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In: Children & Young Adult Reading·Adventure·Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #76827.
The opening · free to read
I CAN hardly believe it is only a year I since I wrote my diary. I think it is things happening that make people old, and not just weeks and months and years rolling by.
Last winter Aunt Mildred married a doctor, and went to India with him. In March Aunt Caroline died. She went to a doctor's house in London to be cured of something, and she wasn't cured, and she never came back to us. I learnt to keep house, and put down in a book when I spent money; and I felt a hundred years old when father would come to me and say, "My dear Grisel, I do miss your dear aunt so much; I wonder if you could help me."
Then—I must try and write it quickly without crying, for it blots the ink so—father took a funeral on a bitter cold day, and it was blowing a blizzard, and they kept him waiting, and when he came home he was all in a shiver. Martha, our cook, who knows about everything, made him go to bed, and sent for a doctor. And two days afterwards Dr. Lane told me father had double pneumonia, and he was afraid he wouldn't get better.
It seemed as if the end of the world had come then.
Martha had a woman in from the village to help her nurse him. And Lynette and I cried all day long, while Puff couldn't and wouldn't understand how ill father was, and made as much noise as he always does. We sent for the boys to come home. And when Denys was here, I seemed to get more time to creep in and out of father's room, for he kept Puff quiet.
Father couldn't speak, and he seemed to be always sleeping, but one evening I was sitting with him. It was Sunday, and the others had gone to church. Another clergyman had come to take the service.
Suddenly father looked up quite brightly.
"Grisel," he said in a husky voice, "good little Grisel!"
"Oh, father!" I said, holding up one of his hands to my cheek. "You are going to get better."
He shook his head, and then after a few minutes he said in a husky voice:
"Grisel—remember—tell the boys—I charge you—Hold fast! Hold fast!—"
He stopped, and seemed to fall asleep before he had finished what he was saying.
Those were his last words. He died that night.
I want to write this quickly. It seemed all like a dreadful dream, but a dream which we could not wake up from.
The next thing that happened was father's lawyer arriving. Such a nice man! His name is Mr. Adamson. He told us that he and father used to be school-boys together, and father had been writing a lot of letters to him lately about us. He saw to everything, and after the funeral, still stayed on with us, arranging everything.
We shall have to leave this dear old Rectory, of course—and all the furniture is to be sold. But the most surprising thing of all is a letter that has arrived to-day. Aylwin says it is a bomb-shell, but Mr. Adamson is not a bit surprised; in fact, it is all through him that it has come.
You see, while Mr. Adamson has been looking through father's papers, we have talked together a lot, and Denys and I feel we're the eldest in a way that we've never felt before. Of course, Denys is always good at making plans, and Aylwin likes to argue against him just for the sake of argument. At first I felt nobody mattered, and nothing mattered, except that father had left us. But boys never think like that, and so Denys called a council to-day, directly after breakfast, and we met in our schoolroom.
Our dear old schoolroom! I love it so! Father and I had been talking about a governess coming to take Aunt Caroline's place, but time slipped on, and we have never yet heard of any one who seems exactly right. Now all that is over! Well, Denys began:
"It's all very well for Adamson to be telling us what we ought and what we oughtn't to do, but he isn't a relative—only a lawyer, though he's a decent chap. And lawyers expect to be paid for their advice. So I vote we do without him, and settle how we're going to live without his interference!"
Aylwin shook his head with his wiseacre look.
"That's all gas! We're minors, that's what we are, and it's a rotten fact which can't be got over."
Puff was seated on the top of his toy-cupboard, looking full of importance. Now he said, his eyes nearly starting out of his head with eagerness:
"What's a minor? I thoughted they were underground coal men!"
"Oh, stow it!" said Aylwin impatiently. "You're such a set of babies. A man is a minor till he is twenty-one, and lawyers can have their way with us till then."
"Perhaps," I said slowly, for I was thinking it out, "I can persuade him to let us take a cheap little cottage somewhere. It wouldn't cost much, and we could do without servants!"
Lynette made a grimace.
"I hate making beds and dusting!" she said.
"Will you listen to me?" said Denys in his grandest tone. "I mean to make Adamson tell me exactly how much money there is, and then we'll settle our plans accordingly. There's many a fellow my age who works to keep his family, and if it has got to be done, I'll do it, even if I may have to sweep out a shop!"
Aylwin and Lynette burst out laughing. Denys isn't the kind to use a broom, and we know it!
"You are going to be a soldier, Denys," I said earnestly. "However poor we are, you and Aylwin have got to serve your country—"
Denys looked very grave.
"That depends," he began; "and—"
Then the door opened, and Mr. Adamson walked in upon us. He is lodging in the village, and comes round every day after breakfast, and generally shuts himself up in father's study.
But he looked as if he had good news for us, and I wondered how he had the heart to smile as he did, when we were all in such trouble.
"Good morning, youngsters. Now I want a little talk with you. Have you ever heard of your grandfather Noble, or any of his family?"
"Noble was mother's name before she married," I said, "for Grace Noble was written in her old Bible. But mother never talked about her family to us. I didn't know she had one! I mean—I thought they were all dead long ago."
"Yes," said Denys, "she used to talk of a brother who died at sea, and a sister called Isobel; she told me of a scrape they got into once, when they were kids."
"A family estrangement is a sad thing," said Mr. Adamson, "but I took upon myself to write to your grandfather. And he has responded in a most generous way. In fact, he tells me he had seen the notice of your father's death in the paper, and was intending to write to ask if his people were looking after you. Hearing of your sad circumstances, he writes to offer you all, without any reservation, a home with him."
This was the bomb-shell. We simply stared at each other in amazement. We didn't know what to say for a moment.
"Just stiff pride, my boy, and a hot temper. He did not wish your mother to marry your father, and she resisted his will and did it."
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