'HAPPY EVER SINCE'
Later in the afternoon--about three o'clock or so--Harry looked at his
watch and started up. We were sitting in the drawing-room talking
quietly--Harry had been asking me about my lessons and finding out how
far on I was, for I was a little tired still, and we had been running
about a good deal in the morning.
'Oh,' I said, in a disappointed tone, 'where are you going? If you would
wait a little while, I could come out with you again, I am sure.' For I
felt as if I did not want to lose any of the time we were together, and
of course I did not know how soon grandmamma might not send some one to
take me away to school.
And never since Sharley and the others had gone away had I had the
pleasure of companions of my own age. There was something about Harry
which reminded me of Sharley, though he was a boy--something so strong
and straightforward and _big_, no other word seems to say it so well.
Harry looked at me with a little smile. Dear Harry, I know now that he
was feeling even more anxious about me than I was for myself, and that
brave as he was, it took all his courage to do as he had determined--I
mean to plead my cause with his stern guardian. For Mr. Vandeleur was
almost as much a stranger to him as to me.
'I'm afraid I must,' he said, 'I have to go to Middlemoor, but I shall
not be away more than an hour and a half. Lindsay--you'll look after
Helena, and Helena will look after you and prevent you getting into
mischief while I'm away.'
For though Lindsay was a very good little boy, and not wild or rough, he
was rather unlucky. I never saw any one like him for tumbling and
bumping himself and tearing his clothes.
After Harry had gone, Lindsay got out their stamp album and we amused
ourselves with it very well for more than an hour, as there were a good
many new stamps to put into their proper places. Then Kezia came in--
'Miss Helena,' she said, 'would you and Master Lindsay mind going into
the other room? I want to tidy this one up a little, I was so long
talking with you this morning that I dusted it rather hurriedly.'
We had made a litter, certainly, with the gum-pot and scraps of paper,
and cold water for loosening the stamps, but we soon cleared it up.
'Isn't it nearly tea-time?' I said.
'Yes, you shall have it as soon as Master Harry comes in,' said Kezia,
'it is all laid in the dining-room.'
'Oh, well,' said Lindsay, 'we won't do any more stamps this afternoon;
come along then, Helena, we'll tell each other stories for a change.'
'You may tell me stories,' I said--'and I'll try to listen,' I added to
myself, 'though I don't feel as if I could,' for as the day went on I
felt myself growing more and more frightened and uneasy. 'I wish Harry
would come in,' I said aloud, 'I think I should write to grandmamma
to-day.'
'He won't be long,' said Lindsay, 'Harry always keeps to his time,' and
then he began his stories. I'm afraid I don't remember what they were.
There were a great many 'you see's' and 'and so's,' but at another time
I daresay I would have found them interesting.
He was just in the middle of one, about a trick some of the boys had
played an undermaster at their school, when I heard the front door open
quietly and steps cross the hall. The steps were of more than one
person, though no one was speaking.
'Stop, Lindsay,' I said, and I sat bolt up in my chair and listened.
Whoever it was had gone into the drawing-room. Then some one came out
again and crossed to the kitchen.
'Can it be Harry?' I said.
'There's some one with him if it is,' said Lindsay.
I felt myself growing white, and Lindsay grew red with sympathy. He _is_
a very feeling boy. But we both sat quite still. Then the door opened
gently, and some one looked in, but it wasn't Harry, it was Kezia.
'Miss Helena, my love,' she said, 'there's some one in the drawing-room
who wants to see you.'
'Who is it?' I asked, breathlessly, but my old nurse shook her head.
'You'll see,' she said.
My heart began to beat with the hope--a silly, wild hope it was, for of
course I might have known she could not yet have left Cousin Agnes--that
it might be grandmamma. And, luckily perhaps, for without it I should
not have had courage to enter the drawing-room, this idea lasted till I
had opened the door, and it was too late to run away.
