Girls of the True Blue

“Oh yes!” said Nan. “And, oh” she added, “I am a horrid girl not to feel very glad! I will try to be very glad, but do not ask me any more to-night.”

“Poor little darling!” said Mrs. Richmond.

She kissed Nan, and nodded to Kitty to run up to Nan and take her hand.

“You are my sister, you know, and I love you already,” said Kitty; and so Nan went upstairs to bed.

Early the next morning, when the little girl felt that she had already only enjoyed her first sleep, she was awakened by some one pulling her rather violently by the arm. She looked up in astonishment. Just at first she could not in the least remember where she was, nor what had happened. Then it all rushed over her – her mother’s funeral of the day before, her own great misery, the change in her life. But she had scarcely time to realise these things, and certainly had not a moment to fret about them, when the eager voice of Kitty was sounding in her ears.

“Get up, please, Nan; dress yourself as fast as ever you can in the dark, and come into the schoolroom. If you are not very quick you will miss seeing the animals getting their breakfasts, and that is the best fun of the day. Now, be quick – be quick! I will come back again in a few minutes. I have lit the candle for you; here it is. Hot water? No; you must do without that. Fly – dash into your clothes, and be in the schoolroom in a quarter of an hour.”

Kitty disappeared, and Nan got up. She felt quite excited; she could not help herself. It was useless to pretend that she felt anything but a sense of rejoicing as she thought of the animals. When with human beings she must remember her mother, and her own suffering, and her great loss, but with the animals she could only rejoice. She scrambled into her clothes, making, it is true, a very sorry spectacle of herself.

“Sophia Maria, my darling,” she said to her doll, “you had better get warm into bed, and lie tucked up there while I am attending to the animals. I will never love them better than I love you, but I must see how they get their breakfasts. They are alive, Maria darling – they are alive; you understand, don’t you?”

Sophia Maria stared with her vacant smile at her little mistress.

“How good she is! she never frets,” thought the little girl; and then she went into the schoolroom, where a fire was lighted – a dull, dim-looking fire, which certainly gave forth no heat whatever just yet – and the gas was turned on.

“Is it not a good thing we have gas?” said Kitty.

Honora and Kitty were both in the schoolroom. They were wearing a long kind of holland smocks over their dresses; their faces looked quite serene and important.

“Now, Nan, which will you take? I think this morning, if you were to hold all the kittens in your lap, you might just watch us. We have to be ever so busy; Miss Roy only gives us a quarter of an hour at this time of day to clean out all the animals’ homes, and I can tell you it is exciting when you have got pups and kittens and birds and mice and rats. Is it not nice of Miss Roy? The mice and rats she will not allow in the room, but she allows the others. We keep them upstairs in the top attic. Sometimes the rats bite, and the mice too; but who minds a little pain when it is an animal – a darling – that has to be attended to?”

Nan was perfectly satisfied to sit near the fire holding the kittens. There were two Persian kittens, and their names were Lord and Lady. They were very handsome, with long, soft chinchilla fur, tiny tails at present, and big heads. Nan stroked them in ecstasy; there was not the slightest doubt that thrills of comfort went through her heart which Sophia Maria had never yet been able to bestow.

Kitty and Honora meanwhile were very busy. The parrot’s cage required a great deal of attention. The parrot was inclined to be rather fierce; he would fly frantically after the little hands when they were put in to take out the seed-trough, and he would cock his head to one side, and then shout out, “Here comes the naughty girl!” and fix his eyes on Nan all the time.

“He does mean me,” said Nan, forgetting the kittens and going up to the cage in her excitement. “Oh dear! is it not funny of him? And I suppose I am a naughty girl.”

“Well, I hope so,” said Kitty. “We don’t want you to be a goody girl; we should not like that at all. We don’t want you to be mournful and sulky and anything like that; we like you to have some spirit in you. You know your darling little Jack who belongs to you altogether? Well, you are to have all the trouble of him; and you are to take the blame also if he is naughty and fidgety, and tears our dresses, and bites the tablecloth. You will be the one to be reprimanded; don’t forget that.”

“I don’t think I shall like that.”

“Well, but surely you do not expect us to be blamed about your animal! I never heard of such a thing!” said Nora “Now we have done everything; go back and get as tidy as you can for breakfast.”

