Esther's Charge: A Story for Girls

"So, so, my little girl; that is better, that is better. Now drink what Mr. Earle has brought you, and you will feel yourself again."

Esther held out her hand obediently, but it shook so much that Mr. Earle would not give the glass into her hand, but knelt down on one knee and held it to her lips. It was not nice medicine at all, and it made her choke and cough when she had swallowed it, but it seemed to warm her all through; and when she had finished the draught she felt able to lift up her head, though it was rather appalling to find herself alone out on the hillside, with only Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Earle beside her.

She remembered everything now – the terrible cave, the strange sights and sounds there, and that feeling of giddiness and weakness which had come over her. She sat up and looked round her, and then she shivered again a little, for just behind them was a dark gap which she knew must lead into the cave. Were they going to take her back into it again?

Mr. Earle had hold of her hand, and his finger was on the little wrist. He looked into her face with a smile, and asked, —

"What is the matter now?"

"Nothing, thank you, sir."

"You are frightened," he said quietly. "Were you afraid of the darkness in there just now?"

"I – I don't know if it was the darkness exactly. I think it was everything." She made another little movement, and then added wistfully, "Please, may I go home?"

"No hurry," said Mr. Trelawny's big voice just in her ear. "We will go back to my house first, and see what all this means."

And then Esther felt herself lifted bodily in those great, strong arms, and carried baby-fashion up the steep pathway towards the house on the top of the crag.

"O Mr. Trelawny, I'm too heavy to be carried!" she cried.

"You're not half as heavy as you should be. I must know about that too. We've got you a prisoner between us, my little maid, and we shall not let you go till we've – "

Mr. Trelawny stopped suddenly, because Mr. Earle had begun to speak to him in the strange language Esther had heard him use upon another occasion. She shut her eyes tightly, and tried to be brave; but if only she might have gone home by herself! The Crag was a very terrible place to come to.

Even the boys seemed to have disappeared. There was no sign of them about the great, quiet house. Mr. Trelawny carried her into the drawing-room, which did not look as though it were often used, though it was bright and sunny; and he laid her down upon a wide sofa, and took a chair close to her. Mr. Earle stood a little way off, looking out of the window.

If Esther had had the courage to look into the face above her, she would have seen that it was full of a very kindly concern and interest, but she dared not raise her eyes. She felt like a prisoner awaiting sentence, and only wondered whether she would ever be free to run home again.

"Now tell me, child," said Mr. Trelawny's big voice, "what is the matter with my little friend?"

"Nothing, thank you, sir."

"Can't you call me Uncle Robert, like that pair of urchins, who are no kith or kin of mine, though you are? Esther, I was very fond of your father. Won't you try to be a little fond of me? I will be your friend, if you will let me."

She looked up at him then, and her heart beat fast. It was all so very strange and unexpected. She did not know what to say; but she put out her hand and laid it on his, and he smiled and patted it, and said, —

"There, that is better. Now tell me about these headaches of yours. We ought to find a cure for them. Has Mr. Earle been working you too hard?"

Esther felt a thrill run through her again. How was it he knew anything about her headaches? She had not even told her mother, and it never occurred to her that the boys could have spoken the word. Yet, to be sure, once or twice lately she had not cared to join their games because her head ached so badly towards evening. But it was not the lessons. They must not think that. Her lessons were the great pleasure of her life.

"Oh no, no!" she answered earnestly; "indeed it is not that. Please, don't stop the lessons. I do like them so very much."

Mr. Earle came forward then, smiling and saying, —

"I don't want to lose my pupil either, but health comes before pleasure – even before learning."

"I'm sure it isn't the lessons," said Esther again. "Sometimes I think perhaps it's my hair. It makes my head so hot, and at night I can't always sleep."

Mr. Trelawny lifted the heavy mass of curly locks and weighed it in his hand. He looked at Mr. Earle, and they spoke a few words together in the strange tongue.

"Did you ever complain to your mother about your hair?" asked Mr. Trelawny, with a gleam in his deepset eyes.

"Yes," answered Esther, "I often used to ask her if I mightn't have it short like Milly Polperran; but she doesn't like me to tease about it, so I've given it up."

