The train moved rapidly on its way, and the girl in one corner of the
railway carriage cried silently behind her crape veil. Her tears were
very subdued, but her heart felt sore, bruised, indignant; she hated the
idea of school-life before her, she hated the expected restraints and
the probable punishments; she fancied herself going from a free life
into a prison, and detested it accordingly.
Three months before, Hester Thornton had been one of the happiest,
brightest, and merriest of little girls in ---shire; but the mother who
was her guardian angel, who had kept the frank and spirited child in
check without appearing to do so, who had guided her by the magical
power of love and not in the least by that of fear, had met her death
suddenly by means of a carriage accident, and Hester and baby Nan were
left motherless. Several little brothers and sisters had come between
Hester and Nan, but from various causes they had all died in their
infancy, and only the eldest and youngest of Sir John Thornton's family
remained.
Hester's father was stern, uncompromising. He was a very just and
upright man, but he knew nothing of the ways of children, and when
Hester in her usual tom-boyish fashion climbed trees and tore her
dresses, and rode bare-backed on one or two of his most dangerous
horses, he not only tried a little sharp, and therefore useless,
correction, but determined to take immediate steps to have his wild and
rather unmanageable little daughter sent to a first-class school.
Hester was on her way there now, and very sore was her heart, and
indignant her impulses. Father's "good-bye" seemed to her to be the
crowning touch to her unhappiness, and she made up her mind not to be
good, not to learn her lessons, not to come home at Midsummer crowned
with honours and reduced to an every-day and pattern little girl. No,
she would be the same wild Hetty as of yore: and when father saw that
school could do nothing for her, that it could never make her into a
good and ordinary little girl, he would allow her to remain at home. At
home there was, at least, Nan to love, and there was mother to remember.
Hetty was a child of the strongest feelings. Since her mother's death
she had scarcely mentioned her name. When her father alluded to his
wife, Hester ran out of the room: when the servants spoke of their late
mistress, Hester turned pale, stamped her feet, and told them to be
quiet.
"You are not worthy to speak of my mother," she electrified them all one
day by exclaiming. "My mother is an angel now, and you--oh, you are not
fit to breathe her name!"
Only to one person would Hetty ever voluntarily say a word about the
beloved dead mother, and that was to little Nan. Nan said her prayers,
as she expressed it, to Hetty now; and Hetty taught her a little phrase
to use instead of the familiar "God bless mother." She taught the child
to say, "Thank God for making mother into a beautiful angel;" and when
Nan asked what an angel was, and how the cosy mother she remembered
could be turned into one, Hester was beguiled into a soft and tearful
talk, and she drew several lovely pictures of white-robed angels, until
the little child was satisfied and said--
"Me like that, Hetty--me'll be angel too, Hetty, same as mamma."
These talks with Nan, however, did not come very often, and of late they
had almost ceased, for Nan was only two and a half, and the strange sad
fact remained that in three months she had almost forgotten her mother.
Hester on her way to school this morning cried for some time, then she
sat silent, her crape veil still down, and her eyes watching furtively
her fellow-passengers. They consisted of two rather fidgety old ladies,
who wrapped themselves in rugs, were very particular on the question of
hot bottles, and watched Hester in their turn with considerable
curiosity and interest. Presently one of them offered the little girl a
sandwich, which she was too proud or too shy to accept, although by this
time she was feeling extremely hungry.
"You will, perhaps, prefer a cake, my dear?" said the good-natured
little old lady. "My sister Agnes has got some delicious queen-cakes in
her basket--will you eat one?"
Hester murmured a feeble assent, and the queen-cake did her so much good
that she ventured to raise her crape veil and to look around her.
"Ah, that is much better," said the first little old lady. "Come to
this side of the carriage, my love; we are just going to pass through a
lovely bit of country, and you will like to watch the view. See; if you
place yourself here, my sister Agnes's basket will be just at your feet,
and you can help yourself to a queen-cake whenever you are so disposed."
