JANE MULLINS
On the evening which followed our last "At Home," mother came to me,
and earnestly begged of me to pause and reflect.
"Wherever you go I will go, Westenra," she said; "that may be taken as
a matter of course, but I do think you are wrong to go against all the
wishes of our friends."
"But our friends won't do anything for us, Mummy!" I answered, "and
they will forget us just as soon in the cottage in the country, as
they will in the boarding-house in town; sooner, in fact, if that is
any consolation to you, and I do want to try it, Mummy, for I cannot
be buried alive in the country at twenty-one."
"Then I will say no more," replied mother. "I only trust the way may
be made plain for us, for at present I cannot see that it is; but if
we can find a suitable house, and take it, I will go with you, West,
although, darling, I hate the thing--I do truly."
After this speech of mother's it can easily be supposed that I slept
badly that night. I began for the first time in my life to doubt
myself, and my own judgment. I began even seriously to consider the
cottage in the country with its genteel poverty, and I began to wonder
if I was to spend the remainder of my youth getting thinner in mind
and body, day by day, and hour by hour.
"Anæmic," I said to myself. "In the country with no money, and no
interests, I shall become anæmic. My thoughts will be feeble and
wanting in force, and I shall die long before my time a miserable old
maid. Now, there are no real old maids in London. The unmarried women
are just as full of force, and go, and common-sense, and ambition, and
happiness as the married ones; but in the country, oh, it is
different. There old age comes before its time. I knew that I was not
the girl to endure having nothing to do, and yet that seemed to be my
appointed portion. So during the night I shed very bitter tears, and I
hated society for its coldness and want of comprehension. I longed
more frantically than ever to find myself in the midst of the people,
where "a man was a man for a' that," and mere veneer went for nothing.
But if mother's heart was likely to be broken by my taking this step,
and if there was no house for me but 14 Cleveland Street, I doubted
very much whether I could go on with my scheme. Judge therefore of my
surprise and delight, when on the following morning, mother handed me
a letter which she had just received. It was from Messrs. Macalister
& Co.
"Read it," she said, "I do not quite know what it means."
I read the letter quickly, it ran as follows:--
"DEAR MADAM,--We write to acquaint you, that we have just
had an interview with Mr. Hardcastle, the landlord of 17
Graham Square, and he desires us to say, that he is willing
in your case to come to terms with regard to his house, and
if you will take it for a lease of fourteen years, he will
do it up for you, in the most approved style, and according
to your own taste; he also withdraws his embargo to your
letting apartments, or having paying guests in your house.
"Under the circumstances, we shall be glad to hear if you
still entertain the idea of taking this mansion.
--Yours faithfully,
MACALISTER & CO."
"Oh mother!" I cried, "this is just splendid!" My spirits rose with a
bound. Anxious as I was to possess a boarding-house, I hated going to
14 Cleveland Street, but 17 Graham Square was a house where any one
might be happy. It was charmingly built; it was large, commodious,
cheerful, and then the landlord--he must be a delightful man when he
withdrew his embargo, when he permitted us--_us_ to have paying guests
in our dwelling. Even Jasmine need not be ashamed to send her nice,
rich American friends to 17 Graham Square.
"This is splendid, mother!" I repeated.
"Dear me, Westenra," said mother, looking pale and troubled, "what
house is he alluding to? I saw so many that first day, darling, and
the only impression they left upon me was, that they were all stairs
and narrowness; they seemed to go up and up, for ever and ever, my
legs ache even now when I think of them."
"But you cannot forget 17 Graham Square," I said, "the last house we
saw ... the corner-house. You recollect the hall, how wide it was, and
you know there were darling balconies, and you shall have one, little
mother, all to yourself, and such a sweet sun-blind over it, and you
can keep your favourite plants there, and be, oh, so happy!
Mother--mother, this is magnificent!"
"I do recall the house now," said mother, "it was not quite as bad as
the other houses; but still, Westenra, what does this mean? Why should
there be an exception made in our favour?"
"Oh, that I know nothing about," I answered, "I suppose the landlord
was not going to be so silly as to lose good tenants."
"And what is the rent of the house ... I forget."
