Nellie's Memories. A domestic story

Front matter

■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ I I I I ■ ■ I _l .Bomesttc Storg BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY AUTHOR OF " WOOED AND MARRIED," " BARBARA HEATHCOTE's TRIAL," ETC. A NE W EDITION LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON in _H_in__n to _jei jfSlajrstg tlie <_.ticm 1S80 [All Rights Rcsen'cd] ___a.-ai.t|m_ -press BALLANTYNE AND HANSON, EDINBURGH CHANDOS STREET, LONDON TO THE MEMORY OF THAT BELOVED PARENT, TO WHOSE AFFECTIONATE SCRUTINY SO MANY OF THE FOLLOWING PAGES WERE SUBMITTED, THIS SIMPLE STORY _:_ _.e..catc_ BY HIS SORROWING DAUGHTER. CONTENTS .ACS

Chapter I

' She was a soft landscape of mild earth, Where all was harmony and calm and p,uiet, Luxuriant, budding, cheerful without mirth; Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it Than are your mighty passions. ' — Byron. ' She doeth little kindnesses Which most leave undone or despise ; For nought that sets one s heart at ease. And giveth happiness or peace, Is low esteemed in her eyes.' — Lowell. I DO not think there is a prettier room to be found in England than our drawing-room at Sunnyside, and I know I would not change it and its dear old shabbiness and faded chintz covers for the most superb apartment in Belgravia. To me your gilded saloons and rainbow tapestries are an abomination ; grandeur and gentility may move therein hand in hand, but give me the well-littered homelike parlour, where the girls may sew their lengths of calico unhindered, and the boys put down their papers unrebuked.

A long, low, wainscoted room is our drawing-room at Sunnyside, reaching from end to end of the house, with one window looking out on the lawn and the cedar-tree in the middle, and the other on the nagged stone court and iron gate and the lilac and laburnums that grow round it. A room full of sweet scents and sounds, and faint this afternoon with the fragrance of the white hyacinths which Louie has so tastefully grouped in the tall china jars ; with picturesque snatches of light and shade playing on the well-worn carpet, and hiding in the quaint nooks and crevices with which it abounds. And here I must plead guilty to a little weakness : I hate change, I cannot bear breaking up old associations in the minutest degree, even by the removal or readjustment of an article of furniture. I like to look round and say, ' It was here she last sat,' or 'in that couch my poor mother loved to lie and watch the boys playing on the lawn.' My poor mother ! it is just six months since she faded quietly away, and left me, a weak girl of one-and-twenty, to take up the burden of her responsibility.

Poor mother ! she was ever a grave, sad woman, somewhat stern, and so reserved with her children that it was not till her dying hour that I B ever guessed or imagined that I was more to her than the rest ; till she took me by the hand, and called me her good, her favourite child, and solemnly committed my brothers and sisters to my care, bidding me watch over them with a mother's love, and over my father with the tenderness of a wife. Well, Heaven knows I have striven to do so, but were it not for Dudley I should be utterly weary ; he is my sole help and support, for our father is still sadly cast down, but we are all trusting to this London visit to work wonders for him. This time in the afternoon I call my quiet hour : Louie is always out, and the boys in school, and I can sit and sew undisturbedly in my low chair by the open window, with the pleasant sounds of the house-martens twittering under the eaves, and the happy incessant humming of Louie's bees.

There is not a sound in the old house ; in another hour there will be the tramp of eager feet, caps and satchels will be cast down on the hall table, and a perfect strife of tongues will prevail. There are seven of us girls and boys ; Dudley and Bruce come first, then I and Louie. Dudley is not so hand some as his brother, who is considered a perfect Apollo in our village, but to me Dudley's grey eyes and grave, sweet smile are worth all Bruce's chiselled features and languid, aristocratic air, which always chafes me with its proud assumption, though Dudley says I am rather hard on him, as he is a downright good fellow in the main, and an excellent man of business ; and perhaps, after all, the fault lies with the girls who spoil him dreadfully ; and, as they say at home, I am not impartial.

