As to my special friend Jasmine Thesiger, she was as usual surrounded by an admiring group of men and women, and gave me no particular thought. I looked from one to the other of all our guests: I did not think any more were likely to come. All those who had been specially invited had arrived. My moment had come. Just then, however, just before I rose from my seat to advance into the middle of the room, I noticed coming up the stairs a tall, broad-shouldered man. He was accompanied by a friend of ours, a Mr. Walters, a well-known artist. I had never seen this man before, and yet I fancied, in a sort of intangible way, that his figure was familiar. I just glanced at him for a moment, and I do not believe he came into the room. He stood a little behind Mr. Walters, who remained in the doorway. My hour had come. I glanced atmother. Poor darling, she turned very white. I think she was almost terrified, but as to myself I felt quite cheerful, and not in the least alarmed.
"I want to say something to all my dear friends," I began. I had a clear voice, and it rose above the babel. There came sudden and profound silence.
I saw a lady nudge her neighbour.
"I did not know," I heard her say, "that Westenra recited," and then she settled herself in a comfortable attitude to listen.
I stood in the middle of the floor, and faced everybody.
"I have something to say," I began, "and it is not a recitation. I have asked you all to come here to-day to listen to me." I paused and looked round. How nice our guests looked, how kind, how beautifully dressed! What good form the men were in, and how aristocratic were the women. How different these men and women were from the people I had associated with during the week—the people who took care of the houses in Bloomsbury, the agents who let the houses, the people whom I had met in the busses going to and from the houses. These nice, pleasant, well-bred people belonged to me, they were part and parcel of my own set; I was at home with them.
I just caught the Duchess's eye for a moment, and I think there was alarm in those brown depths, but she was too essentially a woman of the world toshow anything. She just folded her jewelled hands in her lap, leant back in her chair, and prepared to listen. One or two of the men, I think, raised their eye-glasses to give me a more critical glance, but soon even that mark of special attention subsided. Of course it was a recitation. People were beginning to be tired of recitations.
"I want to say something, and I will say it as briefly as possible," I commenced. "Mother does not approve of it, but she will do it, because she has yielded to me as a dear, good,modernmother ought."
Here there was a little laugh, and some of the tension was lessened.
"I want to tell you all," I continued, "for most of you have been our friends since I was a child, that mother and I are—poor. There is nothing disgraceful in being poor, is there? but at the same time it is unpleasant, unfortunate. We were fairly well off. Now, through no fault of our own, we have lost our money."
The visitors looked intensely puzzled, and also uncomfortable, but now I raised my eyes a little above them. It was necessary that if I went on putting them to the test, I should not look them full in the face.
"We are poor," I continued, "therefore we cannot live any longer in this house. From having a fair competence, not what many of you would considerriches, but from having a fair competence, we have come down to practically nothing. We could live, it is true, in the depths of the country, on the very little which has been saved out of the wreck, but I for one do not wish to do that. I dislike what is called decent poverty, I dislike the narrow life, the stultifying life, the mean life. I am my father's daughter. You have heard of my father, that is his picture"—I pointed as I spoke to an oil painting on the wall. "You know that he was a man of action, I also will act." I hurried my voice a trifle here—"So mother and I mean not to accept what many people would consider the inevitable; but we mean, to use a vulgar phrase, to better ourselves."
Now it is certain, our guests were a little surprised. They began to fidget, and one or two men came nearer, and I thought, though I am not sure, that I saw the tall man, with the head of closely cropped hair, push forward to look at me. But I never looked any one full in the eyes; I fixed mine on father's picture. I seemed to hear father's voice saying to me—
"Go on, Westenra, that was very good, you and I are people of action, remember."
So I went on and I explained my scheme. I told it very briefly. Mother and I would in future earn our own living.
I was educated fairly well, but I had no special gifts, so I would not enter the Arena where teachersstruggled and fought and bled, and many of them fell by the wayside. Nor would I enter the Arena of Art, because in no sense of the word was I an artist, nor would I go on the Stage, for my talent did not lie in that direction, but I had certain talents, and they were of a practical sort. I could keep accounts admirably; I could, I believed, manage a house. Then I skilfully sketched in that wonderful boarding-house of my dreams, that house in dull Bloomsbury, which by my skill and endeavour would be bright and render an acceptable home for many. Finally, I said that my mother and I had made up our minds to leave the fashionable part of London and to retire to Bloomsbury.
"We will take our house from September," I said, "and advertise very soon for paying guests, and we hope the thing will do well, and that in ten or twelve years we shall have made enough money to keep ourselves for the future in comfort. Now," I continued, "I appeal to no one to help us. We do not intend to borrow money from anybody, and the only reason I am speaking to you to-day is because I wish, and I am sure mother agrees with me, to be quite frank with you. Mother and I know quite well that we are doing an absolutely unconventional thing, and that very likely you, as our friends of the past, will resent it. Those of you who do not feel that you can associate with two ladies who keep a boarding-house, need not say so in so many words,but you can give us to understand, by means known best to yourselves, whether you will know us in the future. If you want to cut us we shall consider it quite right, quite reasonable, quite fair. Then those who do intend to stick to us, even through this great change in our lives, may be the greatest possible help by recommending us and our boarding-house to their friends, that is, if any of you present have friends who would live in Bloomsbury.
"Mother and I thought it quite fair that you should know, and we thought it best that I should tell you quite simply. We are neither of us ashamed, and mother approves, or at least she will approve presently, of what I have done."
There was a dead silence when I ceased speaking, followed by a slight rustling amongst the ladies. The men looked one and all intensely uncomfortable, and the tall man who had come in with Mr Walters, the artist, disappeared altogether.
I had not been nervous while I was speaking, but I felt nervous now. I knew that I was being weighed in the balance, that I and my scheme were being held up before the mental eyes of these people with the keenest, most scathing criticism. Would one in all that crowd understand me? I doubted it. Perhaps in my first sensation of sinking and almost despair something of my feeling stole into my face, for suddenly Jasmine sprang to her feet and said in an excited, tremulous voice—
"I for one say that Westenra is a very plucky girl. I wish her God speed, and I hope her scheme will succeed."
This was very nice indeed of Jasmine, but I do not know that it relieved the situation much, for still the others were silent, and then one lady got up and went over to mother and took her hand and said—
"I am very sorry for you, dear Mrs. Wickham, very sorry indeed. I fear I must say good-bye now; I am very sorry. Good-bye, dear Mrs. Wickham."
