Chapter II tailpiece
Chapter II tailpiece
Chapter III headpiece
Chapter III headpiece
We shall be what you will make us;Make us wise, and make us good!Make us strong for time of trial,Teach us temperance, self-denial,Patience, kindness, fortitude!'—MARY HOWITT.
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t was, perhaps, just as well that Mr. Crayshaw had to start for London next morning before Godfrey was awake, so that he did not see his young cousin again. He had a talk with Angel, and gave her some money for the housekeeping expenses of the next fortnight, and was a good deal surprised to find how sensible and business-like she could be.
'Cousin Crayshaw really sees how you are beginning to grow up, Angel,' said Betty admiringly, as they came back up the garden path together after seeing their cousin off. 'I wish he talked to me like that. Angel dear, what a lot of money! I don't think that is economy, do you? I should think we might put by a good deal of it for Godfrey to use by-and-bye. Do let's see if we can't save out of it.'
But Angel thought not. She felt she hardly knew enough yet about housekeeping to cut the expenses down lower than her guardian thought fit.
'I must go and talk to Penny,' she said, 'and will you wash the breakfast china and listen for Godfrey moving?'
The breakfast china was a beautiful old set which had been a wedding present to the girls' grandmother, and which Miss Crayshaw in her lifetime had always washed herself, so Betty felt important as she tied on an apron and fetched her hot water.
Angel finished her housekeeping talk and went upstairs to see if Godfrey were still asleep. She opened the bedroom door softly lest she should wake him, but to her surprise he was up and dressed, and kneeling by the bed saying his prayers. He had been taught that at any rate, Angel thought joyfully, and she drew back reverently, not liking to disturb him. But she could not help hearing the last words:
'I will promise to be a very good boy, and if I may not go back to Biddy I would like to go up the ladder to-day, but I should like Biddy best.'
He rose to his feet the next minute and turning his head caught sight of Angel. A half-pleased, half-startled look came over his face.
'Good morning, Godfrey dear,' said his young aunt, coming forward.
The boy put his hands behind him and looked straight at her with his wide grey eyes.
'Good morning,' he said; 'you've come down the ladder for me, I suppose. I like Biddy best, but it can't be helped. Where is the ladder? Are you to go first or am I?'
'What ladder, dear?' said Angelica, dreadfully puzzled.
'What a stupid angel you are!' said the little boy impatiently; 'the ladder you and the others go up and down to Heaven on, of course, like the picture in Biddy's Bible; the ladder you took my papa and mamma up, and Biddy's father, and Corporal O'Roone, and all the others you angels take care of.'
'He must mean Jacob's ladder,' thought Angel. 'I didn't come down that ladder, Godfrey dear,' she said.
Godfrey shook his head.
'I didn't know angels told stories,' he said reproachfully; 'you know you are one, I heard that other call you it.'
'It is only short for my long name,' explained the girl; 'my name is Angelica, Godfrey,—your aunt Angelica, your aunt Angel.'
'I never heard they were aunts,' said Godfrey doubtfully; 'Biddy said just angels.'
'Who is Biddy?' asked Angel, to escape from the difficulty.
'She takes care of me and sometimes of my papa,' said Godfrey readily. 'She takes care of everybody that you angels aren't taking care of. She took care of her father till the angels did it instead, and then she went to church and promised to take care of Corporal O'Roone till the angels got him too. I would rather go back to Biddy, but if I can't I suppose I must go up the ladder with you to my papa.'
It was a queer sort of muddle altogether, and Angel hardly knew whether she felt more like laughing or crying over it. She sat down in the window and drew Godfrey towards her.
'Dear,' she said, 'you have made a mistake. I am not that sort of angel. I hope they take care of you and me and all of us here on earth, as well as where your papa is. But I don't want you to go away. I want you to stay here and be happy with me.'
Godfrey looked at her steadily through his lashes.
'What are you?' he asked abruptly; 'are you a lady?'
'Yes, I think—I hope so,' said Angel.
'Last night I thought you were a white witch, like the ones in Biddy's stories,' said the child, 'and I wanted you to make wings for me. Are you sure, sure you can't? I want to go back.'
His lips began to quiver, and Angel drew him close to her.
'I can't send you back, dear,' she said tenderly; 'couldn't you try to be happy with me? I want to love you very much.'
'Doeshelive here?' asked Godfrey abruptly.
'Cousin Crayshaw do you mean?' asked Angel, in some alarm. 'No; he comes to see us and help us, and tell us what to do.'
'I shall kill him next time he comes,' said Godfrey, calmly; 'I shall hold on to his leg and bite him till he dies.'
'Oh, no, I'm sure you won't!' said Angelica, in dismay; 'no angels will want to be near you, Godfrey, if you wish such unkind things as that.'
'Won't you want to be near me?' asked Godfrey doubtfully.
'I shall be very unhappy,' said Angel, and she added quickly, 'but by-and-bye we can talk about everything. Come down and have breakfast and see your other aunt.'
