Читать книгу The Girl and Her Fortune - L. T. Meade - Страница 6

Mrs. Fortescue was full of curiosity.

The girls were absolutely silent. She talked with animation of their usually gay programme for Christmas. The Blundells and the Arbuthnots and the Aylmers had all invited them to Christmas parties. Of course they would go. They were to dine with the Arbuthnots on the following evening. She hoped the girls had pretty dresses.

“There will be quite a big party,” said Mrs. Fortescue. “Major Reid and his son are also to be there. Michael Reid is a remarkably clever man. What sort of dresses have you, girls? Those white ones you wore last summer must be rather outré now. It was such a pity that I was not able to get you some really stylish frocks from Madame Aidée in town.”

“Our white frocks will do very well indeed,” said Florence.

“But you have grown, dear; you have grown up now,” said Mrs. Fortescue. “Oh my love!” She drew her chair a little closer to the young girl as she spoke. “I wonder what Mr. Timmins meant. He did not seem at all interested in my house. I expressed so plainly my willingness to give it up and to take a house in town where we could be all happy together; but he was very huffy and disagreeable. It was a sad pity that you didn’t stay in for him. It put him out. I never knew that Mr. Timmins was such an irascible old gentleman before.”

“He is not; he is a perfect dear,” said Florence.

“Well, Florence, I assure you he was not at all a dear to me. Still, if he made himself agreeable to you, you two darling young creatures, I must not mind. I suppose I shan’t see a great deal of you in the future. I shall miss you, my loves.”

Tears came into the little woman’s eyes. They were genuine tears, of sorrow for herself but also of affection for the girls. She would, of course, like to make money by them, but she also regarded them as belonging to her. She had known them for so long, and, notwithstanding the fact that she had been paid for their support, she had been really good to them. She had given them of those things which money cannot buy, had sat up with Florence night after night when she was ill with the measles, and had read herself hoarse in order to keep that difficult young lady in bed when she wanted to be up and playing about.

Of the two girls Florence was her darling. She dreamed much of Florence’s future, of the husband she would win, of the position she would attain, and of the advantage which she, Mrs. Fortescue, would derive from her young friends—advancement in the social scale. Beauty was better than talent; and Florence, as well as being an heiress, was also a beauty.

It cannot be said that the girls did much justice to Bridget’s hot cakes. They were both a little stunned, and their one desire was to get away to their own bedroom to talk over their changed circumstances, and decide on what course of action they would pursue with regard to Mrs. Fortescue. In her heart of hearts, Florence would have liked to rush to the good lady and say impulsively—

“I am a cheat, an impostor. I haven’t a penny in the world. You will be paid up to the end of the Christmas holidays, and then you will never see me any more. I have got to provide my own living somehow. I suppose I’ll manage best as a nursery governess; but I don’t know anything really well.”

Brenda, however, would not encourage any such lawless action.

“We won’t say a word about it,” said Brenda, “until after Christmas Day.”

She gave forth this mandate when the girls were in their room preparing for dinner.

“Oh,” said Florence; “it will kill me to keep it a secret for so long!”

“It won’t kill you,” replied Brenda, “for you will have me to talk it over with.”

“But she’ll go on asking us questions,” said Florence. “She will want to know where we are going after the holidays; if we are going to stay on with her, or what is to happen; and unless we tell her a lot of lies, I don’t see how we are to escape telling her the truth. It is all dreadful from first to last; but I think having to keep it a secret from Mrs. Fortescue is about the most terrible part of all.”

“It is the part you feel most at the present time,” said Brenda. “It is a merciful dispensation that we cannot realise everything that is happening just at the moment it happens. It is only by degrees that we get to realise the full extent of our calamities.”

“I suppose it is a calamity,” said Florence, opening her bright eyes very wide. “Somehow, at the present moment I don’t feel anything at all about it except rather excited; and there are eighty pounds left. Eighty pounds ought to go far, oughtn’t they? Oughtn’t they to go far, Brenda?”

