Kitabı oku: «A Plucky Girl», sayfa 3

"I want to say something to all my dear friends," I began. I had a clear voice, and it rose above the babel. There came sudden and profound silence.

I saw a lady nudge her neighbour.

"I did not know," I heard her say, "that Westenra recited," and then she settled herself in a comfortable attitude to listen.

I stood in the middle of the floor, and faced everybody.

"I have something to say," I began, "and it is not a recitation. I have asked you all to come here to-day to listen to me." I paused and looked round. How nice our guests looked, how kind, how beautifully dressed! What good form the men were in, and how aristocratic were the women. How different these men and women were from the people I had associated with during the week – the people who took care of the houses in Bloomsbury, the agents who let the houses, the people whom I had met in the busses going to and from the houses. These nice, pleasant, well-bred people belonged to me, they were part and parcel of my own set; I was at home with them.

I just caught the Duchess's eye for a moment, and I think there was alarm in those brown depths, but she was too essentially a woman of the world to show anything. She just folded her jewelled hands in her lap, leant back in her chair, and prepared to listen. One or two of the men, I think, raised their eye-glasses to give me a more critical glance, but soon even that mark of special attention subsided. Of course it was a recitation. People were beginning to be tired of recitations.

"I want to say something, and I will say it as briefly as possible," I commenced. "Mother does not approve of it, but she will do it, because she has yielded to me as a dear, good, modern mother ought."

Here there was a little laugh, and some of the tension was lessened.

"I want to tell you all," I continued, "for most of you have been our friends since I was a child, that mother and I are – poor. There is nothing disgraceful in being poor, is there? but at the same time it is unpleasant, unfortunate. We were fairly well off. Now, through no fault of our own, we have lost our money."

The visitors looked intensely puzzled, and also uncomfortable, but now I raised my eyes a little above them. It was necessary that if I went on putting them to the test, I should not look them full in the face.

"We are poor," I continued, "therefore we cannot live any longer in this house. From having a fair competence, not what many of you would consider riches, but from having a fair competence, we have come down to practically nothing. We could live, it is true, in the depths of the country, on the very little which has been saved out of the wreck, but I for one do not wish to do that. I dislike what is called decent poverty, I dislike the narrow life, the stultifying life, the mean life. I am my father's daughter. You have heard of my father, that is his picture" – I pointed as I spoke to an oil painting on the wall. "You know that he was a man of action, I also will act." I hurried my voice a trifle here – "So mother and I mean not to accept what many people would consider the inevitable; but we mean, to use a vulgar phrase, to better ourselves."

Now it is certain, our guests were a little surprised. They began to fidget, and one or two men came nearer, and I thought, though I am not sure, that I saw the tall man, with the head of closely cropped hair, push forward to look at me. But I never looked any one full in the eyes; I fixed mine on father's picture. I seemed to hear father's voice saying to me —

"Go on, Westenra, that was very good, you and I are people of action, remember."

So I went on and I explained my scheme. I told it very briefly. Mother and I would in future earn our own living.

I was educated fairly well, but I had no special gifts, so I would not enter the Arena where teachers struggled and fought and bled, and many of them fell by the wayside. Nor would I enter the Arena of Art, because in no sense of the word was I an artist, nor would I go on the Stage, for my talent did not lie in that direction, but I had certain talents, and they were of a practical sort. I could keep accounts admirably; I could, I believed, manage a house. Then I skilfully sketched in that wonderful boarding-house of my dreams, that house in dull Bloomsbury, which by my skill and endeavour would be bright and render an acceptable home for many. Finally, I said that my mother and I had made up our minds to leave the fashionable part of London and to retire to Bloomsbury.

"We will take our house from September," I said, "and advertise very soon for paying guests, and we hope the thing will do well, and that in ten or twelve years we shall have made enough money to keep ourselves for the future in comfort. Now," I continued, "I appeal to no one to help us. We do not intend to borrow money from anybody, and the only reason I am speaking to you to-day is because I wish, and I am sure mother agrees with me, to be quite frank with you. Mother and I know quite well that we are doing an absolutely unconventional thing, and that very likely you, as our friends of the past, will resent it. Those of you who do not feel that you can associate with two ladies who keep a boarding-house, need not say so in so many words, but you can give us to understand, by means known best to yourselves, whether you will know us in the future. If you want to cut us we shall consider it quite right, quite reasonable, quite fair. Then those who do intend to stick to us, even through this great change in our lives, may be the greatest possible help by recommending us and our boarding-house to their friends, that is, if any of you present have friends who would live in Bloomsbury.

