The Four Corners

"Do you think she may be very ill?" asked Nan her eyes wide with alarm.

"I hope not. I hope not." Her aunt spoke more cheerfully. "No doubt she will get quite well where she is."

"She says she will if she can stay long enough."

"She must stay." Miss Helen spoke with decision. "Did she mind very much, Nancy, that you met me?"

"Oh, no; she was glad. She said – " the girl hesitated.

"Go on, please." Miss Helen spoke pleadingly.

"She told me that she had said something that she regretted."

"And that was – " Miss Helen leaned forward eagerly and caught Nan's hand in a tight clasp.

"That she never wanted to see any of the Corner family again," here Nan hurried on. "It wasn't any wonder, was it, when she was in such trouble and distress?"

"I never blamed her," murmured her aunt.

"She said she ought to have tried to be friendly to you and" – Nan looked up shyly, "that you used to love me dearly."

"I've always loved you dearly," returned her aunt warmly, "and I hope I always shall. Ah, my dear, you don't know what it is to have those dreadful bitternesses come into a family. I loved you all, your father, your mother, you children, but I loved my mother, too, and she needed me, for I was all she had left, and – well, never mind now. I am so very glad time has softened your mother's feeling, toward me at least, and I am so sorry, so very sorry, that she is not well. Poor dear Jack, it would have been a blow to him."

"Don't say that! Don't!" cried Nan. "It makes me feel as if I ought to be scared and trembly about mother and I don't want to." She put her head down in Miss Helen's lap and burst into tears.

"My dearest child," cried Miss Helen, "please don't cry. You make me so miserable."

"I won't cry," said Nan lifting her head. "She is better, oh, she is, Aunt Helen."

"I am sure of it, darling. Now, do you want to know what brings me here?"

"I do indeed."

"I have crossed the ocean twice since I saw you. I took your kiss to your grandmother all the way over with me, and oh, Nannie, dear, you don't know how much it meant to her! The first tears I have seen her shed for many a long day came to her eyes when I told her about you and what you said. Then she was restless and unhappy until she decided that nothing would do but she must see you. At first she urged me to send for you or to come over and bring you back, but I could not leave her and I doubted if you would be allowed to come. When she realized that, for the first time in all these years, she expressed a desire to come back to America. She has come to see you, Nannie. You won't refuse to go to her, will you?"

Nannie's heart was beating fast. At last she was to see the beautiful grandmother whose eyes followed her about from the portrait over the mantel. "Oh, I want to see her," she said. "I can't ask mother, but I know she would say yes; I know she would. Where is she, Aunt Helen? And when can I see her?"

"She is coming home. She is coming here as soon as I can get the house ready. She is with friends in Washington and I have engaged Martha Jackson to come over to clean the house and with Henry Johnson's help we shall soon have everything in order."

"I wish I could help," exclaimed Nan.

"Would you really like to?"

"I certainly would."

"Then you may. We'll go right over now for I promised Martha I'd come back soon so she would know what to do next."

This prospect of helping at Uplands was one of sheer delight to Nan. It was what gave her the greatest pleasure, and this opportunity of becoming intimate with the furnishings of the house at Uplands was beyond anything she had ever hoped for.

Through the long weeds the two made their way to spend the day in uncovering furniture, unpacking boxes and setting things to rights generally. During the process, Nan became confidential and revealed more of her own character and of her home life than she could have done in days of ordinary intercourse, so that Miss Helen came to know them all through her: Jean's gentle sweetness, Jack's passionate outbursts and mischievous pranks, Mary Lee's fondness for sports and her little self-absorbed ways; even Aunt Sarah stood out on all the sharp outlines of her peculiarities. Her unselfishness and her generosity were made as visible as her sarcasms and tart speeches, so that Miss Helen often smiled covertly at Nan's innocent revelations.

