Meanwhile Nesta was very full of her own interests. Things were going
in what might be considered a middling way at the Aldworths'. Mrs
Aldworth was no worse, but she was not much better. She was suffering
greatly from the heat, and yet she was not strong enough to be moved.
Nurse Davenant still remained, and kept the invalid in comfort, and saw
that she got the necessary food, and was not worried or neglected.
Molly and Ethel were busy over their own concerns; they were forced to
devote so much time, and Nesta was also required to be on duty for a
certain time each day. The fright the girls had sustained when their
mother was so seriously ill had not yet passed from their minds. Its
memory still had power to move them. They were still alarmed when they
thought of it.
But Nesta was less full of fear than her sisters, although her grief and
terror had been greater at the time. Hers was the most elastic nature,
perhaps in some ways the most unfaithful. She was now feverishly
anxious to get away to Scarborough. She had ventured, on the morning
after she had received her beloved yellow-boy, to sound Ethel on the
subject of that visit.
"Do you think they'd let me go?" she said.
"Who are `they'?" asked Ethel.
"Oh, you know--father, and Marcia--old Marcia, and Horace."
"If you ask me for my opinion," said Ethel, "I should once and for all
advise you to put it right out of your head. You haven't the most
remote chance of going away. You are required at home."
"I'm not much use, am I?"
"Frankly, you are not. You spilt mother's beef tea yesterday, and
dropped the ink over that new fancy work which she takes so much
pleasure in amusing herself with; and you screamed out and startled her
frightfully when you were in the garden and thought you were stung by a
wasp when you weren't. I don't see what particular use you are to
anybody."
"Then, if that is the case," said Nesta, "why can't I go away and enjoy
myself? I can't help being alive, you know. I must be somewhere in the
world, and if I'm such a bother here, why shouldn't I go off with old
Floss and have a good time? Floss doesn't think me a worry. Floss and
I could have a good time."
"By what possible right ought you to have a good time? There's Molly,
the eldest of us, and there's me, and what chance have we of going into
the country or to the seaside, or having any fun? There's nobody at all
in this hateful Newcastle, or in its suburbs, in the summer. There's
nothing but the horrible coal-dust in the air, and the whole place is
choking at times."
"But really not out where we live," said Nesta, who must be honest at
any cost.
"Well, anyhow, we're not in the most charming part of the country, and
that you know quite well. But if you ask me, I should say that you had
best give up the idea of going. You can do as you please, of course."
"Yes, I can do what I please; but I can't see, even if mother is ill,
why four girls should be kept to wait on her."
"There won't be four. Marcia is going to the St Justs' next week.
She's going away for a whole month. The doctor has ordered it. He says
she isn't well."
"Just because she looks pale. You know that she is quite well; she is
the strongest of us all."
"I don't know anything about that--she is going; that's all. She has
the doctor's orders and it is arranged."
"And it's because of her I have to stay at home?"
"Don't keep me any longer now, Nesta. Put it out of your head, once and
for all."
Ethel marched out of the room; but Nesta had no idea of putting the
tempting subject out of her head. She went upstairs to her own room.
She counted over the shillings left of her darling yellow-boy. She had
eighteen shillings and sixpence. Nesta was careful with regard to money
and had not indulged Flossie beyond eighteen-pence worth of good things
at Simpson's shop. With eighteen and sixpence, what could she not do?
What pleasures could she not enjoy? Oh, she must go. She slipped her
little purse under a pile of handkerchiefs on one of her drawers, tidied
herself as well as she could, and went into her mother's room. How hot
and dull it all was. Her mother's face looked more fagged and tired
than usual; but the girl, full of her own thoughts, had none for her
mother.
"Mothery," she said suddenly, "when do you think you'll be well enough
to go to the seaside?"
"Oh, I should love it," said poor Mrs Aldworth, and she stretched out
her arms wearily. "I am so hot and so tired; I'm sure if once I could
get there, it would do me a world of good."
"If you do everything the doctor says, and keep on taking your tonics,
you will be able to go in a fortnight's time, or so," said Nurse
Davenant. "Now, here is a delicious blancmange, you must eat it, and
you must take this cream with it. Come, now, dear, eat it up."
"It does look good," said Mrs Aldworth; "but I get so tired of these
sort of things, and I am so hot--so hot!"
This was her constant complaint. "Anybody would be hot," said Nesta,
"who stayed in this stifling room."
She went out and stood on the balcony. From there she saw, to her
intense annoyance, Flossie and Penelope coming up the path towards the
house, side by side. She wished she dared ask leave to go down; her
face turned scarlet, and her heart beat quickly. What was to be done?
She would have given anything at that moment to see Flossie. Of course,
Flossie had come to arrange about the visit to Scarborough, and there
was so little time to spare.
Mrs Aldworth's weak voice called her.
"Dear, little girl, come in and sit on this stool at mother's feet, and
tell me something funny."
"I'll tell you a fairy story," said Nesta, sitting down. "It is all
about a poor fairy princess, who was all covered with coal-dust and
grime, and she wanted to bathe in the cool sea, and she couldn't
because--because--"
"Why?" said Mrs Aldworth.
"Because there was a horrid dragon--rather, a dragoness, who took all
the pleasures for herself, and left the poor little fairy princess to
pine, and pine--"
"That doesn't sound at all a nice story," said Nurse Davenant. "There's
no sense in it either," she said, as she saw Mrs Aldworth's mouth
quiver. "Now, get your book and read something. Here's `John Halifax.'
Go on with that."
Nesta was forced to comply. Mrs Aldworth had been interested in the
beautiful story when read aloud by Marcia, but Nesta's rendering of it
was not agreeable. "You gabble so, dear," she said, "and you drop your
words so that I cannot always catch your meaning. What was that about
Ursula?"
"Oh, mother, it's so hot, and I can't read. I expect, mothery, I'm the
fairy princess, the poor begrimed little princess."
"You?" said Mrs Aldworth.
"Yes, mothery."
"Then who is the dragon?"
"Old Marcia," said the child.
She had scarcely uttered the words before Marcia herself came in.
"Marcia," said Mrs Aldworth, her blue eyes brightening for a minute,
"this naughty Nesta says you are a dragon, and she is a begrimed fairy
princess."
"I don't understand," said Marcia. She looked at Nesta, giving her a
long glance, under which the girl had the grace to colour.