Maud Florence Nellie: or, Don't care!

“Wyn,” said his mother, “it’s a good thing Mr Edgar doesn’t want you to-day. You get out the trap and bring it round by four o’clock so as to drive Florrie and me over to Ravenshurst, and then you can take it on to the junction and pick up Bessie and her things; I’ll walk back through the wood.”

“But – but Mr Edgar sent word I was to get flowers.”

“Mr Edgar can’t want the flowers to-day. It can’t matter when you get them – if you have them ready for him to-morrow morning. Now don’t make difficulties, Wyn, you get idle with going after flowers and dawdling about.”

Wyn rushed out of doors in despair. There was nothing for it but to go at once to the ash-tree in the hope that Mr Alwyn might be there before his time, and if he did not appear to write a message on a bit of paper and leave it where he could find it. Alwyn, however, impatient for the meeting, was already sitting under the ash-tree on the look-out for his brother, and started up in dismay as Wyn appeared alone.

“Please, sir, Mr Edgar’s ill to-day. He can’t come. I think he meant me to come and tell you so.”

“Ill? What is the matter with him? What did he say?”

“Please, sir, I expect it’s only one of his headaches, and I only got a message, but I thought I’d better come and tell you.”

“Is he likely to be able to come to-morrow?”

“No, sir, I don’t expect so. He often doesn’t come out for a long time when he takes to having his headaches, except just to lie on the terrace.”

“But you can see him?”

“Yes, sir, when he’s a bit better. He likes to have me come and tell him about the ducks and the peacocks and all the creatures, and sometimes I take him the dogs to look at.”

“My poor boy! Is that all he has to amuse him?” murmured Alwyn, half to himself.

“No, sir, there’s the garden, and the wild flowers I get him. But, sir – please, sir, I’ve got to go. Is there anything for me to take him, sir? Most likely I shall see him to-morrow.”

Alwyn hesitated; but the fear of disappointing Edgar prevailed, and he gave Wyn the thick packet, to be kept with the greatest care, and to be delivered to his master in private. Mr Alwyn looked so miserable as he delivered it up that Wyn tried to say something consolatory.

“Please, sir, Mr Edgar ain’t no worse than usual. Often and often he has his headaches and a pain in his back. I don’t think he minds it much, sir. He’ll talk quite cheerful most times.” Alwyn did not look much consoled by this information.

“Tell him not to think of me,” he said; “not to make any exertion to see me. Come here again to-morrow, and bring me news of him.”

Wyn hurried off without more words to get the trap up for his mother, and it was not till he had deposited her safely with Florence at Ravenshurst, and was waiting for his sister’s train at the distant junction, that it suddenly flashed into his mind how much he and Florence had done to set the keepers on the track of the strangers whom they had met in the wood. What had he done? It was worse than losing the letter. Suppose they caught Mr Alwyn or Harry, whom he had himself taken for a suspicious character, and took them up to the squire or to his father, saying that they had been warned by Wyn Warren. What would Mr Alwyn and Mr Edgar think of him? He must go and put them off it somehow. Would the train never come? What possessed it to be so late? And when it did come groaning into the station what a time Bessie was before she appeared with her box behind her, well-dressed, smiling, and dignified, the sister Bessie that he was ordinarily so glad to see.

Now he could think of nothing but getting home quick, and started off at a rattling pace before Bessie had had time to remark on his growth or inquire for mother.

“You ought not to drive that young horse so fast downhill, Wyn,” said Bessie presently; “the road’s so bad, you’ll have him down. Isn’t it the one father says isn’t sure-footed?”

“All right, I understand him,” said Wyn; but as he spoke there was a stumble and a lurch, the horse fell, the trap tilted over, and Bessie Warren, frightened, shaken, but otherwise unhurt, rolled out on to the high bank beside the road.

She knew quite well enough what she was about to slip down the bank to the horse’s head and seize the rein as the beast righted himself with a great struggle; then floundered, and stood up with broken knees, dragging the trap, which had been turned right over, and scattering on the bank all its contents, Wyn included.

“Wyn, Wynny darling, are you hurt?” cried Bessie, seeing little at the first moment but her brother’s heels.

It was a lonely road, and great was her relief when a gentleman on horseback trotted up, and exclaiming, “Hullo! what’s the matter?” dismounted hastily, and displayed the features of Mr Cunningham himself.

“Oh, sir,” said Bessie as he took the reins from her hand, “there’s been an accident.”

“So I perceive,” said Mr Cunningham. “What, Wyn, my lad, let the young horse down, have you? Are you damaged too?” as Wyn struggled up on to his feet, looked at the horse’s knees, and burst into a roar of crying, while his nose began to bleed violently from the shake and the blow, and he would have fallen back again if Bessie had not caught him, and, sitting on the bank, laid him down with his head on her lap, and tried to stop the bleeding.

“Is he hurt?” said the squire.

“Not much, sir, I think; he’ll come round directly. Keep quiet, Wyn. Where’s your pocket-handkerchief? On the bank? Oh, sir, thank you,” as Mr Cunningham handed it to her, and saw the letter beside it with his son’s name on it.

