Story 2—Chapter 1.
Buzley’s Court.
“It’s a terr’ble lonesome part from what I hear tell. Miles from the rail, and the house don’t stand as it might be in the village street, but by itself in the fields. Mrs Roy—that’s the Reverend Roy’s wife—was very straight with me about it. ‘If you think, Mrs Lane,’ says she, ‘that your daughter’ll find the place too dull and far away I’d rather you’d say so at once, and I’ll look out for another girl. It’s not at all like London,’ says she, ‘and I make no doubt Biddy will feel strange at first.’”
Mrs Lane wielded a large Britannia metal teapot as she spoke, kept an eye on the sympathetic neighbour sitting opposite at the tea-table, and also contrived to cast a side glance at Biddy, who stood at the fire making toast and listening to the conversation. She had heard her mother say much the same thing a great many times since it had been settled that she was to go to Wavebury and take care of Mrs Roy’s baby, and she was now quite used to hearing that it was a “lonesome” place, though she did not know what it meant. At any rate it must be something impossible to get at Number 6 Buzley’s Court, Whitechapel, where she had lived all the thirteen years of her life. Perhaps she might find it pleasant to be “lonesome,” she thought, and yet her mother always added the word “terr’ble” to it, as if it were a thing generally to be disliked.
Meanwhile the conversation went on:
“And she goes to-morrow, then?” said Mrs Jones. “Now I dessay it’s a fairish long journey by rail?”
“We’ve got all directions wrote out clear, by the Reverend Roy hisself,” answered Mrs Lane proudly. “Biddy, reach me that letter out of the chany jug on the shelf.”
Receiving it, she flattened it carefully out on the table with the palm of her hand before the admiring eyes of Mrs Jones, and, pointing to each word, read out slowly and loudly the directions for Biddy’s journey.
“She gets out, yer see, at Canley station. That’s as far as the rail goes. There she’ll be met and druv over to Wavebury—eight miles, Mrs Roy said.”
“Dear!” exclaimed Mrs Jones, as the letter was folded up again, “what a outlandish place!”
“We’ve worked hard, Biddy and me,” continued Mrs Lane with a glance of pride at her daughter and a little sigh, “to get all her things nice and ready. Two new dark laylock prints I’ve got her.”
“With a spot?” inquired Mrs Jones full of interest.
“No, with a sprig—I always think there’s an air about a laylock print with a sprig. It looks respectable and like service. I don’t hold with them new-patterned bright cottons. Once in the wash-tub, and where are they afterwards? Poor ragged-out things not fit to wear. I remember I had laylock prints when I first went to service as a gal, and there’s bits of them very gowns in the patch-work quilt yonder.”
“Ah!” said Mrs Jones admiringly. Then looking at Biddy’s capable little square figure she added, “You’ll miss her at first a goodish bit at home.”
“If it wasn’t that baby’s out of hand now and runnin’ about I couldn’t let her go, not if it was ever so,” replied Mrs Lane emphatically. “But I shall rub along somehow, and seven pounds a year’s a consideration. Yes, she’s a handy gal, Biddy is, with children. She had ought t’know summat about ’em, for she’s helped to bring six of ’em up. There was Stevie—a deal of trouble we had with him. Always weakly, and cut his teeth in his legs. Never out of arms, that child wasn’t, till he was pretty nigh two year old. I never should a’ reared him if it hadn’t been for Biddy. That I own.”
On the subject of Stevie’s sufferings Mrs Lane had always a great deal to say, and when she paused, less from lack of matter than want of breath, Mrs Jones took up the tale and added experiences of a like nature. Biddy therefore heard no further reference to herself and her prospects, and pursued her own thoughts undisturbed. And she had a great deal to think of, for to-morrow she was going into the world! She would say good-bye to Buzley’s Court and to all the things and people in it she had known and lived with, and turn her face to meet new things and new people. Nothing would be familiar to her in that strange world, not even tea-cups with blue rims like these she was washing up for the last time. Everything new, down to the two lilac prints, made longer than ever before, lying at the bottom of the new black box. It was wonderful to think of, and very confusing to the mind. There would even be a new baby to look after. But when Biddy reached this point she smiled securely, for she had no fears about the baby, though Mrs Roy had looked so doubtfully at her and said that she was small. Small! What had that to do with it? Biddy felt in herself a large capacity for handling babies. Had she not brought Stevie through teething attended with alarming complications? She was not likely to think much of Mrs Roy’s baby after that.