How I did wish I could do so you will easily understand, when I tell you
that the tall figure standing looking out of the window, which turned as
I came in, was that of my stern Cousin Cosmo himself!
I must have got very white, I think, though it seemed to me as if all
the blood in my body had rushed up into my head and was buzzing away
there like lots and lots of bees, but I only remember saying 'Oh!' in a
sort of agony of fear and shame. And the next thing I recollect was
finding myself on a chair and Cousin Cosmo beside me on another, and,
wonderful to say, he was holding my hand, which had grown dreadfully
cold, in one of his. His grasp felt firm and protecting. I shut my eyes
just for a moment and fancied to myself that it seemed as if papa were
there.
'But it can't last,' I thought, 'he's going to be awfully angry with me
in a minute.'
I did not speak. I sat there like a miserable little criminal, only
judges don't generally hold prisoners' hands when they are going to
sentence them to something very dreadful, do they? I might have thought
of that, but I didn't. I just squeezed myself together to bear whatever
was coming.
This was what came.
I heard a sort of sigh or a deep breath, and then a voice, which it
almost seemed to me I had never heard before, said, very, very gently--
'My poor little girl--poor little Helena. Have I been such an ogre to
you?'
I could _scarcely_ believe my ears--to think that it was Cousin Cosmo
speaking to me in that way! I looked up into his face; I had really
never seen it very well before. And now I found out that the dark,
deep-set eyes were soft and not stern--what I had taken for hardness and
severity had, after all, been mostly sadness and anxiety, I think.
'Cousin Cosmo,' I said, 'are you going to forgive me, then? And
grandmamma, too? _I am_ sorry for running away, but I didn't understand
properly. I will go to school whenever you like, and not grumble.'
My tears were dropping fast, but still I felt strangely soothed.
'Tell me more about it all,' said Mr. Vandeleur. 'I want to understand
from yourself all about the fancies and mistakes there have been in your
head.'
'Would you first tell me,' I said, 'how Cousin Agnes is? It was a good
deal about her I didn't understand?'
'Much, much better,' he replied, 'thank God. She is going to be almost
well again, I hope.'
And then, before I knew what I was about, I found myself in the middle
of it all--telling him everything--the whole story of my unhappiness,
more fully even than I had told it to Harry and Kezia, for though he did
not say much, the few words he put in now and then showed me how
wonderfully he understood. (Cousin Cosmo _is_ a very clever man.)
And when at last I left off speaking, _he_ began and talked to me for a
long time. I could never tell if I tried, _how_ he talked--so kindly,
and nicely, and rightly--putting things in the right way, I mean, not
making out it was _all_ my fault, which made me far sorrier than if he
had laid the whole of the blame on me.
I always do feel like that when people, especially big people, are
generous in that sort of way. One thing Cousin Cosmo said at the end
which I must tell.
'We have a good deal to thank Harry for,' it was, 'both you and I,
Helena. But for his manly, sensible way of judging the whole, we might
never have got to understand each other, as I trust we now always shall.
And more good has come out of it, too. I have never known Harry for what
_he_ is, before to-day.'
'I am so very glad,' I said.
'Now,' said Mr. Vandeleur, looking at his watch, 'it is past five
o'clock. I shall spend the night at the hotel at Middlemoor, but I
should like to stay with you three here, as late as possible. Do you
think your good Kezia can give me something to eat?'
'Of course she can,' I said, all my hospitable feelings awakened--for I
can never feel but that Windy Gap is my particular home--'Shall I go and
ask her? Our tea must be ready now in the dining-room.'
'That will do capitally,' said Cousin Cosmo. 'I'll have a cup of tea now
with you three, in the first place, and then as long as the daylight
lasts you must show me the lions of Windy Gap, Helena. It _is_ a quaint
little place,' he added, looking round, 'and I am sure it must have a
great charm of its own, but I am afraid my aunt and you must have found
it very cold and exposed in bad weather?'
