Chapter 16 A Bevy of Girls by L. T. Meade
Troublesome Consequences
On the whole Penelope Carter was a fairly good child. She had been very cross when disturbed by Nesta; but when she returned to the lawn her good humour immediately came back. She looked almost pretty, for there was much more character in her face than her sisters’. She ran about now, charming many people by her bright presence, and more than one visitor remarked that Penelope would be the best-looking of the Carters, and certainly had more character in her face than her sisters.
The gay party came to an end, and with it, some of Penelope’s good spirits. When she had taken the sovereign from her father’s purse, she had certainly not had the slightest idea of concealing the fact from him. A sovereign, as she knew, meant but little in that establishment. He would thank her for not allowing that wicked Nesta to disgrace him in public. He would pat her on the cheek and say: “Well done, little woman; I am glad you were good enough to confess!” and there would be an end of the matter.
This was Penelope’s thought in cold blood; but when she reflected more over the matter, it seemed to her that the thing was not so easy as it had appeared when in the heat of the conflict with Nesta she had purloined the money. Mr Carter was very fond of his children; he was a very good-hearted, upright sort of man, ambitious, but without a scrap of taste; thoroughly upright and honest in all his dealings; he did not owe a penny in the world. He had made his money by honest toil, and he was proud of it. To rise in the opinion of the world seemed to him a very laudable thing to do. He hoped to establish his children well in the world. He hoped that his daughters would marry gentlemen, and his sons ladies. He hoped to die in a better position than that in which he was born. For this reason he encouraged the Aldworths, and rather snubbed the Griffiths; and for the same reason he was anxious to become acquainted with the St. Justs, not in a business capacity, but as a friend. He had none of the finer perceptions of character. It never occurred to him that it might be painful to Sir Edward to visit his old home under such changed conditions. On the contrary, he thought how agreeable it would be to show the ex-owner how much better the place looked since Clay had suggested the cutting down of those magnificent trees, and the opening up of that glade. What a beautiful tennis lawn that was, where the ancient garden used to stand. It never occurred to him for a single moment that the bric-à-brac, the beautiful furniture, the old pictures, the old oak which had belonged to the St. Justs, was not more than replaced by the modern splendours of modern and depraved taste. These things he knew nothing about. He was exceedingly anxious to know the St. Justs and their set, and would have given a good deal more than the sovereign which poor Penelope had taken to attain that object.
Nevertheless, Penelope felt that the whole thing had an ugly appearance on the present occasion. The sovereign, however, must be put back in the purse, or the truth confessed before Saturday morning, that was evident. This was Wednesday. There was all Thursday and Friday. There would be a little packing to do—not that Penelope would trouble herself about that—but there would be a little commotion in getting the family off to the sea. Her father was not going with them, at least not for the first few days, but he would follow.
That evening Penelope determined to make a confidante of her sister, Clara.
Clara was in a specially good humour. She had had, as she expressed it, a stunning day, one long series of triumphs, as she said now to her sisters, Mabel and Annie, as they clustered round her.
“Oh, and there’s little Pen,” she cried. “Come along, Penelope. You looked quite nice to-day. You’ll take the shine out of us all when you are grown up. One or two people asked me who you were. Your hair is so pretty, and you will be taller than the rest of us.”
“I don’t care,” said Penelope.
Clara pinched her cheek.
“You don’t care? But you will care fast enough when you are older, and when you have several Berties walking with you, and other fellows anxious to get introductions to you. You wait and see.”
Penelope looked what she felt, cross and discontented.
“What is it, Puss? What are you frowning about?”
“I’m only thinking. I want to have a talk with you all by myself.”
“Oh, indeed, and so we’re not to be with you?” said Mabel in some surprise.
“No, I want old Clay. Can’t I go somewhere with you all by yourself, Clara?”
Now this sort of homage was sweet to Clara. She kissed the child, and said affectionately:
“Well, I’m a bit tired; what with running about all over the place and entertaining folks, I don’t seem to have a leg to stand on; but I suppose we can just cross the lawn and get into the summerhouse and have a chat. Come along, Pen.”
Penelope fastened herself on to her elder sister’s arm and they went across to the summerhouse in question.
“Now, then,” said Clara, somewhat severely, “they tell me that I spoil you.”
“Oh, but you don’t, Clay, you are ever so nice to me.”
“Well, I don’t mean to spoil you. Of course, these are holiday times; but when lessons begin again I am going to be ever so strict. It has just occurred to me that I might get an introduction for you through Miss Angela St. Just to that charming school at Frankfort.”
“What charming school at Frankfort?” asked Penelope. “Frankfort—where’s that?”
“Oh, you dreadful child! Don’t you know?”
“I hate geography. I don’t want to learn. I don’t want to be a good, model, knowledgeable girl. And I hate Miss Just. I do; so there!”
“Well, Penelope, you are a good deal too young to choose for yourself, and if father can get an introduction to Mrs Silchester, I am sure he will avail himself of it. The school is most select; only the very nicest of girls go there.”
