"TELL US ALL ABOUT IT, NAN."
Nan overslept herself, and was rather late the next morning; but as
she entered the parlor, with an exclamation of penitence for her
tardiness, she found her little speech was addressed to the empty
walls. A moment after, a shadow crossed the window, and Phillis came
in.
She went up to Nan and kissed her, and there was a gleam of fun in her
eyes.
"Oh, you lazy girl!" she said; "leaving me all the hard work to do. Do
you know, I have been around to the Library, and have had it all out
with Miss Milner; and in the Steyne I met the clergyman again,
and--would you believe it; he looked quite disappointed because you
were not there!"
"Nonsense!" returned Nan, sharply. She never liked this sort of joking
speeches: they seemed treasonable to Dick.
"Oh, but he did," persisted Phillis, who was a little excited and
reckless after her morning's work. "He threw me a disparaging glance,
which said, as plainly as possible, 'Why are you not the other one?'
That comes from having a sister handsomer than one's self."
"Oh, Phillis! when people always think you so nice, and when you are
so clever!"
Phillis got up and executed a little courtesy in the prettiest way,
and then she sank down upon her chair in pretended exhaustion.
"What I have been through! But I have come out of it alive. Confess,
now, there's a dear, that you could not have done it!"
"No; indeed," with an alarmed air. "Do you really mean to say that you
actually told Miss Milner what we meant to do?"
"I told her everything. There, sit down and begin your breakfast, Nan,
or we shall never be ready. I found her alone in the shop. Thank
goodness, that Miss Masham was not there. I have taken a dislike to
that simpering young person, and would rather make a dress for Mrs.
Squails any day than for her. I told her the truth, without a bit of
disguise. Would you believe it, the good creature actually cried about
it! she quite upset me too. 'Such young ladies! dear, dear: one does
not often see such,' she kept saying over and over again. And then she
put out her hand and stroked my dress, and said, 'Such a beautiful
fit, too; and to think you have made it yourself! such a clever young
lady! Oh, dear! whatever will Mr. Drummond and Miss Mattie say?'
Stupid old thing! as though we cared what he said!"
"Oh, Phillis! and she cried over it?"
"She did indeed. I am not exaggerating. Two big round tears rolled
down her cheeks. I could have kissed her for them. And then she made
me sit down in the little room behind the shop, where she was having
her breakfast, and poured me out a cup of tea and----" But here Nan
interrupted her, and there was a trace of anxiety in her manner.
"Poured you out a cup of tea! Miss Milner! And you drank it!"
"Of course I drank it; it was very good, and I was thirsty."
But here Nan pounced upon her unexpectedly, and dragged her to the
window.
"Your fun is only make-believe: there is no true ring about it. Let me
see your eyes. Oh, Phil, Phil! I thought so! You have been crying,
too!"
Phillis looked a little taken aback. Nan was too sharp for her. She
tried to shake herself free a little pettishly.
"Well, if I choose to make a fool of myself for once in my life, you
need not be silly about it; the old thing was so upsetting, and--and
it was so hard to get it out." Phillis would not have told for worlds
how utterly she had broken down over that task of hers; how the
stranger's sympathy had touched so painful a chord that, before she
knew what she was doing, she had laid her head down on the counter and
was crying like a baby,--all the more that she had so bravely pent up
her feelings all these days that she might not dishearten her
sisters.
But, as Nan petted and praised her, she did tell how good Miss Milner
had been to her.
"Fancy a fat old thing like that having such fine feelings," she said,
with an attempt to recover her sprightliness. "She was as good as a
mother to me,--made me sit in the easy-chair, and brought me some
elder-flower water to bathe my eyes, and tried to cheer me up by
saying that we should have plenty of work. She has promised not to
tell any one just yet about us; but when we are really in the Friary
she will speak to people and recommend us: and--" here Phillis gave a
little laugh--"we are to make up a new black silk for her that her
brother has just sent her. Oh, dear, what will mother say to us, Nan?"
And Phillis looked at her in an alarmed, beseeching way, as though in
sore need of comfort.
Nan looked grave; but there was no hesitation in her answer:
"I am afraid it is too late to think of that now, Phil: it has to be
done, and we must just go through with it."
"You are right, Nanny darling, we must just go through with it,"
agreed Phillis; and then they went on with their unfinished breakfast,
and after that the business of the day began.
It was late in the evening when they reached home. Dulce who was at
the gate looking out for them, nearly smothered them with kisses.
"Oh, you dear things! how glad I am to get you back," she said,
holding them both. "Have you really only been away since yesterday
morning? It seems a week at least."
"You ridiculous child! as though we believe that! But how is mother?"
