Chapter 4 A Plucky Girl by L. T. Meade
THE VERDICT
The first thing I noticed when I entered the large room where Messrs Macalister & Co. carried on their business, was a young man, tall and very well set up, who stood with his back to us. He was talking earnestly to one of Macalister's clerks, and there was something about his figure which caused me to look at him attentively. His hair was of a light shade of brown, and was closely cropped to his well-shaped head, and his shoulders were very broad and square. He was dressed well, and had altogether that man-of-the-world, well bred sort of look, which is impossible to acquire by any amount of outward veneer. The man who stood with his back to us, and did not even glance round as we came into the agent's office, was beyond doubt a gentleman. I felt curiously anxious to see his face, for I was certain it must be a pleasant one, but in this particular fate did not favour me. I heard him say to the clerk in a hurried tone —
"I will come back again presently," and then he disappeared by another door, and I heard him walking rapidly away. Mother had doubtless not noticed the man at all. She was seated near a table, and when the clerk in question came up to her, seemed indisposed to speak. I gave her a silent nudge.
"We want – ahem," said my mother – she cleared her throat, "we are anxious to look at some houses."
"Fourteen to fifteen bedrooms in each," I interrupted.
"Fourteen to fifteen bedrooms," repeated mother. "How many sitting rooms, Westenra?"
"Four, five, or six," was my answer.
"Oh, you require a mansion," said the agent. "Where do you propose to look for your house, madam?"
He addressed mother with great respect. Mother again glanced at me.
"We thought somewhere north," she said; "or north-west," she added.
"W.C.," I interrupted; "Bloomsbury, we wish to settle in Bloomsbury."
"Perhaps, Westenra," said my mother, "you had better describe the house. My daughter takes a great interest in houses," she added in an apologetic tone to the clerk. The face of the clerk presented a blank appearance, he showed neither elation nor the reverse at having a young lady to deal with instead of an old lady. He began to trot out his different houses, to explain their advantages, their aristocratic positions.
"Aristocratic houses in Bloomsbury – aristocratic!" said mother, and there was a tone of almost scorn in her voice.
"I assure you it is the case, madam. Russell Square is becoming quite the fashion again, and so is" – he paused – "Would Tavistock Square suit you?" he said, glancing at me.
"I do not know," I answered. "I seem to be better acquainted with the names of Russell Square or Bloomsbury Square. After all, if we can get a large enough house it does not greatly matter, provided it is in Bloomsbury. We wish to see several houses, for we cannot decide without a large choice."
"You would not be induced, ladies, to think of a flat?" queried the agent.
Mother glanced at me; there was almost an appeal in her eyes. If I could only be induced to allow her to live in a tiny, tiny flat – she and I alone on our one hundred and fifty a year – but my eyes were bright with determination, and I said firmly —
"We wish to look at houses, we do not want a flat."
Accordingly, after a little more argument, we were supplied with orders to view, and returning to the carriage I gave brief directions to Jenkins.
During the rest of the morning we had a busy time. We went from one house to another. Most were large; some had handsome halls and wide staircases, and double doors, and other relics of past grandeur, but all were gloomy and dirty, and mother became more and more depressed, and more and more hopeless, as she entered each one in turn.
"Really, Westenra," she said, "we cannot do it. No, my darling, it is hopeless. Think of the staff of servants we should require. Do look at these stairs, it is quite worth counting them. My dear child, such a life would kill me."
But I was young and buoyant, and did not feel the stairs, and my dreams seemed to become more rosy as obstacles appeared in view. I was determined to conquer, I had made up my mind to succeed.
"Whatever happens you shall not have a tiring time," I said affectionately to my dear mother, and then I asked one of the caretakers to give her a chair, and she sat in the great wide desolate drawing-room while I ran up and down stairs, and peeped into cupboards, and looked all over the house, and calculated, as fast as my ignorant brain would allow me, the amount of furniture which would be necessary to start the mansion I had in view.
