A Houseful of Girls Part 13

The next thing Hester heard was a half-impetuous, half-shamefaced admission from Rose that she had resigned her post as a.s.sistant drawing-mistress at the Misses Stone's school.

Hester looked grave on the instant. "What did you do that for?" she demanded gruffly. "Did you mention it to your sister? Have you told them at home?"

"No," Rose was forced to own--at least not till the deed was done. She had acted on her own responsibility. "But indeed, Hester, it is the best plan," she argued volubly. "Annie and all of them will say so when they know how I mean to cultivate this scroll-work, which is paying me twice as well already. I put it to you if I could do two things at once, and if it would be wise to sacrifice the more profitable for the less remunerative. Why it would be quite shortsighted and cowardly."

"Humph," said Hester, without the smallest disguise, "much experience you have had of it! Do you know, Rose Millar, these decorators' fads are constantly changing? Perhaps in three months they will all be for mosaic, or tiles, or peac.o.c.ks' feathers again. If I had thought you were such a rash idiotic little goose, I should never have breathed a word to you of this man and his scroll-work."

"Oh! but, Hester," pled Rose, determined not to be offended, "I was only relieving the poor Misses Stone of a painful necessity. I am sure they have never put any dependence on me since the day I broke down--I grant you idiotically. I cannot stand the repression--suppression--whatever you like to call it. Now that there is a way out of it, I have felt like a wild beast in the school--the girls are so very tame--so much tamer than we were at Miss Burridge's--where I was not a black sheep--May will tell you if you care to ask her," protested Rose with wounded feeling. "But I am so tired of the rosy and snowy cottages and the ruins, and of that long-nosed collie. Sometimes I feel as if I would give the world for him to wag his tail one day, just to give me an excuse for crying out and flinging my india-rubber at him. I wish May saw him; it might stop her ecstasies over her new acquisition--the brute at home. I feel that this other brute, and the rest of the Misses Stone's copies and models, are injuring my drawing--I know they are making it cramped; while the scrolls help my freedom of touch like Hogarth's line of beauty or Giotto's O. And it is such humbug, and so horrid to have to swallow these doses of _sel-volatile_--a great healthy girl like me!"

"Humph!" said Hester again, "I hope you may not repent what you have done--if so, you need not blame me."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE OLD TOWN, WITH ITS AIR STAGNANT YET TROUBLED. IS MAY TO BECOME A SCHOLAR OR A SHOP-GIRL?

The spring found Redcross still staggering under the failure of Carey's Bank. Hardly a week pa.s.sed yet without some painful result of the disaster coming to light. These results had ceased to startle, there had been so many of them; but they still held plenty of interest for the fellow-sufferers, and Dora and May's letters were full of the details.

Bell Hewett had left Miss Burridge's; she had got a situation, or rather, she had been appointed to a junior form in the Girls' Day School at Deweshurst, going in the morning and returning in the afternoon by train. It was a good thing for Bell on the whole. She was more independent, had a recognized position as a public school-mistress, which she would not have had as a private governess; and if she continued to study, and pa.s.sed various examinations, she might rise to higher and higher forms until she blossomed into a head-mistress--fancy Bell a head-mistress! She had quite a handsome salary, more than poor Ned's according to the chroniclers, Dora and May. That was the bright side of it. Unluckily for Bell, as most people thought, there was another. The daily journeys, together with the school-work, const.i.tuted a heavy task for a girl. Bell, toiling up from the railway station on a rainy day, with her umbrella ready to turn inside out, and her waterproof flying open, because her left hand, cramped and numb, was laden with a great bundle of exercises to correct at home, presented a dejected figure, tired out and three-fourths beaten. So the Miss Dyers thought as they rolled past her in their carriage, and debated whether they should not stop to pick her up and save her walking the rest of the road. But she was such a fright, positively bedraggled with mud enough to soil the cus.h.i.+ons, and she could speak of nothing now save the Deweshurst Girls' Day School and her duties there. It was too tiresome to be borne with. Poor Bell was not clever, she was one-idea'd and slow at work like Ned, and she had also his conscientiousness. Probably promotion was not for her; she must drudge on as best she might. Her great encouragement at this time, next to her father's and sister's approbation and sympathy, was, as she told Dora, the prospect of spending her Easter holidays with Ned at his station-house. What did she care for its being only a station-house? after the f.a.gging school-work it would be great fun to put Ned's small house in order, and play at housekeeping with him for a fortnight. She was bent on making him comfortable, and cheering him as well as herself. If the weather would but be fine they might have glorious rambles on the Yorks.h.i.+re moors when no trains were due.

