The Palace Beautiful Part 11

CHAPTER XV.

IN SPITE OF OPPOSITION.

But although Mrs. Ellsworthy wept and lamented, although she tried both persuasions and scoldings, and finally left the cottage in a state of deep offence, vowing within herself that she would never trouble her head again over the affairs of such silly and obstinate girls, she could not in the least shake Primrose's quiet resolve.

Primrose said over and over again: "Two things are absolutely indispensable--we must be independent, and we must keep together. I can think of no better plan than this--it may fail, but we can but try it--we are certainly going to try it."

Mrs. Ellsworthy kept up her offence for twenty-four hours, then she began to soften, and to agree with her husband, whose solitary remark was, "My dear, you cannot coerce the children, and upon my word it's a plucky notion, and if those girls are brave enough to carry it out they must have real stuff in them."

"They may have plenty of stuff, and the plan may be as plucky as you like, Joseph," replied his excitable little wife. "I am quite willing to admire it in the abstract, but I am quite determined, if I have any influence whatever, to prevent them carrying it through."

Then she went off to Miss Martineau, invading the schoolmistress in the sacred hour when she was engaged with her pupils. Mrs. Ellsworthy carried Miss Martineau away from her school, and shutting the door of that lady's little parlor, clasped the governess's thin hands, and poured her troubles into her ears.

"Joseph calls it plucky," said Mrs. Ellsworthy at the end of her narrative.

But Miss Martineau's face was perfectly aghast.

"Plucky!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Dear Mrs. Ellsworthy, pardon me, but your husband is a man--what can a man know about the intricate workings which go on within the breast of a perverse girl? Plucky!--I call it wicked--I call it wanting in all decorum, in all right sense. Primrose Mainwaring has disappointed me deeply; she showed undue temper when I spoke to her here the other day--oh yes, this thing must be prevented by main force, if necessary."

Miss Martineau's pupils could not imagine what was the matter with her that morning. She was known to be a most strict disciplinarian, she was reported to have the sharpest eyes, and the quickest ears; her pupils believed that nothing ever could pa.s.s Miss Martineau's observation; nevertheless, after Mrs. Ellsworthy's visit she was _distrait_, she was indifferent to mistakes, and she allowed her naughtiest and most troublesome scholar to gabble through her French translation without once correcting her. School over, Miss Martineau discovered that she had no appet.i.te for her dinner; she left quite a nice little repast, cooked in French style, untasted on the table, and hurrying up to her bedroom, put on her mantle and poke bonnet and went out. She had made up her mind to visit the Mainwarings, and to expostulate with these headstrong and naughty girls on their daring scheme. "Wicked, I call it," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed many times under her breath!--"a wicked scheme, wicked, and a tempting of Providence. Oh, my poor orphan children, I must do my utmost to prevent your having your own perverse way in this matter!"

She arrived at Woodbine Cottage to find the neat little house already in sad confusion. Hannah favored her with an expressive look, and a grave shaking of her head.

"I don't know if they'll see you," she said--"they won't see you if it is on a lecturing errand you've come, ma'am. Their minds is made up, ma'am, and obstinate is no word for them. Dear Miss Martineau, you means well, and you has known them most of their lives, poor darlings, so sit you down in the hall, and I'll see if I can get them to have a word with you."

Jasmine, however, had heard her old governess's voice, and now running out, looking extremely untidy but very pretty, she exclaimed in her eager tones--

"Now, you dear Miss Martineau, say you're not--do say you're not!"

"Not what, my dear?" asked the governess, who really felt quite angry with Jasmine at this moment. "If you mean that I am not displeased--I am displeased; and if you mean that I am not to oppose you, my dear, I should not be doing my solemn duty, the duty which I owe to your poor dead mother, if I did not oppose you to the very uttermost. My dear, Mrs. Ellsworthy has told me all about your mad scheme; my poor child, it cannot be allowed for a moment."

"Come into the drawing-room and hear what Primrose has to say,"

answered Jasmine, in quite a meek and unruffled voice. "Primrose is very busy, for she is dusting and packing all our books and little knick-knacks. Do you know, Miss Martineau, that just when I heard your ring at the hall-door I came across a pincushion which you gave me ages and ages ago. You gave it to me when I could say, _Le the est chaud_ with a Parisian accent. It was such a pretty pincushion made of pink silk, and dotted over with steel beads to look like pins. Just when you were ringing the bell I had it in my hand, and I felt so soft and loving towards you, and of course I had to run out to see you, and--; Primrose, dearest, here is Miss Martineau. She is dreadfully opposed, and she says she won't let us go."

