"I wouldn't go near her now for all the world," said Flossie, shrinking
back. "Oh, my word, Nesta, do get behind this tree. You're a perfect
fright, you know, in your very oldest dress and your face as scarlet as
a poppy. As to me--I wish I'd put on my Sunday-go-to-meeting frock; it
isn't as grand as theirs, but at least it has some fashion about it.
But I'm in this dreadful old muslin that I've had for three years, and
have quite outgrown. It's awful, it really is. We can't say anything
to them to-day, we must go away."
"Go away?" said Nesta. "That's not me. If you're a coward, I'm not.
It's my way to strike when the iron's hot, I can tell you. I'll get
into a scrape for this when I get home, and if there's one thing I've
made up my mind about, it's this--that I won't get into a scrape for
nothing. No, if you're frightened, say so, and sit down behind that
haycock. Not a soul will see you there, and I'll walk up just as though
I were one of the guests, and shame Penelope and the others into
recognising me."
"Nesta! You haven't the courage!"
"Courage?" said Nesta, "catch me wanting courage. Stay where you are;
I'll come back to you when I've got my yellow-boy. When that's in my
pocket I'll come back and then you'll have a good time. Although," she
added reflectively, "I don't know that you deserve it, for being such an
arrant little coward."
Nesta disappeared; Flossie sat and mopped her face. She was trembling
with nervousness. She had never been really at home with the Carters,
and she disliked immensely her present position. She wondered, too, why
she cared so much for Nesta. There was nothing wonderful about Nesta.
But then there was the sovereign, a whole sovereign, capable of being
divided into twenty beautiful silver shillings. Flossie's father was a
very well-to-do tradesman, and could and would leave his child well off;
but he was careful, and he never allowed her much pocket money. In the
whole course of her life she had never possessed more than half-a-crown
at a time, and to be able to have eight of those darlings, to feel that
she could do what she liked with them, was a dream beyond the dreams of
avarice. It is true the money would not be hers; it would be Nesta's;
but Nesta, with all her faults, was generous enough, and Flossie felt
that once she had the money and was away with her friend at the seaside
they could really have a good time. Flossie was very fond of her food,
and she imagined how the money could be spent on little treats--shrimps
or doughnuts, and whatever fruit was in season. They could have endless
little picnics all to themselves on the sands. It would be a time worth
remembering.
Meanwhile where was Nesta? Flossie was afraid at first to venture to
look round the other side of the haycock, but after a time, when she had
quite cooled down, she did poke her head round. To her astonishment,
envy and disgust, she saw that Nesta, in her shabby cotton frock, with
her old hat on her head, was calmly walking up and down in the company
of Penelope Carter. Penelope and her boy friend, and Nesta, were
parading slowly up and down, up and down a corner of one of the lawns.
Penelope did all that an ordinary girl could to get rid of her friend;
but Nesta stuck like a leech. At last Penelope was desperate.
"I am awfully sorry, Nesta, but you see we have all our sets marked out,
and we--we didn't invite you to-day. You must be tired, and if you will
go into the house, Mrs Johnson will give you a cup of tea."
"But I've brought Flossie, Flossie Griffiths. I cannot leave her out."
"Take Flossie with you, and both have a cup of tea."
"I'll go with pleasure, if you'll come with me."
"But I can't. Do speak for me, Bertie," she continued, turning to the
boy. "Say that I cannot."
"Miss Penelope is engaged to play a set of tennis with me," said Bertie
Pearson, trembling as he uttered the words, for Nesta's aggressive
manner frightened him.
"She shall have her set with you as soon as I have said what I have come
to say. It won't take long; I can say it if you will come as far as the
house with me, Pen. You won't get rid of me in any other way."
Penelope fairly stamped her foot.
"If I must, I must," she said. "Bertie, keep a set open for me, like a
good fellow. Come at once, Nesta." They turned down a shady walk.
"Oh, Nesta, how could you?" said Penelope, her anger breaking out the
moment she found herself alone with her companion. "To come here
to-day--to-day of all days, and to look like that, in your very
shabbiest!"
"Oh, you're ashamed of me," said Nesta. "You're a nice friend!"
"I am not ashamed of you," said Penelope stoutly, "when you are fit to
be seen. I like you for yourself. I always have; but I don't think it
right for a girl to thrust herself on other girls uninvited. Now, what
is it you want? I am busy entertaining friends."
"Flirting with Bertie, you mean."
"I don't flirt--how dare you say so? He is a very nice boy. He is a
gentleman, and you are not a lady."
"Oh, indeed! I'm not a lady. My father's daughter is not a lady! Wait
till I tell that to Marcia."
Penelope was alarmed. She knew that if this speech reached her father's
ears he would be seriously displeased with her.
"I didn't mean that, of course, Nesta, you know I didn't I like you for
yourself, and of course you are quite a lady. All the same you oughtn't
to have come here now and--and force yourself on us."
"Well, I'll go if you give me what I have come for."
"What is that?"
They were now approaching the house by a side entrance.
"You needn't be bothered about your tea, for I don't want it," said
Nesta. "I'm choking with thirst, but I don't want your tea--you who
have said I'm not a lady. As to Flossie, she doesn't want your tea
either. We'd rather choke than have it. There's a shop in the High
Street where we can get ginger beer and chocolates. The ginger beer
will go pop and we'll enjoy ourselves. It's fifty times nicer than your
horrid tea. But I'll tell you what I do want--my yellow-boy."
