I looked at her as she said that, for I felt rather surprised. It was never granny's way to expect trouble before it comes. I saw that her face was rather anxious. But just as I was going to speak, to say some little word about its not being likely that anything was wrong, I gave one other glance towards Waving View. This time I was not disappointed.
'Oh, granny,' I exclaimed, 'there they are! I am sure it is them – I know the way they jog along so well – only, grandmamma, they are not waving?'
And I think the anxious look must have come into my own face, for I remember saying, almost in a whisper, 'I do hope there is nothing the matter' – granny's very words.
CHAPTER VII
THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES
Grandmamma was the one to reassure me.
'I scarcely think there can be anything wrong, as they are coming,' she said. 'You did not wave to them, either?'
'No,' I said, 'I did wave, but I got tired of it. And it's always they who do it first. You see there's no use doing it except at that place.'
'Well, they will be here directly, and then I must give them a little scolding for being so unpunctual,' said grandmamma, cheerfully.
But that little scolding was never given.
When the governess-cart stopped at our path there were only two figures in it – no, three, I should say, for there was the groom, and the two others were Nan and Vallie – Sharley was not there.
I ran out to meet them.
'Is Sharley ill?' I called out before I got to them.
Nan shook her head.
'No,' she was beginning, but Vallie, who was much quicker, took the words out of her mouth – that was a way of Vallie's, and sometimes it used to make Nan rather vexed. But this morning she did not seem to notice it; she just shut up her lips again and stood silent with a very grave expression, while Vallie hurried on —
'Sharley's not ill, but mother kept her at home, and we're late because we went first to the telegraph office at Yukes' – Yukes is a very tiny village half a mile on the other side of Moor Court, where there is a telegraph office. 'Father's ill, Helena, and I'm afraid he's very ill, for as soon as Dr. Cobbe saw him this morning he said he must telegraph for another doctor to London.'
'Oh, dear,' I exclaimed, 'I am so sorry,' and turning round at the sound of footsteps behind me I saw grandmamma, who had followed me out of the house. 'Granny,' I said, 'there is something the matter. Their father is very ill,' and I repeated what Vallie had just said.
'I am very grieved to hear it,' said grandmamma. Afterwards she told me she had had a sort of presentiment that something was the matter. 'I am so sorry for your mother,' she went on. 'I wonder if I can be of use to her in any way.'
Then Nan spoke, in her slow but very exact way.
'Mother said,' she began, 'would you come to be with her this afternoon late, when the London doctor comes? She will send the brougham and it will bring you back again, if you would be so very kind. Mother is so afraid what the London doctor will say,' and poor Nan looked as if it was very difficult for her not to cry.
'Certainly, I will come,' said grandmamma at once. 'Ask Mrs. Nestor to send for me as soon as you get home if she would like to have me. I suppose – ' she went on, hesitating a little, 'you don't know what is the matter with your father?'
'It is a sort of a cold that's got very bad,' said Vallie, 'it hurts him to breathe, and in the night he was nearly choking.'
Granny looked grave at this. She knew that Mr. Nestor had not been strong for some time, and he was a very active man, who looked after everything on his property himself, and hunted a good deal, and thought nothing about taking care of himself. He was a nice kind man, and all his people were very fond of him.
But she tried to cheer up the little girls and gave them their lesson as usual. It was much better to do so than to let them feel too unhappy. And I tried to be very kind and bright too – I saw that grandmamma wanted me to be the same way to them that she was.
But after they were gone she spoke to me pretty openly about her fears for Mr. Nestor.
'Dr. Cobbe would not have sent for a London doctor without good cause,' she said. 'All will depend on his opinion. It is possible that I may have to stay all night, Helena dear. You will not mind if I do?'
I did mind, very much. But I tried to say I wouldn't. Still, I felt pretty miserable when the Moor Court carriage came to fetch grandmamma, and she drove away, leaving me for the first time in my life, or rather the first time I could remember, alone with Kezia.
Kezia was very kind. She offered me to come into the kitchen and make cakes. But I was past eleven now – that is very different from being only eight. I did not care much for making cakes – I never have cared about cooking as some girls do, though I know it is a very good thing to understand about it, and grandmamma says I am to go through a regular course of it when I get to be seventeen or eighteen. But I knew Kezia's cakes were much better than any I could make, so I thanked her, but said no – I would rather read or sew.