Primrose was bending over a battered old trunk which had been hauled down from the lumber-room. She was filling it with books, and her fair face was slightly flushed, and her eyes were brighter than usual.

"How do you do, Miss Martineau?" she said, rising to her feet. "It is very kind of you to call. I feel sure you are annoyed, and think us girls rather silly, but I'm afraid we must do what we think right ourselves in this matter. We have taken our first steps, and now that we have quite and absolutely made up our minds, mean to leave Rosebury as quickly as possible. It is very kind of you to be interested in us, and I am sorry that I spoke bitterly the other day, but the plan which was to divide us girls was of course impossible, and we could not listen to it for a moment. We have made our own little scheme, and perhaps we shall not fail. Daisy, darling, hand me dear old 'Sandford and Merton,' I have just got a nice corner for it here."

Primrose went down again on her knees, and serenely continued her packing, while Miss Martineau, standing over her, then and there gave way to a burst of pa.s.sion.

She was well aware that she lost ground with her pupils by not controlling her temper, but as she said afterwards, she really could not help herself. Such coolness, such perversity, such a headstrong flying in the face of their elders, she had never encountered in three young girls before.

Poor Daisy quite sobbed, and even Jasmine felt a little frightened at Miss Martineau's bitter and angry words; but no language she could use, no threats of the direst failure she could utter, had power to shake Primrose's resolve.

"We have no guardian, and we can go if we please, and we have really made up our minds to go," replied that perverse young lady.

As a last resource Mr. Danesfield was appealed to, but he, being an old bachelor and not quite at home with girls, although in his heart he was very fond of them, declined to interfere.

"I gave Primrose Mainwaring some uncalled-for advice when she came to see me the other morning," he said. "She is perfectly at liberty to choose her own life, and I, for one, am not going to add to her troubles by needlessly opposing her. Very likely the girls will get on in London--they are spirited girls, and they may do better for themselves by struggling for independence than by living with the Ellsworthys. I always did maintain that work hurts no one."

So Primrose carried out her little plans, and made all arrangements, and her friends, when they found she would not yield, came round her, and began to counsel her as to the best place to go to.

Mrs. Ellsworthy was, after all, the first to forgive the girls. She felt very indignant, and stayed away for more than a week; but one evening, when the day's packing was over, and the three, rather tired but quite cheerful and full of hope, were sitting down to their tea, her carriage was seen to draw up to the door, and the little lady, bustling and good-natured as ever, entered the drawing-room.

"My dears," she said, holding out a hand each to Primrose and Daisy, but imprinting a kiss on her favorite Jasmine's brow, "my dears--Oh, of course, I am still very angry! I see, too, that you are at that horrid packing; but if you must go, there is a Mrs. Moore--such a good soul, a widow, and quite a lady--indeed, I may say highly connected.

She lives in Kensington, and I have written to her. My dears, she would be charmed to take you all into her family. She would give you comforts--oh! I don't mean luxuries, but the necessary comforts that young girls who are using their brains require. She would feed you well, and chaperone you when you went out, and, in short, see to you all round. I know her house so well. It is very pretty--indeed, charming--and she would take you in for a pound a week between you.

She would give you board and lodging, and all you require, for a pound a week. I hope, my dear Primrose, you don't consider that too dear. It is, I believe"--here Mrs. Ellsworthy coughed slightly--"considered cheap for Kensington."

This torrent of words, poured forth with rapidity and yet with distinctness, rather astonished the girls. They were afraid they had lost Mrs. Ellsworthy for their friend, and they, every one of them, hailed this overture of kindness with delight. Innocent Primrose never even suspected that a pound a week for the lodging and maintenance of three girls was at all unusually cheap. She little guessed that Mrs.

Ellsworthy had written to her special friend, Mrs. Moore, telling her the girls' story, begging of her to give them a home, to provide them with every comfort, and even luxury, and asking her to look to her, Mrs. Ellsworthy, for the necessary payment.