For one reason or another most of the houses on the agent's list were absolutely impossible for our purpose, but at last we came to one which seemed to be the exact thing we required. It was a corner house in a square called Graham Square, and was not so old by fifty years as the houses surrounding it. In height also it was a storey lower, but being a corner house it had a double frontage, and was in consequence very large and roomy. There were quite six or seven sitting rooms, and I think there were up to twenty bedrooms in the house, and it had a most cheerful aspect, with balconies round the drawing-room windows, and balconies to the windows of the bedrooms on the first floor. I made up my mind on the spot that the inmates of these special rooms should pay extra for the privilege of such delightful balconies. And the windows of the house were large, and when it was all re-papered and re-painted according to my modern ideas, I knew that we could secure a great deal of light in the rooms; and then besides, one whole side faced south-east, and would scarcely ever be cold in winter, whereas in summer it would be possible to render it cool by sun-blinds and other contrivances. Yes, the house would do exactly.
I ran downstairs to mother, who had by this time given up climbing those many, many stairs, and told her that I had found the exact house for our purpose.
"Seventeen Graham Square is magnificent," I said. "My dearest, darling mother, in ten years time we shall be rich women if we can only secure this splendid house for our purpose."
"We do not even know the rent," said mother.
"Oh, the rent," I cried. "I forgot about that. I will look on the order to view."
I held it in my hand and glanced at it. Just for a moment my heart stood still, for the corner house commanded a rental of two hundred and eighty pounds a year. Not at all dear for so big a mansion, but with rates and taxes and all the other etceteras it certainly was a serious item for us to meet, and would be considered even by the most sanguine people as a most risky speculation.
"Never mind, never mind," I cried eagerly, "we will secure this house; I do not think we need look at any of the others."
I crumpled up the remaining orders. Mother stepped into the carriage, and Jenkins took us back to the agent's.
"You must speak this time, Westenra," said mother. "Remember it is your scheme, darling; I am not at all accustomed to this sort of business; it will be necessary for you to take the initiative."
"Very well, mother, I will; and suppose you stay in the carriage." I uttered these last words in a coaxing tone, for the tired look on her face almost frightened me, and I did not want her to take any of the worry of what I already called to myself "Westenra's grand scheme."
I entered the office, and the man who had attended to us in the morning came forward. I told him briefly that of the many houses which we had looked over, the only one which would suit our purpose was No. 17 Graham Square.
"Ah," he answered, "quite the handsomest house on our list. Do you want it for your own occupation, Miss – Miss – "
"Wickham," I said. "Yes, of course we want the house for ourselves – that is, mother would like to rent it."
"It is a high rent," said the man, "not of course high for such a fine mansion, but higher than the rest of the houses in the Square. It contains a great many rooms." He glanced at me as though he meant to say something impertinent, but, reading an expression of determination on my face, he refrained.
"How soon can we take possession of the house?" I asked. "It would of course be papered and painted for us?"
"If you take a lease, not otherwise," answered Macalister's clerk.
"I think we would take a lease," I replied. "What is the usual length?"
"Seven, fourteen, twenty-one years," he answered glibly; "but I do not think the landlords round here would grant a longer lease than fourteen years."
"Oh, that would be quite long enough," I answered emphatically. "We should like to arrange the matter as soon as possible, we are greatly pleased with the house. Of course the drains must be carefully tested, and the entire place would have to be re-decorated from cellar to attic."
"For a fourteen years' lease I doubt not this would be done," said the man, "but of course there are several matters to be gone into. You want the house for a private residence, do you not?"
"Yes, and no," I said faintly. There was a room just beyond where I was seated, and at that moment I heard a book fall heavily to the ground. It startled me. Was any one in there listening to what we were saying?
The clerk stepped forward and quietly closed the door.
"To be frank with you," I said, "we wish to secure 17 Graham Square in order to start a boarding-house there."
The man immediately laid down the large book in which he had been taking my orders.
"That will never do," he said. "We cannot allow business of any sort to be carried on in the house, it would destroy all the rest of the property. It is far too aristocratic for anything of the kind."
"But our house would be practically private," I said; "I mean," I continued, stammering and blushing, and feeling ready to sink through the floor, "that our guests would be extremely nice and well-behaved people."
"Oh, I have no doubt whatever of that," replied the clerk, "but there is a condition in every lease in that special Square, that money is not to be earned on the premises. I presume your guests would not come to you for nothing?"
