Still things were not so bad as in winter. I was really all right again, and a little money come in to grandmamma about May or June that she had not dared to hope for. We got on pretty well that summer.
None of the Nestors came to Moor Court at all. Gerard joined them for the long holidays in Switzerland. Mrs. Nestor wrote now and then to granny, and Sharley to me, but of course there was not the least hint of what Gerard had told them. I think they believed and hoped he had exaggerated it—he was the sort of boy to fancy things worse than they were if he cared about people, I think.
And so it got on to be the early autumn again. I think it was about the middle of September when the first beginning of the great change in our lives came.
It was cold already, and the weather prophets were talking of another severe winter. Grandmamma watched the signs of it anxiously. She kept comparing it with the same time last year till I got quite tired of the subject.
'Really, grandmamma,' I said one morning, 'what does it matter? If it is very cold we must have big fires and keep ourselves warm. And one thing I know—I am not going to be shut up again like last winter. I am going to get skates and have some fun as soon as ever the frost comes.'
I said it half jokingly, but still I was ready to be cross too. I had not improved in some ways since I was ill. I was less thoughtful for grandmamma and quite annoyed if she did not do exactly what I wanted, or if she seemed interested in anything but me. In short, I was very spoilt.
She did not answer me about the skates, for at that moment Kezia brought in the letters. It was not by any means every morning that we got any, and it was always rather an excitement when we saw the postman turning up our path.
That morning there were two letters. One was for me from Sharley. I knew at once it was from her by the foreign stamp and the thin paper envelope, even before I looked at the writing. I was so pleased that I rushed off with it to my favourite window-seat, without noticing grandmamma, who had quietly taken her own letter from the little tray Kezia handed it to her on and was examining it in a half-puzzled way. I remembered afterwards catching a glimpse of the expression on her face, but at the moment I gave no thought to it.
There was nothing very particular in Sharley's letter. It was very affectionate—full of longings to be coming home again, even though she allowed that their present life was very bright and interesting. I was just laughing at a description of Pert and Quick going to market on their own account, and how they bargained with the old peasant women, when a slight sound—was it a sound or only a sort of feeling in the air?—made me look up from the open sheet before me, and glance over at grandmamma.
For a moment I felt quite frightened. She was leaning back in her chair, looking very white, and I could almost have thought she was fainting, except that her lips were moving as if she were speaking softly to herself.