And indeed Biddy was one of those people who seem formed by nature in body and mind on purpose to be nurses. The babies were comfortable in her strong capable arms, and their little woes and troubles were quieted and soothed by her patient placid temper. Then, too, she had, as her mother had said, a great deal of experience, for though she was only thirteen years old now, she had always, ever since she could remember anything, had a baby on her mind. A baby had always been the chief circumstance in her life from the time when she was too small to do anything but keep watch by its cradle, to that when she learnt her lessons for school with a baby in her arms. In her play-hours, when the children of Buzley’s Court gathered to enjoy themselves after their own manner in the summer evenings, Biddy looked on from the door-step—with the baby. By the time baby number one was beginning to stagger about, and seize upon knives and scissors and other dangerous playthings, baby number two—pink and incapable—was ready for Biddy’s closest attention. Life, therefore, without a baby on hand would have seemed to her unnatural and even impossible; and the baby at Wavebury, instead of something to be dreaded, was the only idea her mind rested on with the confidence of long familiarity.
“For babies,” she thought, “are pretty much alike. There’s fat ones and there’s thin ones. The fat ones don’t cry so much, and the thin ones do, and that’s about the only way they differ.”
That night was a very short one to Biddy, and it seemed to her that she was still asleep and dreaming as she and her mother hurried along the cold grey streets in the early morning. Even when they reached the station, much too soon for the train, she could hardly take in the sense of all her mother was repeating to her so earnestly, though she heard the words.
Not to lean against the door, not to lose her ticket, not to forget her box, or the name of the station she was going to. Finally, to be a good gal and mind her work, and remember to say her prayers, and to give Mrs Lane’s dooty to her mistress. All of which she promised, and presently found herself seated in a third-class carriage clasping in one hand her cotton umbrella, and in the other a small shiny black bag which Mrs Lane called a “ridicule.” Then, when she saw her mother standing alone on the platform, she began to wake up and to feel that it was no dream or anything like one. She was really setting forth by herself for a “lonesome” place where there would be no mother. Mother had scolded sometimes, and said sharp things on washing days, but she was fond of Biddy, and proud of her too, and Biddy knew it; the tears rose to her eyes as the train moved away, and as long as she could she waved the “ridicule” in answer to mother’s energetic farewells with her umbrella. But soon, the train quickening its pace, the familiar figure was lost to sight—checked shawl, best black bonnet, gingham umbrella, all vanished, and Biddy was alone, whirling along rapidly towards strange places and people.
Then, for one minute, she felt she must “give way,” but not having been used to such a luxury in Buzley’s Court, where there was never a moment to spare, she thought better of it, winked back the tears, and sat very upright.
Soon there were plenty of surprising things to be seen out of the window, and first the exceeding greenness of the landscape struck her with astonishment, although it was November and the trees were bare. Then, as she got further into the country, she wondered to see so few houses. “Where does the folks bide?” she said to herself. It seemed an empty sort of place, with nothing going on, and Mrs Roy had been quite right when she had said, “The country’s not at all like London.” Biddy’s round brown eyes were still staring out of the window with a fixed expression of surprise when the short winter day began to close in, and a misty gloom spread over the fields and hills as they seemed to chase each other hurriedly past. But though she still tried to look out, and sat stiffly upright in her corner, her head nodded forward now and then, and the whirr and rattle of the train sounded with a sort of sing-song in her weary ears. She struggled to keep awake, but her eyelids seemed pressed down by some determined hand, and at last she gave it up and let them remain closed. After that she was conscious of nothing till she heard a shout of “Canley station!” quite near her, and she jumped up with a start and saw a porter holding the carriage door open; the light of his lantern shone on the wet pavement, but everywhere else it was quite dark and raining fast.
