Chapter 28 A Bevy of Girls by L. T. Meade
Applying for a Situation
On the morrow between twelve and one o’clock, Nesta, who had no best clothes to put on, but who had to make the best of what she stood up in, as Mrs Hogg expressed it, started on her mission of inquiry to Mrs Johnston’s. Mrs Johnston lived in the high street. It was not much of a street, for Souchester was quite a tiny place; but still there were a few houses, and three or four shops, and amongst those houses was one with a hall door painted yellow, and pillars painted green. In that house lived Mrs Johnston. Nesta’s whole horizon, every scrap of her future, seemed now to be centred in Mrs Johnston. She had lain awake a good part of the night thinking about her, and making her plans. If Mrs Johnston would pay her—say ten shillings a week, she could easily manage to live quite well. She would still board with the Hoggs and take her food with them. She would soon get accustomed to the red herrings and to the half of Mrs Hogg’s bed. She would soon get accustomed to the boys, who could only articulate, as far as she was concerned, the words “Hooray” and “Hurroa.” In fact she would get accustomed to anything, and she would stay there until her family, tired out with looking for her, would cease to trouble their heads. By-and-by perhaps they would be sorry, and they would hold out the olive branch, and she would go home, but that time was a long way off.
Meanwhile all her future would depend on Mrs Johnston. She reached the house and rang the bell.
The house was not pretty, but it seemed to be immaculately neat. A girl as neat as the house itself presently opened the door. When she saw Nesta, she said:
“My missus can’t see anybody to-day,” and was about to slam the door in Nesta’s face, when that young lady adroitly slipped her foot in.
“I must see her. It is most important. It has something to do with the St. Justs,” said Nesta.
She was desperate and had to make up an excuse to secure her interview at any cost. The servant girl was impressed by the word St. Just, and telling Nesta she might stay in the hall and she would inquire, she went away to find her mistress.
Mrs Johnston’s celebrated rheumatism was at its worst that day. She was consequently more cranky than usual, and less inclined to be civil to any who wanted her.
“A girl, did you say, Mercy? Speak out, my lass. What sort of a girl?”
“A kind of lady girl, ma’am.”
“A stranger?”
“Yes; I never seen her before.”
“Did she say what she wanted?”
“I think the people from the Castle sent her, ma’am. She said it was to do with the St. Justs.”
“Why, then, for goodness’ sake show her in. I am expecting Miss Angela, and perhaps she will call some time to-day. We must have the place in apple-pie order. I hope to goodness that girl hasn’t come to say that Miss Angela can’t come. I’ve been counting on her visit more than anything.”
“In course, you have, ma’am, and no wonder. She’s a beautiful young lady.”
“Well, show the other young lady in, Mercy,” said Mrs Johnston; “but tell her that I’m bad with the rheumatics and I can’t entertain her long. If I ring the bell twice, Mercy, you will bring up the gingerbread and milk; but if I ring it three times, it will be for the gingerbread and cowslip wine, and if I don’t ring it at all, why, you are to bring up nothing. It all depends on what the young lady wants.”
How poor Nesta would have enjoyed the gingerbread and milk, let alone the gingerbread and cowslip wine which she was never to taste, for her diet at the Hoggs’ was the reverse of appetising. Try as she would she could scarcely manage it; hunger would, of course, bring her to it in time. But although she was nearly starving for her ordinary food, she was not hungry enough yet for the food which the Hoggs consumed. Mercy came back to her.
“You may come in, Miss,” she said. “It is entirely because you are a young lady from the Castle; but my missis wishes to tell you that her rheumatics are awful bad to-day. You’ll be as gentle as you can with her, Miss.”
Nesta nodded, and entered the room, the door of which Mercy held open for her.
Now, Nesta could never be remarked for her graceful or gentle movements, and she managed, in coming into the room, to excite Mrs Johnston’s quickly aroused ire, by knocking violently against a little table which held a tray full of some pretty silver ornaments. One of them was knocked down, and the whole arrangement was destroyed.
“Clumsy girl!” muttered Mrs Johnston under her breath. She looked up with a frown on her face as Nesta approached.
Mercy stooped to rearrange the silver ornaments.
“Go away, Mercy, for goodness’ sake!” snapped the old lady. “Shut the door, and remember about the bell. If I don’t ring, bring nothing whatever, Mercy. You understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mercy.
Nesta went and stood in front of Mrs Johnston.
“Take a seat, my dear,” said the good lady, for she recalled that even a clumsy visitor from the Castle was worth propitiating. “So you have come from Miss Angela St. Just. I do trust and hope that the sweet young lady isn’t going to disappoint me?”
“But I haven’t,” said Nesta, “and she didn’t send you a message.”
