A Bevy of Girls

“Of course, Mr Griffiths went to see them, and of course they told him, and of course – of course, he will be just mad,” said Mrs Griffiths. “He will be in a towering rage; I don’t know what he won’t do. There’ll be a split between us; he’ll never let our Flossie speak to you again, that’s plain.”

“Oh, Mrs Griffiths, if you would be good, if you would but just lend me enough money to get home before – before he comes.”

“Well, now, that wouldn’t be a bad idea,” said Mrs Griffiths. “You can make off, I will see you into the tram; you don’t mind travelling third-class, do you?”

“I’d travel on the top of the train – I’d travel in the guard’s van – I’d travel anywhere only to get away,” said Nesta.

“Well, child, I’ll just look up the trains, and put you into one myself – or no, perhaps I’d better not. You might give us the slip, as it were. If he thought that I’d let you go home before he came, he’d give me a piece of his mind, and there’d be the mischief to pay again. You can find your own way to the station.”

“I can. I can.”

“I’ll look out the very next train, the very next.”

“Oh, do, please do. And please lend me some money.”

Mrs Griffiths produced half a sovereign, which she put into Nesta’s palm. Nesta hardly waited to thank her.

“Good-bye. Oh, I am grateful – I will write. Explain to Flossie. Try to forgive me – it was so dull at home, only Miss Mule Selfish, you know, and Molly and Ethel.”

“And your mother,” said Mrs Griffiths, a little severely, for it was the thought of the anxiety that Nesta had given her mother which touched Mrs Griffiths’ heart most nearly.

“Mothery wouldn’t be cross, that is certain sure,” said poor Nesta.

She was putting on her hat as she uttered the words, and a few minutes later she was toiling through the hot sun and blinding dust, for the day was a windy one, to the railway station en route for Newcastle.

Chapter Twenty Five

Nemesis

It was late that evening when two men entered Mrs Griffiths’ drawing room at Scarborough. One was Mr Griffiths, and the other Horace Aldworth, Nesta’s half-brother. Mrs Griffiths was overpowered by Horace’s presence. She had spent a wretched time since Nesta had gone. The girl was scarcely out of the house before the elder woman decided that she had done very wrong to lend her money; there was no saying what she might do, nor how she would spend it. She might not go home at all. She was a queer girl – unlike her Flossie. She had done a strange, a most unaccountable thing; just for the sake of a bit of pleasure, she had left her own friends, her mother, her sisters – she had planned it all cleverly, but – and here lay the sting – she had not planned it alone. Flossie was in the thick of the mischief.

Mrs Griffiths’ uneasiness with regard to Nesta presently melted down into a tender sort of regret. Her real sorrow was for her Flossie, her little black-eyed, dancing, mischievous girl, Flossie, who had always been fond of her father and mother, and who had never given herself airs, but had just delighted in Nesta because she must have some friend, but who would not do what Nesta had done for the wide world. And yet, try as she would, Mrs Griffiths could not get over the fact that Flossie had aided and abetted Nesta; that she knew all about it. Mrs Griffiths thought she could understand. She had recourse to her favourite adage – “Girls will be girls.” She remembered the time when she was at school. Girls’ schools were somewhat common sort of places in Mrs Griffiths’ early days. She remembered how she had smuggled in cakes, how she had secreted sticky sweetmeats in her pockets, how she had defied her teachers, and copied her themes from other girls, and what romps they had had in the attics, and how they had laughed at the teachers behind their backs. All these things Mrs Griffiths had done in the days of her youth; but nevertheless these things did not seem so grave or serious as what Flossie had done. Of course, she would forgive her; catch a mother being long angry with her only child; but then Griffiths – Mrs Griffiths always called her husband by that name – he would be wild.

“Griffiths will give it to her, and she’s that saucy she’ll answer him back, and there’ll be no end of a row,” thought the poor woman.

So it was an anxious-faced, wrinkled, rather elderly woman who started up now to receive the two men. Griffiths came in first.

“I have brought Mr Horace Aldworth back with me, wife. Did you receive my telegram?”

“I did, dear. You will be wanting a bit of supper. How do you do, Mr Aldworth? I hope your poor mother is easier – suffering less, getting stronger by degrees.”

Horace bowed and murmured something in reply, and took a seat with his back to the light. Griffiths strutted over to the hearthrug, put his hands behind him, swelled out, – as Mrs Griffiths afterwards expressed it, – looked as red as a turkey-cock, and demanded the presence of the two girls.

