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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Old Nurse’s Story, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mistakes and Regret
Wealth and Happiness
Gender
Pride
Summary
Analysis
The narrator (whose name is eventually revealed to be Hester) is telling some children a story from their mother’s youth. Hester reminds them that their mother had no siblings and lost her parents early in life too. Their mother’s father was a clergyman in Westmorland, where Hester grew up.
Given that Hester is telling these children a story, she is presumably the “old nurse” from the title. Most stories of this time period (the mid-19th century) had male protagonists and narrators, so the fact that Hester is female would have been a radical choice. Westmorland was an area in northwest England that Romantic writers poets favored for its scenic lakes and mountains. It’s now a part of Cumbria.
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Hester tells the backstory of how she met the children’s mother, Miss Rosamond. Before Miss Rosamond is born, Miss Rosamond’s mother visits the village school Hester is attending, looking for someone to be a nursemaid for the child she had on the way. The school mistress praises Hester, whose only flaw is having poor parents. The idea of serving Miss Rosamond’s mother thrills Hester; both Miss Rosamond’s mother and Hester blush when they meet each other. Breaking away from the story, Hester notes that her listeners, Miss Rosamond’s children, are not interested in this background information. They are caught up in a later part that interests them more, so she skips ahead.
Hester’s pride peeks through as she includes these praises by her former school mistress in her story. However, this glimmer of pride is quickly counterbalanced by Hester and Miss Rosamond’s mother’s modesty. Although the school mistress believes Hester’s poverty is a flaw, Hester and Miss Rosamond’s mutual blushing frames them as equals. At the very least, they clearly respect each other.
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Back in her story, Hester moves in with Miss Rosamond’s mother, and Miss Rosamond is born. Miss Rosamond’s mother is very attentive to her new daughter, so Hester has very little to do, but she’s extremely proud when Miss Rosamond’s mother trusts her to take care of Miss Rosamond. (Hester praises Miss Rosamond as the best baby ever, even better than the children she is telling the story to in the present.)
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Miss Rosamond is like her mother, who is “a real born lady,” as the granddaughter of a Lord Furnivall of Northumberland. Hester is under the impression that Miss Rosamond’s mother doesn’t have any siblings and that she grew up with her grandfather’s family until she married Miss Rosamond’s father, who is the son of a shopkeeper. Now, he’s a hardworking clergyman who is clever and manages his large, scattered parish in the Westmorland Fells well.
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When Miss Rosamond is four or five, both her mother and her father die in the same fortnight. Miss Rosamond’s mother and Hester are preparing for Miss Rosamond’s mother to give birth to a second child, but then Miss Rosamond’s father returns from one of his usual long rides, becomes sick, and dies. Miss Rosamond’s mother becomes bedridden and lives only long enough to give birth to a stillborn baby, having the baby laid on her chest before sighing out her last breath. On her death bed, Miss Rosamond’s mother asks Hester never to leave Miss Rosamond, which Hester would have done even if she hadn’t been asked to.
Miss Rosamond’s mother’s cousin, another Lord Furnivall, and Mr. Esthwiate, her husband’s brother, arrive to sort out the affairs. Hester isn’t sure who arranges it, but she believes it is determined that she and Miss Rosamond are going to move to Lord Furnivall’s house in Northumberland. Hester interprets Lord Furnivall as implying that Miss Rosamond’s mother wanted her child to grow up with his family, and that the addition of a few more people wouldn’t even be noticed in such a big house. Hester feels this not the right way to view Miss Rosamond, who she has deemed to be “a sunbeam in any family” and her “bright and pretty pet.” But Hester enjoys the way the townsfolk stare in awe now that they’ve heard that Hester will be Miss Rosamond’s maid at Furnivall Manor.
However, Hester realizes she got it wrong: they’re not going to live in Furnivall Manor. Apparently, no one has lived there in 50 years. Instead, they will live in Manor House, located at the bottom of the Cumberland Fells, with Miss Grace Furnivall, Lord Furnivall’s great aunt. Lord Furnivall emphasizes that this is a “very healthy place” for Miss Rosamond to live for a few years. Hester thinks it is a grand home too; she only regrets Miss Rosamond not getting to grow up where her mother did.
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Hester describes Lord Furnivall as a “stern proud man,” like all the Lords Furnivall. He only says exactly as much as he has to. There are rumors that he loved Miss Rosamond’s mother, but because she knew his father would never approve, she ignored him and married Miss Rosamond’s father instead. Hester doesn’t know if this is true, but either way, he never married. Furthermore, he doesn’t take as much interest in Miss Rosamond as one would expect if he had loved her mother.
