Читать книгу The Real Lady Hilda: A Sketch - B. M. Croker - Страница 3

Table of Contents

WAITING FOR THE LAMP.

“Too early for the lamp, I suppose, and yet too dark to read a line.” And my stepmother closed her novel, with an impatient snap, as she added, “This is the worst of these horrid, poky lodgings; one never can have anything at the time one wants it. What a dismal little den it is, Gwen! What possessed us to come here?”

I could have answered the question promptly and briefly in a single word “Poverty;” but, as it was a term my relative specially detested, I merely shrugged my shoulders, and continued to gaze into the miserable apology for a garden which ran between our quarters and the high street of Stonebrook, an insignificant market town in Sussex.

Certainly there was not much to see, amid the creeping shadows of a November afternoon. A dripping hen, wading carefully across the road; a coal-cart, the driver enveloped in empty sacks; and the undertaker’s retriever—black and curly, as an undertaker’s dog should be—sitting in his master’s doorway, and yawning most infectiously. If we had lived opposite to the post-office, the lending library, or even the hotel, we should have enjoyed a livelier outlook, but “Mound & Son—Funeral Establishment—Coffins, Hearses, and every Requisite,” to quote from the inscription over the door, in rigid white characters on a mourning ground, afforded but a gloomy and dispiriting prospect. It was too dark to descry more than the outline of an ornamental sign, on which was depicted an elegant open glass vehicle, drawn by four prancing black horses, with nodding plumes and streaming tails—triumphant-looking steeds, who seemed to say, “Man treats most of us barbarously all our lives, then kills us, and makes money of our very skin and bones; it affords us sincere pleasure to carry him to the grave, and ‘see the last of him.’”

The interior of our sitting-room corresponded with its dreary view—a lodging-house apartment pur et simple, with narrow windows, hideous wall-paper, the inevitable round table, cheap chiffonier, and bulgy green rep sofa, to complete the picture. The fire was low, and unquestionably in a bad temper, emitting every now and then slow and sullen puffs of yellow smoke. It was raining hard outside, and at regular intervals an intrusive drop came spluttering down the chimney.

“Dear me, what a sigh!” exclaimed my stepmother. “Mariana in the Moated Grange could scarcely surpass it! Cheer up, Gwen; a girl of nineteen has no business to be melancholy—though I grant that you have some provocation. Never meet troubles half-way, that is my motto. I have an idea that our luck will turn soon: I saw two magpies to-day.”

I burst into a short, involuntary laugh.

“Oh yes, you may laugh, my old-head-on-young-shoulders, but I mean to have a regular good talk with the cards by and by; in the meanwhile, we will ring for the lamp and tea. Mrs. Gabb will say it is too early, but I intend to brave her for once. Britons never shall be slaves!”

And she gave the bell a peal far more befitting the summons of a wealthy woman than of a reduced widow lady, who was going to dine on poached eggs, and was two weeks in arrears with her rent.

There was only a difference of twelve years between us, and Emma, as my stepmother wished me to call her, was a pretty little Irishwoman, with black hair, dark blue eyes (wonderful eyes and lashes), and a radiant smile. No more generous, hospitable, or impulsive creature ever breathed. She was, moreover, a determined optimist, who looked steadily at the bright side of things, and enjoyed extraordinary high spirits, and the comic (or sunny) view of life. Generally, she was to be seen on what is called “the top of the wave,” though, occasionally, there came a terrible reaction, and she sank, overwhelmed, into the black abysmal depths which are the birthright of those who are endowed with a nervous, highly strung, mercurial temperament.

Two years previous to this dreary November day, my father had died in India, and six months later, Emma, having returned home, had summoned me from school to join her in London.

I had previously been given to understand that we were now very poor—my lessons had been curtailed, my mourning was inexpensive; I was therefore astonished to find my stepmother established in most luxurious lodgings in Sloane Street, for which she paid—it being the season—twelve guineas a week. These rooms were crammed with quantities of the choicest blooms, cut and in pots, for Emma was passionately fond of flowers—she declared that she could not exist without them. Her weeds were as gloomy and superb as it was possible for weeds to be, and in no quarter was there the smallest hint of that detestable visitor who, when it comes in at the door, sends another inmate flying out through the window.

