Chapter 19 A Bevy of Girls by L. T. Meade
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.