DREADFULLY GOOD
The destruction of Nurse Nancy's spectacles was a real tragedy. Between the
hills and the sea spectacles are not found growing like limpets on the
rocks, or shaking on the wind like the bog-flowers. The rule in Trimleston
House with regard to these necessary articles was that Granny's cast-off
spectacles fell to Nancy, who was younger than her mistress, and who was
nicely suited by glasses that had ceased to be powerful enough for Madam.
"Has Granny none to give you, Nursey?" asked Terry, with repentant eyes
fixed on Nancy's small brown orbs so deeply set in wrinkles.
"No, child, no. She got her new ones from Dublin only a week ago. And
myself got the ould ones. Suited me nicely, they did. And now I may sit
down and wait till Madam's eyes require another new pair."
"But can't we write for some for you, Nursey, as Granny did?"
"Well, now! Just as if they had my name and my number in Dublin, same as
your gran'mama's, an' her a great lady! Sure, poor people do have to walk
into a shop, and just try and try till they get a pair to fit them."
Terry sat on the old woman's knee, and threw her arms round her neck.
"I'll darn the stockings, and sew on the strings and buttons, and read your
prayer-book to you, and read the newspaper to you after Grandma has done
with it. Is there anything else I can do for you, Nursey darling?"
"Nothing in the world, except try to be good an' keep out of mischief, Miss
Terry."
"But I do so want to be good always, Nancy. And I never would be in
mischief if I knew it was mischief. It looks so right while I'm doing it,
and I don't know how it can be that all of a sudden it goes wrong--"
"Not all of a suddent, Miss Terry. It's always wrong from the beginning
with you. If you would only stop and ask your elders at first 'Is this
wrong?' before you go at it--"
"But I couldn't do that, unless I had an idea that it was going to be
wrong, even perhaps. It always seems to me the rightest, sweetest,
loveliest thing in the world--"
"Now, Terry, how can you look me in the face and say you thought it was
right to take a big, wet, lumbering watch-dog out of his kennel on a wet
day and bring him upstairs to your nursery, dripping his wet over
everything, and then dress him up--"
"Oh, Nancy!" cried Terry, splitting into laughter and putting her hands
before her face. "Oh, now, wasn't it simply deliciously funny? If you had
only been there before he jumped! His eyes were so sweet under your frills,
and his paws were so enchanting coming out of your sleeves. And if it
hadn't been for your spectacles--Now, tell me a story, Nancy, till it is
time to go to Gran'ma."
Terry was so true to her word, did so much reading and stitching and
searching about for little things that were lost, that Granny and Nancy
agreed to think her real conversion had begun through the breaking of the
spectacles. For Nancy had allowed Terry to confess to having broken the
glasses, though she would not have dear old Madam disturbed by a
description of the pranks with the dog. So long as Nursey had to go groping
about as if in the dark, putting her nose to the carpet in search of the
dressing-comb she had dropped out of her hand, feeling all over the
pin-cushion for a pin, and shaking out the newspaper with an expression on
her face which told that it was a perfectly blank sheet to her: while this
state of things went on, Terry had no time to think of fresh adventures, so
eager was she to come to Nursey's relief with her sharp young eyes and her
quick little fingers.
However, a more thorough relief was at hand, and it happened in this way.
Walsh, the old steward at Trimleston, was the same age as Nancy, and the
same kind of spectacles suited him. He sometimes went a journey to a town
about thirty miles away to pay bills for Madam, and to order things that
were wanted about the place. Granny suddenly discovered that he might as
well take the journey now as wait for the spring. She gave him a long list
of matters to be attended to for her, and then she said:
"And you had better go to the optician's, Walsh, and choose a pair of
spectacles to suit yourself, and bring them to me for Nurse Nancy."
As soon as Terry saw Nursey's keen brown eyes looking at her through the
familiar little glass windows once more, she felt her remorse slip away
from her, and her liberty return.
"Nursey is able to take care of herself now," she thought, "and I have
nothing to do. I wish I cared about reading, but I don't. I like people to
tell me stories, but nobody has more than a few, and you get to know them
all off by heart. The books always say such a lot between the happening
parts, and if you skip too much you lose part of the story. The story
people all sit down and fold their hands, and wait till the close thick
pages of prosy prosy are over, and when they get up again and go on they
have forgotten their parts. Pappy says I shall like reading when I'm older;
but I'm not older, and I don't like it. I just like to be doing something,
and oh, dear, there is nothing to do!"
Terry was sitting at the nursery fire waiting to be summoned to Granny's
sitting-room. She had on her pretty white frock, her gold curls were all
brushed up into a thousand shining rings, and her blue silk work-bag was
hanging by its ribbons from her arms. She had been extremely good and quiet
all day, and she was intending to behave nicely to Gran'ma during the
evening. She knew exactly all that would happen. There would be a good tea;
oh, yes, Granny did give such good teas, dear old Gran'ma! And then Terry
would sit on a stool beside her, and embroider a letter on one of Granny's
new cambric pocket-handkerchiefs. After that Terry would read aloud, poetry
such as Gran'ma liked, and Terry did not much object to that, for she
loved musical rhythm, only Granny always chose and marked the pieces, and
Terry would rather have tossed over the leaves till she found a poem that
she could make a favourite of for herself. She hoped it would be Longfellow
to-night. She liked that one:
"A little face at the window
Peers out into the night".
Oh, yes; she would be as good as good! And Terry heaved a long-drawn sigh.
"Turly," she said suddenly, "do you never get tired lying flat on the
floor, playing with soldiers and bricks, and things?"
"No," said Turly, "I've done such a day's work. I've built a whole city of
streets out of this one brick-box."
"You ridiculous boy! The box only holds enough bricks to build one house
with."
"I know that," said Turly placidly. "I build one house at a time, and I
count the houses I've built till I know there is a street."
"Oh, you silly! You are building the same house every time, and taking it
down again. How can you be so baby as to call that building a street."
"No matter," said Turly, "I have the street in my head. I see all the
houses I built, though they had to come down. It's a grand city."
"Whereabouts is it in the world!" asked Terry, a little interested in spite
of herself.
"Oh, it's a city I read about in the _Arabian Nights_! I think they call it
Ispahan. I intend to go there some day. There are magicians living in it."
"Oh, that's better!" cried Terry. "You must take me with you, Turly."
"Girls don't ever grow up into famous travellers," said Turly, as he packed
his bricks solidly back into their box.
"Oh, you stupid! don't they? As if I couldn't run about as well as a person
who lies on the floor all day and calls it travelling."
"I didn't," said Turly, "I said I intended to go and see that city some
day, and find out all about everything that is in it. I am afraid the
magicians are dead."
But here Granny's tea-bell rang, and the children hastened away to their
honey and tea-cakes. And there they had a delightful surprise, for two
little new kittens, a white Persian and a black velvet creature with yellow
eyes, were curled up on the hearth at Gran'ma's feet.