Read Ebook: Nelly by Guernsey Lucy Ellen

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Ebook has 966 lines and 45859 words, and 20 pages

Mrs. Ryan wondered more and more what had suddenly taken possession of her grand-daughter; but she was fond of the child, and willing to gratify her where it was not too much trouble; so she hunted up her scissors and clipped Nelly's black rings close to her head, and proceeded farther to part them evenly upon the top, so that they curled round her face in a way that many a modern young lady might have envied.

"Look at yourself in the glass, and see how nice you look," said Mrs. Ryan, as she finished her operation. "There's not a lady in the land any prettier, if you were only dressed up."

"And why can't I be dressed up?" asked Nelly. "Why can't I have things like the Jenkins girls and Kitty Brown?"

"Because we're poor folks, child. Don't I tell you so every day? Just you wait till the money comes from Ireland I told you of, and then see the silks and satins I'll buy you, and the gold watches and diamond rings you'll have!"

"I don't want diamond rings and gold watches; and a pretty figure I'd make dressed up in silks and satins, and me not knowing how to read," said Nelly, pettishly. "I want to be decent now; and I don't believe the money ever will come from Ireland. I don't believe there is any money there."

"Then it is a wicked, ungrateful child you are, not to believe your own granny," said Mrs. Ryan, much displeased by this profession of unbelief on Nelly's part. "Haven't I told you over and over how my father was second cousin to the Earl of Glengall, that was descended from the old Butler that was king in Ireland long ago? And didn't I tell you about his visiting my lord, and the racehorses he kept, and the servants he had? And don't it stand to reason, when the old lord died without children--"

"I don't want to hear about it," interrupted Nelly. "I'm tired of it. If my great-grandfather was cousin to all the lords in Ireland, it won't ever do us any good." So saying, Nelly flung out of the house and resumed her old position of leaning over the gate.

There had been a time when Nelly took great delight in these golden visions of her grandmother's, and could spend hours in listening to Mrs. Ryan's tales of the grandeur of her father's family, and in dreaming over them in her own mind. To the old woman herself they were meat and drink, clothing and fire-wood. She had arranged all in her own mind a hundred times,--how a letter was to come from foreign parts, telling her the news that she had succeeded to the estates of her father's cousin,--how a grand gentleman, with a splendid carriage and footmen in livery, such as she had often seen in her childhood, should drive up to the door and take in herself and Nelly, while all the neighbours stood staring,--how he would buy them all manner of fine things, and she should be a countess no less, and Nelly would be called Lady Eleanor. All this she had gone over in her own mind, and talked over with Nelly a thousand times, almost always concluding with,--

"And then the folks where ye go now to carry the milk and bring home the swill will be glad enough to get the nod of your head as you ride through the streets in your grand carriage before you go home to old Ireland, my bird."

Kelly used to love these stories dearly, and to believe them every word; but she had lately been growing tired of them. As she grew older, the trials of her position pressed upon her. She saw the difference between herself and other girls of her age whose fathers and mothers worked for them and sent them to school. She began to have a perception that it would be wiser for her grandmother and herself to take some pains with the small piece of ground they could call their own, than to spend all their time in talking about the grand flower-gardens and parks of the Earl of Glengall. Mrs. Vandake had no more land than they had, and she had a deal more work to do; yet Mrs. Vandake, with what help her husband could give her before and after hours, raised cabbages and lettuce and peas and beans and tomatoes and grapes, and many a flower beside. It was easy to talk of the silks and satins she would wear when she was Lady Eleanor; but meantime the Vandake children went to church and school nicely dressed, with whole shoes and stockings, and warm mittens and hoods for cold days, while Nelly's only two frocks were in rags, and her old shoes kept out neither snow nor water.

Nelly was naturally a bright, thoughtful child, with very strong feelings and a tendency to brooding and sadness. As she pondered over these things, and felt more and more the disadvantages of her position and manner of life, she began to doubt and to dislike her grandmother's stories, and ended by disbelieving them altogether.

"I don't believe there was ever any such earl," said she, as she went out to the gate. "I don't believe my grandfather was first cousin to anybody."

Nelly certainly stated the case strongly. She was hardly fair to her grandmother's romance, however, which, strange as it may seem, had a small foundation in fact. Mrs. Ryan's father was the youngest son of a younger son of one of the Earls of Glengall, who, in a drunken fit, had married the daughter of one of his lordship's tenants. There was no particular disparity of fortune between the parties, for neither of them had a penny beforehand; but the Butlers stood greatly upon their gentility as relations of my lord's, and were so terribly shocked at the match that they refused to have any thing to do with either Alick or his wife. To be sure, after Alick broke his neck off the bridge coming home from a fair one dark night, they sent some assistance to his widow and her baby girl; but they were poor enough themselves, and had hard work to keep soul and body together, and at last went away to Canada altogether.