“The girls,” said Mrs Griffiths – “they are out.”

Her first impulse was to hide the fact that she had lent Nesta money; but second thoughts rejected this. Griffiths would worm it out of her. Griffiths could get any secret out of her – he was terrible when he reached his turkey-cock stage.

“The girls,” she said timidly, “they’re not in.”

“Neither of them?”

“Neither of them.”

“Then where in the name of all that is good are they?” thundered the angry man.

“Flossie is away on a picnic with the Browns.”

“I’m not inquiring for Flossie in particular at present. I want that other hussy – I want Miss Nesta Aldworth. Where is she?”

“I have come,” said Horace, breaking in at this juncture, and speaking in a most self-restrained voice – “to take my sister Nesta home with me, and to thank you most sincerely, Mrs Griffiths, for your kindness.”

“It’s the most dastardly, disgraceful thing that ever occurred, and to think that I should have had a hand in it,” said Griffiths. “I have been done as neatly as ever man was. I, paying all the expenses and treating the girl as though she were my own child, and thinking that Aldworth, there, and his father, would be pleased, and believe that I meant well by his family, and all the time I was doing them a base injury. It’s a wonder that girl’s mother isn’t in her grave, and so she would be if it wasn’t for – ”

“My mother is all right, thank you,” said Horace. “But I am most anxious to catch the last train back to Newcastle. Is Nesta upstairs? Can she come down? I want to take her away.”

“She is not,” said Mrs Griffiths, and now she trembled exceedingly, and edged nearer to Horace, as though for protection. “It is my fault, you mustn’t blame her. I got the telegram – I’d rather not say anything about it, but I can’t hide the truth from you, Griffiths. You are so masterful when you get red in the face like that – I’m just terrified of you, and I must out with the truth. The poor child was so frightened that she told me what she had done. She owned up handsome, I must say, and then she said: ‘Lend me a little money to take me home – I will go home at once.’ She was frightfully cut up at nobody really missing her. She had evidently thought she would be sent for at once. I own that she did wrong.”

“Of course, she did wrong,” shouted Griffiths. “I never heard of a meaner thing to do, a meaner and a lower, and if I thought that my child – ”

It was on this scene that Flossie, radiant with the success of her happy day, broke. She opened the door wide, rushed in, and said:

“Oh, if I haven’t had – where are you, Nesta? Why, whatever is the matter?”

“You come along here, Flossie,” said Griffiths. “There’s no end of a row, that’s the truth. Come and stand by me. Tell me what you know of this Nesta business – this runaway business, this daring to deceive an honest man, this creeping off, so to speak, in the dark. Tell me what you know. Own up, child, own up, and be quick.”

“Yes, tell us what you know,” said Horace. His voice was kind; Flossie turned to him.

“I – it was my fault as much as hers.”

“Your fault?” bellowed her father. “Your fault?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Griffiths, don’t frighten the wits out of the poor child; let her speak,” exclaimed the mother.

But when all was said and done, Flossie had grit in her. She was not going on this day of calamity to let her friend bear the brunt alone.

“We did it between us,” she said. “Poor old Nesta, she was having such a bad time, and I wanted her so much. We planned it together. We knew that if father knew it he would not take her, so we planned it, and you never guessed, father, and, and – Oh, I suppose you will give me an awful punishment – send me to a terrible school or something of that sort.”

But Griffiths was past himself.

“You knew it – you planned it! Why, you are as bad as she is!”

He took her by her shoulders and shook her. Her black eyes blazed up into his face.

“Yes, I am quite as bad as she is,” she said.

“Then go out of the room. Go upstairs.”

“Griffiths, Griffiths,” moaned the mother.

“You must do just as you please with regard to your daughter,” said Horace then. “I am sorry for Miss Griffiths; I don’t think, notwithstanding her confession, that she can be as bad as Nesta; but what I want to know is, where is Nesta?”

“I will tell you, Mr Aldworth. If my poor child was brave enough to fight her father when he was in the turkey-cock stage, I’m not going to be a whit behind her. We may be bad, Floss and I, but we’re not cowards. The poor child was so cowed by the tone of Griffiths’ telegram that she begged and implored of me to lend her money to go home before Griffiths got back. That is the long and short of it, and she’s safe back at Newcastle by this time, and safe in your house, and doubtless her mother has forgiven her. I lent her the money to go.”

