A CATASTROPHE
No one came up to look for me; I don't know that I expected it, but
still I was disappointed and made a fresh grievance of this neglect, as
I considered it. The truth was, nobody was thinking of me at all, for
Cousin Agnes had fainted when she got into the library and everybody was
engrossed in attending to her.
Afternoon tea time came and passed, and still I was alone. It was quite
dark when at last Belinda came up to draw down the blinds, and was
startled by finding me in my usual place when much upset--curled up at
the foot of the bed.
'Whatever are you doing here, miss?' she said, sharply. 'There's your
tea been waiting in the dining-room for ever so long.'
The fact was, she had been told to call me but had forgotten it.
'I don't want any,' I said, shortly.
'Nonsense, miss,' said the girl, 'you can't go without eating. And when
there's any one ill in the house you must just make the best of things.'
'Mrs. Vandeleur didn't seem so very ill,' I said, 'she was able to
walk.'
'Ah, but she's been worse since then--they had to fetch the doctor, and
now she's in bed and better, and your grandmamma's sitting beside her.'
I did feel sorry for Cousin Agnes when I heard this, though the sore
feeling still remained that I wasn't wanted, and was of no use to any
one. I was almost glad to escape seeing grandmamma, so I went downstairs
quietly to the dining-room and had my tea, for I was very hungry. Just
as I had finished, and was crossing the hall to go upstairs again, a
tall figure came out of the library. I knew in a moment who it was, but
Cousin Cosmo stared at me as if he couldn't imagine what child it could
be, apparently at home in his house.
'Who--what?' he began, but then corrected himself. 'Oh, to be sure,' he
added, holding out his hand, 'you're Helena of course. I wasn't sure if
you were at school or not.'
'At school,' I repeated, 'grandmamma would never send me to school.'
He smiled a little, or meant to do so, but I thought him very grim and
forbidding.
'I don't wonder at those boys not liking him for their guardian,' I said
to myself as I looked up at him.
'Ah, well,' he replied, 'so long as you remember to be a very quiet
little girl, especially when you pass the first landing, I daresay it
will be all right.'
I didn't condescend to answer, but walked off with my most dignified
air, which no doubt was lost upon my cousin, who, I fancy, had almost
forgotten my existence before he had closed the hall door behind him,
for he was just going out.
I did not see grandmamma that evening, and I did not know that she saw
me, for when she at last was free to come up to my room, I was in bed
and fast asleep, and she was careful not to wake me. She told me this
the next morning, and also that Belinda had said I had had my tea and
supper comfortably. But--partly from pride, and partly from better
motives--I did not tell her that I had cried myself to sleep.
I need not go into the daily history of the next few weeks, indeed I
don't wish to do so. They were the most miserable time of my whole life.
Now that all is happy I don't want to dwell upon them. Dear grandmamma
says, whenever we do speak about that time, that she really does not
think it was _all_ my fault, and that comforts me. It was certainly not
her fault, nor anybody's in one way, except of course mine. Things
happened in a trying way, as they must do in life sometimes, and I don't
think it was wrong of me to feel unhappy. We _have_ to be unhappy
sometimes; but it was wrong of me not to bear it patiently, and to let
myself grow bitter, and worst of all, to do what I did--what I am now
going to tell about.
Those dreary weeks went on till it was nearly Easter, which came very
early that year. After my cousins' return home the weather got very bad
and added to the gloom of everything.
It was not so very cold, but it was _so_ dull! Fog more or less, every
day, and if not fog, sleety rain, which generally began by trying to be
snow, and for my part I wished it had been--it would have made the
streets look clean for a few hours.
There were lots of days on which I couldn't go out at all, and when I
did go out, with Belinda as my companion, I did not enjoy it. She was a
silly, selfish girl, though rather good-natured once she felt I was in
some way dependent on her, but her ideas of amusing talk were not the
same as mine. The only shop-windows she cared to look at were milliners'
and drapers', and she couldn't understand my longing to read the names
of the tempting volumes in the booksellers, and feeling so pleased if I
saw any of my old friends among them.
