A Plucky Girl

Miss Armstrong grew more and more excited. She perfectly worried me with questions about this man. Where did he come from? Who was he? What was his profession? Did I think he was married! Had he a secret care? Was he laughing at us?

Ah, when she asked me the last question, I found myself turning red.

"You know something about him, and you don't choose to tell it," said Marion Armstrong then, and she turned to Mrs. Cousins' daughter, who had come up to town with a view of studying music, and they put their heads together, and looked unutterable things.

Before we had been a fortnight in the place, all the other girls vied with me as to their dinner dress. They wore low dresses, with short sleeves, and gay colours, and their hair was fantastically curled, and they all glanced in the direction where Mr. Randolph sat.

What hopes they entertained with regard to him I could never divine, but he seemed to be having the effect which Jane desired, and the attics were filling delightfully.

Jane whispered to me at the end of the second week, that she feared she had made a great mistake.

"Had I known that Mr. Randolph would have the effect he seems to be having," she said, "I might have doubled our prices from the very beginning, but it is quite too late now."

"But why should it be necessary for us to make so much money?" I said.

Jane looked at me with a queer expression.

"So much!" she said. "Oh, we shall do, I am certain we shall do; but I am particularly anxious not to touch that seven thousand pounds capital; at least not much of it. I want the house to pay, and although it is a delightful house, and there are many guests coming and going, and it promises soon to be quite full, yet it must remain full all through the year, except just, of course, in the dull season, if it is to pay well. We might have charged more from the beginning; I see it now, but it is too late."

She paused, gazed straight before her, and then continued.

"We must get more people of the Captain Furlong type," she said. "I shall advertise in the Morning Post, and the Standard; I will also advertise in the Guardian. Advertisements in that paper are always regarded as eminently respectable. We ought to have some clergymen in the house, and some nice unmarried ladies, who will take rooms and settle down, and give a sort of religious respectable tone. We cannot have too many Miss Armstrongs about; there were six to dinner last night, and they rather overweighted the scale. Our cake will be heavy if we put so much flour into it."

I laughed, and counselled Jane to advertise as soon as possible, and then ran away to my own room. I felt if this sort of thing went on much longer, if the girls of the Armstrong type came in greater and greater numbers, and if they insisted on wearing all the colours of the rainbow at dinner, and very low dresses and very short sleeves, I must take to putting on a high dress without any ornaments whatsoever, and must request mother to do likewise.

Miss Armstrong was already attending an Art school, where, I cannot remember, I know it was not the Slade; and on bringing back some of her drawings, she first of all exhibited them to her friends, and then left them lying on the mantelpiece in the drawing-room, evidently in the hopes of catching Mr. Randolph's eye. She did this every evening for a week without any result, but at the end of that time he caught sight of a frightfully out-of-drawing charcoal study. It was the sort of thing which made you feel rubbed the wrong way the moment you glanced at it. It evidently rubbed him the wrong way, but he stopped before it as if fascinated, raised his eyebrows slightly, and looked full into Miss Armstrong's blushing face.

"You are the artist?" he said.

"I am," she replied; "it is a little study." Her voice shook with emotion.

"I thought so," he said again; "may I congratulate you?" He took up the drawing, looked at it with that half-quizzical, half-earnest glance, which puzzled not only Miss Armstrong and her friends but also myself, and then put it quietly back on the mantelpiece.

"If you leave it there, it will get dusty and be spoiled," he said. "Is it for sale?" he continued, as if it were an after-thought.

"Oh no, sir," cried Miss Armstrong, half abashed and delighted. "It is not worth any money – at least I fear it is not."

"But I am so glad you like it, Mr. Randolph," said Mrs. Armstrong, now pushing vigorously to the front; "I always did say that Marion had the h'artist's soul. It shines out of her eyes, at least I am proud to think so; and Marion, my dear, if the good gentleman would like the little sketch, I am sure you would be pleased to give it to him."

"But I could not think of depriving Miss Armstrong of her drawing," said Mr. Randolph, immediately putting on his coldest manner. He crossed the room and seated himself near mother.

"There now, ma, you have offended him," said Marion, nearly crying with vexation.

