NO. 29 CHICHESTER SQUARE
It was quite dark when we arrived at Paddington Station, and long before
then, as grandmamma had prophesied, I had had much more than enough of
the railway journey at first so pleasant.
I was tired and sleepy. It all seemed very, very strange and confusing
to me--the huge railway station, the dimly burning gas-lamps, the
bustle, the lots of people. For, as I have to keep reminding you, there
is scarcely ever nowadays a child who leads so quiet and unchangeful a
life as mine had been. I felt in a dream. If I had been less tired in my
body I daresay my mind and fancy would have been amused and excited by
it all. As it was, I just clung to grandmamma stupidly, wondering how
she kept her head, wondering still more, when I heard her suddenly
talking to some one--who turned out to be Mr. Vandeleur's footman--how
in the world she or he, or both of them, had managed to find each other
out in the crowd!
I did not speak. After a while I remember finding myself, and granny of
course, safe in a four-wheeler, which seemed narrow and stuffy compared
to the Middlemoor flys, and jolted along with a terrible rattle and
noise, so that I could scarcely distinguish the words grandmamma said
when once or twice she spoke to me. I daresay a good deal of the noise
was outside the cab, and some of it perhaps inside my own head, for it
did not altogether stop even when _we_ did--that is to say when we drew
up at 29 Chichester Square.
The house was very large--the hall looked to me almost as large as the
hall at Moor Court. It was not really so, but I could scarcely judge of
anything correctly that night. I was so very tired.
[Illustration: A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed
respectfully to grandmamma.--P. 126.]
A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed respectfully to
grandmamma. He was the butler. He handed us over, so to say, to a
nice-looking oldish woman, who was the head housemaid, and she took us
at once upstairs to our rooms, the butler asking grandmamma to leave the
luggage and the cab-paying to him--he would see that it was all right.
She thanked him nicely, but rather 'grandly'--not at all as if she
was not accustomed to lots of servants and attention, which I was
pleased at. It was a good thing for me that I had been so much with the
Nestors; it prevented my seeming awkward or shy with so many servants
about, which otherwise I might have been. Grandmamma of course _had_
been used to being rich, but _I_ never had.
There came a disappointment the very first thing. Hales, the housemaid,
threw open the door of a large, rather gloomy-looking bedroom, where a
fire was burning and candles already lighted.
'Your room, ma'am,' she said. 'Missie's----' she hesitated. 'Miss
Wingfield's,' said granny. 'Miss Wingfield's,' Hales repeated, 'is on
the next floor but one.'
Grandmamma looked uneasy.
'Is it far from this room?' she said.
'Oh no, ma'am, just the staircase--it is over this. Mr. Vandeleur
thought it was the best. It was Mrs. Vandeleur's when she was a little
girl.' For the house in Chichester Square had been left to Cousin Agnes
by her parents a few years ago; that was why it seemed rather
old-fashioned. 'All the rooms on this floor besides this one,' Hales
went on, 'are Mrs. Vandeleur's; and master's study, and the next floor
are spare rooms, except to the back, and we thought it was fresher and
pleasanter to the front for the young lady.'
Grandmamma looked pleased at the kind way Hales spoke, but still she
hesitated. I gave her a little tug.
'I don't mind,' I said, for I was not at all a frightened child about
sleeping alone and things like that. She smiled back at me. 'That's
right,' she said, and I felt rewarded.
My room was a nice one when I got there, but it did seem a tremendous
way up, and it looked rather bare and felt rather chilly, even though
there was a fire burning, which, however, had not been lighted very
long. The housemaid went towards it and gave it a poke, murmuring
something about 'Belinda being so careless.' Belinda, as I soon found
out, was the second housemaid, and it was she who was to wait upon me
and take care of my room.
'You must ring for anything you want, miss,' said Hales, 'and if Belinda
isn't attentive perhaps you will mention it.'
And so saying she left me. I felt rather lonely, even though grandmamma
was in the same house. There was a deserted feeling about the room as if
it had not been used for a very long time, and my two boxes looked very
small indeed. I felt no interest in unpacking my things, even though I
had brought my books and some of my little ornaments.
'They will look nothing in this great bare place,' I thought. 'I won't
take them out, and then I shall have the feeling that we are not going
to be here for long.'
A queer sort of home-sickness for Windy Gap and for my life there came
over me.