"Certainly not," I replied. I felt myself turning cold and stiff. All the angry blood of my noble ancestors stirred in my veins. I said a few more words and left the shop.
"Well?" asked mother. She was looking dreary and terribly huddled up in the carriage. It was a warm day, but I think going through those empty houses had chilled her. "Well, Westenra, have you taken No. 17?"
"Alas! no," I answered in some heat; "would you believe it, mother, the agent says the landlord will not let us the house if we make money in it."
"If we make money in it? I do not understand," answered mother. Her blue eyes were fixed on my face in an anxious way.
"Why, mother, darling, don't you know we meant to fill the house with paying guests."
"Oh, I forgot," said mother. "Home, Jenkins, as fast as possible."
Jenkins whipped up the horses, and we trotted home. Mother looked distinctly relieved.
"So you have not taken the house?" she said.
"I cannot get it," I answered. "It is more than provoking. What are we to do? I had taken such a fancy to the place."
"It did seem, for that benighted place, fairly cheerful," said my mother, "but, Westenra, there is a Providence guiding our paths. Doubtless Providence does not intend you to wreck your young life attending to lodgers."
"But, mother dear, don't you understand that we must do something for our living? It is disappointing, but we shall get over it somehow."
During the rest of that day mother refused even to discuss the boarding-house scheme. She seemed to think that because we could not get 17 Graham Square, there was no other house available for our purpose.
The next day I went out without mother. I did not visit the same agent. After finding myself in Bloomsbury I repaired to a post-office, and, taking down the big Directory, secured the names of several agents in the neighbourhood. These I visited in turn. I had dressed myself very plainly; I had travelled to my destination by 'bus. I thought that I looked exactly what I felt – a very business-like young woman. Already the gulf was widening between my old and my new life. Already I was enjoying my freedom.
Once more I was supplied with a list of houses, and once again I trotted round to see them. Alack and alas! how ugly empty houses did look; how dilapidated and dirty were the walls without the pictures and bookcases! How dreary were those countless flights of stairs, those long narrow windows, those hopelessly narrow halls; and then, the neighbourhood of these so-called mansions was so sordid. Could we by any possible means brighten such dwellings? Could we make them fit to live in? I visited them all, and finally selected three of these. Two had a clause forbidding the letting out of apartments, but the third and least desirable of the houses was to be the absolute property of the tenant to do what he liked with.
"That mansion," said the obliging agent, "you can sublet to your heart's content, madam. It is a very fine house, only one hundred and eighty pounds a year. There are ten bedrooms and five sitting-rooms. You had better close with it at once."
But this I could not do. The outlook from this house was so hideous; the only way to it was through an ugly, not to say hideous, thoroughfare. I thought of my delicate, aristocratic mother here. I thought of the friends whom I used to know visiting us in 14 Cleveland Street, and felt my castle in the clouds tumbling about my ears. What was to be done!
"I cannot decide to-day," I said; "I will let you know."
"You will lose it, madam," said the agent.
"Nevertheless, I cannot decide so soon; I must consult my mother."
"Very well, madam," said the man, in a tone of disappointment.
I left his office and returned home.
For the next few days I scarcely spoke at all about my project. I was struggling to make up my mind to the life which lay before us if we took 14 Cleveland Street. The street itself was somewhat narrow; the opposite houses seemed to bow at their neighbours; the rooms, although many, were comparatively small; and last, but by no means least, the landlord would do very little in the way of decoration.
"We can let houses of this kind over and over again," said the agent, "I don't say that Mr. Mason won't have the ceilings whitened for you, but as to papering, no; the house don't require it. It was done up for the last tenant four years ago."
"And why has the last tenant left?" I asked.
"Owing to insolvency, madam," was the quick reply, and the man darted a keen glance into my face.
Insolvency! I knew what that meant. It was another word for ruin, for bankruptcy. In all probability, if we took that detestable house, we also would have to leave on account of insolvency, for what nice, cheerful, paying guests would care to live with us there? I shook my head. Surely there must be somewhere other houses to let.
