My New Home

Those dreary weeks went on till it was nearly Easter, which came very early that year. After my cousins' return home the weather got very bad and added to the gloom of everything.

It was not so very cold, but it was so dull! Fog more or less, every day, and if not fog, sleety rain, which generally began by trying to be snow, and for my part I wished it had been – it would have made the streets look clean for a few hours.

There were lots of days on which I couldn't go out at all, and when I did go out, with Belinda as my companion, I did not enjoy it. She was a silly, selfish girl, though rather good-natured once she felt I was in some way dependent on her, but her ideas of amusing talk were not the same as mine. The only shop-windows she cared to look at were milliners' and drapers', and she couldn't understand my longing to read the names of the tempting volumes in the booksellers, and feeling so pleased if I saw any of my old friends among them.

Indoors, my life was really principally spent in my own room, where, however, I always had a good big fire, which was a comfort. There were many days on which I scarcely saw grandmamma, a few on which I actually did not see her at all. For all this time Cousin Agnes was really terribly ill – much worse than I knew – and Mr. Vandeleur was nearly out of his mind with grief and anxiety, and self-reproach for having brought her up to London, which he had done rather against the advice of her doctor in the country, who, he now thought, understood her better than the great doctor in London. And grandmamma, I believe, had nearly as much to do in comforting him and keeping him from growing quite morbid, as in taking care of Cousin Agnes. All the improvement in her health which they had been so pleased at during the first part of the winter had gone, and I now know that for a great part of those weeks there was very little hope of her living. I saw Cousin Cosmo sometimes at breakfast but never at any other hour of the day, unless I happened to pass him on the staircase, which I avoided as much as possible, you may be sure, for if he did speak to me it was as if I were about three years old, and he was sure to say something about being very quiet. I don't think I could have been expected to like him, but I'm afraid I almost hated him then. It would have been better – that is one of the things grandmamma now says – to have told me more of their great anxiety, and it certainly would have been better to send me to school, to some day-school even, for the time.

As it was, day by day I grew more miserable, for you see I had nothing to look forward to, no actual reason for hoping that my life would ever be happier again, for, not knowing but that poor Cousin Agnes might die any day, grandmamma did not like to speak of the future at all.

I never saw her – Cousin Agnes I mean – never except once, but I have not come to that yet. At last, things came to a crisis with me. One day, one morning, Belinda told me that I must not stay in my room as it was to be what she called 'turned out,' by which she meant that it was to undergo an extra thorough cleaning. She had forgotten to tell me this the night before, so that when I came up from breakfast, which I had had alone, intending to settle down comfortably with my books before the fire, I found there was no fire and everything in confusion.

'What am I to do?' I said.

'You must go down to the dining-room and do your lessons there,' said Belinda. 'There will be no one to disturb you, once the breakfast things are taken away.'

'Has Mr. Vandeleur had his breakfast?' I asked.

'I don't know,' said Belinda, shortly, for she had been told not to tell me that Cousin Agnes had been so ill in the night that the great doctor had been sent for, and they were now having a consultation about her in the library.

'I'll help you to get your things together,' she went on, 'and you must go downstairs as quietly as possible.'

We collected my books. It made me melancholy to see them, there were such piles of exercises grandmamma had never had time to look over! Belinda heaped them all on to the top of my atlas, the glass ink-bottle among them.

'Are they quite steady?' I said. 'Hadn't I better come up again and only take half now?'

'Oh, dear, no,' said Belinda,'they are right enough if you walk carefully,' for in her heart she knew that she should have helped me to carry them down, herself.

But I had got used to her careless ways, and I didn't seem to mind anything much now, so I set off with my burden. It was all right till I got to the first floor – the floor where grandmamma's and Cousin Agnes's rooms were. Then, as ill luck would have it – just from taking extra care, I suppose – somehow or other I lost my footing and down I went, a regular good bumping roll from top to bottom of one flight of stairs, books, and slate, and glass ink-bottle all clattering after me! I'm quite sure that in all my life before or since I never made such a noise!

I hurt myself a good deal, though not seriously; but before I had time to do more than sit up and feel my arms and legs to be sure that none of them were broken, the library door below was thrown open, and up rushed two or three – at first sight I thought them still more – men! Cousin Cosmo the first.

'In heaven's name,' he exclaimed, though even then he did not speak loudly, 'what is the matter? This is really inexcusable!'

He meant, I think, that there should have been some one looking after me! But I took the harsh word to myself.

'I – I've fallen downstairs,' I said, which of course was easy to be seen. There was a dark pool on the step beside me, and in spite of his irritation Cousin Cosmo was alarmed.

'Have you cut yourself?' he said, 'are you bleeding?' and he took out his handkerchief, hardly knowing why, but as he stooped towards me it touched the stain.

'Ink!' he said, in a tone of disgust. 'Really, even a child might have more sense!'

Then the older of the two men who were with him came forward. He had a very grave but kind face.

'It is very unfortunate,' he said,'I hope the noise has not startled Mrs. Vandeleur. You must really,' he went on, turning to Cousin Cosmo, but then stopping – 'I must have a word or two with you about this before I go. In the meantime we had better pick up this little person.'