Godfrey looked at her steadily again for a minute, then he suddenly put his little hand in hers.
'I will go with you,' he said, and Angel kissed him with all her heart and led him downstairs. He was very quiet while he ate his bread-and-milk under the eyes of both aunts, and with Penelope making constant excuses to pop in and out of the room; but his great eyes took note of everything, and now and then he asked some quick question or said decidedly what he liked or did not like. He was very quick, Angel thought, as she watched him, nothing seemed to escape him, and his thoughts flew faster than she could follow. He would be very clever, she said to herself, and her heart failed her a little, for she was not clever, she knew. She was slow at understanding things, afraid of deciding quickly; would she ever be able to guide any one else? She thought about it that afternoon, when Betty had taken her nephew out for a walk and she was busy darning his stockings. They were in dreadful holes, and Angel, as she sat in the parlour window seat with the basket by her side, remembered what she had heard about the way boys wore out their clothes. It made her think of the plans she and Betty used to arrange in their schooldays for mending Bernard's things and taking care of him when he should come home. How little she had dreamt that the mending would be done for Bernard's son! Godfrey had not talked about his father, and Angel had asked no questions and had checked Betty and Penelope. If he should confide in them and tell them about his West Indian home, she would wait and let him do it in his own good time. Just now, everything was strange to him, and she wanted to let him take it in and get used to it all; she could not look for him to love them and be at home with them quite yet. You see, if she was not very quick, she was a very patient person, this Angel; she was content to wait and let her flowers grow, and trust to sun and rain to do the work, without wanting to help by digging them up every day or two to see how the roots looked. And so she sat and thought her gentle thoughts in the creeper-framed window, until she began to wonder where Betty and Godfrey were, and decided to go and meet them. She went down the road, where the wind blew fresh across the common, past one or two cottages, with a word here and there to the children playing at the doors, till she came in sight of the old 'Royal Oak,' the village inn, standing back from the road. In front of the inn was the tree which gave the name both to the house and the village, a noble old oak, hollow inside and propped up with iron supports, but still green above. A tree with a history it was, a tree which could have told many a tale, if it could have spoken, of generations who had passed away, while still its leaves budded fresh and green spring-time after spring-time, and dropped in a russet carpet when the November frosts touched them with cold fingers. But there seemed to be some unusual excitement going on about the oak to-day; a little crowd was collected beneath it: Mr. Collins the innkeeper, and the men and maids, John Ware the miller, pretty Patty Rogers, Nancy's elder sister, Nancy herself, who was always in the forefront when anything was going on, two or three women from the cottages, and, what startled Angel most, Betty, with her shady hat tumbling down her back, gazing up anxiously into the tree, but not Godfrey. Angel quickened her steps and looked where they were looking, and as she drew nearer she heard a chorus of voices.
'Come down, come down, Godfrey, dear Godfrey, you naughty, naughty little boy, come down!'
'Come down, young master; the bough's rotten, 'twon't bear you.'
'Oh, bless him, he'll break his neck, the wood's just tinder! I can't look at him.'
And here Nancy, who loved to have anything, bad or good, to tell, caught sight of Angel and came flying to meet her.
'Oh please, Miss Angelica,' she panted, 'the young gentleman's up the tree and he won't come down nor they can't fetch him, and Mrs. Taylor says he's safe to break his neck, miss—nothing can't save him.'
And then came Betty in a flood of tears.
'Angel, tell him to come down, tell him to come down; he won't listen to me; he'll be killed, he'll be killed!'
'Safe to be!' echoed all the women, as Angel reached the group.
Naughty Godfrey was up the tree in a place that certainly seemed unsafe enough. He was astride upon a bough that did indeed look fearfully rotten, and, though the men below would gladly have gone after him, no one heavier than the slim little boy could have climbed up there in safety.
'The wonder is how he got there, not being a cat,' remarked Ware the miller, who was of a rather dismal turn of mind, 'but he'll want nine lives if he's to get down with a whole skin.'
Angel turned pale as she looked up at him, but she called to him quietly, 'Godfrey, come down at once.'
Godfrey looked down at the sound of her voice, and she thought he looked rather scared.
'I'm going to stop up here,' he said.
'No, you are to come down,' said Angel gravely.
He made a little movement as if he were coming, resting his toe for an instant on a lower bough. As he did so the rotten wood snapped and the branch came down at Angel's feet, leaving Godfrey astride on the bough above, with his feet dangling, while his own seat cracked dangerously. There was a fresh chorus from below.
'The bough's breaking; come down, sir, come down!'
'No, don't move, sir, it'll break if you do; don't stir for your life!'
'Godfrey, keep quite still'—this was from Angel. 'Betty, don't cry; please all of you be quiet, you startle him.'
'Right for you, Miss Angelica,' said the innkeeper; 'hold your tongues, you stupids, if you can. Get into the house and fetch a couple of mattresses and put them here, and look alive about it, will you?'