"Two hundred and something," I said in a careless tone, "not at all
high for such a house, and the landlord, Mr. Hardcastle, will do it
up for us. Mother, we will have the carriage, and go and make our
arrangements immediately."
"Then you are quite determined, West?"
"Mother, dear mother, I do think father would like us to do it."
Now, whenever I spoke of my dead father, mother looked intensely
solemn and subdued. Once she told me that she thought there was a
strong link between my father's spirit and mine, and that at times I
spoke so exactly like him, and made use of the identically same
expressions, and in short impressed her with the feeling that he was
close to her. I did not often use my father's name, therefore, as a
means of power over my mother, but I did use it now; and, with the
usual result, she got up gently and said--
"We had better go and see the house once more."
We did go, we drove straight to the agents, and got the order to view,
and went all over 17 Graham Square. Our second visit was far more
delightful than the first, for the agent's clerk accompanied us. We
found him in an excellent humour, most willing to offer suggestions
and to accept any suggestions of ours. Not that mother made any, it
was I who, with my usual daring, spoke of this improvement and the
other.
But darling mother became a little cheerful when she stood in that
noble drawing-room and saw the sun shining in bars across the floor,
and the agent's clerk was quite astonishingly cheery; he knew just the
colour the paper ought to be, for instance, and the tone of the paint,
and he even suggested what curtains would go with such paper and such
paint. I never saw a man so improved. He had lost his brusqueness, and
was very anxious to please us.
"It is extraordinary," said mother afterwards; "really I never knew
that house-agents could be such agreeable people. No. 17 Graham Square
is a handsome house, Westenra, it is a great pity that it is not
situated in Mayfair."
"But mother, dear mother, we could not have a boarding-house in the
very midst of our friends," I said with a smile; "we shall do
splendidly in Graham Square, and we should not do at all well in
Mayfair."
When we returned to the agents, Mr. Macalister himself, one of the
heads of the firm, came and interviewed us. After answering a great
many questions, it was finally decided that he was to see Mr.
Hardcastle, the landlord, and that the landlord was to have an
interview the next day with mother; and the agent further agreed that
the landlord should call on mother at our own house in Sumner Place,
and then we drove home.
"I suppose it is completed now," said mother, "the thing is done.
Well, child, you are having your own way; it will be a lesson to you,
I only trust we shall not be quite ruined. I am already puzzled to
know how we are to meet that enormous rent."
But at that moment of my career I thought nothing at all about the
rent. That night I slept the sleep of the just, and was in high
spirits the following day, when the landlord, a nice, jovial,
rosy-faced man, arrived, accompanied by the agent. They both saw my
mother, who told them frankly that she knew nothing about business,
and so perforce they found themselves obliged to talk to me.
Everything was going smoothly until Mr. Hardcastle said in the very
quietest of tones--
"Of course you understand, Mrs. Wickham, that I shall require
references. I am going to lay out a good deal of money on the house,
and references are indispensable."
"Of course," answered mother, but she looked pale and nervous.
"What sort of references?" I asked.
"Tradesmen's references are what we like best," was his reply; "but
your banker's will be all-sufficient--an interview with your banker
with regard to your deposit will make all safe."
Then mother turned paler than ever, and looked first at me and then at
Mr. Hardcastle. After a pause she said slowly--
"My daughter and I would not undertake our present scheme if we had
capital--we have not any."
"Not any?" said Mr. Hardcastle, looking blank, "and yet you propose
to take a house with a rental of two hundred and eighty pounds a
year."
"We mean to pay the rent out of the profit we get from the boarders,"
I replied.
Mr. Hardcastle did not make use of an ugly word, but he raised his
brows, looked fixedly at me for a moment, and then shook his head.
"I am sorry," he said, rising; "I would do a great deal to oblige you,
for you are both most charming ladies, but I cannot let my house
without references. If you, for instance, Mrs. Wickham, could get any
one to guarantee the rent, I should be delighted to let you the house
and put it in order, but not otherwise."
He added a few more words, and then he and the agent, both of them
looking very gloomy, went away.
"I shall hear from you doubtless on the subject of references," said
Mr. Hardcastle as he bowed himself out, "and I will keep the offer
open until Saturday."
