KEZIA'S COUNSEL
The sound of low voices--Lindsay's and Kezia's, followed by an
exclamation, Kezia's of course--reached Harry and me as we stood there
in silence looking at each other.
Then the door was pushed open and in hurried my old friend.
'Miss Helena!' she said breathlessly. 'Miss Helena, I could scarce
believe Master Lindsay! Dear, dear, how frightened your grandmother will
be!'
I could see that it went against her kindly feelings to receive me by
blame at the very first, and yet her words showed plainly enough what
she was thinking.
'Grandmamma will not be frightened,' I said, rather coldly. 'Harry has
sent her a telegram, and besides--I don't think she would have been
frightened any way. It's all quite different now, Kezia, you don't
understand. She's got other people to care for instead of me.'
Kezia took no notice of this.
'Dear, dear!' she said again. 'To think of you coming here alone! I'm
sure when Master Lindsay met me at the door saying: "Guess who's here,
Kezia," I never could have--' but here I interrupted her.
'If that's all you've got to say to me I really don't care to hear it,'
I said, 'but it's a queer sort of welcome. I can't go away to-night, I
suppose, but I will the very first thing to-morrow morning. I daresay
they'll take me in at the vicarage, but really--' I broke off
again--'considering that this is my own home, and--and--that I had no
one else to go to in all the world except you, Kezia, I do think--' but
here my voice failed, I burst into tears.
Kezia put her arms round me very kindly.
'Poor dear,' she said, 'whatever mistakes you've made, you must be tired
to death. Come with me into the dining-room, Miss Helena, there's a
better fire there, and I'll get you a cup of tea or something, and then
you must go to bed. Your own room's quite ready, just as you left it.
Master Lindsay has the little chair-bed in Mr. Harry's room--your
grandmamma's room, I mean.'
She led me into the dining-room, talking as she went, in this
matter-of-fact way, to help me to recover myself.
Harry and Lindsay remained behind.
'I have had--some--milk, and a piece of--gingerbread,' I said, between
my sobs, as Kezia established me in front of the fire in the other room.
'I don't think I could eat anything else, but I'd like some tea very
much.'
I shivered in spite of the beautiful big fire close to me.
'You shall have it at once,' said Kezia, hurrying off, 'though it
mustn't be strong, and I'll make you a bit of toast, too.'
Then I overheard a little bustle in the kitchen, and by the sounds, I
made out that Harry or Lindsay, or both of them perhaps, were helping
Kezia in her preparations.
'What nice boys they are,' I thought to myself, and a feeling of shame
began to come over me that I should have first got to know them when
acting in a way that they, Harry at least, so evidently thought wrong
and foolish.
But now that, in spite of her disapproval, I felt myself safe in Kezia's
care, the restraint I had put upon myself gave way more and more. I sat
there crying quietly, and when the little tray with tea and a tempting
piece of hot toast (which Harry's red face showed he had had to do with)
made its appearance I ate and drank obediently, almost without speaking.
Half an hour later I was in bed in my own little room, Kezia tucking me
in as she had done so very, very often in my life.
'Now go to sleep, dearie,' she said, 'and think of nothing till
to-morrow morning, except that when things come to the worst they begin
to get better.'
And sleep I did, soundly and long. Harry and Lindsay had had their
breakfast two hours before at least, when I woke, and other things had
happened. A telegram had come in reply to Harry's, thanking him for it,
announcing Mr. Vandeleur's arrival that very afternoon, and desiring
Harry to meet him at Middlemoor Station.
They did not tell me of this; perhaps they were afraid it would have
made me run off again somewhere else. But when my old nurse brought up
my breakfast we had a long, long talk together. I told her all that I
had told Harry the night before, and of course in some ways it was
easier for her to understand than it had been for him. I could not have
had a better counsellor. She just put aside all I said about
grandmamma's not caring for me any longer as simple nonsense; she didn't
attempt to explain all the causes of my having been left so much to
myself. She didn't pretend to understand it altogether.
'Your grandmamma will put it all right to you, herself, when she sees
well to do so,' she said. 'She has just made one mistake, Miss Helena,
it seems to me--she has credited you with more sense than perhaps should
be expected of a child.'
I didn't like this, and I felt my cheeks grow red.
'More sense,' repeated Kezia, 'and she has trusted you too much. It
should have pleased you to be looked on like that, and if you'd been a
little older it would have done so. The idea that you could think she
had left off caring for you would have seemed to her simply impossible.
She has trusted you too much, and you, Miss Helena, have not trusted her
at all.'
'But you're forgetting, Kezia, what I heard myself, with my own ears,
about sending me away to school, and how little she seemed to care.'
Kezia smiled, rather sadly.
'My dearie,' she said, 'I have not served Mrs. Wingfield all the years I
have, not to know her better than that. I daresay you'll never know,
unless you live to be a mother and grandmother yourself, what the
thought of parting with you was costing her, at the very time she spoke
so quietly.'
'But when I fell downstairs,' I persisted, 'she seemed so vexed with me,
and then--oh! for days and days before that, I had hardly seen her.'
Kezia looked pained.
'Yes, my dear, it must have been hard for you, but harder for your
grandmamma. There are times in life when all does seem to be going the
wrong way. And very likely being so very troubled and anxious herself,
about you as well as about other things, made your grandmamma appear
less kind than usual.'
Kezia stopped and hesitated a little.
'I think as things are,' she said, 'I can't be doing wrong in telling
you a little more than you know. I am sure my dear lady will forgive me
if I make a mistake in doing so, seeing she has not told you more
herself, no doubt for the best of reasons.'
She stopped again. I felt rather frightened.
'What do you mean, Kezia?' I said.
