THE BULL-PUP.
But when the little girls went down to supper, Jack had to stay
behind. Had he come downstairs, cuddled up contentedly on Nan’s
forlorn little shoulder, she might have been able to bear things; but
as it was, all her miseries returned to her in a full tide. For the
first time she observed how very peculiar and remarkable the dress was
which Phoebe had made.
Nan was rather a small girl of eleven years of age, and the dress came
down to her ankles. It was, of course, made without any attempt at
style. The bodice fitted anyhow; the crape was put on in rucks instead
of smoothly; the sleeves were too wide for the fashion, and too long
for the little girl’s arms; the neck was too big, the part which
covered her chest too narrow. She was, as nurse expressed it, all
askew in that frock, and poor Mrs. Richmond quite shuddered as she
looked at her.
If Nan had been a dazzlingly fair child, black might have been
becoming to her; but as she was sallow, with quantities of jet-black
hair, and big, very black eyes, there was not a scrap of beauty about
her little face just now, although it was possible she might grow up
handsome by-and-by.
Little, however, Nan recked about her appearance either in the future
or the present. Just then she kept repeating to herself, “I am only a
charity-girl;” and then she sat down and ate her supper without well
knowing what she ate. Mrs. Richmond was very kind, and the two girls
were as grave and sober as possible. They were not the least like
themselves; they only spoke when they were spoken to; even the subject
of the dogs did not draw them out. Kitty’s merry eyes kept looking
down, and Honora’s sweet, bright face, with its wealth of light hair
and smiling lips, seemed transformed into that of a very sober little
girl indeed. Towards the end of supper Nan yawned once or twice. Mrs.
Richmond suddenly rose.
“Come here, Nancy,” she said.
She took the little girl’s hand and drew her to her side.
“Nancy, you are my little girl henceforward.”
Nancy’s lips quivered.
“And these are your little sisters. This is Honora, aged twelve; and
this is Kitty, aged eleven. You will be, I hope, the very best of
friends; everything that Kitty has you have, and everything that
Honora has also belongs to you. There will be three little sisters in
this house instead of two. You will learn with the same kind
governess, and go to the same nice school; and except that you will
wear black and Kitty and Honora colours, you will be dressed alike.
You will have the same pleasures and the same duties. I promised your
mother that this should be the case, and all I ask of you in return
is”—Mrs. Richmond paused and looked full at Nan-“happiness.”
“I cannot be happy,” whispered Nan then.
“Not yet, dear—no, not yet; but I want you to be contented, and to
feel that I love you and will do what I can for you. I do not want you
to feel that”——
“I am a charity-girl, and I hate it,” suddenly burst from Nan’s lips.
Mrs. Richmond took both the little hands very firmly in hers and drew
the unwilling child to sit on her knee.
“Nan,” she said, “you must get that thought out of your head once and
for ever. I am going to tell you something. Years and years ago, when
I was young and when your mother was young, your mother did something
for me which I can never repay—never. I will tell you what that thing
was when you are older. Your mother died; and when dying, I asked her
to let me adopt you as my own little girl. To do that does not
anything like repay her for what she did for me, for she saved all my
life and all my happiness. But for her I might not be alive now; and
if spared, certainly be a most miserable woman. Sometime I will tell
you everything; but what I want you clearly to know is this, that in
taking you to live with me I still owe your mother something. You have
a right to my home and my love for her sake. Now, does this make
things any better?”
“Oh yes!” said Nan. “And, oh” she added, “I am a horrid girl not to
feel very glad! I will try to be very glad, but do not ask me any more
to-night.”
“Poor little darling!” said Mrs. Richmond.
She kissed Nan, and nodded to Kitty to run up to Nan and take her
hand.
“You are my sister, you know, and I love you already,” said Kitty; and
so Nan went upstairs to bed.
Early the next morning, when the little girl felt that she had already
only enjoyed her first sleep, she was awakened by some one pulling her
rather violently by the arm. She looked up in astonishment. Just at
first she could not in the least remember where she was, nor what had
happened. Then it all rushed over her—her mother’s funeral of the day
before, her own great misery, the change in her life. But she had
scarcely time to realise these things, and certainly had not a moment
to fret about them, when the eager voice of Kitty was sounding in her
ears.
“Get up, please, Nan; dress yourself as fast as ever you can in the
dark, and come into the schoolroom. If you are not very quick you will
miss seeing the animals getting their breakfasts, and that is the best
fun of the day. Now, be quick—be quick! I will come back again in a
few minutes. I have lit the candle for you; here it is. Hot water? No;
you must do without that. Fly—dash into your clothes, and be in the
schoolroom in a quarter of an hour.”
Kitty disappeared, and Nan got up. She felt quite excited; she could
not help herself. It was useless to pretend that she felt anything but
a sense of rejoicing as she thought of the animals. When with human
beings she must remember her mother, and her own suffering, and her
great loss, but with the animals she could only rejoice. She scrambled
into her clothes, making, it is true, a very sorry spectacle of
herself.
