The Alington Inheritance

Chapter III

Jenny’s spurt of independence did not last. She packed the suit-case with Mrs. Forbes standing over her.

“Your toothbrush, Jenny-and the toothpaste-and what else?”

“My face-cloth,” said Jenny in the obedient voice of a little girl.

“That’s right-put them in. Do you use a hot-water bottle?”

Jenny stood quite still and stared at her. The pupils of her eyes were larger than usual. It seemed to her that Mrs. Forbes’ voice came from a long way off. It seemed to her as if she was floating in the air. It was with a great effort that she could come down and touch the things she needed.

The voice went on. It was Mrs. Forbes’ voice. It said things like “You’ll need your bedroom slippers, and your dressing-gown, and your night things. That dress you’ve got on will do to wear again tomorrow. Now your brush and comb-and that, I think, is all.”

Jenny placed all the things in the suit-case neatly.

When they were walking up the drive together Mrs. Forbes asked her whether she had had anything to eat. She had to stop and think about that before she answered. Everything seemed so long ago and so far away, but when she got down to it she remembered that she and Miss Adamson had had tea at five o’clock, and that Miss Adamson had made her eat an egg. It felt like a long time ago-a long, long time. Garsty was alive then. It felt as if she had come a long way from the kettle boiling and Miss Adamson speaking cheerfully. It was a long, long way, and there was a gap in the middle of it which she could never cross over.

Mrs. Forbes asked her question again, “When did you have anything to eat?” and this time Jenny answered it.

“At five. We had tea. Miss Adamson boiled me an egg.”

“Then you had better get straight to bed,” said Mrs. Forbes briskly. “Carter can bring you up a cup of hot milk.”

They came into the lighted hall. There was neither sight nor sound of the little girls, only Carter stout and flurried.

“I’ve brought Jenny back with me,” said Mrs. Forbes. “You’ve got the room ready? Now just get her a cup of hot milk, and she’ll be going to bed at once. She’s had a trying day. Miss Garstone is dead.”

The words went with Jenny and up the stairs into the little bedroom which she was to have. Mrs. Forbes threw open the door, put on the light, and said in a clear, firm, practical voice,

“Now, Jenny, no fretting if you please. We’ll talk things over tomorrow. Get into your bed and go to sleep. I told Carter to give you two hot bottles.”

Jenny stood in the middle of the floor and looked unseeingly at the door which had closed behind Mrs. Forbes. She was still standing there when it opened again. Carter stood there with a cup of milk and a piece of cake on a plate beside it.

“Oh, Jenny!” she said. “Oh, my dear, I know how you feel indeed, for I was just your age when my mother went, and I’m sure Miss Garstone’s been a mother to you, hasn’t she? You never remembering your own mother and all. And how should you when she died the day you was born, poor dear. But I’m sure you favour her something quite out of the way. Now you drink this up, and you eat the little bit of cake, my dear, for it’ll do you good.”

The kindness came in amongst Jenny’s scattered thoughts and gathered them together. She crumbled the cake and drank the milk, sat when Carter told her to sit, and stood when Carter told her to stand. She was vaguely aware of her clothes being taken from her and her shoes and stockings being removed, and of Carter’s soft country voice which never stopped talking but always said kind comforting things.

In the end she went into the warm bed, the clothes were tucked round her, the window thrown open, and the curtain drawn back. Did Carter actually say, “God bless you, my child?” or was it an echo of something she felt-and knew…

The light was gone. There was a little moonlight outside. Jenny slept. She slept without a dream or any conscious waking. There was an enfolding sense of comfort and peace. That was all, and it was enough.

She came back gradually to morning light and her strange bed. Those were the first of her thoughts. The light had the hushed look which means the early morning. She waked and remembered, but even as the memory flowed into her mind there was a whispering sound on either side of her.

“You’re awake at last.”

“We thought you would never wake up.”

“We’ve been sitting here as quiet as mice.”

“We promised ourselves we would.”

“But you’re awake now, aren’t you?”

“Oh, darling, do be awake!”

Jenny put out bare arms and stretched them. Somehow the arms became entangled with two plump little forms in teddy-bear dressing-gowns. They finished up, Jenny scarcely knew how, in the bed with her, one on each side, their arms about her neck, their little cold noses burrowing into a cheek on either side.

“We were frozen, but we waited till you were awake,” said Meg on the right.

“Oh, yes-we promised ourselves we wouldn’t wake you up. And we didn’t, did we?” said Joyce. She wiggled her cold toes into a warm chink as she spoke.

Jenny sat up and hugged them both. The little warm bodies and the little warm ways of them were just what she needed. They brought her back to an everyday world.

“Nearly half past six,” said Meg. “At six we came in, and you weren’t awake, so we waited very patiently.”

“We didn’t make a single sound,” said Joyce “-not a single one.”

“And what we want to know is, have you come to stay-are you here for good? Because we want you-don’t we, Joyce?”

“We want you dreadfully,” said Joyce.

“And we’ve got it all fixed up,” said Meg on her other side. “Joyce isn’t supposed to go to school, or to do very much in the way of lessons -not since she was ill, you know. And first of all Mother had the horrid idea of sending me to school and keeping Joyce here with a governess. And you were to be the governess-lucky Joyce! But then she thought again. And this time she thought of having Joyce like a drip round her neck all the time, and she decided not to do it.”

“Oh, Meg!”

“Well, you know what you are without me to brisk you up and keep you in order.”

“Oh, Meg!”

“It was all arranged,” said Meg, nodding.

Jenny had an odd mixture of feelings. It was so exactly like Mrs. Forbes to plan all this and not to say a word to her. Had she just gone on her own way and planned it all without a word to Garsty, too? Perhaps she hadn’t gone quite as far as that. Perhaps Garsty knew. But how did these children know? She said,

“Nonsense!”

“It isn’t nonsense,” said Joyce, and Meg said,

“Didn’t you know?”

“What I want to know is how you knew anything about it.”

“You can’t keep things from us. We always find them out,” said Meg. “And this time-this time we were playing at being mice in the drawing-room, and Mother came past with Mac, and she said, ‘I’ve decided not to send either of the girls to school for another term. That girl Jenny can come in and teach them. As a matter of fact she might just as well come and live in.’ And Mac whistled and said, ‘Garsty won’t let her.’ ”

“And then they went away. We sat ever so still and held our breath, and they went right away. Wasn’t it fortunate?”

“We stayed like mice without a single twitch until they had gone. We thought we should have died,” said Joyce.

They both shuddered.