“No,” said Brenda; “they won’t go far at all.”

“But I can’t make out why. We could go into small lodgings and live quite by ourselves and lead the simple life. There is so much written now about the simple life. I have read many books lately in which very clever men say that we eat far too much, and that, after all, what we really need is abundance of fresh air and so many hours for sleep and very plain food. I was reading a book not long ago which described a man who had exactly twenty pounds on which he intended to live for a whole year. He paid two and sixpence a week for his room and about as much more for his food, and he was very healthy and very happy. Now, if we did the same sort of thing, we could live both of us quite comfortably for two years on our eighty pounds.”

“And then,” said Brenda, “what would happen at the end of that time?”

“Oh, I should be married by then,” said Florence, “and you would come and live with me, of course, you old darling.”

“No; that I wouldn’t,” said Brenda. “I am not at all content to sit down and wait. I want to do something. As far as I am concerned, I am rather glad of this chance. I never did care for what are so-called ‘society pleasures.’ I see now the reason why I always felt driven to work very hard. You know father was a great writer. I shall write too. I will make money by my books, and we will both live together and be happy. If you find your prince, the man you have made up your mind to marry, why, you shall marry him. But if you don’t, I am always there. We will be very careful of our money, and I will write a book; I think I just know how. I am not father’s daughter for nothing. The book will be a success, and I shall get an order for another book, and we can live somehow. We shall be twenty thousand times happier than if we were in a house with Mrs. Fortescue looking out for husbands for us—for that is what it comes to when all is said and done.”

“Oh, you darling! I never thought of that,” said Florence. “It is perfectly splendid! I never admired you in all my life as I admire you now, Brenda. Of course, I never thought that you would be the one to save us from destruction. I used at times to have a sort of idea within me that perhaps you would have to come and live with me some day when all our money was spent. I can’t imagine why I used to think so often about all our money being spent; but I used to, only I imagined it would be after I had got my trousseau and was married to my dear lord, or duke, or marquis—anyhow, some one with a big place and a title; and I used to imagine you living with me and being my dear companion. But this is much, much better than any of those things.”

“Yes; I think it is better,” said Brenda. “I will think about the book to-night, and perhaps the title may come to me; but in the meantime, we are not to tell Mrs. Fortescue—not at least till Christmas Day is over; and we’ve got to take out our white dresses and get them ironed, and see that they look as fresh as possible. Now, we mustn’t stay too long in our room: she is dying with curiosity, but she can’t possibly guess the truth.”

“No; she couldn’t guess the truth, that would be beyond her power,” said Florence. “The truth is horrible, and yet delightful. We are our own mistresses, aren’t we, Brenda?”

“As far as the eighty pounds go,” replied Brenda.

“What I was so terrified about,” said the younger sister, “was this. I thought we should have to go as governesses or companions, or something of that sort, in big houses and be—be parted.” Her lips trembled.

“Oh no; we won’t be parted,” said Brenda; “but all the same, we’ll have to go to see Lady Marian Dixie—that is, when she writes to ask us. Now may I brush your hair for you? I want you to look your very prettiest self to-night.”

The white frocks were ironed by Bridget’s skilful fingers. It is true, they were only the sort of dresses worn by schoolgirls, but they were quite pretty, and of the very best material. They were somewhat short for the two tall girls, and Brenda smiled at herself when she saw her dress, which only reached a trifle below her ankles. As to Florence, she skipped about the room in hers. She was in wonderfully high spirits. For girls who had been brought up as heiresses, and who expected all the world to bow before them, this was extraordinary. And now it was borne in upon her that she had only forty pounds in the world, not even quite that, for already a little of the five pounds advanced by Mr. Timmins had been spent. Mrs. Fortescue insisted upon it. She said, “You ought to wear real flowers; I will order some for you at the florist’s round the corner.”

