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A CITY SCHOOLGIRL
AND HER FRIENDS
BY MAY BALDWIN
Author of 'Corah's School Chums,' 'Two Schoolgirls of Florence,'
'Sarah's School Friend,' 'The Girls' Eton,' &c.
WITH SIX COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS
By T. J. Overnell
LONDON: 38 Soho Square, W.
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED
EDINBURGH: 339 High Street
1912
Edinburgh:
Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.
[Illustration: She ran off, turning round to wave her hand to her
sister.]
CONTENTS.
I. HARD FACTS
II. THE NEW LAIRD OF LOMORE
III. FRIENDS IN NEED
IV. UPS AND DOWNS
V. THE NEW LIFE
VI. IN LONELY LODGINGS
VII. KIND-HEARTED LONDONERS
VIII. GOOD MANNERS
IX. THE ENTERPRISE CLUB
X. BLEAK HOUSE HOSTEL
XI. 'THE RANK IS BUT THE GUINEA'S STAMP'
XII. 'SAVE'
XIII. YOUNG HOUSE-HUNTERS
XIV. OFF TO A HOME AGAIN
XV. EVA'S PRESENTIMENT
XVI. VAVA'S BUSINESS LETTER
XVII. A SUNDAY AT HEATHER ROAD
XVIII. STELLA'S SURPRISING REQUEST
XIX. THE JUNIOR PARTNER
XX. VAVA ON FRIENDS
XXI. EVA'S CONDUCT AND ITS SAD EFFECTS
XXII. DANTE'S IDYLL
XXIII. STELLA'S PRIDE
XXIV. BADLY BEGUN AND MADLY ENDED
XXV. UNDER A CLOUD
XXVI. MORE CLOUDS
XXVII. THE VALUE OF A GOOD CHARACTER
XXVIII. VAVA GETS A SHOCK
XXIX. THINGS STRAIGHTEN OUT
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
She ran off, turning round to wave her hand to her sister
'Vava,' said Stella, 'do not say such dreadful things'
'I'm quite well, thank you, Mr. Jones; but my algebra isn't.'
'My lamb, you should not answer your sister as you do'
'Where have you been, Vava Wharton?' demanded Miss Briggs
Stella goes to the prize distribution
A CITY SCHOOLGIRL AND HER FRIENDS.
CHAPTER I.
HARD FACTS.
'These are the facts, Miss Wharton; hard facts no doubt, but you wished
for the truth, and indeed I could not have hidden it from you even if I
had wished to do so.' So said a keen but kindly faced old gentleman, as
he sat in an office surrounded by despatch and deed boxes which
proclaimed his profession to be that of a lawyer.
The young lady to whom these remarks were addressed, and who was a
pretty girl of twenty-one, dressed in deep and obviously recent
mourning, now replied, with a sad smile, 'But I did not want you to hide
anything from me; I wanted to hear the truth, Mr. Stacey, and I thank
you very much for telling it to me. Then I may understand that we have
just fifty pounds a year to live upon between the two of us?'
'That is all, I am sorry to say; at least all that you can count upon
with any certainty for the present, for the shares, of which I have been
trying to tell you, at present bring in nothing, and may never do so. Of
course there is the furniture, which might fetch a hundred or two, for
there are two or three valuable pieces; and, besides that, your father
had some nice china and some fine old silver,' observed Mr. Stacey.
'Oh I could not sell that!' said the girl hastily, and her colour rose.
The old lawyer shook his head. 'It is not a case of _could_; it is a
case of _must_, my dear young lady,' he said not unkindly.
'But why? You say there are no debts to pay. Why, then, should we part
with all that is left to us of home?' argued the girl, the tears coming
into her eyes.
'Why? Because you must live, you and Vava, and I don't quite see how you
are to do that on fifty pounds a year--twenty-five pounds apiece--even
if we get your sister into a school where they would take her on
half-terms as a kind of pupil-teacher,' explained the lawyer patiently.
'Send Vava to a school as a pupil-teacher, to be looked down upon and
despised by the other girls who were richer than she, to waste half her
time in teaching, and let her go away from me? I could not do it!' cried
the girl impulsively. Then, as she saw the old man, who had been a
lifelong friend of her father's as well as his lawyer, shrug his
shoulders, as much as to say she was hopeless, she added more quietly,
'We have never been parted in our lives, Mr. Stacey, and we are sad
enough as it is,' and her lips quivered. 'She would be so lonely without
me, and I without her; and surely it is as cheap for two to live
together as one? Besides, I am going to earn money; I was my father's
secretary for three years, and he always said I was a very good one. I
can typewrite quite quickly; I have typewritten all his letters for him
for the last three years and copied all his manuscripts, and I scarcely
ever made a mistake.'
