True of Heart

Chapter I. The Old Home

"There is nothing for it," said I. "Annie, you must stay at home, and take care of Tottie, and the dear old mother, and the garden ; and I — I shall go forth, and work ! " I ended tri umphantly. " Now, Ellen," began Annie, in a tone which meant expostulation. "Now, Annie ! I am so wise in my own conceit that I am not going to listen to ' no body nor nothink,' as old Grace says. Don't presume to dictate to your elder sister ! I found three grey hairs on my head this morning." Atit.jp; laughed. " You are young and fascinating, my dear," I continued, " while I " " What nonsense, Nelly ! And I wish you wouldn't 'my dear' me, as if you were my great aunt. One would think you were, to hear you talk." " I am sure if I were to put on Madame's cap, I should very well pass for such. No one can call me young and fascinating, which is so much in my favour.

See the advantage of being plain ! No mothers need have any anxieties about me during the Oxford vacation, or while their young officer sons are on fur lough from India. Now you, child, would be dangerous." " What are you talking about ! " exclaimed my mother, looking up from the little sock she was knitting. Did you ever know a grand mamma who was not always knitting little socks ? "I am going to earn the bread of inde pendence, my dear mother, by giving lessons in archery," I answered. " I always was fond of it." " I think you will scarcely find that answer, dear," began my mother gravely. " And the lawn is so small." Annie could not restrain her merriment. " Teaching the young idea how to shoot, Nelly means, mother dear ! " " Oh ! " and an amused smile lit up the placid face for a moment.

"Well, dear, and how are you going to set about it ? I don't know any one round here, except the little Austeys, and they are not nice children. I should not like them to be much with Tottie." " A day-school, my dear mother ! No, thank you. I am not going to have your quiet morn ings disturbed by refractory children. That would not answer my purpose. Remember, there is only this one sitting-room for everybody." "I could sit in my bedroom, dear, if that were all. It would be very pleasant there, with the sofa in the window." My dear mother ! She would have sat in the coal-house if it had been a convenience to any one. There never was a more unselfish being in this world. " You will do nothing of the kind," I said. " I shall go out as a governess." My mother laid down her knitting. " No, no, my dear child !

" she said. " You don't know what you expose yourself to. Toil, and care, and responsibility, from morning to night, and no thanks for it. Snubs innumerable, rudeness from servants, neglect, unkindness, perhaps " " Only perhaps," I said. " I must take my chance of that. Trust me for putting up with more than my due ! " " I believe you can hold your own," my mother replied. " I am not afraid of that. But it is a hard life, and an anxious one ; none more so." " Well," I said, " if I am not able to stand it, I don't know who is. As far as education goes, I suppose I am furnished as well as most who undertake the office, thanks to you, dear mother. How little one dreamed, in those days of obstreperousness and governess-plaguing, that one would ever have to undergo the like ! And then, I have the advantage of robust health and good spirits, and, as I said before, of a plain and demure aspect.

I expect this last recommendation will go a long way. Now I am going to put on my bonnet and go to the Library, to invest in a Guardian and a Times. There is nothing like being prompt. It will be rather fun answering the advertisements, and seeing what they bring forth. Can I do anything for you, mother dear ? " " If you would be so kind as to match this blue wool for me, dear. Another hank, I should like ; Andalusian wool, mind ; nothing washes like it, Fanny says." I believe one of the main consolations of my dear mother's days was the conviction that she could never supply too many socks for the rising generation of grandchildren. There was always a baby cropping up in one quarter or another. It really was very thoughtful of dear Fanny to have provided employment for our mother just at this time of her trouble ; the said trouble being not one of those which go deepest and make heart wounds, but one attended with much inconvenience and dis comfort ; I mean the loss of money.

Through the failure of a bank she had lost everything. Thanks to the Good Providence which guided my kind godfather's hand and heart at the time of writing his will, I was the fortunate possessor of three thousand pounds, or we should have been without bread to eat. Hubert and Sydney, dear fellows, both clerks in government offices, with the splendid in come of a hundred a year, directly they had the news, each sent my mother ten pounds, declaring they could well spare that yearly, and insisting on doing so. My brother Ed mund, who was a doctor, and the most pros perous of the family, made up our mother's income to two hundred a year. It was all he could do. The rest of the family, with one exception, had suffered from the same mis fortune which had impoverished us. Frank's savings were all gone.

He had a few hundreds invested in railway shares, which he was now going to sell out, to take himself and his family to Australia, there to seek his fortune. Ethel, with her five children and an invalid husband, could barely struggle on. Fanny, who had married for love, and had been rewarded accordingly with honourable poverty, had just put in a ninth claim for the aforesaid baby socks. Eleanor, — well, the less we say about her the better. In her case, silence is golden. She was Lady Langdale now. I think she must have been born into our family by mis take. We all loved one another so dearly, and all so clung to our dear, gentle mother. A true old lady she was. There was such an unmistakable grace and refinement about her. as striking now in her homely stuff dress (made by me, gentle reader — I was so proud of my first essay !) as she ever looked in the violet satin I remember so well.

She had given that to Fanny, with most of the relics of better days ; for she said it was such a trouble to have a quantity of things where you had no room for them. There certainly was no room to spare in our tiny cottage. A sit tins-room and a kitchen, one each side of the front door, and two bedrooms above, in one of which I slept with Tottie, our darling little orphan niece, and in the other Annie and our mother. She was nervous, she said, and would rather not sleep alone. Over these, in the slope of the roof, was an attic for Dorothy, our maid-of-all-work. A good maid was she. I imagine she loved us. I cannot tell what else could have induced her to stay with us, and work as she did for six pounds a year. She had been under-housemaid in the old house. The old house ! The words always make me sad.