Colonel Russell was sailing once more for India, to lay his bones there without fail, the little Doctor prophesied sadly. In the meantime he had got, and been glad to get, a subordinate post in his old field. At the last moment, after he had established Mrs. Russell and her children in a cheerful house in Bath, he made up his mind to take his grown-up daughter out with him. But she was not to stay in his bungalow, for he was going to a small out-of-the-way station where there would be no accommodation or society in the barrack circle for a solitary young lady. f.a.n.n.y was to be left with a cousin of her father's, in the Bombay Presidency. The lady had offered to take charge of her, and have her for a long visit.

Did Annie and Rose know what that meant? Could they form an indignant, affronted guess? "Father said," Dora quoted, "that if Colonel Russell, an honourable gentleman and gallant officer, had not lived in the old days and had his feelings blunted to the situation, he would never have consented to such an arrangement for his daughter. But he had seen his sisters come out to India for the well-understood purpose of getting married to any eligible man in want of a wife, so why should not f.a.n.n.y do the same thing, when his pecuniary losses rendered it particularly desirable and the opportunity offered itself? It was not in Colonel Russell's eyes an unworthy resource. Of course f.a.n.n.y was going out to be married and creditably disposed of within a given time, else her father would not have felt justified in paying her outfit and pa.s.sage-money.

Certainly he had no intention of paying her pa.s.sage-money home as a single woman."

What would the Millars have done in f.a.n.n.y's case? For was it not dreadful--particularly when all the young people interested in the subject remembered quite well that there had been "something" between Cyril Carey and f.a.n.n.y Russell for more than a year back? Annie had always wondered what f.a.n.n.y could see in a silly, trifling fop like Cyril. Rose had not been without a corresponding sense of wonder as to what Cyril could find in f.a.n.n.y, who, in spite of her grand Norman peasant's carriage and profile, was dawdling and discontented with things in general, and though she pretended to a little knowledge of art, did not in the least understand what she was talking about.

However, Annie's and Rose's opinions were of very little consequence when the matter concerned--not them--but Cyril and f.a.n.n.y. There had been "something" between them which had changed the whole world to them last summer. They would never entirely outlive and forget it--not though f.a.n.n.y went to far Cathay and married, not one, but half a dozen of Nabobs. For she was going to obey her father, and give herself to the first eligible bidder for her hand. No doubt she would do it with set lips, blanched face, and great black eyes looking not only twice as large as their natural size, but hollow and worn in the young face, because of the dark rings round them. These were produced by the sleepless nights which she pretended were occasioned by the hurry of her preparations, and of her having to say good-bye to all her old friends.

But she would do it all the same.

Dora had only once caught f.a.n.n.y Russell alone, and ventured on a timid, heart-felt expostulation.

"Must you go to India, f.a.n.n.y? We shall all miss you so much, and it is not as if you were to be with your father, but just to stay with a distant relative whom you have never seen; it does appear such a sacrifice."

"And what should I do if I stayed behind papa, Dora?" asked f.a.n.n.y, turning upon her with those great burning eyes and parched lips. "The house here is to be given up and the furniture sold immediately--of course you know that. It will take all that he can spare after discharging his share of the bank debts to keep Mrs. Russell and the children. I am a useless sort of person--a blank in the world. I could not nurse like Annie, or paint like Rose. I could not even be a school-mistress like Bell Hewett. Supposing I were qualified I should break down in a month. I was born in India, and spent the first five years of my life there, so that I am idle and languid, without stamina or moral courage; I am like the poor Bengalees, whom I can just remember. There is n.o.body who will undertake to keep me in England,"

ended f.a.n.n.y, with a short, hard laugh.

