Kitabı oku: «A Bevy of Girls», sayfa 7
“I’ll miss you a bit at first, but I’ll come round and see you, and you’ll come to see us; but you are going back to your mother, and you will be pleased.”
And then he was off to attend to his school, for he was still a big schoolboy.
Clay and Mabel were heartily tired of the Aldworth girls. Penelope was slightly annoyed at parting from Nesta, but only – and she vowed this quite openly – because she was able to shirk her lessons when Nesta was present. And so they went away, not even in the dogcart, for Jim could not spare the time, but humbly and sadly on foot, and their trunks were to follow later on.
Chapter Twelve
The New Leaf
As soon as ever the three Aldworth girls entered the house, they were met by their father. This in itself was quite unlooked-for. As a rule, he never returned home until time for late dinner in the evening. He was a very busy professional man, and was looked up to by his fellow townspeople. He now stood gravely in the hall, not going forward when he saw the girls, but waiting for them to come up to him.
“Well, Molly,” he said, “how do you do? How do you do, Ethel?”
He just touched Nesta’s forehead with his lips.
“I want you three in my study,” he said.
“Good gracious,” said Molly in a whisper, “it’s even more awful than we expected.”
But Ethel and Nesta felt subdued, they scarcely knew why. They all went into the study, and Mr Aldworth shut the door.
“Now, girls,” he said, “you have come back. You are, let me tell you, exceedingly lucky. That which happened a month ago might have brought sorrow into your young lives which you could never have got over. That kind of silent sorrow which lasts through the years, and visits one when one is dying. That sorrow might have come to you, but for your sister Marcia.”
“Father,” began Molly.
“Hush, Molly, I don’t wish for excuses. You were, Horace tells me and so does Marcia, intensely sorry and remorseful that night, and I trust God in his heaven heard your prayers for forgiveness, and that you have come back now, intending to turn over a new leaf.”
“Yes, father, of course. We won’t any of us neglect dear, dear mother again,” said Ethel. “We are most anxious to see her.”
“I have taken steps,” continued Mr Aldworth, “to see that you do not neglect her. For the present she will have Nurse Davenant – ”
“Who is she?” asked Ethel.
“The nurse I was obliged to call in to help Marcia. For the present Nurse Davenant will be with her day and night, and your province will be to sit with her and amuse her under Nurse Davenant’s directions. But the doctor wants a complete and radical change, which your sister Marcia will explain to you. Any possible fluctuation on your parts, any shirking of the duties which you are expected to perform, will be immediately followed by your absence from home.”
Ethel looked up almost brightly.
“There is your Aunt Elizabeth in the country. I have written to her and she will take one, two, or all three of you. She told me that you could go to her for three or four months. I do not think you will have much fun, or much liberty there. If you don’t choose to behave yourselves at home, you go to your Aunt Elizabeth. I have come back specially to say so. And now, welcome home, my dears, and let us have no more nonsense.”
The father who had never in the least won his children’s affection, left the room, leaving the three girls gazing at each other.
“A pretty state of things,” began Nesta, pouting.
“Oh, don’t,” said Ethel.
“Don’t!” said Molly, who was nearer crying than either of them. “To think of Aunt Elizabeth – to have to go to her. Of course, it’s all Marcia.”
“Of course it’s all Marcia,” said a voice at the door, and the three girls had the grace to blush hotly as they turned and looked at their sister. She wore that immaculate white which was her invariable custom; her dark hair was becomingly arranged; her face was placid.
“My dear children, welcome home,” she said affectionately, “and try not to blame your poor old Marcia too much. It is nice to see you. I have tea ready for you in the little summer parlour. You must be thirsty after your long walk; I thought Jim Carter was going to bring you back in the dogcart.”
“He couldn’t,” began Nesta.
“He couldn’t,” interrupted Ethel; “he had to go to school for a special field day.”
“He would if he could,” burst in Molly.
“Well, anyhow, you are here, and I suppose the luggage is to follow.”
“Oh, yes; not that it matters,” said Molly.
“But it does matter, dear. Now come and have your tea.”