"Oh, pretty well: but she will be better now you are back. Do you
know," eying them both very gravely, "I think it was a wise thing of
you to go away like that? it has shown me that mother and I could not
do without you at all: we should have pined away in those lodgings; it
has quite reconciled me to the plan," finished Dulce, in a loud
whisper that reached her mother's ears.
"What plan? What are you talking about, Dulce? and why do you keep
your sisters standing in the hall?" asked Mrs. Challoner, a little
irritably. But her brief nervousness vanished at the sight of their
faces: she wanted nothing more, she told herself, but to see them
round her, and hear their voices.
She grew quite cheerful when Phillis told her about the new papers,
and how Mrs. Crump was to clean down the cottage, and how Crump had
promised to mow the grass and paint the greenhouse, and Jack and
Bobbie were to weed the garden-paths.
"It is a perfect wilderness now, mother: you never saw such a place."
"Never mind, so that it will hold us, and that we shall all be
together," she returned, with a smile. "But Dulce talked of some plan:
you must let me hear it, my dears; you must not keep me in the dark
about anything. I know we shall all have to work," continued the poor
lady; "but if we be all together, if you will promise not to leave me,
I think I could bear anything."
"Are we to tell her!" motioned Nan with her lips to Phillis; and as
Phillis nodded, "Yes," Nan gently and quietly began unfolding their
plan.
But, with all her care and all Phillis's promptings, the revelation
was a great shock to Mrs. Challoner; in her weakened state she seemed
hardly able to bear it.
Dulce repented bitterly her incautious whisper when she saw her
sisters' tired faces, and their fruitless attempts to soften the
effects of such a blow. For a little while, Mrs. Challoner seemed on
the brink of despair; she would not listen; she abandoned herself to
lamentations; she became so hysterical at last that Dorothy was
summoned from the kitchen and taken into confidence.
"Mother, you are breaking our hearts," Nan said, at last. She was
kneeling at her feet, chafing her hands, and Phillis was fanning her;
but she pushed them both away from her with weak violence.
"It is I whose heart is breaking! Why must I live to see such things?
Dorothy, do you know my daughters are going to be dressmakers?--my
daughters, who are Challoners,--who have been delicately
nurtured,--who might hold up their heads with any one?"
"Dorothy, hold your tongue!" exclaimed Phillis, peremptorily. "You are
not to speak; this is for us to decide, and no one else. Mammy, you
are making Nan look quite pale: she is dreadfully tired, and so am I.
Why need we decide anything to-night? Every one is upset and excited,
and when that is the case one can never arrive at any proper
conclusion. Let us talk about it to-morrow, when we are rested." And,
though Mrs. Challoner would not allow herself to be comforted, Nan's
fatigue and paleness were so visible to her maternal eyes that they
were more eloquent than Phillis's words.
"I must not think only of myself. Yes, yes, I will do as you wish.
There will be time enough for this sort of talk to-morrow. Dorothy,
will you help me? The young ladies are tired; they have had a long
journey. No, my dear, no," as Dulce pressed forward; "I would rather
have Dorothy." And, as the old servant gave them a warning glance,
they were obliged to let her have her way.
"Mammy has never been like this before," pouted Dulce, when they were
left alone. "She drives us away from her as though we had done
something purposely to vex her."
"It is because she cannot bear the sight of us to-night," returned
Phillis, solemnly. "It is worse for her than for us; a mother feels
things for her children more than for herself; it is nature, that is
what it is," she finished philosophically; "but she will be better
to-morrow." And after this the miserable little conclave broke up.
Mrs. Challoner passed a sleepless night, and her pillow was sown with
thorns. To think of the Challoners falling so low as this! To think of
her pretty Nan, her clever, bright Phillis, her pet Dulce coming to
this; "oh, the pity of it!" she cried in the dark hours, when vitality
runs lowest, and thoughts seem to flow involuntarily towards a dark
centre.
But with the morning came sunshine, and her girl's faces,--a little
graver than usual, perhaps, but still full of youth and the brightness
of energy; and the sluggish nightmare of yesterday's grief began to
fade a little.
"Now, mammy, you are not going to be naughty to-day!" was Dulce's
morning salutation as she seated herself on the bed.
Mrs. Challoner smiled faintly:
"Was I very naughty last night, Dulce?"
"Oh, as bad as possible. You pushed poor Nan and Phillis away, and
would not let any one come near you but that cross old Dorothy, and
you never bade us good-night; but if you promise to be good, I will
forgive you and make it up," finished Dulce, with those light
butterfly kisses to which she was addicted.
"Now, Chatterbox, it is my turn," interrupted Phillis; and then she
began a carefully concocted little speech, very carefully drawn out to
suit her mother's sensitive peculiarities.
She went over the old ground patiently point by point. Mrs. Challoner
shuddered at the idea of letting lodgings.
"I knew you would agree with us," returned Phillis, with a convincing
nod; and then she went on to the next clause.