And Dora, thinking of Cyril Carey--still one of the unemployed, with his old supercilious airs lost in the gait that was getting slouching, in keeping with the clothes becoming shabbier and shabbier, and the downcast, moody looks--could not find words with which to contradict her.

Indeed, when Dora was betrayed into giving her mother a hint of that "something," unsuspected by the seniors of the circle, which had been between Cyril Carey and f.a.n.n.y Russell, and rendered f.a.n.n.y's destination still more heartless and hateful, Mrs. Millar took an entirely different view of the circ.u.mstances from that taken by her daughters, and was both indignant and intolerant. "What presumption in Cyril Carey!" broke out the gentle mother of marriageable daughters, full of righteous wrath. "To dream of making up to a girl and perhaps engaging her simple affections, with the danger of breaking her heart and spoiling her prospects, when he had just failed to pa.s.s at college, and had not so much as a calling--not to say an income, with which to keep a wife! I shall think worse of him than I did before, after hearing this."

"But you forget, mother," remonstrated Dora, "that the bank was in existence then. His father might have been able to do something for Cyril."

"He was not going to live on the bank's capital and credit. There was too much of that going on already with poor James Carey's encroaching, dishonest relations and their friends. And I beg to tell you, Dora, that a man who cannot help himself, but has to wait for his father to do something for him, is a very poor match for any girl. f.a.n.n.y Russell is well rid of him. I have no doubt she will think so before she is many years older--that is, if this is not all a piece of foolish nonsense such as girls are apt to take into their heads about their companions.

If there was anything in it, and she had not been going away, her father ought to have been warned, and Cyril Carey spoken to in the way he deserved--selfish scapegrace! As it is, the bare suspicion is enough to reconcile one to f.a.n.n.y Russell's going out to India, though that custom for girls has fallen into disrepute, and I never had any liking for it. Still I hope that f.a.n.n.y will soon make an excellent marriage, and will learn to laugh at Cyril Carey and his unwarrantable presumption, together with any girlish folly of which she may have been guilty."

Mrs. Millar spoke in another fas.h.i.+on to the little Doctor. She had happened to be at the railway station on the raw, chill morning when f.a.n.n.y Russell, in her smart new gray travelling suit--part of her outfit--was put into a railway carriage by her father and left there alone, while he went to look after the luggage and find a smoking-carriage for himself.

f.a.n.n.y sat like a statue. She did not even raise her veil when she was bidding farewell to Lucy Hewett and Dora, who were seeing her off--not to take a last look at Redcross, where she had spent her youth.

Mrs. Millar understood it better when she stumbled against Cyril Carey half hidden by a lamp-post, watching the vanis.h.i.+ng train. She might have taken the opportunity to rebuke him for his unprincipled recklessness; instead of doing so--after one glance at the young fellow's haggard face--the ordinary words of greeting died away on the kind woman's lips.

She turned aside in another direction, making as if she had not seen him, without breathing a word of the encounter until she had her husband's ear all to herself in the privacy of the dining-room.

"O Jonathan!" she said, "I am so glad, so thankful that you did not interfere and use any influence, any pressure on Dora about Tom Robinson. I think it would have broken my heart to see any daughter of mine going off as f.a.n.n.y Russell went to-day, leaving the look I declare I beheld on that poor lad's face. I should not wonder though she has given him the last push on the road to destruction."

"Oh, come now; it is not so bad as that," protested Dr. Millar, and then he was guilty of a most audacious paraphrase of a piece of schoolboy slang, for which he had some excuse in the habits of his wife--"Keep your cap on, Maria. In the first place, I see no a.n.a.logy between the cases. Dora had not a private love affair--at least I was never told of it."

"Father, what are you thinking of? A private love affair in this house!

It was very different with poor f.a.n.n.y Russell, who had only her silly, selfish young stepmother between her and her father. I dare say she would never have looked at an empty c.o.xcomb like Cyril Carey if she had been happy at home."

"And did I not hear you say," asked the gentleman, who had before now been made the recipient of the disastrous complication of the story, "that the girl was well quit of the jackanapes, for she could not have a worse bargain made for her than she had nearly blundered into on her own account?"

