Part 6 (1/2)
The caress was unexpected, and her mother looked down upon her with quick watering eyes.
”I might help you to-day,” said Meg, hesitating a little.
Not that she grudged offering her help, but she knew so little of her mother-in-law's life. Should she have to go and wash and iron among a lot of other women?
Mrs. Seymour paused a moment before answering, and then said cheerfully--
”Well, my dear, if you would help me for an hour or so, till Jem comes home to dinner, I should be very much obliged, and then we can ask him.
What worries me is, that I promised a man who is going away to get his s.h.i.+rts done by one o'clock; but I was that beat, that I could not stand another moment.”
”I wish you had asked me,” said Meg, looking grieved. ”You must try to think of me as a real daughter.”
Mrs. Seymour was much touched, but it was not her way to show feeling, and she only answered--
”Thank you, my dear. I shall take your kindness as it was meant; but if you help me at any little pinch like this, you must not be hurt at my giving you what I should have given Jenny.”
Meg looked mystified, and then coloured painfully.
”Oh, I don't think I could,” she began; but her mother-in-law stopped her.
”Talk it over with Jem, my dear; this is a hard world, and if you could put by a little for a rainy day you would not be sorry. I must pay some one; why not you?”
”We will talk to Jem,” said Meg, recovering herself, and speaking with cheerful alacrity. ”I am quite ready, mother; so if you are, we will come and begin, because one o'clock will be soon here.”
”They're all starched and damped down,” said Mrs. Seymour, ”and the irons is heating beautiful.”
They turned from the door, and Meg prepared to run down-stairs.
”Not there!” exclaimed Mrs. Seymour. ”Why, Meg, I live at the top.”
”Oh,” said Meg, laughing, ”you must scold Jem for not telling me.”
”Yes, I live at the top,” Mrs. Seymour went on as they reached the landing, ”because, you see, no one don't interfere with me up here. I hang my things across here, or I hoist them along this pole out o'
window, and I can manage finely.”
”Capital,” said Meg heartily. ”And have you both these rooms?”
”Yes, I rent both; but I have a lodger in one.”
Meg made no answer, but followed Mrs. Seymour into the front room, where hung numerous lines close to the ceiling, with clean clothes airing away as fast as they could.
The fire was bright, and so were the irons; so were the tins on the shelf, and one or two covers on the wall. In the middle of the room stood a spotlessly white deal table, and across the window an ironing-board covered with a blanket and cloth, all ready for use.
”What a nice room!” said Meg. ”Shall I begin now, mother?”
Mrs. Seymour a.s.sented, standing by and watching critically, while Meg looked round for the iron-holder, saw that the stand was ready, and bent over the fire to lift off the iron. Her mother had placed a collar in readiness for her to begin on, and waited while she dusted her iron and put her first pressure upon it, after which she turned back to the arm-chair and sat down with a satisfied sigh.