The School Queens

There was a dead silence in the room. Mrs. Howland looked with wild apprehension at her daughter. Mr. Martin had, however, still a jovial and smiling face.

“Down on its knees ought Popsy-wopsy to go,” he said. “Tears might come in Popsy-wopsy’s eyes, and the ’ittle dirl might say, ‘Dearest pa that is to be, I love you with all my heart, and I am glad that you’re going to marry ma and to take me from horrid school.’”

But there was no sign on the part of Maggie Howland of fulfilling these expectations on the part of the new pa. On the contrary, she stood upright, and then said in a low voice, “This has been a very great shock to me.”

“Shock!” cried Martin. “What do you mean by that, miss?”

“I must speak,” said Maggie. “You must let me, sir; and, mother, you must let me. It is for the last time. Quite the last time. I will never be here to offend you any more.”

“’Pon my word!” said Martin, springing to his feet, and his red, good-humored face growing crimson. “There’s gratitude for you! There’s manners for you! – Ma, how ever did you bring her up?”

“Let me speak,” said Maggie. “I am sorry to hurt your feelings, sir. You are engaged to my mother.”

“Ra-ther!” said Mr. Martin. “My pretty birdling hopped, so to speak, into my arms. No difficulties with her; no drawing back on the part of Little-sing. She wanted her Bo-peep, and she – well, her Bo-peep wanted her.”

“Yes, sir,” said Maggie. “I am exceedingly sorry – bitterly sorry – that my mother is going to marry again; but as she cares for you”–

“Which I do!” said Mrs. Howland, who was now reduced to tears.

“I have nothing more to say,” continued Maggie, “except that I hope she will be happy. But I, sir, am my father’s daughter as well as my mother’s, and I cannot for a single moment accept your offer. It is impossible. I must go on with my own education as best I can.”

“Then you re-fuse,” said Martin, “to join your mother and me?”

“Yes,” said Maggie, “I refuse.”

“Has she anything to live on, ma?” asked Mr. Martin.

“Oh, dear James,” said Mrs. Howland, “don’t take all the poor child says in earnest now! She’ll be down on her knees to you to-morrow. I know she will. Leave her to me, James dear, and I’ll manage her.”

“You can manage most things, Little-sing,” said Mr. Martin; “but I don’t know that I want that insolent piece. She is very different from you. If she is to be about our pleasant, cheerful home snubbing me and putting on airs – why, I’ll have none of it. Let her go, Victoria, I say – let her go if she wants to; but if she comes to me she must come in a cheerful spirit, and joke with me, and take my fun, and be as agreeable as you are yourself, Little-sing.”

“Well, at least,” said Mrs. Howland, “give us till to-morrow. The child is surprised; she will be different to-morrow.”

“I hope so,” said Mr. Martin; “but if there’s any philandering, or falling back, or if there’s any on-gratitude, I’ll have naught to do with her. I only take her to oblige you, Victoria.”

“You had best leave us now, dear,” said Mrs. Howland. “I will talk to Maggie, and let you know.”

Mr. Martin sat quite still for a minute. Then he rose, took not the slightest notice of Maggie, but, motioning Mrs. Howland to follow him, performed a sort of cake-walk out of the room.

When he reached the door and had said good-bye, he opened it again and said, “Bo-peep!” pushing a little bit of his bald head in, and then withdrawing it, while Mrs. Howland pretended to admire his antics.

At last he was gone; but by this time Maggie had vanished into the bedroom. She had flung herself on her knees by the bed, and pushed her handkerchief against her mouth to stifle the sound of her sobs. Mrs. Howland gently opened the door, looked at her daughter, and then shut it again. She felt thoroughly afraid of Maggie.

An hour or two later a pale, subdued-looking girl came out of the bedroom and sat down by her mother.

“Well,” said Mrs. Howland, “he is very pleasant and cheerful, isn’t he?”

“Mother, he is horrible!”

“Maggie, you have no right to say those things to me. I want a good husband to take care of me. I am very lonely, and no one appreciates me.”

“Oh mother!” said poor Maggie – “my father!”

“He was a very good man,” said Mrs. Howland restlessly; “but he was above me, somehow, and I never, never could reach up to his heights.”

“And you really tell me, his child, that you prefer that person?”

“I think I shall be quite happy with him,” said Mrs. Howland. “I really do. He is awfully kind, and his funny little ways amuse me.”

“Oh mother!”