For Dudley is my darling and my friend ; ever since I can remember anything, he and I have been inseparable in all our childish joys and sorrows, and since the day our mother died he has been more than brother to me, and however sad I may feel, or weary like Martha with ' much serving,' the sound of his ringing laughter seems to lighten my heart like magic. They say I am like Dudley in person ; I know I have his eyes and hair, but there all resemblance ceases. Louie and Bruce are the beauties of the family, and they know it. Louie, though younger than I, is invariably supposed to be my senior. She is a tall, fair woman, with large loving eyes, and a splendid head covered with rippling^ ruddy masses of hair. A loveable, indolent, graceful creature, with a majestic a.r that has won for her the endearing name of ' Queen Loo,' lazy, ease-loving, sweet-tempered ; and withal as proud and imperial as her name.

A veritable mass of contradiction is our Loo ; she is a Lady Bountiful in our village, and is all but worshipped by the poor, whom she is ever ready to assist by word or deed. I have known her go miles in the severest weather to visit a sick child, or carry food to a starving family, yet will refuse invariably to fulfil the lightest domestic office, terming it drudgery - and it is a household proverb that whatever Queen Loo3 says or does is right. She is the possessor of a small legacy from an aunt, which is divided between her poor and her dress ; were it not for this, I believe we should have been long ago ruined by her extravagance and vagaries. Next to Louie came a pale, crippled boy who died some eight years back, and then our bonnie handsome school-boy Halcot, and then my pet Charlie with his sweet violet eyes and sunny smile, the plague and darling of the house.

I do not know how it is, but Charlie is always in scrapes and getting out again from morning to night ; not a day passes without some complaint, yet he is so delicate and sensitive a child that we dare not punish him ; besides which I can scarcely withstand his wistful eyes and his eager explanation and entreaties for pardon ; as for the windows he has broken, their name is ' Legion ;' weekly there is a smash of broken glass, and ' Please, Miss, master Charlie has broken the nursery window and woke baby,' then the entrance of a curly head and rosy, tear-stained face, and there is the lecture to be gone over again. How Charlie would ever manage to get on at school without Halcot I cannot imagine ; I expect his life would be a perfect martyrdom : lately Dudley has taken him in hand, and I trust he will do some good with him ; for the little fellow minds him more than anybody else.

Lastly comes our mother's last legacy, our little Rill, for so Dudley called her one day when he heard her sweet babbling talk to the daisies on the lawn, and Rill we have called her ever since, though her real baptismal name is Maud. And yonder totters the little maid with naked rosy feet across the stone hall, socks and shoes solemnly tucked under her arms. ' Oh, naughty little Rill, naughty baby to take off her socks,' I cry, catching her up in my arms ; Rill answers by making her mouth into a great rosebud which she gives for a peace-offering, and this being received graciously, bursts into a perfect shout of baby laughter, and as I bend over to rub the little cold toes, begins squeez ing my face and head, and uttering sweet inarticulate murmurs. ' Oh, my bonnie bairn,' I say, kissing the dimpled fat hands, and then I hear a quick step, and 'Nellie, Nellie, where are you?' ' Here, Dudley, here, my dear,' and somehow as I answer I have a strange feeling that were I lying in my quiet grave the sound of that light tread over the daisies at my head would reach even my lifeless ears and stir me into life. 'Well, Nell, playing as usual the part of little mother,' and Dudley drops down on his knees before baby, after giving me the usual afternoon kiss, and buries his face in the creasy neck. ' Pigs, pigs,' cries Rill, protruding her forward little toes, and Dudley goes to market accordingly, eliciting screams of delight. ' Oh, Dudley, take care,' for Rill is snatched from my arms and lifted aloft on Dudley's shoulder, as he scampers round the room and across the hall, neighing loudly to imitate Billy the blind pony.

