Hetty Gray Part 4

"I hope Miss Gray's room is as nice as I desired you to make it," she said to the housekeeper who was welcoming her in the hall. "I hope you have engaged a maid from the village to attend on her. I require all Grant's attentions now myself," she added wearily, falling into a chair in a state of exhaustion. "Hetty, my love, give me a kiss, and go and have a pretty frock put on for dinner."

Polly, the new maid, had already unpacked the little girl's trunks and was waiting in her room to dress her in white muslin and lace and arrange her soft dark curls in a charming wreath round her head. Hetty's room was an exquisite little nest draped in pale blue chintz covered with roses, and with fantastic little brackets here and there bearing pretty statuettes and baskets of flowers. The housekeeper had not indeed neglected Mrs. Rushton's instructions with regard to the decoration of this apartment.

"My, miss, but you have grown a fine tall girl!" said Polly admiringly; "and won't Mrs. Kane be glad to see you again? I suppose you will be going to see her to-morrow?"

"I am not sure," said Hetty; "I don't remember Mrs. Kane."

"Don't you, miss? Then you ought to, I am sure, for it was she that took care of you before Mrs. Rushton had you."

"Yes, I believe so," said Hetty frowning, for she dreaded that Polly was going to make a practice of taunting her with being a foundling, just as Grant had always done.

"And you ought to be very thankful to her," persisted Polly, "although you are such a grand young lady now."

"Please to mind your own business," said Hetty proudly; "you were engaged by Mrs. Rushton to dress me and not to give me lectures."

Polly was astonished and aggrieved. She did not know how Hetty had been goaded on the subject of her past life by Grant, and had fancied that as she had only a child to deal with she could say anything she chose quite freely. But though Hetty was only nine, her experiences of the world had made her old beyond her years. Polly only thought her a hard-hearted, haughty little wretch, too proud to be grateful to those who had been good to her.

"Far be it from me to think of lecturing you, Miss Hetty," she said; "but mind, I tell you, pride always gets a fall."

"Be silent!" cried Hetty, stamping her small foot imperiously; "if Mrs.

Rushton knew of your impertinence she would send you away to-night."

It was thus that poor Hetty already began to make enemies, while much requiring friends.

Next morning Mrs. Rushton and Hetty drove over to Wavertree to spend a few days at the Hall, and on the way the lady stopped at Mrs. Kane's door in the village, and bade Hetty alight and go in to pay a visit to her old protectress. With Grant's taunts rankling in her memory and Polly's reproaches fresh in her mind, Hetty got out of the carriage reluctantly and went up to the door with a slow step.

Mrs. Kane was busy over a tub in her little wash-house, and came out into the kitchen on hearing some one at the door. She wore a print short-gown and petticoat, and a poky sun-bonnet; and her bare arms were reeking with soap-suds. Hetty shrank from her a little, and could not realize that she had ever belonged to a person with such an appearance as this.

Poor Mrs. Kane looked at her young visitor with a stare of wonder, and could never have guessed it was Hetty had she not espied Mrs. Rushton's face through the open doorway, nodding pleasantly at her from the carriage.

"Why, little miss, you're never my little Hetty?" cried the good woman, wiping her hands in her ap.r.o.n.

"My name is Hetty Gray," said the little girl, holding up her pretty head adorned with a handsome hat and feathers.

"And don't you remember me, my darling?" said Mrs. Kane, extending her arms; "me that used to nurse you and take care of you like my own! Oh, don't go to say you forget all about your poor old mammy!"

Hetty hung her head. "I don't remember you at all," she said in a low trembling voice. Her pride was stung to the quick at the thought that she had belonged to this vulgar person.

"Well, well! you were only a baby, to be sure, when you were taken away from me. But oh, my dear, I loved you like my own that went to heaven, so I did. And my John, he loved you too. Come in here till I show you the bed you used to sleep in; and always you would be happier if you had a jugful of flowers on the window-sill to look at, falling asleep and coming awake again in the morning. To think of it being full five years ago, my pretty; and you turned into an elegant young lady in the time!"

"Did I really ever live here?" asked Hetty; "really ever sleep in that bed?"