CHAPTER X

HER GRACE OF WILMOT

On a certain morning, between twelve and one o'clock, the inhabitants of Graham Square must have felt some slight astonishment as a carriage and pair of horses dashed up to No. 17. On the panels of the carriage were seen the coronet, with the eight strawberries, which denotes the ducal rank. The coachman and footman were also in the well-known livery of the Duke of Wilmot. One of the servants got down, rang the bell, and a moment later the Duchess swept gracefully into the drawing-room, where mother and I happened to be alone. She came up to us with both hands outstretched.

"My dears," she said, glancing round, "are they all out?"

"I am so glad to see you, Victoria," replied mother; "but whom do you mean? Sit down, won't you?"

The Duchess sank into the nearest chair. She really looked quite nervous.

"Are the boarders out?" she said again; "I could not encounter them. I considered the whole question, and thought that at this hour they would, in all probability, be shopping or diverting themselves in some way. Ah, Westenra, let me look at you."

"But do you really want to look at me, Duchess?" I asked somewhat audaciously.

"I see you have lost none of your spirit," said the Duchess, and she patted me playfully with a large fan which she wore at her side. "There, sit down in that little chair opposite, and tell me all about everything. How is this – this curious concern going?"

"You can see for yourself," I answered; "this room is not exactly an attic, is it?"

"No, it is a very nice reception-room," said the Duchess, glancing approvingly around her. "It has, my dear Mary – forgive me for the remark – a little of the Mayfair look; a large room, too, nearly as large as our rooms in Grosvenor Place."

"Not quite as large," I replied, "and it is not like your rooms, Duchess, but it does very well for us, and it is certainly better and more stimulating than a cottage in the country."

"Ah, Westenra, you are as terribly independent as ever," said the Duchess. "What the girls of the present day are coming to!" She sighed as she spoke.

"But you are a very pretty girl all the same," she continued, giving me an approving nod. "Yes, yes, and this phase will pass, of course it will pass."

"Why have you come to see us to-day, Victoria?" asked my mother.

"My dear friend," replied the Duchess, dropping her voice, "I have come to-day because I am devoured with curiosity. I mean to drop in occasionally. Just at present, and while the whole incident is fresh in the minds of our friends, you would scarcely like me to ask you to my receptions, but by-and-by I doubt not it can be managed. The fact is, I admire you both, and very often think of you. The Duke also is greatly tickled at the whole concern; I never saw him laugh so heartily about anything. He says that, as to Westenra, she is downright refreshing; he never heard of a girl of her stamp doing this sort of thing before. He thinks that she will make a sort of meeting-place, a sort of bond between the West and the – the – no, not the East, but this sort of neutral ground where the middle-class people live."

The Duchess looked round the big room, and then glanced out at the Square.

"Harrison had some difficulty in finding the place," she said, "but the British Museum guided him; it is a landmark. Even we people of Mayfair go to the British Museum sometimes. It is colossal and national, and you live close to it. Do you often study there, Westenra? Don't go too often, for stooping over those old books gives girls such a poke. But you really look quite comfortable here."

"We are delightfully comfortable," I said. "We enjoy our lives immensely."

"It is very nice to see you, Victoria," said mother.

Then I saw by the look on mother's face that while I had supposed her to be perfectly happy, all this time she had been more or less suffering. She had missed the people of her own kind. The Duchess looked her all over.

"You are out of your element here, Mary," she said, "and so is this child. It is a preposterous idea, a sort of freak of nature. I never thought Westenra would become odd; she bids fair to be very odd. I don't agree with the Duke. I don't care for odd people, they don't marry well as a rule. Of course there are exceptions. I said so to the Duke when – "

"When what?" I said, seeing that she paused.

"Nothing, my love, nothing. I have come here, Westenra, to let you and your mother know that whenever you like to step up again I will give you a helping hand."

"Oh, we are never going back to the old life," I said. "We could not afford it, and I don't know either that we should care to live as we did – should we, Mummy? We know our true friends now."

"That is unkind, my child. The fact is, it is the idea of the boarding-house that all your friends shrink from. If you and your mother had taken a nice house in the country, not a large and expensive house, but a fairly respectable one, with a little ground round, I and other people I know might have got ladies to live with you and to pay you well. Our special friends who wanted change and quiet might have been very glad to go to you for two or three weeks, but you must see for yourselves, both of you, that this sort of thing is impossible. Nevertheless, I came here to-day to say that whenever, Westenra, you step up, you will find your old friend – "

"And godmother," I said.

"And godmother," she repeated, "willing to give you a helping hand."