Chapter Eighteen.Seaside Anticipations.Meanwhile Nesta was very full of her own interests. Things were going in what might be considered a middling way at the Aldworths’. Mrs Aldworth was no worse, but she was not much better. She was suffering greatly from the heat, and yet she was not strong enough to be moved. Nurse Davenant still remained, and kept the invalid in comfort, and saw that she got the necessary food, and was not worried or neglected. Molly and Ethel were busy over their own concerns; they were forced to devote so much time, and Nesta was also required to be on duty for a certain time each day. The fright the girls had sustained when their mother was so seriously ill had not yet passed from their minds. Its memory still had power to move them. They were still alarmed when they thought of it.But Nesta was less full of fear than her sisters, although her grief and terror had been greater at the time. Hers was the most elastic nature, perhaps in some ways the most unfaithful. She was now feverishly anxious to get away to Scarborough. She had ventured, on the morning after she had received her beloved yellow-boy, to sound Ethel on the subject of that visit.“Do you think they’d let me go?” she said.“Who are ‘they’?” asked Ethel.“Oh, you know—father, and Marcia—old Marcia, and Horace.”“If you ask me for my opinion,” said Ethel, “I should once and for all advise you to put it right out of your head. You haven’t the most remote chance of going away. You are required at home.”“I’m not much use, am I?”“Frankly, you are not. You spilt mother’s beef tea yesterday, and dropped the ink over that new fancy work which she takes so much pleasure in amusing herself with; and you screamed out and startled her frightfully when you were in the garden and thought you were stung by a wasp when you weren’t. I don’t see what particular use you are to anybody.”“Then, if that is the case,” said Nesta, “why can’t I go away and enjoy myself? I can’t help being alive, you know. I must be somewhere in the world, and if I’m such a bother here, why shouldn’t I go off with old Floss and have a good time? Floss doesn’t think me a worry. Floss and I could have a good time.”“By what possible right ought you to have a good time? There’s Molly, the eldest of us, and there’s me, and what chance have we of going into the country or to the seaside, or having any fun? There’s nobody at all in this hateful Newcastle, or in its suburbs, in the summer. There’s nothing but the horrible coal-dust in the air, and the whole place is choking at times.”“But really not out where we live,” said Nesta, who must be honest at any cost.“Well, anyhow, we’re not in the most charming part of the country, and that you know quite well. But if you ask me, I should say that you had best give up the idea of going. You can do as you please, of course.”“Yes, I can do what I please; but I can’t see, even if mother is ill, why four girls should be kept to wait on her.”“There won’t be four. Marcia is going to the St. Justs’ next week. She’s going away for a whole month. The doctor has ordered it. He says she isn’t well.”“Just because she looks pale. You know that she is quite well; she is the strongest of us all.”“I don’t know anything about that—she is going; that’s all. She has the doctor’s orders and it is arranged.”“And it’s because of her I have to stay at home?”“Don’t keep me any longer now, Nesta. Put it out of your head, once and for all.”Ethel marched out of the room; but Nesta had no idea of putting the tempting subject out of her head. She went upstairs to her own room. She counted over the shillings left of her darling yellow-boy. She had eighteen shillings and sixpence. Nesta was careful with regard to money and had not indulged Flossie beyond eighteen-pence worth of good things at Simpson’s shop. With eighteen and sixpence, what could she not do? What pleasures could she not enjoy? Oh, she must go. She slipped her little purse under a pile of handkerchiefs on one of her drawers, tidied herself as well as she could, and went into her mother’s room. How hot and dull it all was. Her mother’s face looked more fagged and tired than usual; but the girl, full of her own thoughts, had none for her mother.“Mothery,” she said suddenly, “when do you think you’ll be well enough to go to the seaside?”“Oh, I should love it,” said poor Mrs Aldworth, and she stretched out her arms wearily. “I am so hot and so tired; I’m sure if once I could get there, it would do me a world of good.”“If you do everything the doctor says, and keep on taking your tonics, you will be able to go in a fortnight’s time, or so,” said Nurse Davenant. “Now, here is a delicious blancmange, you must eat it, and you must take this cream with it. Come, now, dear, eat it up.”“It does look good,” said Mrs Aldworth; “but I get so tired of these sort of things, and I am so hot—so hot!”This was her constant complaint. “Anybody would be hot,” said Nesta, “who stayed in this stifling room.”She went out and stood on the balcony. From there she saw, to her intense annoyance, Flossie and Penelope coming up the path towards the house, side by side. She wished she dared ask leave to go down; her face turned scarlet, and her heart beat quickly. What was to be done? She would have given anything at that moment to see Flossie. Of course, Flossie had come to arrange about the visit to Scarborough, and there was so little time to spare.Mrs Aldworth’s weak voice called her.“Dear, little girl, come in and sit on this stool at mother’s feet, and tell me something funny.”“I’ll tell you a fairy story,” said Nesta, sitting down. “It is all about a poor fairy princess, who was all covered with coal-dust and grime, and she wanted to bathe in the cool sea, and she couldn’t because—because—”“Why?” said Mrs Aldworth.“Because there was a horrid dragon—rather, a dragoness, who took all the pleasures for herself, and left the poor little fairy princess to pine, and pine—”“That doesn’t sound at all a nice story,” said Nurse Davenant. “There’s no sense in it either,” she said, as she saw Mrs Aldworth’s mouth quiver. “Now, get your book and read something. Here’s ‘John Halifax.’ Go on with that.”Nesta was forced to comply. Mrs Aldworth had been interested in the beautiful story when read aloud by Marcia, but Nesta’s rendering of it was not agreeable. “You gabble so, dear,” she said, “and you drop your words so that I cannot always catch your meaning. What was that about Ursula?”“Oh, mother, it’s so hot, and I can’t read. I expect, mothery, I’m the fairy princess, the poor begrimed little princess.”“You?” said Mrs Aldworth.“Yes, mothery.”“Then who is the dragon?”“Old Marcia,” said the child.She had scarcely uttered the words before Marcia herself came in.“Marcia,” said Mrs Aldworth, her blue eyes brightening for a minute, “this naughty Nesta says you are a dragon, and she is a begrimed fairy princess.”“I don’t understand,” said Marcia. She looked at Nesta, giving her a long glance, under which the girl had the grace to colour.
Meanwhile Nesta was very full of her own interests. Things were going in what might be considered a middling way at the Aldworths’. Mrs Aldworth was no worse, but she was not much better. She was suffering greatly from the heat, and yet she was not strong enough to be moved. Nurse Davenant still remained, and kept the invalid in comfort, and saw that she got the necessary food, and was not worried or neglected. Molly and Ethel were busy over their own concerns; they were forced to devote so much time, and Nesta was also required to be on duty for a certain time each day. The fright the girls had sustained when their mother was so seriously ill had not yet passed from their minds. Its memory still had power to move them. They were still alarmed when they thought of it.
But Nesta was less full of fear than her sisters, although her grief and terror had been greater at the time. Hers was the most elastic nature, perhaps in some ways the most unfaithful. She was now feverishly anxious to get away to Scarborough. She had ventured, on the morning after she had received her beloved yellow-boy, to sound Ethel on the subject of that visit.
“Do you think they’d let me go?” she said.
“Who are ‘they’?” asked Ethel.
“Oh, you know—father, and Marcia—old Marcia, and Horace.”
“If you ask me for my opinion,” said Ethel, “I should once and for all advise you to put it right out of your head. You haven’t the most remote chance of going away. You are required at home.”
“I’m not much use, am I?”
“Frankly, you are not. You spilt mother’s beef tea yesterday, and dropped the ink over that new fancy work which she takes so much pleasure in amusing herself with; and you screamed out and startled her frightfully when you were in the garden and thought you were stung by a wasp when you weren’t. I don’t see what particular use you are to anybody.”
“Then, if that is the case,” said Nesta, “why can’t I go away and enjoy myself? I can’t help being alive, you know. I must be somewhere in the world, and if I’m such a bother here, why shouldn’t I go off with old Floss and have a good time? Floss doesn’t think me a worry. Floss and I could have a good time.”
“By what possible right ought you to have a good time? There’s Molly, the eldest of us, and there’s me, and what chance have we of going into the country or to the seaside, or having any fun? There’s nobody at all in this hateful Newcastle, or in its suburbs, in the summer. There’s nothing but the horrible coal-dust in the air, and the whole place is choking at times.”
“But really not out where we live,” said Nesta, who must be honest at any cost.
“Well, anyhow, we’re not in the most charming part of the country, and that you know quite well. But if you ask me, I should say that you had best give up the idea of going. You can do as you please, of course.”
“Yes, I can do what I please; but I can’t see, even if mother is ill, why four girls should be kept to wait on her.”
“There won’t be four. Marcia is going to the St. Justs’ next week. She’s going away for a whole month. The doctor has ordered it. He says she isn’t well.”
“Just because she looks pale. You know that she is quite well; she is the strongest of us all.”
“I don’t know anything about that—she is going; that’s all. She has the doctor’s orders and it is arranged.”
“And it’s because of her I have to stay at home?”
“Don’t keep me any longer now, Nesta. Put it out of your head, once and for all.”
Ethel marched out of the room; but Nesta had no idea of putting the tempting subject out of her head. She went upstairs to her own room. She counted over the shillings left of her darling yellow-boy. She had eighteen shillings and sixpence. Nesta was careful with regard to money and had not indulged Flossie beyond eighteen-pence worth of good things at Simpson’s shop. With eighteen and sixpence, what could she not do? What pleasures could she not enjoy? Oh, she must go. She slipped her little purse under a pile of handkerchiefs on one of her drawers, tidied herself as well as she could, and went into her mother’s room. How hot and dull it all was. Her mother’s face looked more fagged and tired than usual; but the girl, full of her own thoughts, had none for her mother.
“Mothery,” she said suddenly, “when do you think you’ll be well enough to go to the seaside?”
“Oh, I should love it,” said poor Mrs Aldworth, and she stretched out her arms wearily. “I am so hot and so tired; I’m sure if once I could get there, it would do me a world of good.”