“But you are staying there?”
“No; I’m not.”
“Then what message have you from the St. Justs, may I ask?”
Mrs Johnston held herself very upright. Even her rheumatism gave way to her anger.
“What has brought you here, may I ask, young girl?”
“I came,” said Nesta, “because Mrs Hogg sent me.”
“Mrs Hogg? Hogg? You don’t mean Mary Hogg, the laundress?”
“I don’t know whether she’s a laundress or whether she’s not, but I am lodging there.”
Mrs Johnston sat still more upright. “I am lodging there for the present I know the St. Justs, but I am lodging there, and I want something to do in this place, and I thought perhaps you’d let me—oh, please don’t get so red in the face! Please don’t! Please hear me out. I thought perhaps you’d let me come and read to you, the same as the girl who went to America. Mrs Hogg said you wanted some one.”
“Mary Hogg shall never have one scrap of my washing again. What does she mean by sending me a total stranger? I shall request Mary Hogg to mind her own business.”
“Please, it isn’t her fault. I wanted a blind one, but when there wasn’t one, I thought, perhaps, you’d do.”
“What?” said Mrs Johnston.
“Some one who is blind; but you aren’t blind.”
“Thank Heavens, no! I can see quite well, and I don’t much admire your face, Miss.”
“But I could read to you. I can read, oh, so well. I have an invalid mother, and I’ve read to her, oh, stories upon stories out of the penny papers. I can read ever so quickly. I wish you’d try me. What I want is ten shillings a week, and, and—oh, not my food. I could have my food at Mrs Hogg’s. It is awfully plain—pease pudding and herrings mostly; but I don’t mind that if only you’d pay me ten shillings a week and let me come to you every day.”
“You are the most audacious girl! I really never heard of anything quite so extraordinary in the whole course of my life. And, pray, may I ask why you said you had come from the St. Justs?”
“I know them, you see, and I thought your maid wouldn’t let me in, so I made up an excuse.”
“Then you are a liar as well. Now, let me give you my answer. I don’t know you or anything about you. I don’t like your appearance. I don’t intend to employ you as my reader. You are exceedingly awkward and your dress is untidy. If you are a lady you scarcely look like one, and ladies don’t go to lodge with women like Mary Hogg.”
“If they are very poor they do,” said Nesta. “I have got very little money.”
“What is your name?”
“Oh, please, don’t ask me. I would rather not say.”
“Indeed! You’d rather not say. And do you suppose that I’d take a girl into my employment—a girl who cannot give me her name?”
“I’d rather not. What is the use? You are very cruel. I wish there had been a blind one about; she wouldn’t be so cruel.”
“Will you please go. Just go straight out by that door. Don’t knock yourself against my silver again. The hall is very short, and the front door within a few feet away. Open it; get to the other side; shut it firmly after you and depart. Don’t let me see you again.”
Nesta did depart. She felt as though some one had beaten her. She had never, perhaps, in all her pampered existence, received so many blows in such a short time as that terrible old Mrs Johnston had managed to inflict. At first, she was too angry to feel all the misery that such treatment could cause; but when she entered the Hogg establishment and found in very truth from the moist atmosphere of the place, from the absence of any preparations for a meal, and from the worried expression on Mrs Hogg’s face, that she was indeed a laundress, she burst into tears.
“Highty tighty!” said Mrs Hogg. “I can’t have any more of this. Out you go. Did you see her?”
“Oh, don’t ask me. She’s a perfect terror!”
“She has a sharp bark, but what I say is that her bark’s worse nor her bite. She pays regular. Now, why couldn’t you bring yourself to mind her and to soothe her down a bit? Maybe she’d do well by you.”
“She wouldn’t have me on any terms. She turned me right out. She didn’t like me at all.”
“I’m not surprised at that. I don’t much like von, either. But there’s your dinner in the corner there. I wropt it up in a bit o’ paper. You’d best take it out and eat it in the fields. It’ll be all mess and moither and soapsuds and steaming water here for the rest of the day.”
“And when may I come back again?”
“I don’t want you back at all.”
“But I suppose you won’t turn me out?”
“No, you may share my bed. You behaved better last night. Come back when you can’t bear yourself any longer, and if you can buy yourself a draught of milk and a hunch of bread for supper it would give less trouble getting anything ready. The boys’ll have cold porridge to-night, without any milk, and that’s all I can give you. I can never be bothered with cooking on a washing day.”
Nesta took up her dinner, which was wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper, and disappeared. She walked far, far until she was tired. Then she sat down and opened the little parcel. Within was the rind of a very hard cheese and a lump of very stale bread. But Nesta’s hunger was now so strong that she ate up the bread and devoured the cheese and felt better afterwards.