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

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:—

Penelope Mansion,
Wright street, off the Edgware Road,
July 22.

HONORED Miss,—

"Your letter was that gratifying. I am so glad you have put by your savings, and are coming to visit this vast Babylon. Miss Primrose, it will do me a sight of good to see your face, and the face of Miss Jasmine, and the face of Miss Daisy. The ladies here, miss—for I must own to the truth—are not as beautiful as was to be expected. Neither in their visages nor in their manners are they beautiful. Sharp's the word from morn till night here, and many a time I cry. I hasn't had no moment yet to visit the sights, for aunt's hands are very full, and she looks most natural to me to assist her, which I do, as in duty bound. I'm told that there isn't much of the real London to be seen from Penelope Mansion, so I live in hopes that it is as beautiful as we pictured it beyond these dull walls. Miss, I has spoken to my aunt, and she will be very pleased to receive you three, and will put you in a bedroom to the front of the house. You'll be fretted by the roar from the continuous multitude which passes these windows all day and all night, but otherwise the room is cheerful, although somewhat hot. Miss Primrose, I'll give you all such a welcome.

"Your humble and most devoted friend,
"POPPY JENKINS."

This letter was received by the girls while they were eating their breakfast. Primrose read it aloud to her sisters, and the effect of Poppy's words was certainly not enlivening. Jasmine was the first to recover her spirits.

"Never mind," she said; "Poppy feels a little dull and it is more than ever our duty to go up to London, and try and cheer her. Poor Poppy! it is very wrong of her aunt not to let her go out to see the sights, and you see, Primrose, she really knows no part of London yet, except Penelope Mansion. Poor Poppy! how she did long to go to see the wonderful city; but she was a little frivolous, and seemed only to want to look at the shop windows and to examine the newest fashions. We go to this grand, great London in a different spirit—we go determined to conquer, don't we, Queen Rose?"

"We go to do what seems to be our duty," answered Primrose, solemnly. "Oh, Jasmine! I hope we are doing right—I hope, I pray that God may help us."

Then a letter was written to Poppy, in which the noisy room was secured for the following Thursday, and as this was Monday, the girls were too busy packing to give many mere thoughts to poor Poppy's somewhat melancholy epistle.

CHAPTER XVI. PENELOPE MANSION.

The last time in the funny little old-fashioned garden, the last loving look at Jasmine's carnations, the last eager chase of the Pink across the little grass-plot, the last farewell said to the room where mother had died, to the cottage where Daisy was born, the final hug from all three to dear old Hannah who vowed and declared that follow them to London she would, and stay in Devonshire any longer she would not, and the girls had left Woodbine Cottage.

Notwithstanding all their obstinacy, and their determination to have their own way, quite a bevy of friends accompanied them to the railway station—Miss Martineau was there, looking prim and starched, but with red rims round her eyes, and her lips only stern because they were so firmly shut, and because she was so determined not to show any emotion—Mrs. Jenkins, Poppy's mother, was also present; she was sending up a great bouquet of wild flowers and some eggs and butter to Poppy; and a lame boy, whom Jasmine had always been kind to, came hobbling on to the platform to bid the young ladies good-bye; and Mr. Danesfield drove up on his trap at the last moment in a violent hurry, and pushed an envelope, which he said contained a business communication, into Primrose's hand. Last of all, just at the very end, Mrs. Ellsworthy arrived panting on the scene; a footman followed her, also hurrying and panting, and he put into the railway carriage a great basket containing hot-house flowers, and grapes, and peaches, and then Mrs. Ellsworthy kissed the girls, giving Primrose and Daisy a hurried salute, but letting her lips linger for a moment on Jasmine's round cheek. During that brief moment two tears dropped from the kind little lady's eyes.

It was in this manner that the girls went away.

They arrived in London in the evening, and after a surprisingly successful search for their luggage at Waterloo, managing not to lose anything, got into a cab, and drove to Penelope Mansion.

Poppy's aunt boasted of the pleasing name of Flint, and when the girls drove up with their cab piled with luggage to the door of the mansion, Mrs. Flint herself came out to welcome them.

Jasmine, whose excitable temperament had been going through many changes during the journey to town, had now worked herself up into an ardent desire to see Poppy—she jumped out of the cab first of all, and, running up the steps of Penelope Mansion, said eagerly—

"Oh, if you please, Mrs. Flint—I know, of course, you are Mrs. Flint—may I run down to the kitchen, and find Poppy?"

"My niece will come to you presently, Miss Mainwaring," answered Mrs. Flint.

Somehow Mrs. Flint's calm and carefully modulated voice had an instant effect in subduing Jasmine. The mistress of Penelope Mansion resembled perhaps more a cushion than a flint—she was fat, round, and short, had a good-humored and unruffled face, and a voice which was always pitched in one key.

"We call my niece Sarah in these premises," she said; "Poppy signifies nothing whatever but a weed, untidy, straggling, the worry of the farmers. Sarah will see to your comforts presently, young ladies. At the present moment tea is on the table. We tea at six o'clock precisely—we sup at nine. Will you like to go upstairs and wash your hands, or will you come at once with me, and partake with the other inmates of the meal which is now going forward?"

"I don't like her, but she seems to speak very correct English," whispered Jasmine to her sister: "I wonder, does everybody in the great city speak like that? I suppose she'll do as a study in style. I must study style, mustn't I, if I'm to make money by writing?"

This speech was tumbled into Primrose's ear with wonderful rapidity, while Mrs. Flint stood gently by, looking most contented and uninterested.

"Hush, Jasmine!" whispered Primrose. "Daisy darling, hold my hand. Thank