There is another rush, and then he and Rill disappear together into the depths of an easy-chair. ' Oh, she will be the death of me !' said Dudley, tossing his hair from his brow ; ' on a June afternoon, too. Oh ! I am so hot : ' whereupon baby commences to be very s)-mpathetic, and taking out a doll's handkerchief begins a minute course of rubbing down, while she croons out a litde song over him, which has the effect of sending him to sleep, while I take up my work again, smiling to myself. Hark, the old church bell chimes the quarter ; I must go and make tea, for he will want it, poor fellow, when he wakes. As I pass through the hall on my way to the dining-room, I can see Bruce lounging under the cedar-tree, cigarette in hand, and Louie standing near him in her broad-brimmed hat. These two conspire to spoil each other ; and as far as tastes go, they are wonderfully alike — they both enjoy the dokefar tiiente so thoroughly, and both take life in the same indolent, gracious way.

Our diningparlour is the same size as our drawing-room, wainscoted with dark oak, and filled with heavy cumbrous furniture, which task little hands sorely to remove it. Our tea-table is our great institution, the most genial meal of the day. Dinner is always a hurried piece of business, despatched as quickly as possible, with little or no conversation, save a few business remarks exchanged between Dudley7 and his brother, or a languid protest from Bruce at the boys' voracious appetites. But tea-time is a different affair ; it is our great social gathering — the pleasantest hour of the day ; work is over, and the boys' lessons done, leisure and ease prevail, and there is one buzz of happy talk round the singing urn. Every one has his or her piece of news to impart, anecdotes of school-fellows and school-fellows' doings from Halcot and Charlie, genteel scraps of gossip from Louie and Bruce, and good-humoured jokes from Dudley ; it used to be the habit of every one to talk at once, but happily this has been greatly remedied.

As I stood on the threshold, on this afternoon in which I first took up the warp and woof of our life — our sweet home life — in order to piece its fragments into a retrospective whole, I gazed for a moment half sadly at the homely table, which looked gay enough with the evening sun streaming on snowy cloth and glistening silver, and thought how long it seemed since I first took my mother's old seat at the tea-tray, and little Rill in her black frock was placed in her high chair beside me. What if I should fail in my duty to one of these little ones, was the constant burthen of my fear ; but when I hinted at such a doubt to my father, he said, ' Keep a brave heart, Nellie, and do your best ; neither your dear mother nor I would ever ask more,' so I mean to take Dudley's favourite motto, ' Nil desperandum,' for my own, and not meet troubles half-way, as is my usual stupid custom. 'Nellie, may Seymour come in to tea?' 'Yes, Halcot, if his mother can spare him,' I answer, pausing in the everlasting bread .and-butter cutting to turn to the voice.

Certainly our Halcot is a handsome lad, but he is nothing to be compared to the noble type of English boy that stands beside him, with his fair Saxon face, and proud, free bearing ; and Seymour Egerton is as superior to Halcot in intellect and strength of character as he is in looks. Nevertheless, these form a striking instance of true-hearted boyish friendship, of a friendship so strong and so unselfish, that it can scarcely be ex pressed by the rough school terms of chums and mates, but contains the germs of something higher and nobler. It is not only that they are inseparable as playmates and school-fellows, or that the one cares for no pleasure of which the other is not a partaker ; but there is a singular beauty in the earnestness of their affection for each other, which, generally undemonstrative, after the manner of boys, comes to the surface only at seasons of great excitement.

Dudley has noticed this as well as I ; years ago he christened them the family Damon and Pythias — terms which, being at that time but very young students, thoroughly perplexed and disgusted them ; and to the infinite delight of his elder brother, poor Halcot was heard to exclaim, ' that he thought a person need not go down as low as the infernal regions for a name for a fellow ;' of course, since then our Damon has kept his name, and I am happy to say is more reconciled to it. Most of Seymour's half-holidays are spent at our house, and many an evening besides, so that we look upon him as one of ourselves ; therefore my acquiescence in Halcot's request is considered as certain. ' Thanks, Nellie, I will come in then, as my mother and father are dining at the Harrisons' to-night ; she is so much better, and they have urged it so, that father is to carry her across ; so I will just run over, and be back in a moment.