Mr. Trelawny reached out his hand towards a table upon which lay a pair of sharp scissors in a sheath. The gleam in his eyes was deepening. Mr. Earle said something in the foreign tongue, and he answered back in his sharp, decisive way. Esther lay still, wondering; but they were both behind her, and she could not see.

Then came a strange, grating sound close to her head, another, and another; and before she realized what was happening, Mr. Trelawny suddenly laid upon her lap a great mass of waving chestnut hair, exclaiming as he did so, —

"There, my dear! take that home to your mother with my best compliments; and as for me, I shall have to find a new name for little Goldylocks."

Then Esther realized that her hair had been cut off by Mr. Trelawny, and she lay looking at it with thrills of excitement running through her. What would her mother say when she got home? and what would it feel like to be relieved of that great floating mass of hair? How delightful to have no tugging and pulling at the knots morning and night, often when her head was aching and tender, and every pull seemed to hurt more than the last! She must get up and feel what it was like.

So she sat up and passed her hands over her head. Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Earle were looking at her and laughing. Esther had to laugh too; but how light and cool it felt!

"It is nice!" she exclaimed. "I feel as if I'd got a new head! Oh. I hope mama will not mind much!"

"Look here, sir," said Mr. Earle; "you're not as good a barber as a lady had a right to expect. Give me the scissors, and let me put a more artistic finish to your work. We must send her home looking less like a hearth broom than she does at the present moment."

They all laughed again at that, and the color began to come back into Esther's cheeks. This was something rather exciting, and it had driven away her fears for the time being. She sat quite still whilst Mr. Earle snipped and cut, and walked round and round her, and quarreled with Mr. Trelawny about the proper way of trimming a lady's hair; and in the end they put her upon the sofa, and told her to look at herself in the great mirror opposite. When she did this she began to laugh out loud.

"Will it always stand on end like that?" she asked, for the wave in her hair made it set off from her face and stand round it rather like the aureole round the heads of saints in the church windows. "I don't think Genefer will think it tidy like that. Can't I brush it and make it lie smooth, like Mr. Earle's?"

They got a brush, but the hair set them at defiance, and stood out in its own way. But it was delightful to have no heavy mane hanging down behind. Esther declared her headache almost gone, and so she was allowed to go out and find the boys, who had been set to play by themselves for an hour.

The shrieks of delight they set up at sight of Esther with her cropped head made her laugh and glow like a child; and she looked altogether so much brighter and merrier that the two gentlemen exchanged glances and nodded their heads, as though quite satisfied with the high-handed measure they had taken.

"We shall call you Roundhead now!" cried Puck, dancing round her in an ecstasy of amusement; but Mr. Trelawny came up and took him by the ears, saying in his gruffest way, —

"You will call your cousin by her proper name, or you will never come to my house again. Now, do you understand?"

"Do you mean really?" asked Puck, wriggling away and facing round.

"I mean really and truly," was the emphatic answer. "You've got to learn manners, you two, whilst you are here; and if Mr. Earle knocks some knowledge into your thick skulls, I'll knock a little respect for other people into your democratic little minds. So mind, if you don't behave yourselves properly to your cousin, and speak to her properly too, you'll never have the chance of coming to the Crag again."

CHAPTER VI

THE SHORN SHEEP

"I think you ought to come home with us, Uncle Bob, after cutting off Esther's tousle like that. I expect Aunt Saint will be in a jolly old wax."

The children had finished their tea out on the terrace, and a very nice tea it had been. Esther was looking brighter than she had done at first, and a little bit of color had stolen into her face; but her eyes still had a tired look in them, and there were dark marks underneath. Mr. Trelawny paused beside her, and passed his big hands over the cropped head. The touch was kindly, and Esther tried to conquer the little thrill of fear which ran through her. She felt as though she had behaved herself badly at the wizard's house, and that he had been very indulgent to her when he might have been very angry. She could not conquer her old fears all at once; but she resolved to try and mingle some liking with them for this big, strange man, who seemed wishful to be regarded as an uncle.

"What does the shorn sheep say herself about that?" asked Mr. Trelawny, bending down to look into Esther's face.