“If you do everything the doctor says, and keep on taking your tonics, you will be able to go in a fortnight’s time, or so,” said Nurse Davenant. “Now, here is a delicious blancmange, you must eat it, and you must take this cream with it. Come, now, dear, eat it up.”
“It does look good,” said Mrs Aldworth; “but I get so tired of these sort of things, and I am so hot—so hot!”
This was her constant complaint. “Anybody would be hot,” said Nesta, “who stayed in this stifling room.”
She went out and stood on the balcony. From there she saw, to her intense annoyance, Flossie and Penelope coming up the path towards the house, side by side. She wished she dared ask leave to go down; her face turned scarlet, and her heart beat quickly. What was to be done? She would have given anything at that moment to see Flossie. Of course, Flossie had come to arrange about the visit to Scarborough, and there was so little time to spare.
Mrs Aldworth’s weak voice called her.
“Dear, little girl, come in and sit on this stool at mother’s feet, and tell me something funny.”
“I’ll tell you a fairy story,” said Nesta, sitting down. “It is all about a poor fairy princess, who was all covered with coal-dust and grime, and she wanted to bathe in the cool sea, and she couldn’t because—because—”
“Why?” said Mrs Aldworth.
“Because there was a horrid dragon—rather, a dragoness, who took all the pleasures for herself, and left the poor little fairy princess to pine, and pine—”
“That doesn’t sound at all a nice story,” said Nurse Davenant. “There’s no sense in it either,” she said, as she saw Mrs Aldworth’s mouth quiver. “Now, get your book and read something. Here’s ‘John Halifax.’ Go on with that.”
Nesta was forced to comply. Mrs Aldworth had been interested in the beautiful story when read aloud by Marcia, but Nesta’s rendering of it was not agreeable. “You gabble so, dear,” she said, “and you drop your words so that I cannot always catch your meaning. What was that about Ursula?”
“Oh, mother, it’s so hot, and I can’t read. I expect, mothery, I’m the fairy princess, the poor begrimed little princess.”
“You?” said Mrs Aldworth.
“Yes, mothery.”
“Then who is the dragon?”
“Old Marcia,” said the child.
She had scarcely uttered the words before Marcia herself came in.
“Marcia,” said Mrs Aldworth, her blue eyes brightening for a minute, “this naughty Nesta says you are a dragon, and she is a begrimed fairy princess.”
“I don’t understand,” said Marcia. She looked at Nesta, giving her a long glance, under which the girl had the grace to colour.
Chapter Nineteen.Nesta’s Cunning Scheme.Marcia never gave herself away. Nesta sincerely longed that she would, but there was not the most remote chance. She seemed, when dinner time came, to have quite forgotten Nesta’s spiteful speech. As a matter of fact she had forgotten it. She was sorry for the child. She was sorry for all her sisters; but still she was firmly convinced in her own mind that they ought to look after their mother.Nesta, however, had no special duties that afternoon, and Marcia repeated Flossie’s message that they were to meet in the middle of the wood.“Don’t be too long away,” she said, “but if you greatly wish to go to have tea with the Griffiths, why you may. I understood from Flossie that they were going to the seaside on Saturday.”“Thank you, Marcia,” said Nesta.She ran out of the room. Dress was indeed a matter of total indifference to her. Once again, she flew down the path, entered the wood, and in a very short time she and Flossie were embracing each other. Flossie was smartly dressed.“You are just as untidy as ever,” she said. “But never mind. What about the day after to-morrow? Are you prepared to come with us?”“I’m prepared,” said Nesta, “but they’re not.”“Who are ‘they’?”“Oh, you know—all of them. I spoke to Ethel this morning, and she said I hadn’t a chance.”“But it does seem cruel—you can’t be cooped up in this hot place when everybody else is away enjoying themselves. You really must come with us—besides, I want you.”“I want to go most awfully,” said Nesta. “I’ve got my eighteen and sixpence, and we could have no end of fun.”“Mother gave me five shillings this morning,” said Flossie. “That, with your eighteen and sixpence, would make twenty-three and sixpence—one pound, three shillings and sixpence. Think of it.”“But it wouldn’t be that way at all,” said Nesta. “My eighteen and sixpence would be in my pocket, and your five shillings would stay in your pocket. I’d treat you when I pleased, and you’d treat me when you pleased. Do you understand?”“Oh, yes,” said Flossie, “of course.” She really bore a great deal from Nesta, who could be quite unpleasant when she liked. “But the thing is how to get you to the seaside. Do you think it would be any use for father to go over and see your father, and tell him what a splendid chance it would be for you?”“No,” replied Nesta, “there’s only one way for me to go—I must run away. I must meet you at the station, and when I get to Scarborough, I don’t suppose they’ll bother about getting me back, and I can spend sixpence on a telegram and tell them where I am. I wouldn’t sent it till pretty late in the day, and then they couldn’t get me back for a day or two. That would be the best thing—it’s the only thing to do.”Flossie sat down under a wide-spreading oak tree and considered Nesta’s proposal.“That would be right enough,” she said, “as far as I am concerned, but you have to think of father. He wouldn’t take you for all the world if he knew you were coming in that sort of fashion.”“Wouldn’t he, Flossie? Why not?”“Because—although I dare say you think my father common enough—I have often seen that you do—he is very strict in his ideas, and he wouldn’t think it right for you to come. If you manage your running away, you must let father think you have got leave.”“Well, can’t you help me, Flossie? You are so clever in inventing things. Even if I could have two whole days at the seaside I’d come back better, and really and truly mother is quite convalescent, and there are Molly and Ethel, and they have Nurse Davenant—they could manage her for the time being. Can’t you help me, Flossie?”“I’ll think,” said Flossie. She remembered those stories which she loved—those stories of naughty heroines and princes and princesses, when the princes always rescued the princesses, when the naughty heroines were brought to see the error of their ways, although they had a dreadful time at first following their own devices. Flossie quite longed to have a sort of affair going on in which Nesta should be on tenter-hooks, and very much obliged to her for all that she was doing for her, and in consequence inclined to spend her money for Flossie’s delectation.“Well,” she said, after a pause, “if I can manage it I will. I’ll just get father to understand, without telling too big a tarradiddle, you perceive, that it is all right, and that you are coming. Then you must be at the station, and you must bring a box with you. You must on no account come without luggage, or he’d be up in arms at once.”“What train are you going by?” asked Nesta, whose cheeks were very bright.“We’re leaving Newcastle by the 12:15. There’ll be a crowd of people, because so many go away from Saturday to Monday, and just now it is holiday time, and the crowd will be worse than ever. We are going third-class, of course; you won’t mind that, will you?”“Not a bit.”“Well, father will have taken four tickets—one for himself, one for mother, one for me and one for you, and all you have to do is to hide yourself as much as possible behind me. But what about your box? Whatever will you do about getting it there?”“I could come with quite a small box. Could not you put some of my things in with yours? I could get them to you to-morrow evening. I know I could.”“That’s a good idea; I’ll ask mother to give me a larger trunk than I really want for myself, and I’ll put your best things on the top. I’ll tell mother that you haven’t a great lot of trunks at home, and that I am helping you by packing some of your things. That will do; only be sure you don’t come in too shabby a frock, Nesta. We must be at least a little smart at Scarborough. Mother is making me a blue gingham frock, and a red gingham, and a bright blue voille for Sunday. I wonder how many nice dresses you have?”“I don’t care—I’ve got something, and I’ll rummage the other girls’ drawers for ribbons and a pair of gloves. I’ll manage somehow. I can take just a little box, that can be easily managed.”“You had best be going back now,” said Flossie.“Oh, I can go home with you to tea, Marcia said I could if you liked.”“Well, that’s all right—I’m very glad, because if you meet father you can tell your own tarradiddle. I’d much rather keep my own conscience clear. I have never told a downright absolute lie in my life.”“Very well,” said Nesta. She wondered what was the matter with her; why she cared less and less to be good, and why she felt so reckless and indifferent to all that most girls would have considered sacred. She was puzzled about herself, and yet at the same time she did not care.She went back with Flossie to the home of the latter and enjoyed the excellent meal, and when, in the course of it, Mr Griffiths appeared, she ran up to him and clapped her hands.“I’m going, it’s all right,” she said. “Isn’t it prime!”“I’m as pleased as anything,” he said, his honest face beaming all over. “So your father don’t mind. I thought perhaps Aldworth would be too proud—I mistook him, didn’t I?”“Father?” said Nesta; “oh, father’s all right, and I’m going; it’s splendid. And what do you think?” she added. “Flossie is going to take some of my things in her trunk. You don’t mind that, do you, Mrs Griffiths?”“For goodness’ sake,” cried Mr Griffiths, “don’t bring too much finery, girls, too much toggery and all that sort of thing. The place will be chock full, and we haven’t taken expensive rooms. Mother and me, we didn’t see the sense of it. You are heartily welcome to come with us, Nesta, and if we can give you a good time—why, we will. It’ll be about a week or ten days you’ll be staying, won’t it?”“Yes, that will be nice,” said Nesta.“And you don’t mind, dear, sharing the same room with Flossie,” said Mrs Griffiths.“I don’t mind a bit,” said Nesta.“Of course, she doesn’t, wife. We always pack up like herrings in a barrel at the seaside, don’t we?”“That’s true enough,” said Mrs Griffiths, “and I must own sometimes I find it a bit stuffy—that is, when I’m indoors.”“But you don’t when you’re on the seashore, wife, when you’re looking at the merry-go-rounds and listening to the bands, and watching the niggers dancing, and seeing the Punch and Judy shows.”Mrs Griffiths smiled and her face relaxed.“We’ll wade and we’ll bathe and we’ll go out in boats, and we’ll have no end of fun!” said Flossie. “Oh, it will be prime.”She and Nesta wandered away by themselves when the meal came to an end.“I didn’t even tell him a lie. Didn’t I manage splendidly?” said Nesta.Flossie replied that she did.“Now, I must really be going home. I’ll have to be as good as gold; butter won’t melt in my mouth between now and Saturday,” said Nesta.She flew home. In the garden she met Molly and Ethel, who were walking up and down, having a rather dull time, poor girls, and were anything but contented. When they saw Nesta they pounced upon her.“Now, Nesta, it’s all arranged. Marcia has been planning everything. She goes to the St. Justs on Saturday.”“On Saturday?” said Nesta, starting and colouring very deeply.“Yes, I thought you knew.”“I knew she was going, but I didn’t know the day. You needn’t look at me as though you wanted to eat me.”“You’re so horribly disagreeable, Nesta, ever since you got that bedroom to yourself,” said Ethel. “I hope you’ve put out of your mind, once and for ever, that selfish plan of yours of going away to the seaside with Flossie Griffiths.”“Am I likely to think much more about it after the way you snubbed me this morning?” replied Nesta.“Well, that’s all the better, for you will be kept very much occupied. Marcia is a martinet, I will say. Mule Selfish is no word for her. The way she has planned everything—all our time taken up—Molly is to house-keep, and I am to look after the house linen, and Nurse Davenant is to superintend every scrap that mother eats, and mother is to have all her time planned so that she is to be as cheerful as possible, and Marcia will come to see her once a week, and if there is any change for the worse, Marcia will come right back, and won’t we have a time of it, if that happens?”“I do think,” said Nesta, “that if we ever made a mistake in our lives, it was that time when we begged and implored father and Horace to bring Marcia back.”“Well, there’s more to come. Father and Horace are also going away on Saturday.”Nesta’s face very perceptibly brightened. If Marcia was away, as well as her father, and also her brother, why, there would be nobody to make much fuss about her having absented herself. When she was at Scarborough, she would be allowed to stay there, for there would be no one to force her back. How delightful.“I’m glad they’re going to have a holiday,” she said. “I really am; and they’re going on Saturday?”“Yes, by the 12:15 train. They’re going through Scarborough right on to—why, how pale you are.”“It’s so horribly hot,” said Nesta, sinking into a chair.“Well, that’s about it; they’re going by the 12:15 train, but they’re not going to stop at Scarborough, they’re going to a little place about twenty miles further on. They’re going to have a lot of fishing and yachting. Father says that he doesn’t want to be too far away from mother in her present state, and, of course, Horace loves his fishing. There, Nesta, you do look white. Hadn’t you better go into the house?”“No, I’m all right; don’t bother me,” said Nesta.
