MY SCHEME
I arrived home early in the afternoon.
"Dear mother," I said, "I had an interview with the Duchess of Wilmot
and with Lady Thesiger. After seeing them both, I had not the heart to
go on to any more of our friends. I will describe my interview
presently, but I must talk on another matter now. Our undertaking will
be greatly prospered if our friends will stick to us and help us a
little. If, on the other hand, we are not to depend on them, the
sooner we know it the better."
"What do you mean?" asked my mother.
"Well, of course, mother dear, we will have our boarding-house. I have
thought of the exact sort of house we want. It must be very large and
very roomy, and the landlord must be willing to make certain
improvements which I will suggest to him. Our boarding-house will be a
sort of Utopia in its way, and people who come there will want to come
again. We will charge good prices, but we will make our guests very
comfortable."
Mother clasped my hand.
"Oh, my dear, dear child," she said. "How little you know about what
you are talking. We shall have an empty house; no one will come to us.
Neither you nor I have the faintest idea how to manage. We shall not
only lose all the money we have, but we shall be up to our ears in
debt. I do wish, Westenra, you would consider that simple little
cottage in the country."
"If it must come to our living within our means," I said slowly, "I
have not the least doubt that the Duchess of Wilmot would allow me to
live with her as a sort of companion and amanuensis, and influence
would be brought to bear to get you rooms in Hampton Court; but would
you consent, mother darling, would you really consent that I should
eat the bread of dependence, and that you should live partly on
charity?"
Mother coloured. She had a very delicate colour, and it always made
her look remarkably pretty. In her heart of hearts, I really do think
she was taken with the idea of Hampton Court. The ladies who lived in
those suites of apartments were more or less aristocratic, they were
at least all well connected, and she and they might have much in
common. It was, in her opinion, rather a distinction than otherwise to
live there, but I would have none of it.
"How old are you, mother?" I asked.
"Forty-three," she answered.
"Forty-three," I repeated. "Why, you are quite young, just in the
prime of middle-age. What do you mean by sitting with your hands
before you for the rest of your life? You are forty-three, and I am
twenty-one. Do you think for a single moment that able-bodied women,
like ourselves, are to do nothing in the future; for if I did go to
the Duchess my post would be merely a sinecure, and you at Hampton
Court would vegetate, nothing more. Mother, you will come with me, and
help me? We will disregard society; if society is ashamed of us, let
it be ashamed, but we must find out, and I have a scheme to propose."
"You are so full of schemes, Westenra, you quite carry me away."
Dear mother looked bewildered, but at the same time proud of me. I
think she saw gleaming in my eyes, which I know were bright and dark
like my father's, some of that spirit which had carried him with a
forlorn hope into the thickest of the fight, and which enabled him to
win the Victoria Cross. There are a great many Victoria Crosses to be
secured in this world, and girls can get and wear some of them.
"Now," I said, "we need not give up this house until the autumn. The
landlord will then take it off our hands, and we shall move into our
Bloomsbury mansion, but as I did not quite succeed to-day in knowing
exactly how we stood with our friends, I propose that next week we
should give an 'At Home,' a very simple one, mother, nothing but tea
and sweet cakes, and a few sandwiches, no ices, nothing expensive."
"My dear Westenra, just now, in the height of the season, would any
one come?"
"Yes, they will come, I will write to all the friends I know, and they
will come out of curiosity. We will invite them for this day
fortnight. I don't know any special one of our friends who has an 'At
Home' on the third Friday in the month. But let me get our 'At Home'
book and see."
I looked it out, and after carefully examining the long list of our
acquaintances, proclaimed that I thought the third Friday in the month
was a tolerably free day.
"We will ask them to come at three," I said, "a little early in the
afternoon, so that those who do want to go on to friends afterwards,
will have plenty of time."
"But why should they come, Westenra; why this great expense and
trouble, just when we are parting with them all, for if I go to
Hampton Court, or the country, or to that awful boarding-house of
yours, my poor child, my days in society are at an end."
"In one sense they are, mother, nevertheless, I mean to test our
friends. People are very democratic in these days, and there is no
saying, but that I may be more the fashion than ever; but I don't
want to be the fashion, I want to get help in the task which is before
me. Now, do hear me out."