“How much?” said Horace sternly.

“Not a penny more than ten shillings. The poor child said she would let me have it back again. Not that I want it – indeed I don’t.”

Horace put his hand into his pocket, took out half a sovereign and laid it on the table.

“I have to thank you both,” he said, turning to Griffiths, “for your great kindness to my sister. You meant well, however ill she meant. I have nothing to say with regard to your daughter’s conduct except that I would not be too hard on her, Mr Griffiths, if I were you. The girl might have tried to get out of it, but she did not; there is always something in that. Now I shall just have time to catch my train.”

“You won’t take bite nor sup, Mr Aldworth? We’re so honoured to have you in the house, sir, so pleased, so delighted. You are sure you won’t take bite nor sup?”

“I am sorry, but I must catch my train; it leaves at 9:10.”

“And how, if I might venture to ask you, is your poor mother, Mr Aldworth?”

“My mother is better. She is not at home at present. She is at Hurst Castle with Miss Angela St. Just. Miss St. Just has had a wonderful effect upon her, and has managed to get her over there, and I trust she may come back a very different woman.”

“Then after all,” said Mrs Griffiths, “poor little Nesta did not injure her mother; that is something to be thankful for, and when you are scolding her, sir, I hope you will bear it in mind. And I hope, Griffiths, you will also bear it in mind, and act handsome by our child, and take her in the true spirit and forgive her.”

“I am disgusted,” said Griffiths, “disgusted.”

He stalked to the door, pushed it wide open, let it bang behind him, and went down the stairs.

“There!” said Mrs Griffiths, bursting into tears, “he will be unmanageable, not only to-night, but to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after. A pretty time Floss and I’ll have – a pretty time truly. But I’m glad you spoke up, Mr Aldworth. You are not offended with us, forsooth?”

“Offended with you, madam,” said the young man; “how can I do anything but thank you for your kindness to my poor silly young sister? But now I must really be off.”

Chapter Twenty Six

In Hiding

When Nesta reached the railway station she was almost beside herself with fear. She went to the ticket office to get a third-class single ticket for Newcastle. There was a girl standing just in front of her, a commonplace, respectable looking girl, who asked for a ticket to a place which she pronounced as Souchester. The ticket only cost one and sixpence. It flashed through Nesta’s mind that she might just as well go to Souchester as anywhere else. It had not before entered into her brain that here lay an immediate source of relief. Perhaps her family would be really frightened when they knew nothing about her, so frightened that when they saw her again, they would forgive her.

Scarcely knowing what she did, and with no previous intention of going anywhere but straight home, she too asked for a ticket to Souchester. The man handed it to her.

“One and sixpence, please,” he said.

She pushed in her half-sovereign, received back eight and sixpence change, which she thought great riches, slipped the money into her purse, put the purse into her pocket, and went on the platform. The man directed her which way to go to catch the Souchester train. She followed the girl who had first put the idea into her mind. This girl looked of the servant class. She was respectably dressed, she carried a parcel wrapped up in brown paper. Nesta felt that between her and that girl there was a sort of link; she could not quite account for it, but she was anxious not to lose sight of her.

“Souchester,” said the man who stood on the platform, taking Nesta’s ticket and examining it, “there you are, Miss, right ahead, that train, that train, Miss, it’s just starting, you be quick if you want to catch it.” Nesta hurried. The girl with the brown paper parcel got into a third-class carriage, Nesta followed her, and a minute later the train was in motion. At first it went slowly, then quickly, and soon the gay town of Scarborough was out of sight, and they were going rapidly between fields full of waving corn, with the blue sea still close at hand.

It so happened that Nesta and the girl with the brown paper parcel were the only two in this special compartment. Nesta looked at her companion; she did not exchange a single word with her, but nevertheless, she was for the time being her guiding star. The girl was essentially commonplace; she was stout, very dumpy in figure, she had a large, full-moon face, small eyes, a wide mouth, and high cheek bones. She wore no gloves, and her hands were coarse and red. Presently she pulled a coarse sandwich, made of two hunches of bread with a piece of bacon in the middle, from her brown paper parcel, and began to eat it deliberately. When she had eaten half, she looked at Nesta. Then taking a knife out of her pocket, she cut a piece from her sandwich and offered it awkwardly, and yet with a good-natured smile, to her fellow traveller. Nesta thanked her, and said she was not hungry.

