Kitabı oku: «Maud Florence Nellie: or, Don't care!», sayfa 7

Chapter Thirteen
Most Haste, Worst Speed!

Unfortunately for his scheme of meeting with his brother again, poor Edgar awoke the next morning to one of the blinding and overpowering headaches to which over-fatigue and excitement always rendered him liable. There was no chance of getting that day to the trysting-place, no possibility of anything but lying still. He could not write a note to be given to Alwyn, he could hardly even think of a safe message for him.

“Tell Wyn – I cannot go out – tell him to – get what I told him – in the wood – he will understand,” he said, with a great effort at something that would be comprehensible.

“Yes, sir; don’t trouble yourself, sir,” said Robertson; “it shall be attended to.”

“And tell him to come for orders to-morrow; I shall be able to go to-morrow.”

“Very well, sir,” said Robertson, privately thinking that his master would be quite unequal to such fatigue to-morrow, or probably for two or three days to come.

Edgar chafed and fretted at his incapacity in a way that of course aggravated the headache. It was such a disappointment, besides the anxiety and suspense, not to see Alwyn again. He had not known how much he should care about it. Robertson thought that he had never known his master so restless and impatient.

The message to Wyn did not strike anyone as of paramount importance, and was sent down by the footman.

“Tell little Warren the pony won’t be wanted. Mr Edgar is ill. Warren is to get something, I believe, in the wood – flowers, I suppose – but they won’t be wanted to-day.”

This information was finally shouted out to Wyn by the stable-boy as he fed the peacocks before coming up for orders:

“Mr Edgar’s ill and can’t go out, but he says you’re to pick him some flowers instead.”

“Is that all?” said Wyn, horrified.

“That’s all, as I knows on.”

“But I say, what’s the matter with Mr Edgar?”

“Didn’t hear – that was my message.”

Wyn was a very sharp boy. He had been told by Edgar as little as possible, except as to the identity of the two strangers whom he had seen in the wood, as to which he was sworn to secrecy; but after puzzling a little over the message about the flowers he came to the conclusion that the best thing he could do was to keep Mr Edgar’s appointment for him. He was detained all the morning by Mrs Elton, under whose superintendence he attended to the fancy poultry, to give them an extra cleaning, as Mr Edgar did not want him; and when he went home to dinner he found his own family in a state of excitement and hurry.

Lady Carleton, at Ravenshurst, wanted a girl to help her nurse for a few weeks, and by favour of the wife of the Ravenshurst keeper had sent to see if Mrs Warren’s niece could come over.

Mrs Warren thought it a wonderful chance for Florence to try her hand at service in a good family, without being bound to a regular place, and Florence was just tired enough of the keeper’s lodge to think that she should like the change.

“I must take you over myself,” Mrs Warren said, “and explain to her ladyship that you haven’t things suitable at present for her household, but they shall be soon provided. She’ll excuse it, as they want you to come this afternoon. You can put on your grey dress, and turn your hair up and brush back your fringe.”

“My fringe! Why, even the generals at Rapley are allowed their fringes!” said Florence indignantly.

“Very likely. But it’s not the custom in good families,” said Mrs Warren dryly. “I look to you, Florence, to do me credit where you go.”

Florence pouted a little, but just then Warren, who had come in to his dinner, said rather meaningly to his wife:

“Mother, have you forgotten as Lady Carleton is Miss Lilian Fletcher that used to be? Maybe that will make an objection; it’d be best to name Florence, and make sure as she understands about her.”

Florence caught the words, and the confidence she had received about her brother from Wyn came, into her mind. So this was one of the owners of the jewels which Harry had been accused of stealing. Intense curiosity, and a sort of impulse for which she could not account, determined her on going to Ravenshurst at all costs. She went upstairs after dinner, screwed her hair up into a neat knot behind, brushed it back from her brows, and generally stroked herself down into a much tidier-looking young person than she had ever before appeared.

Wyn had also heard the hint, and sat listening, open-eared, to the strange coincidence.

“Wyn,” said his mother, “it’s a good thing Mr Edgar doesn’t want you to-day. You get out the trap and bring it round by four o’clock so as to drive Florrie and me over to Ravenshurst, and then you can take it on to the junction and pick up Bessie and her things; I’ll walk back through the wood.”

“But – but Mr Edgar sent word I was to get flowers.”

“Mr Edgar can’t want the flowers to-day. It can’t matter when you get them – if you have them ready for him to-morrow morning. Now don’t make difficulties, Wyn, you get idle with going after flowers and dawdling about.”

