Chapter 25 A Bevy of Girls by L. T. Meade
Nemesis
It was late that evening when two men entered Mrs Griffiths’ drawing room at Scarborough. One was Mr Griffiths, and the other Horace Aldworth, Nesta’s half-brother. Mrs Griffiths was overpowered by Horace’s presence. She had spent a wretched time since Nesta had gone. The girl was scarcely out of the house before the elder woman decided that she had done very wrong to lend her money; there was no saying what she might do, nor how she would spend it. She might not go home at all. She was a queer girl—unlike her Flossie. She had done a strange, a most unaccountable thing; just for the sake of a bit of pleasure, she had left her own friends, her mother, her sisters—she had planned it all cleverly, but—and here lay the sting—she had not planned it alone. Flossie was in the thick of the mischief.
Mrs Griffiths’ uneasiness with regard to Nesta presently melted down into a tender sort of regret. Her real sorrow was for her Flossie, her little black-eyed, dancing, mischievous girl, Flossie, who had always been fond of her father and mother, and who had never given herself airs, but had just delighted in Nesta because she must have some friend, but who would not do what Nesta had done for the wide world. And yet, try as she would, Mrs Griffiths could not get over the fact that Flossie had aided and abetted Nesta; that she knew all about it. Mrs Griffiths thought she could understand. She had recourse to her favourite adage—“Girls will be girls.” She remembered the time when she was at school. Girls’ schools were somewhat common sort of places in Mrs Griffiths’ early days. She remembered how she had smuggled in cakes, how she had secreted sticky sweetmeats in her pockets, how she had defied her teachers, and copied her themes from other girls, and what romps they had had in the attics, and how they had laughed at the teachers behind their backs. All these things Mrs Griffiths had done in the days of her youth; but nevertheless these things did not seem so grave or serious as what Flossie had done. Of course, she would forgive her; catch a mother being long angry with her only child; but then Griffiths—Mrs Griffiths always called her husband by that name—he would be wild.
“Griffiths will give it to her, and she’s that saucy she’ll answer him back, and there’ll be no end of a row,” thought the poor woman.
So it was an anxious-faced, wrinkled, rather elderly woman who started up now to receive the two men. Griffiths came in first.
“I have brought Mr Horace Aldworth back with me, wife. Did you receive my telegram?”
“I did, dear. You will be wanting a bit of supper. How do you do, Mr Aldworth? I hope your poor mother is easier—suffering less, getting stronger by degrees.”
Horace bowed and murmured something in reply, and took a seat with his back to the light. Griffiths strutted over to the hearthrug, put his hands behind him, swelled out,—as Mrs Griffiths afterwards expressed it,—looked as red as a turkey-cock, and demanded the presence of the two girls.
“The girls,” said Mrs Griffiths—“they are out.”
Her first impulse was to hide the fact that she had lent Nesta money; but second thoughts rejected this. Griffiths would worm it out of her. Griffiths could get any secret out of her—he was terrible when he reached his turkey-cock stage.
“The girls,” she said timidly, “they’re not in.”
“Neither of them?”
“Neither of them.”
“Then where in the name of all that is good are they?” thundered the angry man.
“Flossie is away on a picnic with the Browns.”
“I’m not inquiring for Flossie in particular at present. I want that other hussy—I want Miss Nesta Aldworth. Where is she?”
“I have come,” said Horace, breaking in at this juncture, and speaking in a most self-restrained voice—“to take my sister Nesta home with me, and to thank you most sincerely, Mrs Griffiths, for your kindness.”
“It’s the most dastardly, disgraceful thing that ever occurred, and to think that I should have had a hand in it,” said Griffiths. “I have been done as neatly as ever man was. I, paying all the expenses and treating the girl as though she were my own child, and thinking that Aldworth, there, and his father, would be pleased, and believe that I meant well by his family, and all the time I was doing them a base injury. It’s a wonder that girl’s mother isn’t in her grave, and so she would be if it wasn’t for—”
“My mother is all right, thank you,” said Horace. “But I am most anxious to catch the last train back to Newcastle. Is Nesta upstairs? Can she come down? I want to take her away.”
“She is not,” said Mrs Griffiths, and now she trembled exceedingly, and edged nearer to Horace, as though for protection. “It is my fault, you mustn’t blame her. I got the telegram—I’d rather not say anything about it, but I can’t hide the truth from you, Griffiths. You are so masterful when you get red in the face like that—I’m just terrified of you, and I must out with the truth. The poor child was so frightened that she told me what she had done. She owned up handsome, I must say, and then she said: ‘Lend me a little money to take me home—I will go home at once.’ She was frightfully cut up at nobody really missing her. She had evidently thought she would be sent for at once. I own that she did wrong.”
