Mrs. Molesworth

“ We've lots of days here when it's so gray and dull that the sea and the sky seem all muddled up together. I'm not so very fond of the sea myself. People say it's so beautiful in a storm, and I suppose it is, but I don't care for that kind of beauty, there's something so furious and wild about it. I don't think raging should be counted beautiful. Shouldn't we only call good things beautiful?'
He looked up with a puzzle in his eyes. Master Francis always had thoughts beyond his age and far beyond me to answer. ”

“ It can't be that Uncle Hulbert's got a lot of money.'
'There are some things better than money,' I said. 'What would you think if a dear little baby boy had come in the night?'
His whole face flushed pink with pleasure.
'Nurse!' he said. 'Is it really true? Oh! how pleased I am. Just the very thing auntie has wanted so—a little boy of her own. I may count him like a brother, mayn't I? Won't Bess and Lally be pleased! Do they know? Mayn't I get up at once, and when do you think I may see him?'
'Some time to-day, I hope,' I answered. 'No, the young ladies don't know yet. They're fast asleep. ”

“ A few quiet words from Sir Hulbert had far more effect.
'My dear boy,' he said gravely, 'what you have to do is to try to get well and not fret yourself. If it is God's will that your going to school should be put off, you must not take it to heart. You're not in such a hurry to leave us as all that, are you?'
The last few words were spoken very kindly and he smiled as he said them. I was glad of it, for I had not thought his uncle quite as tender of the boy as he had used to be. They pleased Master Francis, I could see, and another thought came into his mind which helped to quiet him. ”

“ Teaching Miss Lally—and I had something to do with her in this way, for I used to hear over the lessons she was getting ready for Miss Kirstin—was really like running along a smooth road, the child was so eager and attentive, never losing a word of what was said to her. Miss Bess used to say that her sister had a splendid memory by nature. But in my long life I've watched and thought about some things a great deal, and it seems to me that a good memory has to do with our own trying, more than some people would say,—above all, with the habit of really giving attention to whatever you're doing. ”

“ Dear me,' she said again, 'it really does seem sometimes as if money would put everything in life right.'
'Oh! my lady,' I exclaimed hastily, and then I got red with shame at my forwardness and stopped short. I felt very sorry for her; the one thought seemed never out of her mind, and bid fair to poison her happy home. I felt too that it was scarcely the sort of talk for the children to hear, Miss Bess being already in some ways so old for her years, and the two others scarce as light-hearted as they should have been. ”

“ Poor children, through all their talk and plans the one trouble seemed always to keep coming up.
'I fancy that's according a good deal to how young gentlemen take it. There's some that spend a fortune at college, I've heard, but some that are very careful; and I expect you'd be that kind, Master Francis.'
'Yes,' he said, in his grave way. 'I wouldn't want to cost Uncle Hulbert more than I can help. I wish one could be a clergyman without going to college though.'
'You've got to go to school first,' said Miss Bess. ”

“ Jacob didn't seem to mind, I must say, nor Miss Baby neither, though she must have been pretty well jolted, but it was worth the trouble.
'Isn't it lovely, nurse?' said Miss Bess, when at last we found ourselves in the bay on the smooth firm sand, the sea in front of us, and so encircled on three sides by the rocks that even the path by which we had come was hidden.
'This bay is so beautifully shut in,' said Master Francis. 'You could really fancy that there was no one in the world but us ourselves. ”

“ All the same he wouldn't let Miss Bess go down to her papa. Sir Hulbert was busy, he knew; he had several letters to write, he had heard him say, so Miss Bess had to give in.
'I'll tell you what it is,' she said. 'People who are generally rather naughty, like me,'—Miss Bess was in a humble mood!—'get made a great fuss about when they're good. But people who are always good, like Franz, never get any praise for it, and if ever they do the least bit wrong, they are far worse scolded.'
This made Master Francis laugh. It was something, as Miss Bess said, among the children themselves. ”

“ Even to this day I never go up the great staircase—of course it is not often that I pass that way—without recalling the feelings with which I stepped up it for the first time—Mrs. Brent in front, carrying a small hand-lamp, the passages being so dark, though it was still early in the evening; the children running on before me, except Miss Baby, who was rather sleepy and very cross, poor dear, so that half way up I had to lift her in my arms. All up the dark wainscoted walls, dead and gone Penroses looked down upon us, in every sort of ancient costume. ”

“ Nutfold had managed. That was how she put it—my lady always had a gracious way with her, I will say—and I was to be thanked for my obligingness; she was sure her little dears would be happy with any one so well thought of by the dame. They were very busy indeed just then, she and Sir Hulbert, she said, and very gay. But when I came to know her better I did her justice, and saw she was not the butterfly I was inclined to think her. She was just frantic to get her husband forward, so to speak, and far more ambitious for him than caring about anything for herself. ”

“ The boy picked her up in his arms, and I saw the fair shaggy head and fat dimpled cheeks clasped close and near to his thin white face, and if there were tears in Master Francis's eyes I am sure it wasn't anything to be ashamed of. Never was a braver spirit, and no one that knows him now could think him less a hero could they look back over the whole of his life.
I found Miss Bess sitting quietly with the pincushion on her lap, by the window, making patterns with the pins, apparently quite content. ”