And this lady's example was followed by most of the other ladies, until at last there was no one left in the room but the Duchess of Wilmot and Lady Thesiger and ourselves. Lady Thesiger's cheeks were brightly flushed.
"My dear Westenra," she said, "you are one of the most eccentric creatures in creation. Of course from first to last you are as wrong as you can be. You know nothing about keeping a boarding-house, and you are bound to fail. I could not say so before all those ridiculous people, who would not have understood, but I say so now to you. My dear girl, your speech was so much Greek to them. You spoke over their heads or under their feet, just as you please to put it, but comprehend you they did not. You will be the talk of the hour, and they will mention you as a girl whom they used to know, but who has gone a little mad, and then you will beforgotten. You would have done fifty times better by keeping this thing to yourself."
"That is precisely what I think," said the Duchess. "My dear Mary," she added, turning to my mother, "what is the matter with your child? Is she quiteright?" The Duchess gave an expressive nod, and I saw mother's face turn pale.
"Oh, do listen to me for a moment," interrupted pretty Lady Thesiger, "what I say is this. Westenra is on the wrong tack. If she wishes to earn money, why must she earn it in this preposterous, impossible manner? It would be fifty times better for her to go as a teacher or a secretary, but to keep a boarding-house! You see for yourself, dear Mrs. Wickham, that it is impossible. As long as we live in society we must adhere to its rules, and for West calmly to believe that people of position in London will know her and respect her when she is a boarding-house keeper, is to expect a miracle. Now, I for one will not cut you, Westenra."
"Nor will I cut you, Westenra," said the Duchess, and she gave a profound sigh and folded her hands in her lap.
"Two of your friends will not cut you, but I really think all the others will," said Lady Thesiger. "Then I suppose you expect me to recommend nice Americans to come and stay with you, but it is my opinion that, with your no knowledge at all of this sort of thing, you will keep a very so-so, harum-scarumsort of house. How can I recommend my nice American friends to be made thoroughly uncomfortable by you? Oh, I amverysorry for you."
Lady Thesiger got up as she spoke; she kissed me, squeezed my hand, and said, "Oh child, what a goose you are!" and left the room.
The Duchess followed more slowly.
"I don't forget, my child," she said, "that I am your godmother, that I loved your dear father, that I love your mother, that I also love you. Do not be wilful, Westenra; give up this mad scheme. There are surely other ways open to you in this moment of misfortune. Above all things, try not to forget that you are your father's daughter."
On the evening which followed our last "At Home," mother came to me, and earnestly begged of me to pause and reflect.
"Wherever you go I will go, Westenra," she said; "that may be taken as a matter of course, but I do think you are wrong to go against all the wishes of our friends."
"But our friends won't do anything for us, Mummy!" I answered, "and they will forget us just as soon in the cottage in the country, as they will in the boarding-house in town; sooner, in fact, if that is any consolation to you, and I do want to try it, Mummy, for I cannot be buried alive in the country at twenty-one."
"Then I will say no more," replied mother. "I only trust the way may be made plain for us, for at present I cannot see that it is; but if we can find a suitable house, and take it, I will go with you, West, although, darling, I hate the thing—I do truly."
After this speech of mother's it can easily be supposed that I slept badly that night. I beganfor the first time in my life to doubt myself, and my own judgment. I began even seriously to consider the cottage in the country with its genteel poverty, and I began to wonder if I was to spend the remainder of my youth getting thinner in mind and body, day by day, and hour by hour.
"Anæmic," I said to myself. "In the country with no money, and no interests, I shall become anæmic. My thoughts will be feeble and wanting in force, and I shall die long before my time a miserable old maid. Now, there are no real old maids in London. The unmarried women are just as full of force, and go, and common-sense, and ambition, and happiness as the married ones; but in the country, oh, it is different. There old age comes before its time. I knew that I was not the girl to endure having nothing to do, and yet that seemed to be my appointed portion. So during the night I shed very bitter tears, and I hated society for its coldness and want of comprehension. I longed more frantically than ever to find myself in the midst of the people, where "a man was a man for a' that," and mere veneer went for nothing. But if mother's heart was likely to be broken by my taking this step, and if there was no house for me but 14 Cleveland Street, I doubted very much whether I could go on with my scheme. Judge therefore of my surprise and delight, when on the following morning, mother handed me a letterwhich she had just received. It was from Messrs. Macalister & Co.
"Read it," she said, "I do not quite know what it means."
I read the letter quickly, it ran as follows:—
"Dear Madam,—We write to acquaint you, that we have just had an interview with Mr. Hardcastle, the landlord of 17 Graham Square, and he desires us to say, that he is willing in your case to come to terms with regard to his house, and if you will take it for a lease of fourteen years, he will do it up for you, in the most approved style, and according to your own taste; he also withdraws his embargo to your letting apartments, or having paying guests in your house."Under the circumstances, we shall be glad to hear if you still entertain the idea of taking this mansion.—Yours faithfully,Macalister & Co."
"Dear Madam,—We write to acquaint you, that we have just had an interview with Mr. Hardcastle, the landlord of 17 Graham Square, and he desires us to say, that he is willing in your case to come to terms with regard to his house, and if you will take it for a lease of fourteen years, he will do it up for you, in the most approved style, and according to your own taste; he also withdraws his embargo to your letting apartments, or having paying guests in your house.
"Under the circumstances, we shall be glad to hear if you still entertain the idea of taking this mansion.
—Yours faithfully,
Macalister & Co."
"Oh mother!" I cried, "this is just splendid!" My spirits rose with a bound. Anxious as I was to possess a boarding-house, I hated going to 14 Cleveland Street, but 17 Graham Square was a house where any one might be happy. It was charmingly built; it was large, commodious, cheerful, and then the landlord—he must be a delightful man when he withdrew his embargo, when he permitted us—usto have paying guests in our dwelling. EvenJasmine need not be ashamed to send her nice, rich American friends to 17 Graham Square.
"This is splendid, mother!" I repeated.
"Dear me, Westenra," said mother, looking pale and troubled, "what house is he alluding to? I saw so many that first day, darling, and the only impression they left upon me was, that they were all stairs and narrowness; they seemed to go up and up, for ever and ever, my legs ache even now when I think of them."
"But you cannot forget 17 Graham Square," I said, "the last house we saw ... the corner-house. You recollect the hall, how wide it was, and you know there were darling balconies, and you shall have one, little mother, all to yourself, and such a sweet sun-blind over it, and you can keep your favourite plants there, and be, oh, so happy! Mother—mother, this is magnificent!"