Indoors, my life was really principally spent in my own room, where,
however, I always had a good big fire, which was a comfort. There were
many days on which I scarcely saw grandmamma, a few on which I actually
did not see her at all. For all this time Cousin Agnes was really
terribly ill--much worse than I knew--and Mr. Vandeleur was nearly out
of his mind with grief and anxiety, and self-reproach for having brought
her up to London, which he had done rather against the advice of her
doctor in the country, who, he now thought, understood her better than
the great doctor in London. And grandmamma, I believe, had nearly as
much to do in comforting him and keeping him from growing quite morbid,
as in taking care of Cousin Agnes. All the improvement in her health
which they had been so pleased at during the first part of the winter
had gone, and I now know that for a great part of those weeks there was
very little hope of her living. I saw Cousin Cosmo sometimes at
breakfast but never at any other hour of the day, unless I happened to
pass him on the staircase, which I avoided as much as possible, you may
be sure, for if he did speak to me it was as if I were about three years
old, and he was sure to say something about being very quiet. I don't
think I could have been expected to like him, but I'm afraid I almost
hated him then. It would have been better--that is one of the things
grandmamma now says--to have told me more of their great anxiety, and it
certainly would have been better to send me to school, to some
day-school even, for the time.
As it was, day by day I grew more miserable, for you see I had nothing
to look forward to, no actual reason for hoping that my life would ever
be happier again, for, not knowing but that poor Cousin Agnes might die
any day, grandmamma did not like to speak of the future at all.
I never saw her--Cousin Agnes I mean--never except once, but I have not
come to that yet. At last, things came to a crisis with me. One day, one
morning, Belinda told me that I must not stay in my room as it was to be
what she called 'turned out,' by which she meant that it was to undergo
an extra thorough cleaning. She had forgotten to tell me this the night
before, so that when I came up from breakfast, which I had had alone,
intending to settle down comfortably with my books before the fire, I
found there was no fire and everything in confusion.
'What am I to do?' I said.
'You must go down to the dining-room and do your lessons there,' said
Belinda. 'There will be no one to disturb you, once the breakfast things
are taken away.'
'Has Mr. Vandeleur had his breakfast?' I asked.
'I don't know,' said Belinda, shortly, for she had been told not to tell
me that Cousin Agnes had been so ill in the night that the great doctor
had been sent for, and they were now having a consultation about her in
the library.
'I'll help you to get your things together,' she went on, 'and you must
go downstairs as quietly as possible.'
We collected my books. It made me melancholy to see them, there were
such piles of exercises grandmamma had never had time to look over!
Belinda heaped them all on to the top of my atlas, the glass ink-bottle
among them.
'Are they quite steady?' I said. 'Hadn't I better come up again and only
take half now?'
'Oh, dear, no,' said Belinda,'they are right enough if you walk
carefully,' for in her heart she knew that she should have helped me to
carry them down, herself.
But I had got used to her careless ways, and I didn't seem to mind
anything much now, so I set off with my burden. It was all right till I
got to the first floor--the floor where grandmamma's and Cousin Agnes's
rooms were. Then, as ill luck would have it--just from taking extra
care, I suppose--somehow or other I lost my footing and down I went, a
regular good bumping roll from top to bottom of one flight of stairs,
books, and slate, and glass ink-bottle all clattering after me! I'm
quite sure that in all my life before or since I never made such a
noise!
[Illustration: Up rushed two or three ... men, Cousin Cosmo the
first.--P. 160.]
I hurt myself a good deal, though not seriously; but before I had time
to do more than sit up and feel my arms and legs to be sure that none of
them were broken, the library door below was thrown open, and up rushed
two or three--at first sight I thought them still more--men! Cousin
Cosmo the first.
'In heaven's name,' he exclaimed, though even then he did not speak
loudly, 'what is the matter? This is really inexcusable!'
He meant, I think, that there should have been some one looking after
me! But I took the harsh word to myself.
'I--I've fallen downstairs,' I said, which of course was easy to be
seen. There was a dark pool on the step beside me, and in spite of his
irritation Cousin Cosmo was alarmed.
'Have you cut yourself?' he said, 'are you bleeding?' and he took out
his handkerchief, hardly knowing why, but as he stooped towards me it
touched the stain.
'Ink!' he said, in a tone of disgust. 'Really, even a child might have
more sense!'
Then the older of the two men who were with him came forward. He had a
very grave but kind face.
'It is very unfortunate,' he said,'I hope the noise has not startled
Mrs. Vandeleur. You must really,' he went on, turning to Cousin Cosmo,
but then stopping--'I must have a word or two with you about this before
I go. In the meantime we had better pick up this little person.'
I got up of myself, though something in the doctor's face prevented my
feeling vexed at his words, as I might otherwise have been. But just as
I was stooping to pick up my books and to hide the giddy, shaky feeling
which came over me, a voice from the landing above made me start. It was
grandmamma herself; she hastened down the flight of stairs, looking
extremely upset.
'Helena!' she exclaimed, and I think her face cleared a little when she
saw me standing there,'you have not hurt yourself then? But what in the
world were you doing to make such a terrific clatter? I never knew her
do such a thing before,' she went on.
'Did Agnes hear it?' said Cousin Cosmo, sharply.
