The Girl and Her Fortune

The girls absented themselves during the whole of the morning, but appeared again in time for lunch, which they ate with a healthy appetite. They praised Mrs Fortescue’s food, comparing it with what they had at school to the disadvantage of the latter. Mrs Fortescue was pleased. She prided herself very much on Bridget’s cooking.

“And now,” she said, when the meal had come to an end, “you will go upstairs and put on your prettiest dresses and wait in the drawing-room for Mr Timmins. I shall not be far off. He will naturally want to see me as soon as he has had his talk with you both, so I shall remain writing letters in the dining-room. There are so many letters and cards to send off at Christmas time that I shall be fully occupied, and when you touch the bell, Brenda, I shall know what it means. In any case, I will send tea into the drawing-room at a quarter to four. That will give you time to get through your business first, and if you want me to come in and pour out the tea, I shall know if you will just touch the bell.”

“Thank you,” said Brenda. “But it isn’t half-past one yet, and the day is a lovely one. Florence and I want to take a good brisk walk between now and three o’clock. We shall be back before three. We cannot be mewed up in the house until Mr Timmins chooses to arrive.”

“Oh, my dear children! He will think it queer.”

“I am sorry,” said Brenda, “but he had no right to choose Christmas Eve as the day when he was to come to see us. His train may not be in till late. Anyhow, we want to take advantage of the sunshine. Come, Florence.”

The girls left the room and soon afterwards were seen going out arm-in-arm. They walked down the little avenue, and were lost to view.

There was a certain style about them both. They looked quite different from the ordinary Langdale girls. Florence held herself very well, and although she acknowledged herself to be a beauty, had no self-conscious airs. Brenda’s sweet face appeared to see beyond the ordinary line of vision, as though she were always communing with thoughts deeper and more rare than those given to most. People turned and looked at the girls as they walked up the little High Street. Most people knew them, and were interested in them. They were the very charming young ladies who always spent their holidays with Mrs Fortescue. They were, of course, to be included in all the Christmas parties given at Langdale, and Mrs Fortescue would, as her custom was, give a party on Twelfth Night in their honour.

That was the usual state of things. The girls did not seem in the mood, however, to greet their old friends beyond smiling and nodding to them. As they were returning home, Brenda said —

“We are more than half an hour late. I wonder if he has come.”

“Well, if he has, it is all right,” said Florence. “Mrs Fortescue is dying to have a chat with him all by herself, and she will have managed to by this time. She will be rather glad, if the truth may be known, that we are not in to interrupt her. I can see that she is dying with curiosity.”

“I don’t want her to live with us in the future,” said Brenda.

“But she has set her heart on it,” said Florence.

“I know,” remarked Brenda; “but, all the same, our lives are our own, and I don’t think we can do with Mrs Fortescue. I suppose Mr Timmins will tell us what he has decided. We are not of age yet, either of us. You have three years to wait, Flo, and I have two.”

“Well, we must do what he wishes,” said Florence. “I intend to be married ages and ages before I am twenty-one; so that will be all right.”

While they were coming towards the house, an impatient, white-headed old lawyer was pacing up and down Mrs Fortescue’s narrow drawing-room. Mrs Fortescue was sitting with him and doing her utmost to soothe his impatience.

“Dear Mr Timmins, I am so sorry the girls are out. I quite thought they would have been back before now.”

“But they knew my train would be in by three o’clock,” said Mr Timmins.

He was a man of between fifty and sixty years of age, rather small, with rosy cheeks and irascible eyes. His hair was abundant and snow-white, white as milk.

“I said three o’clock,” he repeated.

“Yes,” said Mrs Fortescue, “but on Christmas Eve we made sure your train would be late.”

The lawyer took out his watch.

“Not the special from London; that is never late,” he remarked. “I want to catch the half-past four back; otherwise I shall have to go by one of those dreadful slow trains, and there’s a good deal to talk over. I do think it is a little careless of those girls not to be at home when they are expecting me.”

Mrs Fortescue coughed, then she ’hemmed.

“It might – ” she began. The lawyer paused in his impatient walk and stared at her. “It might expedite matters,” she continued, “if you were to tell me some of your plans. For instance, I shall quite understand if you wish me to leave here and take a house in London. It is true the lease of this house won’t be up for two years, but I have no doubt my landlord would be open to a consideration.”