Don't w7ait for me.' ' No, old fellow ; I'll leave you your share of the cranberry jam,' shouted Halcot ; ' only be quick ; we'll get Bruce to join us in a game of cricket on the lawn after tea.' ' All right,' echoed down the lane, as the straw hat and blue ribbon disappeared in a twinkling. ' Halcot,' I said, after a pause, during which I continued bread and-butter cutting — I am certain Werthei-'s Charlotte never cut such piles as I did daily—' this is the third time Seymour has taken tea here this week. I believe you would like him to live with us altogether.' Halcot turned from the window, where he was quietly whittling wood, with an apologetic laugh. ' Why, you see, Nellie, it is so awfully slow for him at home ; no brothers and sisters, his mother always ill, and his father shut up in his study — of course he likes to come here.' ' Of course he does ; only I was speaking of you, not him.' ' I_-Well, 'tis all the same ; what he likes I do, and what I like you do,' finishing this elegant argument by giving me a schoolboy's hug ; after which he refreshed the general tone ofhis mind by such an application to the tea gong as quickly brought the stragglers from all parts, and in a moment the table was surrounded. ' Hallo, Loo ! ' cried Dudley, as she entered in her train of bombazine and crape, and kissed him in her usual calm and stately manner, ' where have you been while Rill has been mesmerizing me to sleep ?' ' Under the cedar-tree with Bruce— Take care, Seymour, boy, as he rushed in breathlessly and took the chair beside her— ' arranging with him about to-morrow.' ' To-morrow, to-morrow ! ' mused Dudley ; ' what of to-morrow, Loo?' ' To-morrow, Dudley !

Why, you remember you promised us an afternoon's fishing,' interrupted Halcot and Seymour; 'we have been looking forward to it this week past, and the weather's glorious.' ' Ay, ay, young gentlemen ; it had slipped my mind, though. Well, I will be ready for you by two o'clock. Who else goes with us?' ' Oh, Charlie, of course.' ' I don't think Charlie will,' said Dudley, looking gravely but kindly at the little face by his side, which grew suddenly red as he spoke. ' I think we said Charlie had forfeited his holiday this week ; hey, Charlie ?' Charlie's eyes filled with tears, but he did not answer, and Halcot and Seymour both knew too well the perfect justice of the sentence to interfere ; so the conversation went on with arguments between the boys as to the best manner of making flies. But the litde heart was too full of the disappointment to contain itself : for a few minutes the boy's spirit battled w7ith the child's, and I saw him bravely gulp down his feelings twice or thrice ; then one tear rolled down, then another, and then he put down his head on Dudley's arm and burst out crying.

Poor Charlie's sobs would have been terribly echoed by Rill's shrill little voice had not Seymour, by a pleasing and well timed application of jam, turned her attention into a sweeter channel, and afforded a charming opportunity for smearing her white pinafore unperceived that was not to be despised. I signed a piteous protest to Dudley as to whether justice were not to be tempered with mercy, and receiving no marked discouragement proceeded to my soothing task. ' Listen, Charlie boy ; don't cry so, and we will think of some thing we may do to-morrow, as you must not go fishing. Don't you think if we were to go to Holme Lee Wood, you and I, to gather some early strawberries for dear father when he comes home, — he likes wild strawberries, and they must be ripe by this time ; we will take Rill and blind Billy and a basket, and — ' ' Picnic in the woods this delicious spring weather, and not ask me to be of the party, you naughty little woman,' cried Dudley ; ' boys, you had better make friends with Bruce, he is a far better fisherman than I, and let me off.' ' Oh no, Dudley, you promised ; oh no, it would be no fun without you,' pleaded the lads. - Don't trouble yourselves,' said Bruce, ' Loo has booked me for the afternoon for better sport than fishing.' ' Indeed, what is your little game, Loo ?' ' Oh, we are going to ride with the Thornton girls to see the far-famed ruin that they pretend to have discovered, and Bruce has promised to escort us.' Dudley arched his eyebrows. ' What animal do you propose to ■bestride?' ' Oh, Hazlewood's, of course ; he always puts Larkspur at my service when he is in the North.