"Mother and I thought it quite fair that you should know, and we thought it best that I should tell you quite simply. We are neither of us ashamed, and mother approves, or at least she will approve presently, of what I have done."

There was a dead silence when I ceased speaking, followed by a slight rustling amongst the ladies. The men looked one and all intensely uncomfortable, and the tall man who had come in with Mr Walters, the artist, disappeared altogether.

I had not been nervous while I was speaking, but I felt nervous now. I knew that I was being weighed in the balance, that I and my scheme were being held up before the mental eyes of these people with the keenest, most scathing criticism. Would one in all that crowd understand me? I doubted it. Perhaps in my first sensation of sinking and almost despair something of my feeling stole into my face, for suddenly Jasmine sprang to her feet and said in an excited, tremulous voice —

"I for one say that Westenra is a very plucky girl. I wish her God speed, and I hope her scheme will succeed."

This was very nice indeed of Jasmine, but I do not know that it relieved the situation much, for still the others were silent, and then one lady got up and went over to mother and took her hand and said —

"I am very sorry for you, dear Mrs. Wickham, very sorry indeed. I fear I must say good-bye now; I am very sorry. Good-bye, dear Mrs. Wickham."

And this lady's example was followed by most of the other ladies, until at last there was no one left in the room but the Duchess of Wilmot and Lady Thesiger and ourselves. Lady Thesiger's cheeks were brightly flushed.

"My dear Westenra," she said, "you are one of the most eccentric creatures in creation. Of course from first to last you are as wrong as you can be. You know nothing about keeping a boarding-house, and you are bound to fail. I could not say so before all those ridiculous people, who would not have understood, but I say so now to you. My dear girl, your speech was so much Greek to them. You spoke over their heads or under their feet, just as you please to put it, but comprehend you they did not. You will be the talk of the hour, and they will mention you as a girl whom they used to know, but who has gone a little mad, and then you will be forgotten. You would have done fifty times better by keeping this thing to yourself."

"That is precisely what I think," said the Duchess. "My dear Mary," she added, turning to my mother, "what is the matter with your child? Is she quite right?" The Duchess gave an expressive nod, and I saw mother's face turn pale.

"Oh, do listen to me for a moment," interrupted pretty Lady Thesiger, "what I say is this. Westenra is on the wrong tack. If she wishes to earn money, why must she earn it in this preposterous, impossible manner? It would be fifty times better for her to go as a teacher or a secretary, but to keep a boarding-house! You see for yourself, dear Mrs. Wickham, that it is impossible. As long as we live in society we must adhere to its rules, and for West calmly to believe that people of position in London will know her and respect her when she is a boarding-house keeper, is to expect a miracle. Now, I for one will not cut you, Westenra."

"Nor will I cut you, Westenra," said the Duchess, and she gave a profound sigh and folded her hands in her lap.

"Two of your friends will not cut you, but I really think all the others will," said Lady Thesiger. "Then I suppose you expect me to recommend nice Americans to come and stay with you, but it is my opinion that, with your no knowledge at all of this sort of thing, you will keep a very so-so, harum-scarum sort of house. How can I recommend my nice American friends to be made thoroughly uncomfortable by you? Oh, I am very sorry for you."

Lady Thesiger got up as she spoke; she kissed me, squeezed my hand, and said, "Oh child, what a goose you are!" and left the room.

The Duchess followed more slowly.

"I don't forget, my child," she said, "that I am your godmother, that I loved your dear father, that I love your mother, that I also love you. Do not be wilful, Westenra; give up this mad scheme. There are surely other ways open to you in this moment of misfortune. Above all things, try not to forget that you are your father's daughter."

CHAPTER V
JANE MULLINS

On the evening which followed our last "At Home," mother came to me, and earnestly begged of me to pause and reflect.