"That you did; and slept well and were happy," said Mrs. Kane, beginning to feel hurt at the child's coldness. "Come now, have you never a kiss to give to the poor old mammy that nursed you?"

Hetty held up her round sweet face, as fair and fresh as a damask rose, to be kissed, and submitted to Mrs. Kane's caresses rather from consciousness that she ought to do so, than from any warmth of grat.i.tude in her own heart. So far from being grateful to the homely sun-burned woman who hugged her, she felt a sort of resentment towards her for finding her on the sea-sh.o.r.e and making a cottage child of her. It ought to have been Mrs. Rushton who found her, and perhaps she might have done so if Mrs. Kane or her husband had not been in such a hurry to take her in. Then Grant could not have taunted her with being a village foundling, and n.o.body could have declared she was not intended to be a lady.

After her one embrace Mrs. Kane wiped her eyes and led the child out of the cottage to the carriage door.

"Ah, Mrs. Rushton!" she said, "this is your Hetty now and not mine any more. What does a fine young lady like this want to know of a poor old mammy like me? I gave her to you, body and soul, five years ago, and may the good G.o.d grant that I did right! My little Hetty, that loved the big moon-daisies and the field-lilies like her life, is as dead as my other children who are in heaven. It lies in your hands, ma'am, to make good or bad out of this one."

"You are a curious woman, Mrs. Kane. I thought you would have been delighted to see what a little queen I have made of her."

"Queens require kingdoms, ma'am, and I make free to wish that your little lady may sit safe on her throne. And after that I can only hope that she has more heart for you than for me."

"Come, come, Mrs. Kane! you must not expect memory from a baby. Hetty will soon renew her acquaintance with you, and you and she will be excellent friends."

But Mrs. Kane was not slow to read the expression of Hetty's large dark-fringed eyes, which, with all the frankness of childhood, betrayed their owner's thoughts; and she knew that Hetty would find no pleasure in learning to recall the inglorious circ.u.mstances of her infancy.

Hetty had still less recollection of the Enderby family than of Mrs.

Kane, but she felt very much more willing to be introduced to its members than to the cottage woman. Looking upon herself as Mrs.

Rushton's only child, she considered the Wavertree children as her cousins and their father and mother as her uncle and aunt. Mrs. Rushton had always talked to her of them in such a way as to lead her to regard them in this light. Occasionally a strange little laugh or a few sarcastic words from Mrs. Rushton had grated on the child's ear in the midst of her foster-mother's pleasantly expressed antic.i.p.ations of Hetty's future intercourse with her own relations; and the little girl had, on such occasions, felt a chill of vague fear, and a momentary pang of anxiety as to the reception she might possibly meet with from these people, none of whom had ever been found by a poor labouring man alone on a wild sea-sh.o.r.e, or had lived with a humble woman in a cottage. That the "disgrace" of such a past clung round herself, Grant's disagreeable eyes would never allow her to forget. Such were poor Hetty's disordered ideas with regard to herself and her little world, when Mrs. Rushton's carriage drew up that day before the door of Wavertree Hall.

Mrs. Enderby was seated at her embroidery in the drawing-room beside her small elegant tea-table, and looked the very ideal of an English gentlewoman in her silver-gray silk and delicate lace ruffles, and with her fair, almost colourless hair twisted in neat shining braids round the back of her head. With her own faint sweet smile she welcomed her sister-in-law and inquired kindly for her health; and then she turned to Hetty, who stood gazing steadily in her face, utterly unconscious of her own look of anxious inquiry.

Mrs. Rushton had taken pains to make the most of Hetty's uncommon beauty on this occasion, determined to take her friends by surprise and force them into an acknowledgment of the superiority of her own taste in adopting such a child. Hetty was dressed in a dark crimson velvet frock, trimmed with rich old yellow lace, which enhanced the warmth and richness of her complexion, and gave a reflected glow to her dark and deep-fringed eyes. A crop of crisp short curls of a dusky chestnut colour was discovered when her hat was removed. No ungenerous prejudice prevented Mrs. Enderby from acknowledging at the first glance that Hetty had a most charming countenance.

