Kitabı oku: «A Bevy of Girls», sayfa 8
Chapter Fourteen
The Introduction
Meanwhile Nesta was in a state of wild excitement. No sooner had Marcia and Angela gone down the street than she darted into the drawing room.
“Well,” she said, “is it all right? Did you really see her? Was she properly introduced to you? Can you say in future that you know her? When you meet her, will you be able to bow to her? Have you contrived to get her promise to come and see you? Tell me everything, everything.”
“What affair is it of yours, child?” said Clara crossly. For although she had met Miss St. Just, it seemed to her that she had made but small way with that young lady.
“It means everything to me – everything possible. Do you know her?”
“Of course, I know her! Is it likely that your sister would be so rude, so fearfully rude as not to introduce me when I was in the room?”
“I don’t know,” replied Nesta. “Marcia can be rude enough when she likes.”
“Well, anyhow, she wasn’t. She did introduce us, and Miss St. Just was most pleasant. She has far nicer manners than your sister.”
“That wouldn’t be difficult,” said Nesta. “Marcia is so very stand-offish.”
“Ridiculously proud and prudish, I call her,” said Clay.
“And do you think Miss St. Just as lovely as you always did?”
“Oh, far, far more lovely. She puts every one else into the shade. I invited her to Court Prospect, and I expect she’ll come. I am going home now, and shall try to get up a grand party in her honour. After what she said to me she could hardly refuse. It is all delightful.”
“Yes, delightful!” said Nesta. “Well, good-bye. Just mention to Penelope, will you, that you were introduced to her this morning.”
“I wonder why I should do that?” said Clara, as she settled herself in the little pony trap which was standing outside the door.
“Oh, just to oblige me,” said Nesta, and the next minute Clara Carter was out of sight.
Nesta skipped joyfully into the house.
“Now I’ve done it,” she thought. “Penelope can’t go back. We made a bet. How I was to fulfil my part I hadn’t the least idea, but I am thankful to say I have won. She’ll have to give me a whole sovereign. Yes, a whole, beautiful yellow-boy for my very own self; and if Clara contrives to get Miss St. Just to visit them at Court Prospect, Penelope is to give me two sovereigns. I shall be in luck! Why, a girl with two sovereigns can face the world. She has all before her. She has nothing left to wish for. It is splendid! Magnificent! Oh, I am in luck!”
Nesta danced into the garden. Notwithstanding the hot day she was determined to go at once to tell Flossie Griffiths the good news. Flossie had not been quite as nice as usual to Nesta of late. She had made the acquaintance of the Carters, and the Carters had not specially taken to her. Penelope Carter was also in some ways more fascinating to Nesta than her old friend Flossie, and in consequence Flossie was furiously jealous. But when you have a piece of good news to tell – something quite above the ordinary, you must confide it to some one, and if it is a jealous friend, who would long to have such a delightful thing happen to herself, why so much the better.
So Nesta pinned on her shabbiest hat and went down the narrow pathway, found the entrance to the woods, and by-and-by reached the Griffiths’ house.
Flossie was in the garden; she was playing with her dogs. She had three, and was devoted to them. One was a black Pomeranian, another a pug, and the third a mongrel – something between an Irish setter and an Irish terrier. The mongrel was the most interesting dog of the three, and had been taught tricks by Flossie. His name was Jingo. He was now standing on his hind legs, while the other two dogs waltzed round and round. However strong his desire to pounce upon Ginger, the pug, and Blackberry, the Pomeranian, he had to restrain himself. They might yap and bite at his toes, and try to reach his ears, as much as they pleased, but he must remain like a statue. If he endured long enough he would have a lump of sugar for his pains, which he would eat deliberately in view of his tormentors; for this halcyon moment he endured the tortures which Flossie daily subjected him to. It was really time for his sugar now, he had been on his hind legs for quite two minutes; his back was aching; he hated the feel of the sun on his head, he wanted to get into the shade, and above all things he wanted to punish Blackberry and to snap at Ginger. Flossie’s hand was in her pocket, the delicious moment had all but arrived, when Nesta’s clear, ringing voice sounded on the breeze.