Marcia never gave herself away. Nesta sincerely longed that she would, but there was not the most remote chance. She seemed, when dinner time came, to have quite forgotten Nesta’s spiteful speech. As a matter of fact she had forgotten it. She was sorry for the child. She was sorry for all her sisters; but still she was firmly convinced in her own mind that they ought to look after their mother.
Nesta, however, had no special duties that afternoon, and Marcia repeated Flossie’s message that they were to meet in the middle of the wood.
“Don’t be too long away,” she said, “but if you greatly wish to go to have tea with the Griffiths, why you may. I understood from Flossie that they were going to the seaside on Saturday.”
“Thank you, Marcia,” said Nesta.
She ran out of the room. Dress was indeed a matter of total indifference to her. Once again, she flew down the path, entered the wood, and in a very short time she and Flossie were embracing each other. Flossie was smartly dressed.
“You are just as untidy as ever,” she said. “But never mind. What about the day after to-morrow? Are you prepared to come with us?”
“I’m prepared,” said Nesta, “but they’re not.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“Oh, you know—all of them. I spoke to Ethel this morning, and she said I hadn’t a chance.”
“But it does seem cruel—you can’t be cooped up in this hot place when everybody else is away enjoying themselves. You really must come with us—besides, I want you.”
“I want to go most awfully,” said Nesta. “I’ve got my eighteen and sixpence, and we could have no end of fun.”
“Mother gave me five shillings this morning,” said Flossie. “That, with your eighteen and sixpence, would make twenty-three and sixpence—one pound, three shillings and sixpence. Think of it.”
“But it wouldn’t be that way at all,” said Nesta. “My eighteen and sixpence would be in my pocket, and your five shillings would stay in your pocket. I’d treat you when I pleased, and you’d treat me when you pleased. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes,” said Flossie, “of course.” She really bore a great deal from Nesta, who could be quite unpleasant when she liked. “But the thing is how to get you to the seaside. Do you think it would be any use for father to go over and see your father, and tell him what a splendid chance it would be for you?”
“No,” replied Nesta, “there’s only one way for me to go—I must run away. I must meet you at the station, and when I get to Scarborough, I don’t suppose they’ll bother about getting me back, and I can spend sixpence on a telegram and tell them where I am. I wouldn’t sent it till pretty late in the day, and then they couldn’t get me back for a day or two. That would be the best thing—it’s the only thing to do.”
Flossie sat down under a wide-spreading oak tree and considered Nesta’s proposal.
“That would be right enough,” she said, “as far as I am concerned, but you have to think of father. He wouldn’t take you for all the world if he knew you were coming in that sort of fashion.”
“Wouldn’t he, Flossie? Why not?”
“Because—although I dare say you think my father common enough—I have often seen that you do—he is very strict in his ideas, and he wouldn’t think it right for you to come. If you manage your running away, you must let father think you have got leave.”
“Well, can’t you help me, Flossie? You are so clever in inventing things. Even if I could have two whole days at the seaside I’d come back better, and really and truly mother is quite convalescent, and there are Molly and Ethel, and they have Nurse Davenant—they could manage her for the time being. Can’t you help me, Flossie?”
“I’ll think,” said Flossie. She remembered those stories which she loved—those stories of naughty heroines and princes and princesses, when the princes always rescued the princesses, when the naughty heroines were brought to see the error of their ways, although they had a dreadful time at first following their own devices. Flossie quite longed to have a sort of affair going on in which Nesta should be on tenter-hooks, and very much obliged to her for all that she was doing for her, and in consequence inclined to spend her money for Flossie’s delectation.
“Well,” she said, after a pause, “if I can manage it I will. I’ll just get father to understand, without telling too big a tarradiddle, you perceive, that it is all right, and that you are coming. Then you must be at the station, and you must bring a box with you. You must on no account come without luggage, or he’d be up in arms at once.”
“What train are you going by?” asked Nesta, whose cheeks were very bright.
“We’re leaving Newcastle by the 12:15. There’ll be a crowd of people, because so many go away from Saturday to Monday, and just now it is holiday time, and the crowd will be worse than ever. We are going third-class, of course; you won’t mind that, will you?”
“Not a bit.”
“Well, father will have taken four tickets—one for himself, one for mother, one for me and one for you, and all you have to do is to hide yourself as much as possible behind me. But what about your box? Whatever will you do about getting it there?”
“I could come with quite a small box. Could not you put some of my things in with yours? I could get them to you to-morrow evening. I know I could.”
“That’s a good idea; I’ll ask mother to give me a larger trunk than I really want for myself, and I’ll put your best things on the top. I’ll tell mother that you haven’t a great lot of trunks at home, and that I am helping you by packing some of your things. That will do; only be sure you don’t come in too shabby a frock, Nesta. We must be at least a little smart at Scarborough. Mother is making me a blue gingham frock, and a red gingham, and a bright blue voille for Sunday. I wonder how many nice dresses you have?”
“I don’t care—I’ve got something, and I’ll rummage the other girls’ drawers for ribbons and a pair of gloves. I’ll manage somehow. I can take just a little box, that can be easily managed.”
“You had best be going back now,” said Flossie.
“Oh, I can go home with you to tea, Marcia said I could if you liked.”
“Well, that’s all right—I’m very glad, because if you meet father you can tell your own tarradiddle. I’d much rather keep my own conscience clear. I have never told a downright absolute lie in my life.”
“Very well,” said Nesta. She wondered what was the matter with her; why she cared less and less to be good, and why she felt so reckless and indifferent to all that most girls would have considered sacred. She was puzzled about herself, and yet at the same time she did not care.
She went back with Flossie to the home of the latter and enjoyed the excellent meal, and when, in the course of it, Mr Griffiths appeared, she ran up to him and clapped her hands.
“I’m going, it’s all right,” she said. “Isn’t it prime!”
“I’m as pleased as anything,” he said, his honest face beaming all over. “So your father don’t mind. I thought perhaps Aldworth would be too proud—I mistook him, didn’t I?”
“Father?” said Nesta; “oh, father’s all right, and I’m going; it’s splendid. And what do you think?” she added. “Flossie is going to take some of my things in her trunk. You don’t mind that, do you, Mrs Griffiths?”
“For goodness’ sake,” cried Mr Griffiths, “don’t bring too much finery, girls, too much toggery and all that sort of thing. The place will be chock full, and we haven’t taken expensive rooms. Mother and me, we didn’t see the sense of it. You are heartily welcome to come with us, Nesta, and if we can give you a good time—why, we will. It’ll be about a week or ten days you’ll be staying, won’t it?”
“Yes, that will be nice,” said Nesta.
“And you don’t mind, dear, sharing the same room with Flossie,” said Mrs Griffiths.
“I don’t mind a bit,” said Nesta.
“Of course, she doesn’t, wife. We always pack up like herrings in a barrel at the seaside, don’t we?”
“That’s true enough,” said Mrs Griffiths, “and I must own sometimes I find it a bit stuffy—that is, when I’m indoors.”
“But you don’t when you’re on the seashore, wife, when you’re looking at the merry-go-rounds and listening to the bands, and watching the niggers dancing, and seeing the Punch and Judy shows.”
Mrs Griffiths smiled and her face relaxed.
“We’ll wade and we’ll bathe and we’ll go out in boats, and we’ll have no end of fun!” said Flossie. “Oh, it will be prime.”
She and Nesta wandered away by themselves when the meal came to an end.
“I didn’t even tell him a lie. Didn’t I manage splendidly?” said Nesta.
Flossie replied that she did.
“Now, I must really be going home. I’ll have to be as good as gold; butter won’t melt in my mouth between now and Saturday,” said Nesta.
She flew home. In the garden she met Molly and Ethel, who were walking up and down, having a rather dull time, poor girls, and were anything but contented. When they saw Nesta they pounced upon her.
“Now, Nesta, it’s all arranged. Marcia has been planning everything. She goes to the St. Justs on Saturday.”
“On Saturday?” said Nesta, starting and colouring very deeply.
“Yes, I thought you knew.”