"Yes, I did say so," the lady admitted, when thus brought to book; "and I'd say it again, if I had not seen that miserable, desperate expression on his face, and he so young, and such a light-hearted, foolish dandy only the other day. I may be sorry for him, I suppose, though I have no son of my own. And I am grieved for poor James Carey, who is breaking up so fast, and for poor, poor Mrs. Carey."

It was a positive relief when Dr. Millar came in one day and announced that he had a piece of good news for the family, by far the best where the Careys were concerned that he had heard for many a day. Cyril had got an appointment at last; he had been offered the command of the mounted police at Deweshurst.

"A policeman. Oh! what a downfall," cried Mrs. Millar and Dora. But when the Doctor reminded them that there were policemen and policemen, insisted on the fact that the practice of placing gentlemen at the head of the constabulary was gaining ground, and asked them what they had been in the habit of calling Colonel Shaw and Sir Edmund Henderson when they were the chiefs of the London police, his womankind gave in.

Mrs. Carey did not say there would be another mouth less for her to feed, but she remarked, with the same sardonic calmness, that Cyril's clothes would be provided for him, which would be one good thing. Cyril himself was only too glad to get away. He would have something to do, however unpalatable in itself, instead of digging in the garden, and going through the form of helping Robinson, his clerks, and cas.h.i.+er, with their books. He would have a good horse under him once more, if he were only to ride it to police drill.

Dora could not be sure whether he experienced a throb of thankfulness at the thought that this had not happened till f.a.n.n.y Russell was gone.

Where was constancy to draw the line? A man was not less a man because he was also a mounted policeman. He might even be grandiloquently styled, by those who were particular about the names of things, the soldier of peace. Still Dora had an irresistible conception of the pained disdain, the latent superciliousness, which would have sprung into full force in f.a.n.n.y's dark eyes, if she had ever seen the once magnificent Cyril in the most careful modification of a _bobby's_ braided tunic and helmet.

Bell Hewett would not look so, if she, in her school-mistress character, met Cyril at Deweshurst. Bell, like Dora, would feel her heart soften and warm to Cyril in his misfortunes. She would think of Ned, and hurry up to Ned's old playfellow and chum, to tell him the last news from Yorks.h.i.+re, and ask what message from him she should send to Ned in her next letter. Dora was tempted to go on and wonder whether Cyril's heart would not be touched in turn by the cordial recognition of his Rector's daughter, who had, on the whole, kept her position better than he, with his advantages, had kept his, whose frank greeting had become a kind of credential of gentle birth and breeding afforded to him in full sight of the natives of Deweshurst. If he felt all that, he must recognize how womanly and sweet Bell was, though she was not pretty and not one bit clever, and be full of grat.i.tude to her. And grat.i.tude combined with considerable isolation on the one hand, and on the other the constantly present possibility of agreeable encounters with a loyal old friend, might lead to anything--to a good deal more than Dora cared to say even to herself, feeling frightened at the length to which she had gone on the spur of the moment in this most recklessly unworldly match-making.

Yet was it reckless, when Bell would be such a good poor man's wife, and when marriage with a woman like Bell might make another man of Cyril Carey?

However, the Careys' adversity, with its reaction on their old a.s.sociates, approached a climax shortly after Cyril left. His father grew so much more helpless an invalid that it was found absolutely necessary to have a resident nurse for him. Then Mrs. Carey, though she continued the nurse-in-chief, stated clearly and dispa.s.sionately that she was now sufficiently disengaged to look after her house and give her single servant what a.s.sistance she required. Therefore, as it was high time that Phyllis should be doing something for herself, Mrs. Carey proposed to put her at once into "Robinson's," under Miss Franklin, if Mr. Robinson would receive Phyllis for an apprentice.

It was in vain that Phyllis cried and implored her mother to take back her resolution, and that all her friends apprised of the proposed step remonstrated; Dr. Millar even called expressly to enter his protest.