Marcia took Molly’s damp, hot little hand in her own cool one, and led the way into the summer parlour. It had been a very ugly and neglected room, but it was so no longer. Marcia, by a very simple arrangement of art muslin had contrived to transform it into a pale green bower of beauty. The tea equipage was on the table, and very pretty did the cups and saucers look. There was fruit, the fruit that happened to be in season; there were flowers; there were hot cakes; there was fragrant tea; there were even new-laid eggs.
“Oh, I declare,” said Nesta, cheering up, for she was fond of her meals; “this does look good.”
“Shall I pour out tea?” said Molly.
“You may in future, Molly. I hope you will, but wouldn’t you like me to do so to-day?”
“Yes, please, Marcia.”
Marcia sat down and helped her sisters, and while she did so she chatted. She was quite bright and cheerful.
“I have had your rooms altered a little too,” she said.
Molly looked up with a frown.
“Yes, I hope you will forgive me, but I think they look rather nice. And instead of that sort of lumber room where you always fling everything you don’t want to use at the moment, I have made a second little bedroom for Nesta.”
“For me?” said Nesta. “Golloptious! I did want a bedroom to myself.”
“I thought you were fearfully crowded, and I wanted besides – ”
“What is the matter?” said Molly suddenly.
“To make things as different as possible from what they were during that night.”
“I do believe you are kind,” said Molly, and something hot came at the back of her eyes, which made them suspiciously bright for a moment.
“If you will only believe that, my darlings, I don’t care how hard I work,” said the elder sister.
The meal came to an end, the girls had eaten even as much as Nesta’s healthy appetite demanded, and accompanied by Marcia they went upstairs. Did they not know those stairs well – that darn in the carpet, that shabby blind at the lobby window, that narrow landing just above? And mother’s room at the far end of the passage – mother’s room with the green baize door, which was supposed to shut away sound, but did not. Oh, did they not remember it all, and how it looked on that awful night? And this was the way to their room. What had they not endured during that night in their own room? Molly almost staggered.
“Aren’t you well, dear?” said Marcia very tenderly.
“I – I don’t know. Oh, yes, I suppose so. I’m all right – I mean it’s just a little overcoming,” she said, after a minute’s pause. “Past memories, you know.”
“I quite understand. But see your room, it is quite altered.”
It was truly, and this was Marcia’s surprise to her sisters. With Horace’s help, who had come forward rather liberally with his purse, the room had been repapered; it had practically been refurnished. The commonplace beds were exchanged for brass ones, the commonplace furniture for new, artistic wash-handstands and chests of drawers and wardrobes. The shabby carpet was replaced by one of neat pale blue felt; there were a few good pictures on the walls; there were pale blue hangings to the windows, and Nesta’s room just beyond was a replica of her sisters’.
The girls turned; it was Ethel who made the first step forward.
“I wouldn’t have known it – why, you are a darling!”
“And to think we ever called you Miss Mule Selfish!” said Nesta.
“Miss – what!” said Marcia.
“I won’t repeat it – forget it.”
“But tell me – it did sound so funny. Miss what Selfish?”
“Miss Mule Selfish. Oh, I never will again – I declare I am a greater beast than ever.”
“Well, girls, what I want you to do for me is this – In return for the trouble – for I have taken trouble, and Horace has spent money on your rooms as well – I want you to learn self-repression. I want you to put on neat and pretty dresses, and shoes that won’t make any sound, and then you may, one by one, come in and see mother. She is longing for you, longing for her own children; for much as she cares for me, I cannot take your place, so you needn’t imagine it for one moment.”
As Marcia said the last words she left the room. The girls stood and stared at each other.
“She’s a brick!” said Molly. “I shouldn’t be one scrap ashamed of showing this room to Clay, and I never could bear the thought of her coming up to it in the old days.”
“I say, what a jolly bed,” said Ethel. “Shouldn’t I just like to tumble into it and sleep and sleep.”
“And my darling little room all alone, too. Don’t you envy me, you two? Won’t you be always afraid that I’m eavesdropping and listening to your precious secrets?” cried the irrepressible Nesta.
“Oh, it is good,” said Molly, “but I feel quite a big ache at my heart. It’s Marcia, and we’ve been so horrid to her, and she has been so good to us.”