Now flowers at Christmas time are expensive, but Florence was reckless and ordered roses and lilies of the valley. Brenda looked unutterable things, but after opening her lips as though to speak, decided to remain silent. Why should not Florence have her pretty way for once? She looked at her sister with great admiration. She thought again of her beauty, which was of the sort which can scarcely be described, and deals more with expression than feature. Wherever this girl went, her bright eyes did their own work. They drew people towards them as towards a magnet. Her charming manners effected the rest of the fascination. She was not self-conscious either, so that women liked her as much as men did.

But now Christmas Day had really come, and Mrs. Fortescue, in the highest of high spirits, accompanied her young charges to Colonel Arbuthnot’s house. Year by year, the girls had eaten their Christmas dinner at the old Colonel’s house, which was known by the commonplace name of The Grange. It was a corner house in Langdale, abutting straight on to the street, but evidently at one time there had been a big garden in front, and just before the hall door was an enormous oak tree, which spread its shadows over the low stone steps in summer, and caused the dining-room windows which faced the street to be cool even in the hottest weather.

At the back of the house was a glorious old garden. No one had touched that. It measured nearly three acres. It had its walled-in enclosure, its small paddock, and its wealth of flower garden. The flowers, as far as Florence and Brenda could make out, seemed to grow without expense or trouble, for Colonel Arbuthnot was not a rich man, and could not even afford a gardener every day, but he worked a good deal himself, and was helped by his daughter Susie, a buxom, rather matronly young woman of six or seven and thirty. The girls liked Susie very much, although they considered her quite an old maid.

No; Colonel Arbuthnot was by no means rich—that is, as far as money is concerned; but he possessed other riches—the riches of a brave and noble heart. He was straight as a die in all his dealings with his fellow-men. He had a good deal of penetration of character, and had long ago taken a fancy to Mrs. Fortescue’s young charges. It did not matter in the least to him whether the girls were heiresses or not. They were young. They were both, in his opinion, pretty. He liked young and pretty creatures, and the idea of sitting down to his Christmas dinner without these additions to his party would have annoyed him very much.

Colonel Arbuthnot’s one extravagance in the year was his Christmas dinner. He invited all those people to it who otherwise might have to do without roast beef and plum pudding. There were a good many such in the little town of Langdale. It was a remote place, far from the world, and no one was wealthy there. Money went far in a little place of the sort, and the Colonel always saved several pounds out of his income in order to give Susie plenty of money to pay for a great joint at the butcher’s, and to make the old-fashioned plum pudding, also to prepare the mince pies by the old receipt, and to wind up by a sumptuous dessert.

It was on these rare occasions that the people who came to The Grange saw the magnificent silver which Colonel Arbuthnot possessed. It was kept wrapped up in paper and baize during the remainder of the year: for Susie said frankly that she could not keep it clean; what with the garden and helping the young servant, she had no time for polishing silver. Accordingly, she just kept out a few silver spoons and forks for family use and locked the rest up.

But Christmas Day was a great occasion. Christmas Day saw the doors flung wide, and hospitality reigning supreme. The Colonel put on his best dinner coat. He had worn it on more than one auspicious occasion at more than one famous London club. But it never seemed to grow the least bit old-fashioned. He always put a sprig of holly with the berries on it in his button-hole, and would not change this symbol of Christmas for any flower that could be presented to him.

As to Susie, she also had one dinner dress which appeared on these auspicious occasions, and only then. It was made of a sort of grey “barège,” and had belonged to her mother. It had been altered to fit her somewhat abundant proportions, and it was lined with silk. That was what Susie admired so much about it. The extravagance of silk lining gave her, as she expressed it, “a sense of aristocracy.” She said she felt much more like a lady with a silk lining in her dress than if she wore a silk dress itself with a cotton lining.

“There is something pompous and ostentatious about the latter,” she said, “whereas the former shows a true lady.”

She constantly moved about the room in order that the rustle of the silk might be heard, and occasionally, in a fit of absence—or apparent absence—she would lift the skirt so as to show the silk lining. The dress itself was exceedingly simple; but that did not matter at all to Susie. She wore it low in the neck and short in the sleeves; and it is true that she sometimes rather shivered with cold; for on no other day in the remaining three hundred and sixty-four did she dream of putting on a low dress. In the front of the dress she wore her mother’s diamond brooch—a treasure from the past, which alone she felt gave her distinction; and round her neck she had a string of old pearls, somewhat yellow with age, but very genuine and very good.

