Neglected: a story of nursery education forty years ago

Front matter

10, NEGLECTED : A STORY OF NURSERY EDUCATION FORTY YEARS AGO. BY JULIA LUAKD, ACTHOfi OF '"ROYAL CHILDREN," " CLARE SAVILE," ETC, ETC. " Oft have 1 shrank for fear When forms that seem'd of giant mould drew near ; And deeply in my childish heart I thrill'd at every rush, and bound, and start. K.EBLE, SAMUEL TINSLEY, SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND. 1874. [The Right of Translation is reserved.] THIS TALE IS AFFECTIONATELY' DEDICATED TO HER AUNT, BY THE AUTHOR. PEEFACE. rTIHIS story is for the most part founded on facts well known to the Author, and has been partly written for parents, as well as children, in order to show how easily a highly -recommended nurse may frighten a child into silence, and use the influence thus obtained to further her own purposes, and sow a long course of deceit and morbid feelings in a childish mind, which many years of future happiness ■will hardly destroy.

The Author also trusts that the tale may prove of some benefit to the children, since it exposes the folly of the ordinary stories invented in the nursery to terrify them. J. L, CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE 1 I. THE NURSERY. A DISH OF GOSSIP n. A LETTER FROM INDIA . . . . .44 III. THE OLD HALL ...... 63 IV. AN UNSUCCESSFUL VISIT . . . .96 V. THE LUMBER-ROOM . . . . .129 VI. THE CHILD-STEALER ..... 167 VII. THE TRAVELLERS ...... 193 VIII. THE RUNAWAY ...... 236 IX. THE SEARCH AND CONCLUSION . . . P, NEGLECTED.

Chapter I. The Nursery

— A DISH OF GOSSIP. Oh, weep for them who never knew The mother of our love, And shed thy tears for orphan ones, Whom angels mourn above. — Coxe. HUSH-A-BY, baby! mammy's a lady," chanted a little girl about six years aid, in a low monotonous voice, as she rocked her doll backwards and forwards in its cradle, whilst a second was laid upon her lap, and two Dr three smaller ones, much battered and very shabby from long use and lavish affection, were arranged in front of her against the shutter of the window, upon the seat of which she was her self placed. " Hush, there's a darling ! Mammy won't leave you : no, no ! " whispered the child softly, half to her doll and half to herself, as, the >onoforeotten, she leant back in her corner of he deep old-fashioned window-seat in a reverie, nd stretched out her tiny legs at full length NEGLECTED. against the opposite side.

"It's a terrible thing for a mother to leave her children. I wouldnt do it on any account. I only wonder," she added after a pause, " why my mama left me. All the little girls in the story-books have mamas, and very nice ones ; and though I don't know any live little lady-girls, I 'spose — that is, I think — they have mamas too, for I heard say, after church, that Cecilia Fleming's mama was in the pew, and that the two little girls exactly the same size had a mama once, though she was dead now. But my mama is quite gone, nurse says ; where, I can't say ; and I'm not to ask or say a word about her. I wonder why. I don't think I ever saw her either, and yet I remember dear, darling papa," sighed the child, as, taking her gold locket from her neck, she opened the spring and dis closed an exquisite miniature likeness, on a very small scale, of a grave-looking gentleman with refined features inside it.

The child forgot her play, her dolls, and herself, as she lost herself in dim recollections of the darling " papa," whose dark eyes and sad expression seemed to his tiny daughter to be meant for herself alone and to echo the words of the motto engraved in dark blue enamel on the reverse side, " Remember me." Vaguely, with a sad pining at her heart, the little girl, though unable to understand her own feelino-s or put her thoughts into words, was all the time wondering why she was so lonely, how it was that she had nobody but old grandpapa to whom NEGLECTED. 3 she belonged ; and he never talked to her or told her about the mama she was dimly groping after, or why papa left her behind when he went to India, or how it was that, as she had no brothers or sisters of her own, she mightn't have some little companions to come and play with her sometimes and make her happier.