I had my tea all alone in the dining-room. Kezia was always so respectful about that sort of thing. Though she had been a nurse when I was only a tiny baby, she never forgot, as some old servants do, to treat me quite like a young lady, now I was growing older. She brought in my tea and set it all out just as carefully as when grandmamma was there, even more carefully in some ways, for she had made some little scones that I was very fond of, and she had got out some strawberry jam.
But I could not help feeling melancholy. I know it is wrong to believe in presentiments, or at least to think much about them, though sometimes even very wise people like grandmamma cannot help believing in them a little. But I really do think that there are times in one's life when a sort of sadness about the future does seem meant.
And I had been so happy for so long. And troubles must come.
I said that over to myself as I sat alone after tea, and then all of a sudden it struck me that I was very selfish. This trouble was far, far worse for the Nestors than for me. Possibly by this time the London doctor had had to tell them that their father would never get better, and here was I thinking more, I am afraid, of the dulness of being one night without dear granny than of the sorrow that was perhaps coming over Sharley and the others of being without their father for always.
For I scarcely think my 'presentiments' would have troubled me much except for the being alone and missing granny so.
I made up my mind to be sensible and not fanciful. I got out what I called my 'secret work,' which was at that time a footstool I was embroidering for grandmamma's next birthday, and I did a good bit of it. That made me feel rather better, and when my bedtime came it was nice to think I had nothing to do but to go to sleep and stay asleep to make to-morrow morning come quickly.
I fell asleep almost at once. But when I woke rather with a start – and I could not tell what had awakened me – it was still quite, quite dark, certainly not to-morrow morning.
'Oh, dear!' I thought, 'what a bother! Here I am as wide awake as anything, and I so seldom wake at all. Just this night when I wanted to sleep straight through.'
I lay still. Suddenly I heard some faint sounds. Some one was moving about downstairs. Could it be Kezia up still? It must be very late – quite the middle of the night, I fancied.
The sounds went on – doors shutting softly, then a slight creak on the stairs, as if some one were coming up slowly. I was not exactly frightened. I never thought of burglars – I don't think there has been a burglary at Middlemoor within the memory of man – but my heart did beat rather faster than usual and I listened, straining my ears and scarcely daring to breathe.
Then at last the steps stopped at my door, and some one began to turn the handle. I almost screamed. But – in one instant came the dear voice —
'Is my darling awake?' so gently, it was scarcely above a whisper.
'Oh, granny, dear, dear granny, is it you?' I said, and every bit of me, heart and ears and everything, seemed to give one throb of delight. I shall never forget it. It was like the day I ran into her arms down the steep garden-path.
'Did I startle you?' she went on. 'Generally you sleep so soundly that I hoped I would not awake you.'
'I was awake, dear grandmamma,' I said, 'and oh, I am so glad you have come home.'
I clung to her as if I would never let her go, and then she told me the news from Moor Court. The London doctor had spoken gravely, but still hopefully. With great care, the greatest care, he trusted Mr. Nestor would quite recover.
'So I came home to my little girl,' said grandmamma, 'though I have promised poor Mrs. Nestor to go to her again to-morrow.'
'I don't mind anything if you are here at night,' I said, with a sigh of comfort.
And then she kissed me again and I turned round and was asleep in five minutes, and when I woke the next time it was morning; the sunshine was streaming in at the window.
There were some weeks after that of a good deal of anxiety about Mr. Nestor, though he went on pretty well. Grandmamma went over every two or three days, just to cheer Mrs. Nestor a little – not that there was really anything to do, for they had trained nurses, and everything money could get. The girls went on with their lessons as usual, which was of course much better for them. But in those few weeks Sharley almost seemed to grow into a woman.
I felt rather 'left behind' by her, for I was only eleven, and as soon as the first great anxiety about Mr. Nestor was over I did not think very much more about it. Nor did Nan and Vallie. We were quite satisfied that he would soon be well again, and that everything would go on as usual. Only Sharley looked grave.
