Winny

“ The rising wind as a sudden gust swept through the grove of willows, roused her from these thoughts, and she found old Winny Braddon, hard-featured and keen-eyed, lingering near, with anxiety depicted in her face.
"The winter is setting in early, surely," said Constance; "we are not out of autumn yet, Winny, and see how dark the evening has become!"
"En hâv perkou gwâv, my mother used to say, old Cornish for 'in summer, remember winter,'" replied Winny. "A sad night it will be for the poor fellows on board ship, ma'am, I fear." ”

“ I have seen too much of his ways, and heard too many of his words, ever to like him, father; there is no use in trying to make me, for I never can."
"But, Winny jewel, you have hardly answered my question yet. Are you secretly promised, Winny, to any other young man that you're afeard I wouldn't like? that's the plain question. The truth now, Winny,—the truth, Winny!"
"No, father, certainly not. Tom Murdock is the only man that ever asked me."
"Was there ever anything betune you an' young Lennon, Emon-a-knock, as I have heard you call him myself?" ”

“ Winny's face pressed closer and closer to the lattice. One of her little feet went tap-tapping on the gravel, beating the measure of the waltz. For at the sound of the music, at the sight of the locked and whirling couples, her memory revived; she heard again the beating of the measure old as time; she felt in her limbs the start and strain of the wild energy; and instinct, savage and shy, moved in the rhythm of her blood, and desire for the joy of the swift running, of the lacing arms and flying feet. ”

“ Then a dreadful feeling came into my mind—suppose Winny were dead, and that I had refused to make friends and say good-night! I must have got fanciful with lying awake, I suppose, and you know I was only a very little girl. I could not bear it—I stretched myself across to Winny and put my arms round her.
“Winny! Winny!” I said, “wake up, Winny, and kiss me, and let us say good-night.”
Winny woke up almost immediately, and she seemed to understand at once.
“Poor little Meg,” she said, “poor little Meg. We will never be unkind to each other again—never. Good-night, dear Meg.” ”

“ He showed her everything except the room she had seen already, the room with the love knots and the rosebuds where Violet and the Baby were. Winny admired everything with joy and yet with reverence, from the splendid overmantel in the front sitting-room to the hot-water tap in the bathroom.
"My word," Winny said, "what I'd give to have a bath like that!"
"I say," said Ransome, suddenly moved, "you take a lot more interest in it all than Virelet does."
"She's used to it," said Winny. "Besides, I always take an interest in other people's houses." ”

“ They had been silent for a perceptible time, Ransome lying on his back while Winny, seated beside him, gathered what daisies and buttercups were within her reach. And as he watched her sidelong, it struck him all at once that Winny's life was worse even than his own. Winny was clever, and she had a berth as book-keeper in Starker's, one of the smaller drapers' shops in Oxford Street, near Woolridge's. Her position was as good as his, yet she only earned five pounds a month to his eight. ”

“ I mean to enjoy life," said Winny. "And I do enjoy it."
Ranny, lying on his back with his face turned up to the sky, said that that was a jolly sight more than he did; that for his part he thought it a pretty rotten show.
Winny stared, for this utterance was most unlike him.
"My goodness! What ever in the world's wrong with you?"
Everything, he answered, gloomily, was wrong.
"What an idea!" said Winny.
It was an idea, he said, if it was nothing else. At any rate, it was his idea. And Winny wanted to know what made him have it.
"Oh, I dunno. There are things a fellow wants he hasn't got." ”

“ Fortune was very unkind to him he thought, in not giving him a fine house for these children, and a thousand or two per annum to keep them on.
"Are we going to your chambers, Gerald?"
"That is another foolish question, Winny! My chambers are hardly large enough for me. I have taken lodgings for you this morning; the best I could at a minute's notice. London is full of drawbacks and inconveniences: if you have to put up with some, you must remember that you have brought them on yourself."
"Will there be any dinner for us?" asked Winny timidly. "The poor little girls are very hungry." ”