“Sophia Maria, my darling,” she said to her doll, “you had better get
warm into bed, and lie tucked up there while I am attending to the
animals. I will never love them better than I love you, but I must see
how they get their breakfasts. They are alive, Maria darling—they are
alive; you understand, don’t you?”
Sophia Maria stared with her vacant smile at her little mistress.
“How good she is! she never frets,” thought the little girl; and then
she went into the schoolroom, where a fire was lighted—a dull,
dim-looking fire, which certainly gave forth no heat whatever just
yet—and the gas was turned on.
“Is it not a good thing we have gas?” said Kitty.
Honora and Kitty were both in the schoolroom. They were wearing a long
kind of holland smocks over their dresses; their faces looked quite
serene and important.
“Now, Nan, which will you take? I think this morning, if you were to
hold all the kittens in your lap, you might just watch us. We have to
be ever so busy; Miss Roy only gives us a quarter of an hour at this
time of day to clean out all the animals’ homes, and I can tell you it
is exciting when you have got pups and kittens and birds and mice and
rats. Is it not nice of Miss Roy? The mice and rats she will not allow
in the room, but she allows the others. We keep them upstairs in the
top attic. Sometimes the rats bite, and the mice too; but who minds a
little pain when it is an animal—a darling—that has to be attended
to?”
[Illustration: Nan was perfectly satisfied to sit near the fire
holding the kittens.]
Nan was perfectly satisfied to sit near the fire holding the kittens.
There were two Persian kittens, and their names were Lord and Lady.
They were very handsome, with long, soft chinchilla fur, tiny tails at
present, and big heads. Nan stroked them in ecstasy; there was not the
slightest doubt that thrills of comfort went through her heart which
Sophia Maria had never yet been able to bestow.
Kitty and Honora meanwhile were very busy. The parrot’s cage required
a great deal of attention. The parrot was inclined to be rather
fierce; he would fly frantically after the little hands when they were
put in to take out the seed-trough, and he would cock his head to one
side, and then shout out, “Here comes the naughty girl!” and fix his
eyes on Nan all the time.
“He does mean me,” said Nan, forgetting the kittens and going up to
the cage in her excitement. “Oh dear! is it not funny of him? And I
suppose I am a naughty girl.”
“Well, I hope so,” said Kitty. “We don’t want you to be a goody girl;
we should not like that at all. We don’t want you to be mournful and
sulky and anything like that; we like you to have some spirit in you.
You know your darling little Jack who belongs to you altogether? Well,
you are to have all the trouble of him; and you are to take the blame
also if he is naughty and fidgety, and tears our dresses, and bites
the tablecloth. You will be the one to be reprimanded; don’t forget
that.”
“I don’t think I shall like that.”
“Well, but surely you do not expect us to be blamed about your animal!
I never heard of such a thing!” said Nora “Now we have done
everything; go back and get as tidy as you can for breakfast.”
Nan went back to her room feeling much excited. While she was out
nurse had entered.
“So you are going to have an animal, miss; and you are going to get up
every morning to help the young ladies to feed their pets and clean
out their cages?”
“Yes; they have asked me to,” said Nan.
“That is right, my dear; and I hope you will have a happy time and
make yourself one of the family.”
“I will try to,” said Nan.
“The first thing you have to do is to give me the frock you wore last
night.”
“But, oh!” said Nan, “that is my own frock, bought out of my own
money. Please, I would rather—I would rather not give it.”
“I am afraid if you are one of the family you have got to obey Mrs.
Richmond, and she does not intend you to wear that ugly frock any
more.”
“It is not ugly,” said Nan, colouring high.
“Well, miss, I am afraid it is; and anyhow you cannot wear it, for I
am going to take it away. Here is a nice little suitable dress—black,
of course, and made the same way as Miss Kitty’s dresses are made.
Here, put it on, miss, or you will be late for breakfast.”
All poor Nan’s misery returned to her at these words. She felt as if
she were most unjustly treated; she could scarcely bear her own
feelings. The pretty frock in which she looked so nice and fresh, and
in which she had once again the appearance of a lady, did not appeal
to her. She shrugged her shoulders discontentedly, and was only
comforted when nurse insisted on her wearing a white pinafore which
nearly covered the frock.
Just as she was leaving her bedroom she turned and spoke.
“If you will not let me wear my own frock—and I bought all my own
mourning for my own mother—may I at least keep it?”
“Oh yes, poor little girl!” said nurse, much touched by these words.
“I will put it in the bottom of the little trunk you brought with you.
You might give it to a poor girl some day, and she might make it fit
her; it is not fit for any one to wear at present.”
Nan was fain to be comforted with this sort of half-promise of
nurse’s, and entered the school-room, where she stood, looking
somewhat forlorn, by the fire. But this mood was not to be of long
duration, for Nora and Kitty came bounding in. They had made up their
minds: the time of gloom was past; they were going to be their own
riotous, gay, merry, rebellious, fidgety, almost unruly little selves
once again to-day.
Miss Roy was almost as merry as her pupils. At breakfast they screamed
with laughter; animals, of course, were the subjects of conversation.
