Chapter X: Experiences

For the first time since Nan could remember, the house was full of the air of Christmas preparation. Of course she had always had presents, and she never failed to give Delia a gift, but there was no scent of mystery about the holiday celebration; no delicious odor of a hidden Christmas tree; no sense of unseen tokens; nothing to distinguish the time from an ordinary birthday anniversary. But this year everything was changed, and Nan was as much occupied with her own secrets and surprises as either Miss Blake or Delia, who whispered and dodged and smiled cunningly all day long in the most perplexing manner. But she confined her preparations to her own room, while the governess apparently needed the library and all the rest of the house, too, and Nan found herself barred out of Miss Blake's room by her own stubborn pride which still forbade her to go in without a formal invitation. She was also locked out of the library which was now being made festive for the coming holiday, so that at times she wandered about quite helplessly in a sort of forlorn state of having nowhere to turn.

She had fallen into the habit of running over to the Newton's while Ruth was sick, and she proved such a tender nurse and entertaining companion that the child's mother looked forward with relief to her visits, and only wished she would come oftener.

"She keeps Ruth so happy and contented. It gives me a free minute to turn 'round in, and is a real comfort."

"I thought you would find her helpful," responded Miss Blake. "She loves children, and they know it and love her back again. She is very gentle with them, and I know you may trust her, for she is as true as steel."

"She's a changed girl, that's the whole truth of the matter. You've simply tamed her, the young savage!"

"Oh, Nan has a fine nature. All she needs is judicious training. If I were not sure of that I should despair many and many a time. She needs judicious training and a world of patience and love."

Mrs. Newton dropped her work into her lap and looked up earnestly into the governess' face.

"Yes, I can believe it. What a rash, head-long sort of creature you must think me! Why, I was as bad as Nan herself, to go over there and simply browbeat her as I did! Do you suppose she will ever really forgive me?"

"I'm sure she has done so already. Nan is generous. She does not bear malice. She has a vast amount of pride but as yet she does not know how to use it."

"I should think it would be enough to break down your health--such constant care and responsibility. It is Nan's salvation to have you with her, but do you think you can hold out?"

Miss Blake pondered a moment and then nodded her head decidedly. "I will hold out," she said staunchly.

"You don't know how boisterous she was, and how it shocked me! At last I grew frenzied, and when Ruth was brought in to me injured in that way, through her fault, I supposed, I lost control of myself entirely, and felt that, come what might, the girl must be attended to. There's no doubt of it, your Nan is improved, and if this neighborhood is not made miserable by her piercing war-cries, her hairbreadth adventures, and her eccentric behavior generally, it is all owing to you. But here she comes herself! Put away your work! Quick!"

Nan knocked politely at the open door.

"Oh, come in, dear!" said Mrs. Newton cordially, and the governess looked at her encouragingly and smiled.

"Bridget told me to come right up," explained Nan. "Is Ruth out?"

"No, taking a nap in the nursery. She'll be awake soon now, I'm sure. Take off your things and sit down."

"Won't I be in the way?"

Mrs. Newton patted her on the shoulder. "No, my dear, you won't. On the contrary, it will be very pleasant to have you here to take a cup of tea with Miss Blake and me; will you excuse me a moment while I go and call Katy to bring it up?"

"I thought you were in your room," said Nan to Miss Blake as their hostess left the room.

"Did you need me? Why didn't you knock? What was it you wanted me to do?"

"Oh, nothing. I didn't need you--that is, there wasn't anything I wanted you to do, only--it seemed kind of lonely, and so I came over here."

"And I thought you would be locked in your own room for the rest of the afternoon. How dreadfully mysterious we all are nowadays."

Nan laughed. She got out of her coat with a tug and a squirm and flung it on the lounge. Then she wrenched off her hat (the Sternberg affair) and tossed it carelessly after the coat.

Miss Blake bent over and straightened the untidy heap without a word.

"Delia is making mince pie-lets for dinner," announced Nan.

"How jolly of her!" said Miss Blake.

"Huh!" exclaimed Nan. "She said you told her to."

The governess smiled.

Mrs. Newton came in a moment later and after her Katy with the tea-tray.

Nan sprawled down on the rug in complete comfort while Miss Blake and Mrs. Newton sipped their tea and talked of all sorts of things, to which she hardly listened.

She was full of her own thoughts, and somehow they were all connected with the governess. In fact, her influence seemed to pervade everything, and Nan often wondered how the house would seem without her, now that they had "sort of got used to having her around." Without a doubt she made herself useful. And somehow she managed to make people depend on her in spite of themselves. And yet she never made a fuss or exaggerated the things she did. She was always doing "little things "--little things that didn't make any show, and yet they were so kind they "sort of made you like her whether you wanted to or not." This thought came upon Nan with a start, that roused her from her musing and made her sit bolt upright with surprise. Had Miss Blake made her like her, then? After all the reproaches she had cast upon Delia was she no better than a turn-coat herself?

"We had ours built in before we came into the house," Mrs. Newton was saying. "It is a vast improvement. I wouldn't be without it for the world."

