A Plucky Girl Page 9

  CHAPTER IX

  THE ARTIST'S EYE

  During dinner I found myself seated next Miss Armstrong. MissArmstrong was on one side of me, and her mother was at the other. Idon't really know how I got placed between two such uncongenialpeople, but perhaps it was good for me, showing me the worst as wellas the best of our position at once. I was having a cold douche with avengeance.

  As we were taking our soup (I may as well say that the menu wasexcellent, quite as good as many a grand West End dinner which I hadattended in my palmy days), Miss Armstrong bent towards me, spilling alittle of her soup as she did so, and said, in a somewhat audiblewhisper--

  "I wish you would give me a hint about him."

  "About whom?" I asked in return.

  "Mr. Randolph; he is one of the most stylish people I have ever met.What are his tastes? Don't you know anything at all about him? Is hemarried, for instance?"

  "I never saw Mr. Randolph before, and I know nothing about him," Ianswered in a low, steady voice, which was in marked contrast to MissArmstrong's buzzing, noisy whisper.

  "Oh my!" said that young lady, returning again to the contemplation ofher soup. Her plate was taken away, and in the interval she once moreled the attack.

  "He _is_ distingue," she said, "quite one of the upper ten. I wish you_would_ tell me where you met him before. You must have met himbefore, you know; he would not come to a house like this if he was notinterested in you and your mother. He is a very good-looking man; Iadmire him myself immensely."

  "I don't care to make personal remarks at dinner," I said, lookingsteadily at the young lady.

  "Oh my!" she answered again to this; but as some delicious turbot wasnow facing her, she began to eat it, and tried to cover hermortification.

  Presently my neighbour to my right began to speak, and Mrs.Armstrong's manners were only a shade more intolerable than herdaughter's.

  "Marion has come up to London to study h'Art," she said. She utteredthe last word in a most emphatic tone. "Marion has a great taste forh'Art, and she wants to attend one of the schools and become anh'artist. Do you think you could give us any advice on the subject,Miss Wickham?"

  I answered gently that I had never studied Art myself, having noleaning in that direction.

  "Oh dear: now I should have said you had the h'artist's h'eye," saidMrs. Armstrong, glancing at my dress and at the way my hair wasarranged as she spoke. "You are very stylish, you know; you are agood-looking girl, too, very good-looking. You don't mind me givingyou a plain compliment, do you, my dear?"

  I made no reply, but my cheeks had never felt more hot, nor I myselfmore uncomfortable.

  Mrs. Armstrong looked me all over again, then she nodded across myback at Miss Armstrong, and said, still in her buzzing half-whisper,for the benefit of her daughter--

  "Miss Wickham has got the h'artist's h'eye, and she'll help us fine,after she's got over her first amazement. She's new to this businessany one can see; but, Marion, by-and-by you might ask her if she wouldlend you that bodice to take the pattern. I like the way it is cut somuch. You have got a good plump neck, and would look well in one madelike it."

  Marion's answer to this was, "O mother, do hush;" and thus themiserable meal proceeded.

  I was wondering how my own mother was getting on, and at last Iventured to glance in her direction. She was seated at the head of thetable, really doing nothing in the way of carving, for the dishes,except the joints, were all handed round, and the joints Jane Mullinsmanaged, standing up to them and carving away with a rapidity and_savoir faire_ which could not but arouse my admiration. The upperpart of the table seemed to be in a very peaceful condition, and Ipresently perceived that Mr. Randolph led the conversation. He washaving an argument on a subject of public interest with CaptainFurlong, and Captain Furlong was replying, and Mr. Randolph wasdistinctly but in very firm language showing the worthy captain thathe was in the wrong, and Mrs. Furlong was laughing, and mother waslistening with a pleased flush on her cheeks. After all the dearmother was happy, she was not in the thick of the storm, she was notassailed by two of the most terrible women it had ever been my lot toencounter.

  The meal came to an end, and at last we left the room.

  "Stay one minute behind, dear," said Jane Mullins to me.

  I did so. She took me into her tiny little parlour on the groundfloor.

  "Now then, Miss Wickham, what's the matter? You just look as if youwere ready to burst into tears. What's up? Don't you think our firstdinner was very successful--a good long table all surrounded withpeople pleased with their dinner, and in high good humour, and youwere the cause of the success, let me tell you, dear. They will talkof you right and left. This boarding-house will never be empty fromthis night out, mark my words; and I never was wrong yet in a matterof plain common-sense."

