THE ASPRAYS.
Mrs. Richmond had just finished lunch, and was preparing to go out for
a drive, when Nancy, her cheeks flushed and her eyes very bright,
rushed into the room.
“Well, my dear child,” said the good lady, drawing the little girl
towards her, “and what do you want now? I am so glad to see my dear
little Nancy with that bright face! I was sorry that you were troubled
this morning, my dear. I have promised Augusta not to say anything
about it, nor will I; but I conclude from your face now that the
trouble, whatever it was, is over.”
“Yes,” said Nancy, “it is quite over.”
“And you are really happy, my darling?”
“I am, Mrs. Richmond. I cannot help it; you are so kind to me.”
“Come close to me, dear; I want to say something to you.” As Mrs.
Richmond spoke she drew Nancy to her side, and put her arm round the
little girl’s waist and kissed her. “Why do you call me Mrs. Richmond?”
she said. “I want to be as a mother to you.”
“Oh!” said Nancy, with a gasp.
“I know, dear, that your own dear and sweet mother is no longer here.
But my wish is, as far as possible, to take her place. I cannot really
take her place, I know, Nancy, but I can at least be to you a good and
kind and loving aunt. Now, Nancy, what I wish is this—I want you to
promise to call me Aunt Jessie. Will you, dear?”
“I will if I may,” said Nancy, with her eyes shining; “I’d like to
just awfully.”
“That is all right. And will you give your Aunt Jessie a kiss?”
Nancy flung her arms round Mrs. Richmond’s neck.
“How much I love you! How very, very good you are to me?” she said.
“What is it you specially want to say to me, Nancy?”
“It is about Augusta,” said the child. “I think perhaps I made too
much fuss this morning. I know Augusta was—— I mean that it sounded
cruel, but—— I don’t know how to express it. If you would not mind,
Aunt Jessie, just _quite_ forgiving her.”
“What do you mean by quite forgiving her, little woman?”
“She is in great trouble. She spoke to me about it. We are good
friends now, she and I. She spoke to me, and I told her I would come
and plead for her. If, Aunt Jessie, you would quite forgive her!”
“Well, dear child, I have quite forgiven her; we will let bygones be
bygones.”
“If that is the case, you won’t give her a bad mark in the
orderly-book?”
A look of great surprise came over Mrs. Richmond’s face when Nancy said
this. She rose and said hurriedly:
“I am going for a drive, and cannot talk any more; but tell Augusta
she ought not to have sent you.”
“Are you angry?” asked Nancy.
“Not with you, but with Augusta.”
“Then you won’t do what I ask”——
“I cannot, and Augusta knows the reason why. When you four girls
enrolled yourselves as soldiers in Captain Richmond’s battalion you
were in earnest; it was not a joke. Augusta behaved badly to-day, and
she deserves the punishment which a bad mark in the orderly-book will
bestow. Say no more about it, Nancy. Run away and play; you are
looking quite pale and ill.”
As Mrs. Richmond uttered the last words she left the room.
Nancy stood still for a moment with her hands clasped; then she went
very slowly in the direction of the seashore. The children were to
have tea in the tent this afternoon, and Kitty and Nora were busy
bringing down baskets of picnic things: cups and saucers, plates,
knives and forks, cakes innumerable, jam, bread and butter, &c. When
they saw Nancy they shouted to her to come and help them. The three
children went quickly down the steep path through the shrubbery, and
soon found themselves by the sea. The tide was half out, and the whole
place looked perfect. There was a gay town not far from Fairleigh, and
at this time of the year the sands were strewn with children and
nurses—in short, with the usual holiday folks. But the part of the
shore just beside Mrs. Richmond’s place was considered more or less to
belong to her young people, and as a rule no other children came there
to play. To-day, however, as the girls, heavily laden with the
materials for their afternoon picnic, approached, they saw Augusta
talking to two rather showily dressed girls, whose long golden hair
hung down their backs. Augusta seemed in high spirits, and her gay
laughter floated on the breeze.