Jasmine began to dance about, and to say, softly--

"Oh! this is too delightful! You darling Mrs. Ellsworthy, you are beginning to approve of our scheme. Oh, yes; I know you are, although you were too proud to say so. Now, is it not a little bit wrong of you to be proud after the way you lectured Primrose? Well, Primrose, shall we go to Mrs. Moore? I don't know anything about Kensington, but I suppose it is as good as any other place. I don't suppose, either, a pound a week is too much for the three of us. Shall we go to Mrs.

Moore, Primrose?"

Daisy also joined her voice in favor of going to Mrs. Ellsworthy's friend, and after all, but for that obstinate young person Primrose, the good little lady might have had her way, but Primrose, although she was quite ignorant of fashionable localities or of any London expenses, was very firm, very firm indeed, when she made up her mind.

"It is most kind of you to call and say all this to us," she answered.

"Oh, yes, we would come if we had not quite decided on an altogether different plan. That being the case we cannot go to Mrs. Moore--thank you so much."

When Jasmine heard her sister speak her face first fell and then brightened up considerably. "How stupid of me to forget!" she said.

"Oh, yes, we have made a lovely plan, and of course we could not go to anybody whom anybody knew. Oh, no, of course not. I cannot think how I came to forget."

Again Mrs. Ellsworthy tried persuasion and even entreaty, but again she had to own herself vanquished by that most obstinate girl Primrose. "I really cannot make out why I care for them all," she said to herself as she drove away. "I do care for them, poor children! I would do anything to help them, but I am simply not allowed. Well, Primrose, no doubt you would be a great trial to me if you were my daughter; I could never bear obstinate characters, and yet to a certain extent I admire you."

Miss Martineau also made up her mind to forgive these naughty girls, and to give them the benefit of her most sapient counsel. She too wrote a private letter to a London friend, and arrived at Woodbine Cottage primed with what she considered valuable information. "Now, my dears, you must go to Shepherd's Bush--that is the place, and the only place where you can live within your means. My friend Constantia Warren has rooms there, and she says--I have written to her, my loves--she says if you will let her accompany you in your search she may be able to secure you a clean, respectable bedroom in a fairly good locality. Constantia is an excellent woman; she is fifty, and plain in her tastes, and has no nonsense about her. She has promised me, for my sake, to accompany you to church in the evenings, and to see that you wear your veils down when you go out, and that you are back in your bedroom--you can't afford a sitting-room, so don't think of it--that you are back in your bedroom by five o'clock in the evening, as all girls who have any idea of what is correct and proper are of course in by that hour in London. Now, my dears, Constantia will be a sort of protectress to you three, and I had better write to her at once. My dears, it is a relief to me to know you will be near Constantia, for London is a pit--a pit, and a snare."

Miss Martineau had talked herself quite out of breath, and looked quite pleading, but the same obstacle which had prevented the girls'

acceding to Mrs. Ellsworthy's request now debarred their taking up their quarters near Constantia Warren.

They spoke of their plans, but would not tell what they were, and Miss Martineau again went away offended.

"There is no secret in the matter," she said, when talking over the affair with Mrs. Ellsworthy. "Primrose tries to make a mystery, and Jasmine likes to look mysterious, but there is not the smallest doubt that all the girls really want is to have their own way, and to be beholden to none of us."

"Nevertheless, I love them, and shall always love them," answered Mrs.

Ellsworthy.

"Oh, for the matter of that, so will I always love them, Mrs.

Ellsworthy. It seems to me they want a lot of pity, poor misguided young things!"

Primrose, Jasmine and Daisy all this time felt wonderfully serene.

They were very sorry to hurt their friends, but it is quite true that they did want to have their own way. They had made distinct plans, but they must go to London to carry them out. They thought their wisest course was to go up to Penelope Mansion for a few days, and make their final arrangements from there.

"I'd be very lonely in London if I wasn't near Poppy," said Jasmine; and Primrose too said that she thought their wisest course was to go up to Penelope Mansion, and make their plans from there.

Accordingly, one afternoon, when Poppy Jenkins had been three weeks in her new place, she received a letter from Primrose Mainwaring, to which she sent the following reply. Poppy's spelling need not be copied, but her language ran as follows:--