Nan went back to her room feeling much excited. While she was out nurse had entered.

“So you are going to have an animal, miss; and you are going to get up every morning to help the young ladies to feed their pets and clean out their cages?”

“Yes; they have asked me to,” said Nan.

“That is right, my dear; and I hope you will have a happy time and make yourself one of the family.”

“I will try to,” said Nan.

“The first thing you have to do is to give me the frock you wore last night.”

“But, oh!” said Nan, “that is my own frock, bought out of my own money. Please, I would rather – I would rather not give it.”

“I am afraid if you are one of the family you have got to obey Mrs. Richmond, and she does not intend you to wear that ugly frock any more.”

“It is not ugly,” said Nan, colouring high.

“Well, miss, I am afraid it is; and anyhow you cannot wear it, for I am going to take it away. Here is a nice little suitable dress – black, of course, and made the same way as Miss Kitty’s dresses are made. Here, put it on, miss, or you will be late for breakfast.”

All poor Nan’s misery returned to her at these words. She felt as if she were most unjustly treated; she could scarcely bear her own feelings. The pretty frock in which she looked so nice and fresh, and in which she had once again the appearance of a lady, did not appeal to her. She shrugged her shoulders discontentedly, and was only comforted when nurse insisted on her wearing a white pinafore which nearly covered the frock.

Just as she was leaving her bedroom she turned and spoke.

“If you will not let me wear my own frock – and I bought all my own mourning for my own mother – may I at least keep it?”

“Oh yes, poor little girl!” said nurse, much touched by these words. “I will put it in the bottom of the little trunk you brought with you. You might give it to a poor girl some day, and she might make it fit her; it is not fit for any one to wear at present.”

Nan was fain to be comforted with this sort of half-promise of nurse’s, and entered the school-room, where she stood, looking somewhat forlorn, by the fire. But this mood was not to be of long duration, for Nora and Kitty came bounding in. They had made up their minds: the time of gloom was past; they were going to be their own riotous, gay, merry, rebellious, fidgety, almost unruly little selves once again to-day.

Miss Roy was almost as merry as her pupils. At breakfast they screamed with laughter; animals, of course, were the subjects of conversation. The virtues of Jack, the vices of Poll the parrot, the exquisite beauties of Lord and Lady and the bad manners of their mother, the good manners of the bull-terrier – all were discussed with animation. Each little point was noted. Nan listened, her eyes growing wider and wider.

“What is the matter? Why do you not talk?” said Kitty at last.

“I am so astonished,” answered Nan.

“What about?”

“Why, you speak, you and Honora, as if – as if there were no girls and boys in the world.”

“Oh! I suppose there are,” answered Honora. “I am afraid there are,” she continued after a pause. “They are great worries, are they not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Compared to animals, I mean. Who would compare them?”

“I don’t know,” said Nan again.

“You will when you have been here a little longer. – Oh, Miss Roy, Kitty has given Jack to Nan. He is her very own bull-puppy. She has got to train him; and, please, if he does anything naughty you are to blame her.”

“Well, now, children,” said Miss Roy, “put on your hats and coats and get ready for school. Nan, my dear, Mrs. Richmond has not arranged for your school until next week, so will you please stay in the schoolroom until I come back to you? I will hear you a few lessons then, and we can go out for a walk together.”

“And may she take Jack for a little airing?” asked Kitty.

“Yes, if she has a leash – not otherwise.”

“Oh! I can lend her a leash,” said Kitty. “You will find it hanging up in the passage outside the schoolroom,” she added, turning to the little girl; “and there is a collar as well. Now we must be off.”

In a moment they dashed away, Miss Roy following them. From intense excitement and vigorous conversation and loud noise and hearty laughs the schoolroom was reduced to absolute silence. Nan felt a sense of relief. She crept into her bedroom, took Sophia Maria from between the sheets, clasped her in her arms, and sitting down by the fire, called to Jack to come and make friends.

