My New Home

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.