CHAPTER XII

BLACK COUNTRY ROSES

THAT first day at Daisy Bank was a fair sample of many others which followed it. Bit by bit order was restored to the once untidy and comfortless house. Mrs. Holtby's room was made as sweet and cheerful as it was possible for any room in such a neighbourhood to be; the floor was washed, the carpet shaken, clean white curtains were hung in the window, and fresh hangings on the bed; whilst upon the table stood a vase, which was filled with spring flowers, a constant supply of which was sent regularly by Phyllis from the dear home garden.

Then Marjorie took another room in hand, and, with Bessie's and Patty's help, worked the same reformation there, and so by degrees the house looked more home-like and far less dreary. But it was a hard life to which she had come, and sometimes she felt inclined to despair.

Work as hard as she might, from early in the morning till late at night, she could never keep pace with the darning and patching, the clearing and dusting, which seemed always waiting to be done. Her feet were weary with running up and down stairs; her head ached with the noise of the children, and at times she longed terribly for a single day's holiday and rest; but of this she saw no prospect whatever. Beyond a daily run over the pit mounds, she never got out, and she saw no one in these walks to whom she could speak. Her thoughts were her only companions, and they were anxious ones at times.

The home letters sounded bright, as a rule, but now and again some sentence in her mother's made her feel how much she was missed there. Her own letters were as cheerful as she could make them, although she wrote a truthful account of the place to which she had come, for she had promised her mother that she would do so.

As Marjorie wandered over the wilderness of ashes day after day, she thought of them all and of her pretty home, and a terrible yearning came over her to see them again, and to look even for five minutes at the scenes she loved so well. And then her thoughts would wander to Captain Fortescue. She had kept her promise to him before leaving home; she had written to tell him where she was going, but she had never received an answer; sometimes she wondered whether her letter had ever reached him. What was he doing now? Had he left the army? Was he happy la the new life upon which she supposed he must have entered? She thought of his words to her mother,—

"I shall allow myself in no luxury until all is paid."

What a hard life that would mean, if he kept his word! And she believed that he would keep his word; she felt that he was a man to be trusted. Over and over again her busy thoughts returned to this subject, and in her prayers for those at home, his name was added. It could not be wrong to pray for him, surely.

One day when spring weather was beginning, and when even Daisy Bank looked a degree less dismal, Marjorie found a friend. As she passed one of the tumble-down cottages, she noticed an old man who was coming out of it with a rose-tree in his arms, and then she saw that a row of similar pots stood in the sunshine against the discoloured wall of the house. The roses were just coming into leaf, and she noticed that the old man was bending lovingly over them, loosening the soil near their stems, and giving each of them some water from a jug which was standing on the doorstep. Marjorie felt that at last she had found something in Daisy Bank at which it was pleasant to look. She went up to the old man and admired his roses, and he showed them to her with great pride, telling her the name and the colour of each.

"Would you like to see my garden, miss?" he asked.

He took her through the kitchen, which was quite clean, although bare of paint and whitewash, and led her to the back of his cottage. There he showed her his lawn, a tiny strip of green about three feet long and two feet broad, covered with grass. This he watered daily, to keep it from being blackened by the smoke-laden atmosphere, and kept it short by cutting it every evening with a pair of scissors. He was intensely proud of it, however, and of a row of hardy plants which were leading a struggling existence under the wall of the house. London Pride was, perhaps, the only one which did not appear to be depressed by its surroundings, and which might justly have changed its name to Daisy Bank Pride.

But the old man was proud of them all, and beamed with delight when Marjorie stooped to examine them. That tiny garden was the joy of his heart, as dear to him as the lovely home garden had been to her, and quite as beautiful in his eyes.

"It's a wonder that anything will grow here," she said.

"Ay, it's unlikely soil; but the Lord's plants do thrive sometimes in that."

"Yes," said Marjorie, for she did not quite see what he meant.

"There was old Dan'el in Babylon, and Obadiah, him as lived in Jezebel's time, and there was saints in Nero's household. They had bad soil, all of 'em, but they was faithful 'trees of the Lord's planting,' that He might be glorified."