It was now about two years ago since she came to live with grandpapa. She remembered how tiny the house, how ugly the garden appeared to her at first. A vague recollection of large beautiful rooms filled with pretty things, of a pony-carriage in which she used to drive, of flowers and birds, and of a variety of luxuries long disused and forgotten came to her mind's eye, with the relations to which that stately dwelling belonged. Another grandmama and grandpapa, now parted from her by death, on whose laps she used to climb, whilst she listened to stories and songs fitted for her age, or whose steps she used to follow, like a tiny kitten as she was, in and out of the conservatory, on the terrace, or in the stable, where were the favourite ponies and horses, and where she was often lifted up on to dear old grandpapa's shoulder in order that she might see more comfortably from that elevated position.

She remembered well the woods, park, and river, without understanding why it was that she longed to feast her eyes upon the scenes once so familiar to her. But most of all she missed the tender lbve that watched over her, NEGLECTED. the gentle words and smiles that always greeted her, and the indulgence that sought out everything that could either gratify or amuse her. There it was that papa had left her to the care of his own parents, whilst he went to India to fight like a brave soldier, for so grandmama had told her. But even then, strive as she might, no remembrance of the lost mama mingled with the crowd of petty recollections belonging to past times. She could recall papa's words, or more probably had had the scene so often described to her, that she knew by heart how she had cried and clung to him because he said " good-bye," and how, as she held him fast with her tiny hands, big large drops fell upon them from his eyes as he kissed and blessed her, until, like the baby she was, she looked up in his face and smiled, and said " papa was making rain."

Often and often as she grew older her grandmama had repeated his last words, so that now she could never forget them. "Take care of my darling, dearest mother ; make her just what her precious mother was, and I can never thank you enough," he said, as he placed his little daughter in his mother's aged arms. " And now," thought the little girl, sadly and bitterly for her years, " no one taught her or told her what mama was like, or how she was to grow like her. Dear grandpapa and grandmama were dead, and she had almost forgotten her lessons and everything else since she came to this grandpapa, who did not love her. Of all the beautiful thirjgs that she once had for her own, she had nothing left but dear old NEGLECTED. 5 Cæsar (a large Newfoundland dog), and her white Persian cat, asleep on a footstool near her.

Oh ! if only granny would but come back, — I didn't want mama when I had her " ; and before the eyes swim ming with tears came the bitter memory of her leaving them in the churchyard, as she was told on her getting into the carriage which was to take her away from her old home. She remembered how, when she begged to stay behind, they said, " No, the place belonged to uncle and aunt and cousins, and was to be shut up " ; and how she cried and prayed to be taken to these relations, whom she had seen ; how her tears were all in vain, for her relations lived abroad somewhere, though she didn't know where, and uncle had been sent by the King to be a Governor, and couldn't come and fetch her to live with them. Poor little girl ! As she slowly stroked her pet white pussy, Snowdrop, who jumped on her lap at this moment, as if wondering at her being so quiet, she pondered whether, if she could ask the King to let uncle and aunt come back to take care of her, he would.

"If he knew what an unhappy little girl I am, I am sure he would; and I remember dear uncle and aunt very well, and love them dearly, — they were so kind, and uncle so like papa." How long little Ruth might have sat in this dreary, dreamy mood of discontented recollections I cannot say, as she cast a contemptuous look now at the empty, uncomfortable-looking day-nursery, which was the only room in the house where she NEGLECTED. had a right to remain, and now through the old fashioned panes of glass at the kitchen garden below her, with its uninteresting rows of onions and cabbages, its straight walks, with stiff espalier trees and currant and gooseberry bushes on each side, which she could hardly see owing to the gathering gloom of a foggy December afternoon. She was, however, unpleasantly interrupted by a harsh, unpleasing voice, and the angry words of her nurse, that woke her up from her land of dreams and made her start as if she had been shot.