Mrs. Challoner argued a great deal about the governess scheme. She was
quite angry with Phillis, and seemed to suffer a great deal of
self-reproach, when the girl spoke of their defective education and
lack of accomplishments. Nan had to come to her sister's rescue; but
the mother was slow to yield the point:
"I don't know what you mean. My girls are not different from other
girls. What would your poor father say if he were alive? It is cruel
to say this to me, when I stinted myself to give you every possible
advantage, and I paid Miss Martin eighty pounds a year," she
concluded, tearfully, feeling as though she were the victim of a
fraud.
She was far more easily convinced that going out as companions would
be impracticable under the circumstances. "Oh, no, that will never
do!" she cried, when the two little rooms with Dulce were proposed;
and after this Phillis found her task less difficult. She talked her
mother over at last to reluctant acquiescence. "I never knew how I
came to consent," she said, afterwards, "but they were too much for
me."
"We cannot starve. I suppose I must give in to you," she said, at
last; "but I shall never hold up my head again." And she really
believed what she said.
"Mother, you must trust us," replied Phillis, touched by this victory
she had won. "Do you know what I said to Dulce? Work cannot degrade
us. Though we are dressmakers, we are still Challoners. Nothing can
make us lose our dignity and self-respect as gentlewomen."
"Other people will not recognize it," returned her mother, with a
sigh. "You will lose caste. No one will visit you. Among your equals
you will be treated as inferiors. It is this that bows me to the earth
with shame."
"Mother, how can you talk so?" cried Nan, in a clear, indignant voice.
"What does it matter if people do not visit us? We must have a world
of our own, and be sufficient for ourselves, if we can only keep
together. Is not that what you have said to us over and over again?
Well, we shall be together, we shall have each other. What does the
outside world matter to us after all?"
"Oh, you are young; you do not know what complications may arise,"
replied Mrs. Challoner, with the gloomy forethought of middle age.
She thought she knew the world better than they, but in reality she
was almost as guileless and ignorant as her daughters. "Until you
begin, you do not know the difficulties that will beset you," she went
on.
But notwithstanding this foreboding speech, she was some what
comforted by Nan's words: "they would be together!" Well, if
Providence chose to inflict this humiliation and afflictive
dispensation on her, it could be borne as long as she had her children
around her.
Nan made one more speech,--a somewhat stern one for her.
"Our trouble will be a furnace to try our friends. We shall know the
true from the false. Only those who are really worth the name will be
faithful to us."
Nan was thinking of Dick; but her mother misunderstood her, and grew
alarmed.
"You will not tell the Paines and the other people about here what you
intend to do, surely? I could not bear that! no, indeed, I could not
bear that!"
"Do not be afraid, dear mother," returned Nan, sadly, "we are far too
great cowards to do such a thing, and, after all, there is no need to
put ourselves to needless pain. If the Maynes were here we might not
be able to keep it from them, perhaps, and so I am thankful they are
away."
Nan said this quite calmly, though her mother fixed her eyes upon her
in a most tenderly mournful fashion. She had quite forgotten their
Longmead neighbors, but now, as Nan recalled them to her mind, she
remembered Mr. Mayne, and her look had become compassionate.
"It will be all over with those poor children," she thought to
herself: "the father will never allow it,--never; and I cannot wonder
at him." And then her heart softened to the memory of Dick, whom she
had never thought good enough for Nan, for she remembered now with a
sore pang that her pride was laid low in the dust, and that she could
not hope now that her daughters would make splendid matches: even Dick
would be above them, though his father had been in trade, and though
he had no grandfather worth mentioning.
A few days after their return from Hadleigh, there was an other long
business interview with Mr. Trinder, in which every thing was settled.
A tenant had already been found for the cottage. A young couple, on
the eve of their marriage, who had long been looking for a suitable
house in the neighborhood had closed at once with Mr. Trinder's offer,
and had taken the lease off their hands. The gentleman was a cousin of
the Paines and, partly for the convenience of the in-coming tenants,
and partly because the Challoners wished to move as soon as possible,
there was only a delay of a few weeks before the actual flitting.
It would be impossible to describe the dismay of the neighborhood when
the news was circulated.
Immediately after their return from Hadleigh, Nan and Phillis took
counsel together, and, summoning up their courage, went from one to
another of their friends and quietly announced their approaching
departure.
"Mother has had losses, and we are now dreadfully poor, and we are
going to leave Glen Cottage and go down to a small house we have at
Hadleigh," said Nan, who by virtue of an additional year of age was
spokeswoman on this occasion. She had fully rehearsed this little
speech, which she intended to say at every house in due rotation. "We
will not disguise the truth; we will let people know that we are poor,
and then they will not expect impossibilities," she said, as they
walked down the shady roads towards the Paines' house,--for the Paines
were their most intimate friends and had a claim to the first
confidence.
