Chapter 4 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."