A GREAT CHANGE
Perhaps here it will be best for me to tell straight off what the
contents of Mr. Vandeleur's letter were. Not, I mean, to go into all as
to when and how grandmamma told me about it, with 'she said's' and 'I
said's.' Besides, it would not be quite correct to tell it that way, for
as a matter of fact I did not understand everything _then_ as I do now
that I am several years older, and it would be difficult not to mix up
what I have since come to know with the ideas I then had--ideas which
were in some ways mistaken and childish.
First of all, how do you think Cousin Cosmo, as I was told to call him,
had come to write again after all those years of silence? What had put
it into his head?
The explanation is rather curious. It all came from Gerard Nestor's
being at Moor Court that Easter, and feeling so sorry for grandmamma
and so sure that she was in trouble.
I have told, as we knew afterwards, that he had written to his people,
but that grandmamma's way of answering made them think, and hope, that
he had fancied more than was really the matter, and besides it was
difficult for the Nestors, who were not _relations_, to do anything to
help grandmamma, unless she had in some way given them her confidence.
At that time they were hoping to come home the following spring, and
then, probably, Mrs. Nestor would have found out more.
But when Gerard first went back to school his head was full of it. He
had not been _told_ anything, it was only his own suspicions, so there
was no harm in his speaking of it, as he did, though quite privately, to
his great friend, Harry Vandeleur.
And Harry gave him some confidences in return. Lady Bridget Woodstone,
the old lady who was guardian to him and his brother, had lately
died--the boys had spent their last holidays at school, but a new
guardian had now appeared on the scene. This was a cousin of theirs
whom, till then, they had never heard of, and this cousin was no other
than grandmamma's nephew, Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur.
Gerard quite started when he heard the name, which he remembered quite
well. Harry said that Mr. Cosmo Vandeleur was grave and quiet, he and
Lindsay felt rather afraid of him, but they would know better what sort
of person he was when they had spent the holidays with him.
'We are to go to his house, or at least to a house he has got in Devon,
near the sea-side, next August,' he told Gerard, and he promised that he
would ask his guardian if he had any relation called Mrs. Wingfield, and
if he found it was the same, he would tell him what Gerard had said, and
how all these years she had been hoping to hear from him. For granny had
told Gerard almost as much as she had told me of how strange it was that
'Cosmo' never wrote.
Well now you--by 'you' of course I mean whoever reads this story, if
ever any one does--you begin to see how it came about. Harry Vandeleur
_did_ tell his guardian about us, or about grandmamma, and found out
that she _was_ his aunt. Mr. Vandeleur was very much startled, Harry
said, to hear about how very differently she was living now, and he
wrote down the address and told Harry he would make further enquiries.
That was all Harry knew, for Mr. Vandeleur was very reserved, and Harry
and Lindsay did not feel as if they knew him any better after the
holidays than before. Mrs. Vandeleur was very ill, though they thought
she would have liked to be kind; they were always being told not to make
a noise, and so they stayed out-of-doors as much as they could. It was
rather dull (_very_ dull, I should think), and they hoped they would not
spend their next holidays there; they would almost rather stay at
school.
It was August or September when Mr. Vandeleur heard about grandmamma. He
did not at once write to her; he made enquiries of the lawyer who had
for many years managed, grandpapa's and papa's affairs, and he found it
was only too true, that granny was _very_ badly off. But even then he
did not write immediately, for Mrs. Vandeleur got worse and for a little
while they were afraid she was going to die.
He told granny this in his letter, but went on to say that Mrs.
Vandeleur was better, and the doctors hoped she might be moved home to
their house in London after the new year. In the meantime he was in
great difficulty what to do, he had to be in London a good deal, and it
was a pity to shut up the house, as they had made it all very nice, and
they had good servants. And even when Mrs. Vandeleur was much better
she must not be troubled about housekeeping or anything for a long time,
and besides this, there was a new responsibility upon him, which he
would tell granny about afterwards. He meant the care of the two boys,
but he did not speak of them then.
Some part of this, grandmamma told me that very evening; she also told
me how sorry her nephew was about his long silence, though, as I think I
said before, he _had_ written and got no answer,--a letter which she had
never received.
