Chapter 19 Girls of the True Blue by L. T. Meade
THE ASPRAYS
Mrs. Richmond had just finished lunch, and was preparing to go out for a drive, when Nancy, her cheeks flushed and her eyes very bright, rushed into the room.
“Well, my dear child,” said the good lady, drawing the little girl towards her, “and what do you want now? I am so glad to see my dear little Nancy with that bright face! I was sorry that you were troubled this morning, my dear. I have promised Augusta not to say anything about it, nor will I; but I conclude from your face now that the trouble, whatever it was, is over.”
“Yes,” said Nancy, “it is quite over.”
“And you are really happy, my darling?”
“I am, Mrs. Richmond. I cannot help it; you are so kind to me.”
“Come close to me, dear; I want to say something to you.” As Mrs. Richmond spoke she drew Nancy to her side, and put her arm round the little girl’s waist and kissed her. “Why do you call me Mrs. Richmond?” she said. “I want to be as a mother to you.”
“Oh!” said Nancy, with a gasp.
“I know, dear, that your own dear and sweet mother is no longer here. But my wish is, as far as possible, to take her place. I cannot really take her place, I know, Nancy, but I can at least be to you a good and kind and loving aunt. Now, Nancy, what I wish is this—I want you to promise to call me Aunt Jessie. Will you, dear?”
“I will if I may,” said Nancy, with her eyes shining; “I’d like to just awfully.”
“That is all right. And will you give your Aunt Jessie a kiss?”
Nancy flung her arms round Mrs. Richmond’s neck.
“How much I love you! How very, very good you are to me?” she said.
“What is it you specially want to say to me, Nancy?”
“It is about Augusta,” said the child. “I think perhaps I made too much fuss this morning. I know Augusta was—— I mean that it sounded cruel, but—— I don’t know how to express it. If you would not mind, Aunt Jessie, just quite forgiving her.”
“What do you mean by quite forgiving her, little woman?”
“She is in great trouble. She spoke to me about it. We are good friends now, she and I. She spoke to me, and I told her I would come and plead for her. If, Aunt Jessie, you would quite forgive her!”
“Well, dear child, I have quite forgiven her; we will let bygones be bygones.”
“If that is the case, you won’t give her a bad mark in the orderly-book?”
A look of great surprise came over Mrs. Richmond’s face when Nancy said this. She rose and said hurriedly:
“I am going for a drive, and cannot talk any more; but tell Augusta she ought not to have sent you.”
“Are you angry?” asked Nancy.
“Not with you, but with Augusta.”
“Then you won’t do what I ask”——
“I cannot, and Augusta knows the reason why. When you four girls enrolled yourselves as soldiers in Captain Richmond’s battalion you were in earnest; it was not a joke. Augusta behaved badly to-day, and she deserves the punishment which a bad mark in the orderly-book will bestow. Say no more about it, Nancy. Run away and play; you are looking quite pale and ill.”
As Mrs. Richmond uttered the last words she left the room.
Nancy stood still for a moment with her hands clasped; then she went very slowly in the direction of the seashore. The children were to have tea in the tent this afternoon, and Kitty and Nora were busy bringing down baskets of picnic things: cups and saucers, plates, knives and forks, cakes innumerable, jam, bread and butter, &c. When they saw Nancy they shouted to her to come and help them. The three children went quickly down the steep path through the shrubbery, and soon found themselves by the sea. The tide was half out, and the whole place looked perfect. There was a gay town not far from Fairleigh, and at this time of the year the sands were strewn with children and nurses—in short, with the usual holiday folks. But the part of the shore just beside Mrs. Richmond’s place was considered more or less to belong to her young people, and as a rule no other children came there to play. To-day, however, as the girls, heavily laden with the materials for their afternoon picnic, approached, they saw Augusta talking to two rather showily dressed girls, whose long golden hair hung down their backs. Augusta seemed in high spirits, and her gay laughter floated on the breeze.