“A letter for Mr Edgar,” he said, picking it up. He gave a second glance, and put it in his pocket. “I’ll give it to him,” he said.

Wyn was giddy and a little faint, and did not see what was passing; but presently he sat up, and Mr Cunningham said:

“Well, my boy, you’d better keep to Mr Edgar’s pony for the future.”

“Mr Stapleton won’t never forgive me,” said Wyn, feeling the horse’s knees of far more importance than his own nose, and referring to the stud-groom.

“Well, I hope there’s nothing worse than Rex’s knees on your conscience,” said the squire in the peculiar dry tone which made his displeasure so appalling. “You had better wait here, Elizabeth Warren. I’ll ride back and send someone to help you.”

“Thank you, sir;” then, as he rode on, “Surely nothing could be worse than breaking the horse’s knees! What will father say? What’s the matter, Wyn? here’s your handkerchief.”

“But – but – where’s – where’s – ”

“Mr Edgar’s letter? Mr Cunningham took it, so that’s all right.”

Wyn jumped up with a positive howl.

“Oh! oh! oh! Whatever have I done! Oh, I am the unluckiest boy in the world! Oh, whatever will he say to me? But there – ”

Wyn suddenly stifled his lamentations and sat perfectly still, only sobbing at intervals.

“Why,” said Bessie, “if anyone lets a horse down they must expect to catch it. But there, Wyn, it’s a mercy, to be very thankful for, that we’re neither of us killed. I feel all of a tremble still. There, isn’t that one of the stablemen coming? The master must have met him. Wipe your face, Wyn, dear, and don’t cry; we’ll go home to mother, and she’ll see to you.”

“Oh,” sobbed Wyn, burying his face in the bank as his sister went forward to meet the stableman, “I’d rather have let down all the hunters and broken all my bones than have let master have the letter. And I lost the other, and I’ve set on the keepers! I’m – I’m a regular traitor, and Mr Edgar’ll never trust me no more – never!”

Chapter Fourteen

The Fairy Letter

In the meantime Florence Whittaker and her aunt, having been set down by Wyn, waited in the housekeeper’s room at Ravenshurst till Lady Carleton was ready to see them. Mrs Warren was by no means confident of Florence’s success, and felt that she stretched a point in recommending her. But Maud Florence Nellie was not quite the same girl as she had been three weeks or a month before. Many new influences had been brought to bear on her some very ordinary, and others not quite so commonplace, and, like all young people, she was greatly influenced by her surroundings. If she had found herself on the Rapley road beside Carrie and Ada, she would probably have talked and acted exactly like her old self; but she had thoughts that did not belong to her old self at all. Her head had been filled with wider, other ideas than her own little follies, faults, and pleasures. The mystery of the lost jewels, the excitement of the strangers in the wood, the old grandmother, the Cunningham family – the trees, even the birds and beasts – were all apart from her own little selfish narrow interests, and were a great improvement on Carrie’s new hat, Ada’s new acquaintance, and her own newest scrape. Moreover, Mrs Warren’s quiet refinement had a subduing influence; Wyn was a thoroughly well-behaved little boy. Nobody nagged at the keeper’s lodge, and nobody quarrelled. To be saucy at Sunday school to gentle old Mrs Murray, who taught the girls with all the assured ease of long custom, was so out of keeping with the place that she never dreamed of it. Besides, she was usually occupied with the pleasure of sitting beside Miss Geraldine, who, when Mrs Murray was there, took her place in the class with the others. All these influences were doing Florence a great deal of good; and an odd sort of partisanship for the lost Harry was stirring up all sorts of new ideas in her mind.

It did not begin very worthily: chiefly consisting of the notion that he was probably much nicer than George, and wondering whether he would have been down upon herself for her tricks; but the thought of him, and of “Miss Geraldine’s brother,” filled Ravenshurst with interest. Besides, “dressing up to frighten people,” if they were so silly as to be frightened, was a proceeding with which Florrie had far too much sympathy.

“Florrie, my dear,” said Mrs Warren gently as they waited, “it’s a good deal that I’m undertaking for you. You’ve all to learn, remember, and the nurse must tell you if you make mistakes; don’t think to answer her back. Remember she’s your better, and set over you. And when you’re trusted with the little lady and gentleman you’ll be a careful girl, and never let them hear a word from you that isn’t fitting. Put it in your prayers, my dear, that you may do your duty by them. I’m not one to talk, Florrie, but there’s nothing but praying can help us through life.”

“I’ll try, Aunt Charlotte,” said Florrie, colouring Mrs Warren’s gentleness always subdued her, and when the summons came she followed her aunt, and made a sort of imitation of Mrs Warren’s country curtsey at the drawing-room door, as a proof that she meant to mind her manners.

Lady Carleton was very young and very pretty. Her manner was lively as she asked a few questions about previous experience, and said that her nurse preferred a girl who had not been out before.

“So you have only to attend to her directions. What is your name?”

“Her name is Florence Whittaker, my lady,” said Mrs Warren. “My husband wished me to name that at once. But she has been brought up very careful, and her brother George is a clerk on the railway and most respectable.”

Lady Carleton coloured up, and a curious look came into her face.