Now, Jack was of the most sociable nature, but it is, alas! true that he was possessed with a petted little dog’s invariable infirmity – that of intense jealousy. He had taken to Nan; he had liked the position on her shoulder, and had quite slobbered with bliss when she had kissed him on his little cheek the night before. But Nan was now hugging a hideous object in her arms, and Jack did not see why such a thing should be permitted. He was wary, however, and did not intend to give himself away. He knew by experience that in small puppies mischievousness was reproved by two-footed creatures who had the control of them; but in all the world what could be more delicious than the sort of mischief which meant tearing and rending, using his teeth and puppy paws to some purpose? That horrid thing in Nan’s arms could be rent and torn and demolished and worried, and what a time of enjoyment he would have while doing it! Accordingly he raised his dancing eyes to Nan’s face, and jumped backwards and forwards, inviting her as bewitchingly as puppy could to a game of romps. She played with him for a little, trying to catch him, which he avoided, for it was quite beyond the dignity of puppydom to repose in the same lap with the hideous doll dressed in crape. The dog was biding his time. Nan looked again at Maria. She still wore her inane smile. Nan kissed her. She was so cold; she did not seem to take any interest.

“She is not so nice as Jack,” thought the little girl, “but of course I like her best. Did not mother give her to me, and have not I over and over and over again cried with her in my arms? She comforted me, then, but not as little Jack does.”

Presently Miss Roy came in, bustling and fresh from the outside world.

“Now, get on your things, Nan,” she said. “I will take you for a walk first of all, as it may rain later on; it is a beautiful morning, and we will go for a walk in Hyde Park. You had better leave little Jack at home; dogs are not allowed in Hyde Park except on a leash.”

Nan got up joyfully. Sophia Maria was put comfortably sitting in the arm-chair in which the little girl had herself reposed, and a few minutes later Nan and her governess went out.

Now was Jack’s opportunity. The schoolroom was silent; the mother bull-terrier was sound asleep, with the other pups nestling up to her. Jack, bent on mischief, was practically alone. The Persian cat turned her back upon him with the most lofty disdain in her attitude; the parrot winked at him out of her wicked eye, and said, “Here we are again!” another favourite expression of hers. Jack cared little; with a dexterous leap he secured Sophia Maria, and what immediately followed may be left to the imagination of the readers.

When Nan returned from her walk there were morsels of crape on the floor, and tiny pieces of coarse black cashmere, and a naked doll, which, rent and torn and injured, lay in a distant corner; but her clothes – alas! where were they? Jack waggled up to his little mistress, coaxing and canoodling, and saying by a thousand pretty motions, “You must forgive me if it was wrong. I am sorry, but I would do it again if I had the chance; only please forgive me.” And then Nan uttered a sudden shriek and flew towards the battered remains of her doll, which she clasped in her arms.

“Oh, Miss Roy – oh, Miss Roy!” screamed the little girl.

“What is it, my dear?” said the astonished governess.

“Oh, see what Jack has done!”

“Naughty Jack!” said Miss Roy. “But really, Nan, it was a very ugly doll; if you wish to dress it again I will find some pieces for you some half-holiday. Put it in the cupboard now and forget about it. Come to me in a few minutes for your lessons.”

CHAPTER VII. – THE FALL

Nan had gone about for the remainder of the day with a lump in her throat. It was not the least like the heavy weight of sorrow which pressed on her yesterday – but nevertheless it was a curious and strange sensation. To all intents and purposes Sophia Maria no longer existed; that battered and torn and disreputable doll in the cupboard could not be the darling whom she had pressed to her heart and loved and worshipped during all the sorrowful days when her mother lay dead in the lodging-house in Bloomsbury.

But although the lump was there, and the sorrow and the dismay there also, Nan’s day was one rush, one continued succession, of excitement; there was literally no time in Mrs. Richmond’s happy house for brooding or grieving.

“I must try and forget Sophia Maria for the present,” thought the child; “there is such a lot to be done! But when I get into bed to-night, oh! won’t I have a good cry?”

She made up her mind also not to tell either Nora or Kitty what had happened to her dear baby.

“As for Jack,” she said to herself, “I shall hate him all the rest of my days.”

But when he came up to her, and sprang with great appreciation into her lap and cuddled down there, and licked her hand with his little red tongue, she found that, far from hating him, she was loving him better and better each moment. At last bedtime came, and Nan as she laid her head on her pillow and said “Good-night” to nurse, who had come in to put out her candle, whispered to herself:

“Now I must have a tremendous cry for my darling Sophia Maria.”

