Read Ebook: The Epic of Paul by Wilkinson William Cleaver

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Ebook has 822 lines and 172347 words, and 17 pages

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'Hasn't her a nice face?' 14

She was sitting in the dame's old-fashioned armchair, in the window of the little room; the bright summer sunshine streaming in behind her 31

Then there burst upon the view a wonderful surprise 74

Miss Bess and Master Francis were talking eagerly with old Prideaux 82

'Poor F'ancie,' she said pitifully. 'So tired, Baby wants to kiss thoo' 113

'Auntie!' he said, smiling a very little; 'how pretty you look!' 129

Sir Hulbert, holding Master Francis with one arm and the side of the ladder with the other, followed 179

NURSE HEATHERDALE'S STORY

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

'Dear me,' thought I to myself, 'I could almost make a story out of those young ladies and gentleman, though I've only seen them for a minute, or two at the most.'

For I was very fond of children even then, and knew a good deal about their ways, though not so much--no, nor nothing like--what I do now! But I was in rather a dreamy sort of humour. I had just left my first place,--that of nursery-maid with the family where my mother had been before me, and where I had stayed on older than I should have done by rights, because of thinking I was going to be married. And six months before, my poor Charles had died suddenly, or so at least it had seemed to us all. For he caught cold, and it went to his chest, and he was gone in a fortnight. The doctor said for all he looked strong, he was really sadly delicate, and it was bound to be sooner or later. It may have been true, leastways the doctor meant to comfort me by saying so, though I don't know that I found much comfort in the thought. Not so much anyhow as in mother's simple words that it was God's will, and so it must be right. And in thinking how happy we had been. Never a word or a coldness all the four years we were plighted. But it was hard to bear, and it changed all my life for me. I never could bring myself to think of another.

Still I was only twenty-one, and after I'd been at home a bit, the young ladies would have me back to cheer me up, they said. I travelled with them that spring; but when they all went up to London, and Miss Marian was to be married, and the two little ones were all day with the governess, I really couldn't for shame stay on when there was no need of me. So, though with many tears, I came home, and was casting about in my mind what I had best do--mother being hale and hearty, and no call for dress-making of a plain kind in our village--that afternoon, when I stood watching the stranger little gentry and old Larkins's donkey and the dog, as they crossed the common into the firwood.

It was mother's voice that woke me up, so to say.

'Martha,' she called out in her cheery way, 'what's thee doing, child? I'm about tidied up; come and get thy work, and let's sit down a bit comfortable. I don't like to see thee so down-like, and such bright summer weather, though mayhap the very sunshine makes it harder for thee, poor dear.'

And she gave a little sigh, which was a good deal for her, for she was not one as made much talk of feelings and sorrows. It seemed to spirit me up somehow.

'I wasn't like that just now, mother,' I said cheerfully. 'I've been watching some children--gentry--going over the common--three little young ladies and a boy, and Larkins's donkey. They made me think of Miss Charlotte and Miss Marian when first I went there, though plainer dressed a good deal than our young ladies were. But real gentry, I should say.'

'Not out of England, you don't mean, do you?' I asked. For mother, of course, kept all her old country talk, while I, with having been so many years with Miss Marian and her sisters, and treated more like a friend than a servant, and great pains taken with my reading and writing, had come to speak less old-fashioned, so to say, and to give the proper meaning to my words. 'Foreign parts really means out of this country, where they talk French or Italian, you know, mother.'

But mother only shook her head.

'Nay,' she said, 'I mean what I say. Furrin parts is furrin parts. I wouldn't say as they come from where the folks is nigger blacks, or from old Boney's country neither, as they used to frighten us about when I was a child. But these gentry come from furrin parts. Why, I had it from Sarah Nutfold's own lips, last Saturday as never was, at Brayling market, and old neighbours of forty years; it's not sense to think she'd go for to deceive me.'

Mother was just a little offended, I could see, and I thought to myself I must take care of seeming to set her right.

'Of course not,' I said. 'You couldn't have it surer than from Mrs. Nutfold. I daresay she's pleased to have them to cheer her up a bit. They seem nice little ladies to look at, though they're on the outside of plain as to their dress.'

'And more sense, too,' said mother. 'I always thought our young ladies too expensive, though where money's no consideration, 'tis a temptation to a lady to dress up her children, I suppose.'

'There now,' I cried, 'I could have said as much! The way she turned just now so sharp on the poor boy and the middle little lady. I could see she wasn't one of the right kind, though I didn't hear what she said. No one should be a nurse, or have to do with children, mother, who doesn't right down love them in her heart.'

'You're about right there, Martha,' mother agreed.

Just then father came in, and we sat round, the three of us, to our tea.

'It's a pleasure to have thee at home again, my girl, for a bit,' he said. And the kind look in his eyes made me feel both cheered and sad together. It was the first day I had been with them at tea-time, for I had got home pretty late the night before. 'And I hope it'll be a longish bit this time,' he went on.