During the next few days I spent all my time searching for houses. I got quite independent, and, I think, a little roughened. I was more brusque than usual in my manners. I became quite an adept at jumping in and out of omnibuses. I could get off omnibuses quite neatly when they were going at a fairly good pace, and the conductors, I am sure, blessed me in their hearts for my agile movements. Then the agents all round Bloomsbury began to know me. Finally, one of them said, on the event of my fourth visit —
"Had you not better try further afield, Miss? There are larger, brighter, and newer houses in the neighbourhood of Highbury, for instance."
"No," I said, "we must live in Bloomsbury." Then I noticed that the man examined me all over in quite a disagreeable fashion, and then he said slowly —
"14 Cleveland Street is still to be had, Miss, but of course you understand that the landlord will want the usual references."
"References!" I cried. "He shall certainly have them if he requires them." And then I wondered vaguely, with a queer sinking at my heart, to whom of all our grand friends I might apply who would vouch for us that we would not run away without paying the rent. Altogether, I felt most uncomfortable.
The days passed. No more likely houses appeared on the horizon, and at last the afternoon came when our friends were to visit us, when I, Westenra, was to break to these fashionable society people my wild project. But I had passed through a good deal of the hardening process lately, and was not at all alarmed when the important day dawned. This was to be our very last entertainment. After that we would step down.
Mother, exquisitely dressed in dove-coloured satin, waited for her guests in the drawing-room. I was in white. I had given up wearing white when I was going about in omnibuses, but I had several charming costumes for afternoon and evening wear still quite fresh, and I donned my prettiest dress now, and looked at my face in the glass with a certain amount of solicitude. I saw before me a very tall, slender girl; my eyes were grey. I had a creamy, pale complexion, and indifferently good features. There were some people who thought me pretty, but I never did think anything of my looks myself. I gave my own image a careless nod now, and ran briskly downstairs.
"You'll be very careful what you say to our guests, Westenra?" queried mother. "This whole scheme of yours is by no means to my liking. I feel certain that the dear Duchess and Lady Thesiger will feel that they have been brought here unfairly. It would have been far franker and better to tell them that something singularly unpleasant was about to occur."
"But, dearest mother, why should it be unpleasant? and it is the fashion of the day to have sensation at any cost. Our guests will always look back on this afternoon as a sort of red letter day. Just think for yourself how startled and how interested they will be. Whether they approve, or whether they disapprove, it will be immensely interesting and out of the common, mother. O mother! think of it!" I gripped her hand tightly, and she said —
"Don't squeeze me so hard, Westenra, I shall need all my pluck."
Well, the hour came and also the guests. They arrived in goodly numbers. There was the usual fashionable array of carriages outside our door. There were footmen in livery and coachmen, and stately and magnificently groomed horses, and the guests poured up the stairs and entered our drawing rooms, and the chatter-chatter and hum-hum of ordinary society conversation began. Everything went as smoothly as it always did, and all the time my mother chatted with that courtly grace which made her look quite in the same state of life as the Duchess of Wilmot. In fact the only person in the room who looked at all nervous was the said Duchess. She had a way of glancing from me to mother, as if she was not quite sure of either of us, and once as I passed her, she stretched out her hand and touched me on my sleeve.
"Eh, Westenra?" she said.
"Yes, your Grace," I replied.
"All that silliness, darling, that you talked to me the other day, is quite knocked on the head, is it not? Oh, I am so relieved."
"You must wait and find out," was my reply. "I have something to say to every one soon, and oh please, try not to be too shocked with me."
"You are an incorrigible girl," she replied, but she shook her head quite gaily at me. She evidently had not the slightest idea of what I was going to do.
As to my special friend Jasmine Thesiger, she was as usual surrounded by an admiring group of men and women, and gave me no particular thought. I looked from one to the other of all our guests: I did not think any more were likely to come. All those who had been specially invited had arrived. My moment had come. Just then, however, just before I rose from my seat to advance into the middle of the room, I noticed coming up the stairs a tall, broad-shouldered man. He was accompanied by a friend of ours, a Mr. Walters, a well-known artist. I had never seen this man before, and yet I fancied, in a sort of intangible way, that his figure was familiar. I just glanced at him for a moment, and I do not believe he came into the room. He stood a little behind Mr. Walters, who remained in the doorway. My hour had come. I glanced at mother. Poor darling, she turned very white. I think she was almost terrified, but as to myself I felt quite cheerful, and not in the least alarmed.