Mrs. Carey would hear of no objections. Phyllis must do something for herself, and she was not clever or qualified in any way to be a governess. Mrs. Carey had every confidence in "Robinson's" as an excellent shop, conducted on the best principles. She had a great respect for both Mr. Robinson and Miss Franklin--she would never find a more desirable place for Phyllis. As to cutting her off from all her connections and the circ.u.mstances of her birth and education, that had been done already pretty effectually. The sooner everybody found his or her level the better for the world in general. If Mrs. Carey was not much mistaken, more girls than Phyllis would have to learn that lesson before these hard times were over. No, it was not Phyllis who was to be cut off from her connections--from those who ought to be nearest and dearest to her. It was poor Ella who was separated from the rest of the family, and condemned to gilded exile. Mrs. Carey was doing her best to keep Phyllis, not only for her mother and her poor father, but for her brothers, who must all start in life in a humble way, by putting the girl into "Robinson's," since Mr. Robinson had reluctantly consented to have her.

Dr. Millar retired from the field beaten.

The unheard-of destination of her friend Phyllis played the most extraordinary pranks with May Millar's mind. The fact was, there were two Mays dwelling side by side in one goodly young tabernacle of flesh.

There was the May with the exceptional scholarly proclivities. She had a life of her own into which none of the family except her father possessed so much as the tools to penetrate. She cherished dreams of Greece and Rome, with the mighty music of the undying voices of their sages and poets, and the rich treasures of learning, among which a poor little English girl, far far down in the centuries, could only walk with reverend foot and bated breath.

And there was the other May, hanging about her mother, running to bring her father's slippers, sitting on his knee to this day, taking possession of Dora, ordering her about like a young tyrant, adoring Tray--the most guileless, helpless, petted simpleton of a child-woman that ever existed. The second May was at the present date the more prominent and prevailing of the two, so much so that all the sharp-tongued, practical-minded ladies in Redcross made a unanimous remark. Dr. and Mrs. Millar's youngest daughter was the most disgracefully spoilt, badly brought-up, childish creature for her years whom the critics knew. It was a poor preparation in view of her having to work to maintain herself. They could not tell what was to become of her.

At first May lamented, day and night, over the fate of Phyllis Carey, to have to stand behind counters, sort drawers full of ribands, tape, and reels of cotton, and wait on her townswomen! May could think of no fitting parallel unless the pathetic one of that miserable young princess apprenticed to the b.u.t.ton-maker, dying with her cheek on an open Bible, at the text, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Then, as Phyllis accommodated herself to the new yoke, and found it not so galling as she had expected it to be, her friend May altered her tone with sympathetic quickness, and reflected Phyllis's change of mood almost before the mood was established. Phyllis was in mental const.i.tution like her father, single-hearted and submissive--not bright any more than Bell Hewett was bright, but contented and trustful as long as she was suffered to be so. She had been enduring harder and harder lines at home. She found existence actually brightening instead of darkening round her when she was transferred to "Robinson's." For everybody, knowing all about her and her father and mother, with their altered circ.u.mstances, began, at least, by treating her with kindly respect and forbearance, in spite of Mrs. Carey's austere request that she should be dealt with exactly like the other shop-girls.

Shop-work, in which Phyllis was to be gradually trained, felt comparatively easy to a girl who had been taken from school and launched into the coa.r.s.est drudgery of house-work under an inexperienced, flurried, over-burdened maid-of-all-work. Mrs. Carey was sufficiently just to exact no more home-work from Phyllis, and to arrange that she should have her time to herself, like other shop-girls, after "Robinson's" was closed, while the master of "Robinson's" was inflexible in setting his face against late hours, except for the elder hands on one evening in the week. Everybody was good to Phyllis, who, in truth, just because she was enough of a little lady to be free from arrogance and a.s.sumption, while she was willing to do her best to oblige her neighbours, provoked no harsh treatment. Above all Tom Robinson for one person could not be too considerate to her.

Miss Franklin looked on Phyllis Carey as a G.o.dsend, a harbinger of other better-cla.s.s girls going into trade. The woman not only took the girl under her wing, she fell back instinctively and inevitably on Phyllis for companions.h.i.+p, with a selection flattering in a woman to a girl.