'You'd best stand a bit back, Miss Angelica,' said the miller, 'else you'll have young master on your head, and there'll be two of you. I'd go up after him if it wouldn't come hard on my wife and six children, one in arms. One must mind one's neck a bit when one's a father, missy.'
'I'd be up after him this minute if the bough'd bear me,' said the innkeeper doubtfully.
Angel answered none of them. She stood still with her white face raised to the little figure in his dangerous position over her head.
He was frightened enough himself now, clinging tightly to the cracking bough and looking fearfully down at the ground beneath him.
'Don't look down, Godfrey,' called Angel encouragingly; 'sit quite still, and we will help you directly.'
At the same moment Peter Rogers came suddenly pushing through the group with a rope in his hand, He said not a word but went up the tree like a squirrel.
''Taint no good, Pete,' the miller began, 'the bough won't bear you.' Angel clutched his coat.
'Be quiet,' she said almost sharply; 'we can't do anything; be quiet.'
Every one obeyed her, and held their breath as Pete climbed to the higher boughs above Godfrey, which, though slender for his weight, looked safer than the dead ones. He fastened the rope where it seemed secure and dropped the end down to the little boy.
'Tie it tight round your waist, young master,' he said; 'tie it in two or three knots.'
Those below would have given directions too, but Angel stopped them again.
'Hush! let Pete tell him; don't confuse him.'
There was dead silence again, while Godfrey, looking up at Peter, struggled with his little fingers over the stiff rope. The maids came out while he was doing it, and, at their master's sign, put down the mattresses silently under the tree.
'Now come back, sir,' said Peter from above. 'Mind, you can't fall, the rope's tight, and I'll have you in a minute. Don't look down, and come along gently.'
His quiet voice seemed to give Godfrey confidence and he obeyed, pushing himself along the bough. Betty hid her face against Angel, and squeezed her sister's fingers till they were hot and sore. The miller puffed with excitement and began to say something, when the innkeeper clapped his big hand over his mouth. It did not really last a minute, but it seemed an hour before Peter, standing firm in a fork of the tree, could reach the child and drag him towards him, even as the branch on which Godfrey had been sitting crashed down on to the mattress at Angelica's feet. Another minute, and Peter was helping the little boy down the tree, amid a chorus of congratulation from below. Every one had something to say, some comment to make, except Angel, who just took tight hold of Godfrey's hand, as he stood quite quiet, hanging his head in the midst. She checked Betty with a gentle touch when she would have seized hold of him, though she was wanting dreadfully to hug him herself.
'Thank you all very much,' she said softly, to the people round her. 'I think we will go home now; come, Godfrey.' And she led him away with Betty following. After a minute or two she said:
'Godfrey, you have given us a most terrible fright. We must be very thankful you were not killed.'
'The other angels saw to me,' said Godfrey.
'Yes, but we mustn't look for angels to take care of us when we go into dangerous places where we have no business to be. Why did you climb the tree, Godfrey?'
'Because she said I couldn't,' said Godfrey stoutly.
'Do you mean your Aunt Elizabeth? It was very naughty of you to do what she told you not. We must take you home now and leave you with Penny because we can't trust you.'
All the time her kind heart was aching over the terribleness of having to be severe with him on the very first day, the longing to catch him up and kiss him and cry over him. But she kept on saying to herself, 'We must—we must, there is nobody else to do it,' and so she managed to be firm. She took Godfrey home, talked to him tenderly and gravely, and left him in the little room where Penny sat sewing. She felt as if she had not said half she meant, as if she had made a thousand mistakes, though she had tried her very best to be wise. Godfrey had listened silently to all she said; he would think about it, Angel hoped, and perhaps by-and-bye he would say something; she must just wait. Then she went to find her sister. Betty had not come into the house, and Angel, going out to look for her, heard sounds of sobbing by the arbour. Everything Betty did was always done vehemently, and there she was now, lying full length on the grass, with her head on Demoiselle Jehanne's stone shoulder, crying as if her heart would break.
'Betty dear, don't lie there, the grass is damp,' said Angelica, leaning over her. Betty left Miss Jane to throw her arms round her sister.
'Oh, Angel,' she sobbed, 'I can't—I can't ever be it! It's no use, I can't be a maiden aunt, I know I never shall. This first day, this very first, he's nearly killed himself. Oh, Angel, if I shut my eyes, I can see him with his darling neck broken, and the funeral, and Cousin Crayshaw coming down to it and looking "I told you so." And perhaps wicked people, who might think we want his money, might say we planned it, like the Babes in the Wood's uncle, and there might be a trial, and you and me tried for making away with Bernard's little boy.'
'Betty, Betty,' gasped Angel, who never could follow the pace of Betty's imagination, 'don't say such dreadful things! Godfrey's quite safe, and I'm sure you couldn't help it.'
'That's the worst of it, I couldn't help it,' sobbed Betty; 'I can't make him do as I tell him, and he won't—he won't—he won't call me Aunt Elizabeth,' and she watered Miss Jane's convolvulus with fresh tears.
