Kitabı oku: «My New Home», sayfa 8
CHAPTER XV
'HAPPY EVER SINCE'
Later in the afternoon – about three o'clock or so – Harry looked at his watch and started up. We were sitting in the drawing-room talking quietly – Harry had been asking me about my lessons and finding out how far on I was, for I was a little tired still, and we had been running about a good deal in the morning.
'Oh,' I said, in a disappointed tone, 'where are you going? If you would wait a little while, I could come out with you again, I am sure.' For I felt as if I did not want to lose any of the time we were together, and of course I did not know how soon grandmamma might not send some one to take me away to school.
And never since Sharley and the others had gone away had I had the pleasure of companions of my own age. There was something about Harry which reminded me of Sharley, though he was a boy – something so strong and straightforward and big, no other word seems to say it so well.
Harry looked at me with a little smile. Dear Harry, I know now that he was feeling even more anxious about me than I was for myself, and that brave as he was, it took all his courage to do as he had determined – I mean to plead my cause with his stern guardian. For Mr. Vandeleur was almost as much a stranger to him as to me.
'I'm afraid I must,' he said, 'I have to go to Middlemoor, but I shall not be away more than an hour and a half. Lindsay – you'll look after Helena, and Helena will look after you and prevent you getting into mischief while I'm away.'
For though Lindsay was a very good little boy, and not wild or rough, he was rather unlucky. I never saw any one like him for tumbling and bumping himself and tearing his clothes.
After Harry had gone, Lindsay got out their stamp album and we amused ourselves with it very well for more than an hour, as there were a good many new stamps to put into their proper places. Then Kezia came in —
'Miss Helena,' she said, 'would you and Master Lindsay mind going into the other room? I want to tidy this one up a little, I was so long talking with you this morning that I dusted it rather hurriedly.'
We had made a litter, certainly, with the gum-pot and scraps of paper, and cold water for loosening the stamps, but we soon cleared it up.
'Isn't it nearly tea-time?' I said.
'Yes, you shall have it as soon as Master Harry comes in,' said Kezia, 'it is all laid in the dining-room.'
'Oh, well,' said Lindsay, 'we won't do any more stamps this afternoon; come along then, Helena, we'll tell each other stories for a change.'
'You may tell me stories,' I said – 'and I'll try to listen,' I added to myself, 'though I don't feel as if I could,' for as the day went on I felt myself growing more and more frightened and uneasy. 'I wish Harry would come in,' I said aloud, 'I think I should write to grandmamma to-day.'
'He won't be long,' said Lindsay, 'Harry always keeps to his time,' and then he began his stories. I'm afraid I don't remember what they were. There were a great many 'you see's' and 'and so's,' but at another time I daresay I would have found them interesting.
He was just in the middle of one, about a trick some of the boys had played an undermaster at their school, when I heard the front door open quietly and steps cross the hall. The steps were of more than one person, though no one was speaking.
'Stop, Lindsay,' I said, and I sat bolt up in my chair and listened.
Whoever it was had gone into the drawing-room. Then some one came out again and crossed to the kitchen.
'Can it be Harry?' I said.
'There's some one with him if it is,' said Lindsay.
I felt myself growing white, and Lindsay grew red with sympathy. He is a very feeling boy. But we both sat quite still. Then the door opened gently, and some one looked in, but it wasn't Harry, it was Kezia.
'Miss Helena, my love,' she said, 'there's some one in the drawing-room who wants to see you.'
'Who is it?' I asked, breathlessly, but my old nurse shook her head.
'You'll see,' she said.
My heart began to beat with the hope – a silly, wild hope it was, for of course I might have known she could not yet have left Cousin Agnes – that it might be grandmamma. And, luckily perhaps, for without it I should not have had courage to enter the drawing-room, this idea lasted till I had opened the door, and it was too late to run away.
How I did wish I could do so you will easily understand, when I tell you that the tall figure standing looking out of the window, which turned as I came in, was that of my stern Cousin Cosmo himself!
I must have got very white, I think, though it seemed to me as if all the blood in my body had rushed up into my head and was buzzing away there like lots and lots of bees, but I only remember saying 'Oh!' in a sort of agony of fear and shame. And the next thing I recollect was finding myself on a chair and Cousin Cosmo beside me on another, and, wonderful to say, he was holding my hand, which had grown dreadfully cold, in one of his. His grasp felt firm and protecting. I shut my eyes just for a moment and fancied to myself that it seemed as if papa were there.
'But it can't last,' I thought, 'he's going to be awfully angry with me in a minute.'
I did not speak. I sat there like a miserable little criminal, only judges don't generally hold prisoners' hands when they are going to sentence them to something very dreadful, do they? I might have thought of that, but I didn't. I just squeezed myself together to bear whatever was coming.
This was what came.
I heard a sort of sigh or a deep breath, and then a voice, which it almost seemed to me I had never heard before, said, very, very gently —
'My poor little girl – poor little Helena. Have I been such an ogre to you?'
I could scarcely believe my ears – to think that it was Cousin Cosmo speaking to me in that way! I looked up into his face; I had really never seen it very well before. And now I found out that the dark, deep-set eyes were soft and not stern – what I had taken for hardness and severity had, after all, been mostly sadness and anxiety, I think.
'Cousin Cosmo,' I said, 'are you going to forgive me, then? And grandmamma, too? I am sorry for running away, but I didn't understand properly. I will go to school whenever you like, and not grumble.'
My tears were dropping fast, but still I felt strangely soothed.
'Tell me more about it all,' said Mr. Vandeleur. 'I want to understand from yourself all about the fancies and mistakes there have been in your head.'
