A City Schoolgirl and Her Friends

VAVA'S BUSINESS LETTER

Eva's presentiment was already a thing of the past, for she was the merriest of the four, and the day would not have been half such fun nor have passed so pleasantly and easily if she had not made a joke of all difficulties, and helped by her suggestions, which were very shrewd, in spite of their being mixed up with a great deal of nonsense.

Mrs. Morrison had made the Misses Whartons' large bedroom habitable, and in a very short time it was pronounced quite comfortable for the present; so there really were only the hall and staircase to arrange, about which Eva had numerous theories, which she propounded sitting on the top stair in an apron made of newspapers.

'Leave half a yard at each end for moving the stair-carpet up and down every week,' she observed.

'That is a very good idea, if we have enough,' replied Amy.

'If not, you must put mats at the turnings of the stair; it's most important; also, you must put a pad on each step, then you feel as if you were sinking into velvet,' came from Eva, still sitting at her ease and surveying the workers.

'What kind of pad?' asked Stella, who with Amy was laying the stair-carpet.

'Velvet,' said Eva, absent-mindedly.

'What nonsense, Eva! What do you mean?' demanded Amy.

Eva, who had been looking out of the staircase window, turned her head. 'I wasn't thinking of what I was saying – felt, I mean – or, failing that, folds of newspapers, and by so doing you double the life of your carpet,' she explained.

'Then, suppose you go and get that pile of newspapers that came from Scotland, and fold them into pads, instead of sitting there coolly and watching us work?' suggested her friend.

'I might, for a consideration,' agreed Eva, and help she did with such good-will that the house was quite comfortable by night.

Mrs. Morrison kept to her kitchen, and sent in a nice dinner, for which Vava laid the table, having spent her morning flitting in and out of the kitchen, helping 'nursie,' as she imagined, and it is doubtful which of them was the happier – the old Scotchwoman, who had her bairns with her again, or the child, who obeyed her old nurse more willingly than her elder sister.

'Vava, the post has just brought this. I wish you would sit down and answer it politely, and say that I am obliged by his kind offer, but that I shall be at the office on Monday morning at the usual time,' said Stella, coming into the kitchen with an open letter in her hand, which she handed to her younger sister.

Vava took it, and found that it was a very polite letter from the junior partner, saying, that as he understood they were moving and would be busy for a few days, he would be glad for her to take a holiday, and thought they would manage without her till Wednesday. 'He is kind, and I'm sure I don't know why, for you never smile at him, and till you do smile you really look disagreeable,' commented Vava.

'I am sorry, but I shall continue to look disagreeable then, for I have no intention of smiling at Mr. James Jones, or any other stranger with whom I have business,' observed Stella.

'Why don't you answer it yourself? It's got nothing to do with me,' grumbled Vava.

'Because I am busy; you can tell him that,' said Stella; who might have added, 'Because I do not choose to,' but she refrained.

'My lamb, you should not answer your sister as you do,' said Mrs. Morrison, when Stella had left the kitchen, her head very much in the air.

'She aggravates me with her airs and unfriendliness,' said Vava in an apologetic tone.

'And who are you to criticise your elders in that unbecoming way? What do you know of the world? Miss Stella is quite right not to be too friendly with strangers and to keep her bonny smiles for friends; and even if she were not right, it is not for you to question her doings or sayings, and she your guardian,' protested her old nurse with decision.

'She is not so very old after all – only seven years older than I am; last year she was an infant in the eye of the law,' announced the girl, who had read this piece of information somewhere.

'She is of age this year, at any rate, Miss Vava, and you had better do as she bids you; she knows what she is about, and you will understand it better in seven years' time – seven years make a great difference in a young girl; so write that letter like a good child, and don't worry Miss Stella, who has plenty to do without fashing herself about letter-writing,' admonished Mrs. Morrison.

'But you know, nursie, this is a business letter, and he is the man she gets her living by; she really might be civil to him. Suppose he gets offended and tells her to go? That would be a nice thing, just after we have got into a new house!' exclaimed Vava.

'If he is a business man he'll not be so silly as to be offended because a young lady isn't too friendly; and if he is so foolish, the sooner she leaves his office and gets with sensible people the better. That will do for those currants, Miss Vava, they are quite clean now, and I'll make the pudding while you write that letter. You'll find paper and stamps and all in the bureau in the sitting-room,' said nurse.

