AN OLD ADMIRER.
Nelly Featherstone was busy that night. The small room in which she
sate working was littered with all sorts of beautiful dressmaking
materials; and Nelly herself was diligently engaged--sewing heavy golden
fringe upon a resplendent Venetian doublet of green satin, which had
glimmerings of white and crimson silk across the chest, and white satin
sleeves, tightened and crisped with gold. Indeed, the sheen of satin and
glitter of gold lay all over the dingy little room. These were the raw
material of the new grand burlesque; and Nelly, who made all her dresses
herself, was famous for the historical accuracy of her costume. On this
occasion, however, there was a green satin Glengarry lying on a chair,
and green satin boots, with the heels not much bigger than a
fourpenny-piece, on the table: and she wore on her fingers, to try their
lustre, two large rings of cut-glass--the one a shining emerald, the
other a brilliant crimson.
When Annie Brunel tapped at the door and stepped in, Nelly threw all
these things aside, and rushed to her old friend, and hugged and kissed
her in her usual impulsive manner, with a dozen "my dears" to every
sentence. Her friend's story was soon told; she wanted Nelly to help
her to get some cheap lodgings in the neighbourhood.
"And so you know where to come first when you're down in your luck,"
said the girl, giving her another kiss, with the tears coming into her
eyes--for Nelly's well-worn heart had still a true and tender throb in
it. "So sit you down and take everything off your mind--and share my
room to-night, and to-morrow we'll see about business. Give me your
bonnet, there now. Poor dear mother Christmas!--and I'll give you
something to do until supper-time comes, and then we shall have a bit of
cold mutton and bottled stout. Oh, I've had my trials, too, my dear,
since I saw you."
"What's been the matter with you, Nelly? That young gentleman, I
suppose----?"
"Oh, yes, he's always at it. But, thank goodness, I've got rid of him
at last."
"Quite sure?" said the other, with a smile.
"Oh, quite. Such a fearful row we had, my dear. First about lip-salve;
he accused me of using that to make my lips red, when I declare I
haven't used it for two years. Very well, just as we had made that up,
you know, dear, we were walking along Oxford Street, and there was a
match-boy amusing himself, opposite a publichouse, with a lot of other
boys, and he was dancing a very, _very_ clever breakdown step, and I
said I'd give my ears if I could do that, just in fun, you know; and,
lor, the passion he got into! Stormed about my low tastes, abused the
British drama, said I had no more sentiment than a clown; and then I
ordered him off, and walked home by myself."
"And which of you was the more miserable, Nelly?"
"I miserable? Not I. That very night Mr. Helstone sent me the most
beautiful little speech about politics and other stuff, and Mr. Melton
says I may use it in my part."
"You'll break that young gentleman's heart, Nelly. Indeed, it is a
shame----"
"Nonsense! But I'll have my revenge upon him this time for his
quarrelling with me. You see this is a boy's dress. I've made the
skirt of it two inches shorter than I should have done. There. And I
shall be in tights; and dance a breakdown; and sing a music-hall song;
and when the lime-light comes on at the end, _I'll stare into it as hard
as ever I can_."
"But why should you injure your eyes?"
"To provoke him. He will be there. And he hates to see me in a boy's
dress; and he hates to see me dance----"
"But I thought you were never to see him again."
"Neither I shall. Never."
Miss Featherstone's landlady tapped at the door, and entered with a
letter.
"Please, miss, he says he's sorry to trouble you, but is there an
answer?"
Nelly hurriedly ran over the letter, and there was a wicked smile of
triumph on her face.
"It's _him_," she said to her companion. "Would you like to see him?
Shall I ask him to come up, since you are here?"
"By all means."
"Mrs. Goddridge, tell him I have a friend with me, and he may come up,
if he likes."
Blushing, embarrassed, delighted, shamefaced, and yet radiant with joy,
Mr. Frank Glyn was introduced to Annie Brunel. He was a good-looking
slightly-built young fellow, with a sensitive cast of face, pleasant
large blue eyes, and a certain tenderness about the lines of the mouth
which boded ill for his future reminiscences of his acquaintance with
Miss Nelly Featherstone. That young person should have been flirted
with by a man of stronger mettle than Frank Glyn.
