THE WYNDHAM GIRLS
[Illustration: "TOM HAD CAMPED OUT, AND HE INSISTED ON COOKING THE
STEAK."]
THE
WYNDHAM GIRLS
BY
MARION AMES TAGGART
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BY C. M. RELYEA
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1902
Copyright, 1901, 1902, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published October, 1902_
THE DEVINNE PRESS
TO
CAROLYN WELLS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I "POOR HUMPTY DUMPTY!" 3
II FRIENDS, COUNSELORS, AND PLANS 22
III WAYS AND MEANS 40
IV MAKING THE BEST OF IT 59
V PHYLLIS AND BARBARA ENTER THE LISTS 75
VI MARK TAPLEY'S KIND OF DAYS 91
VII TAKING ARMS AGAINST A SEA OF TROUBLES 107
VIII THE TURN OF THE LANE 122
IX HOME-KEEPING HEARTS 140
X DISCOVERIES 157
XI LOYAL PHYLLIS 172
XII THE SQUARE BECOMES A TRIANGLE 190
XIII THE STRAY UNIT 207
XIV THE LITTLE BLIND GOD OPENS HIS EYES 224
XV WREATHING HOLLY AND TWINING BAY 242
XVI SPOKES FROM THE HUB 258
XVII THE LADY OF THE SCALES 271
XVIII UNDER THE HARVEST MOON 289
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"TOM HAD CAMPED OUT, AND HE INSISTED ON
COOKING THE STEAK" _Frontispiece_
THE WYNDHAM GIRLS 7
"A YOUNG MAN DASHED DOWN THE STEPS INTO THE RUINS" 51
AUNT HENRIETTA 81
THE EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF PEACE 125
"'LOOK OUT, TRUCHI-KI; YOU'LL FALL!' PHYLLIS SAID" 145
"'I KNEW THAT IF I WAS AWFULLY ILL MISS BAB WOULD BE
NICE TO YOU,' MURMURED MARGERY" 237
A BEARER OF GOOD TIDINGS 279
THE WYNDHAM GIRLS
CHAPTER I
"POOR HUMPTY DUMPTY!"
"No pink for me, please; I want that beautiful shimmering green, made
up over shining white silk. It will make my glossy brown eyes and hair
look like a ripe chestnut among its green leaves."
"Oh, Bab, such a glistening sentence! 'Shimmering green,' 'shining
white,' 'glossy hair'--you didn't mean glossy eyes, I hope! Besides,
chestnuts don't show among green leaves; they stay in their burs till
they drop off the tree."
"Now, Phyllis, what is the use of spoiling a poetical
metaphor--figure--what do you call it? Which do you like best? Have you
made up your mind, Jessamy?"
"I want all white; probably this mousseline de soie."
"I'm rather inclined to the pearl, yet the violet is lovely."
"You both 'know your effects,' as that conceited little novelist said
last night," cried Barbara. "Jessamy's a dream in white, and Phyl
looks too sweet for mortal uses in anything demure."
The soft May wind from the distant river blew the lace curtains gently
to and fro, and lifted the squares of delicate fabrics scattered over
the couch on which the three young girls were sitting. Jessamy, the
elder of the two Wyndham sisters, was at eighteen very beautiful, with
dainty elegance of motion, refinement of speech, almost stately grace,
unusual to her age and generation.
Barbara, a year younger, was her opposite. Life, energy, fun were
declared in every quick turn of her head and hands; small in figure,
with sparkling dark eyes, and a saucy tilt of nose and chin, she
could hardly have contrasted more sharply with her tall, gray-eyed,
delicately tinted sister, and with what Bab herself called "Jessamy's
Undine ways."
The third girl, Phyllis, was twin in age to Jessamy, but unlike either
of the others in appearance and temperament. She was in reality their
cousin, the one child of their father's only brother, but, as she had
been brought up with them since her fourth year, Jessamy and Barbara
knew no lesser kinship to her than to each other.
