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NURSE HEATHERDALE'S STORY
BY MRS MOLESWORTH
ILLUSTRATED BY
L LESLIE BROOKE
MACMILLAN & CO
LONDON MDCCCXCI
TO
MY FAR-AWAY
BUT FAITHFUL FRIEND
GISELA
LINDFIELD,
_August_ 22, 1891.
[Illustration: She was sitting in the dame's old-fashioned armchair, in
the window of the little room; the bright summer sunshine streaming in
behind her.--P. 31.]
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT 1
CHAPTER II AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL 17
CHAPTER III TRELUAN 36
CHAPTER IV A NURSERY TEA 51
CHAPTER V THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE 66
CHAPTER VI THE SMUGGLERS' CAVES 82
CHAPTER VII A RAINY DAY 96
CHAPTER VIII THE OLD LATIN GRAMMAR 110
CHAPTER IX UPSET PLANS 124
CHAPTER X THE NEW BABY 137
CHAPTER XI IN DISGRACE AGAIN 151
CHAPTER XII LOST 167
CHAPTER XIII 'OLD SIR DAVID'S' SECRET 183
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
'Hasn't her a nice face?' 14
She was sitting in the dame's old-fashioned armchair,
in the window of the little room; the bright summer
sunshine streaming in behind her 31
Then there burst upon the view a wonderful surprise 74
Miss Bess and Master Francis were talking eagerly with
old Prideaux 82
'Poor F'ancie,' she said pitifully. 'So tired, Baby
wants to kiss thoo' 113
'Auntie!' he said, smiling a very little; 'how pretty
you look!' 129
Sir Hulbert, holding Master Francis with one arm and
the side of the ladder with the other, followed 179
NURSE HEATHERDALE'S STORY
CHAPTER I
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
I could fancy it was only yesterday! That first time I saw them. And to
think how many years ago it is really! And how many times I have told
the story--or, perhaps, I should say the _stories_, for after all it is
only a string of simple day-by-day events I have to tell, though to me
and to the children about me they seem so interesting and, in some ways,
I think I may say, rather out of the common. So that now that I am
getting old, or 'beginning to think just a tiny bit about some day
getting old,' which is the only way Miss Erica will let me say it, and
knowing that nobody else _can_ know all the ins and outs which make the
whole just as I do, and having a nice quiet time to myself most days
(specially since dear tiresome little Master Ramsey is off to school
with his brothers), I am going to try to put it down as well as I can.
My 'as well as I can' won't be anything very scholarly or fine, I know
well; but if one knows what one wants to say it seems to me the words
will come. And the story will be there for the dear children, who are
never sharp judging of old Heather--and for their children after them,
maybe.
I was standing at our cottage door that afternoon--a beautiful summer
afternoon it was, early in June. I was looking idly enough across the
common, for our cottage stood--stands still, perhaps--I have not been
there for many a year--just at the edge of Brayling Common, where it
skirts the pine-woods, when I saw them pass. Quite a little troop they
looked, though they were scarcely near enough for me to see them
plainly. There was the donkey, old Larkins's donkey, which they had
hired for the time, with a tot of a girl riding on it, the page-boy
leading it, and a nursemaid walking on one side, and on the other an
older little lady--somewhere about ten years old she looked, though she
was really only eight. What an air she had, to be sure! What a grand
way of holding herself and stepping along like a little princess, for
all that she and her sisters were dressed as simple as simple. Pink
cotton frocks, if I remember right, a bit longer in the skirts than our
young ladies wear them now, and nice white cotton stockings,--it was
long before black silk ones were the fashion for children,--and
ankle-strap shoes, and white sun-bonnets, made with casers and cords,
nice and shady for the complexions, though you really had to be close to
before you could see a child's face inside of them. And some way behind,
another little lady, a good bit shorter than Miss Bess--I meant to give
all their names in order later on, but it seems strange-like not to say
it--and looking quite three years younger, though there was really not
two between them. And alongside of her a boy, thin and pale and
darkish-haired--that, I could see, as he had no sun-bonnet of course,
only a cap of some kind. He too was a good bit taller than Miss ----,
the middle young lady I mean, though short for his age, which was eleven
past. They were walking together, these two--they were mostly always
together, and I saw that the boy was a little lame, just a touch, but
enough to take the spring out of his step that one likes to see in a
young thing. And though I couldn't see her face, only some long fair
curls, long enough to come below the cape of her bonnet, a feeling came
over me that the child beside him was walking slow, keeping back as it
were, on purpose to bear him company. There was something gentle and
pitying-like in her little figure, in the way she went closer to the boy
and took his hand when the nurse turned round and called back
something--I couldn't hear the words but I fancied the tone was
sharp--to the two children behind, which made them press forward a
little. The other young lady turned as they came nearer and said
something with a sort of toss-up of her proud little head to the nurse.