“I knew she was going, but I didn’t know the day. You needn’t look at me as though you wanted to eat me.”
“You’re so horribly disagreeable, Nesta, ever since you got that bedroom to yourself,” said Ethel. “I hope you’ve put out of your mind, once and for ever, that selfish plan of yours of going away to the seaside with Flossie Griffiths.”
“Am I likely to think much more about it after the way you snubbed me this morning?” replied Nesta.
“Well, that’s all the better, for you will be kept very much occupied. Marcia is a martinet, I will say. Mule Selfish is no word for her. The way she has planned everything—all our time taken up—Molly is to house-keep, and I am to look after the house linen, and Nurse Davenant is to superintend every scrap that mother eats, and mother is to have all her time planned so that she is to be as cheerful as possible, and Marcia will come to see her once a week, and if there is any change for the worse, Marcia will come right back, and won’t we have a time of it, if that happens?”
“I do think,” said Nesta, “that if we ever made a mistake in our lives, it was that time when we begged and implored father and Horace to bring Marcia back.”
“Well, there’s more to come. Father and Horace are also going away on Saturday.”
Nesta’s face very perceptibly brightened. If Marcia was away, as well as her father, and also her brother, why, there would be nobody to make much fuss about her having absented herself. When she was at Scarborough, she would be allowed to stay there, for there would be no one to force her back. How delightful.
“I’m glad they’re going to have a holiday,” she said. “I really am; and they’re going on Saturday?”
“Yes, by the 12:15 train. They’re going through Scarborough right on to—why, how pale you are.”
“It’s so horribly hot,” said Nesta, sinking into a chair.
“Well, that’s about it; they’re going by the 12:15 train, but they’re not going to stop at Scarborough, they’re going to a little place about twenty miles further on. They’re going to have a lot of fishing and yachting. Father says that he doesn’t want to be too far away from mother in her present state, and, of course, Horace loves his fishing. There, Nesta, you do look white. Hadn’t you better go into the house?”
“No, I’m all right; don’t bother me,” said Nesta.
Chapter Twenty.The Missing Sovereign.It was Saturday morning; the Carters were going to Whitby, the Griffiths to Scarborough, Mr Aldworth and his son to a place called Anchorville, on the coast, a remote little fishing hamlet, far away from railways, or any direct communication. Nevertheless a telegram could bring Mr Aldworth back to his wife if necessity arose, within six or seven hours.The whole place seemed to be redolent of paper and string and trunks and labels and all the rest of it, thought Penelope Carter. Penelope was watching eagerly for the post, and that letter from Jim, which never came. She was really working herself into a fever, and when Saturday arrived and the sun shone brilliantly, and the whole world—or at least, all their world—was full of confusion, she could scarcely eat her breakfast. At each sound she started, and Clara came to the conclusion that the child was not well. In reality, Pen, having given up all hope of Jim’s coming to the rescue, was struggling to make up her mind. If, by any chance, her father did not miss the sovereign, she would not tell, but if he missed it, and if he began to suspect any one of having stolen it; why, tell him she must.She ran up to Jim’s room; shut the door and fell on her knees by Jim’s bedside.“Give me strength,” she murmured. “Give me strength. I am awfully frightened. Please, God, give me strength. I won’t let any one else be suspected.”Just then Clara’s voice was heard calling her.“Come along, Pen, what are you hiding for? And in Jim’s room of all places! We want every hand that we can get; we’ll never be in time for the train.”“Where’s father?” said Pen wildly.“How do I know where father is? Pen, you must be mad. What do you want with father of all people?”“Oh, nothing, nothing?” said Pen. “Nothing at all.” She felt frightened at Clara’s manner.“Now, do bustle up,” continued Clara. “Look here, we want a lot of peaches to eat by the way. There are some peaches in the hothouse at the end of the garden, you can pick some of those; never mind how cross old Archer is. Tell him that I want them. He won’t dare to keep anything back from me.”Pen started on her errand. She was glad to be out, but when she reached the place where the peaches were, she stood for a long time in contemplation. Then she suddenly roused herself.“I haven’t a bit of strength; I don’t know how I can do it,” she thought.She went in and picked some peaches, without giving much thought to the fact that they were not ripe, and she was presently aware that old Archer was standing over her. Archer was rather a terrible personage; he began to scold Pen. How dare she take his peaches? and she had not taken the ripe ones. Here were ten lovely peaches absolutely destroyed, good for nothing.“You can’t have ’em,” he said. “I’ll lay ’em in the sun. Maybe they’ll ripen. It’s a sinful shame to have a tree with its fruit torn off in this fashion. Why, Miss Pen, haven’t you got any sense at all? Don’t you know by this time when a peach is ripe and when it isn’t? Miss Clara’ll be in a fine tantrum when she sees these sort of things. Here, give me yer basket, you stand by me, and I’ll select ’em.”Pen did not seem to care. Archer made a careful choice. He picked seven or eight peaches, then chose some nectarines, then some apricots, and then some grapes; the basket was packed, and he was proud of its appearance when he handed it to Pen.She went back to the house. Clara was in the hall, her face was scarlet.“What a time you’ve been,” she said. “I do declare you’ve been away three-quarters of an hour. But oh, that fruit does look good. Put it there in the hall; I’ll tell James to cover it over. Pen, what do you think has happened?”“What?” asked Pen faintly.“Why, father went to his room, as usual, to get his purse to pay the men, and he found a sovereign short. He’s in a thundering rage. Who in the world can have taken it? He has made up his mind that it is Betty, that new under-housemaid. She’s not been with us a month yet. He says he’ll dismiss her; nothing will induce him to keep her unless she confesses.”“Has he—has he—accused her?” asked Pen.“Of course, he has; he went to her and spoke to her, and she’s crying fit to break her heart, but I suppose all the same she has done it. There, there, Pen, it’s no affair of yours. Father would be fit to kill anybody who did such a mean thing. Fancy going to his room and taking a sovereign out of his drawer.”“He—he wouldn’t be likely to forgive very easily?” said Pen.“Forgive! I wouldn’t like to be in Betty’s shoes.” Penelope went slowly upstairs.“Now do hurry; the carriage will be at the door in twenty minutes. And, Pen, do change your dress. We may meet smart people going to Whitby, we may indeed.”Pen turned an angle in the staircase. She walked more and more slowly. Clara’s words kept echoing in her brain. “Father would half kill anybody who had done this. She wouldn’t like to be in Betty’s shoes.” Pen went straight into Jim’s room. When she had shut the door, she said aloud:“You might have helped me out of this awful mess; oh, you might, I wrote you such a distracted letter. Oh, I can’t see Betty. I can’t, I can’t! Oh, what am I to do? Well, I won’t go to Whitby, on that point I have quite made up my mind.”Before her resolution could falter she ran downstairs again.“My dear Pen, not ready yet?” said Mabel, who was now in the hall.“No, I’m not, and what is more, I’m not going.”“Not going, Penelope? Not going?”“No, I’m not well, and I’m not going.”“You do look hot, we all noticed it this morning; but you are not so bad as all that.”“Yes, I am, but you needn’t stay, I can get nursey to look after me. I will go when I am better; anyhow, I am not going to-day, so there.”Mabel rushed at her sister, and felt her brow, and took her hot hand.“I don’t believe you are so bad you can’t go. I wonder where father is? Oh, here you are, Clara. What do you think this tiresome Pen has gone and done?”“What now?” said Clara. “Does she want father? He is at Newcastle. He won’t be back until late this evening. He bade us all good-bye. He asked for Pen, but as she was not about he sent his love to her.”“I don’t want to go,” said Pen, “that’s all. I’m going to stay behind. I’m—I’m not well.”“But what ails you? A headache?”“Splitting,” said Pen.“Pain in your back?”“A bit.”“Sore throat?”“A bit.”“Good gracious! What else have you got a bit of?”“I don’t know—a bit of everything. Anyhow, I’m not going.”“Hadn’t we better take her temperature?” said Clay. “It seems frightfully wrong to leave her.”“No, no, I won’t put that horrid little thing into my mouth,” said Pen. “I’ll stay with nursey. Nursey shall look after me. You can all go, and if nursey wants to send for the doctor she can. But I’m not bad enough for that, only I can’t stand the train. Do let me stay, please, please. If you don’t, you’ll have to take me by force, for I’ll scream and shriek all the way.”The waggonette appeared at the door. The coachman bent down.“Young ladies,” he said, “it’s about time to go.”“Our luggage has gone,” said Clara, “and yours too, Pen.”“Perhaps I’ll come to-morrow,” said Pen. “I can’t—I can’t go now.”“We’ll have to leave her,” said Clara. “I’ll just run up and tell old Richardson to look after her.”Clara rushed upstairs, and found Nurse Richardson, who told her there was not the slightest occasion for any of them to stay with Pen, for she could nurse her and fifty more like her, if it were necessary. Clara, therefore, returned to the hall.“Where is the child?” she asked.“I don’t know,” said Mabel. “Isn’t the here!”“You’ll miss your train, Miss,” said the coachman. “So we will. Clara, do get in!” called out Mabel. “Here you are, Annie, we are both waiting for you.” Clara jumped into the waggonette; the door was slammed to, the delicious fruit lay in a basket on the seat, and the horses started forward. They went down the avenue at a spanking pace. Pen was watching them from behind the house. She gave one glad cry, a cry almost of ecstasy, and then she burst into tears.“Oh, I’m glad and yet I’m sorry,” she said. “Both glad and sorry! both glad and sorry!”Mrs Richardson called and called in vain for Pen; there was no sign of her darling young lady. What in the world had become of her?But Pen was determined to stay out. She had got to make up her mind. There was just a vague hope within her that perhaps Jim might yet return. Perhaps he was coming back in person; he was answering her letter in that best of all ways. Still, it was scarcely likely, for he must know that by Saturday morning his father would have discovered the missing sovereign. There was Betty, too. Pen had scarcely given Betty a thought. She was a very common, rather untidy little girl. She had never in the least attracted Pen; but she hardly thought of any one else that day. And yet, after a fashion, she quite envied Betty, for Betty at least was innocent.“She hasn’t my guilty conscience,” thought Pen. “Oh dear, oh dear, what is to become of me?”By-and-by Pen heard the sound of crying. It came nearer and nearer. A girl with her apron over her head was coming down the shady path where Pen herself was sitting. Pen started to her feet. That was Betty; she could not meet Betty, she would not see her for all the world.But Betty had caught sight of Pen. She ran up to her, removed her apron, and said:“Oh, Miss Pen, couldn’t you save me? Won’t you speak for me to Mr Carter? I ain’t done it, Miss. I ain’t done it. I wouldn’t touch what don’t belong to me. He says I’m the only one thatcouldha’ done it, and if I don’t confess I’m to go, but if I confess he’ll forgive me. But I ain’t done it, and I’ll have to go, and he won’t give me a character, and mother—mother, she’ll never forgive me. She’ll believe as I done it.”“But—but—” said Pen, bringing out her words with difficulty, “didn’t you take it?”“Oh, no, Miss Pen. Oh, that you should think that! All my people are as honest as honest can be. I never took it, I never knew anything about that purse, and I never, never opened a drawer in my master’s room, not since I came to the house. But there, I see you don’t believe me.”Betty did not waste any more time with Pen. She walked on, her sobs grew louder, and then fainter; she was perfectly distracted, she did not know what to do with herself.