Really, Dudley, it is a noble beast : I wish the governor would buy him for us ; it is perfectly ridiculous to see all our empty stalls, with plenty of money to fill them, only the governor is so old-fashioned in some of his notions ; neither Hazlewood nor Dick Thornton has a bit more right to ride their own horses than we, with our business.' ' My father is of another way of thinking,' replied Dudley, gravely, ' and I think I agree with him that for the present it is best to avoid any unnecessary outlay.' 'There, Louie,' retorted Bruce, biting his moustache with an annoyed air, ' as Dudley and the governor rule the roast, I can only inform you that you had better postpone your intention of buying White Lily, for it is morally impossible for you to ride alone, or be dependent on stray escorts.' ' Never mind, Bruce, I will talk my father over one day, and then I promise you we will have our way in spite of Dudley's long face.' ' Very well, Queen Loo,' laughed Dudley, ' work your own wicked will.

But now about this piscatory scheme : must I go with those boys, Nell?' ' I am afraid you must ; but let us see, can we not manage some better way ? Supposing you and Hal and Seymour start at two, as you say, and Charlie and Rill and I meet you at a given spot, and all take tea in the woods and come home together ? will not that suit every one ?' ' Of course,' cried the boys ; ' Holme Wood and Abbey Farm are not half a mile apart, and we can have a regular jolly evening, ■can't we, Dudley ?' ' Oh yes, that is a brilliant suggestion on your part, Nellie ; Charlie, your punishment is half remitted this once, you see ; you must thank your sister for it' Charlie rushed round the table to give me a good squeeze, and to whisper his thanks ; proceedings that were strongly disapproved of by Rill, who immediately curled herself up on my lap, with a jealous look at the interloper, while the boys rushed out to their cricket, carrying off the grumbling Bruce in triumph.

Louie followed as umpire, and Dudley came up to the window-seat beside me. ' Nell, I am glad you have managed to compensate poor Charlie for the disappointment ; it goes to my heart to punish him ; he has the sweetest disposition in die world. I wonder what sort of man he will turn out !' What sort of man ? Oh Charlie, dear sweet Charlie, with your loving eyes and winsome ways, who can answer that question ?

Chapter II

' The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination ; And every lovely organ of her soul Shall come apparelled in most precioushabit, More winning, delicate, and full of life Into the eye and prospect of his soul.7 — Sliakesfrea re. ' She hath no scorn of common things, And though she seems of other earth, Round us her heart entwines and clings, And patiently she folds her wings To tread the humbler paths of earth.* — Lowell. SUNNYSIDE was an old gabled house standing in a long grassy lane, where the birds sang lustily, and the cuckoo might be heard the whole day through in early spring-time. In bird's-nesting and blackberry seasons many a straggler from school found his way hither on depredatory errands, much to our boys' disgust, who would fain have waged war against the sturdy little rebels ; but the linnets' and robins' nests were far too great temptations to be resisted ; and in spite of Halcot's hot denial of any right of way, many pairs of feet crossed our stile that had no business there.

Sometimes a nightingale would sing from the old elm-trees in front, but they were mostly to be heard in the coverts down by the Priory ; and many a moonlight night have we crossed the low-lying meadows, and entering the deserted lodge gates, wandered up and down the beech avenue listening to them. A lovely old place was the Priory, especially when the evening sun streamed redly on its gabled roof and mullioned windows ; or the moon threw a sheet of pure white light on Gothic arches and stone terraces. Truly a noble old place, for it claimed the whole of Holme Lee Wood, and most of the out-lying farms. The Priory gardens were our favourite resort ; often and often when our lawn was riotous with boy cricketers, and our pleasant mossy arbour untenable from Bruce's cigars, have Dudley and I strolled to our favourite seat in what used to be termed the rosary, where, surrounded by broken Dryads and Fauns, we enjoyed the stillness of evening, only broken upon here by the cawing of rooks and the chiming of the church bells in the distance.