And then I saw that she held out her hand to her younger sister, who
kept hold all the same of the boy's hand on the other side. And that was
how they were walking when they went in among the trees and were lost to
my sight.
But I still stood looking after them, even when there was nothing more
of them to be seen. Not even the dog--oh, I forgot about him--he was the
very last of the party--a brisk, shortish haired, wiry-looking rough
terrier, who, just as he got to the entrance of the wood, turned round
and stood for a moment barking, for all the world as if he might be
saying, 'My young ladies have gone a-walking in the wood now, and
nobody's to come a-troubling of them. So I give you fair notice.' He did
think, did Fusser, that was _his_ name, that he managed all the affairs
of the family. Many a time we've laughed at him for it.
'Dear me,' thought I to myself, 'I could almost make a story out of
those young ladies and gentleman, though I've only seen them for a
minute, or two at the most.'
For I was very fond of children even then, and knew a good deal about
their ways, though not so much--no, nor nothing like--what I do now! But
I was in rather a dreamy sort of humour. I had just left my first
place,--that of nursery-maid with the family where my mother had been
before me, and where I had stayed on older than I should have done by
rights, because of thinking I was going to be married. And six months
before, my poor Charles had died suddenly, or so at least it had seemed
to us all. For he caught cold, and it went to his chest, and he was gone
in a fortnight. The doctor said for all he looked strong, he was really
sadly delicate, and it was bound to be sooner or later. It may have been
true, leastways the doctor meant to comfort me by saying so, though I
don't know that I found much comfort in the thought. Not so much anyhow
as in mother's simple words that it was God's will, and so it must be
right. And in thinking how happy we had been. Never a word or a coldness
all the four years we were plighted. But it was hard to bear, and it
changed all my life for me. I never could bring myself to think of
another.
Still I was only twenty-one, and after I'd been at home a bit, the young
ladies would have me back to cheer me up, they said. I travelled with
them that spring; but when they all went up to London, and Miss Marian
was to be married, and the two little ones were all day with the
governess, I really couldn't for shame stay on when there was no need of
me. So, though with many tears, I came home, and was casting about in my
mind what I had best do--mother being hale and hearty, and no call for
dress-making of a plain kind in our village--that afternoon, when I
stood watching the stranger little gentry and old Larkins's donkey and
the dog, as they crossed the common into the firwood.
It was mother's voice that woke me up, so to say.
'Martha,' she called out in her cheery way, 'what's thee doing, child?
I'm about tidied up; come and get thy work, and let's sit down a bit
comfortable. I don't like to see thee so down-like, and such bright
summer weather, though mayhap the very sunshine makes it harder for
thee, poor dear.'
And she gave a little sigh, which was a good deal for her, for she was
not one as made much talk of feelings and sorrows. It seemed to spirit
me up somehow.
'I wasn't like that just now, mother,' I said cheerfully. 'I've been
watching some children--gentry--going over the common--three little
young ladies and a boy, and Larkins's donkey. They made me think of Miss
Charlotte and Miss Marian when first I went there, though plainer
dressed a good deal than our young ladies were. But real gentry, I
should say.'
'And you'd say right,' mother answered. 'They are lodging at Widow
Nutfold's, quite a party of them. Their father's Sir----; dear, dear,
I've forgot the name, but he's a barrowknight, and the family's name is
Penrose. They come from somewhere far off, near by the sea--quite furrin
parts, I take it.'
'Not out of England, you don't mean, do you?' I asked. For mother, of
course, kept all her old country talk, while I, with having been so many
years with Miss Marian and her sisters, and treated more like a friend
than a servant, and great pains taken with my reading and writing, had
come to speak less old-fashioned, so to say, and to give the proper
meaning to my words. 'Foreign parts really means out of this country,
where they talk French or Italian, you know, mother.'
But mother only shook her head.