At last the blow fell. It was a very bad blow to me, and in one way – which, however, I did not understand till some time later – even worse to grandmamma, though she said nothing to hint at such a thing in the least.
And it was a blow to the Nestor children, for they loved their home and their life dearly, and had no wish for any change.
This was it. They were all to go abroad almost immediately, for the whole winter at any rate. The doctors were perfectly certain that it was necessary for Mr. Nestor, and he would not hear of going alone, and Mrs. Nestor could not bear the idea of a separation from her children. Besides – they were very rich, there were no difficulties in the way of their travelling most comfortably, and having everything they could want wherever they went to.
To me it was the greatest trouble I had ever known – and I really do think the little girls – Sharley too – minded it more on my account than on any other.
But it had to be.
Almost before we had quite taken in that it was really going to be, they were off – everything packed up, a courier engaged – rooms secured at the best hotel in the place they were going to – for all these things can be done in no time when people have lots of money, grandmamma said – and they were gone! Moor Court shut up and deserted, except for the few servants left in charge, to keep it clean and in good order.
I only went there once all that winter, and I never went again. I could not bear it. For in among the trees where we played I came upon the traces of our last paper-chase, and passing the side of the house it was even worse. For the schoolrooms and play-room were in that wing, and above them the nurseries, where Vallie used to rub her little nose against the panes when she was shut up with one of her bad colds. Some cleaning was going on, for it was like Longfellow's poem exactly —
'I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air,
But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there.'
I just squeezed grandmamma's hand without speaking, and we turned away.
It is true that troubles do not often come alone. That winter was one of the very severe ones I have spoken of, that come now and then in that part of Middleshire.
For the Nestors' sake it made us all the more glad that they were safely away from weather which, in his delicate state, would very probably have killed their father. I think this was our very first thought when the snow began to fall, only two or three weeks after they left, and went on falling till the roads were almost impassable, and remained lying for I am afraid to say how long, so intense was the frost that set in.
I thought it rather good fun just at the beginning, and wished I could learn to skate. Grandmamma did not seem to care about my doing so, which I was rather surprised at, as she had often told me stories of how fond she was of skating when she was young, and how clever papa and Uncle Guy were at it.
She said I had no one to teach me, and when I told her that I was sure Tom Linden, a nephew of the vicar's who was staying with his uncle and aunt just then, would help me, she found some other objection. Tom was a very stupid, very good-natured boy. I had got to know him a little at the Nestors. He was slow and heavy and rather fat. I tried to make granny laugh by saying he would be a good buffer to fall upon. I saw she was looking grave, and I felt a little cross at her not wanting me to skate, and I persisted about it.
'Do let me, grandmamma,' I said. 'I can order a pair of skates at Barridge's. They don't keep the best kind in stock, but I know they can get them.'
'No, my dear,' said grandmamma at last, very decidedly. 'I am not at all sure that it would be nice for you – it would have been different if the Nestors had been here. And besides, there are several things you need to have bought for you much more than skates. You must have extra warm clothing this winter.'
She did not say right out that she did not know where the money was to come from for my wants – as for her own, when did the darling ever think of them? – but she gave a little sigh, and the thought did come into my head for a moment – was grandmamma troubled about money? But it did not stay there. We had been so comfortable the last few years that I had really thought less about being poor than when I was quite little.
And other things made me forget about it. For a very few days after that, most unfortunately, I got ill.
CHAPTER VIII
TWO LETTERS
It was only a bad cold. Except for having to stay in the house, I would not have minded it very much, for after the first few days, when I was feverish and miserable, I did not feel very bad. And like a child, I thought every day that I should be all right the next.
I daresay I should have got over it much quicker if the weather had not been so severe. But it was really awfully cold. Even my own sense told me it would be mad to think of going out. So I got fidgety and discontented, and made myself look worse than I really was.
