Two Maiden Aunts Part 7

'You ar'n't thin, Aunt Betty,' remarked the nephew, with satisfaction.

'Not now, perhaps,' said the aunt, with dignity, 'but I might soon get thin with lying awake thinking sad things about little boys.'

'Do you lie awake thinking of me not learning about succouring you and Cousin Crayshaw?'

'I haven't yet,' said Betty truthfully; 'but I soon might,' she hastened to add.

'I'll say it again now,' said G.o.dfrey after a moment, 'and afterwards will you tell me about G.o.dpapa G.o.dfrey and the acorn?'

'Yes, of course I will,' and then, as 'My duty to my neighbour' began again, Angel turned away with a smile in her gentle eyes.

Certainly in these three weeks the two young aunts had managed to win their little nephew's confidence. It had not come quite directly, for poor G.o.dfrey was not one of those lucky little children who grow up with the happy belief that every one is friendly to them, and so open their glad hearts to all the world. Bit by bit they had learned the story of his short little life which there was no one but himself to tell them. His mother was only a name to him, and he knew little about his father, who was always kind, G.o.dfrey said, but hardly ever saw him.

He didn't talk, the child told Angel; he took him on his knee sometimes and looked at him, and Angel's gentle, pitiful heart drew its own pictures, and fancied her brother mourning for his young wife, estranged from his relations at home, perhaps afraid to cling too closely to what was left him. Biddy O'Roone, the corporal's widow, was evidently the chief person in G.o.dfrey's world. G.o.dfrey had been ill once, he said; he couldn't remember much about it, but Biddy came and sent away his black nurse, and after that she took care of him. She taught him what she could, to speak the truth and say his prayers morning and evening, and he was obedient to her, though the soldiers and the native servants did their best to spoil him. She could not read herself, but she knew most of the Bible stories, and G.o.dfrey learnt them from hearing her tell them, and imagined all kinds of things about them afterwards. And she told him, too, endless fairy stories about witches and enchanters, and the good folk who danced at night on the greenswards at home. One of the soldiers taught him a little reading and writing, and another taught him to talk some French, and though he was small and delicate he had plenty of true English pluck and spirit, and would ride or climb against a boy twice his age.

It was Biddy who had awakened him one night when his papa was away from home, and had dressed him in a hurry, and told him that he was to be quiet and come away with her at once, for there were rascals about that hadn't a bit of pity in the black hearts of them for old or young. And G.o.dfrey, half asleep and not understanding, was hurried away in the dark and found himself presently on board s.h.i.+p. And when, next day, he asked where his papa was, Biddy cried over him and told him in her simple way that the angels had taken him. And G.o.dfrey had been a little sorry, but had supposed he would just stay on with Biddy, and by-and-bye they got to a great place full of houses where she had friends, and he thought it was America. And, not long afterwards, she mended his clothes and knitted some stockings for him, and told him that he was going to England, to some grand relations whose name was in his papa's pocket book, and that her heart was just breaking with joy for him being made a lovely gentleman, as indeed he should be, if it wasn't just broken entirely with sorrow to think how would she ever get on and the seas between them.

He had learnt among his soldier friends that it was unmanly to cry or make a fuss before people, and so his fellow travellers, who might have petted the delicate-looking little boy, set him down as rather sulky and stupid. He arrived in England on a dull rainy day, which seemed terrible to the little West Indian boy, and then came Cousin Crayshaw with his grave disapproving face and stiff manner, and G.o.dfrey felt as if he must die if he could not get away and back to Biddy directly.

That was what had made him so disobedient on the journey down from London, and when he arrived, tired and cold and bewildered, at Oakfield Cottage, he felt as if he must get away now or never. It was then that the sight of Angel, and the idea that she was a sort of fairy, had given him the wild hope that she might help him, and when that hope failed him there seemed to be nothing left but to pray that the angels might take him, as they had taken his papa and mamma, away from the strange, dreadful world. Then Angelica's sweetness and gentleness had begun to win the little lonely heart, and his disobedience to Betty on the first day had been a bit of perversity, just to show that he was not going to give in all at once. But when G.o.dfrey gave his heart he gave it for good and all, and after that evening when he first kissed Angel he held out no longer, and soon made himself as much at home at Oakfield as if he had lived there all his life. He was a good deal like Betty herself in some things, just as bright and quick and fanciful, making up his mind about everything directly, and liking or disliking with all his might. Angel used to listen to them in wonder, as G.o.dfrey asked torrents of questions and Betty answered them as readily as possible, and they went on supposing this and supposing that much faster than she could follow. G.o.dfrey was quite different with her, much quieter and gentler, and Angel thought it very kind of him to wait, looking patiently up into her face while she thought things out and talked to him in her careful, deliberate way; and she feared he must think her stupid, and that would be so bad for him. She was a little bit afraid, too, that he was not even now quite clear about the difference between herself and the angels who watched over him, for he was apt to get confused between true stories and fairy stories and his own imaginings. One day she just hinted at it to Martha Rogers, but Martha didn't think it mattered. She advised Angel not to bother herself and little master too much about small things, which would get clear to him by-and-bye: children thought a many queer things which did no harm. And to herself she said, as Penelope had done, that if G.o.dfrey made no worse mistakes than confusing his gentle young aunt with his angel guardians he would not go very far wrong. And Angel, feeling sure Martha knew best, was content to wait and not trouble about it. If Betty could have found a fault in her elder sister's dealings with their nephew it would have been that she was not strict and particular enough about what she called details. Betty wanted to bring up G.o.dfrey on a proper plan, and she had arranged a set of rules which were all very excellent, only she changed them so often. She would waken her sister in the middle of the night with the eager exclamation, 'Angel dear, I beg your pardon for disturbing you, but don't you think we should begin at once teaching G.o.dfrey to dance? It is such an excellent exercise you know, and I thought I might give him an hour every morning after breakfast, when he generally goes in the garden while you're talking to Penny.'