It was Saturday morning; the Carters were going to Whitby, the Griffiths to Scarborough, Mr Aldworth and his son to a place called Anchorville, on the coast, a remote little fishing hamlet, far away from railways, or any direct communication. Nevertheless a telegram could bring Mr Aldworth back to his wife if necessity arose, within six or seven hours.
The whole place seemed to be redolent of paper and string and trunks and labels and all the rest of it, thought Penelope Carter. Penelope was watching eagerly for the post, and that letter from Jim, which never came. She was really working herself into a fever, and when Saturday arrived and the sun shone brilliantly, and the whole world—or at least, all their world—was full of confusion, she could scarcely eat her breakfast. At each sound she started, and Clara came to the conclusion that the child was not well. In reality, Pen, having given up all hope of Jim’s coming to the rescue, was struggling to make up her mind. If, by any chance, her father did not miss the sovereign, she would not tell, but if he missed it, and if he began to suspect any one of having stolen it; why, tell him she must.
She ran up to Jim’s room; shut the door and fell on her knees by Jim’s bedside.
“Give me strength,” she murmured. “Give me strength. I am awfully frightened. Please, God, give me strength. I won’t let any one else be suspected.”
Just then Clara’s voice was heard calling her.
“Come along, Pen, what are you hiding for? And in Jim’s room of all places! We want every hand that we can get; we’ll never be in time for the train.”
“Where’s father?” said Pen wildly.
“How do I know where father is? Pen, you must be mad. What do you want with father of all people?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing?” said Pen. “Nothing at all.” She felt frightened at Clara’s manner.
“Now, do bustle up,” continued Clara. “Look here, we want a lot of peaches to eat by the way. There are some peaches in the hothouse at the end of the garden, you can pick some of those; never mind how cross old Archer is. Tell him that I want them. He won’t dare to keep anything back from me.”
Pen started on her errand. She was glad to be out, but when she reached the place where the peaches were, she stood for a long time in contemplation. Then she suddenly roused herself.
“I haven’t a bit of strength; I don’t know how I can do it,” she thought.
She went in and picked some peaches, without giving much thought to the fact that they were not ripe, and she was presently aware that old Archer was standing over her. Archer was rather a terrible personage; he began to scold Pen. How dare she take his peaches? and she had not taken the ripe ones. Here were ten lovely peaches absolutely destroyed, good for nothing.
“You can’t have ’em,” he said. “I’ll lay ’em in the sun. Maybe they’ll ripen. It’s a sinful shame to have a tree with its fruit torn off in this fashion. Why, Miss Pen, haven’t you got any sense at all? Don’t you know by this time when a peach is ripe and when it isn’t? Miss Clara’ll be in a fine tantrum when she sees these sort of things. Here, give me yer basket, you stand by me, and I’ll select ’em.”
Pen did not seem to care. Archer made a careful choice. He picked seven or eight peaches, then chose some nectarines, then some apricots, and then some grapes; the basket was packed, and he was proud of its appearance when he handed it to Pen.
She went back to the house. Clara was in the hall, her face was scarlet.
“What a time you’ve been,” she said. “I do declare you’ve been away three-quarters of an hour. But oh, that fruit does look good. Put it there in the hall; I’ll tell James to cover it over. Pen, what do you think has happened?”
“What?” asked Pen faintly.
“Why, father went to his room, as usual, to get his purse to pay the men, and he found a sovereign short. He’s in a thundering rage. Who in the world can have taken it? He has made up his mind that it is Betty, that new under-housemaid. She’s not been with us a month yet. He says he’ll dismiss her; nothing will induce him to keep her unless she confesses.”
“Has he—has he—accused her?” asked Pen.
“Of course, he has; he went to her and spoke to her, and she’s crying fit to break her heart, but I suppose all the same she has done it. There, there, Pen, it’s no affair of yours. Father would be fit to kill anybody who did such a mean thing. Fancy going to his room and taking a sovereign out of his drawer.”
“He—he wouldn’t be likely to forgive very easily?” said Pen.
“Forgive! I wouldn’t like to be in Betty’s shoes.” Penelope went slowly upstairs.
“Now do hurry; the carriage will be at the door in twenty minutes. And, Pen, do change your dress. We may meet smart people going to Whitby, we may indeed.”
Pen turned an angle in the staircase. She walked more and more slowly. Clara’s words kept echoing in her brain. “Father would half kill anybody who had done this. She wouldn’t like to be in Betty’s shoes.” Pen went straight into Jim’s room. When she had shut the door, she said aloud:
“You might have helped me out of this awful mess; oh, you might, I wrote you such a distracted letter. Oh, I can’t see Betty. I can’t, I can’t! Oh, what am I to do? Well, I won’t go to Whitby, on that point I have quite made up my mind.”
Before her resolution could falter she ran downstairs again.
“My dear Pen, not ready yet?” said Mabel, who was now in the hall.
“No, I’m not, and what is more, I’m not going.”
“Not going, Penelope? Not going?”
“No, I’m not well, and I’m not going.”
“You do look hot, we all noticed it this morning; but you are not so bad as all that.”
“Yes, I am, but you needn’t stay, I can get nursey to look after me. I will go when I am better; anyhow, I am not going to-day, so there.”
Mabel rushed at her sister, and felt her brow, and took her hot hand.
“I don’t believe you are so bad you can’t go. I wonder where father is? Oh, here you are, Clara. What do you think this tiresome Pen has gone and done?”
“What now?” said Clara. “Does she want father? He is at Newcastle. He won’t be back until late this evening. He bade us all good-bye. He asked for Pen, but as she was not about he sent his love to her.”
“I don’t want to go,” said Pen, “that’s all. I’m going to stay behind. I’m—I’m not well.”
“But what ails you? A headache?”
“Splitting,” said Pen.
“Pain in your back?”
“A bit.”
“Sore throat?”
“A bit.”
“Good gracious! What else have you got a bit of?”
“I don’t know—a bit of everything. Anyhow, I’m not going.”
“Hadn’t we better take her temperature?” said Clay. “It seems frightfully wrong to leave her.”
“No, no, I won’t put that horrid little thing into my mouth,” said Pen. “I’ll stay with nursey. Nursey shall look after me. You can all go, and if nursey wants to send for the doctor she can. But I’m not bad enough for that, only I can’t stand the train. Do let me stay, please, please. If you don’t, you’ll have to take me by force, for I’ll scream and shriek all the way.”
The waggonette appeared at the door. The coachman bent down.
“Young ladies,” he said, “it’s about time to go.”
“Our luggage has gone,” said Clara, “and yours too, Pen.”
“Perhaps I’ll come to-morrow,” said Pen. “I can’t—I can’t go now.”
“We’ll have to leave her,” said Clara. “I’ll just run up and tell old Richardson to look after her.”
Clara rushed upstairs, and found Nurse Richardson, who told her there was not the slightest occasion for any of them to stay with Pen, for she could nurse her and fifty more like her, if it were necessary. Clara, therefore, returned to the hall.
“Where is the child?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Mabel. “Isn’t the here!”
“You’ll miss your train, Miss,” said the coachman. “So we will. Clara, do get in!” called out Mabel. “Here you are, Annie, we are both waiting for you.” Clara jumped into the waggonette; the door was slammed to, the delicious fruit lay in a basket on the seat, and the horses started forward. They went down the avenue at a spanking pace. Pen was watching them from behind the house. She gave one glad cry, a cry almost of ecstasy, and then she burst into tears.
“Oh, I’m glad and yet I’m sorry,” she said. “Both glad and sorry! both glad and sorry!”
Mrs Richardson called and called in vain for Pen; there was no sign of her darling young lady. What in the world had become of her?
But Pen was determined to stay out. She had got to make up her mind. There was just a vague hope within her that perhaps Jim might yet return. Perhaps he was coming back in person; he was answering her letter in that best of all ways. Still, it was scarcely likely, for he must know that by Saturday morning his father would have discovered the missing sovereign. There was Betty, too. Pen had scarcely given Betty a thought. She was a very common, rather untidy little girl. She had never in the least attracted Pen; but she hardly thought of any one else that day. And yet, after a fashion, she quite envied Betty, for Betty at least was innocent.
“She hasn’t my guilty conscience,” thought Pen. “Oh dear, oh dear, what is to become of me?”
By-and-by Pen heard the sound of crying. It came nearer and nearer. A girl with her apron over her head was coming down the shady path where Pen herself was sitting. Pen started to her feet. That was Betty; she could not meet Betty, she would not see her for all the world.
But Betty had caught sight of Pen. She ran up to her, removed her apron, and said:
“Oh, Miss Pen, couldn’t you save me? Won’t you speak for me to Mr Carter? I ain’t done it, Miss. I ain’t done it. I wouldn’t touch what don’t belong to me. He says I’m the only one thatcouldha’ done it, and if I don’t confess I’m to go, but if I confess he’ll forgive me. But I ain’t done it, and I’ll have to go, and he won’t give me a character, and mother—mother, she’ll never forgive me. She’ll believe as I done it.”
