My New Home

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.