And Angel would say, in a rather sleepy voice,

'But, Betty dear, what about was.h.i.+ng the china?'

And Betty would start off at once on a new set of arrangements to fit in everything.

Or she would burst into the kitchen with another idea, while Angelica was ordering the dinner.

'Angel dear, don't you think it would be very healthy for G.o.dfrey to live entirely on vegetables? In that paper Cousin Crayshaw brought down it said it was such a capital thing for children. He might begin on potatoes to-day, and to-morrow he might have vegetable marrow, and we might draw up a list for every day in the week.'

It was all rather distracting to Angel, who felt quite sure that Betty was much cleverer than she was, and yet dreaded trying any experiment with G.o.dfrey which she did not quite understand. It was Betty's idea that G.o.dfrey should spend Sunday afternoon in learning his Catechism; all children learnt their Catechism on a Sunday, she said, and the sooner G.o.dfrey began the better. Besides, once a month the children were catechized in church, and she didn't want him to be behind Nancy Rogers and Jerry Ware, and all the village boys and girls. So he said the answers after her and she explained them, which she certainly did very brightly and very well, and on week-days Angel taught him the earlier ones, in her gentle, plodding way, till he knew them by heart.

He had done what his Aunt Betty required of him by the time Angel had taken two more turns, and was having his reward in the story which he called G.o.dpapa and the acorn. It was his favourite of all Betty's tales, and it was the sort she liked best to tell, with a little bit of fact and a great deal of imagining. Certainly there was not very much fact to begin upon, only an old tradition of one of William the Conqueror's barons, who had long ago owned land at Oakfield and had planted the tree which gave the place its name. What chiefly interested G.o.dfrey was that the baron of the oak had borne the same Christian name as himself, though n.o.body knew his surname.

'Was that why they called me that?' he asked eagerly, the first time Betty told him the story.

Betty could not say for certain, but she and Angel had fancied that G.o.dfrey's father, who had been at Oakfield often when he was a little boy, might have been thinking of his English home when he chose the name, for he had no relation called G.o.dfrey. At any rate Betty and her nephew decided that it must have been so, and when G.o.dfrey came to G.o.dparents in the Catechism and did not know who his own had been, he christened the great Norman baron 'G.o.dpapa,' and loved to sit at Betty's feet with his chin on her knee, looking up with his wide grey eyes into hers, while she told how well the gallant Sir G.o.dfrey had fought at Hastings, and how the king had given him the wide stretch of fair pasture and forest as a reward for his valour, and how perhaps the acorn was the very first thing he planted, and how his wife liked to come out on a summer evening and mark how it grew into a young tree, and how his grandchildren and great-grandchildren played under its shadow.

'And did he sit under it when it was a big tree?' asked G.o.dfrey in his earnest way.

'Well, no, I don't think he could have himself, because, you see, by that time he must have been dead and buried in the church--very likely close by Miss Jane, with his figure all in armour on the top, and a little dog at his feet.'

'No, but I would rather have him sitting under the oak,' persisted G.o.dfrey; 'make it a different end, Auntie Betty,' and as Angelica came round the end of the yew hedge, he ran to meet her, exclaiming,

'Auntie Angel, make Auntie Betty make G.o.dpapa G.o.dfrey sit under his own tree.'

Angel sat down and drew him to her side, while Betty repeated:

'I can't, G.o.dfrey, because it wouldn't be real. I told you he couldn't be alive when it was a big tree, unless he got as old as the people at the beginning of the Bible.'