" Miss Ruth ! what hever have you been about, you good-for-nothing child you ! sitting there doing nothing, and catching your death of cold, close to that there window this bitter afternoon, with a wind fit to blow one's 'ead off, and you not allowed to go out because you have got one ? " concluded the nurse, with a discontented sniff and a rub of her nose with her hand, as if something or somebody had put that feature sadly out of joint. "I am only playing with my dolls, nurse, and came to the window as it was too dark for me to see," answered Ruth, in low, measured tones, and with a certain precise self-possession in the way she spoke which would have given a stranger the idea that she was several years older than she really was, or had something to endure every day of her life, so that by degrees she had lost the usual blithe light-heartedness and merry confidence in the love of others that gives to children in general the NEGLECTED . 7 saucy boldness and outspoken merriment and fun so charming to their elders.

Poor little Ruth had many endearing qualities, but certainly these could not be claimed for her amongst them. "Don't tell me such a story as that, miss; a right down on truth, that's what I call it. You know you weren't doing no such a thing. I watched you, and you never looked once at them dolls. If there is a thing I can't habide it's lies — and for a young lady, too ! " " I don't tell lies, nurse," said the child, standing firmly before her nurse without flinching in the least, and with the blood mantling higher and higher in the cheek usually so pale, whilst her large soft brown eyes were fixed upon the grey shrewish-looking ones belonging to the angry face now frowning at her, with a look peculiar to Ruth and touching in the extreme, and one which was at present far too often to be traced in that sad little face — an expression denoting wondering surprise, nay, astonishment even, mingled with an appealing air of almost reproach far too melancholy for her childish age.

The nurse (whose name, Goodman, belied her temper), more irritated than she liked to express in words at the self-possessed air of natural dignity in the child, stretched out her hand ready prepared for the box on the ear which Ruth evidently ex pected. Often and often had that large hand fallen with no slight force on the delicate little ear, or the slight shrinking form been seized and shaken in NEGLECTED. the rough powerful grasp, until the child turned sic and giddy, and was let go with the assurance tha it was all for her good, and that the bad should bi shaken out of her— that it should. Now something in the child's gesture and brave straightforward look checked her nurse's violence, and made her feel ashamed of the threatened blow. " Well, miss, you needn't fix me like that, neither, just as if I was a torn tortoiseshell cat, or a wild beast out of a caravan.

There ! " added she, more irritably, "get your work, do; you'll never finish them slippers your aunt sent you to work. And you, Betsy, get the tea-things, and then come and work," shouted the nurse to a bright, good-tempered looking servant girl in the next room, who, com bining in her person the offices of under-housemaid and nurserymaid, was expected to sit and work ir the nursery as soon as candle-light came. Ruth, with a smile and a slight movement of he. head, which she did not repress at her nurse's strange language, moved slowly to fetch her work, and then warmed her cold benumbed fingers through the tall uncomfortable fender which her grandfather always insisted should guard the fire from the little maiden, much to the nurse's disgust, who understood far more than her master how sober and careful the child was, with her old-fashioned ways.

Indeed, it was far more necessary to protect the nurse's volu minous skirts from fire than Ruth's tiny little body. Ruth's demeanour would assuredly have agair incurred Goodman's displeasure but for Betsy's NEGLECTED. entrance, radiant with good-humour, and with th tea-tray in her outstretched hands. " No, now, Mrs. Goodman, let's have a jolly eveD ing of it : master's away, and Roberts offers to pa us a visit as soon as tea's over and he has don below in his pantry. Now, Miss Ruth, there's dear, you sit in your little chair by me, and be gooc won't you ? and nurse and me '11 have a talk ove our sewing." "Goodman gave a conscious smile, bridled he head, and admitted that Mr. Roberts was pleasan company enough, and contented herself with mul tering to Betsy that she never saw such a child there was something in her like her papa, th colonel, though ; and she supposed bygones mus be bygones; whilst little Ruth, overjoyed at th' blowing over of the storm and the idea of Roberts society (for what child ever disliked the man servant yet ?), followed Betsy slyly to the door and there, screened from Goodman's sight, threw her arms round Betsy's neck and hugged he; thanks.