"And this is Hetty! how she has grown!" said Mrs. Enderby, taking the child's little hand between her own and looking at her in a friendly manner. With a swift pain, however, Hetty remarked that she did not kiss her; but she was not aware that Mrs. Enderby, though a kind, was not a demonstrative woman, and that kisses were rarely bestowed by her on anyone. If Hetty had put up her little face for a caress, Mrs. Enderby would have been very well pleased to lay her own cool cheek against the child's scarlet lips; but Hetty's was one of those natures that desire tokens of love and are yet too proud to seek for them. She flushed to her hair, therefore, with mortification as Mrs. Enderby dropped her hand and turned away once more to her sister-in-law.

"How tired you are! you look quite faint. Allow me to take your bonnet; and do lie down on this couch while I make you a cup of tea. Hetty must amuse herself with a piece of cake till my little girls come in from their walk. I have got such a nice governess for them, Amy. Mark, you know, is gone to Eton."

The ladies continued to converse, and Hetty sat forgotten for the moment, eating her cake. She ate it very slowly, anxious to make it last as long as possible, for she felt that when it was finished she should not know what to do with herself. When even the crumbs were gone she folded her hands and counted the flowers on the wall-paper, and discovered among them a grinning face which certainly had been no acquaintance of the designer's, but had started suddenly out of the pattern merely to make cruel fun of Hetty's uneasiness.

At last, after some time which seemed to the little girl quite a year at least, Mrs. Enderby rang the bell and asked if the young ladies had come in from walking. The servant said they were just going to tea in the school-room, and Mrs Enderby turned to Hetty, saying:

"Go, my dear, with Peter, and he will show you the school-room. Tell Phyllis and Nell that I sent you to play with them."

Hetty followed the servant; but as she went across the hall and up the staircase she felt with a swelling heart that had she been the real cousin of these children, and not an "upstart" (Grant's favourite word), they would perhaps have been sent for to the drawing-room to be presented to her.

Accustomed as she was to be alternately petted and snubbed, she had acquired the habit of watching the movements of her elders with suspicion, and now concluded that because no fuss was made about her she must therefore be despised. A hard proud spirit entered into her on the moment, and she resolved that though she had been humble in her demeanour towards Mrs. Enderby she would hold her head high with girls who were not very much older than herself.

Peter was a young footman who had been brought up in the village and trained by the butler at the Hall, and who consequently knew all about Hetty's history. He did not intend to do more than just show the little girl which was the school-room door, and was amused and surprised when the child said to him with great dignity,

"Please announce Miss Gray."

Peter hid his smile, and throwing open the door very wide he p.r.o.nounced her name, as she desired, in an unusually loud tone of voice.

Miss Davis, the governess, had just raised the tea-pot in her hand to fill the cups, and her two pupils had each a thick piece of bread and b.u.t.ter in hand, when the door was flung open as described and Hetty in all her magnificence appeared on the threshold.

"My mamma has brought me to see you," said Hetty boldly, her chin very high, "and Mrs. Enderby sent me here to you"; and she remarked as she spoke that the Enderby girls wore plain holland dresses with little ap.r.o.ns and narrow tuckers, no style or elegance whatever about their attire.

Miss Davis looked in surprise at the young stranger, not knowing her story, and thinking her a very handsome, but haughty looking little girl, while Phyllis and Nell put down their bread and b.u.t.ter on their plates, and rose slowly from their seats.

"How do you do?" they said, each just touching her hand, and then the three girls stood looking at one another.

The words "my mamma" had already annoyed Phyllis, who was one of those persons who even from childhood cherish an extraordinary degree of quiet pride in their good birth. She was willing that Hetty should be treated with kindness, but had often told herself that she would never be persuaded to look upon her as her own cousin. Nell only thought of how pretty their new playfellow was, and how nice it would be to have her sometimes with them.

"I am very glad you have come," she said, looking at Hetty with welcoming eyes.

"Nell, you ought not to speak before your elder sister," said Miss Davis, who, though an excellent lady, was rather prim in her ways and ideas.