Chapter 5 The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls by L. T. Meade
THE CONTENTS OF THE CABINET
The uneasiness Miss Martineau felt was by no means shared by the girls. Primrose had in reality a very practical nature; she could housekeep well, and no baker or butcher who ventured to show his face in Rosebury would dream of cheating this bright young lady. No one could make half-a-crown, or even a shilling, go farther than Primrose could. No one could more cleverly convert an old dress into a new, but her little experiences ended here. She had kept the house for her mother, and been both thrifty and saving, but real responsibility had never been hers. The overpowering sensation of knowing that she must make so much money meet so many absolute necessities had never touched her young life. Miss Martineau's words had made her a little thoughtful, but by no means anxious. If she and her sisters could not live on thirty pounds a year there was still the money in the bank.
Primrose thought two hundred pounds, if not a large, at least a very comfortable sum. The only real effect that her old governess's words had on her was to make her a little extra saving.
Jasmine never liked Primrose when she was in a saving mood, and she grumbled audibly when, the morning after Miss Martineau's visit, her elder sister suggested that they should do without some black cotton dresses which the day before they had decided to buy and to make for themselves.
"Such nonsense!" said Jasmine, stamping her little foot impatiently; "you know we want the dresses, Primrose. You know poor Daisy can't run and play in the garden in her black cashmere frock, and I can't dig or weed. You know, when we decided to go on just as usual, just as if mamma—was—was—"
Here Jasmine paused, gulped down a sob, and said, hastily, "We want our print dresses, and we can't do without them. You are just frightened, Primrose, by what Miss Martineau said."
"I am not at all frightened," answered Primrose, calmly; "only I think we ought to be careful."
"And we are so rich, too," said Jasmine. "I never thought we had two hundred pounds in the bank. Why it's heaps and lots of money. Primrose, what are you so grave about?"
"Only," said Primrose, in her slow voice, "only Miss Martineau thought it very, very little money. She looked so grave when she spoke about it—indeed, she seemed almost sad. Jasmine, I really think Miss Martineau quite loves us."
"Perhaps," said Jasmine, in an indifferent tone. "Well, Rose, if you are quite determined to be shabby and saving, I may as well join Daisy in the garden."
Jasmine stooped down, kissed her sister lightly on the forehead, and then ran out of the room. A moment or two later Primrose heard laughing voices floating in through the open window. She was glad in her heart that Jasmine and Daisy were beginning to do things just as usual, and yet somehow their laughter gave her a pang.
The little cottage was a tiny place; it consisted downstairs of one long low room, with a bay window at the extreme end. This room the Mainwarings called the drawing-room, and it was really furnished with great daintiness and care. At one end was the bay window, at the other were glass doors which opened directly into the garden. The kitchen was at the other end of the narrow hall, and this also looked on the garden. Hannah, the one servant, was often heard to object to this arrangement. She gave solid reasons for her objections, declaring roundly that human nature was far more agreeable to her than any part of the vegetable kingdom; but though Hannah found her small kitchen rather dull, and never during the years she stayed with them developed the slightest taste for the beauties of Nature, she was sincerely attached to the Mainwaring girls, and took care to serve them well.
Upstairs were two bedrooms—one looking to the street, in which the girls slept, the prettiest room with the garden view being reserved for Mrs. Mainwaring. Hannah occupied a small and attic-like apartment over the kitchen.
When Jasmine ran into the garden Primrose slowly rose from her seat and went upstairs. It occurred to her that this was a fitting opportunity to do something which she longed and dreaded to accomplish.
Since her mother's death, since the moment when the three young girls had bent over the coffin and strewed flowers over the form they loved, the sisters had not gone near this room.
Hannah had dusted it and kept it tidy, but the blinds had been drawn down and the sun excluded. The girls had shrunk from entering this chamber; it seemed to them like a grave. They passed it with reverent steps, and spoke in whispers as they stole on tiptoe by the closed door.