“You will be good about it, Maggie; won’t you?” said Mrs. Howland. “You won’t destroy your poor mother’s happiness? I have had such lonely years, and such a struggle to keep my head above water; and now that good man comes along and offers me a home and every comfort. I am not young, dear; I am five-and-forty; and there is nothing before me if I refuse Mr. Martin but an old age of great poverty and terrible loneliness. You won’t stand in my way, Maggie?”

“I can’t, mother; though it gives me agony to think of your marrying him.”

“But you’ll get quite accustomed to it after a little; and he is really very funny, I can assure you; he puts me into fits of laughter. You will get accustomed to him, darling; you will come and live with your new father and me at Laburnum Villa?”

“Mother, you must know that I never will.”

“But what are you to do, Maggie? You’ve got no money at all.”

“Oh mother!” said poor Maggie, “it costs very little to keep me at Aylmer House; you know that quite, quite well. Please do let me go on with my education. Afterwards I can earn my living as a teacher or in some profession, for I have plenty of talent. I take after father in that.”

“Oh yes, I know I always was a fool,” said Mrs. Howland; “but I have a way with people for all that.”

“Mother, you have a great deal that is quite sweet about you, and you’re throwing yourself away on that awful man! Can’t we go on as we did for a year or two, you living here, and I coming to you in the holidays? Then, as soon as ever I get a good post I shall be able to help you splendidly. Can’t you do it, mother? This whole thing seems so dreadful to me.”

“No, I can’t, and won’t,” said Mrs. Howland in a decided voice. “I am exceedingly fond of my Bo-peep – as I call him – and greatly enjoy the prospect of being his wife. Oh Maggie, you have not returned to be a thorn in our sides? You will submit?”

“Never, never, never!” said Maggie.

“Then I don’t know what you are to do; for your new father insists on my keeping the very little money I have for my own personal use, and if you refuse to conform to his wishes he will not allow me to spend a farthing of it on you. You can’t live on nothing at all.”

“I can’t,” said Maggie. “I don’t know quite what to do. Are you going to be so very cruel as to take away the little money you have hitherto spent on me?”

“I must, dear; in fact, it is done already. Mr. Martin has invested it in the grocery business. He already provides for all my wants, and we are to be married in a fortnight. I have nothing whatever to spend on you.”

“Well, mother, we’ll say no more to-night. I have a headache, but I’ll sleep on the sofa here; it’s less hot than the bedroom.”

“Won’t you sleep with your poor old mother?”

“No, I can’t, really. Oh, how dreadfully hot this place is!”

“You are spoilt by your fine life, Maggie; but I grant that these lodgings are hot. The house at Clapham, however, is very cool and fresh. Oh Maggie! My dear Bo-peep is getting such a sweet little bedroom ready for you. I could cry when I think of your cross obstinacy.”

But even the thought of the sweet little bedroom didn’t move Maggie Howland. Tildy presently brought up a meagre supper, of which the mother and daughter partook almost in silence. Then Mrs. Howland went to her room, where she fell fast asleep, and Maggie had the drawing-room to herself. She had arranged a sort of extempore bed on the hard sofa, and was about to lie down, when Tildy opened the door.

“I say,” said Tildy, “ain’t he cunnin’?”

“What do you mean, Matilda?” said Maggie.

“Oh my,” said Tildy, “wot a ’arsh word! Does you know, missie, that he’s arsked me to go down to Clap’am presently to ’elp wait on your ma? If you’re there, miss, it’ll be the ’eight of ’appiness to me.”

“I may as well say at once, Matilda, that I shall not be there.”

“You don’t like ’im, then?” said Tildy, backing a step. “And ’e is so enticin’ – the prettiest ways ’e ’ave – at least, that’s wot me and Mrs. Ross thinks. We always listen on the stairs for ’im to greet your ma. We like ’im, that we do.”

“I have an old dress in my trunk, Tildy, which I will give you. You can manage to make it look quite nice for your new post as parlor-maid at Laburnum Villa. But now go, please; for I must be alone to think.”

Tildy went. She crept downstairs to the kitchen regions. There she met Mrs. Ross.

“The blessed young lady’s full of ructions,” said Tildy.

“And no wonder,” replied Mrs. Ross. “She’s a step above Martin, and Martin knows it.”

“I ’ope as she won’t refuse to jine us at Laburnum Villa,” said Tildy.

“There’s no sayin’ wot a spirited gel like that’ll do,” said Mrs. Ross; “but ef she do go down, Martin ’ll be a match for ’er.”