" Poor little darling ! " said the good-hearted girl with a tear in her e}re, as she hastened downstair, to tell Roberts that Mrs. Goodman was " agreeable; meaning by that not that she was herself ready primed for superior conversation, but that she con sented to allow him to intrude on the nursery department. " However is it that Goodman can't abide her — pretty dear ? no, not pretty, but — well, I don't know NEGLECTED. either," thought she, as on her re-entrance she noted the sweet smile that welcomed her, and the soft eyes and luxuriant hair on which the firelight was throwing a ruddy gleam — "she's a little lady, every inch of her, at any rate, and as good as gold, or might be, if she weren't worrited and flurried from morning to night," concluded the wise girl. True to her word to make things pleasant, Betsy, as soon as the nursery tea was over, thrust her brown hand into one of master's seeks, and, with needle extended in act of darning, beguiled Good man into a regular gossip.

Ruth, meanwhile, was allowed, as a great treat, to lay aside her worsted work slippers, and pore over her favourite book of pictures, which saved her now, as it had often before, from a heartache. Now Ruth had hardly any story-books of her own fit for her age, or rather, adapted to the serious nature of the child. Those she had, belonged to her when first learning to read, And tired her from their childishness. She had no fairytales, except one or two from the " Child's Own Book." In the days I am now writing about, there was no Andersen and no Miss Yonge to bewitch her into fairyland, or into a world of little girls and boys, true and lifelike. Her grandfather had no notion that a child's mind needed food. Scholar though he was — a devourer ef books, especially of those belonging to science, and an author of some repute — he was better acquainted with the world of letters than of mankind, and, at any rate, he had neither read nor studied that little volume within NEGLECTED. 11 his reach, viz., Ruth's character and mind.

So she had found out for herself two old books, left for many a long year in the sleeping nursery, and now appropriated by her, until they were called " missy's books." One was an old copy of "Mant's Bible," with the usual engravings taken from old masters, and kept principally by Ruth for Sundays. The other was an old, but abridged edition of " Foxe's Book of Martyrs," also illustrated with the well-known en gravings of the horrible tortures of the early Chris tians. Over these terrible pictures Ruth was now engaged, lost to all sublunary events, and for some time completely unconscious of the conversation kept up with indefatigable zeal by both Goodman and Betsy, Of course it was made up of gossip concerning their master's family. At another time Ruth would have listened with the keenest curiosity, but now she was absorbed in the fearful representa tion of St. Lawrence's torture on the gridiron, which she had found out first by the pictures and then by the account in the following pages.

Wonderful it appeared that a heart so susceptible and tender should take such delight in contemplating the stretched-out figure of the roasting man, as she repeated in a whisper the aoeompanying lines, said to have been cemposed by the martyr himself in the midst of his agony.: — "Now turn me, Tyrant, and eat, And see whether raw or roasted I am the better meat." NEGLECTED. 12 Little Ruth thought nothing could exceed the sub limity ©f the incident, with its accompanying picture. She did not see the rude distortion of the figures and the ludicrous ghastliness of the counten ances. She looked upon it from the vague distance of her years and of her undeveloped understanding, and, perceiving the fortitude and the heroic submission of the sufferer, did not realize the extreme horror of his situation.

Many, many years after, Ruth, when grown up, opened the book at the same picture, and started back with a keen sense of the comic horror of the engraving, and was shocked at her childish self for her former enjoyment of it. As a child, how ever, the anecdotes, many of which she could follow and understand, were of the greatest use to her, for she learnt through them to admire the brave pati ence of the martyrs, and to understand vaguely that trials are sent by our Heavenly Father for the good of those that are tried ; and by degrees, instead ol shrinking from angry words, like the poor little coward nurse was so fond of calling her, something of a martyr spirit entered her slight frame, which made her try, as she had just now done, to stand quietly and patiently until the storm of reproach had blown over.