“I say, Floss, I’m just in time. Oh, do come away from those stupid dogs. I have something so heavenly to tell you – it’s perfectly golloptious.”
Flossie forgot all about her dogs. Jingo mournfully descended to all fours, bit Ginger, snapped at Blackberry, and retired sulking into a corner.
Meanwhile Flossie took the arm of her friend and led her into the shade.
“How red you look,” she said. “You must have been running very fast.”
“What does that matter? I have got it; I have won it.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ve won your bet?”
“Yes, I have though. This very morning she came over – Clay, you know, and soon afterwards the Fairy Princess, and my noble elder sister was present, and she had to introduce Clay to the Princess, and it’s extremely likely that the Princess will be forced by circumstances to pay the Carters a visit at Court Prospect.”
“I wish her joy of them,” said Flossie sulkily.
“Oh, you needn’t sulk, old Floss. I’ve got my yellow-boy all for myself. Now then, I’ll tell you what. I know you’re ever so cross, and as jealous as ever you can be, but I’m going to share some of it with you.”
“You aren’t! Not really? Then if you are, I will say you’re a brick!”
Flossie’s brow cleared, her shallow black eyes danced. She looked full at Nesta.
“You and I’ll have a picnic all to ourselves,” said Nesta.
“Then you must be very quick,” replied Flossie, “for we are going to the seaside next week.”
“And the Carters are going on Saturday. I do declare I’ll have to look sharp after my yellow-boy. I tell you what – there’s nothing on earth for us to do to-day; why shouldn’t we go right away and see the Carters. I could get my money from Pen, and we’ll have a treat. We can go to Simpson’s and have ginger beer and chocolates. Wouldn’t that be prime?”
“Rather!” said Flossie, “and I’m just in the humour, for the day is frightfully hot.”
“But you don’t mind the heat – I’m sure I don’t.”
“You’re rather a show in that dress, Nesta.”
“I don’t care twopence about my dress,” said Nesta. “What I want is my darling yellow-boy. I want him and I’ll have him. We can go right away through the woods as far as our place; only perhaps that would be dangerous, for they might pounce upon me. They’re always doing it now. Before mothery got so ill we had our stated times, but now we’re never sure when we’ll be wanted. It’s Molly this, and Ethel that, and Nesta, Nesta, Nesta, all the time. I scarcely have a minute to myself. If it wasn’t for my lessons I’d simply be deaved out of all patience; but it’s hard now that there are holidays, that I can’t get away.”
“I wish you could come to the seaside with us,” said Flossie suddenly, as she thought of the yellow-boy – twenty whole shillings. Perhaps her father and mother might be induced to take Nesta with them. Her father had said only that morning:
“I am sorry for you, my little girl; you will miss your companions.”
Flossie’s father was rather proud of her friendship for Nesta Aldworth. He thought a great deal of Mr Aldworth, and spoke of him as a rising man. Oh, yes, it might be worth while to get her father and mother to invite Nesta to join them, and Nesta would have her twenty shillings. Twenty, or nineteen at least, and they might have a great many sprees at Scarborough. It would be delightful.
“I tell you what it is,” said Flossie. “There’s no earthly reason why you should stay at home. I’ll just run in this very minute and speak to mother. Why shouldn’t you come with us for a week or fortnight?”
“Do you think there’s any chance?” said Nesta, turning pale.
“There’s every possible chance. Why in the world shouldn’t you come with us? They can’t want four of you at home, and it’s downright selfish.”
“The fact is,” said Nesta, “they’re all agog to get Marcia a holiday.”
“Your elder sister – Miss Aldworth? The old maid?”
“Yes, indeed, she is that, but they all think she is looking pale, and they want her to go to those blessed St. Justs. She’s hand in glove with them, you know. She thinks of no one else on earth but that Angela of hers.”