  "But oh, dear!" I cried, and I sank into a chair, and I am sure thetears filled my eyes; "the company are so mixed, Miss Mullins, soterribly mixed."

  "It takes a lot of mixing to make a good cake," was Jane's somewhatambiguous answer.

  "Now, what do you mean?"

  "Well, any one can see with half an eye that you object to Mrs. andMiss Armstrong, and I will own they are not the sort of folks a younglady like yourself is accustomed to associate with; but all the same,if we stay here and turn this house into a good commercial success, wemust put up with those sort of people, they are, so to speak, thesupport of an establishment of this sort. I call them the flour of thecake. Now, flour is not interesting stuff, at least uncombined withother things; but you cannot make a cake without it. People of thatsort will go to the attics, and if we don't let the attics, my dearMiss Wickham, the thing won't pay. Every attic in the place must belet, and to people who will pay their weekly accounts regularly, andnot run up bills. It's not folks like your grand Captain Furlong, noreven like Mr. Randolph, who make these sort of places 'hum,' so tospeak. This establishment shall _hum_, my dear, and hum right merrily,and be one of the most popular boarding-houses in London. But youleave people like the Armstrongs to me. To-morrow you shall sit rightaway from them."

  "No, I will not," I said stoutly, "why should you have all the burden,and mother and I all the pleasure? You are brave, Miss Mullins."

  "If you love me, dear, call me Jane, I can't bear the name of Mullins.From the time I could speak I hated it, and three times in my youth Ihoped to change it, and three times was I disappointed. The first manjilted me, dear, and the second died, and the third went into anasylum. I'm Mullins now, and Mullins I'll be to the end. I never hadmuch looks to boast of, and what I had have gone, so don't fret mewith the knowledge that I am an old maid, but call me Jane."

  "Jane you shall be," I said. She really was a darling, and I lovedher.

  I found after my interview with Jane that the time in the drawing-roompassed off extremely well, and this I quickly discovered was owing toMr. Randolph, who, without making the smallest effort to conciliatethe Armstrongs, or the Cousinses, or any of the other _attic strata_,as Jane called them, kept them all more or less in order. He told afew good stories for the benefit of the company, and then he sat downto the piano and sang one or two songs. He had a nice voice, notbrilliant, but sweet and a real tenor, and he pronounced his wordsdistinctly, and every one could listen, and every one did listen withpleasure. As to Mrs. and Miss Armstrong they held their lips apart intheir amazement and delight. Altogether, I felt that Mr. Randolph hadmade the evening a success, and that without him, notwithstandingJane's cheery words, the thing would have been an absolute failure.

  Just towards the close of the evening he came up to my side.

  "I must congratulate you," he said.

  "On what?" I answered somewhat bitterly.

  "On your delightful home, on your bravery." He gave me a quick glance,which I could not understand, which I did not understand until manymonths afterwards. I was not sure at that moment whether he waslaughing at me or whether he was in earnest.

  "I have something to thank you for," I said af
ter a moment, "it wasgood of you to entertain our guests, but you must not feel that youare obliged to do so."

  He looked at me then again with a grave and not easily comprehendedglance.

  "I assure you," he said slowly, "I never do anything I don't like.Pray don't thank me for exactly following my own inclinations. I wasin the humour to sing, I sing most nights wherever I am. If you objectto my singing pray say so, but do not condemn me to silence in thefuture, particularly as you have a very nice piano."

  "You look dreadfully out of place in this house," was my next remark;and then I said boldly, "I cannot imagine why you came."

  "I wonder if that is a compliment, or if it is not," said Mr.Randolph. "I do not believe I look more out of place here than you do,but it seems to me that neither of us are out of place, and that thehouse suits us very well. I like it; I expect I shall be extremelycomfortable. Jane Mullins is an old friend of mine. I always told her,that whenever she set up a boarding-house I would live with her. Forinstance, did you ever eat a better dinner than you had to-night?"

  "I don't know," I answered, "I don't care much about dinners, but itseemed good, at least it satisfied every one."

  "Now I am a hopeless epicure," he said slowly. "I would not goanywhere if I was not sure that the food would be of the very best.No, Miss Wickham, I am afraid, whether you like it or not, you cannotget rid of me at present; but I must not stand talking any longer. Ipromised to lend your mother a book, it is one of Whittier's, I willfetch it."