"Wherever you go I will go, Westenra," she said; "that may be taken as a matter of course, but I do think you are wrong to go against all the wishes of our friends."

"But our friends won't do anything for us, Mummy!" I answered, "and they will forget us just as soon in the cottage in the country, as they will in the boarding-house in town; sooner, in fact, if that is any consolation to you, and I do want to try it, Mummy, for I cannot be buried alive in the country at twenty-one."

"Then I will say no more," replied mother. "I only trust the way may be made plain for us, for at present I cannot see that it is; but if we can find a suitable house, and take it, I will go with you, West, although, darling, I hate the thing – I do truly."

After this speech of mother's it can easily be supposed that I slept badly that night. I began for the first time in my life to doubt myself, and my own judgment. I began even seriously to consider the cottage in the country with its genteel poverty, and I began to wonder if I was to spend the remainder of my youth getting thinner in mind and body, day by day, and hour by hour.

"Anæmic," I said to myself. "In the country with no money, and no interests, I shall become anæmic. My thoughts will be feeble and wanting in force, and I shall die long before my time a miserable old maid. Now, there are no real old maids in London. The unmarried women are just as full of force, and go, and common-sense, and ambition, and happiness as the married ones; but in the country, oh, it is different. There old age comes before its time. I knew that I was not the girl to endure having nothing to do, and yet that seemed to be my appointed portion. So during the night I shed very bitter tears, and I hated society for its coldness and want of comprehension. I longed more frantically than ever to find myself in the midst of the people, where "a man was a man for a' that," and mere veneer went for nothing. But if mother's heart was likely to be broken by my taking this step, and if there was no house for me but 14 Cleveland Street, I doubted very much whether I could go on with my scheme. Judge therefore of my surprise and delight, when on the following morning, mother handed me a letter which she had just received. It was from Messrs. Macalister & Co.

"Read it," she said, "I do not quite know what it means."

I read the letter quickly, it ran as follows: —

"DEAR MADAM, – We write to acquaint you, that we have just had an interview with Mr. Hardcastle, the landlord of 17 Graham Square, and he desires us to say, that he is willing in your case to come to terms with regard to his house, and if you will take it for a lease of fourteen years, he will do it up for you, in the most approved style, and according to your own taste; he also withdraws his embargo to your letting apartments, or having paying guests in your house.

"Under the circumstances, we shall be glad to hear if you still entertain the idea of taking this mansion.

– Yours faithfully,

MACALISTER & CO."

"Oh mother!" I cried, "this is just splendid!" My spirits rose with a bound. Anxious as I was to possess a boarding-house, I hated going to 14 Cleveland Street, but 17 Graham Square was a house where any one might be happy. It was charmingly built; it was large, commodious, cheerful, and then the landlord – he must be a delightful man when he withdrew his embargo, when he permitted us —us to have paying guests in our dwelling. Even Jasmine need not be ashamed to send her nice, rich American friends to 17 Graham Square.

"This is splendid, mother!" I repeated.

"Dear me, Westenra," said mother, looking pale and troubled, "what house is he alluding to? I saw so many that first day, darling, and the only impression they left upon me was, that they were all stairs and narrowness; they seemed to go up and up, for ever and ever, my legs ache even now when I think of them."

"But you cannot forget 17 Graham Square," I said, "the last house we saw … the corner-house. You recollect the hall, how wide it was, and you know there were darling balconies, and you shall have one, little mother, all to yourself, and such a sweet sun-blind over it, and you can keep your favourite plants there, and be, oh, so happy! Mother – mother, this is magnificent!"

"I do recall the house now," said mother, "it was not quite as bad as the other houses; but still, Westenra, what does this mean? Why should there be an exception made in our favour?"

"Oh, that I know nothing about," I answered, "I suppose the landlord was not going to be so silly as to lose good tenants."

"And what is the rent of the house … I forget."

"Two hundred and something," I said in a careless tone, "not at all high for such a house, and the landlord, Mr. Hardcastle, will do it up for us. Mother, we will have the carriage, and go and make our arrangements immediately."

"Then you are quite determined, West?"

"Mother, dear mother, I do think father would like us to do it."