It occurred, however, to Primrose that now was an opportunity when she might come into the room and put some of her mother's treasures straight. She unlocked the door and entered; a chill, cold feeling struck on her. Had she been Jasmine she would have turned and fled, but being Primrose, she instantly did what her clear common sense told her was the sensible course.
"We have made up our minds to go on as usual," she said to herself; "and letting in the sunlight and the daylight is not forgetting our dear mother."
Then she pulled up the blinds, and threw the window-sashes wide open.
A breath of soft warm air from the garden instantly filled the dreary chamber, and Primrose, sitting down by an old-fashioned little cabinet, slipped a key into the lock of the centre drawer, and opened it.
Mrs. Mainwaring had been by no means a tidy or careful person—she hated locks, and seemed to have a regular aversion to neatly-kept drawers or wardrobes, but this one little cabinet, which had belonged to the girls' father, was a remarkable exception to the general rule.
Mrs. Mainwaring never, even to Primrose, parted with the key of this cabinet. Whenever the girls were present it was locked—even Daisy could not coax mother to show her the contents of any of those tempting little drawers—"only mementoes, darling—only mementoes," the lady would say, but the girls knew that mother herself often in the dead of night looked into the locked drawers, and they generally noticed that the next day she was weaker and sadder than usual.
On the top of the cabinet a miniature painting of Captain Mainwaring was always to be found, and the girls used to love to keep a vase of the choicest flowers close to father's picture.
When Mrs. Mainwaring died, Jasmine cried nearly the whole of one night at the thought of the little old-fashioned cabinet—for now she felt quite sure that no one would ever dare to open it, "and I don't like to think of the mementoes being never seen again," she sobbed: "It seems cruel to them."
Then Primrose promised to undertake this dreaded task, and here was her opportunity.
Primrose was not at all a nervous girl, and with the soft summer air filling the chamber, and driving out all the ghosts of solitude and gloom, she commenced her task. She determined to look through the contents of the little cabinet with method, and she resolved to begin with the large centre drawer. She pulled it open, and was surprised to find that it was nearly empty.
A few papers, on which verses and quotations from Books of Sermons were copied in her mother's hand-writing, lay about; these, and one parcel which was carefully wrapped up in soft white tissue-paper, were the sole contents of the centre drawer. Primrose pulled the parcel from where it lay half-hidden at the back of the drawer. She felt self-possessed, but her fingers trembled slightly as she touched it. It was folded up most carefully—the wrappings were kept in their place by white satin ribbon, and on a slip of white paper which had been placed on the top of the parcel, and secured by the ribbon, Primrose read a few words:
"Arthur's little desk—for Primrose now."
She felt her color coming high, and her heart beating. Who was Arthur?—she had never heard of him—her father's name had been John. Who was the unknown Arthur, whose desk was now given to her?
She untied the parcel slowly, but with shaking fingers.
The little desk was a battered one, ink-stained, and of a slight and cheap construction. Inside it contained one treasure, a thick letter, with the words "For Primrose" written in her mother's writing on the envelope.
An unexpected message from those who are dead will set the strongest nerves quivering. At sight of this letter Primrose laid her pretty yellow head down on the little old cabinet, and sobbed long and bitterly.
How long she might have wept she could never say, but her tears were suddenly brought to an abrupt termination. When she entered her mother's room she had not locked the door, and now a voice sounded at her elbow:
"Eh!—my word—dear, dear, deary me! Now, Miss Primrose, to think of you creeping up like this, and 'worriting' yourself over the secrets in the little bit of a cabinet. Your poor mamma knew what she was about when she kept that cabinet locked, and for all the good they'll ever do, she might well have burnt the bits of fallals she kept there. There, darling, don't spoil your pretty eyes crying over what's dead and gone, and can never be put right again—never. Shut up the cabinet, Miss Primrose, and put your hair a bit straight, for Mrs. Ellsworthy, from Shortlands, is down in the drawing-room, and wanting to see you most particular 'bad.'"