“ But, as everybody knows, things in this world seldom turn out as they are planned.
There was a great deal of writing and considering about Master Francis's school, and I could see that both Sir Hulbert and my lady had it much on their minds. They would never have thought of sending him anywhere but of the best, but in those days schools, even for little boys, cost, I fancy, quite as much or more than now. And I can't say but what I think that the worry and the difficulty about it rather added to his aunt's prejudice against the boy. ”

“ Nutfold's breath was getting short—she was stout in her later years—and that she was a little cross. 'You must ask for yourself, Martha.'
So I said no more, though I had wanted to hear about the boy, who had spoken of their mother as his aunty, and how he had come to be so delicate and lame. And in a few minutes more we found ourselves at the door of Clover Cottage; that was Mrs. Nutfold's house, though 'Bramble Cottage' would have suited it better, standing where it did. ”

“ Miss Kirstin, when I came to know her, I found to be a good well-meaning young lady, but she hadn't the knack of making lessons very interesting. It wasn't perhaps altogether her fault; in those days books for young people, both for lessons and amusement, were very different from what they are now. School-books were certainly very dry and dull, and there was a sort of feeling that making lessons pleasant or taking to children would have been weak indulgence. ”

“ Miss Bess only said it to tease.'
She was still sobbing, but all the same she had not forgotten to wrap up her precious knitting in her little apron, so that her cousin shouldn't catch sight of it, and her heart was already softening to her sister.
'Queen didn't mean to make me cry,' she said. 'But I can't bear that story; nobody would love me if I was only a pertence little girl.'
'But you're not that, my dear; you're a very real little girl,' I said. 'You're your papa's and mamma's dear little daughter and God's own child. ”

“ What used to be 'the secret room,' where our miser ancestor kept the hoard so strangely discovered, has been joined, by taking down the ceiling, to what in the old days was Uncle Francis's room, and enters from a door lower down the tower stair, and Uncle Bevil's boys have made it into what they call their 'Museum.' We are all very fond of showing it to visitors, and explaining how it used to be, and telling the whole story. Uncle Francis always maintains that Aunt Lally saved his life, and though she gets very red when he says so, I do think it is true. ”

“ And he took much to heart also the fresh expenses for his uncle. But, on the other hand, he was eager to get on with his learning; he liked it for its own sake, and, as he used to say to me sometimes when we were talking alone—
'It's only by my mind, you know, nurse, that I can hope to be good for anything. If I had been strong and my leg all right, I'd have been a soldier like papa, I suppose.'
'There's soldiers and soldiers, you must remember, Master Francis,' I would reply. 'There's victories to be won far greater than those on the battlefield. ”

“ For I feel much the same myself about loving firwoods, though, so to say, I was born and bred among them. There's a charm one can't quite explain about them—the sameness and the stillness and the great tops so high up, and yet the bareness and openness down below, though always in the shade. ”

“ I was not left very long to my meditations, however; before an hour had passed there came a clear voice up the old staircase, 'Martha, Martha, come quick, mamma wants you,' and hastening out I met Miss Bess at the door. She turned and ran down again, I following her more slowly.
How well I remember the group I saw as I opened the parlour door! It was like a picture. Lady Penrose herself was more than pretty—beautiful, I have heard her called, and I think it was no exaggeration. She was sitting in the dame's old-fashioned armchair, in the window of the little room ”

“ Above all, for my dear lady's sake, I scarcely like to own to myself that she is beginning to fail, for though I speak of myself as an old woman and feel it is true, yet I can't bear to think that her years are running near to the appointed threescore and ten, for she is nine years older than I. She has certainly [Pg 189] never been the same, and no wonder, since Sir Hulbert's death, but she has had many comforts, and almost the greatest of them has been, as I think I have said before, Master Francis. ”

“ He never thinks of himself, his whole life has been given to the noblest work. His writings, I am told, though they're too learned for my old head, have made him a name far and wide. And all this he has done in spite of delicate health and frequent suffering. He seems older than his years, and Sir Bevil is in hopes that before long he may persuade his cousin to give up his hard London parish and make his regular home where he is so longed for, in Treluan itself, as our vicar, and indeed I pray that it may be so while I am still here to see it. ”

“ I've always been that fond of children that whatever I have to do for them comes right—what does try my temper is to see things half done, or left undone by silly upsetting girls who haven't a grain of the real nurse's spirit in them. ”

“ It is not often one can trace back illnesses to their cause. Most often I fancy there are more than one. But just after Christmas Master Francis began with rheumatic fever. We couldn't at first believe it was going to be anything so bad. For my lady's sake, and indeed for everybody's, I tried to cheer up and be hopeful, in spite of the doctor's gloomy looks. It was a real [Pg 127] disappointment to myself and took down my pride a bit, for I had done my best by the child, hoping to start him for school as strong and well as was possible for him. ”

“ Francie and I do fink such a lot about it. Bess does too, but she's so clever, she's sure she'll do something when she's big to get a lot of money for papa and mamma. But I'm not clever, and Francie has got his sore leg; we can't fink of anything we could do, unless we could find some fairies; but Francie's sure there aren't any, and he's past ten, so he must know.'
'You can do a great deal, dear Miss Lally,' I said. 'Don't get it into your head you can't. Rich or poor, there's nothing helps papas and mammas so much as their children being good, and loving, and obedient ”