Now, whenever I spoke of my dead father, mother looked intensely solemn and subdued. Once she told me that she thought there was a strong link between my father's spirit and mine, and that at times I spoke so exactly like him, and made use of the identically same expressions, and in short impressed her with the feeling that he was close to her. I did not often use my father's name, therefore, as a means of power over my mother, but I did use it now; and, with the usual result, she got up gently and said —

"We had better go and see the house once more."

We did go, we drove straight to the agents, and got the order to view, and went all over 17 Graham Square. Our second visit was far more delightful than the first, for the agent's clerk accompanied us. We found him in an excellent humour, most willing to offer suggestions and to accept any suggestions of ours. Not that mother made any, it was I who, with my usual daring, spoke of this improvement and the other.

But darling mother became a little cheerful when she stood in that noble drawing-room and saw the sun shining in bars across the floor, and the agent's clerk was quite astonishingly cheery; he knew just the colour the paper ought to be, for instance, and the tone of the paint, and he even suggested what curtains would go with such paper and such paint. I never saw a man so improved. He had lost his brusqueness, and was very anxious to please us.

"It is extraordinary," said mother afterwards; "really I never knew that house-agents could be such agreeable people. No. 17 Graham Square is a handsome house, Westenra, it is a great pity that it is not situated in Mayfair."

"But mother, dear mother, we could not have a boarding-house in the very midst of our friends," I said with a smile; "we shall do splendidly in Graham Square, and we should not do at all well in Mayfair."

When we returned to the agents, Mr. Macalister himself, one of the heads of the firm, came and interviewed us. After answering a great many questions, it was finally decided that he was to see Mr. Hardcastle, the landlord, and that the landlord was to have an interview the next day with mother; and the agent further agreed that the landlord should call on mother at our own house in Sumner Place, and then we drove home.

"I suppose it is completed now," said mother, "the thing is done. Well, child, you are having your own way; it will be a lesson to you, I only trust we shall not be quite ruined. I am already puzzled to know how we are to meet that enormous rent."

But at that moment of my career I thought nothing at all about the rent. That night I slept the sleep of the just, and was in high spirits the following day, when the landlord, a nice, jovial, rosy-faced man, arrived, accompanied by the agent. They both saw my mother, who told them frankly that she knew nothing about business, and so perforce they found themselves obliged to talk to me. Everything was going smoothly until Mr. Hardcastle said in the very quietest of tones —

"Of course you understand, Mrs. Wickham, that I shall require references. I am going to lay out a good deal of money on the house, and references are indispensable."

"Of course," answered mother, but she looked pale and nervous.

"What sort of references?" I asked.

"Tradesmen's references are what we like best," was his reply; "but your banker's will be all-sufficient – an interview with your banker with regard to your deposit will make all safe."

Then mother turned paler than ever, and looked first at me and then at Mr. Hardcastle. After a pause she said slowly —

"My daughter and I would not undertake our present scheme if we had capital – we have not any."

"Not any?" said Mr. Hardcastle, looking blank, "and yet you propose to take a house with a rental of two hundred and eighty pounds a year."

"We mean to pay the rent out of the profit we get from the boarders," I replied.

Mr. Hardcastle did not make use of an ugly word, but he raised his brows, looked fixedly at me for a moment, and then shook his head.

"I am sorry," he said, rising; "I would do a great deal to oblige you, for you are both most charming ladies, but I cannot let my house without references. If you, for instance, Mrs. Wickham, could get any one to guarantee the rent, I should be delighted to let you the house and put it in order, but not otherwise."

He added a few more words, and then he and the agent, both of them looking very gloomy, went away.

"I shall hear from you doubtless on the subject of references," said Mr. Hardcastle as he bowed himself out, "and I will keep the offer open until Saturday."

This was Wednesday, we had three days to spare.

"Now, Westenra," said my mother, "the thing has come to a stop of itself. Providence has interfered, and I must honestly say I am glad. From the first the scheme was mad, and as that nice, jovial looking Mr. Hardcastle will not let us the house without our having capital, and as we have no capital, there surely is an end to the matter. I have not the slightest doubt, West, that all the other landlords in Bloomsbury will be equally particular, therefore we must fall back upon our little cottage in – "

"No, mother," I interrupted, "no; I own that at the present moment I feel at my wits' end, but I have not yet come to the cottage in the country."

