Chapter 28 Girls of the True Blue by L. T. Meade
“IS WRONG RIGHT?”
The day arrived when Augusta was to go to the Cinderella dance at the Asprays’. All her plans were made. She was to go unknown to her family. She was to return equally unknown. As far as she was concerned, not a single member of the Richmond family was ever to discover this escapade.
How delicious the whole thing sounded! How she would enjoy herself! She was to be daring and disobedient: she was to defy all the laws which ruled her life. She was to slip away under cover of the darkness, and come back again in the small hours, and no one was to know. She was to wear her prettiest dress, and dance, and be merry; and no one was to find out. And all the time she would pose as the best of girls—the noblest member of Captain Richmond’s battalion—the soldier who on the great day of the prize-giving would be presented with the Royal Cross.
“Some day, perhaps, I will tell them,” she said to herself—“some long, happy, delicious day in the future, when I have been to Paris and got all my fun out of that; when I am engaged to a sort of prince, when my trousseau is being made, when my wedding presents are arriving. When life can scarcely present me with anything more, then, perhaps, I will tell how I slipped out and went to a dance in the dead of night, and came back, and no one ever found out. I will tell then of my pleasure. But, oh, the present fun—the present fun!”
Now, for a long time Augusta had made up her mind that she would tell her secret to no one; but on looking into matters she feared it would be absolutely impossible for her to get back again into the house if she had not a confederate. The right person to share it—the only one, indeed, who could possibly help her—was Nan. Nan must make things possible for her. She thought she knew a way of making her do this.
Accordingly, after breakfast on the auspicious day, Augusta called the little girl into her room.
“Come here, Nancy,” she said. “Come close to me; I want to look at you. Do you know that you are an extremely pretty girl? When you are grown-up you will be very much better-looking than either Kitty or Nora. I only wish I had a face like yours. Such splendid eyes, and such thick hair, and—— Why, what is the matter?”
“Only I hate being flattered,” answered Nancy.
“Oh, as to that,” replied Augusta, giving her head a toss, “I am the last person to flatter any one; but you are so strange, Nancy, one doesn’t know how to take you. However, to the point. I am in reality, although you don’t think it, your very good friend. I am always taking your part—always, Nancy. Oh! it is useless for you to shake your head and look so glum and obstinate; it is a fact. And now—— Why, child, how you stare!”
“What do you want me to do, Augusta?” said Nan.
Augusta could not help bursting out laughing.
“What a cute young un it is!” she said. “You are quite right, Nancy mine; I do require a little favour, which I hope you will grant—just a tiny thing, Nancy. Will you grant it to your own poor Gussie who loves you so much?”
“Tell me what it is, Augusta.”
“Oh, how downright we are! Well, listen; it is for your private ear, little Nan. Your dear Augusta is disposed to have a bit of a spree—just a tiny morsel of adventure on her own account—something not a bit wrong, but something that no one in the house, except sweet Nancy, is to know about. Will Nancy help Augusta, or will she not?”
“I would rather not, Gussie. I would rather not, really. I know it is not right. I am so tired—oh, so dreadfully tired!—of doing naughty things for you. Please don’t ask me; and please don’t do it, Gussie—please, please don’t.”
Augusta laughed again.
“What a sweet, touching little plea!” she said. “But just too late, my dear. Augusta is going to have her fun, and whether you help or not, she intends to go through with it. You can make things easy for me, and I shall get into no scrape, and be your humble and devoted servant for ever after; or you can refuse, and I shall still do the naughty thing—although, in that case, with a certain amount of risk. Will you subject me to that, Nancy, when you alone can make it quite safe?”
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” replied Nancy. “If you choose to be very naughty, why should I be naughty too?”
“Oh darling, you are quaint; you really are the most naïve creature I have ever come across. Now let me explain. I shall really not be naughty at all. It is not as if my own father and mother or Aunt Jessie were here. I owe no oath of fealty to that delightful model, Uncle Peter; if he disapproves, that is his own lookout. In short, Nancy, this is it (I will let the cat out of the bag): I want to go to-night to a small dance—the most harmless, childish little dance—at the Asprays’. Flora and I have arranged everything, and I am to meet her at the other side of our wood. She drives me to their house in a dogcart, and will bring me back again. And what I want you, sweet Nancy, to do is to open the door for me—the hall door, darling—yes, no less. I shall fling some gravel up to this window—for you must sleep here to-night, Nancy—and when you hear it you must patter, patter, patter downstairs on your ten little pink toes and open the door for your darling, who will slip in and bless you ever after.”
