Mrs. Molesworth - The Grim House

After all, the winter had passed pleasantly enough; the Paynes had helped to enliven it. But mother looked rather askance at my friendship with them.

“Boys again!” she said half-laughingly. “Always boys, Regina! I wish there had been a Miss Payne.”

“She wouldn’t have been half as nice as Isabel Wynyard,” I replied. “And Rupert is really not like a boy; his whole interest is in books and things of that kind. But you should be pleased, mamma, that I have made one real girl friend at last.”

“So I am,” was the reply – “very pleased.”

“If only they lived nearer us,” I said with a sigh. “I shall be dreadfully dull at home when Moore goes.”

“Poor Regina!” said mother. “Well, we must find something to cheer you up.”

And though I did not then know it, I believe that it was this conversation that made her determine to arrange for my promised visit to Millflowers as soon as possible. She never thought of herself, though home without any child in it seemed scarcely home to her.

The first few weeks, however, of our return were very bright and happy. It was delightful to have Moore so thoroughly his old self, and two of the other boys were with us for Easter; and best of all, the brother whom I cannot describe as a “boy,” as he was already twenty-five – Jocelyn – our “eldest,” and I must almost say “dearest.”

He was deputed to take Moore to his new school, and very proud Moore was of him as an escort.

“How I wish I could go to Winchester with you both,” I said the evening before they were to leave. “I really do think, Jocelyn,” for it was to him I was talking, “it was a great mistake that I was not a boy after all, though I have been trying my best lately to make myself into a ‘young lady’! Has mamma told you so? For every one of us, from oldest to youngest, confided in Jocelyn. I put the question with some little anxiety, for my brother’s approval was very dear to me.”

He smiled as he replied —

“Of course mother has told me of the new leaves you’ve been turning over – ever so many of them, though all in the same direction, and I intended to compliment you on the great improvement in your style of hairdressing and the general smartness of your appearance! Don’t be discouraged, my dear child. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day!’”

“And it will take a great many days, if ever, I suppose you mean,” I said rather ruefully, “to turn a tomboy into a oh! whatever she should be.”

“But by what I hear,” said Jocelyn, “you have got a first-rate model before you in the person of Miss Wynyard. I am very glad you are going to stay with them so soon.”

I opened my eyes at this.

“So soon?” I repeated. “I have not been told anything about it.”

“Well, don’t let out that I told you, then,” said Jocelyn. “I suspect mother must have been keeping it for a surprise to cheer you up after the boy and I leave to-morrow. I believe they are arranging for you to go very shortly. You will enjoy it, won’t you?”

“ I hope so,” I replied. “As far as Isabel is concerned, I am sure I shall. But I have found out that I am very shy. I think I am rather afraid of Mr Wynyard. He has brought up his own daughters to be such pinks of perfection! I am sure that he won’t approve of frivolous conversation. I remember Isabel saying how he disliked gossip. And oh! by-the-bye,” I broke off, “that reminds me, Jocelyn! There is such a queer story, a regular mystery where the Wynyards live.”

“Do you mean that the house is haunted?” said Jocelyn, laughingly.

“Oh, no; it is not about their own house, but a house near, in the neighbourhood. ‘Grimsthorpe,’ I think, is its proper name. I wonder if I might tell you about it? It isn’t exactly a secret, but I have never mentioned it to mamma. Mr Wynyard might blame Isabel for gossipping if he found that mother had heard of it.”

“As I am not likely to see Mr Wynyard, I think you may safely tell me the story, whatever it is,” said Jocelyn.

I was delighted to do so.

“To begin with,” I said, “the very name of the place – I don’t mean its proper name, but the corruption of it, for the whole neighbourhood calls it the ‘Grim House’ – is enough to rouse one’s curiosity!” And then I went on to relate the strange circumstances I had been told of.

My brother listened attentively, and with evident interest.

“What a queer story!” he said. “It suggests all manner of hidden tragedies. What a life for those poor men, even if they have done anything to deserve it! I can’t help pitying them more than the sisters.”

“The younger one is dreadfully delicate,” I said, “so perhaps his life any way would have been a dull one. He is crippled somehow. I had the feeling that the elder brother, the eldest of them all, was the cause of their imprisoned life. But Isabel maintains that they are all suffering together for some one else. I do wonder if it will ever be explained!”

“There must be many mysteries,” said Jocelyn, “that are never cleared up, but certainly this is a very curious one. Don’t let Moore hear of it if there is any chance of his ever going to the place; he could never rest contented till he got inside the Grim House. He’d be scaling the walls, and goodness knows what all, and would certainly get himself into trouble.”

“I don’t think that he or any one could feel more curiosity about it than I do,” I said. “Isabel has got accustomed to it in all these years, but even she says she has fits of wondering and wondering about these queer people.”

“And possibly,” said Jocelyn thoughtfully, “possibly the root of it all is nothing very terrible. The poor things may have got morbid about it, whereas if they could make up their minds to consult some outsider it might all be put right. It is extraordinary how brooding over troubles magnifies and increases them.”

Jocelyn was wise beyond his years, and what he said impressed me.

“It seems a pity that no one – Mr Wynyard, for instance, or the clergyman of the place, if he is a sensible man – tries to help them,” I said. “I know I couldn’t live beside four miserable-looking people for twenty years without trying to gain their confidence.”

“It may have been tried,” remarked my brother. “But of course that sort of thing cannot be forced. It would require great tact and experience. Don’t go on thinking about it too much, Reggie, or it will get on your brain; and whatever you do, don’t attempt any investigation of the secret.”

I did not reply. To tell the truth, words had added a new incentive to my great wish to unravel the mystery. What a good work it would be to get these poor lives out into the sunshine again! I was very young and very self-confident in some ways, and I did not then know that the onlookers whom I had tacitly reproached with indifference had already done their best in the direction of offering help.

The next day my brothers left us, and but for the anticipation of the pleasure in store for me which Jocelyn had told me of, I should have felt very low-spirited indeed. The morning following turned my hope into certainty. Mother opened a letter at the breakfast-table whose contents she read with evident satisfaction. In it was enclosed a note in Isabel’s handwriting which mother passed on to me. It was quite short, just expressing her pleasure at the prospect of seeing me “so soon,” and a few words added as a postscript increased my own excitement and satisfaction in the prospect of my visit to Millflowers. These were the words: – “I am doubly glad you are coming now,” she wrote, “because something very strange, or rather unusual, has happened in connection with our local mystery, and I do so want to tell you about it. I am afraid I am a gossip at heart!”