“Eh? What is it you were going to say? I don’t want you to leave your house,” blurted out Mr Timmins. “I have nothing whatever to do with your future, Mrs Fortescue. You have been kind to my young friends in the past, but I think I have – er – er – fully repaid you. And here they come – that is all right. Now, my dear madam, if you would leave the young ladies with me – no tea, thank you; I haven’t time for any – I may be able to get my business through in three-quarters of an hour. It is only just half-past three. If I leave here at a quarter-past four, I may catch the express back to town. Would you be so very kind as to order your servant to have a cab at the door for me at a quarter-past four – yes, in three-quarters of an hour I can say all that need be said. No tea, I beg of you.”

He was really very cross; it was the girls’ doing. Mrs Fortescue felt thoroughly annoyed. She went into the hall to meet Brenda and Florence.

“Mr Timmins has been here for nearly twenty minutes. His train was in sharp at three. He is very much annoyed at your both being out. Go to him at once, girls – at once.”

“Oh, of course we will,” said Florence. “Who would have supposed that his train would have been punctual to-day! Come, Brenda, come.”

They went, just as they were, into the pretty little precise drawing-room, where a fire was burning cheerily in the grate, and the room was looking spick and span, everything dusted and in perfect order, and some pretty vases full of fresh flowers adding a picturesqueness to the scene. It was quite a dear little drawing-room, and when the two girls – Florence with that rich colour which so specially characterised her, and Brenda a little paler but very sweet-looking – entered the room, the picture was complete. The old lawyer lost his sense of irritation. He came forward with both hands outstretched.

“My dear children,” he said; “my poor children. Sit down; sit down.”

They were surprised at his address, and Florence began to apologise for being late; but Brenda made no remark, only her face turned pale.

“I may as well out with it at once,” said Mr Timmins. “It was never my wish that it should have been kept from you all these years, but I only obeyed your parent’s special instructions. You have left school – ”

“Oh yes,” said Florence; “and I am glad. What are we to do in the future, Daddy Timmins?”

She often called him by that name. He took her soft young hand and stroked it. There was a husky note in his voice. He found it difficult to speak. After a minute or two, he said abruptly —

“Now, children, I will just tell you the very worst at once. You haven’t a solid, solitary hundred pounds between you in this wide world. I kept you at school as long as I could. There is not enough money to pay for another term’s schooling, but there is enough to pay Mrs Fortescue for your Christmas holidays, and there will be a few pounds over to put into each of your pockets. The little money your father left you will then be quite exhausted.”

“I don’t understand,” said Brenda, after a long time.

Florence was silent – she, who was generally the noisy one. She was gazing straight before her out into Mrs Fortescue’s little garden which had a light covering of snow over the flower-beds, and which looked so pretty and yet so small and confined. She looked beyond the garden at the line of the horizon, which showed clear against the frosty air. There would be a hard frost to-night. Christmas Day would come in with its old-fashioned splendour. She had imagined all sorts of things about this special time; Christmas Day in hot countries, Christmas Day in large country houses, Christmas Day in her own home, when she had won the man who would love her, not only for her beauty, but her wealth. She was penniless. It seemed very queer. It seemed to contract her world. She could not understand it.

Brenda, who had a stronger nature, began to perceive the position more quickly.

“Please,” she said – and her young voice had no tremble in it – “please tell me exactly what this means and why – why we were neither of us told until now?”

Mr Timmins shrugged his shoulders.

“How old were you, Brenda, when your father and mother died?” he asked.

“I was fourteen,” she answered, “and Florence was thirteen.”

“Precisely; you were two little girls: you were relationless.”

“So I have always been told,” said Brenda.

“Your father left a will behind him. He always appeared to you to be a rich man, did he not?”

“I suppose so,” said Brenda. “I never thought about it.”

“Nor did I,” said Florence, speaking for the first time.

“Well, he was not rich. He lived up to his income. He earned a considerable amount as a writer.”

“I was very proud of him,” said Brenda.