And then Marjorie felt that she had found a friend. Old Enoch would have been stamped as an ignorant man by many, but he knew his Bible well, and could repeat much of it by heart. It was his daily study, and he was taught by the Spirit of God. Many and many a time, when things seemed darker than usual, Marjorie would run in to see him, and she always came away feeling brighter and better.

It was on the very day upon which she first made old Enoch's acquaintance that, as she was going back to Colwyn House, she had a great and most unexpected surprise. Coming along the lane to meet her, and picking his way amongst the pools which even the spring sunshine had not dried up, she saw a well-known figure, and her heart danced with joy at the sight, for it seemed to her like a bit of home put down amongst the dreariness of Daisy Bank.

It was Louis Verner!

"Oh, Louis, how nice to see you!" she cried. "It is lovely to see a home face!"

"I thought you would be pleased to see me, Marjorie. I'm on my way home, and I thought I could tell them about you."

"And you've come out of your way on purpose to see me! How awfully good of you, Louis!"

"Not at all good; I wanted to come. Marjorie, you're prettier than ever!"

"Don't talk such nonsense, Louis!" she said. "Tell me about yourself. How have you been getting on?"

"Oh, fairly well, I think. We've had an awfully jolly term; all sorts of things going on."

"And what are you going to be?"

"Now, Marjorie, that's too bad! You said you would ask me when you came home next."

"Very well, I won't scold you to-day, when you've been so good as to come and see me. How long can you stay?"

"Only an hour."

"Will you come in?"

"I'd rather not," said Louis; "we can't talk if all those people are there. Can't you come for a walk?"

"I'll ask Mrs. Holtby."

The permission was readily given; and Mrs. Holtby, who was sitting up in her room, crept to the window, and peeped through the blind with true feminine curiosity, to see who was the friend from home with whom her much-valued mother's help was so anxious to go out.

"A very particular friend, I should imagine," she said to herself with a smile, as the two disappeared together over the pit mounds.

"Marjorie," said Louis, as she joined him, "of all detestable and hateful places on the face of this earth, I do think Daisy Bank is the worst!"

"Don't be too hard on it, Louis! You should see it at night, when the sky is lit up by the furnace lights. We have constant illuminations here."

"I don't know what Mrs. Douglas will say when I tell her."

"Then you mustn't tell her, Louis. I shall be very angry if you make it out blacker than it is."

"I couldn't do that," said Louis, laughing, "if I were to try."

"Well, what does it matter, Louis? If I don't mind it, why should anybody else?"

They came now to one of the large dark pools.

"What a ghastly hole!" he said. "Just the place to tempt a fellow to commit suicide."

"Now, Louis! That is our best lake, the Derwentwater of these parts."

"Derwentwater, indeed!" said Louis, scornfully. "Look here, Marjorie! I don't like your being here at all."

"I assure you, Louis, there is no need to pity me."

Then Louis suddenly changed his tone.

"Marjorie."

"Yes, Louis."

"Why do you never write to me?"

"I haven't time, Louis; it's as much as I can do to write home."

"But I do think you might write to me, because I am—well, I really am awfully fond of you, Marjorie. Do you know I like you better than any girl I know? Upon my word I do."

"Thank you, Louis," said Marjorie, with a mock bow, "that's a very pretty compliment."

"It isn't a compliment, Marjorie; at least I mean it's quite a true one. Did you get the picture postcards I sent you?"

"Yes, thank you, Louis; I asked mother, if she was writing to you, to thank you for them."

"So she did; but I had rather have had a letter from you, Marjorie."

They were walking towards the railway station when the hour was over, and Louis's train was almost due, when he said suddenly—

"Marjorie, I'm going away, and you haven't said anything nice to me."

"Now that isn't a compliment!" she said, laughing again. "Look, Louis! The signal is down; we must hurry."

They ran down the steps, and he had barely time to get his ticket before the train came in.

As he jumped into the carriage, Marjorie could not help wishing that she was going with him, or at any rate that she was on her way to the same destination.