“I am not going to do it,” said Nancy. “It is very, very wicked indeed, and I won’t do it.”
“Oh, come, how high and mighty we are!”
“I won’t do it, Gussie. I won’t tell, of course; but let me go, please. I don’t want to be in the room with you. I don’t like you at all, Augusta. I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.”
Nancy backed away; her eyes were full of fear. Augusta’s eyes flashed with downright anger.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” she said, “whether you like me or not. Before long now our dealings with each other will be at an end. But I should like to keep in the good graces of the family till after prize-day. Nancy, I could make it worth your while. You have done a good many wrong things since you and I made each other’s acquaintance. You have been unhappy about it. Do you remember that paper you made me write, in which I promised to give you leave to tell your own story when we got back to town?”
“Of course,” said Nancy, “I remember all about it; it is the comfort of my life.”
“I thought so, and that is why I saved it for you.”
“You saved it for me! You! I have it myself in my desk in my room.”
“Once that little desk was left open,” said Augusta, “and a bird of the air came and informed somebody of the fact; and somebody, guided by that mischievous little bird, went to see, and found that the songster was right. Behold!”
As she spoke Augusta opened a drawer and took out a sheet of paper, and held it high above Nancy’s head.
“Oh, how mean and dreadful you are!” said Nancy. “Give it back; give it back.”
“Certainly—to-morrow morning, after you have let me in.”
“Gussie, what am I to do? I cannot”——
“Now listen. I will give this back to you to-morrow morning. I will do more for you—to-morrow morning. You are in trouble about your bird Sunbeam. The supposition all over the house is that you neglected it—forgot its water and its seed—in short, that but for Miss Roy your pretty bird would have died of starvation. Now, I can put that right for you—to-morrow morning. And there is another thing. Has it never occurred to you to wonder why Mrs. Richmond, who is no relation at all, is so good—so very good—to you? I can tell you that story, and I can also explain about something with regard to the Asprays which will put you into such a comfortable position that you will literally have two homes to choose from, having absolute and complete right to live in either. Few girls are as lucky as that. You can hold up your head very high, Nancy Esterleigh, after I have told you what I shall tell you—to-morrow morning. Now, having had several little escapades with your conscience, will you have one more—the last—and so put yourself into such a position that the worries of the past need be worries no longer?”
“Is it true that you can tell me all these things?” said Nancy.
“True as I am standing here.”
“All about Mrs. Richmond?”
“All about Mrs. Richmond.”
“And the true story about my darling, darling bird?”
“I can clear you as regards the charge of cruelty; is not that sufficient? There, Nancy, you are yielding; I thought you were.”
“I don’t know whether I am yielding or not,” said Nancy, “but you are tempting me;” and she ran across the room to the window. She looked out. Kitty was going past with her apron full of corn; she was about to feed the fowls in the farmyard. Seeing Nancy, she called out to her:
“There is a fresh brood of the downiest and sweetest little chicks out, Nancy; won’t you come and see them?”
“Yes,” called back Nancy; “in five minutes.”
“I will wait for you under the window if you will be quick,” cried Kitty.
Nancy turned with an eager face to Augusta.
“Tell me exactly—exactly what you want me to do,” she said.
“Oh, you little duck, you darling!” said Augusta. “How happy you will be this time to-morrow! And how obliged to you I am!”
“Only tell me quick, Augusta.”
“Well, it is this, you little love—this, and this only. You must be pretty loving to me to-day. You must, as it were, fawn on me, come close to me after dinner and snuggle up to me, slip your hand inside my arm, and all that sort of thing—you understand. And you are to say to me before the others—Uncle Peter and all the rest—you are to say, ‘Gussie darling, may I sleep with you to-night?’ And I am to say ‘No;’ and you are to coax and coax me, and in the end I am to yield. You are to do it in your very, very prettiest way, Nancy, and the others are to hear you. Then, to-night I am going to pretend to have a bit of a headache, and go to my room quite early. And you are to say, ‘Poor Gussie, her head is bad; I think I will go and bathe it with aromatic vinegar;’ and you are to slip up to my room, and you need not come out again as far as the others are concerned. Then, after I am gone, if any one comes to the door, you are to say, ‘Hush! Gussie’s head is very bad;’ and of course the some one will go away. And then, oh! you are not to sleep, for that would be fatal; you are to lie awake thinking over the wonderful things I am going to tell you to-morrow. And at about half-past twelve, or perhaps nearer one o’clock, I will throw a little gravel up to the window; and then you are to slip down, softly, softly, and open the door and let me in. Afterwards we will have a time. I will tell you about my partners, and how much Mr. Archer, that distinguished American, admires me; and I will even repeat to you the compliments they have made to me. And then in the morning you will have your reward. This is simple enough, isn’t it, Nan?”