'I am thinking,' said Angel hesitatingly, 'that perhaps we expected a little too much to begin with; you see, we had had no practice before, so perhaps it is natural we should make a few mistakes.'
'But we don't want to practise on Godfrey,' wailed Betty, 'and, if he gets killed while we're learning, where will be the use of us getting wise about it? Fancy us left to get quite old, two wise maiden aunts with no nephew to be aunt to, and all Godfrey's dreadful money for our own, and people thinking we liked it.'
The picture was altogether too dreadful for Angel to fancy at all.
'Don't you think perhaps it's better not to think about such dreadful things happening?' she said hesitatingly; 'and Betty, do you know, I've just remembered that I don't think we half thanked Pete properly. Shall we go down to the Place and see if we can find him?'
'I think we'd better,' said Betty, rising; 'I'm sure I ought, for he's saved Godfrey's neck from being broken, and me from either dying of a broken heart or going quite mad. Fancy if you'd had to live alone, Angel, or to come and see me in an asylum, perhaps talk to me through bars. Yes, I think we'd better go and thank Pete.'
Angelica put her sister's tangled curls straight and tied on her hat, and they went together rather slowly and mournfully down the road to Oakfield Place.
They were quite at home there, and went in through the garden to the back of the house, where Patty was feeding chickens in the orchard with Nancy helping her. Nancy came running to meet the young ladies, stopping in dismay at sight of Betty's tear-stained face, and Patty asked anxiously if the young gentleman were hurt.
'Oh no, not at all, thank you,' said Angel, 'only he frightened us a good deal. Is Peter in, Patty? We wanted to thank him for being so sensible and helping Godfrey so cleverly.'
Pete would be in directly, Patty thought; he had just gone to the mill, he was bound to be back soon. Mother was making the lavender bags in the storeroom, wouldn't the young ladies step in? she'd be fine and pleased; and she showed them into the house and held back Nancy, who would have followed, since she never would learn when she wasn't wanted. The store-room was a long, low room, running along the back of the house and looking on to the garden. To-day it was full of the clean, pleasant scent of lavender; there were great trays of dried lavender on the long table, and Martha Rogers sat stitching away at muslin bags to put it in. Every year those lavender bags were made at Oakfield Place; they were all alike, of black muslin bound with lilac-coloured ribbon. Old Mrs. Maitland had made them herself up to the last year she lived; there were great stores of beautiful linen in the house, sheets and towels and table-cloths which she and her sisters had stitched at in their young days, and they were all stowed away in big presses, with the fragrant lavender between them, until the captain should bring a wife home to Oakfield and want them. The lavender bags which she did not use herself Mrs. Maitland gave to her friends; there was no one she had been fond of who did not possess several of the little sweet-scented presents. Miss Amelia Crayshaw had had plenty of them, and Angel and Betty had received one each, long ago, one day when they had been to drink tea at the Place with their cousin before Mrs. Maitland died. And as long as they lived the scent of lavender would always bring back to them the old house, and the sunny sloping garden, and the long, low store-room, with its deep window seats and shelves and presses, and Martha stitching away at black muslin and lilac ribbon. For the captain liked to know that things were done still as they had been in his mother's lifetime, and so the lavender was gathered every year, and the bags were made to put among the stores of linen which was waiting, all snowy and fragrant, till the master of the house came home.
Martha Rogers was a tall, comely woman, with capable hands and a sensible motherly face. And, indeed, she had mothered and cosseted many a child besides her own three, and Angel and Betty Wyndham were among the number. Often and often when they were little girls they had come to Martha with their troubles, for Cousin Amelia, though she was always kind, seemed to have forgotten the long ago time when she was a child, when little things looked so big, and a broken doll or a wet birthday made all the world dark for a little while. And Penny, though she was quite ready to pet and comfort them, never had very much to suggest except kisses and sugar and a bit of cake. But Martha Rogers, though she was so big and wise and busy, had that beautiful power, which we must all learn if we are going to be helpful, sympathizing people, of remembering what it was like to be little and shy and stupid, and never talked about it being a waste of time and tears to cry over playthings, or thought that people could be comforted by sweetmeats and advice not to spoil their pretty eyes. There was a sort of strong, happy feeling about her very presence, and Angel and Betty felt it to-day as they came into the lavender-scented store-room. Martha gave them a hearty welcome as usual.
'Come in, Miss Angel, come in, Miss Betty dear; 'tis a while since I saw you. Sit ye down here, Miss Angel, out of the draught. Bless your heart, my dear, where are your roses? But, of course, Patty's just told me the fright you've got about the young gentleman—a little Turk, to be sure; but there, boys will be boys, won't they, and never easy till they're in mischief one way or the other.'
Angel began to answer her, and then suddenly, at the kind hearty words, her composure broke down, and she dropped her face in her hands and cried as Betty had done.
'It's my fault, Martha,' faltered Betty, in explanation, 'it was me he was with, and I couldn't stop him doing it. And he's got nobody but us to look to, you know, and how are we ever going to teach him?'