'I'm afraid it did startle her,' grandmamma replied, 'but fortunately
she thought it was something in the basement. I must go back to her at
once,' and without another word to me she turned upstairs again.
I can't tell what I felt like; even now I hate to remember it. My own
grandmamma to speak to me in that voice and not to care whether I was
hurt or not! I think some servant was called to wipe up the ink, and I
made my way, stiff and bruised and giddy, to the dining-room--I had not
even the refuge of my own room to cry in at peace--while Cousin Cosmo
and the doctors went back to the library. And not long after, I heard
the front door close and a carriage drive away.
I thought my cup was full, but it was not, as you shall hear. I didn't
try to do any lessons. My head was aching and I didn't feel as if it
mattered what I did or didn't do.
'If only my room was ready,' I thought, half stupidly, 'I wouldn't mind
so much.'
I think I must have cried a good deal almost without knowing it, for
after a while, when the footman came into the room, I started up with a
conscious feeling of not wanting to be seen, and turned towards the
window, where I stood pretending to look out. Not that there was
anything to be seen; the fog was getting so thick that I could scarcely
distinguish the railings a few feet off.
The footman left the room again, but I felt sure he was coming back, so
I crept behind the shelter of the heavy curtains and curled myself up on
the floor, drawing them round me. And then, how soon I can't tell, I
fell asleep. It has always been my way to do so when I've been very
unhappy, and the unhappier I am the more heavily I sleep, though not in
a nice refreshing way.
I awoke with a start, not knowing where I was. I could not have been
asleep more than an hour, but to me it seemed like a whole night, and as
I was beginning to collect my thoughts I heard voices talking in the
room behind me. It must have been these voices which had awakened me.
The first I heard was Mr. Vandeleur's.
'I am very sorry about it,' he was saying, 'but I see no help for it. I
would not for worlds distress you if I could avoid doing so, for all my
old debts to you, my dear aunt, are doubled now by your devotion to
Agnes. She will in great measure owe her life to you, I feel.'
'You exaggerate it,' said grandmamma, 'though I do believe I am a
comfort to her. But never mind about that just now--the present question
is Helena.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'I can't tell you how strongly I feel that it would
be for the child's good too, though I can quite understand it would be
difficult for you to see it in that light.'
'No,' said grandmamma, 'I have been thinking about it myself, for of
course I have not been feeling satisfied about her. Perhaps in the past
I have thought of her too exclusively, and it is very difficult for a
child not to be spoilt by this. And now on the other hand----'
'It is too much for you yourself,' interrupted my cousin, 'she should be
quite off your mind. I have the greatest confidence in Dr. Pierce's
judgment in such matters. He would recommend no school hastily. If you
will come into the library I will give you the addresses of the two he
mentioned. No doubt you will prefer to write for particulars yourself;
though when it is settled I daresay I could manage to take her there.
For even with these fresh hopes they have given us, now this crisis is
passed, I doubt your being able to leave Agnes for more than an hour or
two at a time.'
'I should not think of doing so,' said grandmamma, decidedly. 'Yes--if
you will give me the addresses I will write.'
To me her voice sounded cold and hard; _now_ I know of course that it
was only the force she was putting upon herself to crush down her own
feelings about parting with me.
It was not till they had left the room that I began to understand what a
dishonourable thing I had been doing in listening to this conversation,
and for a moment there came over me the impulse to rush after them and
tell what I had heard. But only for a moment; the dull heavy feeling,
which had been hanging over me for so long of not being cared for, of
having no place of my own and being in everybody's way, seemed suddenly
to have increased to an actual certainty. Hitherto, it now seemed to me,
I had only been playing with the idea, and now as a sort of punishment
had come upon me the reality of the cruel truth--grandmamma did _not_
care for me any longer. She had got back the nephew who had been like a
son to her, and he and his wife had stolen away from me all her love.
Then came the mortification of remembering that I was living in Cousin
Cosmo's house--a most unwelcome guest.
'He never has liked me,' I thought to myself; 'even at the very
beginning, grandmamma never gave me any kind messages from him. And
those poor boys Gerard told me of couldn't care for him--he must be
horrid.'
Then a new thought struck me. 'I _have_ a home still,' I thought; 'Windy
Gap is ours, I could live there with Kezia and trouble nobody and hardly
cost anything. I won't stay here to be sent to school; I don't think I
am bound to bear it.'
I crept out of my corner.
'Surely my room will be ready by now,' I thought, and walking very
slowly still, for falling asleep in the cold had made me even stiffer,
I made my way upstairs.
Yes, my room was ready, and there was a good fire. There was a little
comfort in that: I sat down on the floor in front of it and began to
think out my plans.