At first glance Phyllis was not pretty; to those who had known her for
even a brief time she was beautiful. Sweetness, unselfishness, content
shone out from her dark-blue eyes, with the large pupils and long, dark
lashes. Her lips rested together with the suggestion of a smile in
their corners, and the clear pallor of her complexion was shaded by
her masses of dark-brown hair, which warmed into red tints under the
sunlight.
Across the room from her daughters and niece, enjoying the girls'
happiness as she always did, sat Mrs. Wyndham, rocking slowly.
She was a fragile woman, still clad in the mourning she had worn for
her husband for seven years,--a sweet and gentle creature, who, one
felt at once, had been properly placed by Providence in luxury, and
fortunately shielded from hardship; for the Wyndhams were wealthy. The
morning-room in the great house on Murray Hill showed evidence of being
the spot where the family gathered informally for rest and recreation;
it made no attempt at special beauty, still it was full of countless
little objects which declared the long custom of all its inmates of
purchasing whatever struck their fancy, regardless of its cost or
subsequent usefulness.
The three young girls, differing in many ways, were alike in
bearing the stamp of having spent their short lives among luxurious
surroundings, shielded from the cradle against the sharp buffets of
common experience.
Even the samples fluttering under their fingers and the touch of the
spring wind bore the name of a French artist on Fifth Avenue whose
skill only the highly favored could command, and the consultation
under way was for the selection for each young girl of gowns fit for a
princess's wearing, yet intended for the use of maidens not yet "out,"
in the hops at the hotel at Bar Harbor in the coming summer.
"Madrina, do you care which we choose?" asked Bab, jumping up in a
shower of samples which flew in all directions at her sudden movement,
and running over to hug her pale mother. Jessamy said Bab was "subject
to irruptions of affection."
"Not in the least; the samples are all bewilderingly pretty. I only ask
to have a voice in selecting the style of the gown. Madame Alouette and
I sometimes differ as to what is suitable," replied Mrs. Wyndham, when
she had caught her breath.
"Do you remember the elaborate lace she used on Jessamy's dimity last
year, auntie?" laughed Phyllis, on her knees collecting the samples Bab
had scattered.
Jessamy rose slowly, gently putting together the bits of
soap-bubble-tinted gauzes on her knee; her fingers stroked them
reluctantly, as if unwilling to part from them. "I am afraid I am
dreadfully vain," she said, "though I hope I am only artistic. I am
not sure whether I love exquisite things for their own sake or because
I want them for myself, but these lovely fabrics go to my very heart.
I hate cheapness to an extent that I am ashamed of, and I certainly
always have an instinct for the most expensive articles in the shops,
though I never think of the price."
"I am sure it is because you're artistic, Amy," said Phyllis, coming
up flushed from under an arm-chair. "You do like fine things for
yourself, but it's just as you want only good pictures in your room.
You crave beauty, and you're born royal in taste. If we were all
beggared, Bab and I could get on; for while I love beauty too, it's not
with your love for it. Besides, I could be happy in a tenement if we
were together, and Bab would revel in a sunbonnet and driving the cows
home. But you're a princess, and you can't be anything else: _noblesse
oblige_, you know, means, in your case, 'obliged to be noble.'"
[Illustration: THE WYNDHAM GIRLS.]
"You're a bad Phyl, whose object in life is to ruin people by making
them perfectly self-satisfied," said Jessamy. "I only hope some of the
excuses you find for me are true. I'm as luxurious in nature as a cat.
I know that. Come to the window; I want to see this old rose in the
sunlight."
Bab stopped swinging her feet, and slipped from the arm of her mother's
chair, where she had been perching, to follow them. "Don't you abuse
cats, nor my sister Jessamy, miss," she said, putting her arm around
slender Jessamy and peering over her shoulder at the sample of old-rose
silk, while she rubbed Jessamy's arm with her chin like an affectionate
dog. "They're two as nice things as I know. Madrina, I see Mr. Hurd
coming across the street; he's headed this way."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Mrs. Wyndham, almost fretfully; "I suppose he is
coming to talk business again. He has been tormenting me all winter
to withdraw my money from the corporation; you know, he thinks it
isn't secure. I am sure I cannot see why--do you, Jessamy and Phyllis?
