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Ida
by
“Well! Miss Ida,” began Nurse, as Ida opened the nursery door (and there was something terrible in her “well”); “if I ever–” and Nurse seized Ida by the arm, which was generally premonitory of her favourite method of punishment–“a good shaking.” But Ida clung close and flung her arms round Nurse’s neck.
“Don’t shake me, Nursey, dear,” she begged, “my head aches so. I have been very naughty, I know. I’ve done everything you can think of; I’ve crept through the hedge, and been right through the wood, and made a ford, and tumbled into the brook, and waded back, and run all the way home, and been round by the town for fear you should see me. And I’ve done something you could never, never think of if you tried till next Christmas, I’ve got some flowers for Mrs. Overtheway, only I did it so stupidly; she will think me a perfect goose, and perhaps be angry,” and the tears came into Ida’s eyes.
“She’ll think you a naughty, troublesome child, as you are,” said Nurse, who seldom hesitated to assume the responsibility of any statement that appeared to be desirable; “you’re mad on that old lady, I think. Just look at that dress!”
Ida looked, but her tears were falling much too fast for her to have a clear view of anything, and the torn edges of the rent seemed fringed with prismatic colours.
To crown all she was sent to bed. In reality, this was to save the necessity of wearing her best frock till the other was mended, and also to keep her warm in case she should have caught cold; but Nurse spoke of it as a punishment, and Ida wept accordingly. And this was a triumph of that not uncommon line of nursery policy which consists in elaborately misleading the infant mind for good.
Chim! chime! went the bells next morning, and Mrs. Overtheway came down the white steps and through the green gate with a bunch of primroses in her hand. She looked up as usual, but not to the sky. She looked to the windows of the houses over the way, as if she expected some one to be looking for her. There was no face to be seen, however; and in the house directly opposite, one of the upper blinds was drawn down. Ida was ill.
How long she was ill, and of what was the matter with her, Ida had no very clear idea. She had visions of toiling through the wood over and over again, looking vainly for something that could never be found; of being suddenly surrounded and cut off by swollen streams; and of crawling, unclean beasts with preternatural feelers who got into her boots. Then these heavy dreams cleared away in part, and the stream seemed to ripple like the sound of church bells, and these chimed out the old tune
“Quite through the streets, with silver sound,” etc.
And then, at last, she awoke one fine morning to hear the sweet chim-chiming of the church bells, and to see Nurse sitting by her bedside. She lay still for a few moments to make quite sure, and then asked in a voice so faint that it surprised herself:
“Has Mrs. Overtheway gone to church?”
On which, to her great astonishment, Nurse burst into tears. For this was the first reasonable sentence that poor Ida had spoken for several days.
To be very ill is not pleasant; but the slow process of getting back strength is often less pleasant still. One afternoon Ida knelt in her old place at the window. She was up, but might not go out, and this was a great grief. The day had been provokingly fine, and even now, though the sun was setting, it seemed inclined to make a fresh start, so bright was the rejuvenated glow with which it shone upon the opposite houses, and threw a mystic glory over Mrs. Overtheway’s white steps and green railings. Oh! how Ida had wished to go out that afternoon! How long and clear the shadows were! It seemed to Ida that whoever was free to go into the open air could have nothing more to desire. “Out of doors” looked like Paradise to the drooping little maid, and the passers-by seemed to go up and down the sunny street in a golden dream. Ida gazed till the shadows lengthened, and crept over the street and up the houses; till the sunlight died upon the railings, and then upon the steps, and at last lingered for half an hour in bright patches among the chimney-stacks, and then went out altogether, and left the world in shade.