Wyn rushed out of doors in despair. There was nothing for it but to go at once to the ash-tree in the hope that Mr Alwyn might be there before his time, and if he did not appear to write a message on a bit of paper and leave it where he could find it. Alwyn, however, impatient for the meeting, was already sitting under the ash-tree on the look-out for his brother, and started up in dismay as Wyn appeared alone.

“Please, sir, Mr Edgar’s ill to-day. He can’t come. I think he meant me to come and tell you so.”

“Ill? What is the matter with him? What did he say?”

“Please, sir, I expect it’s only one of his headaches, and I only got a message, but I thought I’d better come and tell you.”

“Is he likely to be able to come to-morrow?”

“No, sir, I don’t expect so. He often doesn’t come out for a long time when he takes to having his headaches, except just to lie on the terrace.”

“But you can see him?”

“Yes, sir, when he’s a bit better. He likes to have me come and tell him about the ducks and the peacocks and all the creatures, and sometimes I take him the dogs to look at.”

“My poor boy! Is that all he has to amuse him?” murmured Alwyn, half to himself.

“No, sir, there’s the garden, and the wild flowers I get him. But, sir – please, sir, I’ve got to go. Is there anything for me to take him, sir? Most likely I shall see him to-morrow.”

Alwyn hesitated; but the fear of disappointing Edgar prevailed, and he gave Wyn the thick packet, to be kept with the greatest care, and to be delivered to his master in private. Mr Alwyn looked so miserable as he delivered it up that Wyn tried to say something consolatory.

“Please, sir, Mr Edgar ain’t no worse than usual. Often and often he has his headaches and a pain in his back. I don’t think he minds it much, sir. He’ll talk quite cheerful most times.” Alwyn did not look much consoled by this information.

“Tell him not to think of me,” he said; “not to make any exertion to see me. Come here again to-morrow, and bring me news of him.”

Wyn hurried off without more words to get the trap up for his mother, and it was not till he had deposited her safely with Florence at Ravenshurst, and was waiting for his sister’s train at the distant junction, that it suddenly flashed into his mind how much he and Florence had done to set the keepers on the track of the strangers whom they had met in the wood. What had he done? It was worse than losing the letter. Suppose they caught Mr Alwyn or Harry, whom he had himself taken for a suspicious character, and took them up to the squire or to his father, saying that they had been warned by Wyn Warren. What would Mr Alwyn and Mr Edgar think of him? He must go and put them off it somehow. Would the train never come? What possessed it to be so late? And when it did come groaning into the station what a time Bessie was before she appeared with her box behind her, well-dressed, smiling, and dignified, the sister Bessie that he was ordinarily so glad to see.

Now he could think of nothing but getting home quick, and started off at a rattling pace before Bessie had had time to remark on his growth or inquire for mother.

“You ought not to drive that young horse so fast downhill, Wyn,” said Bessie presently; “the road’s so bad, you’ll have him down. Isn’t it the one father says isn’t sure-footed?”

“All right, I understand him,” said Wyn; but as he spoke there was a stumble and a lurch, the horse fell, the trap tilted over, and Bessie Warren, frightened, shaken, but otherwise unhurt, rolled out on to the high bank beside the road.

She knew quite well enough what she was about to slip down the bank to the horse’s head and seize the rein as the beast righted himself with a great struggle; then floundered, and stood up with broken knees, dragging the trap, which had been turned right over, and scattering on the bank all its contents, Wyn included.

“Wyn, Wynny darling, are you hurt?” cried Bessie, seeing little at the first moment but her brother’s heels.

It was a lonely road, and great was her relief when a gentleman on horseback trotted up, and exclaiming, “Hullo! what’s the matter?” dismounted hastily, and displayed the features of Mr Cunningham himself.

“Oh, sir,” said Bessie as he took the reins from her hand, “there’s been an accident.”

“So I perceive,” said Mr Cunningham. “What, Wyn, my lad, let the young horse down, have you? Are you damaged too?” as Wyn struggled up on to his feet, looked at the horse’s knees, and burst into a roar of crying, while his nose began to bleed violently from the shake and the blow, and he would have fallen back again if Bessie had not caught him, and, sitting on the bank, laid him down with his head on her lap, and tried to stop the bleeding.

“Is he hurt?” said the squire.

“Not much, sir, I think; he’ll come round directly. Keep quiet, Wyn. Where’s your pocket-handkerchief? On the bank? Oh, sir, thank you,” as Mr Cunningham handed it to her, and saw the letter beside it with his son’s name on it.