“ But still I like to think about it, and I like to think of what my aunties told me of the days Winny was ill—how happy and patient she was, how she seemed to “understand” about going, and how she loved to have fresh wreaths of primroses about her all the time she was ill.
I am a big girl now—nearly twelve. I am a good deal bigger than Winny was when she died, even Blanche is now as big as she was—is that not strange to think of? Perhaps I may live to be quite, quite an old woman—that seems stranger still. But even if I do I shall never forget Winny. ”

“ We know what these are to us; but we cannot know the secret pleasures God gives to Winny, nor the opportunities of usefulness that comes in her way. I happen to know that, by her patience and her firm belief in what I have just said to you, Winny is exercising an influence on her friends and neighbours that makes her life one of the most useful as well as the most happy, for she is quite sure that she is doing God's will as she lies there on her couch, and what higher life can anyone desire? Our Winny is one of the happiest girls I know," concluded the lady.
"She always seems happy," said one. ”

“ He realized it when he saw Baby sprawling in the safe hollow of her lap. He had meant to tell Winny that she mustn't stay; but she had him by those absurd petticoats of hers, and behind her petticoats he shielded himself from the upbraidings of his sanity.
But Winny knew. She was not going to stay, to be there with him more than was strictly necessary. When, with exquisite gentleness, she had inserted Baby into all his little vests and things, she put on him his knitted Baby's coat and hat, and gave him to Ranny to hold while she arrayed Dossie in her Sunday best. ”

“ While Winny was busying herself for the tea, putting down a huge kettle of water in the kitchen, and rattling the cups and saucers until you'd think she was trying to break them, the old man wakened up into a train of thought not altogether dissimilar to that which Winny herself had indulged in over his sleeping form. ”

“ To hear such news as this seemed almost too good to be true, and the poor woman with the thought of taking home her day's earnings was almost overwhelmed with joy.
When she got back at night, Winny had some more good news in store for her. A letter had come from Annie Brown, who had heard about the strike away there in the country, and so for the future she was going to send every penny she could spare out of her wages for fruit-picking to help her father and Winny. She did not know yet that Winny had given up her own chance of a country visit for her to go instead. ”

“ When they were ready, Chaplin lifted Winny from her couch to the opposite side of the room and Letty helped her take off her clothes, and very soon three out of the four were sound asleep.
But for Winny there was very little rest that night. Her father had set her thinking in a fashion that was not pleasant. How could it be that poor men like her father should not be able to put, as he said, his heart into his work, and do it, as she knew God would have all work done, intelligently and heartily. ”

“ Wouldn't it be better and fitter for you to bestow yourself and your land upon some handsome young girl who has nothing of her own, and was, maybe, well inclined for you, and to rise her up to be independent, than to be striving to force yourself and it upon them that doesn't want your land, and cannot care for yourself? Why don't you look about you? There's many a girl in the parish as handsome, and handsomer, than I am, that would just jump at you."
Winny had no sooner uttered these latter words than she regretted them. She did not wish Tom Murdock to know that she had overheard him. ”

“ But Winny was not the girl to be frustrated by any unnecessary prudery on such an occasion.
"Father," she said, "there's Emon at our chapel to-day for the first time since he was hurt. Let us not be behindhand with the neighbors to congratulate him on his recovery. I see all the Rathcash people are glad to see him."
"And so they ought, Winny; I'm glad you told me he was here, for I did not happen to see him. Stand where you are until he comes up." And the old man stood patiently for some minutes while Emon's friends were expressing their pleasure at his reappearance. ”

“ Ransome was surprised to see in Violet so large a heart and a mind so open. For not only did she tolerate Winny, she clung, he could see that she clung, to her like a child. She even tolerated what he wouldn't have thought a woman would have stood for a single instant, the fact, the palpable fact, that Ranny couldn't get along without her any more than she could.
And if they could, the Baby couldn't. Baby (she was Dorothy now and Dossie) cried for Winny when Winny wasn't there. She would run from her mother's voice to hide her face in Winny's skirts. ”