"I do recall the house now," said mother, "it was not quite as bad as the other houses; but still, Westenra, what does this mean? Why should there be an exception made in our favour?"
"Oh, that I know nothing about," I answered, "I suppose the landlord was not going to be so silly as to lose good tenants."
"And what is the rent of the house ... I forget."
"Two hundred and something," I said in a careless tone, "not at all high for such a house, andthe landlord, Mr. Hardcastle, will do it up for us. Mother, we will have the carriage, and go and make our arrangements immediately."
"Then you are quite determined, West?"
"Mother, dear mother, I do think father would like us to do it."
Now, whenever I spoke of my dead father, mother looked intensely solemn and subdued. Once she told me that she thought there was a strong link between my father's spirit and mine, and that at times I spoke so exactly like him, and made use of the identically same expressions, and in short impressed her with the feeling that he was close to her. I did not often use my father's name, therefore, as a means of power over my mother, but I did use it now; and, with the usual result, she got up gently and said—
"We had better go and see the house once more."
We did go, we drove straight to the agents, and got the order to view, and went all over 17 Graham Square. Our second visit was far more delightful than the first, for the agent's clerk accompanied us. We found him in an excellent humour, most willing to offer suggestions and to accept any suggestions of ours. Not that mother made any, it was I who, with my usual daring, spoke of this improvement and the other.
But darling mother became a little cheerful whenshe stood in that noble drawing-room and saw the sun shining in bars across the floor, and the agent's clerk was quite astonishingly cheery; he knew just the colour the paper ought to be, for instance, and the tone of the paint, and he even suggested what curtains would go with such paper and such paint. I never saw a man so improved. He had lost his brusqueness, and was very anxious to please us.
"It is extraordinary," said mother afterwards; "really I never knew that house-agents could be such agreeable people. No. 17 Graham Square is a handsome house, Westenra, it is a great pity that it is not situated in Mayfair."
"But mother, dear mother, we could not have a boarding-house in the very midst of our friends," I said with a smile; "we shall do splendidly in Graham Square, and we should not do at all well in Mayfair."
When we returned to the agents, Mr. Macalister himself, one of the heads of the firm, came and interviewed us. After answering a great many questions, it was finally decided that he was to see Mr. Hardcastle, the landlord, and that the landlord was to have an interview the next day with mother; and the agent further agreed that the landlord should call on mother at our own house in Sumner Place, and then we drove home.
"I suppose it is completed now," said mother, "the thing is done. Well, child, you are having your own way; it will be a lesson to you, I only trustwe shall not be quite ruined. I am already puzzled to know how we are to meet that enormous rent."
But at that moment of my career I thought nothing at all about the rent. That night I slept the sleep of the just, and was in high spirits the following day, when the landlord, a nice, jovial, rosy-faced man, arrived, accompanied by the agent. They both saw my mother, who told them frankly that she knew nothing about business, and so perforce they found themselves obliged to talk to me. Everything was going smoothly until Mr. Hardcastle said in the very quietest of tones—
"Of course you understand, Mrs. Wickham, that I shall require references. I am going to lay out a good deal of money on the house, and references are indispensable."
"Of course," answered mother, but she looked pale and nervous.
"What sort of references?" I asked.
"Tradesmen's references are what we like best," was his reply; "but your banker's will be all-sufficient—an interview with your banker with regard to your deposit will make all safe."
Then mother turned paler than ever, and looked first at me and then at Mr. Hardcastle. After a pause she said slowly—
"My daughter and I would not undertake our present scheme if we had capital—we have not any."
"Not any?" said Mr. Hardcastle, looking blank,"and yet you propose to take a house with a rental of two hundred and eighty pounds a year."
"We mean to pay the rent out of the profit we get from the boarders," I replied.
Mr. Hardcastle did not make use of an ugly word, but he raised his brows, looked fixedly at me for a moment, and then shook his head.
"I am sorry," he said, rising; "I would do a great deal to oblige you, for you are both most charming ladies, but I cannot let my house without references. If you, for instance, Mrs. Wickham, could get any one to guarantee the rent, I should be delighted to let you the house and put it in order, but not otherwise."
He added a few more words, and then he and the agent, both of them looking very gloomy, went away.
"I shall hear from you doubtless on the subject of references," said Mr. Hardcastle as he bowed himself out, "and I will keep the offer open until Saturday."
This was Wednesday, we had three days to spare.
"Now, Westenra," said my mother, "the thing has come to a stop of itself. Providence has interfered, and I must honestly say I am glad. From the first the scheme was mad, and as that nice, jovial looking Mr. Hardcastle will not let us the house without our having capital, and as we have no capital, there surely is an end to the matter. I have not the slightest doubt, West, that all the other landlords in Bloomsbury will be equally particular,therefore we must fall back upon our little cottage in——"
"No, mother," I interrupted, "no; I own that at the present moment I feel at my wits' end, but I have not yet come to the cottage in the country."
I think there were tears in my eyes, for mother opened her arms wide.
"Kiss me," she said.
I ran into her dear arms, and laid my head on her shoulder.
"Oh, you are the sweetest thing on earth," I said, "and it is because you are, and because I love you so passionately, I will not let you degenerate. I will find my way through somehow."
I left mother a moment later, and I will own it, went to my own lovely, lovely room, suitable for a girl who moved in the best society, and burst into tears. It was astonishing what a sudden passion I had taken, as my friends would say, to degrade myself; but this did not look like degradation in my eyes, it was just honest work. We wanted money, and we would earn it; we would go in debt to no man; we would earn money for ourselves. But then the thought came to me, "Was my scheme too expensive? had I any right to saddle mother with such an enormous rent?" I had always considered myself a very fair arithmetician, and I now sat down and went carefully into accounts. I smile to thisday as I think of myself seated at my little table in the big bay window of my bedroom, trying to make out with pencil and paper how I could keep 17 Graham Square going—I, a girl without capital, without knowledge, without any of the sort of experience which alone could aid me in a crisis of this sort.
I spent the rest of the day in very low spirits, for my accounts would not, however hard I tried, show any margin of profit.
The more difficulties came in my way, however, the more determined was I to overcome them. Presently I took a sheet of paper and wrote a few lines to Mr. Hardcastle. I knew his address, and wrote to him direct.
"Dear sir," I said, "will you oblige me by letting me know what capital my mother will require in order to become your tenant for 17 Graham Square."
I signed this letter, adding a postscript, "An early answer will oblige."
I received the answer about noon the following day.
