CHAPTER II.
WINIFRED’S TROUBLE.
INIFRED awoke early the following morning, to find the sunshine playing over the window-blind and the swallows twittering in the eaves.
She fancied that something unusual had happened in the night; but she could not, all in a moment, recollect what it was.
Gradually some of the sense of what had passed between her parents in her night-nursery came back to her as she lay in bed puzzling things over, and she began to talk softly to herself as she had a way of doing.
“I think they said I was going away somewhere, to some nice place where I should be very happy. I can’t quite remember, and I thought Dr. Howard meant I was to stay at home; but I don’t always understand what people mean. I’m almost sure papa and mamma said I was to go—I suppose it’s to some nice place where little children get strong and well again. I should like to be able to run about again and play with the boys. I should like to do what other children can.”
But a little more thinking brought other considerations.
“Mamma was sorry—I think she cried. I’m afraid she isn’t coming with me, because she talked about losing me. I suppose nurse will take me—that will be next best; and mamma could not be spared. Papa wants her and the boys, and there are the servants and the house. Oh no, they could not possibly spare her. I must try to be brave, and not to cry and make her more sorry. I won’t seem to mind leaving her, if I can help it, though it will be very, very hard; and I will try to get better as fast as ever I can, so as to come back soon strong and well as Charley did when he had measles, and nurse took him to the seaside.
“I wonder where I am going—a good way off, I think, because I don’t think mamma would have cried if it had been only a little way or for a little while. Perhaps I am going where the swallows go—perhaps I shall see them again. I should like to do that. I think I am going when they go—I will try to get well to come back when they come. That would be very nice, for I think they would miss me when they began to build their nests; and I don’t think I could do without mamma longer than that—Oh no, I must come back when the swallows come.”
Winifred was smiling now; but by-and-by her face grew grave.
“I wonder if people will miss me when I am gone. I wonder if they will be sorry. Mamma will, I know, but is there any one else? I should like to think some of them would miss me and want me to come back; but—but—I’m not sure that they would!” and here the child’s face grew rather red.
Children all have their faults, and Winifred was no exception to this rule. Perhaps there were excuses to be made for this little girl, because her bad health had made it needful for her to be very quiet and rather idle, and because, with all her faults, she was always gentle and docile; but at the same time Winifred was selfish, and she was more idle than she need have been; and when she began to think whether people would miss her, she could not help remembering many little things which she did not quite like to think about.
Charley and Ronald were very fond of their little sister, and would have liked to spend a good deal of their spare time in the nursery, which they had once shared all together; but since Winnie’s illness the nursery had been given up entirely to her service, and she had not failed to assert her right as mistress of her domain.
It was often quite true that the noise the boys made at play tried her head and made it ache; but there were other days when she could have borne the noise quite well, only she did not care to let the boys in because she felt more inclined to be quiet. Then she never tried to do any little services for them, or for any one else, thinking nobody could expect it of her when she had so little strength.
Winifred was a gentle, loveable child, in spite of her tendency to selfishness, and everybody seemed fond of her. Indeed, it was not every one who knew what her chief faults were. Charley and Ronald never thought for a moment that she was selfish, and would have been indignant if any one had called her so; but at the same time they knew it was no good ever asking Winifred to do anything for them.
Perhaps Mrs. Digby and nurse knew best where the gentle child’s weakness lay; but it had not been very easy in her present state of health and spirits to make her see her own faults in the proper light.
But as Winifred lay in bed thinking, it dawned upon her slowly that her going away would make very little difference to anybody in the world—that only mamma would miss her, and that only because mamma was mamma, not for anything her child had ever done for her.
A resolution came into Winifred’s mind.
“I will be different,” she said. “I will do something before I go to show them I am fond of them, and then perhaps they will miss me more. I should like to do something for a good many people. There are the boys, and the servants—and—and—Oh, I must think about it. I have a good deal of money: I will see what I can do.”
Winnie turned over this idea very many times in her head, as she lay waiting for nurse to dress her. She rose late, and breakfast was not over till nearly half-past ten.
“There doesn’t seem any time left to think this morning,” said Winnie, after she had taken a little walk in the garden with her mamma. “I feel tired now, I will watch the swallows a little, and think after dinner.”
Presently nurse came in.
“Miss Winifred, dear,” she said, “Mary wants to clean out the young gentlemen’s play-room to-day; but it’s their half-holiday, and she doesn’t like to begin unless they can come here when they come home. You look pretty well to-day, I think. You won’t mind letting them into the nursery?”
“Oh, not to-day, nursey, I couldn’t do with them to-day,” answered Winnie, looking distressed. “Indeed I would if I could, but I have so much to think about to-day. I can’t think when they are here—and it’s about them too. It can’t make any difference to Mary what day she cleans the room. Please tell her I’m very sorry, but I really can’t to-day. I don’t think she can mind.”
Winifred’s pale little face looked pleading and earnest. Nurse said no more to urge her.
“Very well, dear, we will arrange something somehow. Mary does not want to put you out. Have you anything you want to do to-day?”
“I have a great deal to think about.”
“Do you think with your fingers?”
Winifred smiled.