"I hope I am not disturbing you," he said, nervously, looking at the
table.
"I hope you are in a better temper than when I last saw you," said she.
"We may let bygones be bygones now, Nelly. It wouldn't do to fight
before Miss Brunel. She might have a strange impression of us."
"I think you are two foolish children," said Annie Brunel, "who don't
spend a peaceable life when you might."
"I say so, too," said Nelly. "Life is not so long, as I have told him,
that we can afford to throw it away in quarrels. And yet he _will_
quarrel. Confess that you always do quarrel, Frank. There's only one
person in the world who is always good to me; and I do so love him!
When the dear old gentleman who made me these boots brought them home,
and when I looked at them, I could have thrown my arms round his neck."
"I dare say you could, without looking at the boots," said her lover,
with a fierce and terrible sneer.
"I suppose it's a weakness," said Nelly, with philosophic equanimity,
"but I confess that I love a pair of beautiful little, bright, neat,
soft, close-fitting boots better than any man I ever saw."
She caught up that charming little pair of gleaming boots, and pressed
them to her bosom, and folded her hands over them, and then took them
and kissed them affectionately before placing them again on the table.
An awful thundercloud dwelt on poor Frank's brow.
"I shall take them to bed with me," said the young lady, with loving
eyes still on the small heels and the green satin; "and I'll put them
underneath my pillow, and dream of them all the night through."
Mr. Glyn got up. There was a terrible look in his eyes, and a terrible
cold harshness in his voice, as he said:
"I am interrupting your work and your conversation, ladies. Good-night,
Miss Brunel; good-bye, _Miss Featherstone_."
With which he shook hands and departed--to spend the rest of the evening
in walking recklessly along dark suburban roads, wondering whether a few
drops of prussic acid might not be his gentlest and truest friend.
First love had been awakened in Frank Glyn's heart by the unlucky
instrumentality of Miss Featherstone. Delighted with this new and
beautiful idealism, he was eager to repay her with an extravagant
gratitude for what, after all, was only his own gift to himself. Nelly
knew nothing of this occult psychical problem; but was aware of the
extravagant gratitude, and conducted herself towards it and him with
such results as do not concern this present history.
"You are very hard upon the poor boy," said Annie Brunel.
Nelly pouted prettily, as if she had been ten years younger than she
was, and said he had no business to be so quick-tempered. But after
supper, when they were retiring for the night, and she had grown
confidential, she confessed she was very fond of him, and hoped he would
come again and "make it up."
"I can't help quarrelling with him, and he can't help quarrelling with
me; and so we'll go on, and on, and on----"
"Until you marry."
"No, until I marry somebody else, for the sake of peace and quiet. And
yet I declare if he were to come boldly up to-morrow and insist on my
marrying him, I'd do it at once. But he is always too sensitive and
respectful, and I can't help teasing him. Why doesn't he _make_ me do
what he wants? He's a man, and I'm a woman, and yet I never feel as if
he were stronger than I was--as if I ought to look to him for strength,
and advice, and what not. He's too much of a girl in his delicate
frightened ways."
Next morning Nelly got a messenger and sent him up to Mr. John Hubbard's
for Annie Brunel's boxes, which had been left packed up. Then they two
went out to inspect some lodgings which had been recommended to them by
Miss Featherstone's landlady. The house was a dingy building in Howland
Street, Tottenham Court Road; but the rent of the two rooms was small,
and Miss Brunel engaged them. She had very little money now in her
purse. Mrs. Hubbard and she had been on so peculiar terms that both
refrained from talking about salary; and when the boxes were brought
down to Nelly's place by the messenger, no communication of any kind
accompanied them.
"If they want to see me, Nelly," said Annie Brunel, "they will send to
your house, thinking that my address. But I don't want my address to be
given them, mind, on any consideration."
"But how are you to live, my dear?"