'I do wish we had not come here; I'm sure I'm going to hate it. I think
grandmamma might have come up with me to see my room,' and I stood there
beside the flickering little fire, feeling far from happy or even
amiable.
Suddenly, the sound of a gong startled me. I had not even begun to take
off my hat and jacket. I did so now in a hurry, and then turned to wash
my hands and face, somewhat cheered to find a can of nice hot water
standing ready. Then I smoothed my hair with a little pocket-comb I had,
as I dared not wait to take out any of my things. But I am afraid I did
not look as neat as usual or as I might have done if I hadn't wasted my
time.
I hurried downstairs; a door stood open, and looking in, I was sure
that it was the dining-room, and grandmamma there waiting for me. A
table, which to me seemed very large, though it was really an
ordinary-sized round one, was nicely arranged for tea. How glad I was
that it was not dinner!
'Come, dear,' said grandmamma, 'you must be very hungry.'
'I couldn't change my dress, grandmamma,' I said, not quite sure if she
would not be displeased with me.
'Of course not,' she replied, cheerfully, 'I never expected it this
first evening.'
My spirits rose when I had had a nice cup of tea and something to
eat--it is funny how our bodies rule our minds sometimes--and I began to
talk more in my usual way, especially as, to my great relief, the
servants had by this time left the room.
'Shall we have tea like this every evening, grandmamma?' I asked; 'it is
so much nicer than dinner.'
Grandmamma hesitated.
'Yes,' she said, 'while we are alone I think it will be the best plan,
as you are too young for late dinner. When your cousins come home, of
course things will be regularly arranged.'
'That means,' I thought to myself, 'that I shall have all my meals
alone, I suppose,' and again an unreasonably cross feeling came over me.
Grandmamma noticed it, I think, but she said nothing, and very soon
after we had finished tea she proposed that I should go to bed. She took
me upstairs herself to my room, and waited till I was in bed; then she
kissed me as lovingly and tenderly as ever, but, all the same, no sooner
had she left me alone than I buried my face in the pillow and burst into
tears. I had an under feeling that grandmamma was not quite pleased with
me. I know now that she was only anxious, and perhaps a little
disappointed, at my not seeming brighter. For, after all, everything she
had done and was doing was for my sake, and I should have trusted her
and known this by instinct, instead of allowing myself from the very
first beginning of our coming to London to think I was a sort of martyr.
'I can see how it's going to be,' I thought, 'as soon as ever Mr. and
Mrs. Vandeleur come back I shall be nowhere at all and nobody at all in
this horrid, gloomy London. Cousin Agnes will be grandmamma's first
thought, and I shall be expected to spend most of my life up in my room
by myself. It is too bad, it isn't my fault that I am an orphan with no
other home of my own. I would rather have stayed at Windy Gap, however
poor we were, than feel as I know I am going to do.'
But in the middle of all these miserable ideas I fell asleep, and slept
very soundly--I don't think I dreamt at all--till the next morning.
When I opened my eyes I thought it was still the night. There seemed no
light, but by degrees, as I got accustomed to the darkness, I made out
the shapes of the two windows. Then a clock outside struck seven, and
gradually everything came back to me--the journey and our arrival and
the unhappy thoughts amidst which I had fallen asleep.
Somehow, even though as yet there was nothing to cheer me--for what can
be gloomier than to watch the cold dawn of a winter's morning creeping
over the gray sky of London?--somehow, things seemed less dismal
already. The fact was I had had a very good night, and was feeling
rested and refreshed, so much so that I soon began to fidget and to wish
that some one would come with my hot water and say it was time to get
up.
This did not happen till half-past seven, when a knock at the door was
followed by the appearance of Belinda--at least I guessed it was
Belinda, for I had not seen her before. She was a pleasant enough
looking girl, but with rather a pert manner, and she spoke to me as if I
were about six.
'You'd better get up at once, miss, as breakfast's to be so early, and
I'm to help you to dress if you need me.'
'No, thank you,' I said with great dignity, 'I don't want any help. But
where's my bath?'
'I've had no orders about a bath,' she replied, 'but, to be sure, you
can't go to the bathroom, as it's next master's dressing-room. You'll
have to speak to Hales about it,' and she went away murmuring something
indistinctly as to new ways and new rules.
In a few minutes, however, she came back again, lumbering a bath after
her and looking rather cross.
'How different she is from Kezia,' I thought to myself. 'I would not
have minded anything as much if she had come with us.'