And for the very first time in my life there seemed to come a little cloud, a little coldness, between dear grandmamma and me. Speaking about it since then, she says it was not all my fault, but I think it was. I was selfish and thoughtless. She was dull and low-spirited, and I had never seen her like that before. And I did not know all the reasons there were for her being so, and I felt a kind of irritation at it. Even when she tried, as she often and often did, to throw it off and cheer me up in some little way by telling me stories, or proposing some new game, or new fancy-work, I would not meet her half-way, but would answer pettishly that I was tired of all those things. And I was vexed at several little changes in our way of living. All that winter we sat in the dining-room, and never had a fire in the drawing-room, and our food was plainer than I ever remembered it. Granny used to have special things for me – beef-tea and beaten-up eggs and port-wine – but I hated having them all alone and seeing her eating scarcely anything.
'I don't want these messy things as if I was really ill,' I said. 'Why don't we have nice little dinners and teas as we used?'
Grandmamma never answered these questions plainly; she would make some little excuse about not feeling hungry in frosty weather, or that the tradespeople did not like sending often. But once or twice I caught her looking at me when she did not know I saw her, and then there was something in her eyes which made me think I was a horridly selfish child. And yet I did not mean to be. I really did not understand, and it was rather trying to be cooped up for so long, in a room scarcely bigger than a cupboard, after my free open life of the last three years or so.
Dr. Cobbe came once or twice at the beginning of my cold and looked rather grave. Then he did not come again for two or three weeks – I think he had told grandmamma to let him know if I got worse.
And one day when I had really made myself feverish by my fidgety grumbling, and then being sorry and crying, which brought on a fit of coughing, grandmamma got so unhappy that she tucked me up on the sofa by the fire, and went off herself, though it was late in the afternoon, to fetch him herself. She would not let Kezia go because she wanted to speak to him alone; I did not know it at the time, but I remember waking up and hearing voices near me, and there were the doctor and grandmamma. She was in her indoors dress just as usual, for me not to guess she had been out.
I sat up, feeling much the better for my sleep. Dr. Cobbe laughed and joked – that was his way – he listened to my breathing and pommelled me and told me I was a little humbug. Then he went off into Kezia's kitchen, where there had to be a tiny fire, with grandmamma, and a few minutes later I heard him saying good-bye.
Grandmamma came back to me looking happier than for some time past. The doctor, she has told me since, really did assure her that there was nothing serious the matter with me, that I was a growing child and must be well fed and kept cheerful, as I was inclined to be nervous and was not exactly robust.
And the relief to grandmamma was great. That evening she was more like her old self than she had been for long, even though I daresay she was awake half the night thinking over the doctor's advice, and wondering what more she could do to get enough money to give me all I needed.
For some of her money-matters had gone wrong. That I did not know till long afterwards. It was just about the time of Mr. Nestor's illness, and it was not till the Moor Court family had left that she found out the worst of it – that for two or three years at least we should be thirty or forty pounds a year poorer than we had been.
It was hard on her – coming at the very same time as the extra money for the lessons left off! And the severe winter and my cold all added to it. It even made it more difficult for her to hear of other pupils, or to get any orders for her beautiful fancy-work. No visitors would come to Middlemoor this winter, though when it was mild they sometimes did.
Still, from the day of Dr. Cobbe's visit things improved a little – for the time at least. And in the end it was a good thing that grandmamma was not tempted to try her eyes with any embroidery again, as she really might have made herself blind. It had been such a blessing that she did not need to do it during the years she gave lessons to Sharley and her sisters.
I went on getting better pretty steadily, especially once I was allowed to go out a little, though, as it was a very cold spring, it was only for some time very little, just an hour or so in the best part of the day. And grandmamma followed Dr. Cobbe's advice, though I never shall understand how she managed to do so. She was so determined to be cheerful that when I look back upon it now it almost makes me cry. I had all the nourishing things to eat that it was possible to get, and how thoughtless and ungrateful I was! My appetite was not very good, and I remember actually grumbling at having to take beef-tea, and beaten-up eggs, and things like that at odd times. I scarcely like to say it, but in my heart I do not believe grandmamma had enough to eat that winter.
About Easter – or rather at the time for the big school Easter holidays, which does not always match real Easter – we had a pleasant surprise. At least it was a pleasant surprise for grandmamma – I don't know that I cared about it particularly, and I certainly little thought what would come of it!
One afternoon Gerard Nestor walked in.
Granny's face quite lighted up, and for a moment or two I felt very excited.