You are as good business women as I am. Don't leave me when he comes
to-day; I should like to have you hear his arguments. Young as you
are, you can understand quite as well as I do. He says I ought to sell
my stock, or enough to secure us against misfortune, but I cannot get
as high interest elsewhere, and it is safe."
"He--you said Mr. Hurd thinks it isn't safe, didn't you, mama?" asked
Jessamy, turning from the window.
"But that is ridiculous! Your poor father's partner is at the helm,
and your father always said he was both clever and unimpeachable; he
trusted him like himself," said Mrs. Wyndham. "It is all because they
won't show the books lately--as though I wanted to see the books, or
minded if Mr. Hurd did not, as long as Mr. Abbott is managing! I cannot
see why Mr. Hurd is so nervous; he has talked hours to me since last
fall, and yet I don't see. I will not put our stock on the market--in
the market--what is the right word?--and shake public confidence, flood
the market--inflate it--oh, I cannot remember terms! And Mr. Abbott
wrote me, and came especially to see me in March to say that would
be the effect of my offering my bonds or stock now. I understand him
much better than Mr. Hurd; he is more patient, and won't leave his
point until I have mastered it. He said industrial stock was different
from--from--the other kind. He said one must not bear the market on
one's own stock, but must bull it. That means, in their queer terms,
not depress it, but force things upward, which is, of course, what one
would want to do with one's own values. You stay in the room to-day,
children, and see if you understand. Mr. Hurd insists I am risking
beggaring you, and that distresses me unspeakably."
"Don't mind Mr. Hurd, Madrina; he's an anxious attorney, that's all,"
said Barbara, with an air of lucidity.
"But one has to heed one's attorney, daughter," said her mother, half
smiling. "Only I can't turn my back on my dear husband's business,
which he brought to such splendid success, and sell out Wyndham Iron
Company stock as if we weren't Wyndhams, but outsiders."
"Mr. Hurd, ma'am," said Violet, the black maid, extending a card in
one hand, while the other twisted her apron-string nervously; she had
caught alarm from a glance at the visitor's face.
"Bring him here, Violet. Mr. Hurd will pardon feminine confusion," Mrs.
Wyndham added, rising and pointing to the samples on the couch with her
extended hand, for the lawyer had followed the maid without delay. "We
are pluming, or more properly donning, our feathers for flight, Mr.
Hurd."
"Yes, yes," said the little man, shaking hands, without looking at Mrs.
Wyndham. "Good morning, Miss Jessamy; good morning, Phyllis; how do you
do, little Barbara? May I interrupt your--Gracious powers! dear madam,
I mean I _must_ interrupt your plans, Mrs. Wyndham."
Jessamy and Phyllis clutched each other with sudden pallor; the little
lawyer's voice shook with emotion. Bab flushed and ran to her mother,
putting her arms around her frail figure as though to place herself as
a bulwark between her and ill.
"You will not interrupt anything more important than the selection
of dancing-gowns for the children," said Mrs. Wyndham, with her soft
dignity, though she turned a little paler. "Is there any special reason
for your visit--kind visit always--Mr. Hurd? And may the girls hear
what you have to say, since their interests are at stake?"
"Special reason, madam? Special, indeed! God help me, I don't know how
to say what I have to say, but I prefer the young ladies to hear it.
You remember, I have urged their presence at our previous conferences,
but you considered them too young to be troubled--Poor chicks!" he
added suddenly.
"Evidently you feel that you have something unpleasant to tell me, Mr.
