TO THE RESCUE.
Miss Martineau told her news with considerable agitation. She
considered it a terrible revelation. It seemed to her a very fearful
and disastrous thing that three girls brought up like the Mainwarings,
three girls still almost children, should be thrown on the world
without any means for their support.
Simple and primitive as their lives had been at Rosebury, they still
had been tenderly nurtured and warmly sheltered--no cold blast of
unkindness or neglect had visited them--they had been surrounded ever
by both love and respect. The love came principally from their mother
and from one another, but the respect came from all who knew them. The
Mainwaring girls, in their plain dresses and with their
unsophisticated manners, looked like ladies, and invariably acted as
such.
Soon after making her communication Miss Martineau took her leave; she
hurried home, and sitting down in her dingy little parlor, began to
think.
"No, thank you, Susan," she said to her little maid-of-all-work, "I
shan't want any supper to-night. I have been at tea with my dear
pupils, the Misses Mainwaring. You may bring the lamp presently,
Susan, but not quite yet; it is a pity to waste the daylight, and
there is quite another quarter of an hour in which I can see to knit.
Yes, give me my knitting-basket; I can get on with Widow Joseph's
mittens."
"And, if you please, ma'am," asked Susan, lingering for a moment at
the door, "may I ask how, all things considering, the dear young
ladies is?"
"On the whole, tranquil, Susan--yes, I may say it with confidence; my
dear pupils may be considered in a resigned state of mind."
Susan closed the door after her, and Miss Martineau took up her
knitting. Knitting woollen mittens is an occupation which harmonizes
very well with reflection and while the old lady's active fingers
moved her thoughts were busy.
"Thirty pounds a year," she said softly to herself, "thirty pounds
certain, and a lump sum of two hundred in the bank. Doubtless they owe
some of that for their mother's funeral and their own mourning. They
probably owe quite thirty pounds of that, and to make it safe, I had
better say forty. That leaves a balance of one hundred and sixty;
just enough to put away for emergencies, illness, and so forth. My
dear girls, my dear Primrose, and Jasmine, and my pretty little pet
Daisy, you cannot touch your little capital; you may get a few pounds
a year for it, or you may not--Mr. Danesfield must decide that--but
all the money you can certainly reckon on for your expenses is thirty
pounds per annum, and on that you cannot live."
Here Miss Martineau threw down her knitting, and began with some
agitation to pace up and down her tiny room.
"What was to be done with these lonely and defenceless girls? how were
they to meet the world? how were they to earn their living?"
Miss Martineau had never before found herself propounding so painful
and interesting a problem; her mind worked round it, and tried to
grapple with it, but though she stayed up far into the night, and even
had recourse to figures, and marked down on paper the very lowest sum
a girl could possibly exist on, she went to bed, having found no
solution to this vexed question.
Even Miss Martineau, ignorant and narrow-minded as she was, could
scarcely pronounce Primrose fit to do much in the educational world;
Jasmine's, of course, was only a little giddy pate, and she required a
vast amount of teaching herself; and pretty Daisy was still but a
young child.
Miss Martineau went to bed and to sleep; she dreamed troubled dreams,
but in the morning she awoke strengthened and restored, even by such
restless slumbers, and quite resolved to do something.
"Sophia Martineau," she said--for living quite alone she was fond of
holding conversations with herself--"Sophia Martineau, those girls are
placed, to put it figuratively, at your door, and take them up you
must. Gold you have none to bestow, but you can give interest; you
can, in short, rouse others to help the helpless. This is your bounden
duty, and you had better see to it at once."
Miss Martineau went briskly downstairs, ate her frugal breakfast, and
then made her plans. These plans were decisive enough. At Rosebury no
one thought of being so silly as to be over-educated. None of the
young brains of the rising generation were over-forced or
over-stimulated, and Miss Martineau felt no compunction whatever in
writing a short note to each of six little pupils, and telling them
that they need not come to her that morning, for she meant to give
them a holiday.
Having done this, and sent Susan out with the notes, she went
upstairs, and once more put on her black silk dress, her old-fashioned
mantle, and her high poke bonnet. Thus attired, she started on an
expedition which she trusted would lead to many happy results for the
Mainwarings.