Mother folded her hands in her lap. Her lips were quivering to speak,
but I held her in control as it were. I stood before her making the
most of my slender height, and spoke with emphasis.
"We will ask all our friends. Paul will wait on them, and Morris shall
let them in, and everything will be done in the old style, for we have
just the same materials we ever had to give a proper and fashionable
'At Home,' but when they are all assembled, instead of a recitation,
or music, I will jump up and stand in the middle of the room, and
briefly say what we mean to do. I will challenge our friends to leave
us, or to stick to us."
"Westenra, are you mad? I can never, never consent to this."
"It is the very best plan, and far less troublesome than going round
to everybody, and they will be slightly prepared, for the dear Duchess
will have mentioned something of what I said this morning to her
friends, and I know she will come. She won't mind visiting us here
just once again, and Jasmine will come, and--and many other people,
and we will put the thing to the test. Yes, mother, this day fortnight
they shall come, and I will write the invitations to-night, and
to-morrow you and I will go to Bloomsbury and look for a suitable
house, for by the time they come, mother, the house will have been
taken, and I hope the agreement made out, and the landlord will have
been consulted, and he will make the improvements I suggest and will
require. It is a big thing, mother, a great big venture for two lone
women like ourselves, but we will succeed, darling, we _must_
succeed."
"You are a rock of strength, West," she answered, half proudly, half
sadly, "you are just like your father."
That night I sent out the invitations. They were ordinary notes of
invitation, for on second thoughts I resolved not to prepare our many
acquaintances beforehand. "Mrs. Wickham at home on such a day,"
nothing more.
I posted the letters and slept like a top that night, and in the
morning awoke with the tingling sensation which generally comes over
me when I have a great deal to do, and when there is an important and
very interesting matter at stake. I used to feel like that at times
when I was at school. On the day when I won the big scholarship, and
was made a sort of queen of by the other girls, I had the sensation
very strongly, and I felt like it also when a terrible illness which
mother had a few years ago came to a crisis, and her precious life lay
in the balance. Here was another crisis in my career, almost the most
important which had come to me yet, and I felt the old verve and the
old strong determination to conquer fate. Fate at present was against
me, but surely I was a match for it: I was young, strong, clever, and
I had a certain _entrée_ into society which might or might not help
me. If society turned its back on me, I could assuredly do without it.
If, on the other hand, it smiled on me, success was assured in
advance.
I ran downstairs to breakfast in the best of spirits. I had put on my
very prettiest white dress, and a white hat trimmed with soft silk and
feathers.
"Why, Westenra, dressed already?" said mother.
"Yes, and you must dress too quickly, Mummy. Oh, there is Paul. Paul,
we shall want the victoria at ten o'clock."
Paul seemed accustomed to this order now. He smiled and vanished. None
of our servants knew that their tenure with us was ended, that within
a very short time mother and I would know the soft things of life no
more. We were dragging out our last delicious days in the Land of
Luxury; we were soon to enter the Land of Hard Living, the Land of
Endeavour, the Land of Struggle. Might it not be a better, a more
bracing life than our present one? At least it would be a more
interesting life, of that I made sure, even before I plunged into its
depths.
Mother ate her breakfast quite with appetite, and soon afterwards we
were driving in the direction of Bloomsbury.
Jenkins, who had lived with us for years, and who had as a matter of
course imbibed some of the aristocratic notions of our neighbourhood,
almost turned up his nose when we told him to stop at the house of a
well-known agent in Bloomsbury. He could not, like the Duchess of
Wilmot, confess that he did not know where Bloomsbury was, but he
evidently considered that something strange and by no means _comme il
faut_ had occurred.
Presently we reached our destination, it was only half-past ten.
"Won't you get out, mother?" I asked as I sprang to the pavement.
"Is it necessary, dear child?" replied mother.
"I think it is," I answered; "you ought to appear in this matter, I am
too young to receive the respect which I really merit, but with you to
help me--oh, you will do _exactly_ what I tell you, won't you?"
"My dear girl!"
"Yes, Mummy, you will, you will."
I took her hand, and gave it a firm grip, and we went into the
house-agent's together.