Martha Rogers looked from one of the sisters to the other, and then she stuck her needle into the black muslin and came over to Angelica, and began stroking her bowed head with her broad tender hand.
'Poor dears! poor little ladies!' she said gently; 'bless your hearts, my dears, if you take on like this every time the young gentleman takes a frolic you'll have your hair white before you're twenty.'
'But, Martha,' sighed Betty, 'you know he did what I told him not to do.'
'Ay, did he, Miss Betty dear; and many's the time, I doubt, he'll take his own way again, like the rest of us, and be sorry for it, sure enough.'
'But if I can't make him obey me,' said Betty dolefully, 'there's nobody but us, you know.'
'Miss Betty dear, not all the King's army and navy can't make the smallest bit of a child obey them if he won't. You can tell a child what's right and punish him if he does wrong, but you can't make him do what you want, like you can drive a nail into a board. I'll warrant you've told him he's been a bad boy and put you both about, and scared everybody.'
'Yes, I told him,' said Angel, lifting her face, 'but, Martha, I don't know if he minded.'
'He'll mind by-and-bye, if he didn't then, Miss Angelica, and be worse vexed to think he's hurt you than to have nigh broken his neck.'
Angel looked gravely up at her.'
'Martha,' she said simply, 'you are always so good to us, and you know we have to be everything to Godfrey, and we have no one else to ask, so you will tell me what you think. Of course we want Godfrey to obey us for love—it would break my heart if he didn't love us—but still he must be punished if he does wrong, and there is no one else to do it. Sha'n't we find it very hard to make him care for us, and yet treat him rightly and wisely?'
Martha Rogers sat down again in the chair where she had been stitching the lavender bags, but she did not take up her work. She smoothed her large apron down thoughtfully once or twice and then she began to speak slowly, looking beyond Angel out of the window.
'You'll pardon me, Miss Angelica, I'm only just one that's been a child myself and seen myself over again in my own children, but this is how it seems to me. I think when we're bits of boys and girls, before we've learnt much of how other folks do things, the Lord gives us a very good notion of what's fair and right, and we look to see older folks have the same. When I was a young wife, Miss Angel, and Patty yonder was in her cradle, my grannie, that brought me up, said much the same thing to me. "Martha," says she, "yon little lass'll meet a many unfair things, and a many contrairy things to puzzle her before she's a grown woman; don't let her meet 'em in her mother, my dear. Let her have some one she can hold on to, and reckon on to blame her when she's wrong and praise her when she's right. If she breaks your best jug by accident don't go for to scold her, but if she takes a bit of sugar on the sly ye may take the birch to her." If young master's like most of the little lads I've known, Miss Angel, he'll put them first that loves him well enough to put what's fair before what's pleasant for him or for them.'
'But, Martha,' said Angel earnestly, 'you were older than we are, and you had your grannie to ask, and we are so afraid of making mistakes.'
'Miss Angelica, you'll forgive me for what I'm going to say. I'm not making light, missy dear, but what can you do more than do your best, and show him what's right and punish him when he's wrong, and say your prayers for him, and love him all you can; but remember all the time that there's One wiser than you loves him better still.'
And here Martha took up the lavender bag and began stitching away at the lilac ribbon binding. But she had to leave off after a minute, for Betty sprang up suddenly and put her arms round her neck and kissed her, and Angel looked at her across the table with earnest, grateful eyes.
'Thank you, Martha, so very much,' she said; 'you do help us so beautifully, better than any one else could!'
'I just tell you what I told myself, Miss Angel dear, and, mind you, my dear young ladies, I don't believe we've ever a job given us to do but we're taught the way, so we really want to learn.'
Just at this moment Peter came in from the mill, and the two young ladies thanked him till he got red to the tips of his ears. It was nothing at all to do, he said, and he was glad the young master was none the worse, and a first-rate climber he was, that he was, and him such a little bit of a fellow. And so the girls went away, very much more cheerful than they had come.
'We won't say any more about it to Godfrey,' Angelica said on the way home; 'it's just as Martha says, we can't make him say he's sorry, and if he is he'll tell us so by-and-bye, and it'll be worth waiting for, won't it?'
So the two waited, and in the evening they had their reward. Angelica put Godfrey to bed and heard him say his prayers, adding herself a few words of thanksgiving for his preservation that day. When she leaned over him to say good-night, he asked in his sudden way:
'If I had tumbled down and my head had been broken off would you have cried?'
'Indeed I should,' said Angel gravely; 'I am afraid to think about it even.'
'But I wasn't a good boy then,' went on Godfrey, with his wide grey eyes studying her face; 'are you going on loving me?'
'My little Godfrey, I shall go on loving you as long as I live, and longer, longer, dear.'
The next moment he put his arms round her and gave her his first real kiss.
'I love you,' he said gravely; 'I won't make you and the other angels cry. You can tell the other one, the Aunt Betty, that I won't climb up that tree again.'