It was such a bitter trial to leave it ; to see it dismantled, given over to strangers ; to have no more right in that dear shrubbery, with its little "lovers' paths," as we called them ; or on that grassy lawn under the tulip trees, where we whiled away many a hot summer's afternoon ; or in that sweet copse down by the river-side, where we went nutting ; or in those dear old rooms and corridors, where we so often played hide and seek. Ah ! that reminds me of something. The story of Ginevra is an old, old romance, but the thing actually happened to me. I hope it is not very egotistical to relate it. I always looked on it as such a wonderful deliverance. It was my sixth birthday. We had some friends staying with us ; and my mother had taken them for a country walk. There was no one left indoors but the servants and us children ; and we, in honour of the holiday, had leave to play hide-and-seek through the house while the visitors were out.

The house was built in the shape of an L ; the upper part of the letter consisting of nurseries, schoolroom, kitchens, offices, &c, and the lower part of the better rooms : one of which — my mother's — just in the angle of the house, was the scene of my disaster. In this room, which was at the end of a long passage, was a large closet, for clothes, with shelves round it and boxes underneath. A very big box stood there, of which I have the greatest horror even now, — I can see it, with the array of bright brass-headed nails, making a pattern on its lid. It was part of my mother's wedding apparatus, and no doubt came to Sealebrook full of gay dresses of the latest mode, a yard and a half round at the bottom, with bodies four inches deep. Some of these were long preserved as relics, especially a certain fiery orange striped gauze, which I have looked at in mute wonderment as to how my fastidious mother, with her unvarying taste for sober greys and violets, could ever have had a mind to put it on.

It was my turn to hide. Into this box, at that time empty, I got, thinking what a clever idea it was of mine. "They will never dream of looking for me here," said I to myself. Nor did they, to my sorrow. The search beo-an : I heard Edmund's and Frank's and Ethel's voices, as they burst into the room presently and ran towards the closet. I had been propping up the lid of the trunk with my head, as I sat comfortably ensconced inside, that I might hear them coming. As they entered the room I lowered my head, and the box closed. " In this closet, I'll be bound ! " I heard Edmund say. He opened the door, and rummaged about among the dresses which were hanging up ; and I held my breath, trembling lest it should occur to him to open the box. But no, the bright idea did not sug gest itself to him.

" Not here ! " he cried ; "let us try the attics!" and he banged the closet-door, and rushed out of the room after the others. I heard the red-baize door beyond slam, which shut out all sounds, and thought I might now raise my head again and breathe freely. To my horror, when I attempted to do so, I found that I could not. The large iron hasp of the box had gone into its place, and the lid was fastened down. Oh, what an anguish ! To this hour I can recall with the utmost vividness the wild despair which took possession of me in that moment. I knew the story of Ginevra well. I had heard my brothers sing the thrilling wail of " The Mistletoe Bough," and had shivered as I listened. Was that cruel fate to be mine also ? "I shall die ! I shall die ! " I shrieked inwardly, as the horror of the situa tion broke upon me.

I knew that no one could possibly hear me scream, unless by chance the children should come into the room again, which was unlikely. The servants were all at the other end of the house, separated from this end by baize doors _ and the door of the closet in which I was hidden so securely was shut fast. Though I was fully aware of all this, I nevertheless gave vent to my agonized feelings in a series of the most piercing shrieks and cries for help. They were unheard. I became desperate, and lay on my back, kicking with wild energy at the bid of the iron-bound box, in the frantic hope of forcing it out. It was all in vain. My strength was failing. " 0 God, save me!" I cried, as I sank down exhausted in the bottom of the box. Paralysed with fear, I could no longer struggle or scream. My brain swam, I felt sure I must be dying, and in a few moments I sank into unconsciousness.

When I came to myself again I was on my mother's lap, in the broad, low window-seat by the closet-door. Her face was as white as a sheet. When she saw me open my eyes, she burst into hysterical sobs of relief, which she could not suppress. She has told me since that she thought I was dead as she sat there with me on her lap. It was wonderful, the way in which she discovered me ; one of those mysterious guidings which so often influence us, unknown to ourselves, in working out the ways of Providence. She had come in from her walk, and had laid her bonnet and shawl on the bed, for the maid to put away, as usual. The thought crossed her mind that Elise was very busy altering her dinnerdress, and would barely have it ready in time ; so thinking, my mother took her things from the bed to lay them on the shelf in the closet.

As she did so, she heard the faintest kind of gasp, she said, which made her look round, to see if a cat, or any other creature, was there. Not seeing anything, she went out of the closet, and was shutting the door, when the same little gasp fell on her ear again. She opened the door and listened, but heard it no more. She was going out again, when a sud den impulse made her lift the lid of the box in which I lay in a death-like swoon. She never thought to see me open my eyes again, and she says to this day that I must have been pre served for some special purpose, so remarkable was the way in which, at the last moment, I was rescued from that living grave. I agree with her now ; but for many years of my life I was at a loss to discover this special purpose. Life was so easy and pleasant, in the old house at home ; we had no cares, no labours, no responsibilities.

If my dear mother had any, as doubtless she had, we were never c troubled with a shadow of them. All she desired was, that her children should be happy ; and in her own sweet way she made us so, until that great cloud came, which suddenly overshadowed us all.