My New Home

CHAPTER VI

'WAVING VIEW'

I was only eight years old at the time we made the acquaintance of the family at Moor Court. It may seem strange and unlikely that I should remember so clearly all that happened when we first got to know them, but even though I was so young at the time I do recollect all about it very well.

For it was so new to me that it made a great impression.

Till then I had never had any real companions; as I have said already, I had scarcely ever had a meal out of our own house. It was like the opening of a new world to me.

But I have asked grandmamma about a few things which she remembers more exactly than I do. Especially about the Vandeleur boys, I mean about what was said of them. But for things that happened afterwards I daresay I should never have thought of this again, though grandmamma did not forget about it. She told me over quite lately everything that had passed at that birthday tea.

The months, and indeed the years that followed that first happy day at Moor Court seem to me now, on looking back upon them, a good deal mixed up together – till, that is to say, a change, a melancholy one for me, came over my happy friendship with the Nestor children.

This change, however, did not come for fully three years, and these three years were very bright and sunny ones. Sharley and her sisters continued all that time to be my grandmamma's pupils – winter and summer, all the year round, except for some weeks of holiday at Christmas, and a rather longer time in the autumn, when the Nestors generally went to the sea-side for a change; unless the weather was terribly bad or stormy, twice a week they either walked over with a maid, or the governess-cart drawn by the fat pony made its appearance at the end of our path. Sometimes the little groom went on into the village if there were any messages, sometimes if it was cold he drove as far as the farm at the foot of the hill, where it was arranged that he could 'put up' for an hour or two, sometimes in warm summer days the pony-cart just waited where it was.

Often, once a fortnight or so at least, in the fine season, I made one of the party on the little girls' return home. How we all managed to squeeze into the cart, or how old Bunch managed to take us all home without coming to grief on the way, I am sure I can't say.

I only know we did manage it, and so did he. For he is still alive and well, and no doubt 'ready to tell the story,' if he could speak.

We never seemed to be ill in those days. The Nestor children were no doubt very strong, and I grew much stronger. Then Middlemoor is such a splendidly healthy place.

I have some misty recollections of Nan and Vallie having the measles, and a doubt arising as to whether I had not got it too. But if it was measles it did not seem worse than a cold, and we were soon all out and about again, as merry as ever.

And grandmamma seemed to grow younger during those years. Her mind was more at rest for the time, for the steady payment she received for the girls' French lessons made all the difference in our little income, between being comfortable, with a small extra in case of need, and being only just able to make both ends meet with a great deal of tugging. And grandmamma was happy about taking the money, for it was well earned; Sharley and the others made such good progress in French and after a little while in German also, even though Nan was by nature rather slow and Vallie dreadfully flighty, and not at all good at giving her attention.

But she was so sweet! I never saw any one so sweet as Vallie, when she had been found fault with and was sorry; the tears used to come up into her big brown eyes very slowly and stay there, making them look like velvety pansies with dewdrops in them.

Somehow Sharley always seemed the most my friend, though she was a good deal older. Perhaps it was through having known her the first, and partly, I daresay, because in some ways I was old for my age.

The big brother Gerard came home for his holidays three times a year. He was a very nice boy, I am sure, but I did not get to know him well, and I had rather a grudge at him. For when he was at Moor Court I seemed to see so much less of Sharley. It wasn't her fault. She was not a changeable girl at all, but Jerry had always been accustomed to having her a great deal with him in his holidays, as she took pains to explain to me. So of course if she had given him up for me she would have been changeable.

She did her best, I will say that for her. She told Gerard all about me, and he was very nice to me. But it was in rather a big boy way, which I did not understand. I thought he was treating me like a baby when he only meant to be kind and brotherly. I remember one day being so offended at his lifting me over a stile, that it was all I could do not to burst into tears!

So it came to be the way among us, without anything being actually said about it, that during Jerry's holidays I was mostly with the four others – Nan and Vallie and the two younger boys.

And I daresay it was a good thing for me. For none of them were at all old for their age; they were just hearty, healthy, regular children, living in the present and very happy in it. And if I had been altogether with the older ones I might have grown more and more 'old-fashioned.' For Gerard was a very serious and thoughtful boy, and Sharley, though in outside ways she seemed rather wild and hoydenish, was really very clever and very wise, to be only the age she was. I never quite took in that side of her character till I saw her with Jerry – she seemed quite transformed.

One thing came to pass, however, which was a great pleasure to the two people it chiefly concerned and to Sharley. As for me, I don't think I gave much attention to it, and I am not sure that if it had at all interfered with my own life I should not have been rather jealous!

This was a close friendship between Gerard Nestor and grandmamma.

And it is necessary to speak about it because it was the beginning of things which brought about great changes.

Grandmamma loved boys and she was one of those women that are well fitted to manage them. She used to say that till she got me, she had never had anything to do with girls. For her own children were both boys – papa was the elder, and the other was a dear boy who died when he was only sixteen, and whom of course I had never seen, though grandmamma liked me to speak of him as 'Uncle Guy.' Then, too, she had had some charge of her nephew, Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur.