“Well, let’s try hard to show her that we’re really pleased,” said Ethel.
The girls washed their hands and combed out their luxurious hair and made themselves as smart as possible, and then, an anxious trio, they went out and stood on the landing. Here it was Nesta who began to tremble.
“It’s that old patch in the carpet,” she said. “It upsets me more than anything. I remember how I tried to skip over it that night when I went to listen at mother’s door. Oh dear, and the carpet is split here too. Marcia might have got new carpets for the stairs instead of titivating our rooms.”
“Marcia only thinks of what will please others,” said Ethel.
“For goodness’ sake, don’t praise her too much,” said Molly, “or I shall turn round. I always do when people are overpraised.”
A door was opened. It led into their mother’s room. Marcia stood outside.
“Molly, darling,” she said, “you come first.”
She took Molly’s hand; she led her round the screen and brought her up to her mother. Just for a moment the girl shut her eyes. There flashed before her mental vision the remembrance of that mother as she had lain pale and panting and struggling for life when she had left her, pretending that she was only sleeping. But now Mrs Aldworth was sitting bolt upright on her sofa, and the room was sweet and fresh and in perfect order, and a nice-looking young woman in nurse’s uniform stood up when the girls entered the room.
“I will leave you, Mrs Aldworth, and go and get my tea,” she said. “You will be glad to welcome your young ladies. But remember not too much talking, please.”
Mrs Aldworth raised her faded eyes; she looked full at Molly.
“My little girl!”
“Mothery; oh, mothery!”
The girl dropped on her knees.
“Gently, Molly. Sit down there. Tell mother what a right good time you have had while you have been away,” said Marcia.
“I am ever so much better,” said Mrs Aldworth, in a cheerful tone. “I am very glad you were with the Carters. You like them so much.”
“Yes, mother,” said Molly, and then she added, and there was real truth and real sincerity in her tone – “I like best of all to be at home; I like best of all to be with you.”
The words were spoken with an effort, but they were true. Molly did feel just like that at the moment.
Mrs Aldworth smiled, and a very pretty colour came into her cheeks.
“I have been quite ill,” she said. “I have been ill and weak for an extraordinarily long time. At least so Marcia says; and Nurse Davenant is quite a tyrant in her way, and Dr Anstruther too; but to tell the truth, darling, I have never had an ache or pain, and I can’t imagine why people make such a fuss. But there, darling, I am glad to see you and to have you back again. You’ll come and sit with your old mother sometimes, won’t you, and you won’t think it a dreadful trial?”
“Never again,” said Molly.
“Go, Molly dear, for the present,” said Marcia, “and send Ethel in.”
Molly went almost on tiptoe across the room. She got behind the screen and opened the door.
“Go in,” she said in a whisper; “she’s looking wonderful.”
“Don’t whisper, girls,” said Marcia. “Come right in, Ethel.”
Ethel came in and also kissed her mother, and told her that she looked wonderfully well, and that she too was glad to be back, but she was more self-restrained than her sister, and more self-assured, putting a curb upon herself.
It was Nesta, after all, the youngest, the darling, who made her mother perfectly comfortable, for whatever her faults Nesta could not for a single moment be anything but natural. She came in soberly enough; but when she saw her parent she forgot everything, but just that this was Mothery, and once she had been a terrible beast to that same mother, and she made a little run across the room and dropped on her knees and took her mother’s hand and kissed it, and kissed it, and kissed it.
“Oh, you darling, you darling! You sweet! You sweet! There never was any one like you, mothery, never, never, never! Do let me press my cheek against yours. Oh, you sweet! You pet!”
Mrs Aldworth gave one glance of loving triumph at Marcia. Was she not right? Did not her children adore her? Marcia must see it now for herself.
Marcia sat down on a chair and breathed a sigh of relief. Little Nesta was right enough. Little Nesta was better in her conduct than either of her sisters.
“You will come in, of course, and say good-night to me, darling,” said Mrs Aldworth when Nurse Davenant made her appearance with the invalid’s tea most temptingly prepared.
“Oh yes, if we may.”
“You may all come in and out as much as you please, and as often as mother wants you,” said Marcia.
“There is no restraint; no limit of time. You do just as you like.”
