Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
On page 169, "household gods" should possibly be "household goods".
On page 320, "spice of her mind" should possibly be "piece of her
mind".
A PLUCKY GIRL
BY
MRS. L. T. MEADE
AUTHOR OF "CECELIA'S AWAKENING," "PEGGY FROM KERRY,"
"FOR DEAR DAD," "A WILD IRISH GIRL," "A GIRL
OF HIGH ADVENTURE," "THE CHESTERTON
GIRL GRADUATES," ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1900, by
George W. Jacobs & Co.
Contents
CHAP PAGE
I. FORTUNE'S BALL 1
II. FRIENDS OR QUONDAM FRIENDS 9
III. MY SCHEME 23
IV. THE VERDICT 31
V. JANE MULLINS 55
VI. THE BERLIN WOOL ROOM 74
VII. THE PAYING GUESTS 83
VIII. THE FLOUR IN THE CAKE 96
IX. THE ARTIST'S EYE 103
X. HER GRACE OF WILMOT 116
XI. WHY DID HE DO IT? 132
XII. TWO EXTREMES 147
XIII. THE UGLY DRESS 160
XIV. ANXIETY 176
XV. DR. READE 186
XVI. GIVE ME YOUR PROMISE 199
XVII. A DASH OF ONIONS 207
XVIII. BUTTERED BREAD 222
XIX. YOU USED TO LOVE US 234
XX. RUINED 242
XXI. MR. PATTENS 250
XXII. THE MAN IN POSSESSION 262
XXIII. ALBERT 273
XXIV. THE BOND 297
XXV. YOU ARE A GOOD MAN 311
XXVI. HAND IN HAND 319
XXVII. TOO LATE 324
XXVIII. THIS DEAR GIRL BELONGS TO US 336
XXIX. HAVE I LOST YOU? 345
XXX. THE DUCHESS HAS HER SAY 356
XXXI. THE END CROWNS ALL 368
A PLUCKY GIRL
CHAPTER I
FORTUNE'S BALL
I was born a month after my father's death, and my mother called me
after him. His name was John Westenra Wickham, but I was Westenra
Wickham alone. It was a strange name for a girl, and as I grew up
people used to comment on it. Mother loved it very much, and always
pronounced it slowly. She was devoted to father, and never spoke of
him as most people do of their dead, but as if he were still living,
and close to her and to me. When a very little child, my greatest
treat was to sit on her knee and listen to wonderful stories of my
brave and gallant father. He was a handsome man and a good man, and he
must have possessed, in a large degree, those qualities which endear
people to their fellows, for surely it was no light cause which made
my mother's beautiful brown eyes sparkle as they did when she spoke of
him, and her whole face awake to the tenderest life and love and
beauty when she mentioned his name.
I grew up, therefore, with a great passionate affection for my dead
father, and a great pride in his memory. He had been a Major-General
in a Lancer regiment, and had fought many battles for his country, and
led his men through untold dangers, and performed himself more gallant
feats than I could count. He received his fatal wound at last in
rescuing a brother-officer under fire in Zululand, and one of the last
things he was told was that he had received his Victoria Cross.
During my father's lifetime mother and he were well off, and for some
years after his death there did not appear to be any lack of money. I
was well educated, partly in Paris and partly in London, and we had a
pretty house in Mayfair, and when I was eighteen I was presented to
Her Gracious Majesty by mother's special friend, and my godmother, the
Duchess of Wilmot, and afterwards I went a great deal into society,
and enjoyed myself as much as most girls who are spirited and happy
and have kind friends are likely to do. I was quite one and twenty
before the collapse came which changed everything. I don't know how,
and I don't know why, but our gold vanished like a dream, and we found
ourselves almost penniless.
"Now what are we to do, Westenra?" said mother.
"But have we nothing?" I replied.
"Only my pension as your dear father's widow. Your pension as his
child ceased when you came of age, and I believe, for so our lawyers
tell me, that there is about fifty pounds besides. I think we can
count on a hundred and fifty a year. Can we live on that sum,
Westenra?"
"No," I answered proudly.
I was standing behind one of the silk curtains in the drawing-room as
I spoke. I was looking down into the street. The room was full of
luxury, and the people who passed backwards and forwards in their
luxurious carriages in the street below were many of them our friends,
and all more or less moved in what was called nice society. I was full
of quite unholy pride at that moment, and poverty was extremely
distasteful, and to live on a hundred and fifty pounds a year seemed
more than impossible.
"What is it, West? What are you thinking of?" said mother, in a sad
voice.
"Oh, too many things to utter," I replied. "We can't live on the sum
you mention. Why, a curate's wife could scarcely manage on it."
"Don't you think we might just contrive in a very small cottage in the
country?" pleaded mother. "I don't want much, just flowers round me
and the country air, and your company, darling, and--and--oh, very
small rooms would do, and the furniture of this house is ours. We
could sell most of it, and send what we liked best down to the
cottage."
