A Plucky Girl

I stood for a moment in the dark passage outside Jane's room. There was no one there, and I could think. I did not want to go into the big hall, nor to run up the staircase. I might meet some of those smiling, well satisfied, delighted and delightful paying guests, those paying guests who were ruining us all the time. Yes, I knew at last what Jane meant, what Mrs. Fanning meant, what Albert Fanning meant. We would be relieved from our embarrassments, mother would receive no shock if I promised to marry Albert Fanning. Albert Fanning would save the position, he would pay the necessary debts; he was rich, and for love of me he would not mind what he did. Yes, I supposed it was love for me. I did not know, of course. I could not fancy for a moment that a girl like myself could excite any feeling of worship in a man like Albert Fanning, but anyhow, for whatever reason, he wanted me (and he did want me), he was willing to pay this big price for me. My heart trembled, my spirit quaked. I stood in the luxury of the dark passage, clasped my hands to my brow, and then determined not to give way, to be brave to the very end.

I ran upstairs and entered the drawing-room. It was tidy, in perfect order. I was glad to find no one there. I went and stood under father's picture. I gazed full up at the resolute, brave, handsome face.

"You died to win your V.C.," I said to myself, and then I turned to leave the room. I met Mrs. Furlong coming in.

"Ah, dear child," she said, "I am so glad to see you. But what is the matter? You don't look well."

"I am anxious," I answered; "mother had a very serious attack last night."

"We are all full of concern about her," replied Mrs. Furlong. "Won't you sit down for a moment? I wish to talk to you. Ah, here comes my husband. Philip, we have bad news about dear Mrs. Wickham, she was very ill last night."

"Your mother, Miss Wickham, is very far from strong," said Captain Furlong. He came and stood near me; he looked full of sympathy. He was very nice and kind and gentlemanly. He had been kind and courteous, and unselfish, ever since he came to the house.

"You are very good, both of you," I said. "I am going to mother now; please, don't keep me."

"But is there anything we can do? Would change be of service to her?" said Mrs. Furlong. "I know it is a little early in the year, but the spring is coming on nicely, and she must weary so of London, particularly this part of London; she has been accustomed to such a different life."

"I do not think our present life has injured her," I said. "She has not had any of the roughing. Things have been made smooth and pleasant and bright for her."

"All the same, it has been a very, very great change for her," said Mrs. Furlong. "It has been good neither for her nor for you. Yes, Philip," she continued, noticing a warning expression on her husband's face, "I have got my opportunity, and I will speak out. I am quite certain the sooner Westenra Wickham, and her dear mother, leave this boarding-house the better it will be for both of them. What has a young, innocent girl, like Westenra, to do with paying guests? Oh, if they were all like you and me, dear, it would be different; but they are not all like us, and there's that" – she dropped her voice. Captain Furlong shook his head.

"Miss Wickham has accepted the position, and I do not see how she can desert her post," he said.

"Never fear, be sure I will not," I answered; "but please – please, kind friends, don't keep me now."

"There is just one thing I should like to say before you go, Miss Wickham," said Captain Furlong; "if you find yourself in trouble of any sort whatever, pray command both my wife and myself. I have seen a good deal of life in my day. My wife and I are much interested, both in you and your mother. Now, for instance," he added, dropping his voice, "I know about tight times; we all of us get more or less into a tight corner, now and then – if a fifty pound note would – "

"Oh no, it would not do anything," I cried. My face was crimson; my heart seemed cut in two.

"Oh! how can I thank you enough?" I added; and I ran up to the kind man and seized his hands. I could almost have kissed them in my pain and gratitude. "It would be useless, quite useless, but I shall never forget your kindness."

I saw the good-natured pair look at one another, and Mrs. Furlong shook her head wisely; and I am sure a dewy moisture came to her eyes, but I did not wait to say anything more, but ran off in the direction of mother's room. A softened light filled that chamber, where all that refinement and love could give surrounded the most treasured possession of my life. Mother was lying in bed propped up by pillows. She looked quite as well as usual, and almost sweeter than I had ever seen her look, and she smiled when I came in.

"Well, little girl," she said, "you are late in paying me your visit this morning?"

"It was very wrong of you, mother, not to send for me when you were so ill last night," I answered.

"Oh, that time," said mother, "it seems ages off already, and I am quite as well as usual. I have got a kind nurse to look after me now. Nurse Marion, come here."

I could not help giving a visible start. Were things so bad with mother that she required the services of a trained nurse? A comely, sweet-faced, young woman of about thirty years of age, now approached from her seat behind the curtain.

"The doctor sent me in, Miss Wickham; he thought your mother would be the better for constant care for two or three days."

"I am very glad you have come," I answered.

"Oh, it is so nice," said mother; "Nurse Marion has made me delightfully comfortable; and is not the room sweet with that delicious old-fashioned lavender she uses, and with all those spring flowers?"

"I have opened the window, too," said the nurse, "the more air the dear lady gets the better for her; but now, Miss Wickham, I cannot allow your mother to talk. Will you come back again; or, if you stay, will you be very quiet?"

"As you are here to look after mother I will come back again," I said. I bent down, kissed the lily white hand which lay on the counterpane, and rushed from the room. Stabs of agony were going through my heart, and yet I must not give way!

I ran upstairs, and knocked at Mrs. Fanning's door. As Albert Fanning was out, I was determined to see her. There was no reply to my summons, and after a moment I opened the door and looked in. The room was empty. I went to my own room, sat down for a moment, and tried to consider how things were tending with me, and what the end would be. Rather than mother should suffer another pang, I would marry Albert Fanning. But must it come to this!