“Who can she be talking to?” said Kitty. “I never knew such a girl for
picking up friends.”
“Well, don’t mind her now,” said Nora, going into the tent and making
preparations. “We are going to boil the kettle on the sands and have
real, proper tea.—Nancy, if you have nothing better to do, you might
go along by the shore and pick up bits of firewood.”
Nancy ran off immediately.
“What can be the matter with her?” Nora said. “Her eyes look as if she
had been crying. I wonder if Gussie has been worrying her again.”
Before Kitty had time to reply, Gussie was seen coming towards them.
“Kitty,” she said, raising her voice, “I want to introduce Miss Aspray
and her sister. They are so anxious to know us, and they seem so very
nice! You know, of course, who they are—the Americans who live at the
corner of our street.”
“But what would mother say?” asked Nora. “You know, Augusta, she
doesn’t want us ever to make acquaintance with people that she herself
does not know.”
“Oh! I can’t help that now,” said Augusta. “Here they are coming to
meet us. Don’t you think we might ask them to tea?”
The two girls now approached the tent. Flora, the elder, looking
prettier and more full of spirit than any one Kitty had seen for a
long time, held out her hand.
“How do you do, Miss Richmond?” she said. “Constance and I know you
quite well by sight. We have often looked at you four girls with great
envy; and just now, when we found Miss Duncan standing by herself on
the sands, it seemed almost too good to be true. She seemed to us, in
this outlandish, out-of-the-way spot, to be quite an old friend. May
we join you; or will you join us? Mother is having a grand picnic on
the rocks round the other side of the bay, and I know she will be
delighted to see you all. Will you come or not?”
Augusta’s eyes were sparkling, and she evidently longed to accept the
Asprays’ invitation. But Nora, drawing herself up, said in her very
quiet tone, “We shall be pleased if you will join us. We are just
having tea on the sands; it is not a regular picnic.”
“But quite too lovely!” said Constance. “Of course we will stay—only
too glad. And is this your tent? How charming!” As she spoke she
entered the tent, and flung herself down on a large cushion covered
with an Oriental brocade. “Dear, dear!” she said, “you do seem to
enjoy things.”
“Of course we do,” said Kitty, viewing her with some disfavour. “Why
else should we come to the seashore?”
“Do you live in that nice place which I see through the trees?”
“Yes,” answered Nova. “It is our own place. We come here every year.”
Just then Nancy appeared, holding a lot of brushwood in the skirt of
her frock. She coloured and started when she saw the Asprays, who had
now both taken possession of the tent.
“Nancy,” said Kitty, going up to the little girl and putting her arm
round her waist, “Augusta has met the two Miss Asprays, and has
invited them to tea here.—Miss Aspray, may I introduce my great
friend, Nancy Esterleigh?”
The elder Miss Aspray coloured brightly when Kitty made this remark.
The younger shrugged her shoulders and poked her sister in the side.
Augusta’s eyes sparkled, and Nancy turned very white.
“How do you do?” she said in a low voice.
“Why, if it isn’t—— Yes, it is, Constance.”
“It is what?” said Constance. “I do wish you would mind your manners,
Flora.”
“But it is quite too funny!” said Flora.— “Why, little girl, don’t
you remember us? How is your dog? Does he bite as well as ever? Is he
as vindictive as he was on a certain day in a florist’s shop? Oh, if
you only knew how poor Constance’s ankle ached after his very
gentlemanly attentions! And you, my dear, were not quite as
sympathetic as might have been expected.”
“Explain—explain!” cried Augusta. “This sounds most interesting.”
“Let me tell,” said Nancy. She turned suddenly, faced the group, and
told her little story. “I was sorry,” she said in conclusion, “and I
would have said so, only you were both so terribly angry, and you
seemed to think—— But there! I won’t say any more.”
“No, no,” said Kitty; “of course you won’t say any more. And the Miss
Asprays are our guests, remember.—Now then, let us hurry with tea.”