“I don’t know about that,” replied Tildy. “She ’ave a strong, determined w’y about ’er, has our Miss Maggie.”

If Mrs. Howland slept profoundly, poor Maggie could not close her eyes. She suddenly found herself surrounded by calamity. The comparatively small trials which she had thought big enough in connection with Aylmer House and Cicely and Merry Cardew completely disappeared before this great trouble which now faced her. Her mother’s income amounted to a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and out of that meagre sum the pair had contrived to live, and, owing to Mrs. Ward’s generosity, Maggie had been educated. But now that dreadful Mr. Martin had secured Mrs. Howland’s little property, and the only condition on which it could be spent on Maggie was that she should accept a home with her future stepfather. This nothing whatever would induce her to do. But what was to be done?

She had no compunction whatever in leaving her mother. They had never been really friends, for the girl took after her father, whom her mother had never even pretended to understand. Mrs. Howland, when she became Mrs. Martin, would be absolutely happy without Maggie, and Maggie knew well that she would be equally miserable with her. On the other hand, how was Maggie to live?

Suddenly it flashed across her mind that there was a way out, or at least a way of providing sufficient funds for the coming term at Aylmer House. Her mother had, after all, some sort of affection for her, and if Maggie made her request she was certain it would not be refused. She meant to get her mother to give her all that famous collection of jewels which her father had collected in different parts of the world. In especial, the bracelets flashed before her memory. These could be sold, and would produce a sum which might keep Maggie at Aylmer House, perhaps for a year – certainly for the approaching term.

CHAPTER XIII.

BREAKFAST WITH BO-PEEP

After Maggie’s restless night she got up early. The day promised to be even hotter than the one before; but as the drawing-room faced west it was comparatively cool at this hour.

Tildy brought her favorite young lady a cup of tea, and suggested that she should go for an outing while Tildy herself freshened up the room. Maggie thought that a good idea, and when she found herself in the street her spirits rose a trifle.

A curious sort of fascination drew her in the direction of Martin’s shop. It was a very large corner shop, had several entrances, and at this early hour the young shopmen and shopwomen were busy dressing the windows; they were putting appetizing sweetmeats and cakes and biscuits and all kinds of delectable things in the different windows to tempt the passers-by.

Maggie felt a hot sense of burning shame rising to her cheeks as she passed the shop. She was about to turn back, when whom should she see standing in the doorway but the prosperous owner himself! He recognized her immediately, and called out to her in his full, pompous voice, “Come along here, Wopsy!”

The young shop-people turned to gaze in some wonder as the refined-looking girl approached the fat, loud-mannered man.

“I’m in a hurry back to breakfast with my mother,” said Maggie in her coldest voice.

“Well, then, I will come along with you, my dear; I am just in the mood. Little-sing, she will give me breakfast this morning. I’ll be back again in the shop soon after nine. It’s a fine shop, ain’t it, Popsy?”

“It does seem large,” said Maggie.

“It’s the sort of shop,” responded Martin, “that takes a deal of getting. It’s not done in a day, nor a month, nor a year. It takes a lifetime to build up premises like these. It means riches, my dear – riches.” He rolled out the words luxuriously.

“I am sure it does,” said Maggie, who felt that for her own sake she must humor him.

“You think so, do you?” said Martin, giving her a keen glance.

“Of course I do,” replied Maggie.

Martin gazed at her from head to foot. She was plain. He rather liked her for that. He admired her, too, for, as he expressed it, standing up to him. His dear Little-sing would never stand up to him. But this girl was not the least like her mother. She had a lot of character; Little-sing had none.

“You’d make an admirable accountant, Popsy,” he said. “How would you like to take that post by-and-by in my shop?”

Maggie was about to reply that nothing would induce her to accept such a position, when a quick thought darted through her mind. She could scarcely hope to make anything of her mother, for, alack and alas! Mrs. Howland was one of those weak characters who slip away from you even as you try to grasp them. But Martin, with his terrible vulgarity and awful pleasantry, was at least fairly strong.

“Mr. Martin,” said Maggie then, “instead of going in to breakfast with mother, will you take me to some restaurant and give me a good meal, and let me talk to you?”

“Well, now,” said Martin, chuckling, “you are a girl! You have cheek! I am not a man to waste my money, and breakfast with Little-sing won’t cost me anything.”

“But under the circumstances you will waste a little money in order to oblige me?” said Maggie.

“There now, I admire your cheek. So be it. You don’t deserve anything from me, for a ruder ’ittle dirl than you were yesterday to poor Bo-peep could not have been found in the length and breadth of England.”