“Then I expect my own dear sweet pet mothery will be getting a little tired of me,” was Nesta’s response, “for I’ll be wanting to be always and always with her, see if I don’t!” and Nesta kissed her mother’s hand again rapturously.
“Oh, what tempting toast,” she said, “and how nice that tea looks.”
Mrs Aldworth smiled.
“They are dear girls,” she said to Marcia when the door closed on Nesta. “I am glad they’re home, and how terribly the sweet pets have missed me.”
Chapter Thirteen
A Surprise Visit
The girls soon settled down into the old routine of home life. They got accustomed to their pretty room, which truth to tell they kept in anything but perfect order. They were accustomed to the fact that Mrs Aldworth was a greater invalid than before, but was also well looked after, and was so guarded by Marcia and Nurse Davenant that nobody dared to neglect her. The shadow of that awful night receded farther end farther into the back recesses of their brains; they still had the Carters to love and worship; and Nesta still adored her friend Flossie Griffiths.
A week went by – a fortnight. The weather was intensely hot. Had it been possible, the doctor would have ordered Mrs Aldworth to the seaside; but although her strength returned up to a certain point, she did not seem to go beyond it.
It was one day during the first week in August, one of those extremely hot days when it is an effort even to move, that Mrs Aldworth lay panting on her balcony. The trees in the garden were already assuming a brown tint; the flowers were drooping under the sultry heat of the sun; there was a hot quiver in the air when one looked right in front of one. The bees flew in and out of the window; butterflies chased each other over the garden. There was a stillness and yet a heaviness in the air which seemed to betoken a storm not far off.
It was just then that there came a ring at the front door, and Nesta in a great state of excitement entered her mother’s room.
“Marcia,” she said, “may I speak to you for a minute?”
Marcia, who was doing some light needlework in the neighbourhood of the invalid’s sofa, said:
“Come in, Nesta, and tell me what it is all about.”
“But I want to see you by yourself,” said Nesta.
“My darling,” said Mrs Aldworth, “why these constant secrets? Why shouldn’t your mothery know?”
“Oh, it’s Clara Carter – she’s downstairs. She wants to talk to you. Oh, and here’s a telegram for you.” Nesta thrust a little yellow envelope into her sister’s hand. Marcia opened it.
“It’s from Angela,” she said. “She’s coming to see me in a few minutes. What does Clara want?”
“Just to speak to you. Won’t you come down?”
“Can you spare me, dear?” said Marcia, turning to the invalid.
“Yes, of course, Marcia. Go, my dear, and don’t hurry back. I feel inclined to ask Miss Angela St. Just to come and see me this morning. You have told me so much about her that I should like to see her; she must be a very nice girl.”
“She is, very nice and very beautiful. She is one of God’s angels. Her name is one of the most appropriate things about her,” said Marcia.
“Do you think she would care to come up to see me?”
“She would be delighted, if you are strong enough.”
“Yes,” said Nurse Davenant, “Mrs Aldworth is doing finely to-day. Now, Miss Nesta, if you don’t wish to sit down, please leave the room, for your mother cannot be fatigued by your moving about in that restless fashion.”
Nesta decided that she would leave the room.
“I’ll go and get some flowers for mothery,” she said, glancing at the different flower glasses, and the next minute, making her escape, she overtook Marcia, who was halfway downstairs.
“What is it, Nesta, what are you so excited about?”
“It’s because Clay is coming to ask you something most important I do hope you won’t say no. They’re all most keenly anxious. Molly and Ethel don’t want it, but I do. I promised Penelope when I was there, that I’d do my utmost, but the others are against it.”
“Whatever can it be?” said Marcia.
“Well, you see, the Carters are most anxious to know the St. Justs, Angela in particular, and Clara is coming here. Oh, don’t go so fast, Marcia, I must tell you. Clara is coming here on purpose, for she guessed that Angela would be coming to see you to-day.”
“You mean Miss St. Just,” said Marcia steadily.
“Why mayn’t I call her Angela as well as you?”
“Simply because, Nesta, you don’t know her.”
“Well, Miss St. Just, whatever you like to call her.”
“And how could Miss Carter possibly know that my friend was coming to see me to-day?”