This incident, however, opened the ball, and Nesta was able to ask what sort of place Souchester was.

“Oh, just a country place,” said the girl. “Be yer going there, Miss?”

“I’m a poor girl just like yourself,” said Nesta. She became suddenly interested. If this was not a real adventure, a real proper running away, she did not know what was.

“I am a poor girl like you,” repeated Nesta, “and I am going to Souchester.”

“Now I wonder what for?” said the girl. “My name is Mary Hogg. I’m in a place – it’s a big house, and I’m under kitchenmaid. I have had a week’s holiday to see my aunt, who lives in a poor part of Scarborough, not where the rich folks live. I’ve had a jolly week and now I’m going back to my place. There are very few poor at Souchester, it’s just a little bit of a village, and it’s owned by the St. Just family.”

Nesta suddenly felt she had been entrapped once more. “What St. Justs?” she asked.

“Why, the St. Justs,” answered the girl. “Miss Angela’s folks. You must have heard of Miss Angela St. Just.”

“Yes,” said Nesta, then she added petulantly – “They seem to be everywhere.”

“Oh, no, they ain’t,” said Mary Hogg. “Sir Edward and his daughter, they’ve had what you call reverses, but the rest of the family is rich, very rich. They owns Hurst Castle, and my place. I belong to ’em, so to speak. I’m at Castle Walworth. I’m under kitchenmaid. They keep a power of servants; you can scarce count ’em on your fingers.”

Nesta was interested.

“Have you very hard work to do?” she asked.

“Oh, no; nothing to speak of, and I gets rare good living, and no end of pickings, too, which I takes to my mother, whenever I has time to go and see her. She lives in a bit of a cottage just outside of the village. She’s very poor, indeed, is mother. She’s a widdy. Father died five years ago, and left her with me and two boys. The boys is still at school. The St. Just family is very good to mother, and it was through Miss Angela asking, that I got a place as kitchenmaid at the Castle. I’m proud of my place.”

“You must be,” said Nesta.

“It’s real respectable,” said the girl. “You can’t be like ordinary servants; you mustn’t consider yourself an ordinary servant there. Just think of me – a bit of a girl like me – I ain’t seventeen yet – having to wear a little tight bonnet with strings fastened under my chin, and a regular livery. Grey, it is, with red pipings. That’s the livery the servants at Castle Walworth wear. The bonnets are black, with a bit of red just bordering them inside. We look very nice when we go to church, all in our livery. But when I goes to see mother, then I can wear just what I like, and when I’m with my aunt – oh, my word, I did have a good time at Scarborough – but here we be, Miss, here we be. I’ll wish you good-day, Miss.”

The train stopped and the two girls alighted on the platform. Nesta walked hurriedly by her companion’s side. The girl with the brown paper parcel did not seem to want anything more to do with her. The tickets were taken by the ticket collector, and then they found themselves side by side in a narrow road, a road branching off to right and left. It was a winding road, quite pretty and very countrified indeed. If there was a village, there seemed to be no trace of one.

“Where’s the village?” asked Nesta, doing her best to detain the sole person in all the world whom she thought she had a right to speak to.

“Why, there – down in the valley, nestling among all them trees,” said Mary Hogg. “This is my way,” she added, “straight up this steep hill, and there’s the Castle, and the flag is flying; that shows the family are at home. They’ll be waiting for me. If Mrs Gaskell, that’s our housekeeper, finds I’m five minutes late, why she’ll blow my nose off.”

“How awful!” said Nesta.

“Oh, she ain’t really so bad; she’s quite a kind sort; but the family is at home, and I’m due back now, so I’ll wish you good-evening, Miss.”

“Stay one minute, just one minute.”

“I can’t really, Miss; I must hurry; time’s up, and time’s everything at Castle Walworth. We, none of us, dare be one minute late, not one blessed minute. There’s the family has their pleasure, and they must have time for that, and we servants, we has our work, and we must have time for that. That’s the way of the world, Miss. I can’t stay to talk, really, Miss.”

“Then I’ll walk with you,” said Nesta.

“It’s a steep hill, Miss, and if you’ve come to see your friends – ”

“That’s just what I haven’t – I have come to – Oh, Mary Hogg, I must confide in you. I have come here because I want to – to hide for a little.”