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Lord Furnivall sends one of his servants to help Hester and Miss Rosamond move to Manor House and then return to him that evening, so “so there was no great length of time […] before he, too, shook [them] off.” Hester is not even 18 years old, and now she and Miss Rosamond are alone in this new place. They both cry on the way there, even though they’re in Lord Furnivall’s fancy carriage, which Hester had previously admired so much. They arrive at Manor House in the late afternoon in September, and Lord Furnivall’s driver tells Hester to wake up Miss Rosamond so she can see the house and park as they approach. Hester dislikes this plan but does as she is told, out of fear of getting in trouble with Lord Furnivall.
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The park in front of Manor House is wild, filled with rocks and running water and old, gnarled trees. Hester notes as the house comes into view that “no one seem[s] to take much charge of the place,” with trees and moss overrunning the sides of the house and only the front of the house having been cleaned up. Compared to the other sides, the driveway doesn’t have a single weed, and not a single tree touches the many windows across the front. While the house feels deserted, it is even grander than Hester anticipated. The Fells loom behind the house.
Hester eventually learns that there is a little old-fashioned flower garden to the left side of the house. A door in the west wing opens out onto it. The surrounding woods and wilderness had been dug away to create that small garden for some previous Lady Furnivall. But since then, the trees have overshadowed it once again, and few flowers can grow there.
Upon entering the house, Hester is afraid of getting lost in this place that is so “large, and vast, and grand.” She is amazed by the bronze chandelier, because she has never seen one before. At one end of the hall, there is also a fireplace the size of the side of a house in Westmorland. At the other end, to the west, is a built-in organ big enough to take up most of that end. There are doors by both the fireplace and the organ. (Hester notes she never ventured into the doors by the fireplace leading to the east wing, so she cannot describe what is behind them.) There is no fire in the fireplace, making the hall feel “dark and gloomy.”
A servant arrives and takes Hester and Miss Rosamond through the door by the organ, leading them through many small passages to the west drawing-room, where Miss Grace Furnivall is waiting for them. Both Miss Rosamond and Hester cling to each other, feeling afraid and lost. The west drawing-room, however, is cheerful-looking and has a fire going.
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Hester guesses that Miss Grace Furnivall is almost 80. Miss Grace Furnivall appears to be very observant, most likely because she is nearly deaf. Mrs. Stark, Miss Grace Furnivall’s maid, is also there, working on the same great piece of tapestry as Miss Grace Furnivall. Hester thinks Mrs. Stark looks like she has never loved or cared for anyone and supposes she never has, except for Miss Grace Furnivall. Lord Furnivall’s servant departs, ignoring Miss Rosamond stretching her hands out to him.
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Hester and Miss Rosamond are sent to their rooms, which Hester is glad are close to the kitchen, once again afraid that she “should be lost in that wilderness of a house.” Both of their rooms feature lit fireplaces. They meet James and his wife, Dorothy, staff members who make them feel comfortable in the house. Hester learns that Dorothy is also from Westmorland, and that gives them something to bond over. James has lived in Lord Furnivall’s family almost his whole life and thus looks down on Dorothy a little for only ever having lived on a farm. They have a servant whom they call Agnes. Hester notes that Agnes, James, Dorothy, Miss Grace Furnivall, Mrs. Stark, and herself—and, of course, Miss Rosamond—“ma[k]e up the family.”
Miss Rosamond brings life to the house, fluttering through it like a bird. Hester thinks Miss Grace Furnivall and Mrs. Stark enjoy Miss Rosamond’s company, even if they’re too proud to ask her to stay with them in the drawing-room. Miss Rosamond and Hester explore the entire house except the east wing, which is never opened and they never think of venturing into. They find all sorts of things, most notably old portraits of the Furnivall family members. Dorothy tells the girls who some of them were. They find a picture of Miss Grace Furnivall when she was younger, noting that then she was simply called “Miss Grace” then because she was the younger sister. Hester notes that she was beautiful, though she had a scornful expression, and she also notices Miss Grace’s blue dress in the portrait.
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In response to Hester’s amazement at Miss Grace Furnivall’s beauty in her youth, Dorothy remarks that “folks change sadly,” and that the previous Lord Furnivall had always said Miss Grace Furnivall’s older sister was even prettier than her. Dorothy says she will show Hester the portrait of the older sister, Miss Maude Furnivall, if she promises to never tell anyone she has seen it. Hester sends Miss Rosamond off to find a hiding spot, not trusting her to keep the secret. Miss Maude Furnivall’s picture is not hung up like the rest, but on the floor facing the wall. Hester helps Dorothy turn it. Hester thinks Miss Maude Furnivall is even more beautiful and more scornful than Miss Grace Furnivall.
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Dorothy is frightened after showing Miss Maude Furnivall’s portrait to Hester and urges Hester to quickly find Miss Rosamond, warning that there are some bad places in the house that she wouldn’t want Miss Rosamond to venture into. Hester thinks little of this concern and happily runs off to seek out Miss Rosamond.