There was uncovered, too, the lack of means, the make-shifts and goings without in some such speech as: "Dear me, I wonder if our old sofa ever looked like that when its cover was fresh and new. It's just no color now and mother has patched and darned it till it can't hold together much longer, and the springs make such a funny squeak and go way down when you sit on it. Jack has bounced all the spring out of it, I reckon;" or, "we had a pretty pitcher something like that but Jack broke it and now we have to use it in our room, for you know we couldn't let the boys use a pitcher with a broken nose."

There were moments, too, when Nan spoke of the ogre Impatience and the Poppy fairy, both of whom Miss Helen seemed to know all about, for she fell in so readily with all Nan's fanciful ideas that the child felt as if she had known her always, and often would fly at her impetuously and give her a violent hug, frequently to the peril of some delicate ornament or fragile dish which she might have in her hand.

As room after room was restored to its former condition, Nan breathed a soft: "Oh, how lovely," but when the drawing room was revealed and all the beautiful pictures were unveiled, she sat in the middle of the floor and gazed around. All this she had longed to see and now she was in the midst of it. "I have a right to be here, haven't I, Aunt Helen?" she asked. "I really have a right. You invited me."

"Why, of course, Nan."

"I shall tell Aunt Sarah I had. She will say I sneaked in or stood around till you had to ask me, but I didn't."

"Of course not, you silly little girl. Come now, I am half starved. Let us go see what Martha has ready for us."

"Oh, I forgot about eating. I wonder what Aunt Sarah will say to my not coming home."

"Will she be alarmed?"

"No, not that exactly, because sometimes I take my pocket full of biscuits and stay out all day on Saturdays. I play I'm all sorts of people and that I have all kinds of wonderful things to eat. Have I ever had a meal in this house?"

"Many a time you have sat in your father's high-chair, and have banged on the table with a spoon, and, later on, you had many a sly meal with us when you would run off and I would catch you coming here. You couldn't cross the brook but would stand on the other side and call to me, 'Nenny, Nenny,' for that was as near Helen as you could get."

Nan sighed. "I really think I ought to go home. I could come back, I think."

"And leave me to eat my luncheon alone?"

Nan hesitated. It didn't seem very kind to do that, so she overcame her scruples and sat down to the meal Martha had prepared for them, wondering what Aunt Sarah would say when she heard about it. She felt a little startled when she stopped to consider possibilities. Aunt Sarah, though tart of speech, seldom resorted to active punishment unless she considered the limit had been overstepped, then she did not hesitate to mete out supperless solitary confinement to the aggressor. "I don't care," said Nan resolutely to herself, "I'm not going to be impolite to Aunt Helen even if Aunt Sarah doesn't approve. She can punish me if she wants to. I shall not mind going without my supper." In consequence she ate a hearty luncheon, being hungry from exertion and, moreover, wisely providing for future possible fasting.

It was a memorable day and when at last they left the house and Miss Helen locked the door behind them she told Nan that she would hang out from the second story window a red cloth as a signal when she had returned from Washington, and that Nan was to come over after that as soon as possible. She kissed the child good-bye and said, "I dreaded coming back, Nannie dear, but now I am glad to come since I have seen you."

So Nan went off with an exultant feeling in her heart. It was all like a fairy tale; Aunt Helen the fairy godmother, her grandmother the queen of the fairies. This was the enchanted castle and Nan was to be given entrance to it. She ran down the hill, stopped at the sunset-tree to look at the reddening sky, crossed the brook, and ran plump into Aunt Sarah.

CHAPTER IX

IMPRISONMENT

"Nancy Weston Corner," exclaimed Aunt Sarah, "where have you been all day? Who was that you were talking to up there at the house? I saw you coming away."

"It was my Aunt Helen," replied Nan, stoutly.

"And have you been up there hobnobbing with her and that wicked old mother of hers?"

"I reckon I've a right to hobnob with my own aunt," retorted Nan, immediately up in arms, "and as for my grandmother, she isn't there and she'd not be wicked if she were."

"Much you know about it. If you did know, you'd have more pride than to insinuate yourself into a household where you are not wanted."

"I do know all about it, and I didn't insinuate myself; I was invited. Aunt Helen invited me."

"When did you see her? How did she find you out?"