Gracey Butler grew up like the other barefooted girls in the cottages round about; but her mother never let her forget that she was third cousin to an earl, and if every one had his rights, as she was fond of saying, the park where Gracey went nutting, and the great house which she saw from the outside, would all be hers some day. But every one did not have his rights; or, as is more probable, there were no rights to have. Gracey grew up and married Tim Ryan, and came away to America, and reared up a son who fell into bad courses and got into State's prison, where he died. Nelly's mother took to drink and died also, leaving this one little girl to her grandmother's care. Mrs. Ryan owned her house, such as it was, and she also owned a pig and one cow, which pastured upon the commons, watched by Nelly, in the summer, and lived in winter on the slops which Nelly gathered from house to house.

The one thing about which Mrs. Ryan was neat was her milk; and as she was also perfectly honest, gave good measure and never sold water, she had as many customers as she could supply. Nelly carried round the milk and fed the cow and gathered the slops, and the old woman cooked and washed after her fashion, and milked, and measured the milk, and smoked her pipe, and now and then took a drink , and entertained herself and Nelly in the manner we have described; and while Nelly was a little child she was perhaps as happy as most children. Her grandmother never ill-treated her; she had enough to eat, such as it was, and she loved to hear about all the grandeur she was heir to. But she was growing a great girl. She began to think, to reason, and to compare; and she grew more and more unhappy and dissatisfied every day.

NELLY watched at the gate for a long time, hoping to see again the kind young lady who had given her the flowers; but in this she was disappointed. It was, in fact, not Miss Powell's usual road to church. She had come that way to visit a sick person, and she went home by the other and shorter way. Nelly saw the young ladies who had excited her envy in the morning. They came upon her side of the street this time, and she had a nearer view of them.

"How nice they look!" she thought. "And they can go to school and learn to read and write, and, I dare say, to paint pictures, and play music on the piano; while I can't learn any thing or be anybody. It is too bad! I do think granny might let me go to school. And yet, if I did, who would there be to take care of the cow? and if she wasn't taken care of, what should we have to live on? I don't see any way out of it. Oh, dear! I wonder what I was ever made for?"

What would Nelly have said if she had known that some of those very school-girls she envied looked upon themselves as greatly abused by being made to go to school, and that they exercised far more ingenuity and pains in shirking their lessons--in trying not to learn--than would have been needed to acquire them? Nelly Ryan, leaning over her grandmother's gate, with no one to teach her even to read, thought she would be perfectly happy if she could only go to boarding-school, and walk to church on Sunday morning with a nice dress and clean collar. Nelly Lambert, who had been taught and cared for all her life,--whose father spent hundreds of dollars every year upon her education,--had been fretting that very morning at being obliged to dress and go to church, and thought if she had no lessons to learn, and nothing to do but to amuse herself all day long, SHE would be perfectly happy. Both were, no doubt, mistaken, since perfect happiness is hardly to be found in this world; but I think Nelly Lambert's mistake was the greater of the two.

Presently Kitty Brown came along home from Sunday-school, with her Bible and library-book in her hand. Kitty "lived out" with one of the families whom Nelly supplied with milk; but her mother was a neighbour of Mrs. Ryan's, and her mistress was in the habit of allowing her to go home after Sunday-school on Sundays and stay till near teatime.

Kitty had always had a liking for Nelly, and the girls would perhaps have become intimate, if Mrs. Brown had allowed it; but though she was always kind to Mrs. Ryan and her grand-daughter, she did not think Nelly a very suitable companion for Kitty. The girls always spoke when they met, however, and generally had a few minutes of gossip when Nelly carried round the milk. Kitty knew all about Lord Glengall and the former grandeur of the Butlers, and, as she had a lively imagination, and was very fond of stories, she had constructed more than one pretty romance relating to Nelly's future prospects. She used to like very much to talk over these romances with Nelly herself; but Nelly had of late become rather shy of them.

"Why, Nelly, how nice you look!" said Kitty, stopping to speak to her friend; "but what made you cut off all your hair?"

"It tangled so I could not comb it out," replied Nelly. "I wish it was straight like yours, and then I could keep it decent."

"Why, Nelly Ryan! I would give any thing in the world to have my hair curl as yours does; but it looks real pretty as it is, and it will have plenty of time to grow again before you are a young lady, you know."