Meanwhile Goodman and Betsy were in ihe height of enjoyment over their tales of scandal. Some of the sentences, uttered in a loud whisper, began to make their way into Ruth's busy brain, and to awaken her curiosity, — especially as St. Law rence was completely roasted and done for by this NEGLECTED. 13 time ! Unfortunately for Ruth, she had no one at hand to remind her that conversation carried on in i whisper could not. be intended for her to hear, and jhat it was on this account both sly and deceitful to listen as hard as she could whilst pretending to attend to her book. Ruth's mind was both active and curious by nature, and her anxiety to learn all she could about her parents and relations made her always ready to attend to the gossip of the servants. Besides, she considered Goodman her enemy, or, at any rate, her jailor, who might be plotted against and outwitted in whatever way the captive — i.e. herself — could contrive.

No favourable terms ought to be maintained between them ; so, partly from amusement, and often out of a feeling of revenge, Ruth would invent to herself endless fairy stories, in which she imitated the few she had heard or read, and in which Goodman always played the part of the ugly old fairy, or step-mother, who beat, starved, and im prisoned herself, the heroine or princess of the piece, and who in the end was sure to be rescued by the gallantry of the brave and noble officer, the Honour able Colonel Everard, her own father ! At times Goodman would appear good-tempered and satisfied with the events of the day, or had been softened by the applause and money that had been freely lavished upon her by Ruth's grandfather in return for the plausible account she had given of the child's health and progress, and of the care and trouble she insinuated she bestowed upon her.

She would then iddress Ruth in honeyed terms, or shower caresses, NEGLECTED. sugar-plums, and stories upon her in no stinted fashion, as though she wished to make up to the child for her past severity and teach her to be fond of her nurse once more. Goodman, like many others of her class (but especially of a kind we were accustomed to see more frequently some forty years ago, at the time my story is placed in), was then sure to gain a strange influence over the child, and to fascinate her for the moment with her indul gence ; but yet, in the midst of it all, when some exquisite stick of barley-sugar was being pressed upon her, or a story was. wound up with words of praise and flattery sufficient to fill the child's mind with vanity, Ruth would suddenly appear to re call something to her mind, would look up into Goodman's smiling face with a piercing glance of distrust and dislike, and, thrusting the dainty back into the donor's hand, or turning away with a de cided " No, thank you," would retreat to her own favourite corner, or escape downstairs to Roberts or Betsy, and refuse to be either caressed or enticed by words or bonbons from her nurse again that day.

Goodman, thus discomfited by the " bold impudence of a naughty child," as she expressed it, would gaze after Ruth out of the corner of her eye with a gloomy expression that boded no good to her rebellious charge ; and the day would rarely end without an outbreak of scolding, crying, and pun ishment. By degrees the estrangement became greater between the two : Goodman was seldom inclined to show any indulgence, and Ruth even NEGLECTED. 15 more and more opposed to the nursery tyranny, and desirous of escaping from both nurse and room, unless either Betsy or Roberts were at hand to1 screen her. Goodman, meanwhile, used to devise all kinds of schemes to tame the child and subdue her into complete submission to her own authority. Whether she carried these out or not will be seen by what follows.

The first words that roused Ruth to attend to the conversation proceeded from Betsy, who, in a loud whisper that could have been heard in the next room, but which she supposed was inaudible to the child at her elbow, exclaimed, — " You don't say so ? You don't mean that young miss's mama (with an expressive wink of her left eye at Ruth) runned away with her papa ? And what for ? — surely old master might have been proud to have sich a son-in-law ? " " Hush ' " said Goodman, lowering her own voice, as she held up a warning finger. " I don't know the rights of it, but they do say master was so dreadful proud he couldn't abide that a daughter of his should marry into such a high rich family, who didn't and wouldn't want her, since she had no " fortin " of her own, and master had no money to give her till his death ; so the young people took their own way and went off and married in some great church in Lon'on, where no one knew or noticed them.