Here I find I must change my plan a little after all, and go into
conversation again. For as I am writing there comes back to me one part
of our talk that evening so clearly, that I think I can remember almost
every word.
We had got as far as grandmamma telling me most of what I have now
written down, but still I did not see why the letter had so upset her or
why she had whispered something to herself about being 'thankful.'
'Well,' I said, 'I am glad he has written if it pleases you, grandmamma.
But I don't think I want ever to see him.'
'You must not be prejudiced, Helena dear,' she answered. 'I think it
very likely you will see him, and before very long. I have not yet told
you what he proposes. He wants us to go to--to pay him a long visit in
London. He says I should be a very great help to him and Agnes--Agnes is
his wife--as I could take charge of things for her.'
'Of course you would be a great help,' I said. 'But I think it is rather
cool of him to expect you to give up your own home and go off there just
to be of use to them.'
Grandmamma sighed. She did not want to tell me too much of her
increasing anxiety about money, and yet without doing so it was
difficult for her to make me understand how really kind Mr. Vandeleur's
proposal was, and how it had not come a day too soon.
'There are more reasons than that for my accepting his invitation,' she
said. 'It will be of advantage to us in many ways not to spend the
coming winter here, but in a warm, large house. If we had weather like
last year I should dread it very much. London is on the whole very
healthy in winter, in spite of the fogs. And you are growing old enough
to take in new ideas, Helena, and to benefit by seeing something more of
life.'
I felt very strange, almost giddy, with the thought of such a change.
'Do you really mean, grandmamma,' I said, 'that--that you are thinking
of going there _soon_?'
'Very soon,' she answered, 'almost at once. It may get cold and wintry
here any day, and besides that, my nephew is very anxious to settle his
own plans as quickly as possible.'
I said nothing for a minute or two. In my heart I was not at all sorry
at the prospect of a winter in London, even though I naturally shrank
from leaving dear old Windy Gap, the only home I had ever known. But the
sort of spoilt way I had got into kept me from expressing the pleasure I
felt--that one side of me felt, anyway.
'I don't believe he cares about us,' I said at last rather grumpily. 'I
am sure he is a very selfish man.'
Grandmamma looked distressed, but she was wise, too. She saw I was
really inclined to be 'naughty' about it.
'Helena, my dearest child,' she said, and though she spoke most kindly I
heard by her voice that she would be firm, 'you must not yield to
prejudice, and you must trust me. This invitation is the very best thing
that could have come to us at present, and I am deeply grateful for it.
It is rather startling, I know, but there should be a good deal of
pleasure for you in our new prospects. And I am sure you will see this
in a day or two. Now go to bed, my darling. To-morrow we shall have a
great deal to talk over, and you must keep well and strong so as to be
able to help me.'
She kissed me tenderly, and I whispered 'Good-night, dear grandmamma,'
gently and affectionately.
But as soon as I got upstairs and was alone in my own little room, I
burst into tears. I daresay it was only natural. Still, I see now that
my feelings were not altogether what they should have been. There was a
great deal of selfishness and spoiltness mixed up with them.
* * * * *
After that evening I have rather a confused remembrance of the next two
or three weeks. Things seemed to hurry on in a bewildering way, and of
course it was all the more bewildering to me, as I had never known any
change or uprooting of the kind in my life.
Grandmamma was exceedingly busy. She had to write very often to Mr.
Vandeleur, and he replied in a most business-like way, generally, I
think, by return. It was no longer a great event for the postman to be
seen turning up our path, and as well as letters he sometimes now
brought parcels.
For grandmamma was determined that we should both look nice when we
first went to London to live in her nephew's big house, where there were
so many servants.
'We must do him credit,' she said to me, with a smile. I understood what
she meant, and I had a feeling of pride about it, too, and I was very
pleased to have some new dresses and hats and other things. But with me
there was no good feeling to my cousin mixed up in all this. I now know
that there was reason for grandmamma's wish to gratify him; he behaved
most generously and thoughtfully about everything, sending her more than
sufficient money for all we needed, and doing it in such a nice
way--just as a son who had grown rich might take pleasure in helping a
mother to whom he owed more than mere money could ever repay.