"Your what?" said Penelope, looking at her in bewilderment.
"My beautiful, precious, darling twenty shillings. Only they must be
given me in gold of the realm."
"Nesta, what do you mean? Your twenty shillings!"
"Come," said Nesta, "that's all very fine. But did you, or did you not
make a bet with me?"
Penelope seemed to remember. She put her hand to her forehead.
"Oh, that," she said, with a laugh. "But that was pure nonsense!"
"It was a true bet; you wrote it down in your book and I wrote it down
in mine. It's as true as true can be. You wrote--I remember the words
quite well--`If Clay gets an introduction through Marcia Aldworth to
Miss Angela St Just, I will pay Nesta one sovereign; and if she fails,
Nesta is to give me one sovereign.' Now did you, or did you not, make
me that bet?"
"Oh, it was a bit of fun--a joke."
"It isn't a joke; it's real earnest. I tell you what; I'll go straight
to your father and tell him before every one present what has really
happened. I'll tell him that you made a bet and won't keep it, for I
have won," said Nesta excitedly. "You ask Clay if I haven't. Clay was
at our house this morning, and Angela called. Blessed thing! I see
nothing in her. She was introduced to your Clay, and your Clay hopes to
bring her here to Court Prospect, and if I haven't earned my sovereign,
I want to know who has. So now."
"Really and truly, Nesta, I wish you wouldn't talk so loud. Oh, look at
all those people coming this way. They'll see us, and Clay will call
me. I see Clay with them."
"Let her call. I'd like her to. I'd like to explain before every one
that you never kept your bet."
"Oh, do come into the house, Nesta. Do for pity's sake."
Penelope dragged the fierce and rebellious Nesta into the house by the
side door.
"Now," she said, "sit down and cool yourself. What will Bertie say? and
he came here specially on my invitation. He is my guest. I'm awfully
sweet on him. I am really, and--oh dear, oh dear--I don't care about
Angela St Just, and I don't believe that she was introduced to Clay."
"Well, you ask Clara. I'll shout to her--I say, Clara!"
"Stop, Nesta! You must be mad!"
Penelope put her hand over Nesta's mouth.
"Give me my yellow-boy and I'll be off," she said, pushing back
Penelope's hand as she tried to force her from the window.
"I haven't got it now; I'll bring it to-morrow."
"I won't stir from here till I get it," said Nesta. "I suppose with all
your riches you can raise one sovereign. I want it and I'm not going
away without it. Flossie and I are going to have ginger beer and
chocolates at Simpson's, in the High Street, and we're not going to be
docked of our pleasure because you are too fine a lady to care."
"Oh dear; oh dear!" said Penelope. "What is to be done? I haven't got
the money--I really haven't."
"Well, I suppose some of you have. I see your father on the lawn; I'll
run up to him and tell him. If I talk out loud enough he will give it
to me. I know he will."
"Nesta, you are driving me nearly mad!"
"Let me have the money and I'll go."
"Pen, Pen! Where are you?" called Mabel's voice at that moment, from
the garden.
"They want me. Bertie will think I've deserted him. Oh, Nesta, you are
driving me distracted."
But Nesta stood her ground. Penelope stood and reflected. She had not
much money of her own, and what money she got usually melted through her
fingers like water. Her sisters had long ago discovered this and
entrusted her with but little. Her father always said she could have
what she pleased within reason, but he never gave her any sort of
allowance.
"Time enough when you are grown up, Pussie," he used to say, as he
pulled her long red-gold hair.
Now she looked out on the sunlit garden; on the pleasant scene, on
Bertie's elegant young figure, on the boys and girls who were disporting
themselves in the sunshine and under the trees. Then she glanced at her
own really elegant little person, and then at Nesta, untidy, cross, and
disagreeable. How could she by any possibility have liked such a girl?
She must be got rid of somehow, for there was Mabel's voice again.
"Stay a minute," she said to Nesta. "Don't dare to go out. I'll get it
for you somehow. You are the most horrid girl in the world."
She flew upstairs; Clara's door was open; Clara's room, as usual, was in
disorder. Penelope frantically opened drawer after drawer. Could she
find a loose sovereign anywhere? Clara often left them about; to her
they meant very little. But she could find no loose money in Clara's
room. She went from there to Mabel's; from Mabel's to Annie's. What
possessed the girls? There wasn't even a shilling to be found amongst
their possessions. Gold bracelets in plenty, necklaces, jewellery of
all sorts, but the blessed money which would restore Penelope to the
lawn, to the tennis court, to all her delights, was not forthcoming.
Her father's room came last. She rushed into it. Nesta was desperate;
Nesta might confront her father on the lawn. She would tell him in the
evening--he would forgive her. She ran in; she opened one of his
drawers and took out a purse which he kept there to pay the men's wages
on Saturday. Invariably each Monday morning he put the required sum
into that special old purse. There were twenty sovereigns in it now.
Penelope helped herself to one, snapped the purse to, shut the drawer,
and ran downstairs.
"There!" she said to Nesta. "Now, for goodness' sake go. Don't worry
me whatever happens. I've given it to you, and I'm free; but catch me
ever making a bet with you again."
"Oh, I don't care!" said Nesta. "My darling little yellow-boy. Thank
you, Penelope, thank you."
But Penelope had vanished.