8. The Captain
Mr. Duncan offers to give Betty a third part of her father's usual earnings. The rent-collecting will occupy three long mornings in the week at least, and an hour or two of every evening must be spent over the books.
The sights and sounds of the district she has to collect for trouble Betty dreadfully. Some of the women look utterly weary and down-trodden; others again are always scolding and quarrelling. Then the poor, sickly children--and occasional glimpses of rough, drink-sodden men--haunt her mind. She has over a hundred houses to collect for, and it takes her the whole of the three mornings to get through them all.
How many stories of want and misery she has listened to before the week's work is over!
"My husband has taken to the drink again." "My father was knocked down by a van and carried to the hospital." "The children have all got the measles." "Mother's taken bad with bronchitis." "My husband hasn't done a stroke of work for three weeks." Are all the stories true? Betty has no means of knowing.
Sick at heart, she returns home and throws herself into a chair after each morning's work. A shabby, untidy room? Well, perhaps it is; but, Oh! how different from the homes she has just visited! How wrong she has been to grumble so in the past--how wicked to be discontented!
One day she returns in a specially humble frame of mind.
"My home could be made a really beautiful one if I only knew how to manage. But I don't. I'm very stupid, somehow. I try and try, but never seem to know what to do for the best.
"Have I made any difference at all, since I came home from Grannie's?
"Clara is a little better, perhaps--at least, her face is a shade cleaner; and I didn't notice more than two saucepans standing about, and--Oh! yes, the kettle was boiling this morning--I mustn't forget all that; but how rough the children are! How unreasonable Bob is at times! Two or three evenings he has stayed out quite late. Father wouldn't like that--I wonder where he goes? Then, there's Lucy; nothing in the home seems to interest her. I do think it very selfish of her to spend so much time in reading, especially just now.
"When I first returned home, I thought everything was wrong; now I can see it isn't the home so much, it's the people in it. We're all spoiling it--and I'm helping to spoil it as well.
"What grand thoughts I had about making everything right all at once, and what a little I seem likely to do!"
All day Betty goes about her work in the same humble spirit, with a sense of failure strong upon her.
The excitement of father's accident is over now; they have settled down into their old grooves again. True, Betty has much extra work to do, but all the glory of fighting grand difficulties has died out of her life again.
Collecting rents is certainly a very depressing business; that is, in a poor, unthrifty neighbourhood. No, there is nothing splendid about it.
"The house is as untidy as ever," she thinks, "and the younger children so rude and boisterous--and mother doesn't seem to care a bit."
Lower sink Betty's spirits as the day wears on. Now, is the real time of trial; now, indeed, she needs all her courage and resolution.
A letter from Grannie! Two letters--one to mother about father's accident, and a long loving letter of good counsel to herself.
Betty carries her treasure away to her own room; a few sprigs of fresh lavender fall from between the folded pages as she opens it. How Grannie's rooms always smelt of lavender! Her eyes fill with tears at the memories the delicate scent recalls to her mind!
"How lovingly Grannie's letter begins! Ah, she doesn't know what a failure I am making of everything!" thinks poor Betty.
"What is this? What does Grannie say?" Betty gazes eagerly at the page. "Oh! how did she guess all this?"
"I know, dear, that this is a time of real fighting," so the letter runs; "that every day brings its hard battle--the battle of standing firm against the worry and irritation of little things." Betty sighs. "Yes, and I feel sure that every day sees a hard-won victory, too." Betty shakes her head, and one big tear steals slowly down her cheek.
"You have written very little about yourself lately, but I can see from your mother's letters, and from your own, too, that the Bird of Love is beginning to speak in your voice; that my dear Betty is letting the Lord Jesus rule in her heart.
"You have much to learn yet, dear, and little to help you to learn it. Can you not go to The Army Meetings? I hear that Captain Janet Scott, a dear young friend of mine, has just gone in charge of the Corps in Duke Street. I have written to her about you. Do ask your mother's leave to go to the Meetings."
"O Grannie, I should so love to go," murmurs Betty; "but I am afraid--I'm quite sure--mother would never let me, even if I asked her!"
"Go on fighting bravely, dear; do not allow these little troubles to wear away your courage. Trust the Lord more and more. Lean on Him; fight in His strength, and a bright day of victory will dawn for you at last. Ah, Betty, it is dawning for you now! Already the true, unselfish love that will make you a happy girl is beginning to shine in your heart."
"Oh! how can she say that?" and the tears that sparkle in Betty's eyes now are tears of joy. "Can that really be true?"
"I knew mother wouldn't let me go to The Army Meetings--I was perfectly sure of it!" exclaims Betty to herself the morning after Grannie's letter. Her eyes are heavy with trouble again, her heart sore with painful recollections. She has asked for permission, and been refused, and the words of mother's refusal have been hard to bear.