“My word! To hide!” said Mary Hogg. She really quite interested at last. She forgot the awful Mrs Gaskell and all the terrors that punctuality caused in the St. Just establishment. Her eyes became round as the letter “O,” and her mouth formed itself into much the same shape.

“You be a bad ’un!” she said. “So you’ve run away?”

“Yes, I have. I haven’t time to tell you my story, but I want to stay at Souchester just for a little! you must help me, for I wouldn’t have come to Souchester but for you.”

“There now; didn’t I say you were bad? What in the name of wonder have I to do with it?”

“I was going in quite another direction, and I heard you ask for a ticket to Souchester, and I thought I’d come too, and I got into the same carriage with you because I thought you looked kind and – and respectable. I’ve got some money,” continued Nesta, speaking with sudden dignity. “I’m not a beggar, but I want to go to a very cheap place just to spend the night. Do you know of any place? It won’t do you any harm to tell me if there’s anybody in the village who would give me a bed.”

“But, do you mean a very, very cheap place?” asked Mary Hogg, who thought on the spot that she might do a good deal for her mother. Mrs Hogg was so poor that she was glad even of stray sixpences and pence.

“I don’t mind how poor it is, if it is only cheap; that is what I want – something very cheap.”

“There’s mother’s house. Would you mind going there?”

“Of course I wouldn’t. Where is it?”

“I must be quick; I really must. You had better come a little way up the hill with me, and I’ll tell you. It’s rather steep, but there, I’ll go a little slower. I’ll tell Mrs Gaskell that I met a fellow creature in distress. She’s a very Christian woman, is Mrs Gaskell, and that, perhaps, will make her more inclined to be lenient with me. I’ll tell her that.”

“But you won’t tell her my name, will you?”

“In course not, seeing as I don’t know it.”

“That’s true,” said Nesta, with a relieved laugh.

“And I don’t want to,” said Mary Hogg.

“Better not,” said Nesta.

“Well, if you think mother’ll give you a bed – ”

“I don’t know – it was you who said it.”

“She will, if you pay her. You may have to give her fourpence – can you afford that?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“She’ll give you your breakfast for three ha’pence, and a sort of dinner meal for threepence. Can you manage that?”

“Yes, quite well.”

Nesta made a mental calculation. If Mrs Hogg was really so very reasonable, she might stay with her for several days. Eight and sixpence would last a long time at that rate.

“You are very kind,” she said, with rapture. “That will do beautifully. Now, just tell me where she lives, will you?”

“You say as Mary Hogg told you to come. Mother’ll know what that means. It’s a very small house; ’tain’t in no way the sort as you’re used to.”

“I don’t mind. Tell me where it is.”

“Well; there’s the village yonder. You foller your nose and you’ll get it. By-and-by you’ll cross the stream over a little bridge, but still foller after your nose, and you’ll come to a cottage just at the side of the road, standing all alone. You can go up the path and knock at the door, and when you knock, mother’ll say, ‘Come right in,’ and you’ll go right in, and mother ’ll say, ‘What do you want?’ and you’ll say, ‘Mary Hogg sent me.’ Then you’ll manage the rest. Good-bye to you; I really must run.”

Mary put wings to her feet, and toiling and panting with her brown paper parcel, she hurried up the steep hill towards that spot where Castle Walworth reflected from its many windows the gleam of the now westering sun.

Nesta stood for a minute just where her new friend had left her, and then went down towards the village. She felt in her pocket for her little purse; she took it out and opened it. Yes, there was the money that Mrs Griffiths had lent her – eight shillings and sixpence. She felt herself quite wealthy. At the Hogg establishment she might really manage to live for several days.

Following Mary’s directions she reached the little village street, found the rustic bridge, crossed it and went along a pretty shady road. Some people passed her, poor people returning from their work, people of her own class, some well dressed, some the reverse. They all looked at her, for people will stare at a stranger in country villages. Then a carriage passed by with several gaily dressed ladies in it, and they also turned and looked at Nesta. Nesta hurried after that. How awful it would be if she suddenly met Angela St. Just Angela would know her, of course, and she would know Angela. But no one in the carriage seemed to recognise her, and the prancing horses soon bowled out of sight.

Then she came to a cottage covered with ivy, roof and all; it almost seemed weighted down by the evergreens. She saw a tiny porch made of latticework, which was also covered with evergreens. The porch was so small and so entirely covered that Nesta had slightly to stoop to get within. There was a little door which was shut; she knocked, and a voice said, “Come right in.”