"I guess it will," said Nelly. "It will have time to grow and grow white before that time comes."

"Oh, you don't know! For all you can tell, the news of your fortune may come to-morrow."

"Don't, Kitty!" said Nelly, impatiently. "I am sick of all that stuff, and I don't believe in it, either. I want to be decent now, and to have something, and not be always thinking about what will never happen. I don't feel as if I ever wanted to hear of those things again. I think about them and hear granny's stories till they all seem real to me, and then I just wake up, and every thing is as poor and mean as ever, and looks ten times worse than it did before. I am sick of it all, and I am sick of this world," said Nelly, passionately. "I should like to die and go somewhere else."

Kitty stood aghast at this outbreak from Nelly. She had never seen her in such a mood before, and she did not understand it. She did not reflect that the day-dreams which served her for amusement now and then were all her friend had to live upon. One may like some oranges once in a while, when one has had enough of solid food; but a man who had nothing else to eat would soon starve to death upon it.

"I don't think you ought to say that, Nelly," Kitty answered, at last. "If you should die and go to heaven, it would be very nice; but if you didn't, you know--"

"I don't see how I am ever to get to heaven, either," said Nelly. "I can't read the Bible or any thing, and there is no one to teach me. Well, I know one thing. I wish there had never been any such person as I am."

Kitty was at a stand. She did not know how to meet Nelly's mood at all. She saw that the poor girl was very unhappy, and she would have given a great deal to comfort her if she had only known how. She had a sort of indistinct idea that when people were in trouble the Bible ought some way to do them good, and she tried to think of a text; but she could remember none which seemed suitable to Nelly's present case. She had learned a great many Bible verses in her life, but it had never before occurred to her to use any of them. The only thing she could think of to console Nelly she did. She put her arm round her neck and kissed her. The honest expression of sympathy always does good. Nelly's heart felt a little lightened of its load as she returned Kitty's embrace.

"You are real good, anyway," said she. "Oh, Kitty," she added, suddenly, "will you do something for me? A lady gave me a card this morning with a picture and verses on it. Will you read it for me?"

"Of course I will," said Kitty, heartily. "Where is it?"

Nelly ran into the house and brought out her card.

"Come and sit on our steps," said Kitty. "It is shady there, and mother will know where I am."

"Well," said Nelly; and she called to her grandmother, "Granny, I am going with Kitty a little while."

"All right, dear; but don't be long, for I'll soon have the dinner ready."

Mrs. Brown met her daughter at the door with a hearty kiss. The house was not very much larger than Mrs. Ryan's; but what a contrast it presented! Every thing was in perfect order, and as clean as hands could make it. There were flowers all about,--in the little garden, on the table under the glass, on the high old-fashioned bureau, on the window-sill. Every thing was sweet and cool and fresh, from the white curtains to the clean, white door-step; and yet Mrs. Brown was not so much richer than Mrs. Ryan.

"I am going to sit down here and read to Nelly a few minutes, please, mother," said Kitty. "A lady has given her a pretty card with a hymn on it."

Mrs. Brown made no objection, and the two girls sat down side by side in the shade. The hymn was that familiar one beginning--

"Around the throne of God in heaven."

Nelly listened attentively as Kitty read it through.

"There is a real pretty tune to that," said Kitty. "Shall I sing it for you?"

"Please," said Nelly.

Kitty had a sweet little voice, and sung very nicely. When she had finished, Nelly still sat looking at the sky.

"It would be good if all that was real and true," said she, at last.

"Why, Nelly!" exclaimed Kitty, scandalized. "It is real and true. It is all in the Bible."

"I know folks say so," replied Nelly; "but it don't seem real. It seems to me just like my granny's stories. Don't it to you?"

"I never think much about it," said Kitty, honestly. "Somehow I have such good times now. But Nelly, it is surely so. I will read about it in the Bible, if you want me to. Shall I?"

Nelly assented. Kitty knew very well where in the Bible to find what she wanted. She liked to read in the book of Revelation, just as she loved Mrs. Ryan's stories, because it fed her imagination. She turned over the leaves and read the last two or three chapters. Nelly listened eagerly; and as she listened she formed images in her mind, clear and distinct, of the river of the water of life, clear as crystal--of the tree of life growing on its banks--of the golden streets, and all the rest. She drew a long breath when Kitty had finished.

"A'n't that perfectly lovely? But I don't suppose I can ever get there, though," she added, in her old, despairing tone. "They wouldn't have me there."

"Oh, yes," returned Kitty, confidently. "You can go just as well as any one else. Mother," she called, "can't Nelly go to heaven?"

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