"I want to say something to all my dear friends," I began. I had a clear voice, and it rose above the babel. There came sudden and profound silence.
I saw a lady nudge her neighbour.
"I did not know," I heard her say, "that Westenra recited," and then she settled herself in a comfortable attitude to listen.
I stood in the middle of the floor, and faced everybody.
"I have something to say," I began, "and it is not a recitation. I have asked you all to come here to-day to listen to me." I paused and looked round. How nice our guests looked, how kind, how beautifully dressed! What good form the men were in, and how aristocratic were the women. How different these men and women were from the people I had associated with during the week – the people who took care of the houses in Bloomsbury, the agents who let the houses, the people whom I had met in the busses going to and from the houses. These nice, pleasant, well-bred people belonged to me, they were part and parcel of my own set; I was at home with them.
I just caught the Duchess's eye for a moment, and I think there was alarm in those brown depths, but she was too essentially a woman of the world to show anything. She just folded her jewelled hands in her lap, leant back in her chair, and prepared to listen. One or two of the men, I think, raised their eye-glasses to give me a more critical glance, but soon even that mark of special attention subsided. Of course it was a recitation. People were beginning to be tired of recitations.
"I want to say something, and I will say it as briefly as possible," I commenced. "Mother does not approve of it, but she will do it, because she has yielded to me as a dear, good, modern mother ought."
Here there was a little laugh, and some of the tension was lessened.
"I want to tell you all," I continued, "for most of you have been our friends since I was a child, that mother and I are – poor. There is nothing disgraceful in being poor, is there? but at the same time it is unpleasant, unfortunate. We were fairly well off. Now, through no fault of our own, we have lost our money."
The visitors looked intensely puzzled, and also uncomfortable, but now I raised my eyes a little above them. It was necessary that if I went on putting them to the test, I should not look them full in the face.
"We are poor," I continued, "therefore we cannot live any longer in this house. From having a fair competence, not what many of you would consider riches, but from having a fair competence, we have come down to practically nothing. We could live, it is true, in the depths of the country, on the very little which has been saved out of the wreck, but I for one do not wish to do that. I dislike what is called decent poverty, I dislike the narrow life, the stultifying life, the mean life. I am my father's daughter. You have heard of my father, that is his picture" – I pointed as I spoke to an oil painting on the wall. "You know that he was a man of action, I also will act." I hurried my voice a trifle here – "So mother and I mean not to accept what many people would consider the inevitable; but we mean, to use a vulgar phrase, to better ourselves."
Now it is certain, our guests were a little surprised. They began to fidget, and one or two men came nearer, and I thought, though I am not sure, that I saw the tall man, with the head of closely cropped hair, push forward to look at me. But I never looked any one full in the eyes; I fixed mine on father's picture. I seemed to hear father's voice saying to me —
"Go on, Westenra, that was very good, you and I are people of action, remember."
So I went on and I explained my scheme. I told it very briefly. Mother and I would in future earn our own living.
I was educated fairly well, but I had no special gifts, so I would not enter the Arena where teachers struggled and fought and bled, and many of them fell by the wayside. Nor would I enter the Arena of Art, because in no sense of the word was I an artist, nor would I go on the Stage, for my talent did not lie in that direction, but I had certain talents, and they were of a practical sort. I could keep accounts admirably; I could, I believed, manage a house. Then I skilfully sketched in that wonderful boarding-house of my dreams, that house in dull Bloomsbury, which by my skill and endeavour would be bright and render an acceptable home for many. Finally, I said that my mother and I had made up our minds to leave the fashionable part of London and to retire to Bloomsbury.