“But—but—” said Pen, bringing out her words with difficulty, “didn’t you take it?”
“Oh, no, Miss Pen. Oh, that you should think that! All my people are as honest as honest can be. I never took it, I never knew anything about that purse, and I never, never opened a drawer in my master’s room, not since I came to the house. But there, I see you don’t believe me.”
Betty did not waste any more time with Pen. She walked on, her sobs grew louder, and then fainter; she was perfectly distracted, she did not know what to do with herself.
Chapter Twenty One.Nurse Comforter.When Betty had left her, Pen sat very still in the hammock where she had perched herself. Once or twice she swung herself backwards and forwards, but most times she sat motionless. She had come to the first real grave problem in her young life. She had always been a careless, never-may-care, somewhat untidy, reckless little girl. She had had no special training. Being the youngest she had been petted now and then, and scolded now and then; fussed over occasionally, bullied occasionally; allowed to grow up in any sort of fashion. She had had some sort of teachers, but they had never had much influence over her. Nurse Richardson thought more of her than of all the other girls, for was she not her darling, her baby? Her father, too, was fond of pinching her rosy cheeks, and calling her his little dear, or his little pet, just as fancy took him. Her elder sisters made her their messenger, and partly their slave. She did not mind; she was contented. She had a few friends, but not any very special ones. When Nesta and her sisters had come to stay at Court Prospect during their great trouble, Pen had at first taken warmly to Nesta; but she was tired of her now. She had never liked Flossie Griffiths, and Flossie was really Nesta’s friend.As to the affair of the sovereign, Pen had made a bet without giving it a serious consideration. She had never for one moment supposed that Nesta considered it a serious affair. Then Pen had begun to long to be grown up like her sisters, to wear dresses which would cover her somewhat ungainly feet, to walk about with boys, and to receive compliments from them; never to do any tiresome French or German, or any unpleasant practising on the school-room piano, or any grammar, or any English history, or any of those things which she called school work, and hated accordingly. She wanted these things to cease, and she hoped to have a right good time when Clay and Mabel and Annie wore gettingpassée. She considered that Clay would be quitepasséewhen she was one and twenty, and by that time surely Pen, who would be about seventeen, would be in her first charming bloom.By this it will be seen that Pen was quite an ordinary little girl, but she was a girl with a conscience. She had inherited a sturdy sense of honour from her father, who was a good business man, and Pen, had circumstances been different, might have been a good business woman. He had won his present enviable position by the strongest code of honour; he had piled up his gold without injuring any man. To be honest—honest at any cost—was his motto, and he had instilled these ideas into his sons, and had talked about them in the presence of his daughters. The elder girls had never listened, but Pen had. Her conscience now was stirred to its depths. Nothing but fear would have kept her from confessing the truth. She struggled hard with herself for some time.It was the middle of the day, however, and Nurse Richardson, after many fruitless searches, found Pen just at the time when luncheon was to be served. She pounced upon the little girl, and took her hand somewhat roughly.“There now,” she said, “a nice state of things you have been and gone and done. I’ve been the whole morning searching for you. Why, Miss Clara said you were that feverish and sore-throaty and head-achy as never was. Why, what has come to you, Miss Pen? What’s wrong?”Pen sprang from the hammock, ran up to old Richardson, and embraced her.“I’m not a bit head-achy, nor a bit sore-throaty, nor a bit of anything, but just that I didn’t want to go,” she said.“And you made up all that story?”“I’d rather stay with you, nursey,” said Pen, rubbing her cheek against the old woman’s.Nurse was by no means a strict moralist; she was soothed by Pen’s attitude.“Then you will come right in and have a beautiful little bit of dinner,” she said. “Roast duck and green peas, and afterwards a plum tart, and cream and peaches.”Pen was, notwithstanding her perturbation of mind, somewhat hungry.“And you’ll have it up in the old nursery with me,” said Richardson.“All right, nursey, if you’ll eat your dinner with me.”“If you don’t mind, my pretty.”“Mind?” said Pen. “I’d love it.”For the time she was in quite good spirits. She went into the house with the old nurse. They visited the nursery, and the dinner in question was soon brought on the board, and the two ate with hearty good appetite.“I’m that relieved that you ain’t a bit sore-throaty nor head-achy,” said the nurse.“No. I’m as right as possible,” said Pen, “as well as possible,” she repeated. “It isn’t that.”“You’ll go to-morrow? Miss Clara was in a state.”“I don’t know—I don’t know when I’ll go.”Having satisfied her appetite her nervous fears began again.“I want to go back to the garden—I want to be alone,” she said.But as she was leaving the room she turned.“Where’s Betty?” she said.“Betty, the bad little thing! To think of her doing it,” said nurse.“Oh, nursey, do you think she did it?”“You have heard, then, my pet?”“Yes, I have heard.”“Of course, she done it,” said the nurse. “Who else would? All of us old trusted servants, and she just fresh in the place. But I’ve heard before now that the Wren family are just about—well, to say the least of it, not all they might be. She’ll have to go back to Mrs Wren.”“What sort of a woman is Mrs Wren?” asked Penelope.“Oh, a decent body enough; but they do say the husband was a poacher. Well, he’s dead, and Betty’s the eldest of the family. She wouldn’t have got in here if I hadn’t spoke for her, and I’m ashamed of her, that I am.”“Nursey, I do wish you’d tell father that youknowshe hasn’t done it, and beg and beseech of him not to send her away.”“I, tell the master that?” said nurse, holding up her hands. “Much good it would be. He’d say back to me—‘Nurse, who has done it? Until I find out who has done it, I shall suspect Betty Wren and Betty Wren must go out of the house. If she confesses I may forgive her, but if she sticks to it that she hasn’t done it, out she goes, and without a character.’ That’s the master all over, and I must say he’s about right. A thief ought to be punished awfully severe.”Pen went and stood by the window.“I believe I have a bit of a headache,” she said, after a pause. “I’ll just go down to the garden and sit there in the shade. What time is father coming back, nurse?”“I suppose the usual time, about six. He’ll be took up to see you, and he’ll be pleased enough, I take it. You may as well stay with him now until next Saturday, when I understand he is going to join the young ladies.”Pen made no reply to this. When she got into the passage she gave a deep sigh. When would Jim be back? Why had he not answered her letter? She passed his room, the door was ajar, but she did not go in this time. Jim was faithless, he was no better than the others. Indeed, he was worse. He had promised to help her, and then had not done so.She went into the garden and chose a shady seat under a tree, took up a book which she could not read, and then pressed her hand to her eyes.Perhaps she had fallen asleep; at any rate she found herself sitting bolt upright, and gazing straight before her. A great trembling took possession of her, and just for a moment she did not know what had happened. But coming down the path to meet her, was some one who looked very like a vision—some one slender, marvellously graceful, and all in white; a white dress, a white hat, everything white. The hat was tilted back from a broad brow, and the dark hair under it was rendered darker by the shade of the hat, and the eyes were large and misty and very beautiful, and the face was pale. The girl, for Pen soon discovered that it was only a girl, and not an angel, hurried when she saw Pen, and went towards her with outstretched hand. Pen rose, confused and puzzled.“Don’t you know me? I have seen you before. I am Angela St. Just. May I sit down for a little?”“Oh, please do,” said Pen. How delighted Clay would be! How overpowered Mabel would be! Even Annie would be confused, and a little off her guard; but Pen was not confused, nor off her guard in the least. “Would you like the hammock?” she said, “or this seat? The hammock is most comfortable.”“I will take the seat,” said the young lady.She leant back and looked across the garden.“That is our tennis lawn,” said Pen, pointing in the distance. “It used to be the old garden, with the queer dragons and beasts and birds cut out of the box trees. Doesn’t it make a beautiful tennis lawn? Wouldn’t you like to see it? Clay is so proud of it.”“No, I shouldn’t like to see it,” said Angela very gently.She turned those misty, unfathomable eyes of hers towards the little girl.“Don’t you understand,” she said impulsively, and she laid her slender hand on Pen’s arm, “that the old garden was more to me than the tennis lawn is to you?” Pen felt a vague, very vague sort of flutter at her heart. She did not know that she understood, but she felt puzzled and uneasy.“Why have you come here to-day?” was her next question.“I am waiting for my friend, Marcia Aldworth. I hope to take her back with me to-night—that is if Mrs Aldworth’s mind is relieved.”“But what has happened?” said Pen. “Is Mrs Aldworth ill again?”“Not exactly, but she is anxious. Perhaps you can tell us something. It is Nesta.”“What about Nesta?” asked Pen.“She cannot be found. Since early this morning no one has seen her. They are searching for her everywhere, and are making inquiries, but no one knows anything about her. Mrs Aldworth hasn’t been told exactly what has happened, but she particularly misses Nesta, and dear Marcia will not be able to come to me unless Nesta turns up. Do you know anything about her?”“No,” said Pen, a little wearily. She was not deeply interested in Nesta, nor particularly interested in Mrs Aldworth.“I half hoped you might, or some of you. You were so kind to the Aldworths when they were in such trouble about their mother.”“No, I wasn’t kind,” said Pen abruptly, “I didn’t like them.”Angela did not smile; she looked grave.“Still, I don’t know why you came here?” was Pen’s next remark.“Your sister wanted me to come; she invited me, and I thought I would come to see her. Is she at home?”“I’m the only one at home. They have all gone to Whitby to have a spree. I didn’t want to go.”“But why? You are the youngest, are you not?”“Yes, I’m the youngest.”“Why didn’t you want to go?”Pen coloured. There was nothing at all inquisitive in the visitor’s voice, but there was a note of sympathy in it as though in some indescribable, marvellous way she could guess that Pen was in trouble, and that Pen had something on her mind that was worrying her a good deal. Insensibly Pen drew a little nearer to the white-robed visitor.“I say,” she exclaimed, “shall I tell you what I thought you were when I saw you coming down the path?”“What?” asked Angela.“Well, perhaps I had been asleep, I can’t quite tell, but I opened my eyes with a start, and there was an angel coming along; I really thought for a minute that you were an angel; and that is your name, isn’t it?”