“When he died,” continued Mr Timmins, taking no notice of this remark – “you know your mother died first – but when he died he left a will, giving explicit directions that all his debts were to be paid in full. There were not many, but there were some. The remainder of the money was to be spent on the education of you two girls. I assure you, my dears, there was not much; but I have brought the accounts with me for you to see the exact amount realisable from his estate and precisely how I spent it. I found Mrs Fortescue willing to give you a home in the holidays, and I arranged with her that you were to go to her for so much a week. I chose, by your father’s directions, the very best possible school to send you to, a school where you would only meet with ladies, and where you would be educated as thoroughly as possible. You were to stay on at school and with Mrs Fortescue until the last hundred pounds of your money was reached. Then you were to be told the truth: that you were to face the world. After your fees for your last term’s schooling have been met and Mrs Fortescue has been paid for your Christmas holidays, there will be precisely eighty pounds in the bank to your credit. That money I think you ought to save for a nest-egg. That is all you possess. Your father’s idea was that you would live more happily and work more contentedly if you were allowed to grow up to the period of adolescence without knowing the cares and sorrows of the world. He may have been wrong; doubtless he was; anyhow, there was nothing whatever for me to do but to obey the will. I came down myself to tell you. You will have the Christmas holidays in which to prepare yourselves for the battle of life. You can tell Mrs Fortescue or not, as you please. She has learned nothing from me. I think that is about all, except – ”

“Yes?” said Florence, speaking for the first time – “except what?”

“Except that I would like you both – yes, both – to see Lady Marian Dixie, a very old client of mine, who was a friend of your mother’s, and I believe, would give you advice, and perhaps help you to find situations. Lady Marian is in London, and if you wish it, I will arrange that you shall have an interview with her. What day would suit you both?”

“Any day,” said Brenda.

Florence was silent.

“Here is a five-pound note between you. It is your own money – five pounds out of your remaining eighty pounds. Be very careful of it. I will endeavour to see Lady Marian on Monday, and will write to you. Ah, there is my cab. You can tell Mrs Fortescue or not, just as you please. Good-bye now, my dears, good-bye. I am truly sorry, truly sorry; but those who work for their own living are not the most unhappy people, and you are well-educated; your poor father saw to that. Don’t blame the dead, Brenda. Florence, think kindly of the dead.”

Chapter Three

Plans for the Future

Mrs Fortescue was full of curiosity.

The girls were absolutely silent. She talked with animation of their usually gay programme for Christmas. The Blundells and the Arbuthnots and the Aylmers had all invited them to Christmas parties. Of course they would go. They were to dine with the Arbuthnots on the following evening. She hoped the girls had pretty dresses.

“There will be quite a big party,” said Mrs Fortescue. “Major Reid and his son are also to be there. Michael Reid is a remarkably clever man. What sort of dresses have you, girls? Those white ones you wore last summer must be rather outré now. It was such a pity that I was not able to get you some really stylish frocks from Madame Aidée in town.”

“Our white frocks will do very well indeed,” said Florence.

“But you have grown, dear; you have grown up now,” said Mrs Fortescue. “Oh my love!” She drew her chair a little closer to the young girl as she spoke. “I wonder what Mr Timmins meant. He did not seem at all interested in my house. I expressed so plainly my willingness to give it up and to take a house in town where we could be all happy together; but he was very huffy and disagreeable. It was a sad pity that you didn’t stay in for him. It put him out. I never knew that Mr Timmins was such an irascible old gentleman before.”

“He is not; he is a perfect dear,” said Florence.

“Well, Florence, I assure you he was not at all a dear to me. Still, if he made himself agreeable to you, you two darling young creatures, I must not mind. I suppose I shan’t see a great deal of you in the future. I shall miss you, my loves.”

Tears came into the little woman’s eyes. They were genuine tears, of sorrow for herself but also of affection for the girls. She would, of course, like to make money by them, but she also regarded them as belonging to her. She had known them for so long, and, notwithstanding the fact that she had been paid for their support, she had been really good to them. She had given them of those things which money cannot buy, had sat up with Florence night after night when she was ill with the measles, and had read herself hoarse in order to keep that difficult young lady in bed when she wanted to be up and playing about.