Her friendship with Jerry came about by his reading French and German with her in the holidays. He had never been out of England and he was anxious to improve his 'foreign languages,' as he was backward in them, besides having a very bad accent indeed.

Granny has often said she never had so attentive a pupil, and it was in talking with him – for 'conversation' was a very important part of her teaching – that she got to know so much of Gerard, and he so much of her.

She used to tell him stories of her own boys, Paul – Paul was papa – and Guy, in French, and he had to answer questions about the stories to show that he had understood her. And in these stories the name of Cosmo Vandeleur came to be mentioned.

The first time or so he heard it I don't think Jerry noticed it. But one day it struck him just as it had struck grandmamma that first day – the birthday-tea day – at Moor Court.

'Vandeleur,' said Jerry – it was one day when he had come over for his lesson, and as it was raining and I could not go out, I was sitting in the window making a cloak or something for my doll. 'Vandeleur,' he repeated. 'I wonder, Mrs. Wingfield, if your nephew is any relation to some boys at my school. They are great chums of mine – they were to have come home with me for the summer holidays' – it was the Christmas holidays now, – 'but their relations had settled something else for them and wouldn't let them come. I think their relations must be rather horrid.'

'I remember Sharley – I think it was Sharley – speaking of them,' said grandmamma. 'They are orphans, are they not?'

'Yes,' said Gerard. 'They've got guardians – one of them is quite an old woman. Her name is Lady Bridget Woodstone. They don't care very much for her. I think she must be very crabbed.'

'I do not think they can be related to my nephew,' said grandmamma. 'I never heard of any orphan boys in his family, and I never heard of Lady Bridget Woodstone. But Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur is only my nephew, because his mother was my husband's sister – so of course he may have relations I know nothing of. He always seemed to me very near when he was a boy, because he was so often with us.'

She sighed a little as she finished speaking. Thinking of Mr. Vandeleur made her sad. It did seem so strange that he had never written all these years.

And Jerry was very quick as well as thoughtful. He saw that for some reason the mention of the name made her sad, so he said no more about the Vandeleur boys. Long afterwards he told us that when he went back to school he did ask Harry and Lindsay Vandeleur if they had any relation called Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur, but at that time they told him they did not know. They were quite under the care of old Lady Bridget, and she was not a bit like granny. She was the sort of old lady who treats children as if they had no sense at all; she never told the boys anything about themselves or their family, and when they spent the holidays with her, she always had a tutor for them – the strictest she could find, so that they almost liked better to stay on at school.

The three years I have been writing about must have passed quickly to grandmamma. They were so peaceful, and after we got to know the Nestors, much less lonely. And grandmamma says that it is quite wonderful how fast time goes once one begins to grow old. She does not seem to mind it. She is so very good – I cannot help saying this, for my own story would not be true if I did not keep saying how good she is. But I must take care not to let her see the places where I say it. She loves me as dearly as she can, I know – and others beside me. But still I try not to be selfish and to remember that when the dreadful – dreadful-for-me– day comes that she must leave me, it will only for her be the going where she must often, often have longed to be – the country 'across the river,' where her very dearest have been watching for her for so long.

To me those three years seem like one bright summer. Of course we had winters in them too, but there is a feeling of sunshine all over them. And, actually speaking, those winters were very mild ones – nothing like the occasional severe ones, of another of which I shall soon have to tell.

I was so well too – growing so strong – stronger by far than grandmamma had ever hoped to see me. And as I grew strong I seemed to take in the delightfulness of it, though as a very little girl I had not often complained of feeling weak and tired, for I did not understand the difference.

Now I must tell about the change that came to the Nestors – a sad change for me, for though at first it seemed worse for them, in the end I really think it brought more trouble to granny and me than to our dear friends themselves.

It was one day in the autumn, early in October I think, that the first beginning of the cloud came. Gerard had not long been back at school and we were just settling down into our regular ways again.

'The girls are late this morning,' said grandmamma. 'You see nothing of them from your watch-tower, do you, Helena?'

Granny always called the window-seat in our tiny drawing-room my 'watch-tower.' I had very long sight and I had found out that there was a bit of the road from Moor Court where I could see the pony-cart passing, like a little dark speck, before it got hidden again among the trees. After that open bit I could not see it again at all till it was quite close to our own road, as we called it – I mean the steep bit of rough cart-track leading to our little garden-gate.

I was already crouched up in my pet place, when grandmamma called out to me. She was in the dining-room, but the doors were open.

'No, grandmamma,' I replied. 'I don't see them at all. And I am sure they haven't passed Waving View in the last quarter-of-an-hour, for I have been here all that time.'

'Waving View,' I must explain, was the name we had given to the short stretch of road I have just spoken of, because we used to wave handkerchiefs to each other – I at my watch-tower and Sharley from the pony-cart, at that point.

Grandmamma came into the drawing-room a moment or two after that and stood behind me, looking out at the window.

'Not that I could see them coming,' she said, 'till they are up the hill and close to us. But I do wonder why they are so late – half an hour late,' and she glanced at the little clock on the mantelpiece. 'I hope there is nothing the matter.'

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.