Hurd; but I feel sure you exaggerate; you know, you are always more
timid and pessimistic than I," said Mrs. Wyndham, dropping into the
nearest chair and trying to smile.
"Good heavens, Mrs. Wyndham! It isn't a matter for self-gratulation. If
I could have made you listen to me six--even two--months ago, I should
not be here to-day, the bearer of such dreadful news," burst out the
lawyer, impatiently.
"Wouldn't it be better, Mr. Hurd, to tell us quickly? You frighten us
with hints," said Jessamy, in her silvery, even voice; but the poor
child's lips were white.
Mr. Hurd glanced at Jessamy. "Yes," he said; "but it is not easy. I
heard the definite news last night in Wall Street; rumors had been
afloat for days. I wanted to give you one more night of untroubled
sleep. It will be in the papers this evening."
"What will, Mr. Hurd?" burst out Barbara, impatiently.
"The failure of the Wyndham Iron Company."
There was dead silence in the room, broken only by the low-toned little
French clock striking ten times.
"The company--failed?" whispered Mrs. Wyndham, trying to find her voice.
"What does that mean, Mr. Hurd?" asked Phyllis.
"It means that your mother's bonds and stocks are valueless; and as she
holds everything in her own right and has kept all that your father
left in the business, it means that your inheritance has been wiped
out of existence," said the lawyer, not discriminating between the
daughters and the niece in his excitement.
"How can it be--total ruin?" asked poor Mrs. Wyndham. "Henry gone but
seven years, and such a splendid success as he left the company! How
can it have failed? I don't believe it!" she cried, starting to her
feet with sudden strength.
"Dear Mrs. Wyndham, it is too certain," said her husband's old friend
and attorney, gently. "When they refused to open up the books for
inspection, and you would not authorize me to take steps to compel them
to do so, I knew this would come."
"Mr. Abbott--" began Mrs. Wyndham.
"Mr. Abbott is an outrageous villain," interrupted Mr. Hurd,
passionately. "I have lain awake all night cursing him, or I could
not mention him before you without swearing. He has got control of
the corporation by holding the majority of stock, and he has run the
thing on a speculative basis instead of a solid business one. At the
same time, justice to his business capacity compels me to add that he
has kept himself clear of possible failure, using the stockholders'
funds and not his own for his operations, so that though you and others
are ruined, he is safe. I shall never be able to make you understand
the case more fully; but that is the sum of it, and he's a consummate
rogue."
"But Henry trusted him--" essayed Mrs. Wyndham once more.
"Henry Wyndham was an honest man, and a good friend. He is not the
first who has been deceived in his estimate of a man. That is all to be
said on that score," said the little lawyer, grimly.
"I never knew any one who was ruined, outside of books," said Jessamy,
trying to smile. "What does it mean? Going to live in an East-side
tenement, and working in a sweat-shop?"
"Nonsense, Jessamy!" said her mother, sharply, drying her tears, which
had been softly falling, while Bab burst into wailing at the picture.
"Nonsense! I shall sell some stock, and I am sure that we shall get on
very well--perhaps economizing somewhat."
"Dear madam, you no more grasp the situation than you saw it coming,"
said Mr. Hurd, struggling between annoyance and pity. "Your preferred
stock might bring five cents, and the common stock three, but I doubt
it; their value is wiped out. Practically, you have no stock. Still, I
hope the situation will not be as grave as Miss Jessamy pictures. You
will have an income greater than enough to give you comfort, though
by comparison you will be poor. You cannot stay in this house, for it
alone, and its contents, must furnish your income. But it will rent or
sell at a figure to insure you six to eight thousand a year; and if
you sell your pictures and some of the furniture you will have a very
respectable principal to live upon. Bad as it is, your case might be
far worse."
"Do you mean that this house will be the sole--actually the
sole--source of income left me?" gasped Mrs. Wyndham, with more
agitation than she had yet shown.
Mr. Hurd nodded. The poor lady uttered a sharp cry and fell back,
sobbing wildly. "Then I have nothing--nothing!" she screamed. "My
darlings are beggared!"