She made herself return the glance, and said timidly, —

"I think I should be much obliged if you would, Uncle Robert. You would explain to mama better than I can."

A smile lit up the rugged features of the Cornishman.

"To be sure I will then, my dear. I'll take all the blame, which is certainly all mine. I've got a few things I want to say to your mother, so I'll come down now and say them."

So when the shadows had grown a little longer, and the sea was lit up like a sheet of gold, the little party of four started down the hill again, the boys tearing about like a pair of wild animals, Mr. Trelawny following more soberly, holding Esther's hand in his, and helping her over the bits of rough ground; though, as he remarked laughingly, it was "like helping a bit of thistle-down over a hedge."

Mr. Trelawny told Esther a great many interesting things during that walk – things about birds and insects, which she had never known before. He did not frighten her at all the whole way, and when she asked a timid question he always had a full and interesting answer ready.

Then he told her that he had a number of books full of pictures of live creatures in his library, and said she must come up another day and look at them. And though Esther could never think of the Crag without a certain shrinking and fear, yet she did want to see the pictures very much, if only they would not take her into those awful underground places, or into the rooms where all those strange things went on.

When they got home, there was a sound of voices coming from the open drawing-room windows. The boys had rushed headlong in, and now came tumbling out again.

"It's only Mrs. Poll-parrot and Pretty Polly!" cried the pair in a breath; whereupon Mr. Trelawny took the two heads, one in either hand, and knocked them pretty smartly together.

"Mind your manners, boys!" he said in his big gruff voice, and strode on, holding Esther's hand, whilst Pickle and Puck remained behind, staring after him and rubbing their heads with an air of injured innocence.

"He's rather an old beast sometimes, I think," said Puck rather ruefully. "I don't quite like him always."

"He makes us do as he says," added Pickle, "like Mr. Earle – I mean the Owl. I think it's rather interfering of them."

Meantime Mr. Trelawny had entered the window, drawing Esther after him.

"Good evening, madam," he said in his breezy way – "good evening to you all. Mrs. St. Aiden, I have come to make my peace with you. Tell me first what you think of your shorn lamb."

Then he pushed Esther forward, and the child stood before her mother, the color coming and going in her face rather too fast to please Mr. Trelawny, who looked at her from under his bushy brows and shook his head once or twice.

Mrs. St. Aiden gave a little gasp, almost a little scream. Mrs. Polperran stared, and began to laugh; while Prissy cried out in unveiled astonishment, —

"O Esther, your hair, your hair! Where has it gone?"

"Here it is," said Mr. Trelawny, producing a packet wrapped in soft paper, and laying it upon Mrs. St. Aiden's knee. "I daresay some enterprising hairdresser would give a pretty penny for it. Now, Miss Prissy, you run off with your little friend here. I want to talk a little to these good ladies."

Prissy rose, and Esther was glad to escape with her into the garden. It was delightful to have such a cool, comfortable head; but all the talk about herself made her feel hot and shy.

"O Esther!" cried Prissy, "you do look so funny. But I've often heard mother say that it is bad for you having such a great head of hair. What was it made Mr. Trelawny cut it off? Don't you think it was taking a great liberty without your mother's leave?"

"I don't know," answered Esther slowly. "I don't think mama would ever have let him."

The boys came running up now, and the four children were soon well hidden from view in the clipped yew arbor, which was Esther's especial haunt.

"I thought he cut it off to use it in his experiments," said Pickle. "I've read of magicians who took people's hair, and then they used to burn bits of it and make them come to them in their sleep. I expect that's what he's done it for. I expect that you'll often be walking up to the cave in your sleep now."

Esther began shaking at once, but Prissy said, with her grown-up air of reproof, —

"You are talking great nonsense, Philip." (Prissy very often called the boys Philip and Percy, to their own unspeakable disgust.) "There are no magicians now; and besides, it was all nonsense when there were any. And Mr. Trelawny gave Esther's hair back to Mrs. St. Aiden just now. I saw him."

But Pickle wasn't going to be shut up like that.

