Chapter 18 A Bevy of Girls by L. T. Meade
Seaside Anticipations
Meanwhile Nesta was very full of her own interests. Things were going in what might be considered a middling way at the Aldworths’. Mrs Aldworth was no worse, but she was not much better. She was suffering greatly from the heat, and yet she was not strong enough to be moved. Nurse Davenant still remained, and kept the invalid in comfort, and saw that she got the necessary food, and was not worried or neglected. Molly and Ethel were busy over their own concerns; they were forced to devote so much time, and Nesta was also required to be on duty for a certain time each day. The fright the girls had sustained when their mother was so seriously ill had not yet passed from their minds. Its memory still had power to move them. They were still alarmed when they thought of it.
But Nesta was less full of fear than her sisters, although her grief and terror had been greater at the time. Hers was the most elastic nature, perhaps in some ways the most unfaithful. She was now feverishly anxious to get away to Scarborough. She had ventured, on the morning after she had received her beloved yellow-boy, to sound Ethel on the subject of that visit.
“Do you think they’d let me go?” she said.
“Who are ‘they’?” asked Ethel.
“Oh, you know—father, and Marcia—old Marcia, and Horace.”
“If you ask me for my opinion,” said Ethel, “I should once and for all advise you to put it right out of your head. You haven’t the most remote chance of going away. You are required at home.”
“I’m not much use, am I?”
“Frankly, you are not. You spilt mother’s beef tea yesterday, and dropped the ink over that new fancy work which she takes so much pleasure in amusing herself with; and you screamed out and startled her frightfully when you were in the garden and thought you were stung by a wasp when you weren’t. I don’t see what particular use you are to anybody.”
“Then, if that is the case,” said Nesta, “why can’t I go away and enjoy myself? I can’t help being alive, you know. I must be somewhere in the world, and if I’m such a bother here, why shouldn’t I go off with old Floss and have a good time? Floss doesn’t think me a worry. Floss and I could have a good time.”
“By what possible right ought you to have a good time? There’s Molly, the eldest of us, and there’s me, and what chance have we of going into the country or to the seaside, or having any fun? There’s nobody at all in this hateful Newcastle, or in its suburbs, in the summer. There’s nothing but the horrible coal-dust in the air, and the whole place is choking at times.”
“But really not out where we live,” said Nesta, who must be honest at any cost.
“Well, anyhow, we’re not in the most charming part of the country, and that you know quite well. But if you ask me, I should say that you had best give up the idea of going. You can do as you please, of course.”
“Yes, I can do what I please; but I can’t see, even if mother is ill, why four girls should be kept to wait on her.”
“There won’t be four. Marcia is going to the St. Justs’ next week. She’s going away for a whole month. The doctor has ordered it. He says she isn’t well.”
“Just because she looks pale. You know that she is quite well; she is the strongest of us all.”
“I don’t know anything about that—she is going; that’s all. She has the doctor’s orders and it is arranged.”
“And it’s because of her I have to stay at home?”
“Don’t keep me any longer now, Nesta. Put it out of your head, once and for all.”
Ethel marched out of the room; but Nesta had no idea of putting the tempting subject out of her head. She went upstairs to her own room. She counted over the shillings left of her darling yellow-boy. She had eighteen shillings and sixpence. Nesta was careful with regard to money and had not indulged Flossie beyond eighteen-pence worth of good things at Simpson’s shop. With eighteen and sixpence, what could she not do? What pleasures could she not enjoy? Oh, she must go. She slipped her little purse under a pile of handkerchiefs on one of her drawers, tidied herself as well as she could, and went into her mother’s room. How hot and dull it all was. Her mother’s face looked more fagged and tired than usual; but the girl, full of her own thoughts, had none for her mother.
“Mothery,” she said suddenly, “when do you think you’ll be well enough to go to the seaside?”
“Oh, I should love it,” said poor Mrs Aldworth, and she stretched out her arms wearily. “I am so hot and so tired; I’m sure if once I could get there, it would do me a world of good.”
“If you do everything the doctor says, and keep on taking your tonics, you will be able to go in a fortnight’s time, or so,” said Nurse Davenant. “Now, here is a delicious blancmange, you must eat it, and you must take this cream with it. Come, now, dear, eat it up.”
“It does look good,” said Mrs Aldworth; “but I get so tired of these sort of things, and I am so hot—so hot!”
This was her constant complaint. “Anybody would be hot,” said Nesta, “who stayed in this stifling room.”
She went out and stood on the balcony. From there she saw, to her intense annoyance, Flossie and Penelope coming up the path towards the house, side by side. She wished she dared ask leave to go down; her face turned scarlet, and her heart beat quickly. What was to be done? She would have given anything at that moment to see Flossie. Of course, Flossie had come to arrange about the visit to Scarborough, and there was so little time to spare.
Mrs Aldworth’s weak voice called her.
“Dear, little girl, come in and sit on this stool at mother’s feet, and tell me something funny.”
“I’ll tell you a fairy story,” said Nesta, sitting down. “It is all about a poor fairy princess, who was all covered with coal-dust and grime, and she wanted to bathe in the cool sea, and she couldn’t because—because—”
“Why?” said Mrs Aldworth.
“Because there was a horrid dragon—rather, a dragoness, who took all the pleasures for herself, and left the poor little fairy princess to pine, and pine—”
“That doesn’t sound at all a nice story,” said Nurse Davenant. “There’s no sense in it either,” she said, as she saw Mrs Aldworth’s mouth quiver. “Now, get your book and read something. Here’s ‘John Halifax.’ Go on with that.”
Nesta was forced to comply. Mrs Aldworth had been interested in the beautiful story when read aloud by Marcia, but Nesta’s rendering of it was not agreeable. “You gabble so, dear,” she said, “and you drop your words so that I cannot always catch your meaning. What was that about Ursula?”
“Oh, mother, it’s so hot, and I can’t read. I expect, mothery, I’m the fairy princess, the poor begrimed little princess.”
“You?” said Mrs Aldworth.
“Yes, mothery.”
“Then who is the dragon?”
“Old Marcia,” said the child.
She had scarcely uttered the words before Marcia herself came in.
“Marcia,” said Mrs Aldworth, her blue eyes brightening for a minute, “this naughty Nesta says you are a dragon, and she is a begrimed fairy princess.”
“I don’t understand,” said Marcia. She looked at Nesta, giving her a long glance, under which the girl had the grace to colour.