“Isn’t it the school where that horrid Marcia Aldworth was—that detestable old-maid thing.”
“She is an exceedingly nice girl.”
“Clay! As though she suited you one little bit! Why, I saw her one day, and she was as pokery as possible.”
“But she is a friend of Miss St. Just’s.”
“Oh, Clay! Clay! I will be good; I will be good, and we needn’t talk of that horrid school just now, need we, just when my long beautiful holidays are beginning. I will be good, I will, if you will only help me.”
“Well, Puss, what can I do?”
“I did something to-day—it wasn’t really wrong, but I am a bit frightened. I must tell you.”
“You are a queer little thing—what can it be?” Penelope looked full up at her sister.
“You are as proud as Punch—you are, you old thing! And now I shall whisper to you why you are go proud?”
“Yes, do; whisper to me.”
“You have got to know that Miss St. Just—that idol of yours, that angel up in the clouds that you are always thinking is too good for this world; you got to know her to-day at the Aldworths’.”
“I did, and I find her not at all an angel up in the clouds, but a very pretty and sweet angel with her feet on the solid earth. And she is ever so pleased to know me; she showed it, and spoke about Court Prospect, and I described how we had improved it, and she was so interested. I asked her if she would come to see it, and I’m convinced she will come, and right gladly. I’m going to tell father all about it. Father will be pleased.”
“Then, that’s all right. If you tell father about that at the same time you are telling him about me, why it will be all right.”
“About you? What in the world about you?”
“Oh, I’m coming to that. You remember that time when that Nesta was staying here?”
“That Nesta. I thought you adored her.”
“I don’t adore her; I dislike her very much. She is not a bit a nice girl. She is of the Flossie Griffiths style, and you know quite well father wouldn’t like us to associate with the Griffiths.”
“I should think not, indeed,” said Clara.
She had visions, of herself as the special friend of Angela St. Just, of visiting Hurst Castle, of getting to know the county folks. She had visions of Angela reposing in the spare room at Court Prospect, with its gilt and ormolu and white paint, which used to be called the Cedar room in the days of the St. Justs. She had visions of Angela laying her head on the richly embroidered linen, and saying to herself, “What cannot money do to improve a place.”
Among the many thoughts which flitted into her brain, she forgot Pen’s anxious, little piquant face, and just at that moment Mr Carter came along. He paused, stared at his two daughters, and came deliberately in.
“There, now, Pen, if you want to say anything to father, you can say it yourself; here he is. Father, Penelope wants to speak to you about something.”
“No, I don’t—I don’t,” said Penelope, all her courage oozing out, as she expressed it, at her finger tips.
“Then if Penelope has nothing to say, I have,” said Clara, who being quite selfish and commonplace, forgot the wistfulness which had gathered for a moment round her little sister’s face.
Penelope stole away.
“I’ll tell Clay in the morning,” she said. “Father won’t miss the money before Saturday. I’ll tell old Clay to-morrow.”
Meanwhile Clara poured the welcome news into her father’s ears that the introduction to Miss St. Just had been accomplished. He was quite elated.
“That’s capital,” he said. “We must make much of that girl, the eldest Miss Aldworth. She is worth twenty of her sisters.”
“Of course she is, father; I have always said so.”
“Have you now, Clay? I shouldn’t have guessed it. I thought you were entirely taken up with Miss Ethel and Miss Molly, and that little Nesta. Nesta seems to me to be the best of the bunch—a rollicking little thing, and full of daring. By the way, I saw her here to-day, and our Pen with her. What did she come about?”
“Nesta here to-day? I didn’t see her,” said Clara.
“Well, I did. She and Pen seemed to be having a sort of quarrel. You had best say nothing about it. Those sort of quarrels between girls soon melt into thin air when you take no notice of them. But I tell you what; this is good news. We’ll have a big function after we have spent our month at the seaside. I know for a fact that the St. Justs are going to be at Hurst Castle for the entire season, and when you return, Clay, we’ll just do the thing in topping style. I’ll induce Sir Edward and his daughter to come here and stay for the night I think I can manage the old gentleman.”
Here a peculiar knowing expression passed over Mr Carter’s face. Clara watched him.
“What a clever old dad it is,” she said.
“You’d like it, wouldn’t you, Clay?” he said, putting his hand under her chin and turning her face round until he looked at her. “Upon my word you have a look of your mother, child. I was very fond of her,” he continued, and then he stooped and printed an unlooked-for kiss on Clara’s young cheek.
She was unaccustomed to special attentions from her parent.
“I’d be ever so glad if they came,” she said. “And I’m sure if you wish it they will come.”
“Yes, it’s all right now that you’ve been introduced to Miss Angela. Now, look here; couldn’t we send them a present of fruit—fruit from the garden? They’d like some fruit from their own old garden, wouldn’t they now?”
Clara saw no impropriety in that.
“Fruit and vegetables; we’d send some vegetables, too,” said Mr Carter. “Those marrowfat peas are just in their prime. We might send them a couple of pecks, and—and some peaches; they are just getting perfectly ripe now in the hothouses—peaches, nectarines, apricots, peas, and a few melons wouldn’t be unacceptable, would they? What do you say, eh?”