“No, of course not, nursey. What do you mean?”
“Well, I was wondering if you could not do something with your fingers, whilst you were doing all this thinking.”
Winifred was not fond of employing her idle fingers, and her face was not very responsive as she asked rather slowly:
“What do you mean, nursey? I have not anything special to do.”
“No, Miss Winnie; but I think there is something somebody would be very much delighted if you did do,” and nurse nodded her head mysteriously.
Still Winifred did not look eager, though she asked:
“What do you mean? I think I’m rather too tired to work.”
“Work rests as well as tires folks,” answered nurse, looking wise.
“Tell me what you want me to do, please?” said the little girl, who knew quite well whither all this was tending.
“Well, dear, I thought you might like to finish the tail of Master Charley’s big kite. It is all done but the tail, and if they had that to fly, they would play in the fields with it all the while the room was being done; but it’s a good hour’s work it wants at the tail, and they would be so pleased to come in and find it done. Shall I bring you the paper and the string?”
Winifred’s face put on its little wearied, fretful look. She did not speak crossly, only as if she felt it rather hard to be asked or expected to do things for other people—“little silly things,” as she said to herself, when her head was so full of the great things she meant to do.
“I don’t know how to make kite-tails, nursey.”
“I could show you.”
“I feel tired. The boys can do it themselves quite well. I don’t think I could make a kite-tail and do my thinking too.”
“Is your thinking very important, Miss Winnie?”
“Yes, very.”
So nurse went away, and Winnie was left alone; but somehow or other the thinking did not seem to get on. A little puzzled frown began to pucker the child’s forehead, and before long Winifred was talking slowly to herself, rather as if she was arguing with somebody, who certainly was not to be seen.
“I don’t see why I should. It isn’t that sort of thing I meant. I want to do something big which the boys will understand and care about—they would have forgotten all about the kite-tail by to-morrow. Besides it would be so tiresome—like keeping their book-shelves and toy cupboard tidy, as mamma sometimes wants me to. I don’t like doing that sort of work. It’s not interesting, and it doesn’t seem worth the trouble. If I could only think of it, I’m sure there must be some much better way. I hope I shall be able to find it out soon.”
Puzzling her head over the matter, however, did not seem to help Winifred much, and she did not feel happy in herself, though she could hardly have told the reason why.
She looked pale during the early dinner, and it seemed to her that mamma was more gentle and tender to her than ever.
“Would you like a drive with me this afternoon, my darling?” asked Mrs. Digby.
“Where are you going, mamma?”
“To see Mrs. Hedlam. You can go and play a little while with Violet whilst I am there. She will be pleased to have you for a little visit.”
“I should like to go, mamma; but I would rather stay in the carriage, thank you. I don’t think I am very fond of Violet, and I don’t feel inclined to play to-day.”
“I can send her out to talk to you instead, then.”
“No, thank you, mamma, I think I would rather be quiet, if you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind, darling, but I think poor little Violet would be disappointed. She has few playfellows, and it would give her pleasure to see you, I am sure,” answered the mother gently.
“She need not know I have come,” said Winifred. “I don’t want to talk to-day, I want to think.”
Just at this time Mrs. Digby did not feel as if she could urge the child against her wishes, even though the wishes were a little selfish. Her heart was sore and heavy that day, and very little talking was done upon the drive.
Winifred sat still in the carriage as she had wished, and yet she could not feel happy or satisfied, and the trouble which had weighed upon her all the day seemed to grow heavier and heavier.
“I don’t believe any one will miss me. I don’t believe any one will be sorry when I go. I must be quick and think what to do for people, for I should like them to be a little sorry and to want me back. Oh dear, I wish I was grown-up. Grown-up people can do such a lot of things. I haven’t thought yet of a single one, and I’ve been thinking hard all the day.”
When Mrs. Digby came back she thought the child looked tired.
“Not very, thank you,” answered Winifred, nestling up to her. “I have only been thinking. Did you see Violet to-day?”
“Yes, dear.”
“She didn’t ask if I had come?”
“Yes, Winnie, she asked, and I told her you were in the carriage, but I did not let her go out. I explained that you were poorly to-day.”
Winifred’s face grew red.
“Did—did she seem sorry?”
“I’m afraid so, a little sorry and a little vexed too; but she will not think about it long.”
Winifred was very silent on the way home. She seemed still thinking very much, but thinking did not make her face look brighter.
As they drove through the gates of the lodge, she saw a pale little face looking out of the lattice-window, and her mother leaned out to ask of the woman who opened the gate:
“How is little Phil to-day?”
“Much the same, thank you, ma’am.”
“I will send him some more jelly soon.”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am.”
As Winifred climbed the stairs to her nursery her face was graver than ever.
“Why, I’ve never finished those mittens I promised little Phil months and months ago. And I haven’t been to see him for ever so long. I don’t believe even he will miss me when I go away, and he used so to watch for me to come, and be so pleased. Oh dear, dear, he must go on to the list of people now who are to have things given them—or something. But I can’t think whatever I can do to make them sorry when I go.”
When Winifred went to bed that night she still had seen no way out of the trouble.