'Have you all come home?' I exclaimed. 'I haven't had a letter from Sharley for ever so long – perhaps – perhaps she meant to surprise me,' I had been going to say, but something in Jerry's face stopped me. He looked rather grave; not that he was ever anything but quiet.
'No,' he said, 'I only wish they were all back, or likely to come. I'm afraid there's no chance of it. The doctors out there won't hear of it this year at all. Just when father was hoping to arrange for coming back soon, they found out something or other unsatisfactory about him, and now it is settled that he must stay out of England another whole year at least. They are speaking of Algeria or Egypt for next winter.'
My face fell. I was on the point of crying. Gerard looked very sympathising.
'I did not myself mind it so much till I came down here,' he said. 'But it is so lonely and dull at Moor Court. I hope you will let me come here a great deal, Mrs. Wingfield. I mean to work hard at my foreign languages these holidays – it will give me something to do. You see it wasn't worth while my going out to Hyères for only three weeks, and I hoped even they might be coming back. So I asked to come down here. I didn't think it could be so dull.'
'You are all alone at home?' said grandmamma. 'Yes, it must be very lonely. I shall be delighted to read with you as much as you like. I am not very busy.'
'Thank you,' said Gerard. 'Well, I only hope you won't have too much of me. May I stay to tea to-day?'
'Certainly,' said grandmamma. But I noticed – I don't think Gerard did – that her face had grown rather anxious-looking as he spoke. 'If you like,' she went on, 'we can glance over your books, some of them are still here, and settle on a little work at once.'
'All right,' said he. But then he added, rather abruptly, 'You are not looking well, Mrs. Wingfield? I think you have got thinner. And Helena looks rather white, though she has not grown much.'
I felt vexed at his saying I had not grown much.
'It's no wonder I am white,' I said in a surly tone. 'I have been mewed up in the house almost ever since Sharley and all of them went away.'
And then grandmamma explained about my having been ill.
'I'm very sorry,' said Jerry, 'but you look worse than Helena, Mrs. Wingfield.'
I felt crosser and crosser. I fancied he meant to reproach me with grandmamma's looking ill, even though it made me uneasy too. I glanced at her – a faint pink flush had come over her face at his words.
'I don't think granny looks ill at all,' I said.
'No, indeed, I am very well,' she said, with a smile.
Gerard said no more, but I know he thought me a selfish spoilt child. And from that moment he set himself to watch grandmamma and to find out if anything was really the matter.
He did find out, and that pretty quickly, I fancy, that we were much poorer. But it was very difficult for him to do anything to help grandmamma. She was so dignified, and in some ways reserved. She got a letter from Mrs. Nestor a few days later, thanking her for reading with Jerry again, and saying that of course the lessons must be arranged about as before. And it vexed her a very little. (She has told me about it since.) Perhaps she was feeling unusually sensitive and depressed just then. But however that may have been, she wrote a letter to Mrs. Nestor, which made her really afraid of offering to pay. It was not as if there was time for a good many lessons, granny wrote – would not Mrs. Nestor let her render this very small service as a friend?
And Jerry did not know what he could do. It was not the season for game, except rabbits – and he did send rabbits two or three times – and I know now that he scarcely dared to stay to tea, or not to stay, for if he refused granny seemed hurt.
On the whole, nice as he was, it was almost a relief when he went away back to school.
Still things were not so bad as in winter. I was really all right again, and a little money come in to grandmamma about May or June that she had not dared to hope for. We got on pretty well that summer.
None of the Nestors came to Moor Court at all. Gerard joined them for the long holidays in Switzerland. Mrs. Nestor wrote now and then to granny, and Sharley to me, but of course there was not the least hint of what Gerard had told them. I think they believed and hoped he had exaggerated it – he was the sort of boy to fancy things worse than they were if he cared about people, I think.
And so it got on to be the early autumn again. I think it was about the middle of September when the first beginning of the great change in our lives came.
It was cold already, and the weather prophets were talking of another severe winter. Grandmamma watched the signs of it anxiously. She kept comparing it with the same time last year till I got quite tired of the subject.