'Yes, that I will,' Angel said joyfully, and she went downstairs to the parlour where Betty was reading and Penny clearing away supper, with her quiet face glowing with happiness.
'Betty,' she said, 'Godfrey is quite sorry now for frightening us. He told me to tell you that he wouldn't do it again.'
'Bless him!' exclaimed Penny, almost dropping the lamp.
'Darling!' cried Betty, letting her book tumble into the fender. 'Angel, did he—did he say "Aunt Elizabeth"?'
'Well, no,' said Angel, picking the book up and dusting off the ashes; 'but, Betty, do you know, I think perhaps we'd better not make a fuss about that if he thinks the other sounds nicer; if we're too strict about little things we sha'n't know what to do about big ones, I think.'
'I thought perhaps he'd find "Aunt Elizabeth" easier to respect,' said Betty a little regretfully.
'I think he'll respect the person and not mind about the name,' said Angel, and she added thoughtfully, looking into the fire, 'I really mind more about my own name, because I'm afraid he mixes me up with what he has learnt about guardian angels, but I must just wait, and he'll find out his mistake all in good time.'
Old Penny was carrying the supper tray out of the room, and, as she stopped to shut the door after her, she remarked to herself:
'Bless your heart, my dear, if young master makes no worse mistakes than that in his life he won't go far wrong!'
Chapter IV headpiece
Chapter IV headpiece
'For a-fighting we must go,And a-fighting we must go,And what's the odds if you lose your legs,So long as you drub the foe?'
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t was Sunday afternoon, the fourth Sunday after Godfrey's coming to Oakfield. It was almost the end of October now, but the spell of warm weather which we call St. Luke's summer had come, as it often does in late autumn, and the sun was warm and pleasant as Angelica paced up and down the garden path with a book in her hand. Mr. Crayshaw sat in the sunny parlour window where Angel's work-basket stood on week-days; he, too, had a book before him, but I'm afraid he was nodding over it, for there was a sleepy quiet about the house that afternoon. Only at the bottom of the garden by the arbour voices could be heard, and Angel caught a word or two every time she reached the end of the gravel walk, words that mingled strangely with the book of poetry she was reading.
'Be useful where thou livest, that they mayBoth want and wish thy pleasing presence still,'
read Angel as she strolled along the path. Then came Betty's clear tones from behind the yew hedge which separated her from the arbour:
'Now, Godfrey, say after me: "To love, honour, and succour my father and mother."'
'No, Aunt Betty, I needn't learn that. Penny says we oughtn't ever to waste precious time, and I hav'n't any papa and mamma to succour, so it's waste of time to learn about succouring them.'
'No, Godfrey, it isn't; because it means any one that stands in the place of a papa and mamma to you, your relations and friends that take care of you.'
'Aunts?' inquired Godfrey.
'Yes, certainly aunts.'
'Cousins?' asked Godfrey, with much unwillingness in his tone. Angel had turned round again before Betty's answer came. She was rather glad the question had not been put to her. Godfrey always would have his inquiries answered, and Angel felt sure he would not like to be told that it was his duty to succour Cousin Crayshaw. She paced up the gravel path and back again with her head bent over her book.
'Scorn no man's love, though of a mean degree,Love is a present for a mighty king.'
She had got so far when she reached the arbour again, and this time there was a shadow of impatience in Betty's tones.
'Godfrey, you are not attending. "Not to covet nor desire other men's goods."'
'What are goods?'
'Things that belong to them. If you wanted my desk or Cousin Crayshaw's watch it would be naughty of you. Godfrey, you must not put your foot on Miss Jane's head; her nose is off already.'
'I don't want his watch, I want a much bigger one. Aunt Betty, was that lady as ugly when she was alive as she is now?'
'Godfrey, that isn't a kind thing to say. People have been cruel to her—you wouldn't be pretty if your nose was off; and besides, she is dead, and it isn't right to speak so about her.'
'What killed her?' asked Godfrey gravely.
'Well, of course, we don't know for certain, but your Aunt Angelica and I feel almost sure she died young. You see she wasMissJane, she wasn't married, and we have always had an idea that she died of a broken heart.'
'What broke it?' said Godfrey's interested voice.
'Of course I don't know for certain; but she was a maiden, you see—'demoiselle' means a maiden—and she may have been a maiden aunt—there's no reason why she shouldn't have been—and her nephew may have broken her heart by his bad ways.'
'What did he do?' asked Godfrey earnestly.
'It may have been what he didn't do,' said Betty impressively. 'Not learning things that were for his good, and—and that sort of thing.'
'When people's hearts break do you hear them crack?' was the next question.
'No, you don't hear anything,' said Betty solemnly; 'the people get paler and paler and thinner and thinner every day, till at last they die.'
'You ar'n't thin, Aunt Betty,' remarked the nephew, with satisfaction.
'Not now, perhaps,' said the aunt, with dignity, 'but I might soon get thin with lying awake thinking sad things about little boys.'