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As winter slowly sets in, Hester becomes convinced that she sometimes hears someone playing on the organ, usually when she’s putting Miss Rosamond to bed. However, when she asks Dorothy about it, James insists that all she heard was the wind. Her question scares Dorothy and Agnes, however. Hester tries to get more out of Dorothy later, but she won’t tell her anything.
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Hester tries to learn about the organ music from Agnes next, though she had always seen Agnes as her inferior, James and Dorothy being Hester’s equals and Agnes being their servant. Agnes admits she’s heard the music playing too, and that it occurs most often on winter nights before storms. Rumor has it that it is the old lord who plays the organ, though Agnes does not say who this old lord is. This doesn’t scare Hester—she enjoys the music, noting that it “wail[s] and triumph[s] just like a living creature.” Hester thinks Miss Grace Furnivall might be the one secretly playing it, but when she learns that the inside of the organ is destroyed, she too becomes afraid.
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Everyone loves Miss Rosamond, though Miss Rosamond enjoys spending time with Hester over the sad Miss Grace Furnivall and the dull Mrs. Stark. Hester stops caring about the organ music, seeing that it doesn’t do any harm. Winter was already cold in October, but Miss Grace Furnivall implies that she is afraid they are headed for a “terrible winter” beyond just the cold weather. Mrs. Stark pretends not to hear her and changes the subject. Hester and Miss Rosamond are not worried about the cold and enjoy going up the Fells and running around. As the days grow shorter, Hester hears the organ music more and more.
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One stormy November day, Hester decides it is too cold to take Miss Rosamond to church with her and asks Dorothy to take care of her after she grows bored of being in the drawing-room with Miss Grace Furnivall and Mrs. Stark. The sky is dark, and the snow is white. When Hester gets home from church, Dorothy tells her that Miss Rosamond never came to see her. But when Hester goes to Miss Grace Furnivall and Mrs. Stark, who are sitting in the drawing-room and looking into the fireplace, they say Miss Rosamond left an hour ago to find Dorothy.
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Fear starts to set in, and Hester searches everywhere. However, when she suggests Miss Rosamond might have ventured into the east wing, Dorothy is certain that is not possible—the doors are always locked, and only Lord Furnivall’s servant has the key.
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When Miss Grace Furnivall hears they cannot find Miss Rosamond, she shivers violently, until Mrs. Stark takes her away from the search and back to the drawing-room. Hester then notices a set of little footprints in the snow outside, which go around the east wing and up toward the Fells. Hester sprints out into the cold, and as she approaches two holly trees that she and Miss Rosamond had seen previously in their adventures, she finds a shepherd carrying an unconscious Miss Rosamond. The shepherd says that he found her by the holly trees, the only bushes on the hillside for miles. Hester insists on carrying her back herself, calling Miss Rosamond her “little lady,” “lamb,” “queen,” and “darling.”
When Miss Rosamond finally wakes up, she tells Hester that she was on her way to Dorothy when she saw a little girl outside in the snow, beckoning her to come outside. So, she went outside, and she and the little girl walked hand in hand up the Fells. The girl’s hand was very cold, and she led Miss Rosamond to a lady crying under the holly trees. The lady stopped crying when she saw Miss Rosamond and looked at her proudly before taking her in her arms and rocking her to sleep. Hester accuses Miss Rosamond of telling stories, because she only saw one set of footprints in the snow, but Miss Rosamond insists she’s telling the truth.
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Miss Grace Furnivall and Mrs. Stark summon Hester, and Hester fears that they plan to fire her. Hester tells them the whole story, but as she reaches the part about the little girl and the crying lady, Miss Grace Furnivall yells out, asking the heavens for forgiveness. Mrs. Stark tries to quiet her, but Miss Grace Furnivall demands Hester keep Miss Rosamond away from that “evil child” trying to lure her to her death.
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Mrs. Stark hurries Hester out of the room as Miss Grace Furnivall continues to ask for forgiveness. Hester decides never to leave Miss Rosamond alone after that, more concerned that Miss Grace Furnivall is mentally ill and that the illness might run in the family and have been passed down to Miss Rosamond. The organ plays a lot these days, but Hester follows Miss Rosamond everywhere, her love for Miss Rosamond greater than her fear.
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In December, Hester and Miss Rosamond are playing together in the great hall when they both see the little girl out in the snow, crying and beating on the windows, asking to be let in. Miss Rosamond runs to let her in, but the organ suddenly sings out loudly, and Hester realizes that the little girl outside has made no noise, despite seeming to cry and bang on the windows. Hester catches Miss Rosamond and carries her away, but Miss Rosamond throws a fit, angry that Hester will not let her help the girl. Hester tells Dorothy she is going to take Miss Rosamond away, that it was better for them to live humbly and at peace than here. But Dorothy says she has no right to take Miss Rosamond away.