Of the two girls Florence was her darling. She dreamed much of Florence’s future, of the husband she would win, of the position she would attain, and of the advantage which she, Mrs Fortescue, would derive from her young friends – advancement in the social scale. Beauty was better than talent; and Florence, as well as being an heiress, was also a beauty.

It cannot be said that the girls did much justice to Bridget’s hot cakes. They were both a little stunned, and their one desire was to get away to their own bedroom to talk over their changed circumstances, and decide on what course of action they would pursue with regard to Mrs Fortescue. In her heart of hearts, Florence would have liked to rush to the good lady and say impulsively —

“I am a cheat, an impostor. I haven’t a penny in the world. You will be paid up to the end of the Christmas holidays, and then you will never see me any more. I have got to provide my own living somehow. I suppose I’ll manage best as a nursery governess; but I don’t know anything really well.”

Brenda, however, would not encourage any such lawless action.

“We won’t say a word about it,” said Brenda, “until after Christmas Day.”

She gave forth this mandate when the girls were in their room preparing for dinner.

“Oh,” said Florence; “it will kill me to keep it a secret for so long!”

“It won’t kill you,” replied Brenda, “for you will have me to talk it over with.”

“But she’ll go on asking us questions,” said Florence. “She will want to know where we are going after the holidays; if we are going to stay on with her, or what is to happen; and unless we tell her a lot of lies, I don’t see how we are to escape telling her the truth. It is all dreadful from first to last; but I think having to keep it a secret from Mrs Fortescue is about the most terrible part of all.”

“It is the part you feel most at the present time,” said Brenda. “It is a merciful dispensation that we cannot realise everything that is happening just at the moment it happens. It is only by degrees that we get to realise the full extent of our calamities.”

“I suppose it is a calamity,” said Florence, opening her bright eyes very wide. “Somehow, at the present moment I don’t feel anything at all about it except rather excited; and there are eighty pounds left. Eighty pounds ought to go far, oughtn’t they? Oughtn’t they to go far, Brenda?”

“No,” said Brenda; “they won’t go far at all.”

“But I can’t make out why. We could go into small lodgings and live quite by ourselves and lead the simple life. There is so much written now about the simple life. I have read many books lately in which very clever men say that we eat far too much, and that, after all, what we really need is abundance of fresh air and so many hours for sleep and very plain food. I was reading a book not long ago which described a man who had exactly twenty pounds on which he intended to live for a whole year. He paid two and sixpence a week for his room and about as much more for his food, and he was very healthy and very happy. Now, if we did the same sort of thing, we could live both of us quite comfortably for two years on our eighty pounds.”

“And then,” said Brenda, “what would happen at the end of that time?”

“Oh, I should be married by then,” said Florence, “and you would come and live with me, of course, you old darling.”

“No; that I wouldn’t,” said Brenda. “I am not at all content to sit down and wait. I want to do something. As far as I am concerned, I am rather glad of this chance. I never did care for what are so-called ‘society pleasures.’ I see now the reason why I always felt driven to work very hard. You know father was a great writer. I shall write too. I will make money by my books, and we will both live together and be happy. If you find your prince, the man you have made up your mind to marry, why, you shall marry him. But if you don’t, I am always there. We will be very careful of our money, and I will write a book; I think I just know how. I am not father’s daughter for nothing. The book will be a success, and I shall get an order for another book, and we can live somehow. We shall be twenty thousand times happier than if we were in a house with Mrs Fortescue looking out for husbands for us – for that is what it comes to when all is said and done.”

“Oh, you darling! I never thought of that,” said Florence. “It is perfectly splendid! I never admired you in all my life as I admire you now, Brenda. Of course, I never thought that you would be the one to save us from destruction. I used at times to have a sort of idea within me that perhaps you would have to come and live with me some day when all our money was spent. I can’t imagine why I used to think so often about all our money being spent; but I used to, only I imagined it would be after I had got my trousseau and was married to my dear lord, or duke, or marquis – anyhow, some one with a big place and a title; and I used to imagine you living with me and being my dear companion. But this is much, much better than any of those things.”