“A letter for Mr Edgar,” he said, picking it up. He gave a second glance, and put it in his pocket. “I’ll give it to him,” he said.

Wyn was giddy and a little faint, and did not see what was passing; but presently he sat up, and Mr Cunningham said:

“Well, my boy, you’d better keep to Mr Edgar’s pony for the future.”

“Mr Stapleton won’t never forgive me,” said Wyn, feeling the horse’s knees of far more importance than his own nose, and referring to the stud-groom.

“Well, I hope there’s nothing worse than Rex’s knees on your conscience,” said the squire in the peculiar dry tone which made his displeasure so appalling. “You had better wait here, Elizabeth Warren. I’ll ride back and send someone to help you.”

“Thank you, sir;” then, as he rode on, “Surely nothing could be worse than breaking the horse’s knees! What will father say? What’s the matter, Wyn? here’s your handkerchief.”

“But – but – where’s – where’s – ”

“Mr Edgar’s letter? Mr Cunningham took it, so that’s all right.”

Wyn jumped up with a positive howl.

“Oh! oh! oh! Whatever have I done! Oh, I am the unluckiest boy in the world! Oh, whatever will he say to me? But there – ”

Wyn suddenly stifled his lamentations and sat perfectly still, only sobbing at intervals.

“Why,” said Bessie, “if anyone lets a horse down they must expect to catch it. But there, Wyn, it’s a mercy, to be very thankful for, that we’re neither of us killed. I feel all of a tremble still. There, isn’t that one of the stablemen coming? The master must have met him. Wipe your face, Wyn, dear, and don’t cry; we’ll go home to mother, and she’ll see to you.”

“Oh,” sobbed Wyn, burying his face in the bank as his sister went forward to meet the stableman, “I’d rather have let down all the hunters and broken all my bones than have let master have the letter. And I lost the other, and I’ve set on the keepers! I’m – I’m a regular traitor, and Mr Edgar’ll never trust me no more – never!”

Chapter Fourteen
The Fairy Letter

In the meantime Florence Whittaker and her aunt, having been set down by Wyn, waited in the housekeeper’s room at Ravenshurst till Lady Carleton was ready to see them. Mrs Warren was by no means confident of Florence’s success, and felt that she stretched a point in recommending her. But Maud Florence Nellie was not quite the same girl as she had been three weeks or a month before. Many new influences had been brought to bear on her some very ordinary, and others not quite so commonplace, and, like all young people, she was greatly influenced by her surroundings. If she had found herself on the Rapley road beside Carrie and Ada, she would probably have talked and acted exactly like her old self; but she had thoughts that did not belong to her old self at all. Her head had been filled with wider, other ideas than her own little follies, faults, and pleasures. The mystery of the lost jewels, the excitement of the strangers in the wood, the old grandmother, the Cunningham family – the trees, even the birds and beasts – were all apart from her own little selfish narrow interests, and were a great improvement on Carrie’s new hat, Ada’s new acquaintance, and her own newest scrape. Moreover, Mrs Warren’s quiet refinement had a subduing influence; Wyn was a thoroughly well-behaved little boy. Nobody nagged at the keeper’s lodge, and nobody quarrelled. To be saucy at Sunday school to gentle old Mrs Murray, who taught the girls with all the assured ease of long custom, was so out of keeping with the place that she never dreamed of it. Besides, she was usually occupied with the pleasure of sitting beside Miss Geraldine, who, when Mrs Murray was there, took her place in the class with the others. All these influences were doing Florence a great deal of good; and an odd sort of partisanship for the lost Harry was stirring up all sorts of new ideas in her mind.

It did not begin very worthily: chiefly consisting of the notion that he was probably much nicer than George, and wondering whether he would have been down upon herself for her tricks; but the thought of him, and of “Miss Geraldine’s brother,” filled Ravenshurst with interest. Besides, “dressing up to frighten people,” if they were so silly as to be frightened, was a proceeding with which Florrie had far too much sympathy.

“Florrie, my dear,” said Mrs Warren gently as they waited, “it’s a good deal that I’m undertaking for you. You’ve all to learn, remember, and the nurse must tell you if you make mistakes; don’t think to answer her back. Remember she’s your better, and set over you. And when you’re trusted with the little lady and gentleman you’ll be a careful girl, and never let them hear a word from you that isn’t fitting. Put it in your prayers, my dear, that you may do your duty by them. I’m not one to talk, Florrie, but there’s nothing but praying can help us through life.”

