CHAPTER VII.

CHANGES.

MRS. WINN was very well satisfied with all she saw at Fairfield. It was early spring, and everything was looking its best. It seemed a cosy little village. There were one or two shops, a tiny church, and village schools. She had little time to see more than this, for, of course, as the general appearance of the place pleased her, she went in search of a house, and was directed at the general shop where to find a vacant cottage that the man thought might suit her.

She found it was rather larger than most of those in the village, but it was a regular country cottage. It had five rooms, and a large garden at the back. There was a pretty little porch over the front door, and a tiny flower garden separating it from the road.

It had not been occupied for some time, and the garden, back and front, were weed-grown, and the house itself needed some repairs.

And after looking at it, she returned the key to the grocer, and then learned that he owned the cottage, and was not merely the agent as she supposed, and she found that he was willing to put the house into thorough repair, when he learned that Mrs. Winn wanted it for herself. The rent he asked was so much less than what she had ever paid before, that she could only wonder that it had stood empty a month instead of nearly a year.

The landlord agreed to have everything ready for them to come in by the end of March, and promised to have the garden dug and got ready for Tom to put in some vegetables.

So Mrs. Winn returned home with renewed hope, and a glowing account of the pretty cottage she had taken; and described the garden with its apple tree and currant bushes, until Tom and Elsie were almost wild with delight at the anticipation of living in the country.

Fortunately for Mrs. Winn, houses were in demand just now in this London suburb, and so the card bearing the announcement, "This house to let—" had not been in the window many hours before someone called to see the house. And in less than a week, the business was settled, and she was free to make arrangements for moving.

To the children, the whole business was a pleasure and novelty. And although Tom soon grew too tired to be of much service in the actual work, Jack Bond came to do his share, and was so strong and willing that nothing came amiss to him. He took up carpets and beat them; took down curtains and blinds and pictures, and helped to pack them. In fact he was so handy in getting the furniture ready for the railway men to fetch, that Mrs. Winn was spared a good many small expenses she must otherwise have incurred, and the whole business was a sort of indoor picnic to the young folks, who had never before known the bustle and excitement of a move.

Of course, to Mrs. Winn, who had spent a good many happy years in this house, there was pain as well as pleasure in the removal, but there was so much to done, and so little time to do it in, that there was no leisure for fretting, even if she had had the disposition to indulge in it.

To friends and neighbours, it seemed that the move was very sudden, and they wondered why Mrs. Winn should be in such a hurry to get away from the neighbourhood, for they thought she might have sent Tom to the seaside to recruit his health, and waited a little longer for work to come in. But the fact was, as one or two of her more intimate friends guessed, she had spent nearly all the little stock of money she had when her husband died, and if she had waited longer, she might not have had the means to move at all.

Everybody felt sorry for the Winns, and their hasty move gave rise to all sorts of surmises; and some even whispered that they might have got into debt during Tom's long illness, and it was because she could not pay her creditors that Mrs. Winn was going away.

Fortunately for her peace of mind, the widow knew nothing of these surmises, and she and her family went away in blissful ignorance that anyone supposed they had done a strange thing in going.

The cottage looked very charming the bright spring day when Tom and Elsie first saw it. They went into raptures over the woodbine-covered porch, and there never was such a garden and apple tree as the one they possessed now. Then there was all the delight of unpacking and arranging the furniture in the quaint old rooms, where they all agreed it looked much nicer than in their old house.

For the first few days, they were so busy doing this that they failed to notice that their own was almost the largest house in the village, and Elsie was the first to remark that the cottages about them were rather poor and small; and the women she saw standing about, when she went through the village street, did not look as though they would want much dressmaking done for them, and she ventured to say as much to her mother one evening.

"Their frocks are like sacks, with a couple of holes for their arms," said Tom, in a disparaging tone. "There certainly is not much more shape in them," laughed his mother.

"But I did not expect to find my customers among the village folk," she added.

"But there don't seem to be any other people living here," said Tom, who had explored the neighbourhood as far as the end of the village street.

"Not close at hand, perhaps; but there are gentlemen's houses round the neighbourhood, and that is where I shall find my customers I hope. When we have got straight, and I am ready to begin, I shall have to go and see some of these ladies, and ask them to give me some work."

Tom did not like this suggestion. "You did not have to go and beg for work before," he said.

"No, my boy; I had friends all round me, and I just told them what I thought of doing, and they asked me to do their work. That is all the difference."

