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.
For I scarcely think my 'presentiments' would have troubled me much
except for the being alone and missing granny so.
I made up my mind to be sensible and not fanciful. I got out what I
called my 'secret work,' which was at that time a footstool I was
embroidering for grandmamma's next birthday, and I did a good bit of it.
That made me feel rather better, and when my bedtime came it was nice to
think I had nothing to do but to go to sleep and stay asleep to make
to-morrow morning come quickly.
I fell asleep almost at once. But when I woke rather with a start--and I
could not tell what had awakened me--it was still quite, quite dark,
certainly not to-morrow morning.
'Oh, dear!' I thought, 'what a bother! Here I am as wide awake as
anything, and I so seldom wake at all. Just this night when I wanted to
sleep straight through.'
I lay still. Suddenly I heard some faint sounds. Some one was moving
about downstairs. Could it be Kezia up still? It must be very
late--quite the middle of the night, I fancied.
The sounds went on--doors shutting softly, then a slight creak on the
stairs, as if some one were coming up slowly. I was not exactly
frightened. I never thought of burglars--I don't think there has been a
burglary at Middlemoor within the memory of man--but my heart did beat
rather faster than usual and I listened, straining my ears and scarcely
daring to breathe.
Then at last the steps stopped at my door, and some one began to turn
the handle. I _almost_ screamed. But--in one instant came the dear
voice--
'Is my darling awake?' so gently, it was scarcely above a whisper.
'Oh, granny, dear, dear granny, is it you?' I said, and every bit of me,
heart and ears and everything, seemed to give one throb of delight. I
shall never forget it. It was like the day I ran into her arms down the
steep garden-path.
'Did I startle you?' she went on. 'Generally you sleep so soundly that I
hoped I would not awake you.'
'I was awake, dear grandmamma,' I said, 'and oh, I am so glad you have
come home.'
I clung to her as if I would never let her go, and then she told me the
news from Moor Court. The London doctor had spoken gravely, but still
hopefully. With great care, the greatest care, he trusted Mr. Nestor
would quite recover.
'So I came home to my little girl,' said grandmamma, 'though I have
promised poor Mrs. Nestor to go to her again to-morrow.'
'I don't mind anything if you are here at night,' I said, with a sigh of
comfort.
And then she kissed me again and I turned round and was asleep in five
minutes, and when I woke the next time it _was_ morning; the sunshine
was streaming in at the window.
There were some weeks after that of a good deal of anxiety about Mr.
Nestor, though he went on pretty well. Grandmamma went over every two or
three days, just to cheer Mrs. Nestor a little--not that there was
really anything to do, for they had trained nurses, and everything money
could get. The girls went on with their lessons as usual, which was of
course much better for them. But in those few weeks Sharley almost
seemed to grow into a woman.
I felt rather 'left behind' by her, for I was only eleven, and as soon
as the first great anxiety about Mr. Nestor was over I did not think
very much more about it. Nor did Nan and Vallie. We were quite satisfied
that he would soon be well again, and that everything would go on as
usual. Only Sharley looked grave.
At last the blow fell. It was a very bad blow to me, and in one
way--which, however, I did not understand till some time later--even
worse to grandmamma, though she said nothing to hint at such a thing in
the least.
And it was a blow to the Nestor children, for they loved their home and
their life dearly, and had no wish for any change.
This was it. They were all to go abroad almost immediately, for the
whole winter at any rate. The doctors were perfectly certain that it was
necessary for Mr. Nestor, and he would not hear of going alone, and Mrs.
Nestor could not bear the idea of a separation from her children.
Besides--they were very rich, there were no difficulties in the way of
their travelling most comfortably, and having everything they could want
wherever they went to.
To me it was the greatest trouble I had ever known--and I really do
think the little girls--Sharley too--minded it more on my account than
on any other.
But it had to be.
Almost before we had quite taken in that it was really going to be, they
were off--everything packed up, a courier engaged--rooms secured at the
best hotel in the place they were going to--for all these things can be
done in no time when people have lots of money, grandmamma said--and
they were gone! Moor Court shut up and deserted, except for the few
servants left in charge, to keep it clean and in good order.
I only went there once all that winter, and I never went again. I could
not bear it. For in among the trees where we played I came upon the
traces of our last paper-chase, and passing the side of the house it was
even worse. For the schoolrooms and play-room were in that wing, and
above them the nurseries, where Vallie used to rub her little nose
against the panes when she was shut up with one of her bad colds. Some
cleaning was going on, for it was like Longfellow's poem exactly--
'I saw the nursery windows
Wide open to the air,
But the faces of the children,
They were no longer there.'
I just squeezed grandmamma's hand without speaking, and we turned away.
It _is_ true that troubles do not often come alone. That winter was one
of the very severe ones I have spoken of, that come now and then in that
part of Middleshire.
For the Nestors' sake it made us all the more glad that they were safely
away from weather which, in his delicate state, would very probably have
killed their father. I think this was our very first thought when the
snow began to fall, only two or three weeks after they left, and went on
falling till the roads were almost impassable, and remained lying for I
am afraid to say how long, so intense was the frost that set in.
I thought it rather good fun just at the beginning, and wished I could
learn to skate. Grandmamma did not seem to care about my doing so, which
I was rather surprised at, as she had often told me stories of how fond
she was of skating when she was young, and how clever papa and Uncle Guy
were at it.
She said I had no one to teach me, and when I told her that I was sure
Tom Linden, a nephew of the vicar's who was staying with his uncle and
aunt just then, would help me, she found some other objection. Tom was a
very stupid, very good-natured boy. I had got to know him a little at
the Nestors. He was slow and heavy and rather fat. I tried to make
granny laugh by saying he would be a good buffer to fall upon. I saw she
was looking grave, and I felt a little cross at her not wanting me to
skate, and I persisted about it.
'Do let me, grandmamma,' I said. 'I can order a pair of skates at
Barridge's. They don't keep the best kind in stock, but I know they can
get them.'
'No, my dear,' said grandmamma at last, very decidedly. 'I am not at all
sure that it would be nice for you--it would have been different if the
Nestors had been here. And besides, there are several things you need to
have bought for you much more than skates. You must have extra warm
clothing this winter.'
She did not say right out that she did not know where the money was to
come from for my wants--as for her own, when did the darling ever think
of _them_?--but she gave a little sigh, and the thought did come into my
head for a moment--was grandmamma troubled about money? But it did not
stay there. We had been so comfortable the last few years that I had
really thought less about being poor than when I was quite little.
And other things made me forget about it. For a very few days after
that, most unfortunately, I got ill.