The girls, their party augmented to six, had on the whole a jolly
time. Nancy was only too glad to bustle about in order to keep her
excited heart quiet. Were these the girls with whom she might have to
spend her life? Were these the girls whose father had a right to
maintain her and adopt her as his own child? Oh, how thankful she was
that Mrs. Richmond had already adopted her!
“I would rather be a charity-child with Mrs. Richmond,” thought the
little girl, “than have the greatest right in the world to live with
the Asprays, for, oh dear! I don’t like them a bit—no, not a bit.
What a comfort it is that I have got that promise in writing from
Augusta!—for now I need never leave my darling Aunt Jessie. Yes, she
asked me to call her Aunt Jessie; and how much I do love her!”
While these thoughts were passing through Nancy’s head, she was busy
spreading bread and butter and opening pots of jam. She was kneeling
on the sands to perform these offices, and happened to be a little
away from the rest of the party.
Suddenly Augusta approached with the excuse of wanting to borrow a
knife from her.
“Well,” she said in a whisper, “and what do you think of them? You
would like awfully to live with them, wouldn’t you?”
“No, no,” said Nancy, shaking her head.
“No, no,” echoed Augusta, mimicking her. “And why not, my little
beauty?”
“Don’t tease me, Gussie; you know what I mean.”
“No, indeed, I don’t. I like the Asprays immensely. How stylish and
handsome they both are, and so well dressed! I trust we shall see a
great deal of them. They are going to stay at Fairlight for a month,
and they say a great many friends are going to be with them—American
friends—gentlemen and ladies also. I know that they mean to see a
good deal of us—of me in especial. So, little Nancy, as you are my
special friend, you must be extremely nice to Flora and Constance
Aspray, and pay them a considerable amount of attention.”
“What do you mean, Gussie?”
“What I say, little woman. Now, for instance, when we are all taking
tea in the tent, you are to see that Constance and Flora get the
strongest cups of tea, the most cream, and the most richly buttered of
the scones, and the thickest pieces of cake. I am rather famous for
reading character, and I am positively sure that these two girls are
possessed by greediness. You will remember my injunctions, won’t you,
Nancy?”
“I don’t mind helping them to the nice things if they really want
them, Augusta. But, oh! please, Gussie, you won’t say anything about
me—I mean anything special?”
Augusta laughed. “I am not at all sure,” she said; “it all depends on
your behaviour. And, oh, by the way, have you seen Aunt Jessie?”
“Yes—yes, I have; and I am ever so sorry!”
“What! you have not succeeded?”
Nancy shook her head.
Augusta’s face grew black with anger; she also looked seriously
alarmed.
“You must talk to her again,” she said. “I cannot have that bad mark
entered in the orderly-book. Do you hear? I cannot!”
“I am very sorry, Augusta. You had better speak to Aunt Jessie
yourself, for I can do nothing.”
“I don’t believe you have pleaded with her. You had got what you
wanted, and did not care twopence for me and my fate. It is just like
you—just.”
“No; that is not true,” answered Nancy. “I did my very, very best; and
I am terribly sorry. I tell you what it is, Gussie, I would take that
bad mark for myself—I would gladly—if only you need not have it.”
“Oh! it is all very fine to talk,” said Augusta; “but acts tell more
than words.”
“What are you two chattering about?” suddenly burst from Nora’s lips.
“The kettle has boiled, and the tea is made, and we are all waiting
for the bread and butter.”
Nancy rose at once, and Augusta followed her. The picnic tea
commenced, and no one noticed in the general mirth that one girl was
looking perturbed, cross, and anxious, and that another was strangely
silent and depressed. The Asprays, whatever their faults, were the
gayest of the gay, and very merry and witty. Nora was not inclined to
be too cordial to girls whom her mother did not know, but Kitty
quickly succumbed to their charm. The picnic tea came to an end, and
when the Asprays took leave, it was with warm assurances that they
would soon come again, and that their mother should call on Mrs.
Richmond if Mrs. Richmond did not first call on her—in short, that
during their stay at Fairlight, the Richmonds of Fairleigh and they
themselves must be bosom friends.