"Dear Miss Wickham,—Your letter puzzles me. I see you have a great deal of pluck and endeavour, and I should certainly do my utmost to please you, but I cannot let you have the house under a capital of five thousand pounds."
"Dear Miss Wickham,—Your letter puzzles me. I see you have a great deal of pluck and endeavour, and I should certainly do my utmost to please you, but I cannot let you have the house under a capital of five thousand pounds."
The letter fell from my hands, and I sat in blank despair. Five thousand pounds is a small sum to many people, to others it is as impossible and as unget-at-able as the moon. We, when our debts were paid, would have nothing at all to live on except the annuity which my mother received from the Government, and a small sum of fifty pounds a year.
I began dismally to consider what rent we must pay for the awful cottage in the country, and to what part of the country it would be best to retire, when Paul came into the room and presented me with a card.
"There's a lady—a person, I mean—downstairs, and she wants to see you, Miss."
I took the card and read the name—Miss Jane Mullins.
"Who is she?" I asked; "I don't know her."
"She's a sort of betwixt and between, Miss. I showed her into the li'bry. I said you was most likely engaged, but that I would inquire."
"Miss Jane Mullins." I read the name aloud. "Show her up, Paul," I said then.
"Oh, my dear West, what do you mean?" said mother; "that sort of person has probably called to beg."
"She may as well beg in the drawing-room as anywhere else," I said. "I have rather taken a fancy to her name—Jane Mullins."
"A hideous name," said mother; but she did not add any more, for the next moment there came a rustle of harsh silk on the landing, the drawing-room door was flung open by Paul in his grandest style, and Miss Jane Mullins walked in. She entered quickly, with a determined step. She was a little woman, stoutly built, and very neatly and at the same time quietly dressed. Her dress was black silk, and I saw at a glance that the quality of the silk was poor. It gave her a harsh appearance, which was further intensified by a kind of fixed colour in her cheeks. Her face was all over a sort of chocolate red. She had scanty eyebrows and scanty hair, her eyes were small and twinkling, she had a snub nose and a wide mouth. Her age might have been from thirty-five to forty. She had, however, a great deal of self-possession, and did not seem at all impressed by my stately-looking mother and by my tall, slender self.
As she had asked particularly to see me, mother now retired to the other end of the long drawing-room and took up a book. I invited Miss Mullins to a chair.
"I would a great deal rather you called me Jane at once and have done with it," was her remarkable response to this; "but I suppose Jane will come in time." Here she heaved a very deep sigh, raised her veil of spotted net, and taking out her handkerchief, mopped her red face.
"It's a warm day," she said, "and I walked most of the way. I suppose you would like me to proceed to business. I have come, Miss Wickham—Miss Westenra Wickham—to speak on the subject of 17 Graham Square."
"Have you?" I cried. Had the ground opened I could not have been more amazed. What had this little, rather ugly woman, to do with my dream-house, 17 Graham Square?
"It is a very beautiful, fine house," said the little woman. "I went all over it this morning. I heard from your agents, Messrs. Macalister & Co., that you are anxious to take it."
I felt that my agents were very rude in thus giving me away, and made no response beyond a stately bend of my head. I was glad that mother was occupying herself with some delicate embroidery in the distant window. She certainly could not hear our conversation.
Miss Mullins now pulled her chair forward and sat in such a position that her knees nearly touched mine.
"You'll forgive a plain question," she said; "I am here on business. Are you prepared to take the house?"
"We certainly wish to take it," I said.
"But are you going to take it, Miss Wickham?"
I rather resented this speech, and was silent.
"Now I'll be plain. My name is blunt, and so is my nature. I want the house."
I half rose.
"Sit down, Miss Wickham, and don't be silly."
This speech was almost intolerable, and I thought the time had come when I should call to mother to protect me, but Jane Mullins had such twinkling, good-humoured eyes, that presently my anger dissolved into a curious desire to laugh.
"I know, Miss Wickham, you think me mad, and I was always accounted a little queer, but I'll beat about the bush no longer. You want 17 Graham Square, and so do I. You have got beauty and good birth and taste and style, and your name and your appearance will draw customers; and I have got experience and"—here she made a long, emphatic pause—"money. Now my question is this: Shall we club together?"
I never in all my life felt more astonished, I was nearly stunned.
"Club together?" I said.
"Yes, shall we? Seven thousand pounds capital has been placed at my disposal. You, I understand, have got furniture, at least some furniture"—here she glanced in a rather contemptuous way round our lovely drawing-room. "You also, of course, have a certain amount of connection, and I have got a large and valuable connection. Shall we club together?"
"I do not think we have any connection at all," I said bluntly; "not one of our friends will noticeus when we go to—to Bloomsbury, and we have not half enough furniture for a house like 17 Graham Square. But what do you mean by our clubbing together?"
"Let me speak, my dear. What I want is this. I want you to put your furniture, what there is of it, and your connection, what there is of it, and your good birth and your style, and your charming mother into the same bag with my experience and my capital—or rather, the capital that is to be given to me. Will you do it? There's a plain question. Is it to be yes, or is it to be no? I want 17 Graham Square, and so do you. Shall we take it together and make a success of it? I like you, you are honest, and you're nice to look at, and I don't mind at all your being stiff to me and thinking me queer, for by-and-by we'll be friends. Is it to be a bargain?"
Just then mother rose from her seat and came with slow and stately steps across the room.
"What is it, Westenra?" she said; "what does this—this lady want?"
"Oh, I'm not a lady, ma'am," said Jane Mullins, rising and dropping a sort of involuntary curtsey. "I'm just a plain body, but I know all about cooking, and all about servants, and all about house linen, and all about dusting, going right into corners and never slurring them, and all the rest, and I know what you ought to give a pound for beef and formutton, and what you ought to give a dozen for eggs, and for butter, and how to get the best and freshest provisions at the lowest possible price. I know a thousand things, my dear madam, that you do not know, and that your pretty daughter doesn't know, and what I say is; as we both want 17 Graham Square, shall we put our pride in our pockets and our finances into one bag, and do the job. My name is Jane Mullins. I never was a grand body. I'm plain, but I'm determined, and I am good-humoured, and I am true as steel. I can give you fifty-four references if you want them, from a number of very good honest tradesmen who know me, and know that I pay my debts to the uttermost farthing. Will you join me, or will you not?"
"Well," said mother, when this curious little person had finished speaking, "this is quite the most astounding thing I ever heard of in my life. Westenra dear, thank this person very kindly, tell her that you know she means well, but that of course we could not think of her scheme for a single moment."