'Do you lie awake thinking of me not learning about succouring you and Cousin Crayshaw?'
'I haven't yet,' said Betty truthfully; 'but I soon might,' she hastened to add.
'I'll say it again now,' said Godfrey after a moment, 'and afterwards will you tell me about godpapa Godfrey and the acorn?'
'Yes, of course I will,' and then, as 'My duty to my neighbour' began again, Angel turned away with a smile in her gentle eyes.
Certainly in these three weeks the two young aunts had managed to win their little nephew's confidence. It had not come quite directly, for poor Godfrey was not one of those lucky little children who grow up with the happy belief that every one is friendly to them, and so open their glad hearts to all the world. Bit by bit they had learned the story of his short little life which there was no one but himself to tell them. His mother was only a name to him, and he knew little about his father, who was always kind, Godfrey said, but hardly ever saw him. He didn't talk, the child told Angel; he took him on his knee sometimes and looked at him, and Angel's gentle, pitiful heart drew its own pictures, and fancied her brother mourning for his young wife, estranged from his relations at home, perhaps afraid to cling too closely to what was left him. Biddy O'Roone, the corporal's widow, was evidently the chief person in Godfrey's world. Godfrey had been ill once, he said; he couldn't remember much about it, but Biddy came and sent away his black nurse, and after that she took care of him. She taught him what she could, to speak the truth and say his prayers morning and evening, and he was obedient to her, though the soldiers and the native servants did their best to spoil him. She could not read herself, but she knew most of the Bible stories, and Godfrey learnt them from hearing her tell them, and imagined all kinds of things about them afterwards. And she told him, too, endless fairy stories about witches and enchanters, and the good folk who danced at night on the greenswards at home. One of the soldiers taught him a little reading and writing, and another taught him to talk some French, and though he was small and delicate he had plenty of true English pluck and spirit, and would ride or climb against a boy twice his age.
It was Biddy who had awakened him one night when his papa was away from home, and had dressed him in a hurry, and told him that he was to be quiet and come away with her at once, for there were rascals about that hadn't a bit of pity in the black hearts of them for old or young. And Godfrey, half asleep and not understanding, was hurried away in the dark and found himself presently on board ship. And when, next day, he asked where his papa was, Biddy cried over him and told him in her simple way that the angels had taken him. And Godfrey had been a little sorry, but had supposed he would just stay on with Biddy, and by-and-bye they got to a great place full of houses where she had friends, and he thought it was America. And, not long afterwards, she mended his clothes and knitted some stockings for him, and told him that he was going to England, to some grand relations whose name was in his papa's pocket book, and that her heart was just breaking with joy for him being made a lovely gentleman, as indeed he should be, if it wasn't just broken entirely with sorrow to think how would she ever get on and the seas between them.
He had learnt among his soldier friends that it was unmanly to cry or make a fuss before people, and so his fellow travellers, who might have petted the delicate-looking little boy, set him down as rather sulky and stupid. He arrived in England on a dull rainy day, which seemed terrible to the little West Indian boy, and then came Cousin Crayshaw with his grave disapproving face and stiff manner, and Godfrey felt as if he must die if he could not get away and back to Biddy directly. That was what had made him so disobedient on the journey down from London, and when he arrived, tired and cold and bewildered, at Oakfield Cottage, he felt as if he must get away now or never. It was then that the sight of Angel, and the idea that she was a sort of fairy, had given him the wild hope that she might help him, and when that hope failed him there seemed to be nothing left but to pray that the angels might take him, as they had taken his papa and mamma, away from the strange, dreadful world. Then Angelica's sweetness and gentleness had begun to win the little lonely heart, and his disobedience to Betty on the first day had been a bit of perversity, just to show that he was not going to give in all at once. But when Godfrey gave his heart he gave it for good and all, and after that evening when he first kissed Angel he held out no longer, and soon made himself as much at home at Oakfield as if he had lived there all his life. He was a good deal like Betty herself in some things, just as bright and quick and fanciful, making up his mind about everything directly, and liking or disliking with all his might. Angel used to listen to them in wonder, as Godfrey asked torrents of questions and Betty answered them as readily as possible, and they went on supposing this and supposing that much faster than she could follow. Godfrey was quite different with her, much quieter and gentler, and Angel thought it very kind of him to wait, looking patiently up into her face while she thought things out and talked to him in her careful, deliberate way; and she feared he must think her stupid, and that would be so bad for him. She was a little bit afraid, too, that he was not even now quite clear about the difference between herself and the angels who watched over him, for he was apt to get confused between true stories and fairy stories and his own imaginings. One day she just hinted at it to Martha Rogers, but Martha didn't think it mattered. She advised Angel not to bother herself and little master too much about small things, which would get clear to him by-and-bye: children thought a many queer things which did no harm. And to herself she said, as Penelope had done, that if Godfrey made no worse mistakes than confusing his gentle young aunt with his angel guardians he would not go very far wrong. And Angel, feeling sure Martha knew best, was content to wait and not trouble about it. If Betty could have found a fault in her elder sister's dealings with their nephew it would have been that she was not strict and particular enough about what she called details. Betty wanted to bring up Godfrey on a proper plan, and she had arranged a set of rules which were all very excellent, only she changed them so often. She would waken her sister in the middle of the night with the eager exclamation, 'Angel dear, I beg your pardon for disturbing you, but don't you think we should begin at once teaching Godfrey to dance? It is such an excellent exercise you know, and I thought I might give him an hour every morning after breakfast, when he generally goes in the garden while you're talking to Penny.'