“Angela is my name.”“Now that I come to look at you more closely, Angela,” said Pen, bringing out the word without the slightest hesitation, “I think you are very like an angel. Have you ever seen them?”“I have never seen them, but I have often thought about them.”“I don’t quite know why you are different from others,” said Pen. “It’s that far-away sort of look, and yet it isn’t the far-away look—you are different, anyhow.”Angela laid her hand again on Pen’s arm.“Tell me your name,” she said.“Pen, Penelope.”“Penelope, what a grand old name. Have you got that wonderful perseverance that the real Penelope had? Will you be as faithful as she was?”But Pen did not know the story of the real Penelope, nor did she ask. Angela’s hand seemed to draw her in some marvellous way.“Look at me,” said Angela very gravely. “I must go in a few minutes. I wonder why I came to you instead of going straight to the front door. Your servant would have sent me away. But as I drew up my ponies at the front entrance, I saw a girl in the garden, and I thought I could bear this visit to the old place best if I came across the garden and spoke to the girl. And do you know, what is more, I hoped the girl would be you?”“Did you?” said Pen, her black eyes dancing with a look of intense pleasure.“I did, for you have such an honest face.”“No, no; if you knew you wouldn’t say that. You wouldn’t speak to me. Angels would have nothing to do with me; but I can’t help it—oh, why did you come?”“Tell me, dear; tell me.”Pen struggled and struggled. Give herself away to this girl, to Angela St. Just, whom all the neighbourhood worshipped from afar; tell this girl what she had done? She could not! But just as little as though Angela were a real angel could Pen withstand the matchless sympathy which Angela could throw into her voice, with which she could fill her eyes, with which she could wrap the sore heart of the puzzled little sufferer.“It was Jim,” said Pen at last in a stricken voice. “Jim—he’s my brother; he’s not a bit like others. Jim has thoughts, you know,thoughts, and he is splendid, and full of honour. He said he would help me out. He promised faithfully, but he went away, he went to a place called The Chase, to some people of the name of Holroyd. He went quite suddenly. I had a talk with him one evening, and I told him; and he said there was only one thing to do, and he’d put it right, and be with me when I did it. But he’s away. Oh dear, oh dear!”“Was the thing you had to do very difficult?”“Awfully. But oh, Angela, you don’t know.”It never occurred to Pen to call this fascinating visitor by any other name.“I am sure I can partly guess; it is exceedingly difficult for any one to own himself or herself in the wrong, and we all do wrong at times. Your brother must be a very nice boy.”“Oh, he’s grand, only I don’t know why he forsook me.”“Tell me more. I think I must have been guided to go down the garden path and have a talk with you.”“But you will never speak to me again.”“Does that really matter, Penelope? The one thing for you to do is to put wrong right.”“I will tell you more,” said Penelope suddenly.“You won’t always be in the house to stare at me as Clay would do, and as Mabel and Annie would do, thinking that perhaps I’d do it again, and always taunting me with it. Oh, no, you won’t be there.”“Only in spirit, and my spirit will be very tender, and full of love to you.”“Love to me?” said Pen.“Of course, Penelope. Can you doubt it?”Penelope could not look in those eyes, which were full of matchless love, eyes such as she had never before encountered. She burst into a torrent of tears, struggled with her emotions, and finally laid her curly head with its wealth of red-gold hair on Miss St. Just’s white dress. The slender hand touched the head once or twice, but Pen was allowed to cry until the pain in her heart was eased a little.“It was this way,” she said, and then she told her story.“I spoke to Jim first, I was driven to it, and—and Nesta was so persistent. But I don’t want to excuse myself.”“I wouldn’t,” said Angela, “for of course you have no excuse.”Her words were perfectly gentle, perfectly firm. Pen looked up at her.“Ah,” she said, “you and my conscience say the same thing.”“I hope so; your conscience is sure to tell you the right thing.”“Well, anyhow, I told Jim, and Jim agreed with me. He said there was only one thing to do. Only, you see, it was like this; he had promised to help me, and he didn’t. He went away instead. I wrote to him, and he took no notice of my letter, no notice at all. I know he must have got it, and I couldn’t speak, although I tried. Then Saturday came, and father has discovered all about the lost sovereign, and Clay said he was in a thundering rage, quite wild with rage. She said he was fit to kill any one who had done it, and he accuses Betty, our new under-housemaid, Betty Wren is her name, and of course, Betty is innocent. He says unless she confesses she will be sent away; that’s quite awful. I don’t know how I am to tell him; I can’t imagine how I am to do it, for he’ll half kill me, and I shall die, die, if Betty Wren is sent away. Oh, I am so frightened. I wish Jim were here. What shall I do?”“You must do this,” said Angela, “you must give your fears to God, he will take care of them, and of you. You must not think of what your father will do, you must simply think of what is right. The very moment he comes in you must go and tell him what you have told me, that in a moment of impulse you took the money, that afterwards you were afraid to tell him, that all the week von have been frightened, that this morning your fears kept you away from him, but that now you wish him to know the truth, and he—but never mind about him; he must know the truth.”“I can’t, Angela, I can’t. Oh, if only Jim were here!”“Do you think I should do instead of Jim?”“You?” exclaimed Penelope. “Oh, Angela! Angela!”
When Betty had left her, Pen sat very still in the hammock where she had perched herself. Once or twice she swung herself backwards and forwards, but most times she sat motionless. She had come to the first real grave problem in her young life. She had always been a careless, never-may-care, somewhat untidy, reckless little girl. She had had no special training. Being the youngest she had been petted now and then, and scolded now and then; fussed over occasionally, bullied occasionally; allowed to grow up in any sort of fashion. She had had some sort of teachers, but they had never had much influence over her. Nurse Richardson thought more of her than of all the other girls, for was she not her darling, her baby? Her father, too, was fond of pinching her rosy cheeks, and calling her his little dear, or his little pet, just as fancy took him. Her elder sisters made her their messenger, and partly their slave. She did not mind; she was contented. She had a few friends, but not any very special ones. When Nesta and her sisters had come to stay at Court Prospect during their great trouble, Pen had at first taken warmly to Nesta; but she was tired of her now. She had never liked Flossie Griffiths, and Flossie was really Nesta’s friend.
As to the affair of the sovereign, Pen had made a bet without giving it a serious consideration. She had never for one moment supposed that Nesta considered it a serious affair. Then Pen had begun to long to be grown up like her sisters, to wear dresses which would cover her somewhat ungainly feet, to walk about with boys, and to receive compliments from them; never to do any tiresome French or German, or any unpleasant practising on the school-room piano, or any grammar, or any English history, or any of those things which she called school work, and hated accordingly. She wanted these things to cease, and she hoped to have a right good time when Clay and Mabel and Annie wore gettingpassée. She considered that Clay would be quitepasséewhen she was one and twenty, and by that time surely Pen, who would be about seventeen, would be in her first charming bloom.
By this it will be seen that Pen was quite an ordinary little girl, but she was a girl with a conscience. She had inherited a sturdy sense of honour from her father, who was a good business man, and Pen, had circumstances been different, might have been a good business woman. He had won his present enviable position by the strongest code of honour; he had piled up his gold without injuring any man. To be honest—honest at any cost—was his motto, and he had instilled these ideas into his sons, and had talked about them in the presence of his daughters. The elder girls had never listened, but Pen had. Her conscience now was stirred to its depths. Nothing but fear would have kept her from confessing the truth. She struggled hard with herself for some time.
It was the middle of the day, however, and Nurse Richardson, after many fruitless searches, found Pen just at the time when luncheon was to be served. She pounced upon the little girl, and took her hand somewhat roughly.
“There now,” she said, “a nice state of things you have been and gone and done. I’ve been the whole morning searching for you. Why, Miss Clara said you were that feverish and sore-throaty and head-achy as never was. Why, what has come to you, Miss Pen? What’s wrong?”
Pen sprang from the hammock, ran up to old Richardson, and embraced her.
“I’m not a bit head-achy, nor a bit sore-throaty, nor a bit of anything, but just that I didn’t want to go,” she said.
“And you made up all that story?”
“I’d rather stay with you, nursey,” said Pen, rubbing her cheek against the old woman’s.
Nurse was by no means a strict moralist; she was soothed by Pen’s attitude.
“Then you will come right in and have a beautiful little bit of dinner,” she said. “Roast duck and green peas, and afterwards a plum tart, and cream and peaches.”
Pen was, notwithstanding her perturbation of mind, somewhat hungry.
“And you’ll have it up in the old nursery with me,” said Richardson.
“All right, nursey, if you’ll eat your dinner with me.”
“If you don’t mind, my pretty.”
“Mind?” said Pen. “I’d love it.”
For the time she was in quite good spirits. She went into the house with the old nurse. They visited the nursery, and the dinner in question was soon brought on the board, and the two ate with hearty good appetite.
“I’m that relieved that you ain’t a bit sore-throaty nor head-achy,” said the nurse.
“No. I’m as right as possible,” said Pen, “as well as possible,” she repeated. “It isn’t that.”
“You’ll go to-morrow? Miss Clara was in a state.”
“I don’t know—I don’t know when I’ll go.”
Having satisfied her appetite her nervous fears began again.
“I want to go back to the garden—I want to be alone,” she said.
But as she was leaving the room she turned.
“Where’s Betty?” she said.
“Betty, the bad little thing! To think of her doing it,” said nurse.
“Oh, nursey, do you think she did it?”
“You have heard, then, my pet?”
“Yes, I have heard.”
“Of course, she done it,” said the nurse. “Who else would? All of us old trusted servants, and she just fresh in the place. But I’ve heard before now that the Wren family are just about—well, to say the least of it, not all they might be. She’ll have to go back to Mrs Wren.”
“What sort of a woman is Mrs Wren?” asked Penelope.
“Oh, a decent body enough; but they do say the husband was a poacher. Well, he’s dead, and Betty’s the eldest of the family. She wouldn’t have got in here if I hadn’t spoke for her, and I’m ashamed of her, that I am.”
“Nursey, I do wish you’d tell father that youknowshe hasn’t done it, and beg and beseech of him not to send her away.”
