Susan

Susan
by Amy Walton
CHAPTER ONE.
"MY AUNT ENTICKNAPP."
"So there ain't no idea, then, of takin' Miss Susan?"
"No, indeed! My mistress will have enough on her hands as it is, what
with the journey, and poor Master Freddie such a care an' all, an' so
helpless. I don't deny I've a sinkin' myself when I think of it; but if it's
to do the poor child good, I'm not the one to stand in his way."
"Where's she to stay, then, while you're all away?"
"With an aunt of Missis' at Ramsgate. An old lady by what I hear."
"Por little thing!"
Susan heard all this; for, though she was snugly curled up in her little
bed at the other end of the room, she was not asleep. Now and then she
opened her eyes drowsily and peeped from the bed-clothes, which
nearly covered her round face, at Nurse and Maria bending over their
work by the fire. There was only one candle on the table, and they
poked their heads so near the flame as they talked that she wondered
the caps did not catch light, particularly Maria's, which was very high
and fussy in front. Susan began to count the narrow escapes she had,
but before she had got far she became so interested in the conversation
that she gave it up.
Not that they said anything at all new to her, for it had been settled long
ago, and her mother often talked about it. Susan knew it all as well as
possible. How the doctor had said that Freddie, her elder brother, who

was always ill and weakly, must now be taken out of England to a
warm climate for the winter months. She had heard her mother say
what a long journey it would be, how much it would cost, how difficult
it was to leave London; and yet it was the only chance for Freddie, and
so it must be done. She knew that very soon they were to start, and
Nurse was to go too; but she herself was to be left behind, with an old
lady she had never seen, all the time they were gone.
But, although she knew all this she had not felt that it was a thing to
dread, or that she was much to be pitied; she had even looked forward
to it with a sort of pleased wonder about all the new things she should
see and do, for this old lady lived by the sea-side, and Susan had never
been there. She had seen it in pictures and read of it in story-books, and
her mother had told her of many pleasures she would find which were
not to be had anywhere else. When she thought of it, therefore, it was
of some unknown but very agreeable place where she would dig in the
sand and perhaps bathe in the sea, and pick up beautiful shells for
Freddie and herself.
To-night, however, for the first time, as she listened to Nurse and Maria
mumbling over their work in the half-light, she began to think of it
differently, and even to be a little alarmed; so that when Maria said,
"Por little thing!" with such a broad accent of pity, Susan felt sorry too.
She was a poor little thing, no doubt, to be left behind; and then there
was another matter she had not thought of much--the old lady. "My
Aunt Enticknapp," her mother always called her; a difficult and ugly
name to begin with, and very hard to pronounce. Would she be pleasant?
or would she be cross and full of corners like her name? Whatever she
was, she was a perfect stranger, and Susan felt sure she should not want
to stay with her all the winter. It was certainly a hard case, and the more
she considered it the less she liked it. She wondered if Nurse and Maria
would say anything more, but soon the little clock on the mantelpiece
struck ten, they put away their work and went down to supper. Then
Susan fixed her round brown eyes on the glowing fire. "Por little
thing!" someone seemed to go on saying over and over again, each time
more slowly. At last it got very slow indeed: "Por-- little--" and while
she waited for it to say "thing," she fell asleep.

But she remembered it all directly she woke the next morning, and
made up her mind that she must find out more about Aunt Enticknapp
than she had yet done. Amongst other things she must know her
Christian name. It would not be very easy, because just now everyone
in the house, and her mother above all, seemed to have so much to
think of that they had no time