Mother turned as she spoke, and walked up the drawing-room again, and I looked at Jane Mullins, and Jane Mullins looked at me, and her blue eyes twinkled. She got up at once and held out her hand.
"Then that's flat," she said; "you'll be sorry you have said it, for Jane Mullins could have done well by you. Good-bye, miss; good-bye, ma'am."
She gave a little nod in the direction of my stately mother, and tripped out of the room. I was too stunned even to ring the bell for Paul, and I think Jane Mullins let herself out.
Well, as soon as she was gone, mother turned on me and gave me the first downright absolute scolding I had received since I was a tiny child. She said she had been willing, quite willing, to please me in every possible way, but when I descended to talk to people like Jane Mullins, and to consider their proposals, there was an end of everything, and she could not, for my father's sake, hear of such an outrageous proposal for a moment. This she said with tears in her eyes, and I listened quite submissively until at last the precious darling had worn her anger out, and sat subdued and inclined to cry by the open window. I took her hand then and petted her. I told her that really my scolding was quite unmerited, as I had never heard of Jane Mullins before, and was as much amazed as she was at her visit.
"All the same," I added, "I have not the slightest doubt that, with Jane Mullins at the helm, we should do splendidly."
"My darling, darling West, this is just the straw too much," said mother, and then I saw that it was the straw too much, and at that moment who should come to visit us but pretty little Lady Thesiger. We turned the conversation instinctively. Lady Thesiger said—
"You have not yet gone under, either of you, you are only talking about it. You are quite fit to associate with me for the rest of the day. I want you to come for a long drive in my carriage, and afterwards we will go to the theatre together; there is a very good piece on at the Lyceum. Now, then, be quick, Westenra, get into your very smartest clothes, and Mrs. Wickham, will you also put on your bonnet and mantle?"
There was never any resisting Jasmine, and we spent the rest of the day with her, and she was absolutely winning, and so pleasant that she made mother forget Jane Mullins; but then during dinner, in the queerest, most marvellous way, she drew the whole story of Jane Mullins from us both, and mother described with great pride her action in the matter.
"Yes, that is all very fine," replied Jasmine; "but now I am going to say a plain truth. I am going to imitate that wonderful little Jane. My truth is this—I would fifty thousand times rather introduce my nice American friends to Jane Mullins's boarding-house than I would to yours, Westenra, for in Jane's they would have their wants attended to, and be thoroughly comfortable, whereas in yours goodness only knows if the poor darlings would get a meal fit to eat."
This was being snubbed with a vengeance, and even mother looked angry, and I think she thought that Lady Thesiger had gone too far.
During the play that followed, and the drive home and the subsequent night, I thought of nothing but Jane Mullins, and began more and more to repent of my rash refusal of her aid. Surely, if Providence had meant us to carry out our scheme, Providence had also supplied Jane Mullins to help us to do it, and if ever woman looked true she did, and if her references turned out satisfactory why should she not be a sort of partner-housekeeper in the concern?
So the next morning early I crept into mother's room, and whispered to her all about Jane and my thoughts during the night, and begged of her to reconsider the matter.
"It is very odd, West," said mother, "but what your friend Jasmine said has been coming to me in my dreams; and you know, darling, you know nothing about cooking, and I know still less, and I suppose this Miss Mullins would understand this sort of thing, so, Westenra, if your heart is quite, quite set on it, we may as well see her again."
"She left her address on her visiting-card. I will go to her the moment I have finished breakfast," was my joyful response.
I ordered the carriage and set off, mother having declined to accompany me. Miss Mullins's address was at Highgate; she lived in a small, new-looking house, somewhere near the Archway. I daresay Jane saw me from the window, for I had scarcely run up the little path to her house, and had scarcely finished sounding the electric bell, before the door was opened by no less a person than herself.
"Ah," she said, "I felt somehow that you would call; come in, Miss Wickham."
Her manner was extremely cordial, there was not a trace of offence at the way in which we had both treated her the day before. She ushered me into a sort of little Berlin wool room, all looking as neat as a new pin. There was Berlin wool everywhere, on the centre-table, on the mantelpiece, on the little side-table. There were Berlin wool antimacassars and a Berlin wool screen, in which impossible birds disported themselves over impossible water, and there was a large waxwork arrangement of fruit and flowers in the centre of the mantelpiece, and there were six chairs, all with their backs decorouslyplaced against the wall, and not a single easy chair. But the room was spick and span with cleanliness and brightness and the due effects of soap and water and furniture-polish. The little room even smelt clean.
Miss Mullins motioned me to one of the hard chairs.
"I must apologise for the absence of the rocking-chair," she said, "it is being mended, but I dare say being young you won't mind using that hard chair for a little."
"Certainly not," I replied.
"I observe that every one lounges dreadfully just now," she continued, "but I myself hate easy chairs, and as this is my own house I do not have them in it. The room is clean, but not according to your taste, eh?"
"It is a nice room of its kind," I said, "but——"
"You need not add any buts, I know quite well what you are thinking about," said Jane Mullins; then she stood right in front of me, facing me.
"Won't you sit down?" I said.
"No, thank you, I prefer standing. I only sit when I have a good deal on my mind. What is it you have come to say?"
I wished she would help me, but she had evidently no intention of doing so. She stood there with her red face and her twinkling eyes, and her broad, good-humoured mouth, the very personificationof homely strength, but she was not going to get me out of my difficulty.
"Well," I said, stammering and colouring, "I have been thinking over your visit, and—and——"
"Yes, go on."
"Do you really mean it, Miss Mullins?" I said then. "Would you really like to join two such ignorant people as mother and me?"
"Hark to her," said the good woman. "Look here, Miss Wickham, you have reached quite the right frame of mind, and you're not a bit ignorant, my dear, not a bit, only your knowledge and my knowledge are wide apart. My dear Miss Wickham, knowledge is power, and when we join forces and put our united knowledge into the same bag, we will have huge results, huge results, my dear—yes, it is true."
"Let us talk it out," I said.
"Do you really mean, Miss Wickham, that you and your mother—your aristocratic mother—are seriously thinking of entering into partnership with me?"
"I don't know about mother, but I know that I am leaning very much towards the idea," I said; "and I think I ought to apologise, both for my mother and myself, for the rude way in which we treated you yesterday."
"I expected it, love; I was not a bit surprised," said Jane Mullins. "I thought it best to plumpout the whole scheme and allow it to simmer in your minds. Of course, at first, you were not likely to be taken with it, but you were equally likely to come round. I stayed in this morning on purpose; I was almost sure you would visit me."
