In the midst of this, the day came round for the return of Mr. St.
John and his bride. In the afternoon, Master Benja, in apple-pie
order, the short scarlet frock and the white ribbons--for they were
expected to arrive every hour--was toddling about the nursery, drawing
a horse. Honour, in a new cap with white satin trimming, sat watching
him, and talking to one of the housemaids, Edy, who had looked in for
a gossip.
It may be as well that you should notice how these nurseries were
situated. They were at the _side_ of the house facing the east. Mr.
St. John's bedroom was at the end, looking on to the park, and forming
as it were an angle on that side the house. You saw the room once;
some one was dying in it. His room opened to two others, one on either
side of it. The one looking to the front was his own dressing-room;
the other looking to the side, had been called the dressing-room of
the late Mrs. St. John; and all three rooms opened to the gallery. It
was this last room that had been Benja's nursery, and out of which
Mrs. Darling had turned him. The next room to this, which opened to no
other room, was the new day-nursery. Honour and Benja are in it now.
And beyond it, the last room on this side the house, was the one in
which Honour and Benja slept. The next to this, the first one looking
to the north at the back of the house, was Mrs. Tritton's--but it is
unnecessary to mention that. The passage in which the doors of these
nurseries were situated was narrow, not like the wide front corridor
or gallery. Immediately opposite the door of Benja's bed-chamber was
the back staircase used by the servants. Honour, with her charge, was
the only one who assumed the privilege of passing up and down the
front stairs. It was as well to mention this: you will see why, later.
Honour bitterly resented being turned from the nursery. It was
unreasonable that she should do so (though perhaps not unnatural), as
the room would be required for the new Mrs. St. John.
She was gossiping with the housemaid in the manner that servants like
to gossip, when a voice in the next room startled them both. It was
the voice of Prance; and the servants had not known she was in the
house.
"There's that woman here again!" exclaimed Edy, in a whisper.
Honour had her finger to her lip in an attitude of listening. She
wondered to whom Prance was talking. Tones that could not be mistaken
for any but Mrs. Darling's, answered her. In point of fact, Mrs.
Darling had come over to receive her daughter, bringing Prance to
carry a few last trifling belongings of Charlotte's.
"Of course!" ejaculated Honour. "I knew _they'd_ be here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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