Nan pricked up her ears. She wondered what this desirable thing might be.

"Who did the work?" Miss Blake asked.

"Buchanan. And I'll say this for him, he did it well. I haven't a fault to find. I think you'd be satisfied with him."

"A person doesn't like to put a piece of work like that into the hands of a man one knows nothing about," resumed Miss Blake. "I'm glad to profit by your experience. It may save me, too, a great deal of worry and no little expense."

"Oh, yes," returned Mrs. Newton. "If one can economize on experience it's a great satisfaction. It's the best school I know of. But it's so expensive that it ruins some of us before we're done."

"What's the best school you know of?" asked Nan, curiously.

"Experience," replied Miss Blake.

"Oh!"

"Yes; and it's a school we all have to go to at one time or another," put in Mrs. Newton. "But we might make it a good deal easier for ourselves sometimes if we'd take hints from our friends who have graduated."

"Have you graduated?" Nan asked, half in fun, turning to Miss Blake.

But Mrs. Newton broke in before the governess could reply for herself. "Graduated! Well, I should think so! Why, she has carried off honors! She has taken a diploma--with a ribbon 'round it!"

Miss Blake laughed. "Nothing of the sort, Nan. I've had a few lessons, that is all."

"Oh, tell about some of them, won't you?" cried Nan, eagerly. "It would be lots of fun."

The governess considered.

"Well, yes. I will tell you of the very first lesson I can remember, if you care to hear," she answered, with a wistful smile. "I won't promise it will be 'lots of fun,' though."

"Never mind! Tell it!" And Nan settled herself more comfortably against the governess' knee quite as if that person were, in reality, her prop and stay, instead of being only some one she "sort of liked in spite of herself."

"I think it must have been the first real experience I ever had," began Miss Blake, musingly. "At least it is the first one I recollect. I was the littlest bit of a girl when my mother died; too young to realize it, and my father scarcely outlived her a week. He died very suddenly. They used to tell me that he died from grief. Anyway, he was sitting at his desk looking over some important papers connected with my mother's affairs, when suddenly he put his hand to his heart, gave a faint gasp--and was gone."

"What an elegant way to die!" broke in Nan impulsively.

Mrs. Newton gave an exclamation of real horror at her flippancy.

"Oh, you know what I mean!" the girl hastened to protest. "I think it must be worlds better than being sick, or hurt in an accident, or any of those dreadful, lingering deaths."

"After that I was given over into the charge of some distant connections of my father," continued the governess. "They were good, conscientious people, but they had no children of their own, and did not like other people's. I presume I was not a very captivating baby."

Nan straightened up suddenly. "I bet you were, though," she interrupted. "You must have been a dot of a thing, with crinkly hair and dimples, and mites of hands and feet. I should think they would have loved you--I mean, a poor little lonely baby like you."

Miss Blake smiled. "Well, however that was, Nan, I was brought up very strictly, and I assure you, I was made to mind my P's and Q's. One could not trifle with Aunt Rebecca! Well, one morning I was sitting at the foot of the staircase playing house. I can see myself now, squatting on the lowest step, my fat little legs scarcely long enough to reach the floor. I had on a checked gingham pinafore, and my hair was drawn tight behind my ears and braided into two tiny tails with red ribbons on the ends. I knew it was against the rule to play house in the hall, anywhere, in fact, but in my own little room--with the doors shut, but somehow I felt reckless that day, and when I heard Aunt Rebecca walking to and fro, just above my head, I didn't scamper off as I ordinarily would have done; I just sat still and said to myself, 'I don't care! I don't care!' It seemed to give me a lot of courage, and I wasn't a bit afraid, even when Aunt Rebecca's footsteps came nearer, and I knew she could see me from the top of the stairs. Indeed, I grew mightily brave; so brave, that after a couple of minutes I raised my voice and piped out: 'Aunt Becca! Aunt Becca!'

"'Well,' answered she, 'what is it? what do you want?'

"Even the severity of her voice didn't dismay me that rash morning.

"'I want Lilly,' said I, airily. Lilly was my precious doll. 'She's in her little chair in my room; won't you please to pitch me Lilly?'

"For a moment Aunt Rebecca hesitated. I think she must have been petrified by my audacity. But she recovered herself and turned, and without a word went to my room and got Lilly from her 'little chair.' I was as complacent as if it had been quite the usual thing for Aunt Rebecca to fetch and carry for me. Indeed, perhaps I imagined I was instituting a new order of things, and that in future she would do my errands, instead of I hers.

"She came back to the head of the stairway and I looked up pleasantly, half-expecting, I suppose, that she would come down and deliver my darling dolly safely into my hands. But she didn't. If I were giving orders she would obey me to the letter. She 'pitched me Lilly.' I gave a dismal wail of dismay as I saw my dear baby come hurtling through the air, but when she landed on her blessed head, and I heard the crack of breaking china, I just abandoned myself to grief and howled desperately. Aunt Rebecca went about her business as if nothing had happened, and by and by I stole off with my ruined dolly and cried to myself in the back yard--because I had no one else to cry to."