"It means that we haven't got any friends about here," said Elsie.

"Yes, that is it exactly; but we must make friends as fast as we can, you know."

Mrs. Winn soon found, however, that this was not so easy, even with the poorest of her neighbours. They were strangers—that was the only fault that could be brought against them. But it was sufficient to make them be regarded with suspicion, if not absolute dislike. For they could not understand why anybody should want to come and live in their village, unless it was to spy upon them, or take their work away from them in some way, or lower the wages that the farmers paid them.

Mrs. Winn smiled when she saw how the village folk avoided having anything to say to them; but Tom found it no smiling matter when the street boys called after him, or hung over the fence and laughed at his attempts to dig and rake over the garden.

Mrs. Winn found, too, that the village school was a long distance from their cottage; and she feared, from what she heard, that it was a very different school from the one Tom had been attending.

He was a fairly good scholar for his age, but she knew, if he was ever to push his way in the world, he would need to be at a good school for another year or two.

However, she comforted herself with the thought, that when she got plenty of work, as the rent was so low, she would be able to send Tom to some good private school; and in the meanwhile, he should go to the village school, as soon as he had got the front garden in order.

She and Elsie had made the inside of the house neat and comfortable; and her front parlour, which she decided she would keep to receive her customers, was quite ready; and so she thought she would go and make some calls, and leave her cards at the houses of some of the gentry near at hand.

She had so far prevailed upon some of her neighbours, as to get one of them to bring her some milk from the farm every morning, and she contrived to meet this woman one day, and ask her the nearest way to the Manor House, for that she had heard was one of the best houses in the neighbourhood.

"The Manor House," repeated Betsy Gunn, staring at Mrs. Winn; "and what may you be wanting at the Manor House?"

It was Mrs. Winn's turn to stare now, and she said rather stiffly, "That is my business, I think, I only want you to tell me the best way to get to it."

"Then I sha'n't tell you," said the woman defiantly. "The folks is all saying you ain't come to Fairfield for no good; and now I know you ain't."

"But what can you know about it, Betsy? I only want to go and see the ladies there."

"And tell 'em all that you sees goin' on here!"

"But what is there to tell?" said the widow, with widely-opened eyes. "You are all steady, hardworking people; and if you do gossip and quarrel, sometimes, that is nothing to anyone but yourselves."

"And you want to go and tell old madam that we gossip and quarrel, and so get our Christmas coals stopped! No! No! Betsy Gunn ain't goin' to help no such doings as that."

Mrs. Winn wondered for a minute whether the woman had lost her wits, but she saw plainly enough that she spoke in all earnestness. And she wondered what she had better do to disarm the suspicion that seemed to her so senseless, but was to these poor people real enough.

At last she decided that there was nothing like telling the truth, painful as it was, to make her affairs known to all the village. So she beckoned Betsy into the parlour, that she and Elsie had taken such pains to make neat and nice.

"Sit down a minute," she said, "and I will tell you why I have come here, and what I want to do. I am a widow, and my husband could leave me very little money when he died; so I am obliged to work for my children, or they would starve, and it is to get work I have come here."

"What work?" demanded Betsy.

"Dressmaking," said Mrs. Winn.

The woman's hard face relaxed a little. "Us don't do that,—the gentry and their fine servants send that to London."

"That is just what I was told," said the widow, "but now I am going to ask some of these ladies to send it to me, instead of sending it to London; and I want you to tell me the best way to go to Madam Kennaway lives there the Manor House. I understand, and if I can only see her, I may be able to get some work."

The woman nodded. "She ain't bad, but old madam is the best. You ask to see old madam."

"Very well; and you will tell me the way to go?"

Yes, Betsy was so far won over, that she was willing to do this now.

But Mrs. Winn was a little alarmed when she heard that the Manor House was nearly five miles from Fairfield. Five miles seemed a moderate distance to Betsy, but Mrs. Winn had not walked so far for many years, and there was no railway or other conveyance that she could ride back. Betsy told her which way to go, and Mrs. Winn set out on her walk early the next morning, resolving to call at other suitable houses on the way, but chiefly concerned to reach the Manor House and see Mrs. Kennaway.

She was tired and spent when she at last reached the imposing looking mansion. But the thought of her children made her overcome the faintness that crept over her, and she rang the bell, half hoping the servant would ask her inside the cool hall, to wait while he took her card and message to his mistress.

But this splendid footman looked at her almost as suspiciously as Betsy Gunn had done, and then told her to wait outside on the steps, if she could not leave her card and call again.