I think there were tears in my eyes, for mother opened her arms wide.

"Kiss me," she said.

I ran into her dear arms, and laid my head on her shoulder.

"Oh, you are the sweetest thing on earth," I said, "and it is because you are, and because I love you so passionately, I will not let you degenerate. I will find my way through somehow."

I left mother a moment later, and I will own it, went to my own lovely, lovely room, suitable for a girl who moved in the best society, and burst into tears. It was astonishing what a sudden passion I had taken, as my friends would say, to degrade myself; but this did not look like degradation in my eyes, it was just honest work. We wanted money, and we would earn it; we would go in debt to no man; we would earn money for ourselves. But then the thought came to me, "Was my scheme too expensive? had I any right to saddle mother with such an enormous rent?" I had always considered myself a very fair arithmetician, and I now sat down and went carefully into accounts. I smile to this day as I think of myself seated at my little table in the big bay window of my bedroom, trying to make out with pencil and paper how I could keep 17 Graham Square going – I, a girl without capital, without knowledge, without any of the sort of experience which alone could aid me in a crisis of this sort.

I spent the rest of the day in very low spirits, for my accounts would not, however hard I tried, show any margin of profit.

The more difficulties came in my way, however, the more determined was I to overcome them. Presently I took a sheet of paper and wrote a few lines to Mr. Hardcastle. I knew his address, and wrote to him direct.

"Dear sir," I said, "will you oblige me by letting me know what capital my mother will require in order to become your tenant for 17 Graham Square."

I signed this letter, adding a postscript, "An early answer will oblige."

I received the answer about noon the following day.

"DEAR MISS WICKHAM, – Your letter puzzles me. I see you have a great deal of pluck and endeavour, and I should certainly do my utmost to please you, but I cannot let you have the house under a capital of five thousand pounds."

The letter fell from my hands, and I sat in blank despair. Five thousand pounds is a small sum to many people, to others it is as impossible and as unget-at-able as the moon. We, when our debts were paid, would have nothing at all to live on except the annuity which my mother received from the Government, and a small sum of fifty pounds a year.

I began dismally to consider what rent we must pay for the awful cottage in the country, and to what part of the country it would be best to retire, when Paul came into the room and presented me with a card.

"There's a lady – a person, I mean – downstairs, and she wants to see you, Miss."

I took the card and read the name – Miss Jane Mullins.

"Who is she?" I asked; "I don't know her."

"She's a sort of betwixt and between, Miss. I showed her into the li'bry. I said you was most likely engaged, but that I would inquire."

"Miss Jane Mullins." I read the name aloud. "Show her up, Paul," I said then.

"Oh, my dear West, what do you mean?" said mother; "that sort of person has probably called to beg."

"She may as well beg in the drawing-room as anywhere else," I said. "I have rather taken a fancy to her name – Jane Mullins."

"A hideous name," said mother; but she did not add any more, for the next moment there came a rustle of harsh silk on the landing, the drawing-room door was flung open by Paul in his grandest style, and Miss Jane Mullins walked in. She entered quickly, with a determined step. She was a little woman, stoutly built, and very neatly and at the same time quietly dressed. Her dress was black silk, and I saw at a glance that the quality of the silk was poor. It gave her a harsh appearance, which was further intensified by a kind of fixed colour in her cheeks. Her face was all over a sort of chocolate red. She had scanty eyebrows and scanty hair, her eyes were small and twinkling, she had a snub nose and a wide mouth. Her age might have been from thirty-five to forty. She had, however, a great deal of self-possession, and did not seem at all impressed by my stately-looking mother and by my tall, slender self.

As she had asked particularly to see me, mother now retired to the other end of the long drawing-room and took up a book. I invited Miss Mullins to a chair.

"I would a great deal rather you called me Jane at once and have done with it," was her remarkable response to this; "but I suppose Jane will come in time." Here she heaved a very deep sigh, raised her veil of spotted net, and taking out her handkerchief, mopped her red face.