I put on my outdoor things, and ran downstairs. The closeness and oppression of the day before had changed into a most balmy and delicious spring morning; a sort of foretaste day of early summer. I was reckless, my purse was very light, but what did that matter. I stopped a hansom, got into it, and gave the man Albert Fanning's address in Paternoster Row. Was I mad to go to him – to beard the lion in his den? I did not know; I only knew that sane or mad, I must do what I had made up my mind to do.

The hansom bowled smoothly along, and I sat back in the farthest corner, and tried to hope that no one saw me. A pale, very slender, very miserable girl was all that they would have seen; the grace gone from her, the beauty all departed; a sort of wreck of a girl, who had made a great failure of her life, and of the happiness of those belonging to her. Oh, if only the past six or eight months could be lived over again, how differently would I have spent them! The cottage in the country seemed now to be a sort of paradise. If only I could take mother to it, I would be content to be buried away from the eyes of the world for evermore. But mother was dying; there would be no need soon for any of us to trouble about her future, for God Himself was taking it into His own hands, and had prepared for her a mansion, and an unfading habitation.

I scarcely dared think of this. Be the end long, or be the end short, during the remaining days or weeks of her existence, she must not be worried, she must go happily, securely, confidently, down to the Valley. That was the thought, the only thought which stayed with me, as I drove as fast as I could in the direction of Mr. Fanning's place of business.

The cab was not allowed to go up the Row, so I paid my fare at the entrance, and then walked to my destination. I knew the number well, for Albert had mentioned it two or three times in my hearing, having indeed often urged me to go and see him. I stopped therefore at the right place, looked up, saw the name of Albert Fanning in huge letters across the window, opened the door and entered. I found myself in a big, book saloon, and going up to a man asked if Mr. Fanning were in. The man was one of those smart sort of clerks, who generally know everybody's business but their own. He looked me all over in a somewhat quizzical way, and then said —

"Have you an appointment, miss?"

"I have not," I replied.

"Our chief, Mr. Fanning, never sees ladies without appointments."

"I think he will see me," I answered, "he happens to know me. Please say that Miss Westenra Wickham has called to see him."

The clerk stared at me for a moment.

"Miss West! what Wickham Miss? Perhaps you wouldn't mind writing it down."

I did not want to write down my name, but I did so; I gave it to the clerk, who withdrew, smiling to a brother clerk as he did so. He came back in a minute or two, looking rather red about the face, and went back to his seat without approaching me, and at the same time I heard heavy, ungainly steps rushing downstairs, and Mr. Fanning, in his office coat, which was decidedly shabby, and almost as greasy as the one which belonged to the "Man in Possession" on the previous evening, entered the saloon. His hair stood wildly up on his head, and his blue eyes were full of excitement. He came straight up to me.

"I say, this is a pleasure," he exclaimed, "and quite unlooked for. Pray, come upstairs at once, Miss Wickham. I am delighted to see you – delighted. Understand, Parkins," he said, addressing the clerk who had brought my message, "that I am engaged for the present, absolutely engaged, and can see no one. Now, Miss Wickham, now."

He ushered me as if I were a queen through the saloon, past the wondering and almost tittering clerks, and up some winding stairs to his own sanctum on the first floor.

"Cosy, eh?" he said, as he opened the door, and showed me a big apartment crowded with books of every shape and size, and heavily, and at the same time, handsomely furnished. "Not bad for a city man's office, eh?" he continued, "all the books are amusing; you might like to dip into 'em by-and-by, nothing deep or dull, or stodgy here, all light, frothy, and merry. Nothing improving, all entertaining. That is how my father made his fortune; and that is how I, Albert the second, as the mater calls me, intend to go on adding to my fortune. It is on light, frothy, palatable morsels that I and my wife will live in the future, eh, eh? You're pleased with the look of the place, ain't you. Now then, sit right down here facing the light, so that I can have a good view of you. You're so young; you have not a wrinkle on you. It's the first sign of age coming on when a girl wishes to sit with her back to the light, but you are young, and you can stand the full glare. Here, you take the office chair. Isn't it comfortable? That's where I have sat for hours and hours, and days and days; and where my father sat before me. How well you'd look interviewing authors and artists when they come here with their manuscripts. But there! I expect you'd be a great deal too kind to them. A lot of rubbish you would buy for the firm of Fanning & Co., wouldn't you now, eh? Ah, it's you that has got a tender little heart, and Albert Fanning has been one of the first to find it out."

I could not interrupt this rapid flow of words, and sat in the chair indicated, feeling almost stunned. At last he stopped, and gazing at me, said —

"Well, and how is Miss Westenra Wickham, and what has brought her to visit her humble servant? Out with it now, the truth, please."

Still I could find no words. At last, however, I said almost shyly —

"You have been kind, more than kind, but I came here to tell you, you must not do it."

"Now that's a pretty sort of thing to bring you here," said Mr. Fanning. "Upon my soul, that's a queer errand. I have been kind, forsooth! and I am not to be kind in the future. And pray why should I turn into an evil, cruel sort of man at your suggestion, Miss Wickham? Why should I, eh? Am I to spoil my fine character because you, a little slip of a girl, wish it so?"

"You must listen to me," I said; "you do not take me seriously, but you must. This is no laughing matter."

"Oh, I am to talk sense, am I? What a little chit it is! but it is a dear little thing in its way, although saucy. It's trying to come round me and to teach me. Well, well, I don't mind owning that you can turn me with a twist of your little finger wherever you please. You have the most bewitching way with you I ever saw with any girl. It has bowled Albert Fanning over, that it has. Now, then, what have you really come for?"

"You paid the bill of Pattens the butcher either this morning or last night, why did you do it?"

Mr. Fanning had the grace to turn red when I said this. He gave me even for a moment an uncomfortable glance, then said loudly —