“I’ll try, Aunt Charlotte,” said Florrie, colouring Mrs Warren’s gentleness always subdued her, and when the summons came she followed her aunt, and made a sort of imitation of Mrs Warren’s country curtsey at the drawing-room door, as a proof that she meant to mind her manners.

Lady Carleton was very young and very pretty. Her manner was lively as she asked a few questions about previous experience, and said that her nurse preferred a girl who had not been out before.

“So you have only to attend to her directions. What is your name?”

“Her name is Florence Whittaker, my lady,” said Mrs Warren. “My husband wished me to name that at once. But she has been brought up very careful, and her brother George is a clerk on the railway and most respectable.”

Lady Carleton coloured up, and a curious look came into her face.

“I should like to do something for Florence Whittaker,” she said with a slight emphasis. “We will consider it settled, Mrs Warren, that your niece comes on trial.”

“Your ladyship is very good. Florence will do her best, I am sure,” said Mrs Warren.

Accordingly, in the course of an hour or so Florence found herself in Lady Carleton’s nursery, under the orders of a well-mannered superior nurse, making friends with Lily and Malcolm, and admiring the baby.

“Things are not so tidy as they should be, Florence,” said the nurse, “for our last girl began with the mumps, and was sent off in a hurry. Before you undress Miss Lily, please to straighten out her walking things and put her toys to rights. I couldn’t see properly to them yesterday or to-day.”

Lily Carleton was quite ready to make friends with the new nursemaid, and Florence, who was good-natured with children, had soon told her the names of her little sisters, and was hearing in return about the wood and the squirrels, and the pretty puff-balls, and all the delights of a London child in the country.

“What’s this, Miss Lily?” said Florence, putting her hand into the pocket of the little jacket which she was folding. “Have you been putting a puff-ball in your pocket?”

“No,” said Lily, “that’s a letter from the fairies. I found it in the wood; I told mother that I’d found a fairy letter, but she was too busy to look and see.”

Florence straightened out the crushed ball of damp paper, which, in company with bits of moss and lichen-covered stick, filled Lily’s little pocket.

“Why, Miss Lily,” she began, “this ain’t a fairy letter,” when she suddenly stopped, catching sight of her own name in the short, clearly written note: “Whittaker.” “Whittaker has come with me. Remember I am still your brother. – Alwyn Cunningham.”

Florence would not have taken a letter off the table and read it; but in the case of this mysterious paper no such scruple occurred to her. She saw that it began, “Dear Edgar” – that it stated that the writer had returned, had satisfactory explanations to give, and asked for a meeting at the old ash-tree on the following day. Two things flashed at once into Florence’s mind: one that this was the letter Wyn had lost; the other that the man who had spoken to herself and Miss Geraldine was Mr Alwyn.

“Miss Lily, where did you find the letter? When was it you got it?”

“I found it down under the ferns,” said Lily. “It wasn’t yesterday – mother took us out yesterday. It was Friday.”

Florence stared at the letter. Wyn’s poacher with the red beard – that must have been Harry himself! And, oh! she and Wyn had set the keepers to look out for him.

Florence turned quite pale. She had derived vague and awful notions of Mr Cunningham’s power from the way in which everything at Ashcroft was referred to his pleasure. She did not know what he would do to a “poacher” – also a vague character to the town-bred girl.

“You had better undress Miss Lily,” said the nurse, fearing that her new underling was a dawdle.

“Read me what the fairies say,” said Lily.

“Not to-night,” said Florence, stuffing the letter in her pocket. “You tell Florrie about the fairies to-morrow.”

She bustled about and did her work, till, Lily’s toilet being complete, she knelt up in her bed in her little nightgown, and said her prayers. She went through the usual baby prayers, which were pretty much all that Florence herself had to say, since she had never felt the need of any others; but when she had finished she still knelt with her two little hands clasped together, and said in a clear, parrot-like little voice:

“Please, God, make all wrongs right, and bring travellers safe home, for Jesus’ sake.”

“Miss Lily – who’s a traveller?” said Florence, startled.

“I don’t know; mother told me to say that prayer always,” she said as she curled herself up in her little white bed and shut her eyes.