Phyllis rang for wine, and Mr. Hurd leaped to his feet with
apprehension of the truth.
"What do you mean, Mrs. Wyndham?" he demanded.
Mrs. Wyndham rested her head on Phyllis's arm and drank the wine she
held to her lips.
"Last March," she began feebly, "Mr. Abbott came to me and
explained--or seemed to explain--matters to me. At that time he told
me he had bought iron for the works as a speculation, expecting it to
appreciate in value. Instead it fell, and the business was temporarily
embarrassed in consequence. He asked me to let him negotiate a loan
with this house as security."
Mr. Hurd, who had been pacing the floor furiously, stopped short, with
a fervent imprecation. Halting before the feeble creature who had been
so duped, he thrust his hands deep into his pockets and gazed down on
her. "And you did it?" he growled.
Mrs. Wyndham bowed her head lower. "It was a mere formality, he said.
The business needed but to be tided over its present embarrassment,
which the ready money thus raised would do, and then the loan would be
paid and the house stand as free as before. So I gave it as security."
"Just heaven! Why didn't Henry leave everything in trust for you in the
hands of a decent man!" cried Mr. Hurd, furiously. "To trick a woman,
and such a guileless woman as you, like that! The miserable, currish
scamp! Why didn't you mention this to me, madam?"
"Because Mr. Abbott begged me not to; he said none but ourselves,
partners in the concern, stockholders of the corporation, should know
of it, or it might make the stock panicky--I am sure he said panicky,"
murmured the wretched woman.
"Then I am afraid Miss Jessamy's picture is not so overdrawn," groaned
the lawyer. "You will have no principal except what the personal
property, the furniture and the pictures will bring."
"And I have ruined my children--my dear, blessed, pretty girls, for
whom I would gladly die, and whose father was so happy to feel that he
had secured them from the hard side of life! He knew in his youth what
privation meant--my dear, good Henry. Oh, I can't bear it! I won't have
it so! It isn't true!" And Mrs. Wyndham went off into hysterical cries,
which ended all possibility of further discussion.
Jessamy ran to call Violet to help her mother to her room; Bab lay
on the floor, a collapsed heap of misery, sobbing in terror of her
mother's agony and the affliction, dimly understood, which had fallen
on them in the midst of the dainty fabrics and happy plans. But
Phyllis, trembling and white, yet calm, laid her cold hands on her aunt
and gently forced her into quiet. She lifted her eyes, no longer blue,
but jet black, with their dilated pupils blazing with righteous wrath,
to Mr. Hurd's face. "Is there no law to make that villain give up what
he stole?" she demanded fiercely.
The lawyer looked at her with the good fighter's quick recognition
of the same quality in another. "I'll try mighty hard to find it,
Phyllis," he said. "The trouble is that a consummate rogue knows how to
cover his tracks. He has undoubtedly put everything out of his hands.
But we'll make him show when it was done; and if he has taken such
steps this winter past, we can force him to disgorge. There is one
comfort: I'll make New York a confoundedly unpleasant place for him to
try to do business in."
Kind Violet, with her black face gray from sympathy and fright, came
back with Jessamy, and put her strong arms around her mistress's
fragile body, lifting her like a baby. "Come right along, you po'
little lamb lady," she said. "Miss Jes'my telephone for doctoh, an' I'm
goin' make you quiet an' comf'able in bed. Don' you cry 'notheh teah;
Vi'let ain't goin' let nothin' come neah you."
Utterly exhausted in mind and body, Mrs. Wyndham found comfort in the
soft voice and loving arms. She drooped her head on the pink gingham
shoulder of the tall girl, and let herself be carried away to her
chamber as if she had been a child.
Jessamy turned to Mr. Hurd. "You will not mind if we received the
news rather badly," she said. "We shall all do our parts when we have
learned them. It--it--came rather suddenly, you see." Evidently Jessamy
was going to be the princess her cousin called her, and meet misfortune
proudly.