"It can't be done," I answered. "Listen, mother, I have a proposal to
make."
"What is it, my darling? Don't stand so far away--come and sit near
me."
I walked gravely across the room, but I did not sit down. I stood
before mother with my hands tightly locked together, and my eyes
fastened on her dear, lovely, delicate old face.
"I am glad that the furniture is ours," I began.
"Of course it is."
"It is excellent furniture," I continued, looking round and appraising
it quickly in my mind's eye: "it shall be part of our capital."
"My dear child, our capital? What do you mean?"
"We will take a house in Bloomsbury, put the furniture in, and have
paying guests."
"West, are you mad? Do you remember who I am--Mrs. Wickham, the widow
of--or no, I never will allow that word--the wife of your dear, dear,
noble father."
"Father would approve of this," I answered. "He was a brave man and
died fighting, just as I mean to die fighting. You are shocked at the
idea to-night, mother, because it is fresh to you, but in a week's
time you will grow accustomed to it, you will take an interest in it,
you will even like it. I, bury myself in the country and starve!--no,
no, no, I could not do it. Mother, darling, I am your slave, your
devoted slave, your own most loving girl, but don't, don't ask me to
vegetate in the country. It would kill me--it would kill me."
I had dropped on my knees now and taken both her hands in mine, and I
spoke with great excitement, and even passion.
"Don't stir for a moment," said mother; "how like your father you
look! Just the same eyes, and that straight sort of forehead, and the
same expression round your lips. If your father were alive he would
love you for being brave."
As mother looked at me I think she forgot for the moment the terrible
plunge we were about to make into the work-a-day strata of society,
but the next instant the horrid fact was brought back to her, for
Paul, our pretty little page, brought in a sheaf of letters on a
salver. Of course they were unpaid bills. Mother said sadly--
"Put them with the others, Westenra."
"All these bills must be met," I said stoutly, after Paul had closed
the door behind him. "There will be just enough money for that
purpose, so we need not start handicapped. For my part, I mean to
enjoy our scheme vastly."
"But, my child, you do not realise--you will be stepping down from the
position in which you were born. Our friends will have nothing to do
with us."
"If they wish to give us up because we do something plucky they are
not worthy to be called friends," was my reply. "I don't believe
those friends we wish to keep will desert us, mother. On the
contrary, I am certain they will respect us. What people cannot stand
in these days is genteel poverty--its semi-starvation, its poor mean
little contrivances; but they respect a hand-to-hand fight with
circumstances, and when they see that we are determined to overcome in
the battle, then those who are worth keeping will cling to us and help
us; and if all our friends turn out to be the other sort, mother,
why"--and here I rose and stretched out my arms wide--"let them go,
they are not worth keeping. Those who won't be fond of us in our new
home in Bloomsbury we can do without."
"You are enthusiastic and--and ignorant," said mother.
"I grant that I am enthusiastic," I answered. "It would be a great
pity if I had none of that quality at one and twenty; but as to my
ignorance, well, time will prove. I should like, however, to ask you a
straight question, mother. Would father have sat beside his guns and
done nothing when the fight was going against him? Was that the way he
won his Victoria Cross?"
Mother burst out crying. She never could bear me to allude to that
fatal and yet glorious occasion. She rose now, weak and trembling, and
said that she must defer the discussion of ways and means until the
next day.
I put on my hat and went for a walk alone. I was full of hope, and
not at all depressed. Girls in these days are always glad to have
something new to do, and in the first rush of it, the idea of leaving
the humdrum path of ordinary society and of entering on a new and
vigorous career filled me with ecstacy. I don't really think in the
whole of London there was a prouder girl than the real Westenra
Wickham; but I do not think I had ordinary pride. To know titled
people gave me no special pleasure, and gay and pretty dresses were so
common with me that I regarded them as the merest incidents in my
life, and to be seen at big receptions, and at those "At Homes" where
you met the most fastidious and the smartest folks, gave me no joy
whatsoever. It is true I was very fond of my godmother, the Duchess of
Wilmot, and of another dear little American friend, who had married a
member of the Cabinet, Sir Henry Thesiger. But beyond these two I was
singularly free from any special attachments. The fact is, I was in
love with mother. Mother herself seemed to fill all my life. I felt
somehow as if father had put some of his spirit into me, and had bound
me over by a solemn vow to look after her, to comfort her, to guard
her, until he himself came to fetch her, and now my thought of
thoughts was how splendid and how necessary it would be to keep her
usual comforts round my dainty, darling, lovely mother, to give her
the food she required, and the comfortable rooms and the luxury to
which she was born; and I felt that my pride, if I could really do
that, would be so great and exultant, that I should hold my head
higher than ever in the air. Yes, I would have a downright good try,
and I vowed I would not fail. It seemed to me as I turned home again
in the sweet golden summer evening that fortune's ball lay at my feet,
that in the battle I would not be conquered, that like my father I in
my own way would win the Victoria Cross.