“Who can she be talking to?” said Kitty. “I never knew such a girl for picking up friends.”
“Well, don’t mind her now,” said Nora, going into the tent and making preparations. “We are going to boil the kettle on the sands and have real, proper tea.—Nancy, if you have nothing better to do, you might go along by the shore and pick up bits of firewood.”
Nancy ran off immediately.
“What can be the matter with her?” Nora said. “Her eyes look as if she had been crying. I wonder if Gussie has been worrying her again.”
Before Kitty had time to reply, Gussie was seen coming towards them. “Kitty,” she said, raising her voice, “I want to introduce Miss Aspray and her sister. They are so anxious to know us, and they seem so very nice! You know, of course, who they are—the Americans who live at the corner of our street.”
“But what would mother say?” asked Nora. “You know, Augusta, she doesn’t want us ever to make acquaintance with people that she herself does not know.”
“Oh! I can’t help that now,” said Augusta. “Here they are coming to meet us. Don’t you think we might ask them to tea?”
The two girls now approached the tent. Flora, the elder, looking prettier and more full of spirit than any one Kitty had seen for a long time, held out her hand.
“How do you do, Miss Richmond?” she said. “Constance and I know you quite well by sight. We have often looked at you four girls with great envy; and just now, when we found Miss Duncan standing by herself on the sands, it seemed almost too good to be true. She seemed to us, in this outlandish, out-of-the-way spot, to be quite an old friend. May we join you; or will you join us? Mother is having a grand picnic on the rocks round the other side of the bay, and I know she will be delighted to see you all. Will you come or not?”
Augusta’s eyes were sparkling, and she evidently longed to accept the Asprays’ invitation. But Nora, drawing herself up, said in her very quiet tone, “We shall be pleased if you will join us. We are just having tea on the sands; it is not a regular picnic.”
“But quite too lovely!” said Constance. “Of course we will stay—only too glad. And is this your tent? How charming!” As she spoke she entered the tent, and flung herself down on a large cushion covered with an Oriental brocade. “Dear, dear!” she said, “you do seem to enjoy things.”
“Of course we do,” said Kitty, viewing her with some disfavour. “Why else should we come to the seashore?”
“Do you live in that nice place which I see through the trees?”
“Yes,” answered Nova. “It is our own place. We come here every year.”
Just then Nancy appeared, holding a lot of brushwood in the skirt of her frock. She coloured and started when she saw the Asprays, who had now both taken possession of the tent.
“Nancy,” said Kitty, going up to the little girl and putting her arm round her waist, “Augusta has met the two Miss Asprays, and has invited them to tea here.—Miss Aspray, may I introduce my great friend, Nancy Esterleigh?”
The elder Miss Aspray coloured brightly when Kitty made this remark. The younger shrugged her shoulders and poked her sister in the side. Augusta’s eyes sparkled, and Nancy turned very white.
“How do you do?” she said in a low voice.
“Why, if it isn’t—— Yes, it is, Constance.”
“It is what?” said Constance. “I do wish you would mind your manners, Flora.”
“But it is quite too funny!” said Flora.— “Why, little girl, don’t you remember us? How is your dog? Does he bite as well as ever? Is he as vindictive as he was on a certain day in a florist’s shop? Oh, if you only knew how poor Constance’s ankle ached after his very gentlemanly attentions! And you, my dear, were not quite as sympathetic as might have been expected.”
“Explain—explain!” cried Augusta. “This sounds most interesting.”
“Let me tell,” said Nancy. She turned suddenly, faced the group, and told her little story. “I was sorry,” she said in conclusion, “and I would have said so, only you were both so terribly angry, and you seemed to think—— But there! I won’t say any more.”
“No, no,” said Kitty; “of course you won’t say any more. And the Miss Asprays are our guests, remember.—Now then, let us hurry with tea.”