"I expect he kept some of it back for himself," he said; "and you needn't pretend to know such a mighty lot about Mr. Trelawny and what he can do. If he isn't a magician, he's something uncommonly like it. You should have seen the things he did to-day for us to see; and he'd have done some funnier ones still, only she went and flopped down in a heap on the floor, and then they had to carry her out, and they wouldn't go back any more."

"What did you do, Esther?" asked Prissy.

"I don't know. I felt funny down there, and everything seemed going round, and I didn't know anything about the rest."

"Well, she just spoiled the fun," said Puck. "They were going to show us some things – skeletons in the tanks, I expect, or jolly things like that – but when she went flop they didn't seem to think a bit about us. They hustled us away up to the house, and wouldn't show us anything more. That's always the way when there are girls. They are always sure to spoil the fun."

"I'm very sorry," said Esther penitently, "but I didn't mean to. Only I don't like underground places. They make me feel queer."

"I've heard father speak about Mr. Trelawny's cave," said Prissy. "I don't think he likes it much. Quite a little while ago I heard him say to mother that he was afraid, now Mr. Earle had come, that there might be something horrid happening there. I can't quite remember the words, but he said something like that. And mother said she was afraid he was reckless, and too fond of experiments. I wonder what he does there, and what father is afraid of."

"People always are afraid of magicians and wizards," said Pickle with a sly look of triumph at Prissy; and for a moment she was silent, feeling as though she had been somehow caught in a trap.

"Well, I think he's a very odd sort of man; and I don't think he'd any business to cut off your hair, Esther. Did you know he was going to do it?"

"No, I never thought of such a thing. I only said it made my head hot at nights, or something like that. And then he got a big pair of scissors and cut it all off in a minute."

"I think it looks rather nice like that," said Prissy, with a critical glance, "though it does stand on end rather. I should think you would enjoy not having it combed out at nights."

"I've decided now!" cried Puck, shouting out suddenly the great new idea. "I shall call you Ess now. It'll do for Esther, and for Shorn Sheep too. Old Bobby calls you that himself now, so he can't scold us. You shall be Ess. Don't you think that's a nice, easy, short name?"

Mr. Trelawny was soon seen stalking away up the path towards the Crag, and Mrs. Polperran's voice was heard calling for Prissy. Esther stole back to her mother's side, and asked timidly, —

"You're not vexed with me, mama dear? Indeed I did not know what he was going to do."

"No, dear, I suppose not. It's no use making a trouble of it now it's done. It was certainly a liberty to take; but it's never any use being angry with Mr. Trelawny – he only laughs and makes a joke of it. Besides, he always has looked upon you rather in the light of his ward. Your father did write to him before he died, asking him to give an eye to us, and to take care of us both if we wanted it. I suppose he thinks he has some rights over you; and he has been very kind to us, so we must not say too much."

Esther listened very gravely. She did not know exactly what a ward might be, but she fancied that it made her in some sort the property of the redoubtable Mr. Trelawny. It was rather an alarming notion; but Esther said nothing, for it had been her endeavor all these past months, since her father's death, never to trouble her mother needlessly.

"You should have told me about your headaches, dear," said Mrs. St. Aiden, stroking Esther's hand. "Perhaps we could have cured them then without the sacrifice of your pretty hair."

"O mama, they weren't so very bad. I didn't want to worry you. But I think I shall be much better now without my hair."

"And what made you faint in the cave, dear? You frightened Mr. Trelawny and Mr. Earle, I think."

Esther thought it had been the other way; but she only said, after a little hesitation, —

"There didn't seem any air down there, and it was all so dark and queer, it made me feel funny; but I didn't know I fainted."

"Well, I have told Mr. Trelawny not to take you there again. I have always had that sort of dislike to caves and underground places myself. Men don't understand that sort of thing; but you had better never go there again, Esther."

"Oh, thank you, mama!" cried Esther earnestly.