"You were right," I said. "I see that you are a very wise woman, and I am a silly girl."
"You are a very beautiful girl, Miss Wickham, and educated according to your station. Your station and mine are far apart, but having got capital and a certain amount of sense, it would be a very good partnership, if you really think we could venture upon it."
"I am willing," I said suddenly.
"Then, that is right; here's my hand upon it; but don't be more impulsive to-day, my dear, than you were yesterday. You must do things properly. Here are different references of mine." She walked across the room, took up a little packet, and opened it.
"This is a list of tradespeople," she said; "I should like you to write to them all; they will explain to a certain extent my financial position; they will assure you that I, Jane Mullins, have been dealing with them for the things that I require for the last seven years—a seven years' reference is long enough, is it not? But if it is not quite long enough, here is the address of the dear old Rector in Shropshire who confirmed me, and in whoseSunday-school I was trained, and who knew my father, one of the best farmers in the district.
"So much for my early life, but the most important reference of all is the reference of the friend, who does not choose his or her name to be mentioned, and who is helping me with capital; not helping you, Miss Wickham, mind—not you nor Mrs. Wickham—but memyself, with capital to the tune of seven thousand pounds. I could not do it but for that, and as the person who is lending me this money to make this great fortune happens to be a friend of Mr. Hardcastle's, I think he, Mr. Hardcastle, will let us have the house."
"Now this is all very startling and amazing," I said. "You ought to tell us your friend's name and all about it; that is, if we are to go properly into partnership."
"It can't be done, my dear. The friend is a very old friend and a very true one, and Mr. Hardcastle is the one to be satisfied. The friend knows that for years I have wanted to start a boarding-house, but the friend always thought there were difficulties in the way. I was too homely, and people are grand in these days, and want some society airs and manners, which you, my dear, possess. So if we put our fortunes into one bag everything will come right, and you must trust me, that's all."
I was quite silent, thinking very hard.
"When I saw 17 Graham Square yesterday,"continued Miss Mullins, "I said to myself, if there is a suitable house for our purpose in the whole W.C. district it is that house. What a splendid drawing-room there is, or rather two drawing-rooms; just the very rooms to entertain people in in the evening. Now if we put all our fortunes into one bag, you, my dear Miss Wickham, shall have the social part of the establishment under your wing. I will arrange all about the servants, and will see that the cooking is right, and will carve the joints at dinner; and your beautiful, graceful, aristocratic lady mother must take the head of the table. She won't have a great deal to do, but her presence will work wonders."
"And do you think we shall make any money with this thing?" I said.
"It is my impression that we will; indeed I am almost sure of it, but the house must be furnished suitably."
"But what is your taste with regard to furniture, Miss Mullins?" I asked, and now I looked apprehensively round the little Berlin wool room.
"Well, I always did incline to the primitive colours. I will be frank with you, and say honestly that I never pass by that awful shop, Liberty's in Regent Street, without shuddering. Their greens and their greys and their pinks are not my taste, love—no, and never will be; but I shall leave the furnishing to you, Miss Wickham, for I see by thetone of that dress you are now wearing that you adhere to Liberty, and like his style of decoration."
"Oh, I certainly do," I replied.
"Very well then, you shall furnish in Liberty style, or in any style you fancy; it does not matter to me. You know the tastes of your own set, and I hope we'll have plenty of them at No. 17, my dear. As a matter of fact, all I care about in a room is that it should be absolutely clean, free from dust, tidily arranged, and not too much furniture in it. For the rest—well, I never notice pretty things when they are about, so you need not bother about that as far as I am concerned. The house is a very large one, and although you have some furniture to meet its requirements, and what I have in this little room will do for my own sitting-room, still I have not the slightest doubt we shall have to spend about a thousand pounds in putting the house into apple-pie order; not a penny less will do the job, of that I am convinced."
As I had no knowledge whatever on the subject I could neither gainsay Miss Mullins nor agree with her.
"The house must be the envy of all the neighbours," she said, and a twinkle came into her eyes and a look of satisfaction round her mouth.
"Oh, it shall be. How delightful you are!" I cried.
"What I propose is this," said Jane Mullins;"we—your mother, you and I—sign the lease, and we three are responsible. I take one third of the profits, you a third, and your mother a third."
"But surely that is not fair, for you are putting capital into it."
"Not at all, it is my friend's capital, and that is the arrangement my friend would like. Come, I cannot work on any other terms. I take a third, you a third, and your mother a third. I, having experience, do the housekeeping. Having experience, I order the servants. You arrange the decorations for the table, you have the charge of the flowers and the drawing-room in the evenings. As funds permit and paying guests arrive you inaugurate amusements in the drawing-room, you make everything as sociable and as pleasant as possible. Your mother gives tone and distinction to the entire establishment."
"You seem to be leaving very little for mother and me to do," I said.
"Your mother cannot have much to do, for I do not think she is strong," said Miss Mullins. "She is older than I am too, and has seen a great deal of sorrow; but what she does, remember no one else can do, she givesthe tone. It's a fact, Miss Wickham, that you may try all your life, but unless Providence has bestowed tone upon you, you cannot acquire it. Now I have no tone, and will only obtrude myself into the social circle to carve the joints at dinner;otherwise I shall be busy, extremely busy in my own domain."
"Well, as far as I am concerned, I am abundantly willing to enter into this partnership," I said. "I like you very much, and I am sure you are honest and true. I will tell mother what you have said to me, and we will let you know immediately."
"All I ask is that you prove me, my dear," said the little woman, and then she took my hand and gave it a firm grip.
Everything went smoothly after my interview with Jane Mullins. In an incredibly short space of time the contract for the house was signed. It was signed by mother, by me, and by Jane Mullins. Then we had exciting and extraordinary days hunting for that furniture which Jane considered suitable, and consulting about the servants, and the thousand and one small minutiæ of the establishment. But finally Jane took the reins into her own hands, whisking my mother and me off to the country, and telling us that we could come and take possession on the 29th of September.
"There won't be any visitors in the house then," she said, "but all the same, the house will be full, from attic to cellar, before the week is out, and you had best be there beforehand. Until then enjoy yourselves."
Well, I did enjoy myself very much. It was quite terrible of me, for now and then I saw such a look of sorrow on mother's face; but I really did get a wonderful heartening and cheering up by Jane, and when the weeks flew by, and the long desiredday came at last, I found myself in excellent spirits, but mother looked very pale and depressed.