Her listener looked doubtful for a moment; but now that she had some
practical suggestion to make, the interview began to take a more
business-like appearance, and the old man was ready to listen to her.
'Yes,' he said, 'your father often told me that you were better than any
trained secretary he ever had, and I have no doubt your three years'
experience has been useful to you; but unfortunately there is no one
here who happens to want a secretary'----
Before he could get any further, Stella Wharton interrupted eagerly,
'But we do not think of staying here, and I have thought the whole
matter over. I knew I should have to earn my own living, and of course
the proper place to do that is in London.'
Mr. Stacey's look of consternation would have been amusing if he had not
been so serious. 'You and Vava go and live in London alone! The thing is
impossible!'
'Why impossible?' asked Stella quietly. 'Hundreds and thousands of girls
do it who are not even as old as I am.'
'Yes, but not girls like you,' said the lawyer. He stopped from sheer
inability to express what he meant and felt, which was that such an
exceptionally pretty girl as Stella Wharton ought not to start life
alone in London and be thrown on her own resources, even though she was
a thoroughly trustworthy girl and had a younger sister to live with her.
'You do not know anything about London, or even what a town is like; you
have lived in this little Scotch village (for it is not much more), as
far as I know, all your life, and the thing would never do. It's--it's
impossible!' he wound up; 'you could not possibly do it!'
'It is not a case of _could_; it is a case of _must_,' quoted Stella,
with the ghost of a smile, as she repeated the old man's words of a few
minutes ago.
'Yes, yes,' he said; 'you must live, I know that; but even supposing
that it would be possible for you to earn your living, and even to earn
it as a secretary, you would not be able to earn enough at first to keep
yourself, let alone keep your sister as well.'
'We could live on very little,' pleaded Stella; and here she brought out
from her purse a slip from a newspaper. 'I thought of answering this.'
So saying, she handed it to the old lawyer, who read an advertisement
for a secretary in a City office who could typewrite quickly and
correctly, and transcribe difficult manuscripts in French and English.
'You might be able to do this,' said the lawyer, 'for, to be sure, you
are both excellent French scholars; but a City office'----He looked
most disapproving. 'Well,' he said, 'there is no harm in answering it;
or suppose you let me answer it for you?'
'I was going to ask you whether you would give me a testimonial; but if
you would write for me it would be very, very kind of you,' replied
Stella.
'Very well,' said Mr. Stacey with a sigh, 'I shall write to this man;
but no doubt he will have hundreds of other applications. The pay is
good, and girls who can typewrite are to be found by the thousand
nowadays.'
'Yes,' said Stella eagerly; 'but he says "an educated person," and I
read in the papers the other day that three-quarters of the girls who go
in for typewriting cannot even write their own language, so they
probably would not be able to write French.'
'But thirty-five shillings a week! How are you going to live upon
thirty-five shillings a week?' inquired the lawyer.
'It will be forty-five shillings a week,' corrected Stella.
'Well, forty-five shillings a week between two of you; that is not a
hundred and fifty pounds a year. It would take that for you alone to
live in London.'
'I have calculated it all out, Mr. Stacey; and if you would not mind
looking at this sheet of paper I think you will see that we could do
it;' and Stella handed the lawyer a second piece of paper, upon which,
in a very neat and legible hand, the girl had written out her idea of
the probable cost of living for two people in London in lodgings.
'Rent ten pounds a year!' ejaculated the lawyer, reading the first item
on the list in a tone of mingled surprise and amusement. 'That shows how
much you know of London and its prices. Where do you suppose you would
get lodgings for two people at eight shillings per week? Why, a couple
of rooms would cost a guinea at least.'
Stella Wharton's expressive face fell as she said, 'I didn't know that.
The Misses Burns have a very nice little house here for twenty pounds a
year, and I thought lodgings could not possibly be as much, for we would
be content with two rooms at first.'
The lawyer read the items through with as grave an air and as
attentively as if he were reading an important document dealing with
thousands of pounds; and when he had finished he handed it back to her,
saying, 'I see, you have thought the matter out carefully, and, at all
events, there is no need to settle anything just yet, for you have
another month before everything can be settled up here. I shall write
to-night in answer to this advertisement.' And then shaking hands very
kindly with the girl, the lawyer showed her out.
Stella made her way back to the old Manor House, in which she had lived
with her father, mother (who had died some years ago), and her younger
sister Vava, ever since she was born, and where a week ago her father
had suddenly died, leaving his two daughters, as will have been seen,
very inadequately provided for. At the gate, or, more correctly
speaking, upon the gate, was Vava, who swung lightly over and into the
road to meet her sister.
'Well,' she said, 'what had Mr. Stacey to say?'