"I must find out, like other people," she said, with a smile.
"Won't your Anerley friends help you?"
"What help could I take from them? Besides, they are worse off than
myself, and that pretty girl of theirs, about whom I have so often
spoken to you, is very poorly, and wants to be taken out of London. I
should rather like to help them than think of their helping me."
"Won't you come back to the stage, then?"
"Not until I'm starving."
The rehearsals for the new burlesque began, and a farce was put on in
which Nelly played; so that, for several days, she was so busy from
morning till night that she never had time to run up to see her friend
in these poor Howland-street lodgings. So Annie Brunel was left alone.
The Anerleys had not her address. The Hubbards she was only too anxious
to avoid. Mrs. Christmas, her old companion, was gone; and around her
were thousands of her fellow-creatures all struggling to get that bit of
bread and that glass of water which were necessary to her existence.
The landlady and her husband treated her with great respect, because,
when asked for a month's rent in advance, she at once gave them the two
sovereigns demanded. There remained to her, in available money, about
twenty-four shillings, which is not a great sum wherewith to support a
person looking out for a situation in London.
In about a week's time Nelly Featherstone called. After the usual
osculation and "my dearing," Nelly assumed a serious air, and said that
it wouldn't do.
"You're looking remarkably ill, and you'll be worse if you sit moping
here, and doing nothing. You must be a descendant of Don Quixote. Why
not come down to the theatre, see Mr. Melton, and get an engagement?"
"I can't do it, Nelly.
"You mean you won't. Then, at all events, you'll spend to-day as a
holiday. The rehearsals are all over. I shall send for Frank, and he
will take us into the country."
"For shame!--to drive that poor fellow mad, and then call him back
whenever you want a service from him!"
"It will give him far more delight than it will us."
"No, Nelly; I have no heart to go anywhere. If you have promised to
meet your Frank, as I imagine, you ought to go off by yourself at once."
"I'm not going to do anything of the kind. Tell me what you mean to do
if you remain in the house."
"See if there are any more letters I can write, and watch the postman as
he comes round from Tottenham Court Road."
"Then you can't go on doing that for ever. Put on your bonnet, and let
us have a walk down Regent Street, and then come and have dinner with
me, and spend the afternoon with me, until I go to the theatre."
This she was ultimately persuaded to do. Nelly did her utmost to keep
her friend in good spirits; and altogether the day was passed pleasantly
enough.
But the reaction came when Nelly had to go down to the theatre alone.
"You look so very wretched and miserable," said she, to Annie. "I can't
bear the idea of your going home to that dull room. And what nonsense
it is not to have a fire because you can't afford it! Come you down to
the theatre; Mr. Melton will give you a stage-box all to yourself; then
you'll go home with me to-night, and stay with me."
She would not do that. She went home to the cold dark room--she lit
only one candle for economy's sake--and she asked if there were any
letters. There were none.
She had only a few shillings left now. She abhorred the idea of getting
into debt with her landlady; but that, or starvation, lay clearly before
her. And as she sate and pondered over her future, she wondered whether
her mother had ever been in the like straits--whether she, too, had ever
been alone, with scarcely a friend in the world. She thought of the
Count, too.
"If the beggar would marry the king, and exchange her rags for silk
attire," she said to herself, bitterly, "now would be the time."
By the nine-o'clock post no letter came; but a few minutes after the
postman had passed, the landlord came up to the door of her room.
"A letter, please, miss--left by a boy."
Hoping against hope, she opened it as soon as the man had left.
Something tumbled out and fell on the floor. On the page before her she
saw inscribed, in a large, coarse, masculine handwriting, these words--
"_An old admirer begs the liberty to send the enclosed to Miss Brunel,
with love and affection._"
But in that assumed handwriting Nelly Featherstone's _e_'s and _r_'s
were plainly legible. The recipient of the letter picked up the folded
paper that had fallen. It was a five-pound note.
"Poor Nelly!" she said, with a sort of nervous smile; and then her head
fell on her hands, which were on the table, and she burst into tears
over the scrawled bit of paper.