"You dear child," said the lawyer, his eyes softening and dimming as he
looked in the pretty face, blanched white, and noted the lines holding
the soft lips grimly set to keep them from quivering. "You are little
heroines--you and Phyllis. Don't try to be too brave; it is better to
cry, and then wipe away the tears to see what is to be done after the
shipwreck."
"There is only one thing I want to ask you now, Mr. Hurd; then,
perhaps, we would better not talk any more to-day: What are we likely
to have to live on if we sell our things?" asked Jessamy.
"You know it is guesswork; no one can more than approximate the result
of sales," answered Mr. Hurd. "Your father knew good pictures, and
there are many of considerable value here, but summer is no time to
offer them. I should say you were likely to have returns of about
thirty thousand dollars, which, if I invest it at six per cent., will
give you nearly two thousand a year. Now, good-by, my dears, for this
morning. Try not to grieve; no one knows what is best for him in this
curious world, and the day may come when you will be grateful for this
change of fortune. People are usually better and stronger for trying
their mettle as well as their muscle. God bless you."
Jessamy did not attempt to answer. Mr. Hurd laid his hand gently on
each head, and went away.
Left to themselves, Jessamy and Phyllis looked at each other and around
the pretty room, with the couch still strewn with the samples for their
dancing-gowns; the books, pictures, ornaments they had bought scattered
everywhere. With a sudden rush of memory, they saw themselves little
children, playing about their kind father--for he had been father to
them both--in that very room, and with equal clearness saw the years
before them in which this beautiful home had no being, but, instead,
privations more awful to their imaginations because they had no clue to
their actual meaning.
The necessity for self-restraint being removed, with a common impulse
Jessamy and Phyllis turned, and, throwing their arms around each other,
burst into passionate weeping--the despairing weeping of youth which
has not yet learned that nothing on earth is final.
Bab stirred uneasily and sat up on the floor, wiping her own eyes and
trying to smile. "Don't cry like that, girls; please don't," she said.
"It doesn't matter so much about me, because I always go off one way
or the other, but I can't stand it if you are wretched." She gathered
herself up, and went slowly over to the others. "We're young and
beautiful," she said, "and we have some few brains; we'll make another
fortune for ourselves. I think, perhaps, I'll marry an oil man with
millions. Smile--for mercy's sake smile--Jess and Phyl!"
But Jessamy and Phyllis, who had controlled themselves while Bab
sobbed, could not raise their heads.
Bab was mercurial--always, as she herself put it, "going off" to
extremes. She had cried her first terror away, and now the necessity of
her nature to look on the bright side and find something funny in all
situations began to assert itself.
"I think likely two thousand a year will be a lot when we get used to
it, though it costs that to clothe us all now, I suppose. I expect to
learn to manage so well that we can adopt twins on the money we have
left over. I shall go to get points from Ruth Wells; I always thought
she was splendid, and longed to know her; she understands how to make
every quarter a half-dollar. Now, girls, we're going to be like the
people in the story-books, and learn who are our true friends--don't
you know how misfortune always tests them? Look up--smile! 'Rise,
Sally, rise; dry your weeping eyes!'"
"Don't, Bab," murmured Jessamy, faintly. "You haven't an idea of what
has really happened." But she raised her head, and attempted to check
her tears as she spoke.
Bab saw it with secret triumph; she was actually talking herself into
something like cheerfulness. "Don't I! I have quite as much experience
as you, miss, anyway. Still, I'm willing to confess I'd rather not be
poor," she added, with the air of making a generous concession. "But I
feel sure we'll be happy yet, because I, for one, have got to be. But
it is rather hard to get thrown off your high wall when you've sat on
it all your life. Poor Humpty Dumpty! I never properly felt for him
before."
And Bab was rewarded for her nonsense by a tearful smile from Jessamy
and Phyllis.