This was Wednesday, we had three days to spare.
"Now, Westenra," said my mother, "the thing has come to a stop of
itself. Providence has interfered, and I must honestly say I am glad.
From the first the scheme was mad, and as that nice, jovial looking
Mr. Hardcastle will not let us the house without our having capital,
and as we have no capital, there surely is an end to the matter. I
have not the slightest doubt, West, that all the other landlords in
Bloomsbury will be equally particular, therefore we must fall back
upon our little cottage in----"
"No, mother," I interrupted, "no; I own that at the present moment I
feel at my wits' end, but I have not yet come to the cottage in the
country."
I think there were tears in my eyes, for mother opened her arms wide.
"Kiss me," she said.
I ran into her dear arms, and laid my head on her shoulder.
"Oh, you are the sweetest thing on earth," I said, "and it is because
you are, and because I love you so passionately, I will not let you
degenerate. I will find my way through somehow."
I left mother a moment later, and I will own it, went to my own
lovely, lovely room, suitable for a girl who moved in the best
society, and burst into tears. It was astonishing what a sudden
passion I had taken, as my friends would say, to degrade myself; but
this did not look like degradation in my eyes, it was just honest
work. We wanted money, and we would earn it; we would go in debt to no
man; we would earn money for ourselves. But then the thought came to
me, "Was my scheme too expensive? had I any right to saddle mother
with such an enormous rent?" I had always considered myself a very
fair arithmetician, and I now sat down and went carefully into
accounts. I smile to this day as I think of myself seated at my
little table in the big bay window of my bedroom, trying to make out
with pencil and paper how I could keep 17 Graham Square going--I, a
girl without capital, without knowledge, without any of the sort of
experience which alone could aid me in a crisis of this sort.
I spent the rest of the day in very low spirits, for my accounts would
not, however hard I tried, show any margin of profit.
The more difficulties came in my way, however, the more determined was
I to overcome them. Presently I took a sheet of paper and wrote a few
lines to Mr. Hardcastle. I knew his address, and wrote to him direct.
"Dear sir," I said, "will you oblige me by letting me know what
capital my mother will require in order to become your tenant for 17
Graham Square."
I signed this letter, adding a postscript, "An early answer will
oblige."
I received the answer about noon the following day.
"DEAR MISS WICKHAM,--Your letter puzzles me. I see you have
a great deal of pluck and endeavour, and I should certainly
do my utmost to please you, but I cannot let you have the
house under a capital of five thousand pounds."
The letter fell from my hands, and I sat in blank despair. Five
thousand pounds is a small sum to many people, to others it is as
impossible and as unget-at-able as the moon. We, when our debts were
paid, would have nothing at all to live on except the annuity which my
mother received from the Government, and a small sum of fifty pounds a
year.
I began dismally to consider what rent we must pay for the awful
cottage in the country, and to what part of the country it would be
best to retire, when Paul came into the room and presented me with a
card.
"There's a lady--a person, I mean--downstairs, and she wants to see
you, Miss."
I took the card and read the name--Miss Jane Mullins.
"Who is she?" I asked; "I don't know her."
"She's a sort of betwixt and between, Miss. I showed her into the
li'bry. I said you was most likely engaged, but that I would inquire."
"Miss Jane Mullins." I read the name aloud. "Show her up, Paul," I
said then.
"Oh, my dear West, what do you mean?" said mother; "that sort of
person has probably called to beg."
"She may as well beg in the drawing-room as anywhere else," I said. "I
have rather taken a fancy to her name--Jane Mullins."
"A hideous name," said mother; but she did not add any more, for the
next moment there came a rustle of harsh silk on the landing, the
drawing-room door was flung open by Paul in his grandest style, and
Miss Jane Mullins walked in. She entered quickly, with a determined
step. She was a little woman, stoutly built, and very neatly and at
the same time quietly dressed. Her dress was black silk, and I saw at
a glance that the quality of the silk was poor. It gave her a harsh
appearance, which was further intensified by a kind of fixed colour in
her cheeks. Her face was all over a sort of chocolate red. She had
scanty eyebrows and scanty hair, her eyes were small and twinkling,
she had a snub nose and a wide mouth. Her age might have been from
thirty-five to forty. She had, however, a great deal of
self-possession, and did not seem at all impressed by my
stately-looking mother and by my tall, slender self.