It was an immense relief to feel that she need never go back to the cave, and that Mr. Trelawny had been told not to take her there. She could almost face the idea of going up to the Crag to see the books, if she were safe from that terrible place. Things seemed suddenly to be brighter and happier altogether. Esther was quite lively that evening; and as Genefer brushed the shorn head at night she remarked, —

"Well, Miss Esther, it's made a good bit of difference to your looks; but I always did say to the missus that it was a pity to let you grow such a mane of hair now. Very likely you would have had it grow thin and poor as you grew up; but if you keep it cropped short for a few years, you'll have a nice head of hair when you're a young lady and want it again."

On Sunday afternoon Milly and Bertie Polperran came to the Hermitage to spend the time with their little friends there, as on Saturday they had not met.

Prissy taught a little class in the Sunday school; but Milly and Bertie were free, only that they had some little verses and part of a hymn to learn, and they had leave to say them to Esther to-day.

Esther had been rather exercised in her mind about the fashion in which Pickle and Puck spent their Sundays. They went to church in the morning with her, and kept her pretty much on tenter-hooks all the time, although they had never done anything very outrageous so far. But their eyes always seemed everywhere, and nothing escaped their observation; and they would giggle in a subdued yet sufficiently audible fashion, if anything amused them, and sometimes try to make Esther or their little friends opposite join them in their ill-timed hilarity.

After having been to church, they seemed to consider that for them Sunday had ended, and they played about and amused themselves just as they pleased.

"Crump always played with us on Sunday afternoons," they would say when Esther suggested something more quiet and decorous, according to her ideas. They did not seem to understand why they should be more quiet on Sunday than on any other day, and it was not quite easy for Esther to explain.

"They must have been badly brought up," Prissy would say in her prim, grown-up fashion. "I think their father must be a very strange sort of man." But when Esther spoke to Genefer, she was a little comforted by hearing her say, —

"You see, Miss Esther, the poor little boys have had no mother to teach them, and gentlemen don't think of things quite like mothers. I don't think they mean to be naughty a bit, but they've not been taught as you have. Perhaps they'll get into better ways living here for a spell. But it's no good preaching at them. That'll never do it. You only get at children by making them love you. Then they like the things you like, and they learn different ways. They're getting fond of you, Miss Esther, my dear. They'll begin to copy you by and by, whether they know it or not."

Esther did not think Pickle and Puck had much notion of copying anybody; but she thought they were growing fond of her in a fashion, and she was certainly growing fond of them. If they brought new anxiety into her life, they brought a considerable amount of pleasure and variety too. She did not at all regret the arrangement, although she wished the boys had been just a little younger, so that she might have had more influence over them.

"We're going to have a Sunday school, and you're to teach!" cried Milly, running up to Esther as she sat in the yew arbor, thinking that the four little ones would rather be alone together. "We've learned our lessons, and Pickle and Puck have learned something, too; and now we're going to come and be a class, and you're to teach us."

There was plenty of room in the summer-house for the class; and a chair was set for Esther, whilst her four scholars occupied the fixed bench that ran round the arbor. They came in with looks of decorous gravity, and the boys pulled their forelocks, and Milly made a courtesy, whilst Esther felt half-embarrassed at so much respect and deference.

The little Polperrans repeated their lessons with the readiness of those accustomed to such tasks. Pickle followed with a fair show of fluency; and Puck said a short text with great deliberation, prompted from time to time by Milly, who had evidently "coached" him up in it.

At the close he looked up into Esther's face and asked with due solemnity, evidently put up to the right phraseology by either Bertie or Milly, —

"Please, teacher, what is the sin that so easily besets us?"

There was a faint giggle from Bertie; but Puck had thrown himself into his part, and was as solemn as a judge. Esther was a little embarrassed at the position in which she found herself, but she strove to find a suitable answer.

"I think it's different things with different people," she said after a pause. "You know some people are naughty in some ways, and some in others. We don't all sin alike."

Pickle here broke in eagerly, —

"Let's think of the naughty things people do. Mr. Trelawny cut off your hair yesterday without asking leave. Wasn't that a sort of sin?"

Esther was rather taken aback at this method of treating the subject; but before she had found words in which to reply, the boy had broken out again, —

"I tell you what I think it is – the sin that so easily besets him is doing just as he likes, and being what Crump calls 'lord high everything.' Don't you think that's Uncle Bob's sin, Ess?"