“Oh, please,” said Biddy, “I’m to get out; and is there anyone here from Wavebury?”
She had repeated this sentence so often to herself that it came out now without the least effort.
“All right!” said the porter good-naturedly, “you come alonger me;” and he helped Biddy out and opened her umbrella for her, and asked if she had any luggage. Then diving into the van he reappeared with the precious black box on his shoulder, and led the way along the dripping platform.
“There’s a gen’leman waiting for yer,” he said.
Outside the little station there was a flickering gas-lamp, and by its light Biddy saw a farmer’s spring-cart standing in the road with a small rough pony harnessed to it; in it there sat a young man very much muffled up in a number of cloaks—he wore a wide-awake pulled well down over his face, and was smoking a pipe. “Can it be the Reverend Roy?” thought Biddy.
But she had not time to wonder long, for he turned quickly towards her.
“Are you the little girl for Truslow Manor?” he asked; and then continued, speaking so rapidly that there was no answer needed:
“All right—here you are—give me your hand. Rather a high step. Take care. Capital!” as Biddy struggled up with the porter’s help, and arrived, umbrella and all, flat at the driver’s feet in the bottom of the cart.
“Now, then,” he went on, having picked her up and placed her on the narrow seat at his side, “put this on, and this, and this.”
He plunged into the back of the cart and produced numerous shawls and wraps, which he threw upon the breathless Biddy, talking all the while.
“You’ll find it fresh up on the downs. Where’s your box? In at the back? All right! Then off we go!”
Biddy was quite confused and “put about” by this impetuous behaviour, and she had just made up her mind that this was not the Reverend Roy, when her ideas were upset by the porter, who called out, “Good-night, Mr Roy!” as they drove away. Parsons in the country were, then, different from those in London, like everything else. It was surprising to find them so “short and free in their ways.”
To her relief he did not speak to her again, but puffed away at his pipe in silence while they crawled slowly up a long hill leading out of the town. But this quiet pace did not last, for, the road becoming level, the pony took to a kind of amble which seemed its natural pace, and was soon urged from that into a gallop by its driver. Rattle, rattle, bump! Went the little cart over the rough road; and Biddy, feeling that she must otherwise be tossed out like a nine-pin, clung desperately to her new master’s many wrappings. The Reverend Roy drove very wild, she thought, and how dark it was! She could just dimly see on either side of her, as they bounded along, wide open country stretching far away in the distance; great gently swelling downs were lying there in the mysterious darkness, and all the winds of heaven seemed to have met above them to fight together. How it blew! And yet it managed to rain too at the same time. The wind battled with Biddy’s umbrella, and tugged madly at her bonnet strings, and buffeted Mr Roy’s wide-awake, and screamed exultingly as it blew out his pipe!
“Fresh up here, isn’t it?” he remarked as he took it out of his mouth.
Fresh! Biddy had never felt so cold in her life, and could not have thought there had been so much fresh air in the whole world put together.
On they went, swinging up and down until her brain reeled; on, on, through the rain and whistling wind, over the lonely downs, while she strained her eyes in vain for sight or sound of a living creature. If this was what they meant by a “lonesome” place it was “terr’ble” indeed.
Hours seemed to pass in this way, and then the pony slackened its pace a little. Biddy peered from under the edge of the umbrella and could now make out that they were in a sort of lane, for instead of open country there was a hedge on each side of the road. They must be near Wavebury now, she thought, though she could see no houses or lights or people; her fingers were cramped and cold, and she could not cling on much longer either to her umbrella or Mr Roy’s cloak. But suddenly the pony was checked to a walk, the cart ceased to jump up and down so wildly, and she was able to relax her hold, with a deep sigh of relief.
“It’s an awkward bit just here,” said Mr Roy, “for they’ve been felling a tree, and left pieces of it lying about in the road.”