“Because she knew from her father that Sir Edward had to come to Newcastle for an important meeting, and she guessed somehow, that Miss Angela – I must call her that – would come also, and she is just coming on purpose that you may introduce her. She doesn’t want to say so, but she wants to talk to you until Miss St. Just arrives, and you mustn’t gainsay her. You won’t – will you? It’s the greatest fun in the world – it means a great deal to me.”
“Now, Nesta, what can it mean?”
“I won’t tell you. You can’t turn her away – you can’t be so rude. There she is, sitting by the window. She’s a dear old thing.”
Nesta did not accompany Marcia into the drawing room. Marcia went forward and shook hands with Clara, who was looking as such a girl must look when she is particularly anxious to make an impression. Clara, in her cotton frock, with her wild, somewhat untidy mop of hair, was at least natural at Court Prospect; but Clara, with that same hair confined in every direction by invisible nets, with her showy hat, and her dress altogether out of taste, her hands forced into gloves a size too small for her, was by no means a very pleasing object to contemplate. She could not boast of good looks, and she had no style to recommend her. She was natural with the younger Aldworths, but Marcia rather frightened her. She came forward, however, and spoke enthusiastically.
“It is good of you, Miss Aldworth, to give me some of your valuable time. I assure you I’m as proud as possible. I said to Mabel this morning, and to Annie, that I would come to see you. Father was driving into Newcastle to attend that meeting of the Agriculturists. Of course father, as you may know, is on the Board.” Marcia made no reply.
“He is on the Board, and will be made Chairman at the next election of officers. It is a most important matter, isn’t it, Miss Aldworth? You are interested in the welfare of the farmers, are you not?”
“I regret to say that I don’t know anything about them,” said Marcia. “I have lived a great deal out of England,” she continued, “and since I came home I have been much occupied.”
“Oh, yes,” said Clara with enthusiasm, “we all know how noble you have been – you saved the life of the poor dear girls’ mamma, didn’t you?”
“No, it was God who did that.”
“Oh, thank you so much for reproving me. I didn’t mean in that way. But for you, for your finding her just when you did, she might have died. It was very awful, wasn’t it? I did so pity Molly and Ethel. You see, they had invited us to tea, and they gave us, poor girls, a very nice meal; we all quite enjoyed it, and Molly looked so pretty in her blue dress. I think Molly is quite pretty, don’t you?”
No reply from Marcia.
“You know she went up to her mother because Nesta – naughty Nesta, had run away. Nesta is very naughty, isn’t she?”
Marcia very faintly smiled.
“May I draw down this blind?” she said. “The sun is getting into your eyes.”
“Thank you, how kind of you – how considerate. Well, as I was saying, a servant came out and spoke to Molly, and said that her mother wanted her. Molly went in, and she came back in a few minutes and seemed quite jolly and happy. She thought that her mother was going to sleep. But it wasn’t a real sleep, was it? Do tell me the truth. I have always been so anxious to know. You see, when the girls came to us, they were in such a dreadful state of grief, that we did not dare to question them, and we have never dared to question them from that day to this. But I should like to know the truth. Was it a natural sleep?”
“I am sorry, very sorry,” replied Marcia, “that I cannot enlighten you. That dreadful time is over, and thank God, Mrs Aldworth’s life has been spared.”
Clara coloured; she felt the reproof in Marcia’s tone. “I know you think me a very silly, curious girl,” she said; “but I really do want to be nice and good and to improve myself. Now you, Miss Aldworth – ”
Marcia fidgeted. She rose, and opened the window.
“The day is very hot,” she said.
“Indeed it is. We are all going to the seaside on Saturday. I suppose you couldn’t spare one of the girls – Ethel, or Molly, or Nesta?”
“I fear not. I wish we could, for their sakes. Our hope is that Mrs Aldworth may be better, and then we may be able to take her to the seaside.”
There came a ring at the front door. Marcia coloured brightly. She felt her cheeks growing hot and then cold. Clara was watching her face.
“I think that is the ring of a friend of mine,” she said, “and if you – ”
Before she could finish her sentence the door was flung open and Susan announced Miss St. Just. Enter a tall girl in white, with a white muslin hat to match, and a face the like of which Clara had never seen before. The room seemed transfigured. Marcia herself sank into insignificance beside Angela.