And Angel would say, in a rather sleepy voice,
'But, Betty dear, what about washing the china?'
And Betty would start off at once on a new set of arrangements to fit in everything.
Or she would burst into the kitchen with another idea, while Angelica was ordering the dinner.
'Angel dear, don't you think it would be very healthy for Godfrey to live entirely on vegetables? In that paper Cousin Crayshaw brought down it said it was such a capital thing for children. He might begin on potatoes to-day, and to-morrow he might have vegetable marrow, and we might draw up a list for every day in the week.'
It was all rather distracting to Angel, who felt quite sure that Betty was much cleverer than she was, and yet dreaded trying any experiment with Godfrey which she did not quite understand. It was Betty's idea that Godfrey should spend Sunday afternoon in learning his Catechism; all children learnt their Catechism on a Sunday, she said, and the sooner Godfrey began the better. Besides, once a month the children were catechized in church, and she didn't want him to be behind Nancy Rogers and Jerry Ware, and all the village boys and girls. So he said the answers after her and she explained them, which she certainly did very brightly and very well, and on week-days Angel taught him the earlier ones, in her gentle, plodding way, till he knew them by heart. He had done what his Aunt Betty required of him by the time Angel had taken two more turns, and was having his reward in the story which he called godpapa and the acorn. It was his favourite of all Betty's tales, and it was the sort she liked best to tell, with a little bit of fact and a great deal of imagining. Certainly there was not very much fact to begin upon, only an old tradition of one of William the Conqueror's barons, who had long ago owned land at Oakfield and had planted the tree which gave the place its name. What chiefly interested Godfrey was that the baron of the oak had borne the same Christian name as himself, though nobody knew his surname.
'Was that why they called me that?' he asked eagerly, the first time Betty told him the story.
Betty could not say for certain, but she and Angel had fancied that Godfrey's father, who had been at Oakfield often when he was a little boy, might have been thinking of his English home when he chose the name, for he had no relation called Godfrey. At any rate Betty and her nephew decided that it must have been so, and when Godfrey came to godparents in the Catechism and did not know who his own had been, he christened the great Norman baron 'godpapa,' and loved to sit at Betty's feet with his chin on her knee, looking up with his wide grey eyes into hers, while she told how well the gallant Sir Godfrey had fought at Hastings, and how the king had given him the wide stretch of fair pasture and forest as a reward for his valour, and how perhaps the acorn was the very first thing he planted, and how his wife liked to come out on a summer evening and mark how it grew into a young tree, and how his grandchildren and great-grandchildren played under its shadow.
'And did he sit under it when it was a big tree?' asked Godfrey in his earnest way.
'Well, no, I don't think he could have himself, because, you see, by that time he must have been dead and buried in the church—very likely close by Miss Jane, with his figure all in armour on the top, and a little dog at his feet.'
'No, but I would rather have him sitting under the oak,' persisted Godfrey; 'make it a different end, Auntie Betty,' and as Angelica came round the end of the yew hedge, he ran to meet her, exclaiming,
'Auntie Angel, make Auntie Betty make godpapa Godfrey sit under his own tree.'
Angel sat down and drew him to her side, while Betty repeated:
'I can't, Godfrey, because it wouldn't be real. I told you he couldn't be alive when it was a big tree, unless he got as old as the people at the beginning of the Bible.'
'You see, Godfrey dear,' began Angel in her quiet way, 'it is often like that with the good things people do; they don't get all the good of them themselves, but somebody else, perhaps ever so long after, is the happier for what they have done. I think it is rather nice to think of our dear old oak being green and shady year after year, and reminding us that the man who planted it so long ago helped to make Oakfield a little prettier. You know everything that God puts into the world, animals and plants, and even little flowers and insects, they are all useful somehow, though we don't always see how, and so men and women, who can think and plan and work, ought to do something besides just enjoying themselves, they ought to leave some mark of their having been here.'
Godfrey's eyes drank in every word.
'Are you doing something, Aunt Angel?' he asked gravely.
Angel flushed her pretty pink.
'I can't do very much, Godfrey,' she said; 'I should like to make people a little happier, and then, you know, I want you to do a great deal, and your Aunt Betty and I are trying to teach you what we can to help you: that is like Sir Godfrey planting the oak tree, and hoping that one day it would be beautiful for every one to see.'
Godfrey leaned hard with both elbows on her knee.
'What useful things shall I do?' he asked.