“Well, I’m not surprised at that,” said Flossie. “Every one thinks a lot of Angela St. Just. Now, don’t keep me, I’ll rush in and speak to mother.”
She dashed into the house. The aggrieved mongrel raised a languid head and looked at her. How false she was, with that sugar in her pocket. He wagged a deprecating tail, but Flossie took no notice.
She found her mother busily engaged dusting the drawing room.
“What is it?” she said. “Are you inclined to come in and help me? This room is in a disgraceful state. I must really change Martha.”
“Oh, mother, I’ll help you another day, but I’m in such a hurry now. Nesta is outside.”
“I wonder what you’ll do without Nesta at the seaside,” said the mother.
“Oh, mother, do you think you could coax father very hard to let me invite Nesta to come with us just for a week – or even for a fortnight? I wish – I wish you would! Do you think it could be managed?”
Mrs Griffiths paused in her work to consider. She was a very frowzy, commonplace woman. She looked out of the window. There stood Nesta, pretty, careless, débonnaire – untidy enough in all truth, but decidedly above the Griffiths in her personal appearance.
Chapter Fifteen
An Unwelcome Caller
“I wouldn’t go near her now for all the world,” said Flossie, shrinking back. “Oh, my word, Nesta, do get behind this tree. You’re a perfect fright, you know, in your very oldest dress and your face as scarlet as a poppy. As to me – I wish I’d put on my Sunday-go-to-meeting frock; it isn’t as grand as theirs, but at least it has some fashion about it. But I’m in this dreadful old muslin that I’ve had for three years, and have quite outgrown. It’s awful, it really is. We can’t say anything to them to-day, we must go away.”
“Go away?” said Nesta. “That’s not me. If you’re a coward, I’m not. It’s my way to strike when the iron’s hot, I can tell you. I’ll get into a scrape for this when I get home, and if there’s one thing I’ve made up my mind about, it’s this – that I won’t get into a scrape for nothing. No, if you’re frightened, say so, and sit down behind that haycock. Not a soul will see you there, and I’ll walk up just as though I were one of the guests, and shame Penelope and the others into recognising me.”
“Nesta! You haven’t the courage!”
“Courage?” said Nesta, “catch me wanting courage. Stay where you are; I’ll come back to you when I’ve got my yellow-boy. When that’s in my pocket I’ll come back and then you’ll have a good time. Although,” she added reflectively, “I don’t know that you deserve it, for being such an arrant little coward.”
Nesta disappeared; Flossie sat and mopped her face. She was trembling with nervousness. She had never been really at home with the Carters, and she disliked immensely her present position. She wondered, too, why she cared so much for Nesta. There was nothing wonderful about Nesta. But then there was the sovereign, a whole sovereign, capable of being divided into twenty beautiful silver shillings. Flossie’s father was a very well-to-do tradesman, and could and would leave his child well off; but he was careful, and he never allowed her much pocket money. In the whole course of her life she had never possessed more than half-a-crown at a time, and to be able to have eight of those darlings, to feel that she could do what she liked with them, was a dream beyond the dreams of avarice. It is true the money would not be hers; it would be Nesta’s; but Nesta, with all her faults, was generous enough, and Flossie felt that once she had the money and was away with her friend at the seaside they could really have a good time. Flossie was very fond of her food, and she imagined how the money could be spent on little treats – shrimps or doughnuts, and whatever fruit was in season. They could have endless little picnics all to themselves on the sands. It would be a time worth remembering.
Meanwhile where was Nesta? Flossie was afraid at first to venture to look round the other side of the haycock, but after a time, when she had quite cooled down, she did poke her head round. To her astonishment, envy and disgust, she saw that Nesta, in her shabby cotton frock, with her old hat on her head, was calmly walking up and down in the company of Penelope Carter. Penelope and her boy friend, and Nesta, were parading slowly up and down, up and down a corner of one of the lawns.
Penelope did all that an ordinary girl could to get rid of her friend; but Nesta stuck like a leech. At last Penelope was desperate.