"You will get accustomed to it," I said, "and I think in time you will learn to like it. It is a brave thing to do. I have been thinking of father so much lately, and I am quite certain that he would approve."
"Do you really believe that, West?" asked my mother; "if I thought so, nothing would really matter. West, dearest, you are so brave and masculine in some things, you ought to have been a man."
"I am very glad I am a woman," was my reply, "for I want to prove that women can do just as strong things as men, and just as brave things if occasion requires."
So we arrived at the boarding-house, and Jane Mullins met us on the steps, and took us all over it. It was a curious house, and at the same time a very beautiful one. There was a certain mixture of tastes which gave some of the rooms an odd effect. Jane's common-sense and barbarous ideas with regard to colour, rather clashed with our æsthetic instincts and our more luxurious ideas. But the drawing-room at least was almost perfect. It was a drawing-room after mother's own heart. In reality it was a very much larger and handsomer room than the one we had left in Sumner Place, but it had a home-like look, and the colouring was in one harmonious scheme, which took away from any undue effect of size, and at the same time gave adelicious sense of space. The old pictures, too, stood on the walls, and the old lovely curtains adorned the windows; and the little easy chairs that mother loved, stood about here and there, and all the nicknacks and articles of vertu were to be found in their accustomed places; and there were flowers and large palms, and we both looked around us with a queer sense of wonder.
"Why, mother," I said, "this is like coming home."
"So it is," said mother, "it is extraordinary."
"But Miss Mullins," I continued, "you told me you had no taste. How is it possible that you were able to decorate a room like this, and, you dear old thing, the carpet on the floor has quite a Liberty tone, and what a lovely carpet, too!"
Jane absolutely blushed. When she blushed it was always the tip of her nose that blushed—it blushed a fiery red now. She looked down, and then she looked up, and said after a pause—
"I guessed that, just what I would not like you would adore, so I did the furnishing of this room on that principle. I am glad you are pleased. I don't hold myself with cut flowers, nor nicknacks, nor rubbish of that sort, but you do; and when people hold with them, and believe in them, the more they have of them round, the better pleased they are. Oh, and there's a big box of Fuller's sweetmeats on that little table. I thought you would eat those if you had no appetite for anything else."
"But I have an excellent appetite," I answered; "all the same, I am delighted to see my favourite sweets. Come, mother, we will have a feast, both of us; you shall enjoy your favourite bon-bon this minute."
Mother got quite merry over the box, and Jane disappeared, and in five minutes or so, a stylishly dressed parlour-maid came in with arécherchétea, which we both enjoyed.
Mother's bedroom was on the first floor, a small room, but a very dainty one; and this had been papered with a lovely shade of very pale gold, and the hangings and curtains were of the same colour. There was a little balcony outside the window where she could sit, and where she could keep her favourite plants, and there in its cage was her old Bully, who could pipe "Robin Adair," "Home, sweet Home," and "Charlie is my Darling." The moment he saw mother he perked himself up, and bent his little head to one side, and began piping "Charlie is my Darling" in as lively a tone as ever bullfinch possessed.
I had insisted beforehand on having my room at the top of the house not far from Jane's, for of course the best bedrooms were reserved for the boarders, the boarders who had not yet come.
"But I have sheafs of letters, with inquiries about the house," said Jane, "and after dinner to-night, my dear Miss Wickham, you and I must go into these matters."
"And mother, too," I said.
"Just as she pleases," replied Jane, "but would not the dear lady like her little reading-lamp and her new novel? I have a subscription at Mudie's, and some new books have arrived. Would it not be best for her?"
"No," I said with firmness, "mother must have a voice in everything; she must not drop the reins, it would not be good for her at all."
Accordingly after dinner we all sat in the drawing-room, and Jane produced the letters. Mother and I were dressed as we were accustomed to dress for the evening. Mother wore black velvet, slightly, very slightly, open at the throat, and the lace ruffles round her throat and wrists were of Brussels, and she had a figment of Brussels lace arranged with velvet and a small feather on her head. She looked charming, and very much as she might have looked if she had been going to the Duchess's for an evening reception, or to Lady Thesiger's for dinner.
As to me, I wore one of the frocks I had worn last season, when I had not stepped down from society, but was in the thick of it, midst of all the gaiety and fun.
Jane Mullins, however, scorned to dress for the evening. Jane wore in the morning a kind of black bombazine. I had never seen that material worn by anybody but Jane, but she adhered to it. It shone and it rustled, and was aggravating to thelast degree. This was Jane's morning dress, made very plainly, and fitting close to her sturdy little figure, and her evening dress was that harsh silk which I have already mentioned. This was also worn tight and plain, and round her neck she had a white linen collar, and round her wrists immaculate white cuffs, and no cap or ornament of any kind over her thin light hair. Jane was certainly not beautiful to look at, but by this time mother and I had discovered the homely steadfastness of her abilities, and the immense good nature which seemed to radiate out of her kind eyes, and we had forgotten whether she was, strictly speaking, good-looking or not.
Well, we three sat together on this first evening, and Jane produced her letters.
"Here is one from a lady in the country," she began; "she wishes to come to London for the winter, and she wishes to bring a daughter with her; the daughter requires lessons in something or other, some useless accomplishment, no doubt—anyhow that is their own affair. They wish to come to London, and they want to know what we will take them for as permanent boarders. The lady's name is Mrs. Armstrong. Her letter of inquiry arrived yesterday, and ought to be answered at once. She adds in a postscript—'I hope you will do me cheap.' I don't like that postscript; it has a low, mean sort of sound about it, and I doubtif we will put up with her long, but, as she is the very first to apply for apartments, we cannot tell her that the house is full up. Now I propose that we give Mrs. Armstrong and her daughter the large front attic next to my room. If the young lady happens to be musical, and wishes to rattle away on a piano, she can have one there, and play to her heart's content without anybody being disturbed. She cannot play anywhere else that I can see, for your lady mother, my dear Miss Wickham, cannot be worried and fretted with piano tunes jingling in her ears."
"West's mother must learn to put up with disagreeables," was my mother's very soft reply.
But I did not want her to have any disagreeables, so I said—
"Perhaps we had better not have Mrs. Armstrong at all."
"Oh, my dear," was Jane's reply, "why should my spite at that postscript turn the poor woman from a comfortable home? She shall come. We will charge three guineas a week for the two."
"But that is awfully little," I replied.