I did hear, for all master was such a scholard and a parson, that he did cuss and swear hawful when they corned back NEGLECTED. md begged his pardin ; and though the young gentleman's family forgave, master never would Itogether, and never saw his daughter again until he lay a-dying." " Younomissus was very handsome, wasn't she ? .nterrupted Betsy. " Yes, she was," replied Goodman, emphatically, and as if forced to speak the truth ; " she was lovely in mind and in person, — a regular lady, who wore silk stockings every day, and was so good. But she had a bad time of it after .er marriage " (here the voice was lowered) ; " she never looked up again, becos old master wouldn't forgive and forget, and her husband went and left her often ; and she pined and pined until she was nothing but skin and bone, — and then she died, when her baby " (nodding at Ruth) " was but one month old."

" Ruth heard this sadly strange tale of her own parents with an eagerness and anxiety to catch every word of it that could alone have enabled her to choke down the sobs that would else have forced their way. She had indeed at last gained her long-wished-for information about the unknown mama. She understood it all per fectly, with the hints and insinuations as to her father's and mother's conduct. " She ran away," she thought to herself, "from grandpapa with papa. Could this be right ? Yet she was very good. She was never happy, though, afterwards, and grandpapa was very cruel to her, and she NEGLECTED. 17 died." And then the child remembered that her nurse had said that her papa had left her too. " But how can it be true, when he loved her, and is good ? " Poor little Ruth ! — she clasped her hands, in her endeavour to keep down her tears, so tightly that the nails made dents in the tender flesh ; yet she would not cry.

She knew now why grandpapa couldn't speak about mama, and why papa but here the loyal feelings of the child's heart forbade her harbouring any thought of blame against the father she loved so dearly. Vaguely she saw that disobedience to a father must be wrong, and that neither papa nor mama, if they had committed such a fault, could be, as she expressed it to herself, " very good." Ruth had listened slyly, and was now reaping, poor child, the forbidden fruit which was to render her unhappy and distrustful of those she ought to revere and love. And more than half of the tale was in vented by frequent repetition and by the love of gossiping, until only a vestige of truth remained. The voices continued during Ruth's state of per plexity to carry on a low continued muttering, which every now and then was audible to ears sharpened by anxiety.

"And old master never cared for the child, — you see she reminded him so much of his daughter; and so they took her to his parents, who ought to have provided handsome for her, only they died and didn't. Now, you see, she's nowhere else to go to." NEGLECTED. 18 " But she will be rich ' some when ' ; for though the grandpa has nothing to leave, the — hum, hum (you know who) — is rich enough, and sure to come back to his little daughter. Ain't he, now ? " answered Betsy, in a mumbling voice, produced by her endeavours to avoid names and bite off her darning cotton. "Ahem ! " said Goodman, making that noise which is generally supposed to be a means of clearing the throat, but which in this case con veyed to the ears of her listener a mysterious assertion of contradiction mingled with an as sumption of immense consequence befitting one who had in her possession secrets of importance.

" Whathever do you mean ? " said Betsy, catching at the meaning conveyed by the significant "ahem," and looking up with eyes as round as saucers from astonishment and curiosity. " If I tell you, can you keep it sure ancl secret, Betsy ? " replied Goodman, in an awful-sounding whisper. " To be sure," said Betsy ; " I promise that, I do." " Well then, I believe — indeed, I may say I know — that our Colonel's riches will never come to — you know " (broke off Goodman with an important nod) ; he's a married again, and there'll be other mouths to feed and give 'em to ; and though they did talk of his coming home to see — you know who — don't you believe it ; he's given her to his first wife's father, and he's to stay and command the harmy in India, and never come back no more ! " NEGLECTED. 19 Ruth had listened to the gossip concerning the riches she was imagined to inherit with careless indifference.