But, behold! the very next instant she was sound asleep. So Maria lay neglected in the cupboard. Some day, of course, Nan would dress her, and make her a pet and an idol once more, but meantime she was too busy.

As the days flew on she grew busier and busier, for on the following Monday she went to school with Nora and Kitty. It was discovered at school that she was a very clever and well-informed little girl for her age, and she was put into quite a high-up class for a girl of eleven, and had many lessons to learn, and much to attend to. And as Nan had not only school-hours to live through, but private lessons in music to work for at home, and walks to take, and romps to enjoy, and the animals one and all to idolise, she had not been a month in Mrs. Richmond’s house before she became a very merry and a very happy little girl. Not that for a single moment she forgot her mother; but she was wise enough and sensible enough to know that if she would really please that mother she would do it best by being happy and contented. Once she saw Mr. Pryor; and when Mr. Pryor said to her, “Are you trying to be the best girl?” Nan coloured, and squeezed his hand, and said:

“Oh! but I have got such a darling little puppy – all my very, very own – and his name is Jack. And I do love Kitty and Nora! And Mrs. Richmond is very kind.”

Then Mr. Pryor looked straight into the dancing, dark eyes of Nan, and he laid his hand for a moment on her head and said:

“I think you are going to be the best girl.”

“I wonder what he really means,” thought Nan. “It is nice to be happy; even in mother’s time I was never as happy as I am now. In mother’s time there was always the pain – her pain – to remember, and the empty purse, and Mrs. Vincent, who was so cross, and – Oh! lots and lots of such things. But now nothing seems sad, and no one seems sorry; and the animals alone would make any girl happy.”

But as it is not appointed in this life for any one to pass from the cradle to the grave without anxiety and troubles and temptations and fears, so was Nan Esterleigh no exception to the general rule.

She had been two months at Mrs. Richmond’s, and in that time had grown strong and healthy, and a pretty rose colour had beautified her dark little face, and her eyes were very bright, and her whole appearance that of an intelligent and happy child. During those two months the spring had advanced so far that it was now the daffodil and primrose time, and the children had arranged to go to the nearest woods to gather baskets of primroses on a certain Saturday, which was of course a whole holiday. Saturday was the most delightful day of the seven in Nan’s opinion, for there was no school and there were no classes of any sort. It was the animals’ special day, when extra cleanings had to be given and extra groomings gone through; when the cages and baskets had to get fresh flannels and fresh gravel; when the mice and the rats had in especial to be looked after. Nan always enjoyed Saturday best of all, and this special Saturday was to be indeed a red-letter day, for Miss Roy had decided to take the children to the country by a train which left Victoria at one o’clock. They would get to Shirley Woods in half-an-hour; there they could pick primroses to their hearts’ content, and bring them back in basketfuls. Nan was very much excited. She had never been to Shirley Woods, and the thought of some hours in the country filled her with the wildest glee.

“Why, you dance about and make more fuss even than we do,” said Nora, looking at her as she skipped up and down the room.

“Yes; I am in very high spirits,” said Nan, “and I am ever so happy.”

“I wonder how you will enjoy it when our cousin Augusta comes.”

“Who is your cousin Augusta? I have never heard of her.”

“I dare say not; but she is coming for a couple of months, either to-night or to-morrow morning – to-night, probably. Mother had a letter from our aunt, and she wants mother to take care of Augusta until she comes back from the Riviera. Her name is Augusta Duncan. She is a very handsome girl, and has a lot of spirit. She is the fashionable sort, and thinks a lot of her dress and her appearance. What fun we shall all have together!”

“But is she coming to school with us? How will she spend her day?” asked Nan.

“No, she is not going to school, for she has not been quite strong, and is to have a complete holiday. I expect she will stay here a good bit and amuse herself.”

“How old is she?” said Nan again.

“She is a year and a half older than me,” replied Nora, “so she is going on for fourteen. She is a very big girl for her age. I am quite curious to see her.”

“Well, don’t let us bother about her now,” said Nan. “Let us get ready to go off for our happy day in the country.”

Kitty looked at the clock.