As she had asked particularly to see me, mother now retired to the
other end of the long drawing-room and took up a book. I invited Miss
Mullins to a chair.
"I would a great deal rather you called me Jane at once and have done
with it," was her remarkable response to this; "but I suppose Jane
will come in time." Here she heaved a very deep sigh, raised her veil
of spotted net, and taking out her handkerchief, mopped her red face.
"It's a warm day," she said, "and I walked most of the way. I suppose
you would like me to proceed to business. I have come, Miss
Wickham--Miss Westenra Wickham--to speak on the subject of 17 Graham
Square."
"Have you?" I cried. Had the ground opened I could not have been more
amazed. What had this little, rather ugly woman, to do with my
dream-house, 17 Graham Square?
"It is a very beautiful, fine house," said the little woman. "I went
all over it this morning. I heard from your agents, Messrs. Macalister
& Co., that you are anxious to take it."
I felt that my agents were very rude in thus giving me away, and made
no response beyond a stately bend of my head. I was glad that mother
was occupying herself with some delicate embroidery in the distant
window. She certainly could not hear our conversation.
Miss Mullins now pulled her chair forward and sat in such a position
that her knees nearly touched mine.
"You'll forgive a plain question," she said; "I am here on business.
Are you prepared to take the house?"
"We certainly wish to take it," I said.
"But are you going to take it, Miss Wickham?"
I rather resented this speech, and was silent.
"Now I'll be plain. My name is blunt, and so is my nature. I want the
house."
I half rose.
"Sit down, Miss Wickham, and don't be silly."
This speech was almost intolerable, and I thought the time had come
when I should call to mother to protect me, but Jane Mullins had such
twinkling, good-humoured eyes, that presently my anger dissolved into
a curious desire to laugh.
"I know, Miss Wickham, you think me mad, and I was always accounted a
little queer, but I'll beat about the bush no longer. You want 17
Graham Square, and so do I. You have got beauty and good birth and
taste and style, and your name and your appearance will draw
customers; and I have got experience and"--here she made a long,
emphatic pause--"_money_. Now my question is this: Shall we club
together?"
I never in all my life felt more astonished, I was nearly stunned.
"Club together?" I said.
"Yes, shall we? Seven thousand pounds capital has been placed at my
disposal. You, I understand, have got furniture, at least some
furniture"--here she glanced in a rather contemptuous way round our
lovely drawing-room. "You also, of course, have a certain amount of
connection, and I have got a large and valuable connection. Shall we
club together?"
"I do not think we have any connection at all," I said bluntly; "not
one of our friends will notice us when we go to--to Bloomsbury, and
we have not half enough furniture for a house like 17 Graham Square.
But what do you mean by our clubbing together?"
"Let me speak, my dear. What I want is this. I want you to put your
furniture, what there is of it, and your connection, what there is of
it, and your good birth and your style, and your charming mother into
the same bag with my experience and my capital--or rather, the capital
that is to be given to me. Will you do it? There's a plain question.
Is it to be yes, or is it to be no? I want 17 Graham Square, and so do
you. Shall we take it together and make a success of it? I like you,
you are honest, and you're nice to look at, and I don't mind at all
your being stiff to me and thinking me queer, for by-and-by we'll be
friends. Is it to be a bargain?"
Just then mother rose from her seat and came with slow and stately
steps across the room.
"What is it, Westenra?" she said; "what does this--this lady want?"
"Oh, I'm not a lady, ma'am," said Jane Mullins, rising and dropping a
sort of involuntary curtsey. "I'm just a plain body, but I know all
about cooking, and all about servants, and all about house linen, and
all about dusting, going right into corners and never slurring them,
and all the rest, and I know what you ought to give a pound for beef
and for mutton, and what you ought to give a dozen for eggs, and for
butter, and how to get the best and freshest provisions at the lowest
possible price. I know a thousand things, my dear madam, that you do
not know, and that your pretty daughter doesn't know, and what I say
is; as we both want 17 Graham Square, shall we put our pride in our
pockets and our finances into one bag, and do the job. My name is Jane
Mullins. I never was a grand body. I'm plain, but I'm determined, and
I am good-humoured, and I am true as steel. I can give you fifty-four
references if you want them, from a number of very good honest
tradesmen who know me, and know that I pay my debts to the uttermost
farthing. Will you join me, or will you not?"