In front of them was a white gate which stood open and led into what looked like a farmyard, for there were sheds and outbuildings round it and straw scattered about. Through this they drove, jolting over a good many rough obstacles and then through another gate and stopped. They had arrived at last, and this was Truslow Manor. All Biddy could see, however, was a deep stone porch, with a seat on each side of it like the entrance to a church, and then a massive oak door, with heavy hinges and a great brass knocker. There was no light anywhere; but presently, as Biddy, stiff with cold, was preparing to unwind her many wrappings, the door swung slowly back, and a little figure appeared with a lamp in its hand. By its faint glimmer she recognised her new mistress, Mrs Roy, whom she had already seen in London.
“Oh, Richard,” said a plaintive voice, “how glad I am you’re back! Is the girl there?”
“Here we are,” answered Mr Roy cheerfully, as he helped Biddy to climb out of the cart.
“It’s an awful night. How’s the baby?”
“I don’t think she’s worse, but the spots are still there, and Mr Smith hasn’t been. Come in, Biddy.”
Following her mistress Biddy found herself in a narrow stone passage, and caught through an open door to the left a glimpse of a panelled room lighted up by a great glowing wood fire. It looked splendidly comfortable after the cold dreariness outside. Mrs Roy opened another door at the end of the passage.
“Mrs Shivers,” she said to some invisible person within, “here’s Biddy Lane. Please, give her some tea, and let her get warm, and then send her to me in the drawing-room.”
The door closed on Biddy, and Mrs Roy returned to the panelled room, where her husband, having emerged from his wet wrappings, was spreading his hands over the blaze and shivering.
“Well, Richard,” she said earnestly, “what do you think of her?”
“Of whom?” asked Richard.
“Why, of the girl.”
“Well, I think, judging by myself, she must be cold and hungry.”
“She’s very small,” continued Mrs Roy, sitting down in a low chair and glancing thoughtfully at the cradle which stood near it—“smaller than I thought.”
“Who? The baby?”
“No. Of course, I mean the girl. I wish you wouldn’t joke, Richard, when you know how anxious I am.”
“I didn’t mean to, really,” said Mr Roy penitently, as his wife looked up at him with distressed blue eyes. “Only, as you always call the baby ‘She,’ how was I to know? As to being small, you know—well, the last girl was big enough, I’m sure.”
“And stupid enough,” added Mrs Roy sadly. “I couldn’t have kept her, even if she hadn’t insisted on going away.”
“I suppose you’ve cautioned Mrs Shivers not to gossip to this girl?” said Mr Roy in lowered tones.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” answered his wife, casting a nervous glance round the room. “She won’t hear anything about that. And I do hope, if she’s handy with the baby, that she’ll stay. It would be such a comfort. Only I wish she wasn’t so small.”
At this moment the door opened, and, after some hoarsely encouraging whispers from Mrs Shivers, who remained unseen, the small form of Biddy herself appeared. She had put on a white apron and a large cap; there was a great deal of cap and apron and very little of Biddy, and being nervous, she stood with her arms hanging forward in rather a helpless way which did not impress Mrs Roy favourably. Fortunately for Biddy, however, the baby, wakened just then by the noise of the door, began to cry, and its mother stooped over the cradle and lifted the child in her arms. Biddy’s shyness vanished. The cry of a baby was to her as the sound of trumpets is to a war-horse. She advanced eagerly and stood close to her mistress.
“The baby’s not at all well to-night,” said Mrs Roy appealingly. “She’s covered with tiny red spots, and so feverish. I’m expecting the doctor every minute.”
Biddy came still nearer, and examined the small face attentively.
“Lor’! Mum,” she exclaimed triumphantly, “you’ve no call to mind about that. That’s only thrush, that is. Three of ourn had it, and did beautiful. She’s bound to be a bit fretful, but she won’t come to no harm, so long as you keep her warm.”
The confidence with which Biddy spoke, and the manner in which she shortly afterwards took the baby in her arms, and soothed it to sleep with a proper rocking movement of one foot, comforted Mrs Roy immensely. And when the doctor came he confirmed Biddy’s opinion. It was thrush. After that Mrs Roy went to bed happier in her mind than she had been for weeks. Though small, her new nurse-maid would evidently prove a support and a treasure; the only thing to be questioned now was—would she stay?