L. Meade - A World of Girls - The Story of a School

“Me want to see Hetty,” said an imperious baby voice.

“No, no; not this morning, Miss Nan, dear.”

“Me do want to see Hetty,” was the quick, impatient reply. And a sturdy indignant little face looked up at Nurse, to watch the effect of the last decisive words.

Finding no affirmative reply on Nurse’s placid face, the small lips closed firmly – two dimples came and went on two very round cheeks – the mischievous brown eyes grew full of laughter, and the next moment the little questioner had squeezed her way through a slightly open door, and was toddling down the broad stone stairs and across a landing to Hetty’s room. The room door was open, so the truant went in. A bed with the bedclothes all tossed about, a half worn-out slipper on the floor, a very untidy dressing-table met her eyes, but no Hetty.

“Me want Hetty, me do,” piped the treble voice, and then the little feet commenced a careful and watchful pilgrimage, the lips still firmly shut, the dimples coming and going, and the eyes throwing many upward glances in the direction of Nurse and the nursery.

No pursuit as yet, and great, great hope of finding Hetty somewhere in the down-stair regions. Ah, now, how good! those dangerous stairs had been descended, and the little voice calling in shrill tones for Hetty rang out in the wide hall.

“Let her come to me,” suddenly said an answering voice, and a girl of about twelve, dressed in deep mourning, suddenly opened the door of a small study and clasped the little one in her arms.

“So you have found me, my precious, my dearest! Brave, plucky little Nan, you have got away from Nurse and found me out! Come into the study, now, darling, and you shall have some breakfast.”

“Me want a bicky, Hetty,” said the baby voice; the round arms clasped Hester’s neck, but the brown eyes were already travelling eagerly over the breakfast table in quest of spoil for those rosy little lips.

“Here are two biscuits, Nan. Nan, look me in the face – here, sit steady on my knee; you lose me, don’t you Nan?”

“Course me do,” said the child.

“And I’m going away from you, Nan, darling. For months and months I won’t see anything of you. My heart will be always with you, and I shall think of you morning, noon, and night. I love no one as I love you, Nan. You will think of me, and love me too; won’t you, Nan?”

“Me will,” said Nan; “me want more bicky, Hetty.”

“Yes, yes,” answered Hester; “put your arms tight round my neck, and you shall have sugar, too. Tighter than that, Nan, and you shall have two lumps of sugar – oh, yes, you shall – I don’t care if it makes you sick – you shall have just what you want the last moment we are together.”

Baby Nan was only too pleased to crumple up a crape frill and to smear a black dress with sticky little fingers for the sake of the sugar which Hetty plied her with.

“More, Hetty,” she said; “me’ll skeeze ’oo vedy tight for more.”

On this scene Nurse unexpectedly entered.

“Well, I never! and so you found your way all downstairs by yourself, you little toddle. Now, Miss Hetty, I hope you haven’t been giving the precious lamb sugar; you know it never does suit the little dear. Oh, fie! baby; and what sticky hands! Miss Hetty, she has crumpled all your crape frills.”

“What matter?” said Hester. “I wanted a good hug, and I gave her three or four lumps. Babies won’t squeeze you tight for nothing. There, my Nancy, go back to Nurse. Nurse, take her away; I’ll break down in a minute if I see her looking at me with that little pout.”

Nurse took the child into her arms.

“Good-bye, Miss Hester, dear. Try to be a good girl at school. Take my word, missy – things won’t be as dark as they seem.”

“Good-bye, Nurse,” said Hester hastily. “Is that you, father? are you calling me?”

She gathered up her muff and gloves, and ran out of the little study where she had been making believe to eat breakfast. A tall, stern-looking man was in the hall, buttoning on an overcoat; a brougham waited at the door. The next moment Hester and her father were bowling away in the direction of the nearest railway station. Nan’s little chubby face had faded from view. The old square grey house, sacred to Hester because of Nan, had also disappeared; the avenue even was past, and Hester closed her bright brown eyes. She felt that she was being pushed out into a cold world, and was no longer in the same snug nest with Nan. An intolerable pain was at her heart; she did not glance at her father, who during their entire drive occupied himself over his morning paper. At last they reached the railway station, and just as Sir John Thornton was handing his daughter into a comfortable first-class carriage, marked “For Ladies only,” and was presenting her with her railway ticket and a copy of the last week’s illustrated newspaper, he spoke —

“The guard will take care of you, Hester. I am giving him full directions, and he will come to you at every station, and bring you tea or any refreshment you may require. This train takes you straight to Sefton, and Mrs Willis will meet you, or send for you there. Good-bye, my love; try to be a good girl, and curb your wild spirits. I hope to see you very much improved when you come home at Midsummer. Good-bye, dear, good-bye. Ah, you want to kiss me – well, just one kiss. There – oh, my dear! you know I have a great dislike to emotion in public.”

Sir John Thornton said this because a pair of arms had been flung suddenly round his neck, and two kisses imprinted passionately on his sallow cheek. A tear also rested on his cheek, but that he wiped away.

The train moved rapidly on its way, and the girl in one corner of the railway carriage cried silently behind her crape veil. Her tears were very subdued, but her heart felt sore, bruised, indignant; she hated the idea of school-life before her, she hated the expected restraints and the probable punishments; she fancied herself going from a free life into a prison, and detested it accordingly.

Three months before, Hester Thornton had been one of the happiest, brightest, and merriest of little girls in – shire; but the mother who was her guardian angel, who had kept the frank and spirited child in check without appearing to do so, who had guided her by the magical power of love and not in the least by that of fear, had met her death suddenly by means of a carriage accident, and Hester and baby Nan were left motherless. Several little brothers and sisters had come between Hester and Nan, but from various causes they had all died in their infancy, and only the eldest and youngest of Sir John Thornton’s family remained.

Hester’s father was stern, uncompromising. He was a very just and upright man, but he knew nothing of the ways of children, and when Hester in her usual tom-boyish fashion climbed trees and tore her dresses, and rode bare-backed on one or two of his most dangerous horses, he not only tried a little sharp, and therefore useless, correction, but determined to take immediate steps to have his wild and rather unmanageable little daughter sent to a first-class school. Hester was on her way there now, and very sore was her heart, and indignant her impulses. Father’s “good-bye” seemed to her to be the crowning touch to her unhappiness, and she made up her mind not to be good, not to learn her lessons, not to come home at Midsummer crowned with honours and reduced to an every-day and pattern little girl. No, she would be the same wild Hetty as of yore: and when father saw that school could do nothing for her, that it could never make her into a good and ordinary little girl, he would allow her to remain at home. At home there was, at least, Nan to love, and there was mother to remember.