“Of course, she did wrong,” shouted Griffiths. “I never heard of a meaner thing to do, a meaner and a lower, and if I thought that my child—”
It was on this scene that Flossie, radiant with the success of her happy day, broke. She opened the door wide, rushed in, and said:
“Oh, if I haven’t had—where are you, Nesta? Why, whatever is the matter?”
“You come along here, Flossie,” said Griffiths. “There’s no end of a row, that’s the truth. Come and stand by me. Tell me what you know of this Nesta business—this runaway business, this daring to deceive an honest man, this creeping off, so to speak, in the dark. Tell me what you know. Own up, child, own up, and be quick.”
“Yes, tell us what you know,” said Horace. His voice was kind; Flossie turned to him.
“I—it was my fault as much as hers.”
“Your fault?” bellowed her father. “Your fault?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Griffiths, don’t frighten the wits out of the poor child; let her speak,” exclaimed the mother.
But when all was said and done, Flossie had grit in her. She was not going on this day of calamity to let her friend bear the brunt alone.
“We did it between us,” she said. “Poor old Nesta, she was having such a bad time, and I wanted her so much. We planned it together. We knew that if father knew it he would not take her, so we planned it, and you never guessed, father, and, and—Oh, I suppose you will give me an awful punishment—send me to a terrible school or something of that sort.”
But Griffiths was past himself.
“You knew it—you planned it! Why, you are as bad as she is!”
He took her by her shoulders and shook her. Her black eyes blazed up into his face.
“Yes, I am quite as bad as she is,” she said.
“Then go out of the room. Go upstairs.”
“Griffiths, Griffiths,” moaned the mother.
“You must do just as you please with regard to your daughter,” said Horace then. “I am sorry for Miss Griffiths; I don’t think, notwithstanding her confession, that she can be as bad as Nesta; but what I want to know is, where is Nesta?”
“I will tell you, Mr Aldworth. If my poor child was brave enough to fight her father when he was in the turkey-cock stage, I’m not going to be a whit behind her. We may be bad, Floss and I, but we’re not cowards. The poor child was so cowed by the tone of Griffiths’ telegram that she begged and implored of me to lend her money to go home before Griffiths got back. That is the long and short of it, and she’s safe back at Newcastle by this time, and safe in your house, and doubtless her mother has forgiven her. I lent her the money to go.”
“How much?” said Horace sternly.
“Not a penny more than ten shillings. The poor child said she would let me have it back again. Not that I want it—indeed I don’t.”
Horace put his hand into his pocket, took out half a sovereign and laid it on the table.
“I have to thank you both,” he said, turning to Griffiths, “for your great kindness to my sister. You meant well, however ill she meant. I have nothing to say with regard to your daughter’s conduct except that I would not be too hard on her, Mr Griffiths, if I were you. The girl might have tried to get out of it, but she did not; there is always something in that. Now I shall just have time to catch my train.”
“You won’t take bite nor sup, Mr Aldworth? We’re so honoured to have you in the house, sir, so pleased, so delighted. You are sure you won’t take bite nor sup?”
“I am sorry, but I must catch my train; it leaves at 9:10.”
“And how, if I might venture to ask you, is your poor mother, Mr Aldworth?”
“My mother is better. She is not at home at present. She is at Hurst Castle with Miss Angela St. Just. Miss St. Just has had a wonderful effect upon her, and has managed to get her over there, and I trust she may come back a very different woman.”
“Then after all,” said Mrs Griffiths, “poor little Nesta did not injure her mother; that is something to be thankful for, and when you are scolding her, sir, I hope you will bear it in mind. And I hope, Griffiths, you will also bear it in mind, and act handsome by our child, and take her in the true spirit and forgive her.”
“I am disgusted,” said Griffiths, “disgusted.”
He stalked to the door, pushed it wide open, let it bang behind him, and went down the stairs.
“There!” said Mrs Griffiths, bursting into tears, “he will be unmanageable, not only to-night, but to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after. A pretty time Floss and I’ll have—a pretty time truly. But I’m glad you spoke up, Mr Aldworth. You are not offended with us, forsooth?”
“Offended with you, madam,” said the young man; “how can I do anything but thank you for your kindness to my poor silly young sister? But now I must really be off.”