'Nay,' she said, 'I mean what I say. Furrin parts is furrin parts. I
wouldn't say as they come from where the folks is nigger blacks, or from
old Boney's country neither, as they used to frighten us about when I
was a child. But these gentry come from furrin parts. Why, I had it from
Sarah Nutfold's own lips, last Saturday as never was, at Brayling
market, and old neighbours of forty years; it's not sense to think she'd
go for to deceive me.'
Mother was just a little offended, I could see, and I thought to myself
I must take care of seeming to set her right.
'Of course not,' I said. 'You couldn't have it surer than from Mrs.
Nutfold. I daresay she's pleased to have them to cheer her up a bit.
They seem nice little ladies to look at, though they're on the outside
of plain as to their dress.'
'And more sense, too,' said mother. 'I always thought our young ladies
too expensive, though where money's no consideration, 'tis a temptation
to a lady to dress up her children, I suppose.'
'But they were never _over_-dressed,' I said, in my turn, a little
ruffled. 'Nothing could be simpler than their white frocks to look at.'
'Ay, to look at, I'll allow,' said mother. 'But when you come to look
_into_ them, Martha, it was another story. Embroidery and tucks and real
Walansian!' and she held up her hands. 'Still they've got it, and
they've a right to spend it, seein' too as they're generous to those who
need. But these little ladies at Sarah's are not rich, I take it. There
was a deal of settlin' about the prices when my lady came to take the
rooms. She and the gentleman's up in London, but one or two of the
children got ill and needed country air. It's a heavy charge on Sarah
Nutfold, for the nurse is not one of the old sort, and my lady asked
Sarah, private-like, to have an eye on her.'
'There now,' I cried, 'I could have said as much! The way she turned
just now so sharp on the poor boy and the middle little lady. I could
see she wasn't one of the right kind, though I didn't hear what she
said. No one should be a nurse, or have to do with children, mother,
who doesn't right down love them in her heart.'
'You're about right there, Martha,' mother agreed.
Just then father came in, and we sat round, the three of us, to our tea.
'It's a pleasure to have thee at home again, my girl, for a bit,' he
said. And the kind look in his eyes made me feel both cheered and sad
together. It was the first day I had been with them at tea-time, for I
had got home pretty late the night before. 'And I hope it'll be a
longish bit this time,' he went on.
I gave a little sigh.
'I'd like to stay a while; but I don't know that it would be good for me
to stay very long, father, thank you,' I said. 'I'm young and strong and
fit for work, and I'd like to feel I was able to help you and mother if
ever the time comes that you're laid by.'
'Please God we'll never need help of that kind, my girl,' said father.
'But it's best to be at work, I know, when one's had a trouble. The
day'll maybe come, Martha, when you'll be glad to have saved a little
more for a home of your own, after all. So I'd not be the one to stand
in your way, a few months hence--nor mother neither--if a good place
offers.'
'Thank you, father,' I said again; 'but the only home of my own I'll
ever care for will be here--by mother and you.'
And so it proved.
I little thought how soon father's words about not standing in my way if
a nice place offered would be put to the test.
I saw the children who were lodging at Mrs. Nutfold's several times in
the course of the next week or two. They seemed to have a great fancy
for the pine-woods, and from where they lived they could not, to get to
them, but pass across the common within sight of our cottage. And once
or twice I met them in the village street. Not all of them
together--once it was only the two youngest with the nurse; they were
waiting at the door of the post-office, which was also the grocer's and
the baker's, while she was inside chattering and laughing a deal more
than she'd any call to, it seemed to me. (I'm afraid I took a real
right-down dislike to that nurse, which isn't a proper thing to do
before one has any certain reason for it.) And dear little ladies they
looked, though the elder one--that was the middle one of the three--had
rather an anxious expression in her face, that struck me. The baby--she
was nearly three, but I heard them call her baby--was a little fat
bundle of smiles and dimples. I don't think even a cross nurse would
have had power to trouble _her_ much.
Another time it was the two elder girls and the lame boy I met. It was a
windy day, and the eldest Missy's big flapping bonnet had blown back, so
I had a good look at her. She was a beautiful child--blue eyes, very
dark blue, or seeming so from the clear black eyebrows and thick long
eyelashes, and dark almost black hair, with just a little wave in it;
not so long or curling as her sister's, which was out-of-the-way
beautiful hair, but seeming somehow just to suit her, as everything
about her did. She came walking along with the proud springing step I
had noticed that first day, and she was talking away to the others as if
to cheer and encourage them, even though the boy was full three years
older than she, and supposed to be taking charge of her and her sister,
I fancy.