'A great deal,' said Stella gravely, as Vava took her arm and hung on to
her elder sister.
There were seven years between the two girls, the gap between having
been filled by three brothers, who had all died.
'Stella,' said Vava in a coaxing tone, as they turned in at the gate and
walked up the long drive, 'you need not be afraid of telling me about
it, because I know it all--everything.'
'What do you know?' inquired Stella, smiling in spite of her sadness.
'I know everything that Mr. Stacey said to you,' announced the younger
girl confidently.
'How can you possibly know that, Vava, seeing that I have not told you a
single word and that you were not at the interview?' Stella was always
very matter-of-fact, and Vava would say that she was slow.
'I knew what he was going to say before he ever opened his mouth. He was
going to tell you that we had lost all our money, and that this Manor
House is not ours any longer, that I must go to a cheap school, and that
you must go and be a governess, or something horrid like that,'
announced Vava.
'Vava, who told you?' cried Stella, surprised out of her caution, for
she had not meant to tell her younger sister the real facts of the case.
'Mrs. Stacey has been here, and she told me that there were some other
people coming to the Manor House. When I said we didn't want them, she
said the Manor House was not ours, and that we should not be able to
keep them out. When I asked her why, she said because we had no money.'
'Mrs. Stacey was quite wrong, and she had no business to speak to you
like that. I am sure Mr. Stacey would be very angry if he knew,' said
Stella, who looked rather angry herself. 'Besides which,' she added in a
calmer tone, 'we have not lost all our money; we have more than a
thousand pounds. And you were not quite right about Mr. Stacey either,
for he did not suggest that I should go out as a governess, and he is at
this minute answering an advertisement for a secretaryship for me.'
Vava was silent for a minute; then she said in a queer little voice,
very unlike her usual cheerful one, 'But he did say I was to go to a
school, didn't he?'
'Would you dislike that very much?' said Stella, more to try her sister
than because she had much doubt of the answer.
'I should hate it, Stella; I would rather scrub floors than be a
charity-girl with a red cloak and a round hat and short hair, with
perhaps people giving me pennies as I walked along the street.'
'There is no chance of your going to a charity school,' replied Stella,
'there will be enough money to send you to a proper boarding-school, if
that is necessary, for there are lots of schools where you do not pay
much more than fifty pounds a year; but I should like you to live with
me in London, and go to day-school there.'
'Oh Stella, how lovely! and we could go to the Zoo and Madame Tussaud's
and the Tower every day for a walk!' cried Vava with delight.
'I am afraid we could not go daily expeditions, Vava, because I should
be in an office all day and you will be at school; but we should have
Saturdays and Sundays together, and anything would be better than being
parted--wouldn't it?--even if we are poor.'
Vava did not answer, but the squeeze that she gave to Stella's arm was
quite answer enough. They had arrived at the door of the Manor House,
and the old housekeeper came forward to meet them.
'My dears, come into my little room and have some tea; you must be
perished with cold, and I have got some lovely scones that cook has made
on purpose for you. Come straight in, won't you, Miss Stella?'
'Thank you, nursie,' said Stella with a pleasant smile, as she followed
the housekeeper to her room; while Vava danced along in front of the old
woman, calling her all sorts of affectionate names for her
thoughtfulness in getting hot scones for them on this cold day.
It was not a usual thing for the girls to have tea with the housekeeper,
though they did sometimes do it. But Stella, though surprised at the way
the housekeeper asked them, thought it was to save them from having a
lonely tea in the dining-room without their father; and to the
housekeeper's relief she went straight to the latter's room, and partook
very cheerfully of the homely meal set before them. Twice during the
meal Stella thought that she heard voices in the passage which she did
not recognise as belonging to the servants, who, indeed, were not in the
habit of speaking in such loud tones about the house; but she paid no
attention to it.
The housekeeper, who had formerly been the girls' nurse, and was still
called 'nursie' by them, talked more than usual.
At last Vava observed, 'Nursie, I believe you are feverish.'
'Miss Vava!' exclaimed the old woman, 'what can you be thinking about?
What makes you think I am feverish? I am not a bit hot, unless this big
fire is making my face a bit red.'
'I am not talking about your face; it is your voice that is feverish,
and your eyes are glittering dreadfully,' said Vava.
'Vava,' said Stella, 'do not say such dreadful things.' She also looked
at the housekeeper, who did look nervous, if not feverish, as Vava had
suggested, and whose face certainly got very flushed as a knock came to
the door.
The butler, throwing it open, said to a gentleman and a lady who
accompanied him, 'This is the housekeeper's room, sir, and this'----Here
he caught sight of Stella and Vava, and with a muttered, 'I beg your
pardon, young ladies, I am sure,' he shut the door, and his footsteps
were heard hurrying down the passage.