“Yes,” said Nan.
“And you will do it, darling—you will do it?”
“Nancy, Nancy,” shouted Kitty from below, “the five minutes are up.”
“Yes, I’ll do it,” answered Nancy. “It is very wicked—awfully wicked—but I’ll do it;” and she walked out of the room.
“How flushed your cheeks are, Nancy!” said Kitty when the little girl joined her.
“Never mind, Kit,” answered Nancy in an almost cross tone for her. “Come and let us look at the pretty chicks. I am so sick of being flattered!”
“Has Augusta been doing that?”
“Oh yes—no—I mean I don’t know; but don’t let us bother about her.”
“You are getting quite fond of Gussie, aren’t you, Nan?”
Nan opened her eyes very wide. An emphatic “No” was on her lips, but instead she said, “Yes—of course.”
They went to the farmyard and spent an hour of what was perfect bliss to Kitty, examining the birds. Then they each occupied a hammock in the garden. Kitty read a new story-book, and Nancy lay with her eyes shut, thinking of the dreadful thing which had befallen her.
“I was wicked before,” she said to herself, “but never as wicked as I shall be to-night. Oh, how I hate myself! But she has got my paper which has her promise that I may tell. She can put things right about my darling bird; and she can tell me the story which Mrs. Richmond has promised to tell me some day. Oh! she has tempted me, and I will do it; I must, for I am too miserable to stay any longer as I am.”
“Nancy,” said Uncle Peter’s voice at that moment, “will you come for a walk with me? I want to go down to the seashore; will you be my companion?”
“Won’t you go, Kitty?” asked Nancy, for the Captain’s society was by no means to her taste just then.
“I can’t,” answered Kitty, “for I have promised to go to the village with Miss Roy and Nora.”
“Do you refuse me?” asked the Captain, putting on his most quizzical expression.
“No; of course not, Uncle Peter. I shall be delighted,” she answered.
He took her hand and helped her out of her hammock, and they were soon going by their favourite walk in the woods to the seashore.
“How silent you are, Nancy! Are you not going to cheer me up and make my walk pleasant?” asked Uncle Peter.
“I think I have a headache,” replied Nancy. “Anyhow, I feel rather dull.” Then she looked suddenly up at the Captain, and said with eager emphasis, “I know what I really want. I want to ask you a question.”
“Certainly, my dear little girl; what is it?”
“Will you answer it without thinking that it has anything to do with me?”
“I will try, Nancy.”
The Captain’s eyes were dancing as he fixed them on Nancy’s flushed face.
“Oh! please don’t look at me like that; it is just an ordinary question. Perhaps I was reading a book and came to it; anyhow, that explanation will do.”
“Yes, as a preface; now for the question.”
“Is it right,” said Nancy—“I mean, could a boy—say a boy, or perhaps a girl, or a man, or a woman—could they, any of them, be put in the sort of position that they must do wrong to make things come right? Would it be possible?”
“I have never heard of the occasion where wrong could be put right by that means,” said the Captain. “Can you give me an instance? Then, perhaps, I could explain better.”
“No, I can’t give you any instance. I was just thinking about it.”
“And it has made you very grave.”
“It—oh no, it hasn’t made me grave.”
“Nancy, it has troubled you.”
“Please, Uncle Peter, I was telling you, you know, because of the book.”
“The book of your heart, Nancy; why don’t you confide in me altogether?”
“There is nothing to confide; indeed there is not.”
“Only if you had known of such a case you would be quite happy?”
“I should be happier.”
“Then let me tell you quite frankly that I don’t think there is such a case. When people do wrong they have got to turn round and do right in future. But it is impossible, at least to my way of thinking, to do further wrong in order to make the old wrong come right.”
“I see,” said Nancy. Her brow cleared; she took the Captain’s hand and pressed it warmly. “I am very glad I belong to your battalion,” she said—“very, very glad.”
“Has the fight been difficult, Nancy?”
“You don’t know—you will never know—— Difficult! Oh yes.”
“I am your captain, and again I say you ought to confide in me.”
“I will, whatever happens, when we go back to town. And thank you so much, Uncle Peter!”
“You will be able to go on reading that book now with a sense of satisfaction.”
“The book is the story of a fight,” said Nancy very slowly. “I think,” she added, “the poor, mangled soldier won’t cave in to the enemy.”