'Nonsense, Franz,' she was saying in her decided spoken way, 'nonsense.
I won't have you and Lally treated like that. And I don't care--I mean I
can't help if it does trouble mamma. Mammas must be troubled about their
children sometimes; that's what being a mamma means.'
I managed to keep near them for a bit. I hope it was not a mean
taking-advantage. I have often told them of it since--it was really that
I did feel such an interest in the dear children, and my mind misgave me
from the first about that nurse--it did so indeed.
'If only----' said the boy with a tiny sigh. But again came that
clear-spoken little voice, 'Nonsense, Franz.'
I never did hear a child of her age speak so well as Miss Bess. It's
pretty to hear broken talking in a child sometimes, lisping, and some of
the funny turns they'll give their words; but it's even prettier to hear
clear complete talk like hers in a young child.
Then came a gentle, pitiful little voice.
'It isn't nonsense, Queen, darling. It's _howid_ for Franz, but it
wasn't nonsense he was going to say. I know what it was,' and she gave
the boy's hand a little squeeze.
'It was only--if aunty _was_ my mamma, Bess, but you know she isn't. And
_aunts_ aren't forced to be troubled about not their own children.'
'Yes they are,' the elder girl replied. 'At least when they're instead
of own mammas. And then, you know, Franz, it's not only you, it's Lally
too, and----'
That was all I heard. I couldn't pretend to be obliged to walk slowly
just behind them, for in reality I was rather in a hurry, so I hastened
past; but just as I did so, their little dog, who was with them, looked
up at me with a friendly half-bark, half-growl. That made the children
smile at me too, and for the life of me, even if 'twas not good manners,
I couldn't help smiling in return.
'Hasn't her a nice face?' I heard the second little young lady say, and
it sent me home with quite a warm feeling in my heart.
[Illustration: 'Hasn't her a nice face?']
It was about a week after that, when one evening as we were sitting
together--father, mother, and I--and father was just saying there'd be
daylight enough to need no candles that night--we heard the click of the
little garden gate, and a voice at the door that mother knew in a moment
was Widow Nutfold's.
'Good evening to you, Mrs. Heatherdale,' she said, 'and many excuses for
disturbing of you so late, but I'm that put about. Is your Martha at
home?--thank goodness, my dear,' as I came forward out of the dusk to
speak to her. 'It's more you nor your good mother I've come after;
you'll be thinking I'm joking when you hear what it is. Can you slip
on your bonnet and come off with me now this very minute to help with my
little ladies? Would you believe it--that their good-for-nothing girl is
off--gone--packed up this very evening--and left me with 'em all on my
hands, and Miss Baby beginning with a cold on her chest, and Master
Francis all but crying with the rheumatics in his poor leg. And even the
page-boy, as was here at first, was took back to London last week.'
The good woman held up her hands in despair, and then by degrees we got
the whole story--how the nurse had not been meaning to stay longer than
suited her own convenience, but had concealed this from her lady; and
having heard by a letter that afternoon of another situation which she
could have if she went at once, off she had gone, in spite of all poor
Widow Nutfold could say or do.
'She took a dislike to me seein' as I tried to look after her a bit and
to stop her nasty cross ways, and she told me that impertinent, as I
wanted to be nurse, I might be it now. She has a week or two's money
owing her, but she was that scornful she said she'd let it go; she had
been a great silly for taking the place.'
'But she might be had up and made to give back some of her wages,' said
father.
'Sir Hulbert and my lady are not that sort, and she knows it,' said Mrs.
Nutfold. 'The wages was pretty fair--it was the dulness of the life down
in Cornwall the girl objected to most, I fancy.'
'Cornwall,' repeated mother. 'There now, Martha, if that isn't furrin
parts, I don't know what is.'
But I hadn't time to say any more. I hurried on my shawl and bonnet, and
rolled up an apron or two, and slipped a cap into a bandbox, and there I
was.
'Good-night, mother,' I said. 'I'll look round in the morning--and I
don't suppose I'll be wanted to stay more than a day or two. My lady's
sure to find some one at once, being in London too.'
'I should think so,' said old Sarah, but there was something in her tone
I did not quite understand.