Part 28 (1/2)

”Leave your nephew here for the present. He's a quiet fellow. He won't disturb me at all. It's a capital house for study. As quiet as a monastery, and almost as roomy. Leave him here.”

My aunt evidently liked the offer, but was delicate of accepting it, until Mr. Wickfield cried, ”Come! I know how you feel, you shall not be oppressed by the receipt of favors, Miss Trotwood. You may pay for him if you like.”

”On that understanding,” said my aunt, ”though it doesn't lessen the real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him.”

”Then come and see my little housekeeper,” said Mr. Wickfield.

We accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase, with a bal.u.s.trade so broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily, and into a shady old drawing-room, lighted by three or four quaint windows which had old oak seats in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as the s.h.i.+ning oak floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. It was a prettily furnished room, with a piano, and some lively furniture in red and green, and some flowers. It seemed to be all odd nooks and corners; and in every nook and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or bookcase, or seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such another corner in the room, until I looked at the next one and found it equal to it if not better. On everything there was the same air of refinement and cleanliness that marked the house outside.

Mr. Wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, and a girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. On her face, I saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of a lady whose portrait I had seen downstairs. It seemed to my imagination as if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original had remained a child. Although her face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity about it, and about her--a quiet, good, calm, spirit--that I never have forgotten; that I never shall forget.

This was his little housekeeper, his daughter Agnes, Mr. Wickfield said.

When I heard how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, I guessed what the one motive of his life was.

She had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side with keys in it; and she looked as staid and discreet a housekeeper as the old house could have. She listened to her father as he told her about me, with a pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we should go upstairs, and see my room. We all went together, she before us. A glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes; and the broad bal.u.s.trade going all the way up to it.

I cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, I had seen a stained-gla.s.s window in a church. Nor do I recollect its subject. But I know that when I saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait for us above, I thought of that window; and I a.s.sociated something of its tranquil brightness with Agnes Wickfield ever afterwards.

My aunt was as happy as I was, in the arrangement made for me, and we went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified, and shortly after this my aunt took her departure, in consequence of which for some hours I was very much dejected. But by five o'clock, which was Mr. Wickfield's dinner hour, I had mustered up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. The cloth was only laid for us two; but Agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before dinner, and went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. I doubted whether he could have dined without her.

We did not stay there after dinner, but came upstairs into the drawing-room again, in one snug corner of which Agnes set gla.s.ses for her father, and a decanter of port wine. There he sat, taking his wine, while Agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and me. Later Agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time pa.s.sed away after it as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her in his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his office. Then I went to bed too.

Next morning I entered on my new school life at Dr. Strong's, and began a happy existence in an excellent establishment, the character and dignity of which we each felt it our duty to maintain. We felt that we had a part in the management of the school, and learned with a good will, desiring to do it credit. We had n.o.ble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty; but were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Dr.

Strong or Dr. Strong's boys, and the Doctor himself was the idol of the whole school.

On that first day when I returned home from school, Agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father. She met me with her pleasant smile, and asked me how I liked the school. I told her I should like it very much, I hoped; but I was a little strange to it at first.

”You have never been to school,” I said, ”have you?”

”Oh yes! every day.”

”Ah, but you mean here, at your own home?”

”Papa couldn't spare me to go anywhere else,” she answered smiling and shaking her head, ”His housekeeper must be in his house, you know.”

”He's very fond of you, I am sure,” I said.

She nodded, ”Yes,” and went to the door to listen for his coming up, that she might meet him on the stairs. But as he was not there, she came back again.

”Mamma has been dead ever since I was born,” she said in her quiet way.

”I only know her picture, downstairs. I saw you looking at it yesterday.

Did you think whose it was?”