Susie’s hair was turning slightly grey and was somewhat thin, but then she never remembered her hair at all, nor her honest, flushed, reddish face, hardened by exposure to all sorts of weather, but very healthy withal.

From the moment she entered the drawing-room to receive her guests, she never gave Susie Arbuthnot a thought, except in the very rare moments when she rustled her grey barège in order to let her visitors know that the lining was silk. That silk lining was her one vanity. As a rule, we all have one, and that was hers. It was a very innocent one, and did no one any harm.

On this special Christmas Day, the Reids were coming to dinner. Major Reid was an army man who had retired a long time ago. He was always expecting his promotion, but had not got it yet. He was somewhat discontented, but liked to talk over old days with Colonel Arbuthnot. His son Michael had been a favourite with the Heathcote girls as long as they could remember. He was considered to be of their own rank in life, and Mrs. Fortescue, in consequence, asked him to dine, and play with them during the holidays. When he was very small, he rather bullied them; but as he grew older, he began to think a great deal of Florence’s beauty, and even to imagine himself in love with her. He was the sort of young man who always kept his father in a state of alarm with regard to money, and spent a great deal more than he had a right to do. He was a good-looking fellow, and popular in his regiment; and as he could make himself very agreeable, was a great favourite.

When Christmas Day dawned on the snowy world, Major Reid spoke to his son.

“Well, Michael,” he said, “it’s a great pleasure to have you with me. I consider myself a particularly lucky fellow to be able to say that I haven’t missed a single Christmas since your birth without having you by my side. But I don’t suppose this state of things will go on. You are sure to accept foreign service between now and next year, and, all things considered, I should like you to marry, my boy.”

“Oh, I’m a great deal too young for that kind of thing,” said Michael, helping himself to some kidneys on toast as he spoke, and eating with great relish and appetite.

“Well, my boy, I don’t know about that, there’s nothing like taking time by the forelock. Why, how old are you, Mike?”

“I shall be twenty-four my next birthday,” said the young man.

“Well,” said the major; “many a man has married before then, and done none the worse.”

“And a great many have ruined their lives by marrying too young,” said Reid. “Besides, I am only a lieutenant, father; I ought not to think of such a thing until I get my captaincy.”

Major Reid looked attentively at his son.

“The fact is, Michael,” he said, “you ought to marry money. Of course, to engage yourself to a girl who has not plenty of money would be sheer madness.”

Michael Reid looked at his father with a twinkle in his grey eye. He had quite a nice face, although it was very worldly. He could read through the old man’s thoughts at the present moment as though they were spread before him on an open page.

“What are you thinking of, dad?” he said. “Out with it, whatever it is.”

“This,” said the Major, colouring as he spoke; “those two girls have come back to Mrs. Fortescue’s. Florence is remarkably pretty. They must both be exceedingly well off. I spoke to Mrs. Fortescue the other day, and she told me that she doesn’t know the extent of their fortune, but believes it to be something quite considerable. In fact, I should imagine from the way they have been brought up, that they must have something which runs into at least four figures a year. Now, the moment such girls go into society, they will be surrounded by adventurers, men who wish to secure them simply for the sake of their money. You, my dear boy, I understand, have already paid attentions to Florence, and why not carry them on? This is your chance; she is an exceedingly attractive girl: in fact, she is a beauty. She will be rich. At present you are not supposed to know anything about her fortune; but if it comes as a surprise, why, so much the better.”

Lieutenant Reid, of His Majesty’s—th, thought of certain debts he had incurred, debts which if he explained their full significance to his father, would ruin the old man. He sat silent for a time, thinking.