“I am awfully sorry, Nesta, but you see we have all our sets marked out, and we – we didn’t invite you to-day. You must be tired, and if you will go into the house, Mrs Johnson will give you a cup of tea.”
“But I’ve brought Flossie, Flossie Griffiths. I cannot leave her out.”
“Take Flossie with you, and both have a cup of tea.”
“I’ll go with pleasure, if you’ll come with me.”
“But I can’t. Do speak for me, Bertie,” she continued, turning to the boy. “Say that I cannot.”
“Miss Penelope is engaged to play a set of tennis with me,” said Bertie Pearson, trembling as he uttered the words, for Nesta’s aggressive manner frightened him.
“She shall have her set with you as soon as I have said what I have come to say. It won’t take long; I can say it if you will come as far as the house with me, Pen. You won’t get rid of me in any other way.”
Penelope fairly stamped her foot.
“If I must, I must,” she said. “Bertie, keep a set open for me, like a good fellow. Come at once, Nesta.” They turned down a shady walk.
“Oh, Nesta, how could you?” said Penelope, her anger breaking out the moment she found herself alone with her companion. “To come here to-day – to-day of all days, and to look like that, in your very shabbiest!”
“Oh, you’re ashamed of me,” said Nesta. “You’re a nice friend!”
“I am not ashamed of you,” said Penelope stoutly, “when you are fit to be seen. I like you for yourself. I always have; but I don’t think it right for a girl to thrust herself on other girls uninvited. Now, what is it you want? I am busy entertaining friends.”
“Flirting with Bertie, you mean.”
“I don’t flirt – how dare you say so? He is a very nice boy. He is a gentleman, and you are not a lady.”
“Oh, indeed! I’m not a lady. My father’s daughter is not a lady! Wait till I tell that to Marcia.”
Penelope was alarmed. She knew that if this speech reached her father’s ears he would be seriously displeased with her.
“I didn’t mean that, of course, Nesta, you know I didn’t I like you for yourself, and of course you are quite a lady. All the same you oughtn’t to have come here now and – and force yourself on us.”
“Well, I’ll go if you give me what I have come for.”
“What is that?”
They were now approaching the house by a side entrance.
“You needn’t be bothered about your tea, for I don’t want it,” said Nesta. “I’m choking with thirst, but I don’t want your tea – you who have said I’m not a lady. As to Flossie, she doesn’t want your tea either. We’d rather choke than have it. There’s a shop in the High Street where we can get ginger beer and chocolates. The ginger beer will go pop and we’ll enjoy ourselves. It’s fifty times nicer than your horrid tea. But I’ll tell you what I do want – my yellow-boy.”
“Your what?” said Penelope, looking at her in bewilderment.
“My beautiful, precious, darling twenty shillings. Only they must be given me in gold of the realm.”
“Nesta, what do you mean? Your twenty shillings!”
“Come,” said Nesta, “that’s all very fine. But did you, or did you not make a bet with me?”
Penelope seemed to remember. She put her hand to her forehead.
“Oh, that,” she said, with a laugh. “But that was pure nonsense!”
“It was a true bet; you wrote it down in your book and I wrote it down in mine. It’s as true as true can be. You wrote – I remember the words quite well – ‘If Clay gets an introduction through Marcia Aldworth to Miss Angela St. Just, I will pay Nesta one sovereign; and if she fails, Nesta is to give me one sovereign.’ Now did you, or did you not, make me that bet?”
“Oh, it was a bit of fun – a joke.”
“It isn’t a joke; it’s real earnest. I tell you what; I’ll go straight to your father and tell him before every one present what has really happened. I’ll tell him that you made a bet and won’t keep it, for I have won,” said Nesta excitedly. “You ask Clay if I haven’t. Clay was at our house this morning, and Angela called. Blessed thing! I see nothing in her. She was introduced to your Clay, and your Clay hopes to bring her here to Court Prospect, and if I haven’t earned my sovereign, I want to know who has. So now.”