Florence stood by the window looking out over the garden into the mass of trees that bounded it, under which the level evening light was pouring. If she could only get that letter back to Wyn! only tell him to stop the keepers from minding her foolish talk! With the letter in her pocket, she really did feel a sense of great responsibility; she really did try to think what it would be right to do. She had never felt so serious in her life. Come what come might, she must get at Wyn. She must run home across the forest. Lose her place for it! Perhaps she would; but, if she had lost one place to amuse herself, she could lose another to prevent such dreadful mischief.

“I don’t care,” said Florence, as she had said once before. There was good in her motive now, but it was the old daring, heedless Florence that never stopped to think. She slipped out of the bedroom by an outer door that did not lead through the nursery, downstairs along the passage, out at a side door, open to the summer evening, across the grass of the garden, and right into the wood. She ran on through the band of fir trees that divided Ravenshurst from Ashcroft, and, crossing the stile between the two properties, found herself, though she did not know it, close to the place where the letter had been picked up, and not far from the ash-tree named in it.

Then she began to grow puzzled about the way. The long yellow lines of light faded, the tall trees rustled overhead, the heavy whir and flap of a startled pheasant sounded close at hand. Deadly fear seized on Florence. If she had been frightened in the sunny morning, she was doubly frightened now in the twilight. Besides, it would really get dark soon, and then what would become of her? She had said “I don’t care!” but where was the use of saying “don’t care” to darkness and silence and confusion as to the right way? Should she go back? she knew the way back.

“No,” said Florence to herself, “I may have been a silly to come; but I’ll get that there letter to Wyn if I walk all night. And I’ll not be afraid of the wood. Miss Geraldine ain’t – but oh, dear, I wish I had to go down the broad path in the cemetery at home, all nice and straight, instead. If I go on I’ll have to get somewhere at last!”

Florence knew quite well that she had done a very serious thing, for which she would have to answer, and in the midst of her fear of the solitude came an involuntary fear of the scolding that would meet her arrival anywhere. She had rather enjoyed scolding when she knew she was wrong: why did she dread it when she thought she was right? The wood did grow darker, much darker than Florence had expected, judging by the light that she knew was outside it; and the poor girl’s knees trembled as she hurried along. It was a perfectly formless terror that seized on her; she had had too utterly matter-of-fact a training to fill the wood with any imaginary inhabitants, and she was too old and had too much sense to people it with wolves or bears. It did occur to her that the keepers she had herself stirred up might shoot her through the bushes, and her cheeks tingled at the thought of being seen and recognised by them; while, if she met her Uncle Warren —

“I’ll go through with it – rather than bring my own brother to the gallows,” she thought with a vividness worthy of her Aunt Stroud. But which was the way? what should she do? Florence was so accustomed to trust to her own wits that where her wits were perfectly useless she felt like another person. She did not know the way, she could not get at Wyn, she could not undo the mischief! There was no one to help her! Suddenly there struck into her mind a new thought:

“God.”

Now Florence had never thought about God in her life. She knew about Him: on the very last Sunday before she left Rapley she had answered Miss Mordaunt’s questions about His nature with a glib tongue, but without a trace of reverence in her manner or of awe in her heart. He was everywhere; He could see her in the dark and in the light; He knew her thoughts; He could hear her prayers. Such awful truths had been taught to her, and had been just as much a lesson as the multiplication table. But now, in the greatest need she had ever known, it did suddenly strike Florence that perhaps God would help her if she asked Him. She looked up – up through the dark trees to the pale clear sky above them, and associating praying with nothing but with “saying her prayers,” she began to repeat the childish formulary which she was in the habit of scurrying over every night, and with a sudden thought added the words which little Lily had been taught to say: “Set wrongs right, bring travellers home.”

“Oh, God,” whispered Florence, clasping her hands, “bring me– there! Save them somehow.” Something seemed let loose within her, and for the first time in her life she really prayed. And “Oh say not, dream not,” that those unrealised lessons, that formal habit of prayer, had been hitherto all in vain. How could she have heard without a teacher? There was the knowledge, there was the instinct, so soon as the naughty, graceless girl felt the need.

As she looked round, with a somewhat calmer inspection of the various footpaths, suddenly, in the stillness of the summer evening, she heard the tramp of a foot, and in a moment, round the great tree by which she stood, came the tall broad figure of a man with a long beard – surely the “character” who had given Wyn the letter.

“Hullo, my girl,” he said, stopping with a start at sight of a hatless maiden in a white apron, “what’s the matter? Have you lost your way?”

“Oh!” cried Florence, precipitating herself towards him, “I’ve got your letter – but – but, if you’re my brother Harry that’s come home – the keepers are going to seize you for a poacher!”