"It is quite as much as they will pay for the attic, and they will be awfully worrying, both of them. I feel it in my bones beforehand. They'll be much more particular than the people who pay five guineas a head for rooms on the first floor. Mark my words, Miss Wickham, it is the atticboarders who will give the trouble, but we cannot help that, for they are sure and certain, and are the backbone of the establishment. I'll write to Mrs. Armstrong, and say that if they can give us suitable references they can come for a week, in order that both parties may see if they are pleased with the other."
"Shall I write, or will you?" I asked.
"Well, my dear, after a bit I shall be very pleased if you will take the correspondence, which is sure to be a large item, but just at first I believe that I can put things on a more business-like footing."
"Thank you very much," I said in a relieved tone.
"That letter goes to-night," said Jane. She took a Swan fountain pen from its place by her waist, scribbled a word or two on the envelope of Mrs. Armstrong's letter, and laid it aside.
"Now I have inquiries from a most genteel party, a Captain and Mrs. Furlong: he is a retired army man, and they are willing to pay five guineas a week between them for a comfortable bedroom."
"But surely that is very little," I said again.
"It is a very fair sum out of their pockets, Miss Wickham, and I think we can afford to give them a nice room looking south on the third floor, not on the second floor, and, of course, not on the first; but on the third floor we can give them that large room which is decorated with the sickly green. It willturn them bilious, poor things, if they are of my way of thinking."
Accordingly Captain and Mrs. Furlong were also written to that evening, to the effect that they might enter the sacred precincts of 17 Graham Square as soon as they pleased.
Two or three other people had also made inquiries, and having talked their letters over and arranged what replies were to be sent, Miss Mullins, after a certain hesitation which caused me some small astonishment, took up her final letter.
"A gentleman has written who wishes to come," she said, "and I think he would be a desirable inmate."
"A gentleman!" cried mother, "a gentleman alone?"
"Yes, madam, an unmarried gentleman."
I looked at mother. Mother's face turned a little pale. We had neither of us said anything of the possibility of there being unmarried gentlemen in the house, and I think mother had a sort of dim understanding that the entire establishment was to be filled with women and married couples. Now she glanced at Jane, and said in a hesitating voice—
"I always felt that something unpleasant would come of this."
Jane stared back at her.
"What do you mean, Mrs. Wickham? The gentleman to whom I allude is a real gentleman, andit would be extremely difficult for me to refuse him, because he happens to be a friend of the friend who lent me the seven thousand pounds capital."
"There is a secret about that," I exclaimed, "and I think you ought to tell us."
Jane looked at me out of her honest twinkling eyes, and her resolute mouth shut into a perfectly straight line; then nodding her head she said—
"We cannot refuse this gentleman; his name is Randolph. He signs himself James Randolph, and specially mentions the friend who lent the money, so I do not see, as the house is almost empty at present, how we can keep him out. I should say he must be a nice man from the way he writes. You have no objection to his coming, have you, Mrs. Wickham?"
Still mother made no answer, but I saw a hot spot coming into both her cheeks.
"Didn't I tell you, Westenra," she said after a pause, "that matters might be made very disagreeable and complicated? To be frank with you, Miss Mullins," she continued, "I would much rather have only married couples and ladies in the house."
"Then, my dear madam, we had better close within the week," said Jane Mullins in a voice of some indignation. "You ought to have arranged for this at the time, and if you had mentioned your views I would certainly not have joined partnership with you. What we want are ladiesandgentlemen,and so many of them that the commonplace and the vulgar will not be able to come, because there will not be room to receive them. As to this gentleman, he has something to do in the city, and likes to live in Bloomsbury, as he considers it the most healthy part of London." Here Miss Mullins began to talk very vigorously, and the tip of her nose became suspiciously red once more.
"I propose," she continued, "as he is quite indifferent to what he pays, charging Mr. Randolph five guineas a week, and giving him the small bedroom on the drawing-room floor. It is a little room, but nicely furnished. He will be a great acquisition."
"May I see his letter?" asked mother.
"I am sorry, Madam, but I would rather no one saw it. It mentions my friend, and of course my friend would not like his name to get out, so I must keep the letter private, but if Mr. Randolph makes himself in any way disagreeable to you ladies I am sure he will go immediately, but my impression is that you will find him a great acquisition. I will write to him to-night, and say that he can have the accommodation he requires, and ask him to name the day when he will arrive."
After this we had a great deal of talk on other matters, and finally Jane retired to her premises, and mother and I sat together in the beautiful drawing-room.
"Well, Westenra," said mother, "it is done. What do you think of it?"
"It has only begun, mother dear. Up to the present I am charmed. What a treasure we have secured in Jane."
"It is all very queer," said mother. "Why would not she show us Mr., Mr.——what was his name, Westenra?"
"Randolph," I interrupted.
"Why would she not show us Mr. Randolph's letter? I must say frankly that I do not like it. The fact is, West, we are not in the position we were in at Sumner Place, and we must be exceedingly circumspect. You, for instance, must be distant and cold to all the men who come here. You must be careful not to allow any one to take liberties with you. Ah, my child, did we do wrong to come? Did we do wrong? It is terrible for me to feel that you are in such an equivocal position."
"Oh but, mother, I am not. I assure you I can look after myself; and then I have you with me, and Jane Mullins is such a sturdy little body. I am sure she will guide our ship, our new, delightful ship, with a flowing sail into a prosperous harbour; and I cannot see, mother, why we should not receive a man who is a real gentleman. It is the men who are not gentlemen who will be difficult to deal with. Mr. Randolph will probably be a great help to us, and for my part I am glad he is coming."
"Things are exactly as I feared," said mother, and I saw her anxious eyes look across the room as though she were gazing at a vision which gave her the greatest disquietude.
Early the next day I hung father's picture in such a position in the drawing-room that mother could have the eyes following her wherever she turned. She often said that she was never comfortable, nor quite at home, unless under the gaze of those eyes, and we made up our minds not to mind the fact of our new boarders asking questions about the picture, for we were intensely proud of my father, and felt that we could say in a few dignified words all that was necessary, and that my dear father would in a measure protect us in our new career.
Early the next week the first boarders arrived. Three or four families came the same day. Jane said that that was best. Jane was the one who received them. She went into the hall and welcomed them in her brusque tone and took them immediately to their rooms, in each of which printed rules of the establishment were pinned up, and mother and I did not appear until just before dinner, when the different boarders had assembled in the drawing-room.
"Dress for dinner and make yourself look as nice as you possibly can," was Jane's parting shot to me, and I took her advice in my own way.