"Thank you," responded Hester, in a much more cheerful tone, for it was
really quite impossible to keep up reserve with such a bright-looking
little old lady; "your queen-cakes are very nice, and I liked that one,
but one is quite enough, thank you. It is Nan who is so particularly
fond of queen-cakes."
"And who is Nan, my dear?" asked the sister to whom the queen-cakes
specially belonged.
"She is my dear little baby sister," said Hester in a sorrowful tone.
"Ah, and it was about her you were crying just now," said the first
lady, laying her hand on Hester's arm. "Never mind us, dear, we have
seen a great many tears--a great many. They are the way of the world.
Women are born to them. As Kingsley says--`women must weep.' It was
quite natural that you should cry about your sweet little Nan, and I
wish we could send her some of these queen-cakes that you say she is so
fond of. Are you going to be long away from her, love?"
"Oh, yes, for months and months," said Hester. "I did not know," she
added, "that it was such a common thing to cry. I never used to."
"Ah, you have had other trouble, poor child," glancing at her deep
mourning frock.
"Yes, it is since then I have cried so often. Please, I would rather
not speak about it."
"Quite right, my love, quite right," said Miss Agnes in a much brisker
tone than her sister. "We will turn the conversation now to something
inspiriting. Jane is quite right, there are plenty of tears in the
world; but there is also a great deal of sunshine and heaps of laughter,
merry laughter--the laughter of youth, my child. Now, I dare say,
though you have begun your journey so sadly, that you are really bound
on quite a pleasant little expedition. For instance, you are going to
visit a kind aunt, or some one else who will give you a delightful
welcome."
"No," said Hester, "I am not. I am going to a dreadful place, and the
thought of that, and parting from little Nan, are the reasons why I
cried. I am going to prison--I am, indeed."
"Oh, my dear love!" exclaimed both the little old ladies in a breath.
Then Miss Agnes continued: "You have really taken Jane's breath away--
quite. Yes, Jane, I see that you are in for an attack of palpitation.
Never mind her, dear, she palpitates very easily; but I think you must
be mistaken, my love, in mentioning such an appalling word as `prison.'
Yes, now I come to think of it, it is absolutely certain that you must
be mistaken; for if you were going to such a terrible place of
punishment you would be under the charge of a policeman. You are given
to strong language, dear, like other young folk."
"Well, I call it prison," continued Hester, who was rather flattered by
all this bustle and Miss Jane's agitation; "it has a dreadful sound,
hasn't it? I call it prison, but father says I am going to school--you
can't wonder that I am crying, can you? Oh! what is the matter?"
For the two little old ladies jumped up at this juncture, and gave Hetty
a kiss apiece on her soft young lips.
"My darling," they both exclaimed. "We are so relieved and delighted!
your strong language startled us, and school is anything but what you
imagine, dear. Ah, Jane! can you ever forget our happy days at school?"
Miss Jane sighed and rolled up her eyes, and then the two commenced a
vigorous catechising of the little girl. Really, Hester could not help
feeling almost sunshiny before that long journey came to an end, for she
and the Misses Bruce made some delightful discoveries. The little old
ladies very quickly found out that they lived close to the school where
Hetty was to spend the next few months. They knew Mrs Willis well--
they knew the delightful rambling, old-fashioned house where Hester was
to live--they even knew two or three of the scholars: and they said so
often to the little girl that she was going into a life of clover--
positive clover--that she began to smile, and even partly to believe
them.
"I am glad I shall be near you, at least," she said at last, with a
frank sweet smile, for she had greatly taken to her kind
fellow-travellers.
"Yes, my dear," exclaimed Miss Jane. "We attend the same church, and I
shall look out for you on Sunday, and," she continued, glancing first at
her sister and then addressing Hester, "perhaps Mrs Willis will allow
you to visit us occasionally."
"I'll come to-morrow, if you like," said Hester.
"Well, dear, well--that must be as Mrs Willis thinks best. Ah, here we
are at Sefton at last. We shall look out for you in church on Sunday,
my love."