_Truthful Jane_
_By_
FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY
AUTHOR OF "THE SINGULAR MISS SMITH,"
"THE TRANSFIGURATION OF MISS PHILURA," ETC.
[Illustration: Logo]
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
1907
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY
FLORENCE MORSE KINGSLEY
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
_Published February, 1907_
TRUTHFUL JANE
CHAPTER I
Miss Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe stared steadily at the toes of her damp,
shabby little boots which peeped out from beneath the hem of an equally
damp and shabby gown, her youthful brows puckered thoughtfully over a
pair of extraordinarily bright, long-lashed hazel eyes. Miss Blythe, was
for the moment, feeling very much out of it, and consequently very
unhappy.
The room in which she was sitting, drying her damp boots and petticoats
by a smoldering fire of logs, was a sufficiently cheerful one, its two
large windows commanding a wide view of red-tiled London roofs and
glazed chimney-pots, all of which glistened wetly in the dull light of
the late afternoon. For the rest, the red Turkey carpet was badly worn
in spots; the chairs presented the appearance of veterans staunchly
surviving a long and stormy career; while the two small desks piled
with dog-eared school-books exhibited tokens of strenuous usage in the
shape of ineradicable ink-stains, which served to diversify the cuttings
and carvings of inexpert jackknives, stealthily applied.
At opposite sides of a table in the center of the room two small boys in
knickerbockers were actively engaged in a competition in which large
china mugs of milk and water, and thick slices of bread and butter and
jam figured conspicuously.
"You'd better come to your tea, Jane, before we eat all the bread and
butter," advised one of the boys thickly.
"I don't want any tea, Cecil; and you shouldn't talk with your mouth
full; it's very rude," replied the girl tartly.
"You'll get no dinner, you know, because there's company," observed the
other boy, slamming his mug on the table. "Old Gwendolen won't have you
down because you're so much handsomer than she is."
Jane turned a distractingly pretty profile toward the speaker, a slight
smile dimpling the corners of her mouth. "You oughtn't to say such
things, Percy," murmured the girl "--though I dare say it's true
enough," she added plaintively.
The two boys, having variously disposed of the thick slices of bread and
butter, were now causing startling explosions to issue from the depths
of their mugs.
"Put down your mugs this instant!" ordered Miss Blythe sternly. "Haven't
I forbidden you to make those disgusting noises in your milk?"
"You have--yes," admitted Cecil coolly, as he sent his empty mug
spinning across the table; "but who cares for you, anyway! You're only a
poor relation!"
With a smothered howl of rage the smaller Percy arose from his place and
fell upon his brother, who received the attack with practiced courage,
while Miss Blythe resumed her moody contemplation of her steaming boots.
"You're a cad!"
"You lie!"
"You're another!"
"Ouch!"
"Leggo!--Leggo, I say!"
The tugging and panting of the small combatants, and the scuffling of
their stout little shoes on the threadbare carpet, quite drowned the
slight sound of the opening door.
"Cecil--Percy--_my sons_!" exclaimed a voice.
Jane Blythe shrugged her slim shoulders wearily in anticipation of what
was to follow.
"I am surprised and displeased, Jane, that you should permit such a
disgraceful scene to take place in the school-room without even
attempting to quell it," went on the lady, advancing majestically into
the center of the floor. "What do I see?--bread and butter on the
_floor_, on the _sofa_, on the--yes, actually, _on the mantle!_ and
_milk_-- Really, Jane, I fear you sadly forget your duties at times."
Miss Blythe had risen, apparently that she might bring her bright hazel
eyes more nearly on a level with the frozen blue ones behind the double
glasses which pinched the lady's aquiline nose.
"I don't forget my duties, Aunt Agatha," she said distinctly; "but I
think you have forgotten to pay me for them."
"What do you mean, ungrateful girl?"
"I mean that if I am to perform the duties of a nursery governess in
your house I should be paid regular wages the same as the rest of the
servants. My shoes are worn through the soles, and I need--everything.