There have we sat and marvelled much, why the owner of so fair an estate should leave it to ruin and desolation, while he carried on his weary antiquarian researches in Southern Italy. Some said that grief at the loss of his wife had exiled him ; but however that might be, his loss was our gain, for old Richards the gamekeeper and his wife were notable friends of ours, and gave us free access to the grounds whenever we chose. The country round Sunnyside was as varied as it was beautiful ; every window in our house commanded a fresh view : at our back, as I said before, lay the Priory meadows belted in by woods, where all day long the cattle gathered themselves in cool shady places under trees and by the side of half-dried ponds, forming groups pleasing to the eye of any landscape painter. In front were corn fields, and beyond, scattered villages, breezy uplands, and purple hued hills ; and to our right the spires and house-tops of our pretty town of D , which lay in the broken hollow of the hills like a dove in its nest.

At the end of our grass lane stood the church and parsonage, where our friends the Egertons lived, and just opposite, the Hermitage, as the Thorntons styled their place, and Dr. Walde grave's house, with its cool green verandah ; and then came the long straggling street we called the village, but which really formed the outskirts of the town. From Sunnyside we could see the chimneys of father's factory rising through the trees ; but our eyes were spared the sight of the hideous red fabric itself, as our ears were defended from the incessant whirr of its machinery. How the boys could bear their days being passed in such a place was a perpetual astonishment to me. I never entered its walls, so strong was my dislike to the monotonous sound, the incessant movement, and the oily odours that pervaded it.

Louie, on the contrary, delighted to visit it, and seemed to take as much interest in its various details as Dudley and Bruce themselves. She knew the operatives by name, and their wives and families, and was as much ' Queen Loo ' in the factory as at Sunnyside. On the morning of the day when we were to have our excursion to Holme Lee Wood, I was standing at the nursery window sorting out a heap of boys' linen, which nurse had brought me somewhat ruefully, with the apologetic remark that ' Boys will be boys, and wear out their clothes sooner than girls ; but that master Charlie's things were in such a state that she really could not keep him tidy nohow.' Now, there are limits to everything, and though work was my natural element, a pleasure as well as a task, yet the pile of dilapidated little shirts before me, and the remembrance of countless wristbands lying on my table downstairs, cooled even my courage, and I was getting rather hot and dolorous over every fresh garment brought to light, when nurse suggested that Mrs. Egerton might know of some one to assist me. ' Just the very woman, nurse,' I exclaimed in a tone of great relief ; ' I will, run down and talk to her this minute.' So I tied on my bonnet, kissed little Rill, who was paddling after me with a hairless stump of a doll hugged close in her fat arms, and sped down the lane to the parsonage.

Mr. and Mrs. Egerton were the strangest couple in the world, and the most worthy. She was a sweet little brown-eyed woman, with a tender, tremulous voice; a constant invalid and always suffering, yet never complaining ; a mere fragment of a woman, so fragile and delicate to look at, that one marvelled to see what she could and did •endure, month after month and year after year. So ver)7 young and fair too, that one could scarcely believe her to be the mother of the tall strong lad who so reverenced and petted her. In the strongest contrast to this wee woman was her husband. Mr. Egerton was a perfect son of Anak, a Saul among men ; tall, broad-shouldered, with a massive head and forehead, and great cahn eyes that looked down into yours from the pulpit as if they were holding the very torch of truth to your heart.

A genial warm-hearted Christian man, with only one weak point about him, and that was his wife, whom he cherished with a love that was just short of idolatry. The only absurdity I ever saw in Mrs. Egerton was in her persist ing to call the good-humoured giant by the ridiculous name of ' Tiney' Why such a nickname was ever chosen for him I never knew, but Tiney he was always called ; and laugh as you might, and protest as you would that his baptismal name John was far prefer able in every way, she would only smile and say he liked his pet name best, and I believe he did. The shady verandahs before the parsonage windows looking out on the trim beds of scarlet geraniums were vacant, though from the scissors and gardening gloves lying on the seat, some busy hands had been engaged in trimming and pruning the roses that clustered in such profusion round the porch.