A smart coupé from the Coupé Company, called every afternoon, and took us out shopping and into the park; Emma’s ideas were apparently as magnificent as of yore. I was fitted out by “Ninette,” her own milliner, in a black crépon and silk, and a large French picture-hat, with black ostrich feathers—expense absolutely no object. It was not for me, a girl of eighteen, to make inquiries respecting our finances. I took for granted that the phrase “left badly off” meant at least a thousand a year. Emma had imparted to me that her auction had brought in a large sum, and that she expected the old Jam-Jam—meaning the Rajah of Jam-Jam-More—“to do something handsome for both of us.”

Meanwhile we remained in Sloane Street, were extravagant in flowers, books, and coupés, and hospitable Emma haled in every passing acquaintance to lunch, tea, or dinner. She had no plans, beyond a desire to remain in London and “look about her;” which looking about her signified the constant expectation of coming across the familiar faces of Eastern friends. Miserable mofussilite! poor deluded Emma! She had a foolish idea that the metropolis resembled a great Indian station, and that she could scarcely cross the road without meeting some one she knew.

Her special friends were not in England. At the moment they had either just gone back, or were not coming home till next year. I noticed—not once, but repeatedly—that when we encountered her mere acquaintances, and they asked where we were living, an expression of significant astonishment was visible in their faces the moment our address was mentioned. I also noted an increased cordiality of manner, and an alacrity in assuring Emma that they would be delighted to come and see her. I do not say this of all, but of some.

And then one morning the crash came. I met our landlady on the stairs, looking excessively fierce and red in the face, and I subsequently discovered Emma encompassed with letters, bills, and books, and dissolved in floods of tears.

“She has just given me notice!” she cried, alluding to our landlady; “and indeed, Gwen, after I pay her for the week, how much money do you think I have left?” She burst into a wild, hysterical laugh, and pushed across the table towards me a silver sixpence and two coppers.

“What—what is this?” I stammered.

“It’s eightpence. Can’t you see? And it’s all we have in the world!”

I remember that I turned it over mechanically, and giggled. I knew nothing of money matters. I had never had the spending of a sovereign in my life.

I was aware that Emma was extravagant, that she never could resist what she called “a bargain,” never could keep money in her pocket. It was quite one of her favorite jokes to exclaim, “Bang goes another five-pound note!”

I had participated in this jest with smiling equanimity, and the supreme confidence of youth: I believed that my stepmother, and only relative, had an ample supply of money somewhere. But—eightpence!

I stared at the two coppers and the little bit of silver in dismayed silence.

“Take off your hat, Gwen,” continued Emma, impetuously, “and listen to me. I’m not fit to be trusted with money—never was; I can’t keep it. ‘Sufficient unto the day,’ has always been my motto. You, I can see, are prudent; you are good at figures, old beyond your years. I suppose you take after your mother’s people, for your father was nearly as—as—extravagant and heedless as myself. Now I’m going to lay my affairs before you—place everything in your hands, and let you manage all our money.”

“Eightpence!” I repeated half under my breath.

“You know, we never saved a penny. I had a few hundreds of pounds from our auction, and I’ve spent that. A short life, and—a—a merry one!” looking at me with her pretty sapphire-colored eyes drowned in tears. “We have had a good time, have we not? And I was certain that the dear old Jam-Jam, who was so fond of your father—and, indeed, with every reason—would give us a handsome pension. But I have had a horrible letter by the mail just in. The Jam-Jam, who has been ailing for months—the new doctor did not understand his constitution—is dead. I am truly sorry.” A fresh burst of tears.

“Was all this grief for the Jam?” I asked myself, and stood confounded.

“My dear, we are paupers,” she sobbed. “Mr. Watkins, the agent, says that the new rajah, the nephew, a detestable creature, who I know never could endure me, will only give a hundred and thirty pounds a year, and that has been wrung from him with the greatest difficulty. And then, as if this letter was not enough, here is one from the bank, to say my account is overdrawn, and I thought I had three hundred pounds there still! I never, I knew, kept a proper account. Just drew checks, and never or seldom filled up the tiresome counterfoils, and now there is their hideous bank-book, all so neatly made up: ‘Self, ten pounds; Self, forty pounds; Self, twenty pounds.’ I can’t think what has become of it! I’m not used to keeping money, you see. I never bothered about putting down my expenses. Mrs. Keene brought me up these horrid letters, and came in too to ask about dinner, and I told her it was really shameful to charge two and sixpence for a cauliflower, and that we really could not afford to pay her prices, and she was quite insolent. When I have paid her, we shall have just—this—this—eightpence——”

And she dashed it over nearer to me, and, leaning her head on her arms, went off in hysterics.