Angela came up quickly and kissed her friend.
“You are surprised, Marcia? I want to take you back with me just for the day. If we are quick we can catch the next train.”
“Won’t you introduce me?” said Clara’s voice, somewhat high-strained and mincing, at that moment.
“Oh, I beg your pardon. Angela, this is Miss Carter, Miss Clara Carter.”
Angela turned. There was no false pride about her.
“You live at Court Prospect?” she said, “our old place. How do you do? I hope you like it.”
“Very much indeed,” said Clara, stammering in her eagerness. “It is a lovely place. We have, I think – and we’d be proud to show it to you – improved the place immensely.”
“Improved it?” said Angela. “The cedar avenue, and the beech avenue, and the old Elizabethan garden?”
“We have altered the garden a good deal – I hope you don’t mind. You know, it was very confined and old-fashioned, with its prim box hedges, and those quaint things that looked like animals cut out in box at each corner.”
“And the sundial – you haven’t destroyed that, have you!”
“If you mean that queer stone in the centre – well, yes, we have turned the whole garden into a tennis lawn. It is so delightful. If you could only come and see it.”
“Some day, perhaps. Thank you very much.” Angela turned again, to Marcia.
“Do run up and put on your things. I know you can be spared quite well. I want a whole day in the woods. We can catch the next train to Hurst Castle, and my little pony trap is waiting. Be quick, Marcia, be quick.”
Marcia flew from the room. Now indeed was Clara’s chance.
“I hope you’re not hurt, Miss St. Just,” she began. “If I’d known even for a single moment that you valued those things – ”
“Thank you,” said Angela, “I value their memory. Of course the place is no longer ours, and you have the right to do as you like with your own.”
“Then you think we did wrong? You, who know so much better.”
“I will try not to think so; but don’t ask me about Court Prospect. Let us forget that you live there.”
“Then you won’t come to see us? We are so anxious to know you.”
“How kind of you,” said Angela sweetly. “What a hot day this is; don’t you find it so?”
“Well, yes; but at Court Prospect it is much cooler.”
“Of course; you are more in the country.”
Angela wondered when Marcia would be ready.
“We are going to the seaside,” continued Clara. “Of course, we cannot stand this great heat. I want to take one of the Aldworth girls with me; but Marcia – I mean Miss Aldworth, your friend – doesn’t seem to approve of it.”
“They couldn’t leave home very well just now. The one who ought to go is Marcia herself.”
“Indeed, yes. How sweet of you to confide in me. Don’t you think she is looking very pale?”
“She has suffered a good deal. I am most anxious that she should have a fortnight or so at Hurst Castle.”
“What a rapturous idea,” thought Clara. “If only I could bring it about. What wouldn’t I give to spend some days at Hurst Castle! If only that girl would get me to help her.”
“But why won’t she go?” said Clara. “It seems quite easy. Mrs Aldworth has three daughters of her own, and there is the nurse. I think she could.”
“I quite agree with you,” said Angela, and just then Marcia came into the room.
“I am ready,” she said. “I am ever so sorry, Miss Carter, it does seem rude, but we shall miss our train.”
“Marcia, Miss Carter and I have been having quite an interesting conversation about you. We both think you need a change, and Miss Carter thinks with me that your mother could be left with her own girls and the nurse.”
The colour came into Marcia’s cheeks.
“We can talk of that in the train,” she said. “Good-bye, Miss Carter. Shall I call Nesta to you?”
“No, thank you, I must be going now. I am so glad to have seen you. Miss St. Just. It is a very great honour to make your acquaintance. I trust some day you will be induced to come to see us in our home. We should be so glad to get your opinion with regard to further improvements which we are anxious to make. You will come, won’t you, come day? It would be such a very great pleasure.”
Angela gave a dubious promise, and the next minute the girls were hurrying down the street.
“What a detestable creature!” said Marcia.
“Oh, no, she belongs to a type,” said Angela. “But I don’t want to think of the awful things they have done at Court Prospect. They think they have improved my garden – my dear, dear garden.”
