The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls by L. T. Meade (free reads .TXT) 📕

Primrose, how sad you look!" said Jasmine. "Has Mr. Danesfield been disagreeable to you? Well, I know our darling Mrs. Ellsworthy won't. Tell her our plan quickly. Primrose, she says you don't love her—tell her you do love her. Oh, she is sweet and dear and kind—tell her our plan—she won't throw cold water on what we wish to do—she won't think it wrong that we three girls should wish to keep together."

"Our plan is this," said Primrose, "I have asked Mr. Danesfield to give us what money he has of ours, and then we three are going to sell our furniture here, and to give up the cottage, and say good-bye to dear Hannah, and we are going to London. In London we shall learn. I am going to have lessons in painting, and Jasmine shall study English composition, and she shall be taught how to write properly; and Daisy, too, must be taught, and we will do that with our money which is now in the bank, and when it is spent we shall be able to support ourselves. After all, it is a very simple plan, and the best thing about it is that it will keep us together."

When Primrose began to talk Mrs. Ellsworthy threw down her hands in her lap with a gesture of great impatience. Now she asked in a short dry voice, "May I ask what money you have in the bank?"

"Yes, certainly—we have two hundred pounds—a little of that must be spent in paying one or two small accounts, but then we shall have the money as well from the sale of our furniture. Yes, I think we shall have quite two hundred pounds to take to London."

"And we are going to be very economical," interposed Jasmine. "We are going at first for a couple of nights to a boarding-house for ladies only. It is called Penelope Mansion, and is in a street off the Edgware Road—we have a friend, she is only a village girl, but we call her our friend—her name is Poppy Jenkins, who has just gone to Penelope Mansion to help her aunt, who is the owner of the boarding-house. While we are there we will see the sights, for of course that must be part of our education. We will go to Westminster Abbey to be solemnized, and we will go to the Tower to perfect our knowledge of the tragical part of English history, and we must take Daisy to the Zoo, for she has always longed to see a lot of monkeys all together. I don't think we'll have any time for looking in at the shop windows, for we shall be very busy, and very, very earnest, but these places we must see. I daresay Poppy and her aunt, and some of the nice ladies in the boarding-house, will go with us. When Poppy has dusted up and put things straight in the morning, of course she'll have lots and lots of time. Oh, it does seem such an easy, sensible plan."

"My poor, poor children!" exclaimed Mrs. Ellsworthy, "my poor, deluded, silly, obstinate children!" and then the good little woman burst into tears.

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 ejaculated. "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 pass 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 appetite 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 ejaculated 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 thé 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 passion.

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