"It's a warm day," she said, "and I walked most of the way. I suppose you would like me to proceed to business. I have come, Miss Wickham – Miss Westenra Wickham – to speak on the subject of 17 Graham Square."

"Have you?" I cried. Had the ground opened I could not have been more amazed. What had this little, rather ugly woman, to do with my dream-house, 17 Graham Square?

"It is a very beautiful, fine house," said the little woman. "I went all over it this morning. I heard from your agents, Messrs. Macalister & Co., that you are anxious to take it."

I felt that my agents were very rude in thus giving me away, and made no response beyond a stately bend of my head. I was glad that mother was occupying herself with some delicate embroidery in the distant window. She certainly could not hear our conversation.

Miss Mullins now pulled her chair forward and sat in such a position that her knees nearly touched mine.

"You'll forgive a plain question," she said; "I am here on business. Are you prepared to take the house?"

"We certainly wish to take it," I said.

"But are you going to take it, Miss Wickham?"

I rather resented this speech, and was silent.

"Now I'll be plain. My name is blunt, and so is my nature. I want the house."

I half rose.

"Sit down, Miss Wickham, and don't be silly."

This speech was almost intolerable, and I thought the time had come when I should call to mother to protect me, but Jane Mullins had such twinkling, good-humoured eyes, that presently my anger dissolved into a curious desire to laugh.

"I know, Miss Wickham, you think me mad, and I was always accounted a little queer, but I'll beat about the bush no longer. You want 17 Graham Square, and so do I. You have got beauty and good birth and taste and style, and your name and your appearance will draw customers; and I have got experience and" – here she made a long, emphatic pause – "money. Now my question is this: Shall we club together?"

I never in all my life felt more astonished, I was nearly stunned.

"Club together?" I said.

"Yes, shall we? Seven thousand pounds capital has been placed at my disposal. You, I understand, have got furniture, at least some furniture" – here she glanced in a rather contemptuous way round our lovely drawing-room. "You also, of course, have a certain amount of connection, and I have got a large and valuable connection. Shall we club together?"

"I do not think we have any connection at all," I said bluntly; "not one of our friends will notice us when we go to – to Bloomsbury, and we have not half enough furniture for a house like 17 Graham Square. But what do you mean by our clubbing together?"

"Let me speak, my dear. What I want is this. I want you to put your furniture, what there is of it, and your connection, what there is of it, and your good birth and your style, and your charming mother into the same bag with my experience and my capital – or rather, the capital that is to be given to me. Will you do it? There's a plain question. Is it to be yes, or is it to be no? I want 17 Graham Square, and so do you. Shall we take it together and make a success of it? I like you, you are honest, and you're nice to look at, and I don't mind at all your being stiff to me and thinking me queer, for by-and-by we'll be friends. Is it to be a bargain?"

Just then mother rose from her seat and came with slow and stately steps across the room.

"What is it, Westenra?" she said; "what does this – this lady want?"

"Oh, I'm not a lady, ma'am," said Jane Mullins, rising and dropping a sort of involuntary curtsey. "I'm just a plain body, but I know all about cooking, and all about servants, and all about house linen, and all about dusting, going right into corners and never slurring them, and all the rest, and I know what you ought to give a pound for beef and for mutton, and what you ought to give a dozen for eggs, and for butter, and how to get the best and freshest provisions at the lowest possible price. I know a thousand things, my dear madam, that you do not know, and that your pretty daughter doesn't know, and what I say is; as we both want 17 Graham Square, shall we put our pride in our pockets and our finances into one bag, and do the job. My name is Jane Mullins. I never was a grand body. I'm plain, but I'm determined, and I am good-humoured, and I am true as steel. I can give you fifty-four references if you want them, from a number of very good honest tradesmen who know me, and know that I pay my debts to the uttermost farthing. Will you join me, or will you not?"

"Well," said mother, when this curious little person had finished speaking, "this is quite the most astounding thing I ever heard of in my life. Westenra dear, thank this person very kindly, tell her that you know she means well, but that of course we could not think of her scheme for a single moment."

Mother turned as she spoke, and walked up the drawing-room again, and I looked at Jane Mullins, and Jane Mullins looked at me, and her blue eyes twinkled. She got up at once and held out her hand.