'Would you first tell me,' I said, 'how Cousin Agnes is? It was a good deal about her I didn't understand?'
'Much, much better,' he replied, 'thank God. She is going to be almost well again, I hope.'
And then, before I knew what I was about, I found myself in the middle of it all – telling him everything – the whole story of my unhappiness, more fully even than I had told it to Harry and Kezia, for though he did not say much, the few words he put in now and then showed me how wonderfully he understood. (Cousin Cosmo is a very clever man.)
And when at last I left off speaking, he began and talked to me for a long time. I could never tell if I tried, how he talked – so kindly, and nicely, and rightly – putting things in the right way, I mean, not making out it was all my fault, which made me far sorrier than if he had laid the whole of the blame on me.
I always do feel like that when people, especially big people, are generous in that sort of way. One thing Cousin Cosmo said at the end which I must tell.
'We have a good deal to thank Harry for,' it was, 'both you and I, Helena. But for his manly, sensible way of judging the whole, we might never have got to understand each other, as I trust we now always shall. And more good has come out of it, too. I have never known Harry for what he is, before to-day.'
'I am so very glad,' I said.
'Now,' said Mr. Vandeleur, looking at his watch, 'it is past five o'clock. I shall spend the night at the hotel at Middlemoor, but I should like to stay with you three here, as late as possible. Do you think your good Kezia can give me something to eat?'
'Of course she can,' I said, all my hospitable feelings awakened – for I can never feel but that Windy Gap is my particular home – 'Shall I go and ask her? Our tea must be ready now in the dining-room.'
'That will do capitally,' said Cousin Cosmo. 'I'll have a cup of tea now with you three, in the first place, and then as long as the daylight lasts you must show me the lions of Windy Gap, Helena. It is a quaint little place,' he added, looking round, 'and I am sure it must have a great charm of its own, but I am afraid my aunt and you must have found it very cold and exposed in bad weather?'
'Sometimes,' I said; 'the last winter here was pretty bad.'
'Yes,' he answered, 'it is not a place for the middle of winter,' but that was all he said.
I was turning to leave the room when another thought struck me.
'Cousin Cosmo,' I asked timidly, 'will grandmamma want me to go to school very soon?'
He smiled, rather a funny smile.
'Put it out of your mind till I go back to London, and talk things over,' he replied. 'I want all of us to be as happy as possible this evening. Send Harry in here for a moment.'
I met Harry outside in the hall.
'Is it all right?' he said, anxiously.
'Oh, Harry,' I said, 'I can scarcely believe he's the same! He's been so awfully kind.'
That evening was a very happy one. Cousin Cosmo was interested about everything at Windy Gap, and after supper he talked to Harry and me of all sorts of things, and promised to send us down some books, which pleased me, as it did seem as if he must mean me to stay where I was for a few days at any rate.
Still, I did not feel, of course, quite at rest till I had written a long, long letter to grandmamma and heard from her in return. I need not repeat all she said about what had passed – it just made me feel more than ever ashamed of having doubted her and of having been so selfish.
But what she said at the end of her letter about the plans she and Cousin Cosmo had been making was almost too delightful. I could scarcely help jumping with joy when I read it.
'Harry,' I called out, 'I'm not to go to school at all, just fancy! I'm to stay here with you and Lindsay till you go back to school – till a few days before, I mean, and we're to travel to London together and be all at Chichester Square. Cousin Agnes and grandmamma are going away to the sea-side now immediately, but they'll be back before we come. Cousin Agnes is so much better!'
Harry did not look quite as pleased as I was – about the London part of it.
'I'm awfully glad you're going to stay here,' he answered; 'and I do want to see your grandmother. I suppose it'll be all right,' he went on, 'and that they won't find Lindsay and me a nuisance in London.'
I was almost vexed with him.
'Harry,' I said, 'don't you begin to be fanciful. You don't know how Cousin Cosmo spoke of you the other day.'
And after all it did come all right. My story finishes up like a fairy-tale – 'They lived happy ever after!'
Well no, not quite that, for it is not yet four years since all this happened, and four years would be a very short 'ever after.'
But I may certainly say we have lived most happily ever since that time till now.
Cousin Agnes is much, much better. She never will be quite strong – never a very strong person, I mean. But she is so sweet, our boys and I often think we should scarcely like her to be any different in any way from what she is, though of course not really ill or suffering.
And 'our boys' – yes, that is what they are – dear brothers to me, just like real ones, and just like grandsons to dear, dear grandmamma. They come to Chichester Square regularly for their holidays – it is their 'new home,' as it is mine. But we have another home – and it is not much of the holidays except the Christmas ones that we – grandmamma and we three – spend in London.
For Windy Gap is still ours – and Kezia lives there and is always ready to have us – and Cousin Cosmo has built on two or three more rooms, and our summers there are just perfect!
The Nestors came back to Moor Court long ago, and I see almost as much of them as in the old days, as they now come to their London house every year for some months, and we go to several classes together, though I have a daily governess as well.
Nexррt year Sharley is to 'come out.' Just fancy! I am sure every one will think her very pretty. But not many can know as well as I do that her face only tells a very small part of her beauty. She is so very, very good.
I daresay you will wonder how Cousin Cosmo – grave, stern Cousin Cosmo – likes it all. His quiet solemn house the home of three adopted children, who are certainly not solemn, and not always 'quiet' by any means.
I can only tell you that he said to grandmamma not very long ago, and she told me, and I told Harry – that he had 'never been so happy since he was a boy himself,' all but a son to her and a brother to 'Paul' – that was my father, you know.