"You poor little thing!" burst out Nan, indignantly. "What a detestable woman! As if she could have expected such a baby to know!"

"You're wrong, Nan!" the governess said. "It was a wholesome lesson, and I am grateful to Aunt Rebecca for having given it to me."

"Well, I shouldn't think you would be," insisted the girl rebelliously. "The idea of her expecting such a mite to understand!"

"Ah, but you see I did understand. And I have never forgotten it. I have never asked any one to 'pitch me Lilly' since that day--I mean never when I could go and get her myself."

Nan pondered over it moodily for a moment. "And did you have to stay in that house until you were grown up?" she demanded.

"Oh, no! When I was about your age I went to boarding-school, and everything was changed and different after that."

"How?"

"Well, I made dear, faithful friends who took me to their hearts and who made my life rich with their love. All that other hungry, empty time was over, and for many years I never knew what it was to feel sad or lonely, or to have a wish that would not have been gladly gratified if it could be."

"Now they were something like!" ejaculated Nan. "Dear me! I should think you would have been sorry when you got through school."

Miss Blake made no reply. She put up her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the fire, and for a second or two there was a deep hush in the room. Nan was the first to break the silence.

"Goodness!" she cried, springing to her feet with a bound. "It's as dark as a pocket outside, and Delia'll think we're lost or something if we don't go home."

Miss Blake surreptitiously gathered her work together and slipped it into her bag. "Yes, we must scamper," she exclaimed, as she turned to help Nan on with her coat.

"Dear, dear, what a gorgeous hat!" exclaimed Mrs. Newton, as the girl set it carelessly upon her head.

Nan looked sheepish. "I'm glad you like it!" she ventured clumsily.

Mrs. Newton did not respond that she had not said she liked it. She busied herself with Miss Blake and her wraps, and replied merely, "It's a remarkable gay affair."

Then she kissed the governess "Good-night," and saw both her and Nan safely to the door.

The two hastened across the street to see which could get out of the wind first.

"I beat!" panted the girl, as she stood in the vestibule and saw Miss Blake breathlessly climb the last step.

"Yes, you beat! Fair and square!" admitted the governess as Delia let them in, chattering and shivering, from the chilly air.

"Who'll beat now, going upstairs?" screamed Nan.

Miss Blake made a dash for the first step and the two went flying up in a perfect whirl of laughter and fun.

Delia had forgotten to light the gas in Nan's room and the girl stumbled about blindly, crashing into the furniture and casting off her coat and hat in her old headlong fashion, not stopping to think of all Miss Blake's warnings on the subject, but just hurrying to get down stairs and "beat" the governess in another race.

"Clean hands! Smooth hair, and a neat dress for dinner!" sang out the governess gayly.

Nan shrugged her shoulders in the dark and made a lunge at the mantelpiece for a match. She struck it and lit the gas, swinging off to the washstand as soon as it was done.

Suddenly Miss Blake heard a shriek, a rush of feet across the floor, and then Nan's voice exclaiming "Great Scott!" in a tone that was a cross between a laugh and a cry.

She did not wait a moment but hurried instantly to the girl's door.

Nan was standing beside the gas fixture, and in her hand was her cherished hat--a ruined mass of smoldering felt and charred plumage.

"Nan!" exclaimed Miss Blake, horrified at the sight.

"I know it! Isn't it awful! I just slung it on the globe as I always do, and--and--when I lit the gas I forgot all about it, and it was ablaze in a minute. Don't say a word! I know you've told me hundreds of times not to put it there. But I forgot, and--O dear! what'll I wear on my head the rest of the winter? But it is too funny!"

Miss Blake tried to look stern.

"I'm heartily sorry you've lost your hat, Nan," she said, kindly, without a hint of reproach in her voice. "You were so fond of it. I'm really very sorry, dear!"

Nan checked her laughter. She let the hat fall to the floor. A sudden impulse seized her, and she strode up the governess and took her by the shoulders.

"You're a real dear not to say 'I told you so!'" she cried. "And you haven't jeered at me, though I know you hated the hat from the start. And now I'm going to tell you something--two things! First: I'm never going to hang up my clothes on the gas again, honestly! And second: I hated the old thing, too. The minute I bought it I hated it, and I've hated it ever since."

Miss Blake looked up, and their eyes met.

"Good for you, Nan," she said, standing on her tip-toes to pat the girl approvingly on the head. "Good for you! And now it's my turn to confess. Wait a minute!"

She flew out of the room, and before Nan fairly knew she had gone she was back again, and in her hand was a huge milliner's box.

"I couldn't help it!" she cried, half apologetically. "I got it that day, just to please myself--and now you'll wear it, won't you, dear? It's very simple, but it is of the best, and it will match your coat, you see."

She untied the string, lifted the sheets of tissue-paper, and displayed what even Nan had to admit was a beautiful hat.

The girl looked at it in silence for a moment; then she ducked down impulsively, and gave the governess a quick, shy kiss upon the cheek.

"Thank you," she said, huskily, with a sort of gulp, and then she ran out of the room as fast as her feet would carry her.