"We will take our house from September," I said, "and advertise very soon for paying guests, and we hope the thing will do well, and that in ten or twelve years we shall have made enough money to keep ourselves for the future in comfort. Now," I continued, "I appeal to no one to help us. We do not intend to borrow money from anybody, and the only reason I am speaking to you to-day is because I wish, and I am sure mother agrees with me, to be quite frank with you. Mother and I know quite well that we are doing an absolutely unconventional thing, and that very likely you, as our friends of the past, will resent it. Those of you who do not feel that you can associate with two ladies who keep a boarding-house, need not say so in so many words, but you can give us to understand, by means known best to yourselves, whether you will know us in the future. If you want to cut us we shall consider it quite right, quite reasonable, quite fair. Then those who do intend to stick to us, even through this great change in our lives, may be the greatest possible help by recommending us and our boarding-house to their friends, that is, if any of you present have friends who would live in Bloomsbury.
"Mother and I thought it quite fair that you should know, and we thought it best that I should tell you quite simply. We are neither of us ashamed, and mother approves, or at least she will approve presently, of what I have done."
There was a dead silence when I ceased speaking, followed by a slight rustling amongst the ladies. The men looked one and all intensely uncomfortable, and the tall man who had come in with Mr Walters, the artist, disappeared altogether.
I had not been nervous while I was speaking, but I felt nervous now. I knew that I was being weighed in the balance, that I and my scheme were being held up before the mental eyes of these people with the keenest, most scathing criticism. Would one in all that crowd understand me? I doubted it. Perhaps in my first sensation of sinking and almost despair something of my feeling stole into my face, for suddenly Jasmine sprang to her feet and said in an excited, tremulous voice —
"I for one say that Westenra is a very plucky girl. I wish her God speed, and I hope her scheme will succeed."
This was very nice indeed of Jasmine, but I do not know that it relieved the situation much, for still the others were silent, and then one lady got up and went over to mother and took her hand and said —
"I am very sorry for you, dear Mrs. Wickham, very sorry indeed. I fear I must say good-bye now; I am very sorry. Good-bye, dear Mrs. Wickham."
And this lady's example was followed by most of the other ladies, until at last there was no one left in the room but the Duchess of Wilmot and Lady Thesiger and ourselves. Lady Thesiger's cheeks were brightly flushed.
"My dear Westenra," she said, "you are one of the most eccentric creatures in creation. Of course from first to last you are as wrong as you can be. You know nothing about keeping a boarding-house, and you are bound to fail. I could not say so before all those ridiculous people, who would not have understood, but I say so now to you. My dear girl, your speech was so much Greek to them. You spoke over their heads or under their feet, just as you please to put it, but comprehend you they did not. You will be the talk of the hour, and they will mention you as a girl whom they used to know, but who has gone a little mad, and then you will be forgotten. You would have done fifty times better by keeping this thing to yourself."
"That is precisely what I think," said the Duchess. "My dear Mary," she added, turning to my mother, "what is the matter with your child? Is she quite right?" The Duchess gave an expressive nod, and I saw mother's face turn pale.
"Oh, do listen to me for a moment," interrupted pretty Lady Thesiger, "what I say is this. Westenra is on the wrong tack. If she wishes to earn money, why must she earn it in this preposterous, impossible manner? It would be fifty times better for her to go as a teacher or a secretary, but to keep a boarding-house! You see for yourself, dear Mrs. Wickham, that it is impossible. As long as we live in society we must adhere to its rules, and for West calmly to believe that people of position in London will know her and respect her when she is a boarding-house keeper, is to expect a miracle. Now, I for one will not cut you, Westenra."
"Nor will I cut you, Westenra," said the Duchess, and she gave a profound sigh and folded her hands in her lap.
"Two of your friends will not cut you, but I really think all the others will," said Lady Thesiger. "Then I suppose you expect me to recommend nice Americans to come and stay with you, but it is my opinion that, with your no knowledge at all of this sort of thing, you will keep a very so-so, harum-scarum sort of house. How can I recommend my nice American friends to be made thoroughly uncomfortable by you? Oh, I am very sorry for you."
Lady Thesiger got up as she spoke; she kissed me, squeezed my hand, and said, "Oh child, what a goose you are!" and left the room.
The Duchess followed more slowly.
"I don't forget, my child," she said, "that I am your godmother, that I loved your dear father, that I love your mother, that I also love you. Do not be wilful, Westenra; give up this mad scheme. There are surely other ways open to you in this moment of misfortune. Above all things, try not to forget that you are your father's daughter."