“When last I saw Florence,” he said, after a minute’s pause, “she was just a pretty little hoyden of a girl; but, as you say, we were always good friends. Did you say they were still with Mrs. Fortescue?”

“Of course they are,” said Major Reid, tapping his foot impatiently. “Don’t they always spend their holidays with her? But they are leaving school now, in fact, they have left school. Mrs. Fortescue quite expects to go to London with them in order to take them into the gay world. If ever you have a chance, it is now; and if I were you, I would make the best of it.”

Michael Reid was silent, but he broke a piece of toast, and ate it reflectively. His father saw that he need say no more, and after a minute’s pause left the room.

As to the young man, he went to church on that Christmas Day although he had no previous idea of doing so. He did not dare even to say to himself that his object was to see the Misses Heathcote. But he looked very hard at both girls as they walked up the aisle of the church, accompanied by Mrs. Fortescue. Even in her plain school dress, Florence had an air of distinction, and Brenda looked quiet and charming. Michael Reid felt his heart beating quite agreeably. His father’s advice, after all, was sound. If he could secure a wife who had four, five, six, or seven hundred a year—and, of course, there was a great likelihood that she would have much more—why, his fortune would be made. Florence had seen no other man as yet, but she had a schoolgirl friendship for him. Now was his opportunity. He would strike while the iron was hot.

Accordingly, in the course of the afternoon, as he and his father were pacing up and down in the sheltered corner by the laurel hedge beside the Major’s old house, Michael linked his hand within the old man’s arm, and said—

“If you will allow me to manage things my own way, and will not appear in the very least to interfere; why—I—I will do my best.”

“Thank you, my boy. I knew you would,” said the Major. “God bless you, my son; and God grant you success.”

Michael did not think it necessary to reply to these remarks, which were really uttered as a matter of course; but he went upstairs early to his bedroom, and took great care in selecting the white tie he would wear with his dinner suit that evening. Instead of the morsel of mistletoe, which was considered the correct thing among the young ladies at Langdale for the gentlemen to wear at the Arbuthnots’ dinner parties, he went out and purchased a rose. He paid a shilling for a rose with a bud attached, and put it with care into his button-hole. When he had finished dressing, he surveyed himself in the glass with great satisfaction. He was a good-looking fellow, and might, he thought, attract the admiration and affection of any girl. He tried hard to remember what colour Florence’s eyes were; but hers was an evasive face, which baffled inquiry. It was full of subtle changes. The eyes looked brown one moment, green the next; and then again a careful observer would swear that they were grey. But they had a story in them at all times. So Michael thought to himself. He thought that to compare them to the stars of heaven would be a happy metaphor, and that he might use it with effect that evening. He hoped the night would be fine, so that they could go out between the dances. They always danced at Colonel Arbuthnot’s on Christmas night. When dinner was cleared away, the tables were pushed to one side, and the polished floor left ready for the tread of the dancers.

Then was Susie’s really proud moment. She would sit at the old piano—never in perfect tune—and play one old-fashioned waltz and old-fashioned polka after another. She played a set of the Lancers too when she was pressed to do so; but was often heard to say she considered them too rompy. Notwithstanding, she was never tired of rattling out her old tunes on the old piano; and Reid thought of the dancing and of the happy minute when he would get Florence to himself under the stars and compare her bright eyes to those luminaries.

When he had finished dressing, he went downstairs and spoke to his father.

“You are going in a cab, I suppose, as usual?”

“Well, yes; there’s a good deal of snow on the ground, and it is some little distance to the Arbuthnots’, so I told Hoggs to call. Dinner is at seven. The cab will be here at ten minutes to the hour.”

“You don’t greatly mind if I walk on in advance?”

“Of course not, my boy, if you prefer it. But be sure you put on good stout walking shoes, and change them for your pumps when you get in.”

“All right, Dad,” said this soldier of his Majesty’s—th Foot; and, slipping on an overcoat, he stepped out into the frosty night.

Yes; the stars at least would be propitious. Although there were great banks of cloud coming up from the west, they were moving slowly, and he did not think they would interfere with the enjoyment of that Christmas dinner.