“Just as you like, Dad, of course.”
Clara went off to the house to inform her sisters of what was happening. Penelope had gone to bed.
“Why, where is Pen?” she said.
“I don’t know; she seems to be sulky, and she said she had a headache. She’ll sleep it off; don’t bother about her,” said Annie, with a yawn.
The elder sister sat down and divulged to the younger ones what was about to happen.
“We’ve got,” she said, “rather to drop the Aldworths—they’re all very well in their way, but with the exception of Marcia, father doesn’t want us to see too much of them.”
“I’m heartily glad,” said Mabel; “I’m about sick of them.”
“I call it beastly meant—” said Jim, raising his face from where he was apparently buried in the pages of a magazine.
“Hullo!” cried Clara. “You there? What are you listening to us for?”
“Well, I don’t care—I call it beastly mean to drop people when you have once taken them up so strongly, more particularly when you have achieved your object.”
“And pray what’s that?”
“You know quite well you have been angling to get an introduction to Miss Angela St. Just. Well, I happen to know that you’ve got it, and now you want to drop the girls.”
“Not Marcia,” said Clay; “we are quite willing to be friends with her. She must come and stay with us—it is her turn. It will be delightful to have her here with Angela St. Just.”
“I call it beastly free of you to call her by her Christian name.”
“Jim, I wish you’d mind your manners. I’m sure I’m not half so rude in my speech as you are, and of course I wouldn’t call her that to her face.”
“I should hope not indeed,” said Jim. “I don’t understand girls, and that’s the truth.”
He marched away. The night was a dark one, but warm. He went down through the shrubbery; he passed a little arbour where Clara and Penelope had had their interrupted conference a little earlier in the evening. He thought he heard some one sobbing. The sound smote on his ear.
“Hullo,” he said, “who’s there?”
The sobs ceased; there was dead silence. He went in, struck a match, and saw Penelope crouched in a corner.
“Why you poor little wretch,” he said, “what in the world is wrong with you? Why are you out here by yourself, and crying as though your heart would break? Why, a poacher might come across you, and then what a fright you’d get!”
“A poacher? You don’t really think so, Jim?”
“Of course I don’t; but you are as cold as charity. Here, snuggle up to me. What’s the matter, old girl?”
“Oh, Jim, I stole a sovereign from father to-day; I took it out of his purse in his bedroom when all the visitors were here. I opened the drawer and took a sovereign out of the purse and slipped it into my pocket. At the time I thought I’d tell him, but now I haven’t the courage. I thought perhaps Clay would tell him, but I couldn’t get it out—Oh, I’m a very miserable girl. I don’t know what to do—”
“But tell me,” said Jim, “what in the world did you want with a sovereign? To think that my sister should steal just like the commonest, lowest-minded, most unprincipled girl.”
“Oh, don’t rub it in so hard, Jim. Don’t, don’t,” said Penelope.
“Well, tell me all about it.”
She did tell him.
“It was Nesta—we had a bet—it was about Clay and that horrid St. Just girl. We made a bet that if Clay got an introduction through Marcia Aldworth that Nesta should have a sovereign; but if it was the other way, I was to have the sovereign. I didn’t think about it, for I knew she could never pay it if she lost, but somehow or other it all came about as she wished, and she came tearing over with that horrid friend of hers, Flossie Griffiths, and dashed into the middle of our party. She would speak to me, and she took me away and demanded the money. I did what I could to put her off; but she said she’d go straight to father and tell him before every one that I had made a bet and broken it. So I was desperate; I took the only money I could find. Oh, what am I to do; what am I to do? Do you think father will be frightfully angry?”
“I expect he won’t much like it.”
“Oh, Jim, what am I to do?”
“I’ll see about it,” said Jim. “Now, look here, Pen, I’m not going to let you off altogether; it would not be right; but you are a good, brave child to have told me, and I am glad to know: You might have done worse, and you might have done better. I didn’t know that a sister of mine could be bullied by that sort of girl. I should like to give that Nesta a piece of my mind. I vow I should.”
“But what will father say on Saturday?”
“You’ll have to own up. I could give you the sovereign, of course, and you could put it back into his purse, but that wouldn’t teach you a lesson. We fellows at school—we boys, wouldn’t do a thing of that sort, and it wouldn’t be straight for me to shield you, and let you put the money back without telling him anything about it. But I’ll help you to tell father. Now, you can go straight off to bed. I’ll help you, old girl, when you are telling him. Good-night, good-night.”
“You are a brick! You are a dear,” said Pen. She crushed her face against his cheek; he felt her tears and rubbed them away shamefacedly afterwards.
For some time he sat on in the little summerhouse in which Angela St. Just had sat when a child, and which had not yet been destroyed for a more elegant and modern edifice. When he went back to the house it was to ponder over many things. Jim was the most thoughtful of the family; he had grit in him, which was more than any of the other Carters, their father excepted, possessed.