how hateful poverty is!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, but we can conquer it if we only put our shoulder to the wheel resolutely. And after all, I think I would rather people said, 'How shabby that young Murray looks!' than that they should whisper, 'Eh, Murray looks smart, don't he? But you know his clothes aren't paid for; the Murrays never do pay their bills until they are obliged to.'"

"Arthur!" exclaimed Molly indignantly. "Nobody ever would say such a thing about us!"

"Oh, wouldn't they though! Don't you make any mistake, Molly. People all live in glass houses nowadays. I have had things thrown up at me at school, I can tell you. It has been hard for you girls, I know, but I have had my share too, and to end all this and be able to look people in the face, and know I don't owe anybody a penny, will be worth wearing shabby clothes for. You must keep them as tidy as you can, of course, because I should not like to look downright shabby at my work. But to look smart; well, I'll wait a bit for that, until some of the debts are paid off."

"But you can't expect Mamma to do this vulgar sort of thing," protested Annie. "She has been used to order things just when she wanted them, and she told me to-day I must write and order a new dressing-gown; she is getting so tired of wearing nothing but black."

Molly opened her eyes in amazement at this announcement. "Papa has only been dead six months!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, but Mamma would like a gray dressing-gown trimmed with black ribbon and black lace. You see it is not as though she would go out-of-doors in it, or that anyone would see her, so that it will not matter in the least, and it will please her to have a little bit of colour, you see."

"How much will it cost?" asked Arthur.

"Not more than ten pounds," answered Annie, as though such an amount as that was not to be considered beside her mother's whim to have a new dress.

"And if you send to order this, how is it to be paid for?" asked Arthur.

"Oh, the people won't mind waiting in the least!"

Arthur looked greatly disappointed. "I suppose the Murrays are born swindlers," he said bitterly. And without another word, he went out of the room, took his candle, and went up to bed.

"Oh, Annie, it was a shame of you to talk like that to poor Arthur, when he is trying so hard to set things right. Of course he is quite disheartened, and no wonder, poor boy!"

"But what are we to do? He must learn that we want dresses and must have them somehow. Mamma has always been well dressed, though she sits in her own room."

"Well, Mamma cannot have a new dress just now, and I shall tell her so to-morrow. Of course, what Mr. Andrews and Arthur are trying to do is worth twenty new dresses. If I am only a girl, I have sense enough to know that, and if you won't help him, I will."

"How are you going to do it?"

"Well, I shall tell Mamma first that it is impossible for her to have that new dress just now. And when she has got over it a bit, I shall tell her I want to see some of her pretty dresses that are put away in the big wardrobe, and I shall be sure to find one that can be altered to the present fashion. Why shouldn't a dressmaker come here to do it? It would be great fun, Annie, and I believe it would please Mamma to superintend the alterations. Don't you think my plan would be worth a trial now?"

"If you can get Mamma to agree to it, I dare say it would, but I cannot face the trouble of bringing her to think so, and so I shall leave the matter entirely to you. I haven't written to order the new dress, and I will wait and see how you get on to-morrow, but I cannot do more than that, and if the worry and upset should make Mamma ill, why, you must take the consequences."

"All right! I don't think we shall want the doctor," said Molly, "I will manage the Mater."

And the girl went off to bed full of her plan for helping her brother, and getting a new dress out of an old one.