'It is about Mrs. Vandeleur. Do you know, my dear Miss Helena, that it
has just been touch and go these last days, if she was to live or die?'
'Oh, Kezia!' I exclaimed; 'no, I didn't know it was as bad as that,' and
the tears--unselfish, unbitter tears this time--rushed into my eyes as I
remembered the sweet white face that I had seen in grandmamma's room,
and the gentle voice that had tried to say something kind and loving to
me. 'Oh, Kezia, I wish I had known. Do you think it will have hurt her,
my peeping into the room yesterday?' for I had told my old nurse
_everything_.
She shook her head.
'No, my dear, I don't think so. She is going to get really better now,
they feel sure--as sure as it is ever _right_ to feel about such things,
I mean. Only yesterday morning I had a letter from your grandmamma,
saying so. She meant to tell you soon, all about the great anxiety there
had been--once it was over--she had been afraid of grieving and alarming
you. So, dear Miss Helena, if you had just been patient a _little_
longer----'
My tears were dropping fast now, but still I was not quite softened.
'All the same, Kezia,' I said, 'they meant to send me to school.'
'Well, my dear, if they had, it might have been really for your
happiness. You would have been sent nowhere that was not as good and
nice a school as could be. And, of course, though Mrs. Vandeleur has
turned the corner in a wonderful way, she will be delicate for
long--perhaps never quite strong, and the life is lonely for you.'
'I wouldn't mind,' I said, for the sight of sweet Cousin Agnes had made
me feel as if I would do anything for her. 'I wouldn't mind, if
grandmamma trusted me, and if I could feel she loved me as much as she
used. I would do my lessons alone, or go to a day-school or anything, if
only I felt happy again with grandmamma.'
'My dearie, there is no need for you to feel anything else.'
'Oh yes--there is _now_, even if there wasn't before,' I said,
miserably. 'Think of what I have done. Even if grandmamma forgave me for
coming away here, Cousin Cosmo would not--he is _so_ stern, Kezia. He
really is--you know Harry and Lindsay thought so--Gerard Nestor told us,
and though Harry won't speak against him, I can see he doesn't care for
him.'
'Perhaps they have not got to know each other,' suggested Kezia. 'Master
Harry is a dear boy; but so was Mr. Cosmo long ago--I can't believe his
whole nature has changed.'
Then another thought struck me.
'Kezia,' I said, 'I think grandmamma might have told me about the boys
being here. She used to tell me far littler things than that. And in a
sort of a way I think I had a right to know. Windy Gap is my home.'
'It was all settled in a hurry,' said Kezia. 'The school broke up
suddenly through some cases of fever, and poor Mr. Vandeleur was much
put about to know where to send the young gentlemen. He couldn't have
them in London, with Mrs. Vandeleur so ill, and your grandmamma was very
glad to have the cottage free, and me here to do for them. No doubt she
would have told you about it. I'm glad for your sake they are here.
They'll be nice company for you.'
Her words brought home to me the actual state of things.
'Do you think grandmamma will let me stay here a little?' I said. 'I'm
afraid she will not--and even if _she_ would, Cousin Cosmo will be so
angry, _he_'ll prevent it. I am quite sure they will send me to
school.'
'But what was the use of you coming here then, Miss Helena,' said Kezia,
sensibly, 'if you knew you would be sent to school after all?'
'Oh,' I said,'I didn't think very much about anything except getting
away. I--I thought grandmamma would just be glad to be rid of the
trouble of me, and that they'd leave me here till Mrs. Vandeleur was
better and grandmamma could come home again.'
Kezia did not answer at once. Then she said--
'Do you dislike London so very much, then, Miss Helena?'
'Oh no,' I replied. 'I was very happy alone with grandmamma, except for
always thinking they were coming, and fancying she didn't--that she was
beginning not to care for me. But--I _am_ sorry now, Kezia, for not
having trusted her.'
'That's right, my dear; and you'll show it by giving in cheerfully to
whatever your dear grandmamma thinks best for you?'
I was still crying--but quite quietly.
'I'll--I'll try,' I whispered.
When I was dressed I went downstairs, not sorry to feel I should find
the boys there. And in spite of the fears as to the future that were
hanging over me I managed to spend a happy day with them. They did
everything they could to cheer me up, and the more I saw of Harry the
more I began to realise how very, very much brighter a life mine had
been than his--how ungrateful I had been and how selfish. It was worse
for him than for Lindsay, who was quite a child, and who looked to Harry
for everything. And yet Harry made no complaints--he only said once or
twice, when we were talking about grandmamma, that he did wish she was
_their_ grandmother, too.
'Wasn't that old lady you lived with before like a grandmother?' I
asked.
Harry shook his head.
'We scarcely ever saw her,' he said. 'She was very old and ill, and even
when we did go to her for the holidays we only saw her to say
good-morning and good-night. On the whole we were glad to stay on at
school.'
Poor fellows--they had indeed been orphans.
We wandered about the little garden, and all my old haunts. But for my
terrible anxiety, I should have enjoyed it thoroughly.
'Harry,' I said, when we had had our dinner--a very nice dinner, by the
bye. I began to think grandmamma must have got rich, for there was a
feeling of prosperity about the cottage--fires in several rooms, and
everything so comfortable. 'Harry, what do you think I should do? Should
I write to grandmamma and tell her--that I am very sorry, and that--that
I'll be good about going to school, if she fixes to send me?'
The tears came back again, but still I said it firmly.
'I think,' said Harry, 'you had better wait till to-morrow.'
He did not tell me of Mr. Vandeleur's telegram--for he had been desired
not to do so. I should have been still more uneasy and nervous if I had
known my formidable cousin was actually on his way to Middlemoor!