"I think that will be sufficient; no one has any right to know more,"
she continued, decidedly, fully determined that no amount of coaxing
and cross-examination should wring from her one unnecessary word.
But she little knew how difficult it would be to keep their own
counsel. The Paines were not alone: they very seldom were. Adelaide
Sartoris was there, and the younger Miss Twentyman, and a young widow,
a Mrs. Forbes, who was a distant connection of Mrs. Paine.
Nan was convinced that they had all been talking about them, for there
was rather an embarrassed pause as she and Phillis entered the room.
Carrie looked a little confused as she greeted them.
Nan sat down by Mrs. Paine, who was rather deaf, and in due time made
her little speech. She was rather pale with the effort, and her voice
faltered a little, but every word was heard at the other end of the
room.
"Leave Glen Cottage, my dear? I can't have heard you rightly. I am
very deaf, to-day,--very. I think I must have caught cold." And Mrs.
Paine turned a mild face of perplexity on Nan; but, before she could
reiterate her words, Carrie was on the footstool at her feet, and Miss
Sartoris, with a grave look of concern on her handsome features, was
standing beside her:
"Oh, Nan! tell us all about it! Of course we saw something was the
matter. Dulce was so strange that afternoon; and you have all been
keeping yourselves invisible for ever so long."
"There is very little to tell," returned Nan, trying to speak
cheerfully. "Mother has had bad news. Mr. Gardiner is bankrupt, and
all our invested money is gone. Of course we could not go on living at
Glen Cottage. There is some talk, Carrie, of your cousin, Mr.
Ibbetson, coming to look at it: it will be nice for us if he could
take the lease off our hands, and then we should go down to the
Friary."
"How I shall hate to see Ralph there!--not but what it will suit him
and Louisa well enough, I dare say. But never mind him: I want to
know all about yourselves," continued Carrie, affectionately. "This is
dreadful, Nan! I can hardly believe it. What are we to do without you?
and where is the Friary? and what is it like? and what will you do
with yourselves when you get there?"
"Yes, indeed, that is what we want to know," agreed Miss Sartoris,
putting her delicately-gloved hand on Nan's shoulder; and then Sophy
Paine joined the little group, and Mrs. Forbes and Miss Twentyman left
off talking to Phillis, and began listening; with all their might. Now
it was that Nan began to foresee difficulties.
"The Friary is very small," she went on, "but it will just hold us and
Dorothy. Dorothy is coming with us, of course. She is old, but she
works better than some of the young ones. She is a faithful
creature----"
But Carrie interrupted her impatiently:
"But, Nan, what will you do with yourselves? Hadleigh is a nice place,
I believe. Mamma, we must all go down there next summer, and stay
there,--you shall come with us, Adelaide,--and then we shall be able
to cheer these poor things up; and Nan, you and Phillis must come and
stay with us. We don't mean to give you up like this. What does it
matter about being poor? We are all old friends together. You shall
give us tea at the Friary; and I dare say there are tennis-grounds at
Hadleigh, and we will have nice times together."
"Of course we will come and see you," added Miss Sartoris, with a
friendly pressure of Nan's shoulder; but the poor girl only colored up
and looked embarrassed, and then it was that Phillis, who was watching
her opportunity, struck in:
"You are all very good; but, Carrie, I don't believe you understand
Nan one bit. When people lose their money they have to work. We shall
all have to put our shoulder to the wheel. We would give you tea, of
course, but as for paying visits and playing tennis, it is only idle
girls like yourselves who have time for that sort of thing. It will be
work and not play, I fear, with us."
"Oh, Phillis!" exclaimed poor Carrie, with tears in her eyes, and Miss
Sartoris looked horrified, for she had West-Indian blood in her veins
and was by nature somewhat indolent and pleasure-loving.
"Do you mean you will have to be governesses?" she asked, with a touch
of dismay in her voice.
"We shall have to work," returned Phillis, vaguely. "When we are
settled at the Friary we must look round us and do the best we can."
This was felt to be vague by the whole party; but Phillis's manner was
so bold and well assured that no one suspected that anything lay
beyond the margin of her speech. They had not made up their minds,
perhaps; Sir Francis Challoner would assist them; or there were other
sources of help: they must move into the new house first, and then see
what was to be done. It was so plausible, so sensible, that every one
was deceived.
"Of course you cannot decide in such a hurry: you must have so much to
do just now," observed Carrie. "You must write and tell us all your
plans, Phillis, and if there be anything we can do to help you. Mamma,
we might have Mrs. Challoner here while the cottage is dismantled. Do
spare her to us, Nan, and we will take such care of her!" And they
were still discussing this point, and trying to overrule Nan's
objections,--who knew nothing would induce her mother to leave
them,--when other visitors were announced, and in the confusion they
were allowed to make their escape.