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Hester demands that Dorothy tell her everything. Dorothy admits that the house has a bad reputation, which is why people don’t visit anymore. The old lord who plays the organ is Miss Grace Furnivall’s father. Miss Grace’s sister is named Maude and is the true “Miss Furnivall” by right. The old lord was proud and would never let anyone marry his daughters. He was a cruel man, but he loved music and invited a foreign musician to play for them at Manor House. The foreigner played so well that the old lord demanded he come every year to play. Both sisters fell in love with this foreigner. He taught the old lord how to play the organ, and with their father distracted, he went for walks with both sisters separately.
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Miss Maude Furnivall “won the day” and married the foreigner in secret. Before he returned for his next annual visit, she secretly gave birth to a little girl at a farmhouse, pretending she was away on a trip. Miss Maude Furnivall became deeply jealous of Miss Grace Furnivall because the foreigner flirted with her, claiming to do so to keep their marriage a secret. Miss Maude Furnivall grew to hate both her sister and her husband, but she loved her daughter. The old lord went on playing his organ, and the two sisters “grew colder and bitterer to each other each day” until they hardly ever spoke to each other. The foreigner visited again, but weary of the sisters’ jealousy, he left and never returned.
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Miss Maude Furnivall now found herself abandoned by her husband, afraid of her father, hating her sister, and unable to live with her daughter. However, because the old lord continued to grow weaker and Miss Grace Furnivall lived in the west wing, while she lived in the east wing, Miss Maude Furnivall thought she could have her daughter live with her in secret. What happened from there, Dorothy does not know, insisting that only Miss Grace Furnivall and Mrs. Stark, who had been closer to her than her sister ever had, knew. But people supposed that Miss Maude Furnivall had told her sister she had “triumphed over her” by having married the foreigner in secret. Miss Grace Furnivall had been heard saying she would get her revenge, and Mrs. Stark had been seen spying on the east wing.
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One night following New Year’s, the old lord’s voice filled the house with swear words, paired with the sound of a crying child and a woman’s defiant voice. Finally, there was the sound of someone being struck and then silence, as the sound of wailing disappeared over the hillside. The old lord told all the servants that Miss Maude Furnivall had disgraced herself, and that he had thrown her and her child out of the house and forbade the servants from helping them.
All the while, Miss Grace Furnivall stood next to the old lord, “white and still any as stone.” Once he finished his speech, she let out a sigh “as much as to say her work done and her end was accomplished.” The next morning, shepherds found Miss Maude Furnivall and her daughter, frozen under the holly trees. The old lord never played his organ again and died within a year.
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Dorothy notes that while every animal and creature was in its home, the child and her mother were left out in the cold. After hearing this story, Hester closely guards Miss Rosamond, who still hears the little girl crying out, and avoids Miss Grace Furnivall and Mrs. Stark. But Hester pities Miss Grace Furnivall in her hopelessness and prays for her. She tries to teach Miss Rosamond to do the same, but when Miss Rosamond tries, she always hears the little girl crying outside.
On a night soon after New Year’s, Hester, Miss Rosamond, Miss Grace Furnivall, and Mrs. Stark are all in the drawing room when the wind begins to howl violently. Miss Grace Furnivall suddenly stands up, declaring that she hears screaming and her father’s voice. At the same time, Miss Rosamond wakes up suddenly, hearing the little girl in the snow crying. At first no one else can hear these voices, but then they begin to hear them too. Miss Grace Furnivall hurries to the great hall, all of them following. The screams sound like they’re coming from the east wing, and a fire that gives off no heat burns in the hall fireplace. The east door shakes, and Miss Rosamond fights to escape Hester’s arms and join the little girl. Hester holds onto her for dear life.
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The east wing’s door slams open, and the old lord’s ghostly figure emerges, with Miss Maude Furnivall and the little girl in front of him. Miss Rosamond screams for Hester to let her free; she can feel Miss Maude Furnivall and her daughter, and she wants to go to them. As the ghosts reached the hall door, Miss Maude Furnivall turns defiantly toward her father, only to fail to protect her child from a blow from the old lord’s crutch. As he strikes the child, Miss Grace Furnivall cries out, begging her father’s ghost to spare the child. But then a new phantom emerges, one identical to the portrait of Miss Grace Furnivall in her youth. The ghosts ignore Miss Grace Furnivall’s cries, and the younger version of her watches on “stony and deadly serene.”
Then, the fire and candles all go out, and Miss Grace Furnivall is lying at everyone else’s feet. She is carried to her bed, spending the rest of her days facing the wall, muttering, “what is done in youth can never be undone in age!”
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