“ Nightfall, and Violet hadn't come back.
"I'm glad she's got out at last," Winny said. "She's had such an awful day."
"You think she doesn't get out enough, then?"
She hesitated.
"I do. Not really out because of Baby."
They sat near, they spoke low, so as not to wake the child that slept on Winny's knee.
"The kid doesn't give her many awful days. It's such a jolly kid. Any one would think she'd be happy with it."
"She's so young, Ranny. You should think of that. She's only like a child herself. She's got to be looked after. She doesn't know much about babies. ”

“ Benjie, comprehending our words, said, "Hi, Benjie, cook that for them, hi, Benjie, first-rate good cook, and send a pye-grape down to Miss Winny." Miss Winny was his pet, because when the little girls with more openness and candour than civility, expressed their horror of a black cook, Winny had endeavoured to soften the matter as much as possible, declaring that even if he had a black face he had whiter teeth than anybody else, and she was sure that if he could he would have washed himself long ago, "Besides," she ended, "he is so kind and gentle, that I am sure his mind and soul are white." ”

“ Let Winny alone for that. Women seldom make a bad guess in such a case.
Winny's mental and nervous system having both regained their ordinary degree of composure, she left her room, and proceeded through the house upon her usual occupations. She was not, however, quite free from a certain degree of anxiety at the anticipated interview with her father. He had not in any way intimated his intention to ask certain questions touching any communication she might have received from Tom Murdock, together with her answers thereto ”

“ You are to ride over with me to Walcot Park, where I have left Winifred, as she refused flatly to come to Winchester--why, I know not. She will afford you an opportunity of slipping the ring again on your fair one's finger, and doing anything else that may suggest itself at such a time--you comprehend, eh? Winny bluntly asked Lady Naseby's permission to invite you, as you were so soon to leave England. ”

“ She made him savage this evening, and he took and boxed Kitty."
"She! Who?"
"The landlady--Miss Cook."
"Winny, I paid Miss Cook myself, last week."
"Oh, but I didn't tell you there was more owing to her; I didn't like to," answered helpless Winny. "There is; and she has begun to worry always. She gets things in for us, and wants to be paid for them."
"Of course she does," thought Hamish. "Where's Gerald?" he asked. ”

“ We learnt lessons together, and we slept together in two little beds side by side, and we did everything together, from eating our breakfast to dressing our dolls—and when one was away the other seemed only half alive. All our frocks and hats and jackets were exactly the same, and except that Winny was taller than I, we should never have known which was which of our things. I am sure Winny was a very good little girl, but when I try to remember all about her exactly, what seems to come back most to me is her being always so happy. She did not need to think much about being good and not naughty ”

“ Even the priest, Father{2} Donovan, him as you may remember used to have stations twice a-year in the village, didn’t come to anoint poor Winny when she was dying. You see, they send for him so often when there’s no occasion; and—”
“But, tell me,” said Norcott impatiently, “does this girl, John Beacham’s wife, know anything about her parentage? Did the old people, your grandfather and grandmother, keep the child at Moyfeckan after poor Winny’s death? I don’t understand it all. Was there any money to support her—the girl, I mean? And where has she been living all these years?” ”

“ But it was a strain upon the heart and upon the nerves; and the effect on Winny's physique was so evident that Ranny noticed it. He noticed that Winny was more slender and less sturdy than she used to be; her figure, to his expert eye, suggested the hateful possibility of flabbiness. He thought he had traced the deterioration to its source when he asked her if she had chucked the Poly. ”

“ People say it is old Lady Naseby whom he affects; but I don't think so; neither does Winny. You will probably have heard much of this kind of gossip from Lady Estelle herself. She certainly got your Malta letter, and one from the camp before Sebastopol--so Winny, who is in her confidence, told me. You only can know if she replied--Winny rather thinks not; but I hope she may be faithful to you as Oriana herself.
"I heard all about poor Caradoc's affair from Dora; but Winny has refused another offer of marriage--a most eligible one, too--from Sir Watkins Vaughan ”