  He left the room, came back with the book in question, and sat down bymother's side. He was decidedly good-looking, and most people wouldhave thought him charming, but his manner to me puzzled me a gooddeal, and I was by no means sure that I liked him. He had grey eyes,quite ordinary in shape and colour, but they had a wonderfullyquizzical glance, and I felt a sort of fear, that when he seemed tosympathise he was laughing at me; I also felt certain that I had seenhim before. Who was he? How was it possible that a man of his standingshould have anything to do with Jane Mullins, and yet they wereexcellent friends. The little woman went up to him constantly in thecourse of the evening, and asked his advice on all sorts of matters.What did it mean? I could not understand it!

  We took a few days settling down, and during that time the housebecame full. It was quite true that Mrs. Armstrong talked of us to herfriends. The next day, indeed, she took a complete survey of the houseaccompanied by Jane; making frank comments on all she saw, complainingof the high prices, but never for a moment vouchsafing to give up herlarge front attic, which was indeed a bedroom quite comfortable enoughfor any lady. She must have written to her friends in the country, forother girls somewhat in appearance like Marion Armstrong joined ourfamily circle, sat in the drawing-room in the evening, talked _at_ Mr.Randolph, and looked at him with eager, covetous eyes.

  Mr. Randolph was perfectly polite to these young ladies, without everfor a single moment stepping down from his own pedestal. MarionArmstrong, poke as she would, could not discover what his specialtastes were. When she questioned him, he declared that he likedeverything. Music?--certainly, he adored music. Art?--yes, he didsketch a little. The drama?--he went to every piece worth seeing, andgenerally on first nights. The opera?--he owned that a friend of hishad a box for the season, and that he sometimes gave him a seat in it.

  Miss Armstrong grew more and more excited. She perfectly worried mewith 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 secretcare? 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," saidMarion Armstrong then, and she turned to Mrs. Cousins' daughter, whohad come up to town with a view of studying music, and they put theirheads together, and looked unutterable things.

  Before we had been a fortnight in the place, all the other girls viedwith me as to their dinner dress. They wore low dresses, with shortsleeves, and gay colours, and their hair was fantastically curled, andthey 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 theattics were filling delightfully.

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

  "Had I known that Mr. Randolph would have the effect he seems to behaving," she said, "I might have doubled our prices from the verybeginning, 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; butI am particularly anxious not to touch that seven thousand poundscapital; at least not much of it. I want the house to pay, andalthough it is a delightful house, and there are many guests comingand going, and it promises soon to be quite full, yet it must remainfull 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; Isee 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. "Ishall advertise in the _Morning Post_, and the _Standard_; I will alsoadvertise in the _Guardian_. Advertisements in that paper are alwaysregarded as eminently respectable. We ought to have some clergymen inthe house, and some nice unmarried ladies, who will take rooms andsettle down, and give a sort of religious respectable tone. We cannothave too many Miss Armstrongs about; there were six to dinner lastnight, and they rather overweighted the scale. Our cake will be heavyif we put so much flour into it."

  I laughed, and counselled Jane to advertise as soon as possible, andthen ran away to my own room. I felt if this sort of thing went onmuch longer, if the girls of the Armstrong type came in greater andgreater numbers, and if they insisted on wearing all the colours ofthe rainbow at dinner, and very low dresses and very short sleeves, Imust 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 cannotremember, I know it was not the Slade; and on bringing back some ofher drawings, she first of all exhibited them to her friends, and thenleft them lying on the mantelpiece in the drawing-room, evidently inthe hopes of catching Mr. Randolph's eye. She did this every eveningfor a week without any result, but at the end of that time he caughtsight of a frightfully out-of-drawing charcoal study. It was the sortof thing which made you feel rubbed the wrong way the moment youglanced at it. It evidently rubbed him the wrong way, but he stoppedbefore it as if fascinated, raised his eyebrows slightly, and lookedfull into Miss Armstrong's blushing face.

  "You are the artist?" he said.

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

  "I thought so," he said again; "may I congratulate you?" He took upthe drawing, looked at it with that half-quizzical, half-earnestglance, which puzzled not only Miss Armstrong and her friends but alsomyself, 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 isnot worth any money--at least I fear it is not."

  "But I am so glad you like it, Mr. Randolph," said Mrs. Armstrong, nowpushing vigorously to the front; "I always did say that Marion had theh'artist's soul. It shines out of her eyes, at least I am proud tothink so; and Marion, my dear, if the good gentleman would _like_ thelittle 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. Hecrossed the room and seated himself near mother.

  "There now, ma, you have offended him," said M
arion, nearly cryingwith vexation.