“You could scarcely expect me to be pleased, sir. The news was broken to me very suddenly, and I was tired after my long journey, too.”

“Yes; and you vented your spite on me, on poor old Bo-peep, who has the kindest heart in Christendom.”

“I may have said some things that I regret,” said Maggie; “but, at any rate, I had the night to think matters over, and if you give me some breakfast I can talk to you.”

“I will take you to Harrison’s for breakfast,” said Martin. “You’ll get a topper there, I can tell you – eggs, bacon, kidneys, liver, game-pie, cocoa, coffee, tea, chocolate; anything and everything you fancy, and the best marmalade in London.”

Maggie felt rather hungry, and when the pair entered Harrison’s she was not displeased at the liberal supply of food which her future stepfather ordered. He pretended to hate the aristocracy, as he called them, and poor Maggie could certainly never claim this distinction in her own little person. Nevertheless, she was entirely superior to Martin, and he felt a sort of pride in her as she walked up the long restaurant by his side.

“Now, waiter,” he said to the man who approached to take orders, “you look slippy. This young ’oman and me, we want a real comfortable, all-round, filling meal. You give us the best the house contains; and look slippy, I say.”

The waiter did look “slippy,” whatever that word might imply, and Martin proceeded to treat Maggie to really excellent viands and to satisfy himself to his heart’s content. Maggie ate with a certain amount of relish, for, as has been said, she was really hungry.

“Like it, don’t you?” said Martin as he watched her consuming her eggs and bacon.

“Oh yes, very much indeed,” said Maggie.

“I’m fond of a good table myself,” said Martin. “This is the sort of thing you’ll have on all occasions and at every meal at Laburnum Villa. We’ll soon fill your poor mother’s thin cheeks out, and get her rosy and plump, and then she’ll be a more charming Little-sing to her own Bo-peep than ever.”

Maggie was silent.

“Come, come,” said Martin, patting her hand; “it’s all right about Laburnum Villa, ain’t it, my girl?”

“No, Mr. Martin,” said Maggie then.

She withdrew her hand and turned and looked at him fixedly. “I want to tell you all about myself,” she said. “I was really rude to you yesterday, and I am sorry; but I couldn’t go to live with you and mother at Laburnum Villa. I will tell you the principal reason why I couldn’t go.”

“Oh, come, come, you’re only a child; you must do what you are told. Your mother has no money to give you, and you can’t live on air, you know. Air is all very well, but it don’t keep folks alive. You’ll have to come to me whether you like it or not.”

“Before you come to that determination, Mr. Martin, may I tell you something about myself?”

“Oh dear! I hope it isn’t a long story.”

“It’s very important, and not very long. I am not the least like mother”–

“My good girl, any one can see that. Your mother’s a remarkably pretty and elegant woman, and you’re the plainest young person I ever came across.”

“I am plain,” said Maggie; “and, in addition, I am by no means good-natured.”

“Oh, you admit that? For shame!”

“I was born that way,” said Maggie. “I’m a very high-spirited girl, and I have got ideas with regard to my future. You said just now that perhaps some day you might make me accountant in your shop. That was kind of you, and I might be a good accountant; but, of course, all that is for the future. I shouldn’t mind that – I mean, not particularly. But if you were to follow out your plan, and take me to live with you and mother at Laburnum Villa, you would never have a happy moment; for, you see, I am much stronger in character than mother, and I couldn’t help making your life miserable; whereas you and mother would be awfully happy without me. Mother says that she loves you, and wishes to be your wife” —

“Now, what are you driving at, Popsy? For if you have nothing hanging on your hands I have a vast lot hanging on mine, and time is precious.”

“I will tell you quite frankly what I want you to do, Mr. Martin. You are taking mother.”

“I am willing to take you too. I can’t do any more.”

“But then, you see, I don’t want to be taken. Until you came forward and proposed to mother to be your wife she spent a little of her money on my education. She tells me that she has put it now into your business.”

“Poor thing!” said Martin. “She was making ducks and drakes of it; but it is safe enough now.”

“Yes,” said Maggie in a determined voice; “but I think, somehow, that a part of it does lawfully belong to me.”

“Oh, come! tut, tut!”

“I think so,” said Maggie in a resolute tone; “for, you see, it was father’s money; and though he left it absolutely to mother, it was to go to me at her death, and it was meant, little as it was, to help to educate me. I could ask a lawyer all about the rights, of course.”

For some extraordinary reason Martin looked rather frightened.