Even Parks dresses better than I do. She can afford to."
A dead silence followed this clear statement of fact. The two small boys
were sulkily regarding their mother from beneath their light lashes,
who, in her turn, attempted to quell the militant light in the eyes of
the girl.
"How--_dare_ you say such a thing to me!" cried the lady at length. "And
before the children, too! You may come to me in the library to-morrow
morning, Jane, when I am examining the accounts. I will talk with you
then. In the meantime"--Lady Agatha Aubrey-Blythe paused to draw her
rustling gown more closely about her tall figure--"I would advise you to
reflect on the fact that when you were entirely alone in the world,
_helpless_ and _penniless_, I took you into my house and cared for you
like--like----"
Jane Blythe laughed aloud. It was a dreary little sound; somehow it
caused Percy to clench his small fist and draw a little nearer to his
cousin.
But it appeared to enrage the lady. Her patrician countenance assumed a
peculiar, sickly, mottled pink colour. "To-morrow, at ten, in the
library," she said coldly. "And, Jane, as Parks will be occupied with my
toilet, I should like you to assist Gwendolen. You may go down now.
Susan will put this disgracefully untidy room to rights. Cecil and
Percy, you will go to bed at once--_at once!_ do you hear?"
"Yes, mother," piped the two small scions of the house of Aubrey-Blythe
in a respectfully subdued chorus. After which they proceeded to thrust
their agile tongues into their red cheeks and bulge out their round,
blue eyes behind their maternal relative's august back as she turned to
leave the room.
"You'll catch it to-morrow, Miss Jane--at ten--in the library!" opined
Master Cecil sagely. "I'll bet she'll smack you with the ruler."
"Hold your tongue, Cecil, and come on to bed!" bawled Percy, "or you'll
be the one to get smacked with the ruler."
Miss Blythe had walked over to the window and was looking out with
unseeing eyes into the gathering dusk.
"It is true," she told herself forlornly. "I am poorer than any of the
maids in the house. I hate it! Oh, how I _hate it all_!" She wiped away
two or three rebellious tears on a grimy little pocket-handkerchief.
A servant had entered and was somewhat noisily gathering the empty
dishes onto a tray. "I see you've 'ad no tea, miss," she observed
kindly. "Shan't I toast you a bit o' bread at the fire an' fetch some
more jam?"
"No, Susan, thank you; I must go down now. But you're very kind to have
thought of it."
Jane's smile was beautiful, and the warm-hearted Susan, for one,
appreciated it. "They'd orto to be 'shamed o' theirsel's," she observed
vaguely to the tea things, as the girl closed the door softly behind
her. "An' she's pretty's a pink, an' that sweet-mannered! She'd orto
marry a r'yal dook, that she 'ad; an' dress in di'mon's an' satings!"
Susan was in the habit of solacing herself with yellow-covered romances
in the scant leisure stolen from her duties as housemaid, and of late
Miss Jane Evelyn had figured as the heroine of everyone of these tales
in the honest damsel's rather crude imaginings.
As Miss Blythe passed down the dimly lighted staircase on her way to her
cousin's room, she was startled to the point of uttering a slight scream
by a dark figure which darted out upon her from behind a tall suit of
armor stationed on the landing.
"O Reginald!" she exclaimed, "why will you play such baby tricks, now
that you are nearly grown?"
"'Nearly grown,' indeed!" echoed the tall youth in a displeased voice.
"I am grown. Look at me--away over your head, Miss Jane! I say, give us
a kiss, will you?"
"No, indeed, I'll not! Get out of my way directly. I'm in a hurry!"
"Oh, no, you've lots of time to talk to me," chuckled Reginald, planting
his ungainly figure directly across the stair. "And you'll not go a step
farther till you've paid toll. Do you know, Jane, you're growing
deucedly pretty--upon my word!"
"Impudence!" cried Jane sharply. "If you don't let me go this instant
I'll call your mother."