But though grandmamma read out to me bits of his letters in which he was
always repeating how grateful he was to her for coming to his aid in his
difficulties, she did not tell me the whole particulars of her
arrangements with him. He would not have liked it, and I was really too
young to have been told all these money-matters.
I did notice that there was never any mention of me in what she read to
me. And now I know that Mr. Vandeleur did _not_ particularly rejoice at
the prospect of my living with them too. He had proposed that I should
be sent to some very good school, for he knew nothing of children,
especially of little girls. I think he believed they were even more
tiresome and mischievous and bothering in every way than boys.
Grandmamma would not listen for an instant to this proposal. Her first
and greatest duty in life was her granddaughter, 'Paul's little girl,'
and she would do _anything_ rather than be separated from me, especially
as I was delicate and required care. In reality I was not nearly as
delicate as she thought. But I daresay it did not add to my cousin's
wish to have me in his house to hear that I was considered so.
Among the other things that grandmamma had to arrange about was what to
do with Windy Gap. In her heart I believe she thought it very unlikely
that it would ever be our home again, but she did not say anything of
this kind to me. She went off one day to Mr. Timbs to ask him to try to
let it as it was, with our furniture in. He promised to do his best, but
did not think it likely it would let in the winter.
'And by the spring we shall be coming back again,' I said, when granny
told me this. I had not gone with her to Mr. Timbs; she had made some
little excuse for not taking me.
To this she did not reply, and I thought no more about it, but I was
glad to hear that Kezia was to stay on in the cottage to keep it all
aired and in nice order. And I said to her secretly that if granny and I
were not happy in Chichester Square--that was the name of the gloomy,
rather old-fashioned square, filled with handsome gloomy houses, where
Mr. Vandeleur lived--it was nice to feel that we had only to drive to
the station and get into the train and be 'home' again in four or five
hours.
Kezia smiled, though I think in her heart she was much more inclined to
cry, and said she hoped to hear of our being very happy indeed in
London, though of course she would look forward to seeing us again.
I shall never forget the day we left our dear little cottage. It had
begun to be wintry, a sprinkling of snow was on the ground and the air
was quite frosty, though the morning was bright. I did feel so
strange--sorrowful yet excited, and as if I really did not know who I
was. And though the tears were running down poor Kezia's face when she
bade us good-bye at the window of the railway carriage, I could not have
cried if I had wished. We had a three miles' drive to the station. It
was only the third or fourth time in my life I had ever been there, and
I had never travelled for longer than half an hour or so, when granny
had taken me, and once or twice Sharley and the others, to one of the
neighbouring towns famed for their beautiful cathedrals.
We travelled second class. I thought it very comfortable, and it was
very nice to have foot-warmers, which I had never seen before. My
spirits rose steadily and even grandmamma's face had a pinky colour,
which made her look quite young.
'I should like to travel like this for a week without stopping,' I said.
Granny smiled.
'I don't think you would,' she said. 'You will feel you have had quite
enough of it by the time we get to London.'
And after an hour or two, especially when the short winter afternoon
grew misty and dull, so that I could scarcely distinguish the landscape
as we flew past, I began to agree with her.
'It will be quite dark when we get to Chichester Square,' said
grandmamma. 'You must wait for your first real sight of London till
to-morrow. I hope the weather will not be foggy.'
'Will there be flys at the station?' I asked, 'or did you write to order
one?'
Grandmamma smiled.
'No, dear, that would not be necessary. There are always lots of
four-wheelers and hansoms. But Mr. Vandeleur is sending a footman to
meet us and he will find us a cab.'
'Hasn't he got a carriage then?' said I.
Grandmamma shook her head.
'Not in London. Their carriages and horses are in the country still for
Mrs. Vandeleur. They will not be sent back to London till she comes.'
'I hope that won't be for a good long while,' I said to myself, rather
unfeelingly, for I might have remembered that as soon as my cousin's
wife was well enough she was to return. So her staying away long would
mean her not getting well.
Their being away--for Mr. Vandeleur was not in London himself just
then--was the part that pleased me the most of the whole plan. I thought
it would be great fun to be alone in London with grandmamma, and I had
been making lists of the things I wanted her to do and the places we
should go to see. It never struck me that she could have any one or
anything to think of but me myself!