'Really, grandmamma,' I said one morning, 'what does it matter? If it is very cold we must have big fires and keep ourselves warm. And one thing I know – I am not going to be shut up again like last winter. I am going to get skates and have some fun as soon as ever the frost comes.'
I said it half jokingly, but still I was ready to be cross too. I had not improved in some ways since I was ill. I was less thoughtful for grandmamma and quite annoyed if she did not do exactly what I wanted, or if she seemed interested in anything but me. In short, I was very spoilt.
She did not answer me about the skates, for at that moment Kezia brought in the letters. It was not by any means every morning that we got any, and it was always rather an excitement when we saw the postman turning up our path.
That morning there were two letters. One was for me from Sharley. I knew at once it was from her by the foreign stamp and the thin paper envelope, even before I looked at the writing. I was so pleased that I rushed off with it to my favourite window-seat, without noticing grandmamma, who had quietly taken her own letter from the little tray Kezia handed it to her on and was examining it in a half-puzzled way. I remembered afterwards catching a glimpse of the expression on her face, but at the moment I gave no thought to it.
There was nothing very particular in Sharley's letter. It was very affectionate – full of longings to be coming home again, even though she allowed that their present life was very bright and interesting. I was just laughing at a description of Pert and Quick going to market on their own account, and how they bargained with the old peasant women, when a slight sound —was it a sound or only a sort of feeling in the air? – made me look up from the open sheet before me, and glance over at grandmamma.
For a moment I felt quite frightened. She was leaning back in her chair, looking very white, and I could almost have thought she was fainting, except that her lips were moving as if she were speaking softly to herself.
I flew across the room to her.
'Granny,' I said, 'dear granny, what is it? Are you ill – is anything the matter?'
Just at first, I think, I forgot about the letter lying on her lap – but before she spoke she touched it with her fingers.
'I am only a little startled, dear child,' she said, 'startled and – ' I could not catch the other word she said, she spoke it so softly, but I think it was 'thankful.' 'No, there is nothing wrong, but you will understand my feeling rather upset when I tell you that this letter is from Cosmo – you know whom I mean, Helena, Cosmo Vandeleur, my nephew, who has not written to me all these years.'
At once I was full of interest, not unmixed – and I think it was natural – with some indignation.
'So he is alive and well, I suppose?' I said, rather bitterly. 'Well, granny, I hope you will not trouble about him any more. He must be a horrid man, after all your kindness to him when he was a boy, never to have written or seemed to care if you were alive or dead.'
'No, dear,' said grandmamma, whose colour was returning, though her voice still sounded weak and tremulous – 'no, dear. You must not think of him in that way. Careless he has certainly been, but he has not lost his affection for me. I will explain it all to you soon, but I must think it over first. I feel still so upset, I can scarcely take it in.'
She stopped, and her breath seemed to come in gasps. I was not a stupid child, and I had plenty of common sense.
'Granny, dear,' I said, 'don't try to talk any more just now. I will call Kezia, and she must give you some water, or tea, or something. And I won't call Mr. Vandeleur horrid if it vexes you.'
Kezia knew how to take care of grandmamma, though it was very, very seldom she was ever faint or nervous or anything of that kind.
And something told me that the best I could do was to leave dear granny alone for a little with the faithful servant who had shared her joys and sorrows for so long.
So I took my own letter – Sharley's letter I mean, and ran upstairs to fetch my hat and jacket.
'I'm going out for a little, grandmamma,' I said, putting my head in again for half a second at the drawing-room door as I passed. 'It isn't cold this morning, and I've got a long letter from Sharley to read over and over again.'
'Take care of yourself, darling,' said granny, and as I shut the door I heard her say to Kezia, 'dear child – she has such tact and thoughtfulness for her age. It is for her I am so thankful, Kezia.'
I was pleased to be praised. I have always loved praise – too much, I am afraid. But my conscience told me I had not been thoughtful for grandmamma lately, not as thoughtful as I might have been certainly. This feeling troubled me on one side, and on the other I was dying with curiosity to know what it was granny was thankful about. The mere fact of a letter having come from that 'horrid, selfish, ungrateful man,' as I still called him to myself, though I would not speak of him so to grandmamma, could not be anything to be so thankful about – at least not to be thankful for me. What could it be? What had he written to say?