Johnny Ludlow First Series Part 57

A wine-merchant! Well, I was surprised. Could there be any mistake? No, it was the right number. But I thought there must be, and stood staring at the place with both eyes. That _was_ a come-down. Not but that wine-merchants are as good as other people; only Sophie Chalk had somehow imparted the notion of their living up to lords and ladies.

I asked at the front-door for Mrs. Smith, and was shown upstairs to a handsome drawing-room. A little girl, with a sallow face, thin and sickly, was seated there. She did not get up, only stared at me with her dark, keen, deep-set eyes.

"Do you know where your mamma is, Miss Trot?" asked the servant, putting a chair.

"You can go and search for her?"

She looked at me so intently as the maid left the room, that I told her who I was, and what I had come for. The child's tongue--it seemed as sharp a one as Miss Cattledon's--was let loose.

"I have heard of you, Johnny Ludlow. Mrs. Smith would be glad to see you. You had better wait."

I don't know how it is that I make myself at home with people; or, rather, that people seem so soon to be at home with me. I don't _try_ to do it, but it is always so. In two or three minutes, when the girl was talking to me as freely as though I were her brother, the maid came back again.

"Miss Trot, I cannot find your mamma."

"Mrs. Smith's out. But I was not obliged to tell you so. I'll not spare you any work when you call me Miss Trot."

The maid's only answer was to leave the room: and the little girl--who spoke like a woman--shook her dark hair from her face in temper.

"I've told them over and over again I will not be called Miss Trot. How would you like it? Because my mamma took to say it when I was a baby, it is no reason why other people should say it."

"Perhaps your mamma says it still, and so they fall into it also."

"My mamma is dead."

Just at the moment I did not take in the meaning of the words. "Mrs.

Smith dead!"

"Mrs. Smith is not my mother. Don't insult me, please. She came here as my governess. If papa chose to make a fool of himself by marrying her afterwards, it was not my fault. What are you looking at?"

I was looking at her: she seemed so strange a child; and feeling slightly puzzled between the other Mrs. Smith and this one. They say I am a m.u.f.f at many things; I am sure I am at understanding complicated relationships.

"Then--Miss Chalk is--_this_ Mrs. Smith's sister?"

"Well, you might know that. They are a pair, and I don't like either of them. There are two crying babies upstairs now."

"Mrs. Smith's?"

"Yes, Mrs. Smith's"--with intense aggravation. "Papa had quite enough with me, and I could have managed the house and servants as well as _she_ does. And because Nancy Chalk was not enough, in addition we must be never safe from Sophonisba! Oh, there are crosses in life!"

"Who is Sophonisba?"

"She is Sophonisba."

"Perhaps you mean Sophie Chalk?"

"Her name's not Sophie, or Sophia either. She was christened Sophonisba, but she hates the name, and takes care to drop it always. She is a deep one, is Sophonisba Chalk!"

"Is this her home?"

"She makes it her home, when she's not out teaching. And papa never seems to think it an encroachment. Sophonisba Chalk does not keep her places, you know. She thought she had got into something fine last autumn at Lord Augustus Difford's, but Lady Augustus gave her warning at the first month's end."

"Then Miss Chalk is a governess?"

"What else do you suppose she is? She comes over people, and gets a stock of invitations on hand, and goes to them between times. You should hear the trouble there is about her dresses, that she may make a good appearance. And how she does it I can't think: they don't tell me their contrivances. Mrs. Smith must give her some--I am sure of it--which papa has to pay for; and Sophonisba goes in trust for others."

"She was always dressed well down with us."

"Of course she was. Whitney Hall was her great-card place; but the time for the visit was so long before it was fixed, she thought it had all dropped through. It came just right: just when she was turned out of Lady Augustus Difford's. Helen Whitney had promised it a long while before."

"I know; when they were schoolfellows at Miss Lakon's."

"They were not schoolfellows. Sophonisba was treated as the rest, but she was only improving pupil. She gave her services, learnt of some of the masters, and paid nothing. How old do you think she is?" broke off Miss Trot.

"About twenty."

"She was six-and-twenty last birthday; and they say she will look like a child till she's six-and-thirty. I call it a shame for a young woman of that age to be doing nothing for herself, but to be living on strangers: and papa and I are nothing else to her."

"How old are you?" I could not help asking.

"Fifteen; nearly sixteen. People take me to be younger, because I am short, and it vexes me. They would not think me young if they knew how I feel. Oh, I can tell you it is a sharpening thing for your papa to marry again, and to find yourself put down in your own home."

"Has Miss Chalk any engagement now?"

"She has not had an engagement all this year, and now it's April! I don't believe she looks after one. She pretends to teach me--while she's waiting, she says; but it's all a farce; I won't learn of her. I heard her tell Mr. Everty I was a horrid child. Fancy that!"

"Who is Mr. Everty?"

"Papa's head-clerk. He is a gentleman, you know, and Sophonisba thinks great things of him. Ah, I could tell something, if I liked! but she put me on my honour. Oh, she's a sly one! Just now, she is all her time at the Whitneys', red-hot for it. You are not going? Stay to luncheon."

"I must go; Miss Deveen will be waiting for me. You can deliver the parcel, please, with Mrs. Todhetley's message. I will call in to see Mrs. Smith another day."

"And to see me too?" came the quick retort.

"Yes, of course."

"Now, mind, you can't break your word. I shall say it is me you are coming to call upon; they think I am n.o.body in this house. Ask for _Miss_ Smith when you come. Good-bye, Johnny Ludlow!"

She never stirred as I shook hands; she seemed never to have stirred hand or foot throughout the interview. But, as I opened the door, there came an odd sort of noise, and I turned to look what it was.

She. Hastening to cross the room, with a crutch, to ring the bell! And I saw that she was both lame and deformed.

In pa.s.sing down the side street by the office, some one brushed by, with the quick step of a London business man. Where had I seen the face before? Whose did it put me in mind of? Why--it came to me all in a minute--Roger Monk's! He who had lived at d.y.k.e Manor for a short time as head-gardener under false auspices. But, as I have not said anything about him before, I will not enter into the history now.

Before I could turn to look, Monk had disappeared; no doubt round the corner of the square.

"Tod," I said, as soon as I came across him, "Sophie Chalk's a governess."

"Well, what of that?" asked Tod.