“Yes; I think it is better,” said Brenda. “I will think about the book to-night, and perhaps the title may come to me; but in the meantime, we are not to tell Mrs Fortescue – not at least till Christmas Day is over; and we’ve got to take out our white dresses and get them ironed, and see that they look as fresh as possible. Now, we mustn’t stay too long in our room: she is dying with curiosity, but she can’t possibly guess the truth.”

“No; she couldn’t guess the truth, that would be beyond her power,” said Florence. “The truth is horrible, and yet delightful. We are our own mistresses, aren’t we, Brenda?”

“As far as the eighty pounds go,” replied Brenda.

“What I was so terrified about,” said the younger sister, “was this. I thought we should have to go as governesses or companions, or something of that sort, in big houses and be – be parted.” Her lips trembled.

“Oh no; we won’t be parted,” said Brenda; “but all the same, we’ll have to go to see Lady Marian Dixie – that is, when she writes to ask us. Now may I brush your hair for you? I want you to look your very prettiest self to-night.”

The white frocks were ironed by Bridget’s skilful fingers. It is true, they were only the sort of dresses worn by schoolgirls, but they were quite pretty, and of the very best material. They were somewhat short for the two tall girls, and Brenda smiled at herself when she saw her dress, which only reached a trifle below her ankles. As to Florence, she skipped about the room in hers. She was in wonderfully high spirits. For girls who had been brought up as heiresses, and who expected all the world to bow before them, this was extraordinary. And now it was borne in upon her that she had only forty pounds in the world, not even quite that, for already a little of the five pounds advanced by Mr Timmins had been spent. Mrs Fortescue insisted upon it. She said, “You ought to wear real flowers; I will order some for you at the florist’s round the corner.”

Now flowers at Christmas time are expensive, but Florence was reckless and ordered roses and lilies of the valley. Brenda looked unutterable things, but after opening her lips as though to speak, decided to remain silent. Why should not Florence have her pretty way for once? She looked at her sister with great admiration. She thought again of her beauty, which was of the sort which can scarcely be described, and deals more with expression than feature. Wherever this girl went, her bright eyes did their own work. They drew people towards them as towards a magnet. Her charming manners effected the rest of the fascination. She was not self-conscious either, so that women liked her as much as men did.

But now Christmas Day had really come, and Mrs Fortescue, in the highest of high spirits, accompanied her young charges to Colonel Arbuthnot’s house. Year by year, the girls had eaten their Christmas dinner at the old Colonel’s house, which was known by the commonplace name of The Grange. It was a corner house in Langdale, abutting straight on to the street, but evidently at one time there had been a big garden in front, and just before the hall door was an enormous oak tree, which spread its shadows over the low stone steps in summer, and caused the dining-room windows which faced the street to be cool even in the hottest weather.

At the back of the house was a glorious old garden. No one had touched that. It measured nearly three acres. It had its walled-in enclosure, its small paddock, and its wealth of flower garden. The flowers, as far as Florence and Brenda could make out, seemed to grow without expense or trouble, for Colonel Arbuthnot was not a rich man, and could not even afford a gardener every day, but he worked a good deal himself, and was helped by his daughter Susie, a buxom, rather matronly young woman of six or seven and thirty. The girls liked Susie very much, although they considered her quite an old maid.

No; Colonel Arbuthnot was by no means rich – that is, as far as money is concerned; but he possessed other riches – the riches of a brave and noble heart. He was straight as a die in all his dealings with his fellow-men. He had a good deal of penetration of character, and had long ago taken a fancy to Mrs Fortescue’s young charges. It did not matter in the least to him whether the girls were heiresses or not. They were young. They were both, in his opinion, pretty. He liked young and pretty creatures, and the idea of sitting down to his Christmas dinner without these additions to his party would have annoyed him very much.

Colonel Arbuthnot’s one extravagance in the year was his Christmas dinner. He invited all those people to it who otherwise might have to do without roast beef and plum pudding. There were a good many such in the little town of Langdale. It was a remote place, far from the world, and no one was wealthy there. Money went far in a little place of the sort, and the Colonel always saved several pounds out of his income in order to give Susie plenty of money to pay for a great joint at the butcher’s, and to make the old-fashioned plum pudding, also to prepare the mince pies by the old receipt, and to wind up by a sumptuous dessert.