Still, I was sensible enough to know that it was no use making the worst
of things, and I think I must have looked rather pleasanter and more
cheerful than the evening before, when I tapped at grandmamma's door and
went downstairs to breakfast holding her hand.
_She_ had much more to think of and trouble about than I, and if I had
not been so selfish I was quite sensible enough to have understood this.
A great many things required rearranging and overlooking in the
household, for, though the servants were good on the whole, it was long
since they had had a mistress's eye over them, and without that, even
the best servants are pretty sure to get into careless ways. And
grandmamma was so very conscientious that she felt even more anxious
about all these things for Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur's sake, than if it had
been her own house and her own servants. Besides, though she was so
clever and experienced, it was a good many years since she had had a
large house to look after, as our little home at Middlemoor had been so
very, very simple. Yes, I see now it must have been very hard upon her,
for, instead of doing all I could to help her, I was quite taken up with
my own part of it, and ready to grumble at and exaggerate every little
difficulty or disagreeableness.
I think grandmamma tried for some time not to see the sort of humour I
was in, and how selfish and spoilt I had become. She excused me to
herself by saying I was tired, and that such a complete change of life
was trying for a child, and by kind little reasons of that sort.
'I shall be rather busy this morning,' she said to me that first day at
breakfast, 'but if it keeps fine we can go out a little in the
afternoon, and let you have your first peep of London. Let me see, what
can you do with yourself this morning? You have your things to unpack
still, and I daresay you would like to put out your ornaments and books
in your own room.'
'I don't mean to put them out,' I said, 'it's not worth while. I will
keep my books in one of the boxes and just get one out when I want it,
and as for the ornaments, they wouldn't look anything in that big, bare
room.'
But as I said this I caught sight of grandmamma's face, and I felt
ashamed of being so grumbling when I was really feeling more cheerful
and interested in everything than the night before. So I changed my tone
a little.
'I will unpack all my things,' I said, 'and see how they look, anyway.
Perhaps I'd better hang up my new frocks, I wouldn't like them to get
crushed.'
'I should think Belinda would have unpacked your clothes by this time,'
said grandmamma, 'but no doubt you'll find something to do. But, by the
bye, they may not have lighted a fire in your room, don't stay upstairs
long if you feel chilly, but bring your work down to the library.' I
went upstairs. In the full daylight, though it was a dull morning, I
liked my room even less than the night before. There was nothing in it
bright or fresh, though I daresay it had looked much nicer, years
before, when Cousin Agnes was a little girl, for the cretonne curtains
must once have been very pretty, with bunches of pink roses, which now,
however, were faded, as well as the carpet on the floor, and the paper
on the walls, to an over-all dinginess such as you never see in a
country room even when everything in it is old.
I sat down on a chair and looked about me disconsolately. Belinda had
unpacked my clothes and arranged them after her fashion. My other
possessions were still untouched, but I did not feel as if I cared to do
anything with them.
'I shall never be at home here,' I said to myself, 'but I suppose I must
just try to bear it for the time, for grandmamma's sake.'
Silly child that I was, as if grandmamma ever thought of herself, or her
own likes and dislikes, before what she considered right and good for
me. But the idea of being something of a martyr pleased me. I got out
my work, not my fancy-work--I was in a mood for doing disagreeable
things--but some plain sewing that I had not touched for some time, and
took it downstairs to the library. I heard voices as I opened the door,
grandmamma was sitting at the writing-table speaking to the cook, who
stood beside her, a rather fat, pleasant-looking woman, who made a
little curtsey when she saw me. But grandmamma looked up, for her,
rather sharply--
'Why, have you finished upstairs already, Helena?' she said. 'You had
better go into the dining-room for a few minutes, I am busy just now.'
I went away immediately, but I was very much offended, it just seemed
the beginning of what I was fancying to myself. The dining-room door was
ajar, and I caught sight of the footman looking over some spoons and
forks.
'I won't go in there,' I said to myself, and upstairs I mounted again.
On the first landing, where grandmamma's room was, there were several
other doors. All was perfectly quiet--there seemed no servants about, so
I thought I would amuse myself by a little exploring. The first room I
peeped into was large--larger than grandmamma's, but all the furniture
was covered up. The only thing that interested me was a picture in
pastelles hanging up over the mantelpiece. It caught my attention at
once, and I stood looking up at it for some moments.