I got up of myself, though something in the doctor's face prevented my feeling vexed at his words, as I might otherwise have been. But just as I was stooping to pick up my books and to hide the giddy, shaky feeling which came over me, a voice from the landing above made me start. It was grandmamma herself; she hastened down the flight of stairs, looking extremely upset.

'Helena!' she exclaimed, and I think her face cleared a little when she saw me standing there,'you have not hurt yourself then? But what in the world were you doing to make such a terrific clatter? I never knew her do such a thing before,' she went on.

'Did Agnes hear it?' said Cousin Cosmo, sharply.

'I'm afraid it did startle her,' grandmamma replied, 'but fortunately she thought it was something in the basement. I must go back to her at once,' and without another word to me she turned upstairs again.

I can't tell what I felt like; even now I hate to remember it. My own grandmamma to speak to me in that voice and not to care whether I was hurt or not! I think some servant was called to wipe up the ink, and I made my way, stiff and bruised and giddy, to the dining-room – I had not even the refuge of my own room to cry in at peace – while Cousin Cosmo and the doctors went back to the library. And not long after, I heard the front door close and a carriage drive away.

I thought my cup was full, but it was not, as you shall hear. I didn't try to do any lessons. My head was aching and I didn't feel as if it mattered what I did or didn't do.

'If only my room was ready,' I thought, half stupidly, 'I wouldn't mind so much.'

I think I must have cried a good deal almost without knowing it, for after a while, when the footman came into the room, I started up with a conscious feeling of not wanting to be seen, and turned towards the window, where I stood pretending to look out. Not that there was anything to be seen; the fog was getting so thick that I could scarcely distinguish the railings a few feet off.

The footman left the room again, but I felt sure he was coming back, so I crept behind the shelter of the heavy curtains and curled myself up on the floor, drawing them round me. And then, how soon I can't tell, I fell asleep. It has always been my way to do so when I've been very unhappy, and the unhappier I am the more heavily I sleep, though not in a nice refreshing way.

I awoke with a start, not knowing where I was. I could not have been asleep more than an hour, but to me it seemed like a whole night, and as I was beginning to collect my thoughts I heard voices talking in the room behind me. It must have been these voices which had awakened me.

The first I heard was Mr. Vandeleur's.

'I am very sorry about it,' he was saying, 'but I see no help for it. I would not for worlds distress you if I could avoid doing so, for all my old debts to you, my dear aunt, are doubled now by your devotion to Agnes. She will in great measure owe her life to you, I feel.'

'You exaggerate it,' said grandmamma, 'though I do believe I am a comfort to her. But never mind about that just now – the present question is Helena.'

'Yes,' he replied, 'I can't tell you how strongly I feel that it would be for the child's good too, though I can quite understand it would be difficult for you to see it in that light.'

'No,' said grandmamma, 'I have been thinking about it myself, for of course I have not been feeling satisfied about her. Perhaps in the past I have thought of her too exclusively, and it is very difficult for a child not to be spoilt by this. And now on the other hand – '

'It is too much for you yourself,' interrupted my cousin, 'she should be quite off your mind. I have the greatest confidence in Dr. Pierce's judgment in such matters. He would recommend no school hastily. If you will come into the library I will give you the addresses of the two he mentioned. No doubt you will prefer to write for particulars yourself; though when it is settled I daresay I could manage to take her there. For even with these fresh hopes they have given us, now this crisis is passed, I doubt your being able to leave Agnes for more than an hour or two at a time.'

'I should not think of doing so,' said grandmamma, decidedly. 'Yes – if you will give me the addresses I will write.'

To me her voice sounded cold and hard; now I know of course that it was only the force she was putting upon herself to crush down her own feelings about parting with me.

It was not till they had left the room that I began to understand what a dishonourable thing I had been doing in listening to this conversation, and for a moment there came over me the impulse to rush after them and tell what I had heard. But only for a moment; the dull heavy feeling, which had been hanging over me for so long of not being cared for, of having no place of my own and being in everybody's way, seemed suddenly to have increased to an actual certainty. Hitherto, it now seemed to me, I had only been playing with the idea, and now as a sort of punishment had come upon me the reality of the cruel truth – grandmamma did not care for me any longer. She had got back the nephew who had been like a son to her, and he and his wife had stolen away from me all her love. Then came the mortification of remembering that I was living in Cousin Cosmo's house – a most unwelcome guest.

'He never has liked me,' I thought to myself; 'even at the very beginning, grandmamma never gave me any kind messages from him. And those poor boys Gerard told me of couldn't care for him – he must be horrid.'

Then a new thought struck me. 'I have a home still,' I thought; 'Windy Gap is ours, I could live there with Kezia and trouble nobody and hardly cost anything. I won't stay here to be sent to school; I don't think I am bound to bear it.'

I crept out of my corner.

'Surely my room will be ready by now,' I thought, and walking very slowly still, for falling asleep in the cold had made me even stiffer, I made my way upstairs.

Yes, my room was ready, and there was a good fire. There was a little comfort in that: I sat down on the floor in front of it and began to think out my plans.