I gave a little sigh.

'I'd like to stay a while; but I don't know that it would be good for me to stay very long, father, thank you,' I said. 'I'm young and strong and fit for work, and I'd like to feel I was able to help you and mother if ever the time comes that you're laid by.'

'Please God we'll never need help of that kind, my girl,' said father. 'But it's best to be at work, I know, when one's had a trouble. The day'll maybe come, Martha, when you'll be glad to have saved a little more for a home of your own, after all. So I'd not be the one to stand in your way, a few months hence--nor mother neither--if a good place offers.'

'Thank you, father,' I said again; 'but the only home of my own I'll ever care for will be here--by mother and you.'

And so it proved.

I little thought how soon father's words about not standing in my way if a nice place offered would be put to the test.

Another time it was the two elder girls and the lame boy I met. It was a windy day, and the eldest Missy's big flapping bonnet had blown back, so I had a good look at her. She was a beautiful child--blue eyes, very dark blue, or seeming so from the clear black eyebrows and thick long eyelashes, and dark almost black hair, with just a little wave in it; not so long or curling as her sister's, which was out-of-the-way beautiful hair, but seeming somehow just to suit her, as everything about her did. She came walking along with the proud springing step I had noticed that first day, and she was talking away to the others as if to cheer and encourage them, even though the boy was full three years older than she, and supposed to be taking charge of her and her sister, I fancy.

'Nonsense, Franz,' she was saying in her decided spoken way, 'nonsense. I won't have you and Lally treated like that. And I don't care--I mean I can't help if it does trouble mamma. Mammas must be troubled about their children sometimes; that's what being a mamma means.'

I managed to keep near them for a bit. I hope it was not a mean taking-advantage. I have often told them of it since--it was really that I did feel such an interest in the dear children, and my mind misgave me from the first about that nurse--it did so indeed.

I never did hear a child of her age speak so well as Miss Bess. It's pretty to hear broken talking in a child sometimes, lisping, and some of the funny turns they'll give their words; but it's even prettier to hear clear complete talk like hers in a young child.

Then came a gentle, pitiful little voice.

That was all I heard. I couldn't pretend to be obliged to walk slowly just behind them, for in reality I was rather in a hurry, so I hastened past; but just as I did so, their little dog, who was with them, looked up at me with a friendly half-bark, half-growl. That made the children smile at me too, and for the life of me, even if 'twas not good manners, I couldn't help smiling in return.

'Hasn't her a nice face?' I heard the second little young lady say, and it sent me home with quite a warm feeling in my heart.

It was about a week after that, when one evening as we were sitting together--father, mother, and I--and father was just saying there'd be daylight enough to need no candles that night--we heard the click of the little garden gate, and a voice at the door that mother knew in a moment was Widow Nutfold's.

'Good evening to you, Mrs. Heatherdale,' she said, 'and many excuses for disturbing of you so late, but I'm that put about. Is your Martha at home?--thank goodness, my dear,' as I came forward out of the dusk to speak to her. 'It's more you nor your good mother I've come after; you'll be thinking I'm joking when you hear what it is. Can you slip on your bonnet and come off with me now this very minute to help with my little ladies? Would you believe it--that their good-for-nothing girl is off--gone--packed up this very evening--and left me with 'em all on my hands, and Miss Baby beginning with a cold on her chest, and Master Francis all but crying with the rheumatics in his poor leg. And even the page-boy, as was here at first, was took back to London last week.'

The good woman held up her hands in despair, and then by degrees we got the whole story--how the nurse had not been meaning to stay longer than suited her own convenience, but had concealed this from her lady; and having heard by a letter that afternoon of another situation which she could have if she went at once, off she had gone, in spite of all poor Widow Nutfold could say or do.

'She took a dislike to me seein' as I tried to look after her a bit and to stop her nasty cross ways, and she told me that impertinent, as I wanted to be nurse, I might be it now. She has a week or two's money owing her, but she was that scornful she said she'd let it go; she had been a great silly for taking the place.'

'But she might be had up and made to give back some of her wages,' said father.

'Sir Hulbert and my lady are not that sort, and she knows it,' said Mrs. Nutfold. 'The wages was pretty fair--it was the dulness of the life down in Cornwall the girl objected to most, I fancy.'

'Cornwall,' repeated mother. 'There now, Martha, if that isn't furrin parts, I don't know what is.'

But I hadn't time to say any more. I hurried on my shawl and bonnet, and rolled up an apron or two, and slipped a cap into a bandbox, and there I was.

'Good-night, mother,' I said. 'I'll look round in the morning--and I don't suppose I'll be wanted to stay more than a day or two. My lady's sure to find some one at once, being in London too.'

'I should think so,' said old Sarah, but there was something in her tone I did not quite understand.

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