"Well," said mother, when this curious little person had finished
speaking, "this is quite the most astounding thing I ever heard of in
my life. Westenra dear, thank this person very kindly, tell her that
you know she means well, but that of course we could not think of her
scheme for a single moment."
Mother turned as she spoke, and walked up the drawing-room again, and
I looked at Jane Mullins, and Jane Mullins looked at me, and her blue
eyes twinkled. She got up at once and held out her hand.
"Then that's flat," she said; "you'll be sorry you have said it, for
Jane Mullins could have done well by you. Good-bye, miss; good-bye,
ma'am."
She gave a little nod in the direction of my stately mother, and
tripped out of the room. I was too stunned even to ring the bell for
Paul, and I think Jane Mullins let herself out.
Well, as soon as she was gone, mother turned on me and gave me the
first downright absolute scolding I had received since I was a tiny
child. She said she had been willing, quite willing, to please me in
every possible way, but when I descended to talk to people like Jane
Mullins, and to consider their proposals, there was an end of
everything, and she could not, for my father's sake, hear of such an
outrageous proposal for a moment. This she said with tears in her
eyes, and I listened quite submissively until at last the precious
darling had worn her anger out, and sat subdued and inclined to cry by
the open window. I took her hand then and petted her. I told her that
really my scolding was quite unmerited, as I had never heard of Jane
Mullins before, and was as much amazed as she was at her visit.
"All the same," I added, "I have not the slightest doubt that, with
Jane Mullins at the helm, we should do splendidly."
"My darling, darling West, this is just the straw too much," said
mother, and then I saw that it was the straw too much, and at that
moment who should come to visit us but pretty little Lady Thesiger. We
turned the conversation instinctively. Lady Thesiger said--
"You have not yet gone under, either of you, you are only talking
about it. You are quite fit to associate with me for the rest of the
day. I want you to come for a long drive in my carriage, and
afterwards we will go to the theatre together; there is a very good
piece on at the Lyceum. Now, then, be quick, Westenra, get into your
very smartest clothes, and Mrs. Wickham, will you also put on your
bonnet and mantle?"
There was never any resisting Jasmine, and we spent the rest of the
day with her, and she was absolutely winning, and so pleasant that she
made mother forget Jane Mullins; but then during dinner, in the
queerest, most marvellous way, she drew the whole story of Jane
Mullins from us both, and mother described with great pride her action
in the matter.
"Yes, that is all very fine," replied Jasmine; "but now I am going to
say a plain truth. I am going to imitate that wonderful little Jane.
My truth is this--I would fifty thousand times rather introduce my
nice American friends to Jane Mullins's boarding-house than I would to
yours, Westenra, for in Jane's they would have their wants attended
to, and be thoroughly comfortable, whereas in yours goodness only
knows if the poor darlings would get a meal fit to eat."
This was being snubbed with a vengeance, and even mother looked angry,
and I think she thought that Lady Thesiger had gone too far.
During the play that followed, and the drive home and the subsequent
night, I thought of nothing but Jane Mullins, and began more and more
to repent of my rash refusal of her aid. Surely, if Providence had
meant us to carry out our scheme, Providence had also supplied Jane
Mullins to help us to do it, and if ever woman looked true she did,
and if her references turned out satisfactory why should she not be a
sort of partner-housekeeper in the concern?
So the next morning early I crept into mother's room, and whispered to
her all about Jane and my thoughts during the night, and begged of her
to reconsider the matter.
"It is very odd, West," said mother, "but what your friend Jasmine
said has been coming to me in my dreams; and you know, darling, you
know nothing about cooking, and I know still less, and I suppose this
Miss Mullins would understand this sort of thing, so, Westenra, if
your heart is quite, quite set on it, we may as well see her again."
"She left her address on her visiting-card. I will go to her the
moment I have finished breakfast," was my joyful response.