The virtues of Jack, the vices of Poll the parrot, the exquisite
beauties of Lord and Lady and the bad manners of their mother, the
good manners of the bull-terrier—all were discussed with animation.
Each little point was noted. Nan listened, her eyes growing wider and
wider.
“What is the matter? Why do you not talk?” said Kitty at last.
“I am so astonished,” answered Nan.
“What about?”
“Why, you speak, you and Honora, as if—as if there were no girls and
boys in the world.”
“Oh! I suppose there are,” answered Honora. “I am afraid there are,”
she continued after a pause. “They are great worries, are they not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Compared to animals, I mean. Who would compare them?”
“I don’t know,” said Nan again.
“You will when you have been here a little longer.—Oh, Miss Roy,
Kitty has given Jack to Nan. He is her very own bull-puppy. She has
got to train him; and, please, if he does anything naughty you are to
blame her.”
“Well, now, children,” said Miss Roy, “put on your hats and coats and
get ready for school. Nan, my dear, Mrs. Richmond has not arranged for
your school until next week, so will you please stay in the schoolroom
until I come back to you? I will hear you a few lessons then, and we
can go out for a walk together.”
“And may she take Jack for a little airing?” asked Kitty.
“Yes, if she has a leash—not otherwise.”
“Oh! I can lend her a leash,” said Kitty. “You will find it hanging up
in the passage outside the schoolroom,” she added, turning to the
little girl; “and there is a collar as well. Now we must be off.”
In a moment they dashed away, Miss Roy following them. From intense
excitement and vigorous conversation and loud noise and hearty laughs
the schoolroom was reduced to absolute silence. Nan felt a sense of
relief. She crept into her bedroom, took Sophia Maria from between the
sheets, clasped her in her arms, and sitting down by the fire, called
to Jack to come and make friends.
Now, Jack was of the most sociable nature, but it is, alas! true that
he was possessed with a petted little dog’s invariable infirmity—that
of intense jealousy. He had taken to Nan; he had liked the position on
her shoulder, and had quite slobbered with bliss when she had kissed
him on his little cheek the night before. But Nan was now hugging a
hideous object in her arms, and Jack did not see why such a thing
should be permitted. He was wary, however, and did not intend to give
himself away. He knew by experience that in small puppies
mischievousness was reproved by two-footed creatures who had the
control of them; but in all the world what could be more delicious
than the sort of mischief which meant tearing and rending, using his
teeth and puppy paws to some purpose? That horrid thing in Nan’s arms
could be rent and torn and demolished and worried, and what a time of
enjoyment he would have while doing it! Accordingly he raised his
dancing eyes to Nan’s face, and jumped backwards and forwards,
inviting her as bewitchingly as puppy could to a game of romps. She
played with him for a little, trying to catch him, which he avoided,
for it was quite beyond the dignity of puppydom to repose in the same
lap with the hideous doll dressed in crape. The dog was biding his
time. Nan looked again at Maria. She still wore her inane smile. Nan
kissed her. She was so cold; she did not seem to take any interest.
“She is not so nice as Jack,” thought the little girl, “but of course
I like her best. Did not mother give her to me, and have not I over
and over and over again cried with her in my arms? She comforted me,
then, but not as little Jack does.”
Presently Miss Roy came in, bustling and fresh from the outside world.
“Now, get on your things, Nan,” she said. “I will take you for a walk
first of all, as it may rain later on; it is a beautiful morning, and
we will go for a walk in Hyde Park. You had better leave little Jack
at home; dogs are not allowed in Hyde Park except on a leash.”
Nan got up joyfully. Sophia Maria was put comfortably sitting in the
arm-chair in which the little girl had herself reposed, and a few
minutes later Nan and her governess went out.
Now was Jack’s opportunity. The schoolroom was silent; the mother
bull-terrier was sound asleep, with the other pups nestling up to her.
Jack, bent on mischief, was practically alone. The Persian cat turned
her back upon him with the most lofty disdain in her attitude; the
parrot winked at him out of her wicked eye, and said, “Here we are
again!” another favourite expression of hers. Jack cared little; with
a dexterous leap he secured Sophia Maria, and what immediately
followed may be left to the imagination of the readers.
When Nan returned from her walk there were morsels of crape on the
floor, and tiny pieces of coarse black cashmere, and a naked doll,
which, rent and torn and injured, lay in a distant corner; but her
clothes—alas! where were they? Jack waggled up to his little
mistress, coaxing and canoodling, and saying by a thousand pretty
motions, “You must forgive me if it was wrong. I am sorry, but I would
do it again if I had the chance; only please forgive me.” And then Nan
uttered a sudden shriek and flew towards the battered remains of her
doll, which she clasped in her arms.
“Oh, Miss Roy—oh, Miss Roy!” screamed the little girl.
“What is it, my dear?” said the astonished governess.
“Oh, see what Jack has done!”
“Naughty Jack!” said Miss Roy. “But really, Nan, it was a very ugly
doll; if you wish to dress it again I will find some pieces for you
some half-holiday. Put it in the cupboard now and forget about it.
Come to me in a few minutes for your lessons.”