Vava went off as she was told, and found that nurse had 'found up' a quantity of writing-paper and envelopes at Lomore, as well as stamps, all of which she had packed into the bureau and brought south with her, besides other treasures, the looking over which took Vava some time. But at last she set to work to write the letter; and, being very much excited by all the events of the day, she took a large sheet of paper, and wrote a long letter to the junior partner, which was likely to amuse him very much. It ran as follows:

'Dear Mr. Jones, – Thank you very much for offering to give my sister a holiday. She says to tell you she is very busy putting down the stair-carpet, so can't answer herself; but she will be quite able to come to the office on Monday morning at the usual time. She did not say she was putting down the stair-carpet, but she is; it's a horrid work, as you have to pad it. When I 'm rich I'll have workmen to do all that when I move house, and never go near it till it's quite tidy. I can't find a single thing.

'The other Joneses who have bought Lomore (I hope they are no relation of yours) have been very kind; they have sent down all the furniture of Stella's sitting-room, and lots and lots of things that they must want themselves, and I'm sorry I called them "horrid;" they have been very friendly to us, and even brought us to town in their motor. I only said that because I felt horrid at that moment to think of an English Jones being Laird of Lomore. Oh dear! I forgot your name was Jones; but I would not mind your being laird so much, you look a great deal more like one than old Mr. Montague Jones. But our old nurse, whom we found here this morning, says he has been very good to all the old servants, and is not turning out one, or changing anything; so things might have been worse. I must stop and help to put the house in order. – I remain, your sincere friend, Vava Wharton.

'P.S.– Please be sensible, and don't mind Stella being so stiff and stuck-up; it's being poor that makes her like that, and I'm sure she's grateful to you, really. V. W.'

Now, Vava was a very open child; but it never entered her head that she ought not to have written a letter like that to Mr. James Jones, nor that her sister would expect to see it. 'Nursie' had said that there were stamps there, and evidently meant her to write, close, and post the letter, so as to save Stella trouble, and this she accordingly did, as there happened to be a pillar-box just outside the front-gate.

Stella, who was still putting down the stair-carpet, heard the gate click, and observed, 'Oh dear, I hope that nobody is coming; they can't come through the hall.'

'No, it is only Vava; she is posting a letter,' replied Eva, who from the top stair, where she was folding newspapers to form pads, could see the front-gate and road.

Stella stopped abruptly in her work. 'I wouldn't' – she began; and then, dropping the hammer, she continued, 'I will be back in a minute, Miss Overall; I just want to speak to Vava,' and went into the sitting-room to await her sister.

Vava saw her through the bay-window, and went in to her, saying cheerfully, 'I've written the letter and posted it and everything.'

'Why did you not show it to me first?' demanded Stella.

'Why should I? I never thought of it. Besides, you never read my letters; you always say you trust me,' said Vava.

'So I do; but you do sometimes say things you had better not have said, and as this is my business I think you should have brought the letter to me. What did you say in it?'

Upon reflection, Vava was not sure that she wanted to tell Stella what she had written, and upon further reflection she began to doubt whether she ought to have written it. 'I told him you thanked him for his offer of holiday, and that you were busy putting down the stair-carpet, so had told me to write, and that you would be there on Monday at the usual time. That's all I said about you – I mean about your business. The rest of the letter was just a friendly one from myself,' she said.

This was just what Stella was afraid of, and she exclaimed, 'I never told you to say what I was doing.'

'I told him that,' interrupted Vava.

Stella was speechless for a moment; then she continued, in a tone of exasperation, 'Will you please tell me what you did say, Vava?'

'It's got nothing to do with you. Mr. Jones has been very kind to me, and I just wrote him a friendly letter; but it sounds silly repeated. Don't bother about it, Stella; if you were so particular about the letter you should have written it yourself,' retorted Vava.

'I wish I had – I wish to goodness I had!' she exclaimed, and went out of the room.

Vava felt rather uncomfortable for a time; and then, saying to herself that Stella made a great fuss about nothing, she went off to the kitchen to help Mrs. Morrison to prepare tea for them.

Stella seemed to have forgotten her annoyance when she came in to tea, for she was laughing heartily; but when Vava asked her if she were tired, she said, 'No,' very coldly, and addressed no more conversation to her.

Vava consequently talked to Eva; but this kind of thing could not go on, and after tea, when she found herself with Mrs. Morrison, she unburdened herself to her old nurse. 'And you see, nursie, I don't know what to do. If I don't tell Stella she will be horrid and cold with me; and if I do tell her she will be frightfully annoyed,' she explained.

But Mrs. Morrison would not sympathise with her. 'You ought not to write letters you do not wish your sister to see; you have done very wrong, and must go and tell Miss Stella so at once, and if she is angry and scolds you you must bear it,' she said decidedly.

'There was no harm in what I said, and – and, nursie, I simply can't tell Stella!' cried Vava, as her postscript came into her mind.

Mrs. Morrison looked at her gravely. 'What did you say, my lamb? Tell me,' she inquired.

Vava told her, as well as she could remember, all that she had said in the letter.