"Call again!" Why, it would take her all day to get home again she feared, tired as she was. So she stepped back to the top of the terrace steps and waited—waited until she thought the man must surely have forgotten her. And she was just going to ring the bell again, when the door was thrown open and her card handed back to her.

"Madam does not see strangers," he said pompously.

And then the door was closed, and the visit to the Manor House, upon which she had built so many hopes, was over. And she could only turn and walk down the smooth white marble steps, wondering how far she should be able to walk before she fell down utterly exhausted.

Presently she reached a shady knoll where she could sit down and rest; and while she rested, she wondered what she was to do now, for the reception she had received had never been expected.

That she might have some little difficulty at first, she had thought quite possible; but that rich and poor alike should refuse to have anything to do with her because she was a stranger, seemed almost too absurd to be believed. And she pinched herself to make sure that she was wide awake and not dreaming, as she sat there and recalled what had happened.

Her friend had advised that she should go to the Manor House first, for she knew Madam Kennaway, and spoke of her as being kind and considerate in her treatment of servants, and therefore likely to be the same to others whom she employed.

But it seemed as though there could be no consideration left for a mere stranger, such as she was, in the place. And her thoughts grew very bitter as she toiled along in the hot sun.

Still she would persevere; and she made up her mind to call at another house she had been told of by Betsy, and which lay only a little way out of her road homeward. This was not such a grand house as the other. It was not much more than an enlarged and improved edition of her own cottage; and the doctor for the district lived here.

She could not expect a doctor's wife to do for her what the great Madam Kennaway might have done; but she resolved to call and see the lady, unless she, too, would have nothing to say to a stranger.

A little maid-servant took her card and message, when she knocked at the door. And then she was ushered into a plainly furnished room at the side, to wait while the servant went in search of her mistress.

"I suppose you have heard that I have a large family of girls and boys, who are always tearing their clothes," said the lady, when she came in.

She spoke very pleasantly; and then, noticing how pale and tired Mrs. Winn looked, she asked if she would have a glass of milk and a piece of cake. And, scarcely waiting for the widow to say yes, she rang the bell, and told the maid who answered it, to bring the milk as quickly as she could.

While she rested, and drank her milk, the lady explained that she did not put out much of her dressmaking as a rule, but that as one of her girls was going away for several months, she should be very glad of her help just now. And, when she had recovered from her fatigue a little, she should be glad if she could take her daughter's pattern, so as to begin one of the dresses at once.

This chance of getting work seemed to put new life into Mrs. Winn, and she was able to talk quite freely to Mrs. Perceval, and tell her how it was she came to Fairfield.

The doctor's wife knew where she lived quite well—had seen the furniture carried in while she was sitting in her husband's gig, waiting while he visited a sick man a few doors further on.

"I asked some of the old goodies who was coming to live there, but they could only tell me they were 'Lunnon people,' and seemed rather aggrieved that London people should dare to come to their village."

Then Mrs. Winn told her of her encounter with Betsy Gunn, and the two ladies laughed over the villagers' suspicion and ignorance.

Before she left, she had told Mrs. Perceval of Elsie's scholarship; for she felt almost as proud of her resigning it, as she did of her gaining it.

Mrs. Perceval was evidently very favourably impressed with the new dressmaker. And when she went home, she carried a large parcel of work with her, the sight of which cheered Tom, who was at the end of the lane on the look-out for her.

Elsie had got the kettle boiling, ready to make a cup of tea for her mother, at least an hour before she returned. In fact, the girl had grown quite anxious over her mother's long absence, and wondered whether there were robbers in the woods about here now, such as there used to be years ago. For Betsy Gunn had told them a harrowing tale of what took place at the other end of the village in her grandmother's time. If it was not sufficient to frighten Elsie and Tom, it was enough to make them very glad when their mother got back.

And so, when Tom came rushing in, calling, "Here's mother! Here's mother!" Elsie, too, ran to the door to kiss and welcome her.

It was only a little thing, perhaps, but this warm, dutiful welcome from her children cheered and comforted poor Mrs. Winn as nothing else could have done just now. It is a pity when young people treat their parents slightingly. They often have to toil by day, and think half the night how things are to be made smooth and comfortable for their children. In these matters, perhaps, the children can do nothing to lighten the burden of life for them. But they could often cheer and comfort them with little kindly, affectionate attentions, instead of being rude and abrupt in their manners, as they too often are where father and mother are concerned.