“You can go to any lawyer you please,” he said; “but what for? let me ask. If I take you, and do for you, and provide for you, what has a lawyer to say in the matter?”

“Well, that is just it – that’s just what I have to inquire into; because, you see, Mr. Martin, I don’t want you to provide for me at all.”

“I think now we are coming to the point,” said Martin. “Stick to it, Popsy, for time’s precious.”

“I think you ought to allow me to be educated out of mother’s money.”

“Highty-tighty! I’m sure you know enough.”

“I don’t really know enough. Mrs. Ward, of Aylmer House, has taken me as an inmate of her school for forty pounds a year. Her terms for most girls are a great deal more.”

Martin looked with great earnestness at Maggie.

“I want to go on being Mrs. Ward’s pupil, and I want you to allow me forty pounds a year for the purpose, and twenty over for my clothes and small expenses – that is, sixty pounds a year altogether. I shall be thoroughly educated then, and it seems only fair that, out of mother’s hundred and fifty a year, sixty pounds of the money should be spent on me. There’s no use talking to mother, for she gets so easily puzzled about money; but you have a very good business head. You see, Mr. Martin, I am only just sixteen, and if I get two more years’ education, I shall be worth something in the world, whereas now I am worth nothing. I hope you will think it over, Mr. Martin, and do what I wish.”

Martin was quite silent for a minute. The waiter came along and was paid his bill, with a very substantial tip for himself thrown in. Still Martin lingered at the breakfast-table with his eyes lowered.

“There’s one thing – and one thing only – I like about this, Popsy-wopsy,” he said.

“And what is that?” asked Maggie.

“That you came to me on the matter instead of going to your mother; that you recognized the strength and force of my character.”

“Oh, any one can see that,” said Maggie.

“You put it straight, too, with regard to your own disagreeable nature.”

“Yes, I put it straight,” said Maggie.

“Well, all I can say at present is this: I will think it over. You go home to your mother now, and tell her that her Bo-peep will be in as usual to tea; and you, little girl, may as well make yourself scarce at that hour. Here’s a sovereign for you. Go and have a jolly time somewhere.”

“Oh, Mr. Martin, I”–began Maggie, her face crimson.

“You had best not put on airs,” said Martin; and Maggie slipped the sovereign into her pocket.

When she reached her mother’s lodgings she felt well assured that she had done the right thing. Hitherto she had been too stunned and miserable to use any of her power – that strange power which she possessed – on Mr. Martin. But she felt well assured that she could do so in the future. She had gauged his character correctly. He was hopelessly vulgar, but an absolutely good-natured and straight person.

“He will do what I wish,” she thought. Her uneasiness vanished as soon as the first shock of her mother’s disclosure was over. She entered the house.

“Why, missie?” said Tildy, “w’erehever ’ave you been? The breakfast’s stony cold upstairs, and Mrs. ’Owland’s cryin’ like nothin’ at all.”

“Thank you, Tildy; I’ll see mother immediately,” said Maggie. “And I don’t want any breakfast, for I’ve had it already.”

“With the haristocracy?” asked Tildy in a low, awed kind of voice. “You always was one o’ they, Miss Maggie.”

“No, not with the aristocracy,” said Maggie, trying to suppress her feelings. “Tildy, your smut is on your left cheek this morning. You can remove the breakfast-things, and I’ll go up to mother.”

Maggie ran upstairs. Mrs. Howland had eaten a little, very indifferent breakfast, and was looking weepy and washed-out as she sat in her faded dressing-gown near the open window.

“Really, Maggie,” she said when her daughter entered, “your ways frighten me most terribly! I do wish poor Mr. Martin would insist on your coming to live with us. I shall never have an easy moment with your queer pranks and goings-on.”

“I am sure you won’t, dear mother,” said Maggie. “But come, don’t be cross with me. Here’s Matilda; she’ll clear away the breakfast-things in no time, and then I have something I want to say to you.”

“Oh dear! my head is so weak this morning,” said Mrs. Howland.

“If I were you, Miss Maggie,” said Tildy as she swept the cups and saucers with noisy vehemence on to a tray, “I wouldn’t worrit the poor mistress, and she just on the eve of a matrimonial venture. It’s tryin’ to the nerves, it is; so Mrs. Ross tells me. Says she, ‘When I married Tom,’ says she, ‘I was on the twitter for a good month.’ It’s awful to think as your poor ma’s so near the brink – for that’s ’ow Mrs. Ross speaks o’ matrimony.”