“I, tell the master that?” said nurse, holding up her hands. “Much good it would be. He’d say back to me—‘Nurse, who has done it? Until I find out who has done it, I shall suspect Betty Wren and Betty Wren must go out of the house. If she confesses I may forgive her, but if she sticks to it that she hasn’t done it, out she goes, and without a character.’ That’s the master all over, and I must say he’s about right. A thief ought to be punished awfully severe.”
Pen went and stood by the window.
“I believe I have a bit of a headache,” she said, after a pause. “I’ll just go down to the garden and sit there in the shade. What time is father coming back, nurse?”
“I suppose the usual time, about six. He’ll be took up to see you, and he’ll be pleased enough, I take it. You may as well stay with him now until next Saturday, when I understand he is going to join the young ladies.”
Pen made no reply to this. When she got into the passage she gave a deep sigh. When would Jim be back? Why had he not answered her letter? She passed his room, the door was ajar, but she did not go in this time. Jim was faithless, he was no better than the others. Indeed, he was worse. He had promised to help her, and then had not done so.
She went into the garden and chose a shady seat under a tree, took up a book which she could not read, and then pressed her hand to her eyes.
Perhaps she had fallen asleep; at any rate she found herself sitting bolt upright, and gazing straight before her. A great trembling took possession of her, and just for a moment she did not know what had happened. But coming down the path to meet her, was some one who looked very like a vision—some one slender, marvellously graceful, and all in white; a white dress, a white hat, everything white. The hat was tilted back from a broad brow, and the dark hair under it was rendered darker by the shade of the hat, and the eyes were large and misty and very beautiful, and the face was pale. The girl, for Pen soon discovered that it was only a girl, and not an angel, hurried when she saw Pen, and went towards her with outstretched hand. Pen rose, confused and puzzled.
“Don’t you know me? I have seen you before. I am Angela St. Just. May I sit down for a little?”
“Oh, please do,” said Pen. How delighted Clay would be! How overpowered Mabel would be! Even Annie would be confused, and a little off her guard; but Pen was not confused, nor off her guard in the least. “Would you like the hammock?” she said, “or this seat? The hammock is most comfortable.”
“I will take the seat,” said the young lady.
She leant back and looked across the garden.
“That is our tennis lawn,” said Pen, pointing in the distance. “It used to be the old garden, with the queer dragons and beasts and birds cut out of the box trees. Doesn’t it make a beautiful tennis lawn? Wouldn’t you like to see it? Clay is so proud of it.”
“No, I shouldn’t like to see it,” said Angela very gently.
She turned those misty, unfathomable eyes of hers towards the little girl.
“Don’t you understand,” she said impulsively, and she laid her slender hand on Pen’s arm, “that the old garden was more to me than the tennis lawn is to you?” Pen felt a vague, very vague sort of flutter at her heart. She did not know that she understood, but she felt puzzled and uneasy.
“Why have you come here to-day?” was her next question.
“I am waiting for my friend, Marcia Aldworth. I hope to take her back with me to-night—that is if Mrs Aldworth’s mind is relieved.”
“But what has happened?” said Pen. “Is Mrs Aldworth ill again?”
“Not exactly, but she is anxious. Perhaps you can tell us something. It is Nesta.”
“What about Nesta?” asked Pen.
“She cannot be found. Since early this morning no one has seen her. They are searching for her everywhere, and are making inquiries, but no one knows anything about her. Mrs Aldworth hasn’t been told exactly what has happened, but she particularly misses Nesta, and dear Marcia will not be able to come to me unless Nesta turns up. Do you know anything about her?”
“No,” said Pen, a little wearily. She was not deeply interested in Nesta, nor particularly interested in Mrs Aldworth.
“I half hoped you might, or some of you. You were so kind to the Aldworths when they were in such trouble about their mother.”
“No, I wasn’t kind,” said Pen abruptly, “I didn’t like them.”
Angela did not smile; she looked grave.
“Still, I don’t know why you came here?” was Pen’s next remark.
“Your sister wanted me to come; she invited me, and I thought I would come to see her. Is she at home?”
“I’m the only one at home. They have all gone to Whitby to have a spree. I didn’t want to go.”
“But why? You are the youngest, are you not?”
“Yes, I’m the youngest.”
“Why didn’t you want to go?”
Pen coloured. There was nothing at all inquisitive in the visitor’s voice, but there was a note of sympathy in it as though in some indescribable, marvellous way she could guess that Pen was in trouble, and that Pen had something on her mind that was worrying her a good deal. Insensibly Pen drew a little nearer to the white-robed visitor.
“I say,” she exclaimed, “shall I tell you what I thought you were when I saw you coming down the path?”
“What?” asked Angela.
“Well, perhaps I had been asleep, I can’t quite tell, but I opened my eyes with a start, and there was an angel coming along; I really thought for a minute that you were an angel; and that is your name, isn’t it?”
“Angela is my name.”
“Now that I come to look at you more closely, Angela,” said Pen, bringing out the word without the slightest hesitation, “I think you are very like an angel. Have you ever seen them?”
“I have never seen them, but I have often thought about them.”
“I don’t quite know why you are different from others,” said Pen. “It’s that far-away sort of look, and yet it isn’t the far-away look—you are different, anyhow.”
Angela laid her hand again on Pen’s arm.
“Tell me your name,” she said.
“Pen, Penelope.”
“Penelope, what a grand old name. Have you got that wonderful perseverance that the real Penelope had? Will you be as faithful as she was?”
But Pen did not know the story of the real Penelope, nor did she ask. Angela’s hand seemed to draw her in some marvellous way.
“Look at me,” said Angela very gravely. “I must go in a few minutes. I wonder why I came to you instead of going straight to the front door. Your servant would have sent me away. But as I drew up my ponies at the front entrance, I saw a girl in the garden, and I thought I could bear this visit to the old place best if I came across the garden and spoke to the girl. And do you know, what is more, I hoped the girl would be you?”
“Did you?” said Pen, her black eyes dancing with a look of intense pleasure.
“I did, for you have such an honest face.”
“No, no; if you knew you wouldn’t say that. You wouldn’t speak to me. Angels would have nothing to do with me; but I can’t help it—oh, why did you come?”
“Tell me, dear; tell me.”
Pen struggled and struggled. Give herself away to this girl, to Angela St. Just, whom all the neighbourhood worshipped from afar; tell this girl what she had done? She could not! But just as little as though Angela were a real angel could Pen withstand the matchless sympathy which Angela could throw into her voice, with which she could fill her eyes, with which she could wrap the sore heart of the puzzled little sufferer.
“It was Jim,” said Pen at last in a stricken voice. “Jim—he’s my brother; he’s not a bit like others. Jim has thoughts, you know,thoughts, and he is splendid, and full of honour. He said he would help me out. He promised faithfully, but he went away, he went to a place called The Chase, to some people of the name of Holroyd. He went quite suddenly. I had a talk with him one evening, and I told him; and he said there was only one thing to do, and he’d put it right, and be with me when I did it. But he’s away. Oh dear, oh dear!”
“Was the thing you had to do very difficult?”
“Awfully. But oh, Angela, you don’t know.”
It never occurred to Pen to call this fascinating visitor by any other name.
“I am sure I can partly guess; it is exceedingly difficult for any one to own himself or herself in the wrong, and we all do wrong at times. Your brother must be a very nice boy.”
“Oh, he’s grand, only I don’t know why he forsook me.”
“Tell me more. I think I must have been guided to go down the garden path and have a talk with you.”
“But you will never speak to me again.”
“Does that really matter, Penelope? The one thing for you to do is to put wrong right.”
“I will tell you more,” said Penelope suddenly.
“You won’t always be in the house to stare at me as Clay would do, and as Mabel and Annie would do, thinking that perhaps I’d do it again, and always taunting me with it. Oh, no, you won’t be there.”
“Only in spirit, and my spirit will be very tender, and full of love to you.”
“Love to me?” said Pen.
“Of course, Penelope. Can you doubt it?”
Penelope could not look in those eyes, which were full of matchless love, eyes such as she had never before encountered. She burst into a torrent of tears, struggled with her emotions, and finally laid her curly head with its wealth of red-gold hair on Miss St. Just’s white dress. The slender hand touched the head once or twice, but Pen was allowed to cry until the pain in her heart was eased a little.
“It was this way,” she said, and then she told her story.
“I spoke to Jim first, I was driven to it, and—and Nesta was so persistent. But I don’t want to excuse myself.”
“I wouldn’t,” said Angela, “for of course you have no excuse.”
Her words were perfectly gentle, perfectly firm. Pen looked up at her.
“Ah,” she said, “you and my conscience say the same thing.”
“I hope so; your conscience is sure to tell you the right thing.”
“Well, anyhow, I told Jim, and Jim agreed with me. He said there was only one thing to do. Only, you see, it was like this; he had promised to help me, and he didn’t. He went away instead. I wrote to him, and he took no notice of my letter, no notice at all. I know he must have got it, and I couldn’t speak, although I tried. Then Saturday came, and father has discovered all about the lost sovereign, and Clay said he was in a thundering rage, quite wild with rage. She said he was fit to kill any one who had done it, and he accuses Betty, our new under-housemaid, Betty Wren is her name, and of course, Betty is innocent. He says unless she confesses she will be sent away; that’s quite awful. I don’t know how I am to tell him; I can’t imagine how I am to do it, for he’ll half kill me, and I shall die, die, if Betty Wren is sent away. Oh, I am so frightened. I wish Jim were here. What shall I do?”
“You must do this,” said Angela, “you must give your fears to God, he will take care of them, and of you. You must not think of what your father will do, you must simply think of what is right. The very moment he comes in you must go and tell him what you have told me, that in a moment of impulse you took the money, that afterwards you were afraid to tell him, that all the week von have been frightened, that this morning your fears kept you away from him, but that now you wish him to know the truth, and he—but never mind about him; he must know the truth.”
“I can’t, Angela, I can’t. Oh, if only Jim were here!”
“Do you think I should do instead of Jim?”
“You?” exclaimed Penelope. “Oh, Angela! Angela!”