“Really and truly, Nesta, I wish you wouldn’t talk so loud. Oh, look at all those people coming this way. They’ll see us, and Clay will call me. I see Clay with them.”
“Let her call. I’d like her to. I’d like to explain before every one that you never kept your bet.”
“Oh, do come into the house, Nesta. Do for pity’s sake.”
Penelope dragged the fierce and rebellious Nesta into the house by the side door.
“Now,” she said, “sit down and cool yourself. What will Bertie say? and he came here specially on my invitation. He is my guest. I’m awfully sweet on him. I am really, and – oh dear, oh dear – I don’t care about Angela St. Just, and I don’t believe that she was introduced to Clay.”
“Well, you ask Clara. I’ll shout to her – I say, Clara!”
“Stop, Nesta! You must be mad!”
Penelope put her hand over Nesta’s mouth.
“Give me my yellow-boy and I’ll be off,” she said, pushing back Penelope’s hand as she tried to force her from the window.
“I haven’t got it now; I’ll bring it to-morrow.”
“I won’t stir from here till I get it,” said Nesta. “I suppose with all your riches you can raise one sovereign. I want it and I’m not going away without it. Flossie and I are going to have ginger beer and chocolates at Simpson’s, in the High Street, and we’re not going to be docked of our pleasure because you are too fine a lady to care.”
“Oh dear; oh dear!” said Penelope. “What is to be done? I haven’t got the money – I really haven’t.”
“Well, I suppose some of you have. I see your father on the lawn; I’ll run up to him and tell him. If I talk out loud enough he will give it to me. I know he will.”
“Nesta, you are driving me nearly mad!”
“Let me have the money and I’ll go.”
“Pen, Pen! Where are you?” called Mabel’s voice at that moment, from the garden.
“They want me. Bertie will think I’ve deserted him. Oh, Nesta, you are driving me distracted.”
But Nesta stood her ground. Penelope stood and reflected. She had not much money of her own, and what money she got usually melted through her fingers like water. Her sisters had long ago discovered this and entrusted her with but little. Her father always said she could have what she pleased within reason, but he never gave her any sort of allowance.
“Time enough when you are grown up, Pussie,” he used to say, as he pulled her long red-gold hair.
Now she looked out on the sunlit garden; on the pleasant scene, on Bertie’s elegant young figure, on the boys and girls who were disporting themselves in the sunshine and under the trees. Then she glanced at her own really elegant little person, and then at Nesta, untidy, cross, and disagreeable. How could she by any possibility have liked such a girl? She must be got rid of somehow, for there was Mabel’s voice again.
“Stay a minute,” she said to Nesta. “Don’t dare to go out. I’ll get it for you somehow. You are the most horrid girl in the world.”
She flew upstairs; Clara’s door was open; Clara’s room, as usual, was in disorder. Penelope frantically opened drawer after drawer. Could she find a loose sovereign anywhere? Clara often left them about; to her they meant very little. But she could find no loose money in Clara’s room. She went from there to Mabel’s; from Mabel’s to Annie’s. What possessed the girls? There wasn’t even a shilling to be found amongst their possessions. Gold bracelets in plenty, necklaces, jewellery of all sorts, but the blessed money which would restore Penelope to the lawn, to the tennis court, to all her delights, was not forthcoming.
Her father’s room came last. She rushed into it. Nesta was desperate; Nesta might confront her father on the lawn. She would tell him in the evening – he would forgive her. She ran in; she opened one of his drawers and took out a purse which he kept there to pay the men’s wages on Saturday. Invariably each Monday morning he put the required sum into that special old purse. There were twenty sovereigns in it now. Penelope helped herself to one, snapped the purse to, shut the drawer, and ran downstairs.
“There!” she said to Nesta. “Now, for goodness’ sake go. Don’t worry me whatever happens. I’ve given it to you, and I’m free; but catch me ever making a bet with you again.”
“Oh, I don’t care!” said Nesta. “My darling little yellow-boy. Thank you, Penelope, thank you.”
But Penelope had vanished.