"How can she be so unjust, so unreasonable?" thinks Betty, angrily, as she enters the crowded district where Mr. Duncan's property lies, for she is rent-collecting again.
Grannie's letter had cheered her for awhile, but the talk with mother this morning has plunged her again into the depths of gloom. Just now everything seems dark and sad indeed.
"Oh, dear, I've the same dreary round of calls to make, I suppose, the same unhappiness to see everywhere.
"What a dreadful amount of trouble there is in this world, and there doesn't seem to be any way of making things better. No. 41. Oh, yes; the woman here has a tiny, tiny baby, and she's very weak and wretched, and there's a whole troop of dirty, rough-haired little children, with no one to look after them. I can't bear to knock--how can she pay anything? Well, I suppose I must."
"Come in--the door is unbolted!" cries a cheery voice, in answer to her knock--a very different voice from that she had expected to hear.
Betty steps reluctantly into the passage.
"What is it you want, please?" says the voice again, from a room at the back. Betty explains her business wonderingly; the voice is so unlike the dull, hopeless tones with which she is usually greeted.
"Oh, it's all right, Captain," says a second voice, far more feebly, "it's the young lady for the rent."
"Do come in please, and excuse me just a moment, as I can't leave the child like this," cries the cheery voice.
Whereat Betty steps to the door and peeps in.
Round a big empty packing-case, placed in the centre of the room, the tenant's three children are gathered.
The little boy, his face shining with cleanliness, and his usually tousled head smooth and glossy, is looking on, whilst a sweet-faced woman, in a blue serge dress and big apron, is washing one of his sisters in a large basin, with a plentiful supply of soap and water.
On the floor sits a third child awaiting her turn; and on the bed in the corner lies the sick woman, her baby on her arm, and such a hopeful expression on her face that Betty scarcely recognises her.
"Come in, miss," she says, "I've got a bit of rent for you this week, thanks to Captain helping my husband to some work. Here it is," and she pulls a few shillings, wrapped in a scrap of paper, from under her pillow.
"Thank you, Mrs. Smith," says Betty. "That is the Captain, I suppose?" she adds, glancing towards the washing operations going on in the middle of the room.
A plentiful supply of soap and water."Bless her! yes," answers Mrs. Smith, in a low voice. "And an angel from the Lord she's been to me, miss. Washed the children regular, tidied up, made my bit of gruel, given the children their dinners, and, what's better than all, she put fresh heart in me, miss, with her beautiful prayers and pleadings. Last week I felt that
I wanted to give up and die. Oh, the Lord is good to send me such a friend!"
"Come, come, Mrs. Smith, the Lord is always good to those who trust Him," interposes the Captain, who has overheard the last remark.
Is this Captain Janet Scott--Grannie's friend? Betty must know, and stands waiting until the washing is finished, and the Captain puts on her bonnet to go.
They pass out of the house together, but a sudden shyness has come over Betty, and she quite stammers as she says:--
"Please, are you Captain Janet Scott?"
The Captain gives her a bright look. "Yes; and who are you--one of my Soldiers? I hoped so directly I saw you."
"I am--that is, I'd like to be--only I'm afraid I mustn't," stammers Betty.
"Mustn't be a Soldier? How's that, my child?"
"I'm Betty Langdale. You know my Grannie--she lives near Moordale. She's a Salvationist, but mother won't let me be one. I've tried to persuade her only this morning to say yes, but it's no use."
"Betty Langdale--of course! I'm so glad to see you, dear, and you can be a Soldier, even if the way is not yet open for you to be sworn-in. You can be the Lord's true Soldier, fighting His battles in His strength."
"But mother says she will never let me go to the Meetings."
"I am sorry, dear; but keep believing, and remember that Meetings alone do not make good Soldiers. God will help you to fight your battles at home. Fight against wrong wherever you see it. Keep very close to Jesus. Do all you can for those at home, and you can be a true Salvationist, although at present you may not join The Army."
"But mother ought not to stop me from attending the Meetings, ought she, Captain?"
"My dear, it is not your place to judge your mother. Your whole thought should be to win her gently, to prove to her your sincerity by your life.
"It is only by keeping things in their places, you know, that we have a tidy house. It is only through giving each member of our family his or her true place that we can have a happy home. Keep true and patient, and God Himself will one day open the door for you.
"Trust Him, commit your life into His hands, and He will undertake for you and make the crooked places smooth.
"I have to call here, my child; but we shall meet again soon, and meantime God bless and help you every day."
And with a bright smile and warm handshake, Captain Janet Scott goes on her way, leaving Betty with a heart filled with joy. It was surely God Himself who planned that she should meet the Captain in this unexpected way, God who had sent His own sweet messenger to Betty to give her this much-needed counsel and advice!