The girls, their party augmented to six, had on the whole a jolly time. Nancy was only too glad to bustle about in order to keep her excited heart quiet. Were these the girls with whom she might have to spend her life? Were these the girls whose father had a right to maintain her and adopt her as his own child? Oh, how thankful she was that Mrs. Richmond had already adopted her!
“I would rather be a charity-child with Mrs. Richmond,” thought the little girl, “than have the greatest right in the world to live with the Asprays, for, oh dear! I don’t like them a bit—no, not a bit. What a comfort it is that I have got that promise in writing from Augusta!—for now I need never leave my darling Aunt Jessie. Yes, she asked me to call her Aunt Jessie; and how much I do love her!”
While these thoughts were passing through Nancy’s head, she was busy spreading bread and butter and opening pots of jam. She was kneeling on the sands to perform these offices, and happened to be a little away from the rest of the party.
Suddenly Augusta approached with the excuse of wanting to borrow a knife from her.
“Well,” she said in a whisper, “and what do you think of them? You would like awfully to live with them, wouldn’t you?”
“No, no,” said Nancy, shaking her head.
“No, no,” echoed Augusta, mimicking her. “And why not, my little beauty?”
“Don’t tease me, Gussie; you know what I mean.”
“No, indeed, I don’t. I like the Asprays immensely. How stylish and handsome they both are, and so well dressed! I trust we shall see a great deal of them. They are going to stay at Fairlight for a month, and they say a great many friends are going to be with them—American friends—gentlemen and ladies also. I know that they mean to see a good deal of us—of me in especial. So, little Nancy, as you are my special friend, you must be extremely nice to Flora and Constance Aspray, and pay them a considerable amount of attention.”
“What do you mean, Gussie?”
“What I say, little woman. Now, for instance, when we are all taking tea in the tent, you are to see that Constance and Flora get the strongest cups of tea, the most cream, and the most richly buttered of the scones, and the thickest pieces of cake. I am rather famous for reading character, and I am positively sure that these two girls are possessed by greediness. You will remember my injunctions, won’t you, Nancy?”
“I don’t mind helping them to the nice things if they really want them, Augusta. But, oh! please, Gussie, you won’t say anything about me—I mean anything special?”
Augusta laughed. “I am not at all sure,” she said; “it all depends on your behaviour. And, oh, by the way, have you seen Aunt Jessie?”
“Yes—yes, I have; and I am ever so sorry!”
“What! you have not succeeded?”
Nancy shook her head.
Augusta’s face grew black with anger; she also looked seriously alarmed.
“You must talk to her again,” she said. “I cannot have that bad mark entered in the orderly-book. Do you hear? I cannot!”
“I am very sorry, Augusta. You had better speak to Aunt Jessie yourself, for I can do nothing.”
“I don’t believe you have pleaded with her. You had got what you wanted, and did not care twopence for me and my fate. It is just like you—just.”
“No; that is not true,” answered Nancy. “I did my very, very best; and I am terribly sorry. I tell you what it is, Gussie, I would take that bad mark for myself—I would gladly—if only you need not have it.”
“Oh! it is all very fine to talk,” said Augusta; “but acts tell more than words.”
“What are you two chattering about?” suddenly burst from Nora’s lips. “The kettle has boiled, and the tea is made, and we are all waiting for the bread and butter.”
Nancy rose at once, and Augusta followed her. The picnic tea commenced, and no one noticed in the general mirth that one girl was looking perturbed, cross, and anxious, and that another was strangely silent and depressed. The Asprays, whatever their faults, were the gayest of the gay, and very merry and witty. Nora was not inclined to be too cordial to girls whom her mother did not know, but Kitty quickly succumbed to their charm. The picnic tea came to an end, and when the Asprays took leave, it was with warm assurances that they would soon come again, and that their mother should call on Mrs. Richmond if Mrs. Richmond did not first call on her—in short, that during their stay at Fairlight, the Richmonds of Fairleigh and they themselves must be bosom friends.