"If you do that," drawled the boy, wagging his head threateningly, "I'll
tell the mater you were trying to kiss me. Then you'd catch it; she'd
believe me every trip."
By way of reply to this taunt Miss Blythe reached up and dealt the tall
youth a stinging slap on his beardless cheek.
"Tell her that a girl cuffed you, too, baby!" she retorted, and slipped
past him like a shadow.
"I'll pay you out for that, miss! See if I don't!" threatened Reginald.
But Jane was safely out of sight and hearing, too.
The tall girl seated before a dressing table, carefully inspecting a
rather rough and muddy complexion by the light of two wax candles,
turned frowning eyes upon Jane as she entered the room.
"Where have you been keeping yourself, slow-poke?" she inquired crossly.
"Don't you know I'll be late if I don't make haste?"
"You'd better make haste then," advised Jane coolly, advancing with her
hands behind her back. Her usually pale cheeks were flushed to a lovely
pink by her triumphant escape from Reginald; her brown hair, ruffled
into crisp waves, fell about her brilliant eyes. "What do you want me to
do, Gwen--hook up your frock?" she added carelessly.
"I want you to dress my feet first, and be quick about it, too," replied
Miss Gwendolen haughtily. "No; not those pink stockings!-- I've decided
to wear all white this evening. The open-work silk ones, stupid! What is
the matter with you, anyway, Jane? You're as red as a lobster."
Jane's little hands trembled as she pulled the designated hose from a
pile of party-colored ones in the tumbled drawer. "Here are your
stockings," she said briefly. "Which shoes do you want?"
"The white suede with straps; they're the freshest--and do make haste!"
replied Gwendolen impatiently.
Jane set the large, white, high-heeled shoes down on the floor beside
her cousin's chair with a loud thump.
"Well, aren't you ever going to put them on?" demanded Miss Gwendolen,
kicking her satin bedroom slippers half across the room.
"No; I'm not. You can put them on yourself," said Jane deliberately.
"Why should I put on your shoes and stockings for you, Gwendolen? You
never put on mine for me--do you?"
Gwendolen stared at Jane's rebellious face in silence. She was a dull
girl, and it took her some time to understand what Jane had really said
to her.
"Why, why--" she stammered, "you have always done as you were told
before, and--I'll tell mother," she added, an ugly frown distorting her
face. "She'll not allow you to be impertinent to me, you know."
"It is quite impossible for me to be impertinent to you, Gwendolen,"
said Jane, drawing up her little figure superbly. "One cannot be
impertinent to one's equals. I'll hook up your frock for you, if you
like, because you are my cousin, and I ought on that account to be
willing to be civil to you. But I won't put on your stockings and shoes
for you, so you may as well begin."
Gwendolen stooped and drew on her stockings in sullen silence; then she
put on her shoes. "I'll tell mother," she repeated stupidly.
"You may tell her if you like," said Jane airily. "And you may tell Lady
Maybury that you haven't sense enough to pull on your stockings
straight, if you like. I don't care."
Gwendolen looked actually frightened; she peered into her cousin's face
with her ugly, shortsighted eyes. "What _has_ come over you, Jane?" she
asked anxiously. "Oh, I do believe you've got a fever and are out of
your head! Get away from me--do! Suppose it should be smallpox, and I
should catch it--oh! Go away--quick! Ring the bell for Susan as you go
out. She can hook my frock, and----"
Jane pirouetted out of the door like a sprite. "Thank you, Gwen!" she
cried mockingly. "Yes, I fancy I have a fever. But you'll not catch it,
you poor, dear, stupid thing, you!"
Then she darted up two flights of stairs to her own cold little room
under the roof, where she flung herself face downward across the narrow
bed and wept tempestuously.
"O God, _please_ let me go away from this house!" she prayed between her
sobs. "I've been good and patient just as long as I possibly can. Things
will _have_ to change!"
The girl was truthful--even with herself--even with her Creator.