'You see, G.o.dfrey dear,' began Angel in her quiet way, 'it is often like that with the good things people do; they don't get all the good of them themselves, but somebody else, perhaps ever so long after, is the happier for what they have done. I think it is rather nice to think of our dear old oak being green and shady year after year, and reminding us that the man who planted it so long ago helped to make Oakfield a little prettier. You know everything that G.o.d puts into the world, animals and plants, and even little flowers and insects, they are all useful somehow, though we don't always see how, and so men and women, who can think and plan and work, ought to do something besides just enjoying themselves, they ought to leave some mark of their having been here.'

G.o.dfrey's eyes drank in every word.

'Are you doing something, Aunt Angel?' he asked gravely.

Angel flushed her pretty pink.

'I can't do very much, G.o.dfrey,' she said; 'I should like to make people a little happier, and then, you know, I want you to do a great deal, and your Aunt Betty and I are trying to teach you what we can to help you: that is like Sir G.o.dfrey planting the oak tree, and hoping that one day it would be beautiful for every one to see.'

G.o.dfrey leaned hard with both elbows on her knee.

'What useful things shall I do?' he asked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'What useful things shall I do?' he asked. (missing from book)]

'I don't know; we shall see by-and-bye. I should try and make every one very happy now, if I were you, and learn all I could, so that when you are a man, and can help more people, you may have the power and the wisdom you want.'

'Only think if you were a great scholar,' put in Betty, 'and wrote a book--no, a lot of books, and people had them in their libraries, all bound the same, and with "By G.o.dfrey Wyndham" on the back. Or,' as G.o.dfrey looked only doubtfully pleased, 'if you were a great statesman and made speeches, or suppose you were a soldier and beat the French.'

'Would that be useful?' asked G.o.dfrey of Angel.

'Yes, certainly, very useful if the French were coming to conquer England.'

'Pete is useful, isn't he?' said G.o.dfrey; 'Penny says he's the usefullest man about the place. Perhaps I might be a useful gardener, Auntie Betty; I should like that, and I could plant lots of things then to come up for other people; or couldn't I be a useful miller like Ware? because people must have bread, and I should like a mill.'

'But why can't you be a statesman or a general?' said Betty, rather taken aback.

'I would rather be a gardener like Pete,' persisted G.o.dfrey; 'why can't I? Gardeners are useful.'

'I think,' said Angel, 'because it isn't the state of life into which it has pleased G.o.d to call you, G.o.dfrey dear, like the Catechism you were learning. We can't choose always just what we should like to be, we have to do our best just where we are put.'

'It's getting cold,' said Betty, springing up; 'shall we go down to the Place and see if the cow that was ill is any better? There's time before supper.' So the aunts and the nephew strolled down the road together, forgetting, for the present, the subject of G.o.dfrey's future profession. And none of them guessed how much that Sunday afternoon call would do towards deciding it. When they reached the gate of Oakfield Place, Nancy came running to meet them, brimful of news as usual.

'Oh, please, Miss Angelica, oh, please, Miss Elizabeth,' she began--for though G.o.dfrey wouldn't use his aunts' long names himself, Peter always strictly obeyed Betty's wishes and made Nancy do the same--'oh, please, Uncle Kiah's come. He came last night, and the Frenchmen have got his leg and two of his fingers, and the captain is going to get him some money from the King and he's to live here always; and he'd have been at church this morning only he isn't just right used to his new leg, and he was afraid he'd tumble down before all the folks in church and give the parson a start, so he thought he'd wait till next Sunday.'

'Do you mean your sailor uncle, Nancy?' asked Betty eagerly as Nancy paused for breath.

'Yes, miss, Uncle Hezekiah Parker; please come in, miss, he tells such rare stories, miss.'

'But, Nancy, perhaps your mother won't want us to-day, just now when your uncle's come home,' said Angel.

'Oh, yes, miss, she will, please Miss Angel--Miss Angelica--and so will Uncle Kiah too. He's here, miss,' and Nancy ushered her visitors to the back of the house, where the kitchen and store-room windows looked out. There was quite a Sunday air about the place; William Rogers and Pete, in their best clothes, were looking at the cows in the orchard, while Patty was gathering some cabbages to feed them. Martha was moving about in the kitchen and singing a quiet, sleepy psalm tune to herself, and on the sunny bench under the window sat a brisk-looking, white-haired old man with a wooden leg, beating time to the psalm tune with the stick in his hand. When he caught sight of the young ladies he jumped up directly and made quite a grand bow, though Angel almost caught hold of him, she was so afraid he would tumble over.

'How do you do, Hezekiah?' she said; 'we're so glad to see you. We've been so sorry to hear about your--about your--misfortunes.'

'None at all, missy, none at all worth speaking of,' said the old sailor cheerily, balancing himself with his stick; 'the Frenchies have got my old leg, and much good may it do 'em. The old neighbours have been in, making a deal o' fuss over me, but I tells 'em to keep their pity for them that wants it more, and I've one less leg for the rheumaticks to get hold of,' and the old sailor laughed at his own joke like a storm of wind in the rigging.

'And now you've come to settle down at Oakfield?' said Angelica.