Lieutenant Reid was the very first of the guests to arrive at the Arbuthnots’ house. In fact, he was so much too early that the little maid who was hired for the occasion had not her cap on, and kept him waiting at the hall door for a considerable time. But at last he was admitted, and was ushered into the Colonel’s smoking-room, that apartment being set aside for the accommodation of the gentleman guests. There Reid changed his walking shoes for his pumps, took off his overcoat, looked at his face in the glass, saw that his button-hole was in perfect order, and was the very first to enter the drawing-room.

There he saw to his immense satisfaction Susie Arbuthnot standing by the fire quite alone. The Colonel had not yet come downstairs. Susie, in that grey barège, with a flush of excitement all over her face, Susie with her very stout figure, her diamond brooch, her pearl necklace, gave Reid an extraordinary desire to laugh. While all the world was going on, poor Susie was standing still. It flashed through his mind after a minute’s reflection that when he and Florence were married, they would send her anonymously a fashionable new dinner dress. He began to consider what colour it ought to be—purple, mauve, red, violet? He decided to leave the choice of the dress to Florence, who, of course, would know all about such things. Meanwhile, he went eagerly up to shake hands with the little lady.

“You are early, Captain,” she said.

She invariably called him “Captain,” and although he had no right whatever to the name, he enjoyed the sound very much, and never dreamed of correcting her.

“I do hope,” she continued, her brow puckering slightly, “that nothing has occurred to keep your dear, good father from joining in our Christmas festivities. I don’t know what the Colonel would say if the Major were not present at our Christmas dinner. Do tell me at once, Captain, that nothing is wrong with your esteemed father.”

“Nothing whatever,” said Reid; “he is coming along presently in one of Hoggs’ cabs. I thought I would come first for the simple reason that I want to have a word alone with you, Miss Susie.”

“Oh, I am only too delighted,” said Susie; and she rustled her silk petticoat as she spoke, getting closer to the young man, and looking redder in the face than ever. “What is it? If there is anything in my power—”

“Oh, it is quite a simple matter,” he said. “You know I dine out a great deal, but I may say without verging a hair’s line from the truth, that I never enjoy any dinners as I do yours—a little old-fashioned of course—but so good, the food so—A.1. Now I noticed last Christmas that you, Miss Susie—ah! Miss Susie!—you must have been in London since I saw you last and picked up some of the modes of the great world. I noticed that you had adopted some of the latest London fashions: for instance, the names of the guests put beside their plates.”

“It was Lady Lorrimer, when she was here two years ago, who told me about that,” said Susie. “I generally use a number of correspondence cards, cutting them very carefully to the necessary shape, and printing the names in my very best writing. It helps our servants, and our visitors know where to sit.”

“Quite so. I think it is an excellent idea. But please tell me—where am I to sit at dinner to-night?”

She laughed, and half blushed. She had meant this good “Captain Reid” to take herself in to dinner, having reserved a much more elderly lady for Major Reid. But somehow, as she looked into his face, an intuition came to her. She was a woman with very quick intuitions, and she could read a man’s thoughts in a flash.

“Never mind whom you were to take in,” she said. “Tell me quickly—quickly—whom you wish to sit next. Ah, there’s another ring at the bell!”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I want to take Florence Heathcote into dinner to-night. Can you manage it?”

“I certainly can, and will. Dear, beautiful Florence! No wonder you admire her. I will give directions this minute. Just sit down, won’t you, near the fire. I will go and alter the dinner-table.”

Lieutenant Reid seated himself with a smile round his lips. He had achieved his purpose.

“I thought she would help me,” was his inward reflection. “I was to take her in—poor Susie! but I am flying for higher game. ’Pon my word! the pater is right, and Florence is worth making an effort to secure. Now, it’s all right. We’ll go into the garden after dinner, and during dinner I can begin to lay my little trap for the entanglement of that gentle heart. She looked very beautiful in church to-day, but I do wish I could remember the colour of her eyes.”