'Sometimes,' I said; 'the last winter here was pretty bad.'
'Yes,' he answered, 'it is not a place for the middle of winter,' but
that was all he said.
I was turning to leave the room when another thought struck me.
'Cousin Cosmo,' I asked timidly, 'will grandmamma want me to go to
school very soon?'
He smiled, rather a funny smile.
'Put it out of your mind till I go back to London, and talk things
over,' he replied. 'I want all of us to be as happy as possible this
evening. Send Harry in here for a moment.'
I met Harry outside in the hall.
'Is it all right?' he said, anxiously.
'Oh, Harry,' I said, 'I can scarcely believe he's the same! He's been so
awfully kind.'
That evening _was_ a very happy one. Cousin Cosmo was interested about
everything at Windy Gap, and after supper he talked to Harry and me of
all sorts of things, and promised to send us down some books, which
pleased me, as it did seem as if he must mean me to stay where I was
for a few days at any rate.
Still, I did not feel, of course, quite at rest till I had written a
long, long letter to grandmamma and heard from her in return. I need not
repeat all she said about what had passed--it just made me feel more
than ever ashamed of having doubted her and of having been so selfish.
But what she said at the end of her letter about the plans she and
Cousin Cosmo had been making was almost too delightful. I could scarcely
help jumping with joy when I read it.
'Harry,' I called out, 'I'm not to go to school at all, just fancy! I'm
to stay here with you and Lindsay till you go back to school--till a few
days before, I mean, and we're to travel to London together and be all
at Chichester Square. Cousin Agnes and grandmamma are going away to the
sea-side now immediately, but they'll be back before we come. Cousin
Agnes is so much better!'
Harry did not look quite as pleased as I was--about the London part of
it.
'I'm awfully glad you're going to stay here,' he answered; 'and I do
want to see your grandmother. I suppose it'll be all right,' he went
on, 'and that they won't find Lindsay and me a nuisance in London.'
I was almost vexed with him.
'Harry,' I said, 'don't _you_ begin to be fanciful. You don't _know_ how
Cousin Cosmo spoke of you the other day.'
And after all it did come all right. My story finishes up like a
fairy-tale--'They lived happy ever after!'
Well no, not quite that, for it is not yet four years since all this
happened, and four years would be a very short 'ever after.'
But I may certainly say we have lived most happily ever since that time
till now.
Cousin Agnes is much, much better. She never will be quite strong--never
a very strong person, I mean. But she is _so_ sweet, our boys and I
often think we should scarcely like her to be any different in any way
from what she is, though of course not really ill or suffering.
And 'our boys'--yes, that is what they are--dear brothers to me, just
like real ones, and just like grandsons to dear, dear grandmamma. They
come to Chichester Square regularly for their holidays--it is their
'new home,' as it is mine. But we have another home--and it is not much
of the holidays except the Christmas ones that we--grandmamma and we
three--spend in London.
For Windy Gap is still ours--and Kezia lives there and is always ready
to have us--and Cousin Cosmo has built on two or three more rooms, and
our summers there are just _perfect_!
The Nestors came back to Moor Court long ago, and I see almost as much
of them as in the old days, as they now come to their London house every
year for some months, and we go to several classes together, though I
have a daily governess as well.
Next year Sharley is to 'come out.' Just fancy! I am sure every one will
think her very pretty. But not many can know as well as I do that her
face only tells a very small part of her beauty. She is so very, very
good.
I daresay you will wonder how Cousin Cosmo--grave, stern Cousin
Cosmo--likes it all. His quiet solemn house the home of three adopted
children, who are certainly not solemn, and not always 'quiet' by any
means.
I can only tell you that he said to grandmamma not very long ago, and
she told me, and I told Harry--that he had 'never been so happy since he
was a boy himself,' all but a son to her and a brother to 'Paul'--that
was my father, you know.
THE END