“I had not the least idea it was so late,” she said. “What is to be done? Mother wants us to get some flowers for the drawing-room before we start. Cannot you go, Nan? Just run and ask Susan the housemaid to go with you. You have very nice taste, and can choose just the flowers mother would like. Get them at Johnson’s at the corner. I know mother wants heaps of violets, and as many yellow flowers as you can put together. You had better select about five shillings’ worth, for some people are coming to tea with mother this afternoon.”

“Very well,” said Nan, in high good-humour. “I’ll be off at once.”

She put on her hat and jacket and ran downstairs, calling to Susan to accompany her. Susan, however, was very busy, and grumbled when the little girl made her request.

“Dear me, Miss Nan!” she said; “nurse has given me a lot to do, and I am very late as it is. Cannot the flowers wait?”

“Oh! it does not matter,” answered Nan.

A daring idea rushed through her mind. Why should she have Susan, to keep her company? It was only a step from the Richmonds’ house to Johnson’s shop; she could easily go there alone. The fact that she was forbidden ever to go out by herself was completely forgotten. In her mother’s time she had constantly been sent on messages, and surely she was just as sensible a little girl now. So, calling Jack the puppy to accompany her, she started on her mission. She arrived at the shop in good time, and there she saw two girls standing by the counter. They were ordering flowers too, and talking to each other in a somewhat excited manner. Their accents were not the accents of London girls; they had a high-pitched note in them, which Nan at first thought very disagreeable, and then considered fascinating. The girls were beautifully and extravagantly dressed. They were taller and older than Nan. They wore velvet frocks of a rich blue, and fawn-coloured jackets, and they had blue velvet hats which drooped over their faces. The hats were trimmed with enormous ostrich-feathers, also a deep royal-blue. The girls had quantities of very thick and very bright golden hair, which hung in curly masses down their backs and over their shoulders. They had each of them deep-blue eyes – very deep and very dark – and long, curly black lashes. Nan considered them quite the most lovely human beings she had ever looked at. They would not have taken the least notice of the quiet, grave-looking little girl who had come into the shop but for the fact that Jack suddenly made a dive at one of their dresses, and catching it in his teeth, pulled at it, as much as to say, “Now for a game of play!”

The girl whose dress was attacked immediately tried to shake the bull-terrier off; but the bull-terrier would not let go. It was the mission of all bull-pups never to let go, and here was his opportunity. He hung on as if for grim death, and the girl’s face got red and her eyes flashed with temper. She turned to Nan and said in an imperious voice:

“Do take your dog off, please. What a horrid little beast he is!”

“He is not horrid at all,” said Nan, very cross at anything disparaging being said of Jack; but she caught the pup in her arms, and stood red and panting, waiting for the girls to leave the shop.

The elder girl, whose dress had been the subject of Jack’s attack, found that it was slightly torn, and she turned to her sister and said:

“What an insufferable little dog, and what a still more insufferable girl!”

“Oh, hush, Flora!” said the girl so addressed.

“Where shall I send the flowers to, miss?” asked the man who was serving the girls, bending over the counter as he did so.

“Send them to Mrs. Aspray, Court Mansions,” was the elder girl’s reply. “Be quick, please,” she added; “you had better send a man round with all those flowers in pots. We are expecting company this afternoon, and mother says the flowers must arrive before two o’clock.”

The man promised; and the girls, the elder one still very cross and angry, left the shop.

Just as she was doing so she flashed her handsome blue eyes in Nan’s direction, and Nan gave her back quite as indignant a glance.

“Well, miss, and what can I do for you?” said the shopman, now turning to Nan.

Nan gave her order; the man promised to attend to it immediately, and the little girl returned home.

Now, how it happened she never knew, but going back, she trod suddenly on a piece of orange-peel. The next moment she was lying on her face, white and sick and dizzy with pain. She had sprained her ankle. For a moment or two she lay still. Then a man rushed up and raised her to her feet. She made a frantic effort, and leaning on his arm, got as far back as Mrs. Richmond’s house. When the door was opened for her, great was the astonishment of Caroline the parlour-maid.

“Why, Miss Nan,” she cried, “how white you are! What has happened?”

“I have sprained my foot. I fell when I was out; I trod on a piece of orange-peel.”

“And you were out, miss, all alone?”