Brenda, however, would not encourage any such lawless action.
“We won’t say a word about it,” said Brenda, “until after Christmas Day.”
She gave forth this mandate when the girls were in their room preparing for dinner.
“Oh,” said Florence; “it will kill me to keep it a secret for so long!”
“It won’t kill you,” replied Brenda, “for you will have me to talk it over with.”
“But she’ll go on asking us questions,” said Florence. “She will want to know where we are going after the holidays; if we are going to stay on with her, or what is to happen; and unless we tell her a lot of lies, I don’t see how we are to escape telling her the truth. It is all dreadful from first to last; but I think having to keep it a secret from Mrs. Fortescue is about the most terrible part of all.”
“It is the part you feel most at the present time,” said Brenda. “It is a merciful dispensation that we cannot realise everything that is happening just at the moment it happens. It is only by degrees that we get to realise the full extent of our calamities.”
“I suppose it is a calamity,” said Florence, opening her bright eyes very wide. “Somehow, at the present moment I don’t feel anything at all about it except rather excited; and there are eighty pounds left. Eighty pounds ought to go far, oughtn’t they? Oughtn’t they to go far, Brenda?”
“No,” said Brenda; “they won’t go far at all.”
“But I can’t make out why. We could go into small lodgings and live quite by ourselves and lead the simple life. There is so much written now about the simple life. I have read many books lately in which very clever men say that we eat far too much, and that, after all, what we really need is abundance of fresh air and so many hours for sleep and very plain food. I was reading a book not long ago which described a man who had exactly twenty pounds on which he intended to live for a whole year. He paid two and sixpence a week for his room and about as much more for his food, and he was very healthy and very happy. Now, if we did the same sort of thing, we could live both of us quite comfortably for two years on our eighty pounds.”
“And then,” said Brenda, “what would happen at the end of that time?”
“Oh, I should be married by then,” said Florence, “and you would come and live with me, of course, you old darling.”
“No; that I wouldn’t,” said Brenda. “I am not at all content to sit down and wait. I want to do something. As far as I am concerned, I am rather glad of this chance. I never did care for what are so-called ‘society pleasures.’ I see now the reason why I always felt driven to work very hard. You know father was a great writer. I shall write too. I will make money by my books, and we will both live together and be happy. If you find your prince, the man you have made up your mind to marry, why, you shall marry him. But if you don’t, I am always there. We will be very careful of our money, and I will write a book; I think I just know how. I am not father’s daughter for nothing. The book will be a success, and I shall get an order for another book, and we can live somehow. We shall be twenty thousand times happier than if we were in a house with Mrs. Fortescue looking out for husbands for us—for that is what it comes to when all is said and done.”
“Oh, you darling! I never thought of that,” said Florence. “It is perfectly splendid! I never admired you in all my life as I admire you now, Brenda. Of course, I never thought that you would be the one to save us from destruction. I used at times to have a sort of idea within me that perhaps you would have to come and live with me some day when all our money was spent. I can’t imagine why I used to think so often about all our money being spent; but I used to, only I imagined it would be after I had got my trousseau and was married to my dear lord, or duke, or marquis—anyhow, some one with a big place and a title; and I used to imagine you living with me and being my dear companion. But this is much, much better than any of those things.”
“Yes; I think it is better,” said Brenda. “I will think about the book to-night, and perhaps the title may come to me; but in the meantime, we are not to tell Mrs. Fortescue—not at least till Christmas Day is over; and we’ve got to take out our white dresses and get them ironed, and see that they look as fresh as possible. Now, we mustn’t stay too long in our room: she is dying with curiosity, but she can’t possibly guess the truth.”
“No; she couldn’t guess the truth, that would be beyond her power,” said Florence. “The truth is horrible, and yet delightful. We are our own mistresses, aren’t we, Brenda?”
“As far as the eighty pounds go,” replied Brenda.
“What I was so terrified about,” said the younger sister, “was this. I thought we should have to go as governesses or companions, or something of that sort, in big houses and be—be parted.” Her lips trembled.
“Oh no; we won’t be parted,” said Brenda; “but all the same, we’ll have to go to see Lady Marian Dixie—that is, when she writes to ask us. Now may I brush your hair for you? I want you to look your very prettiest self to-night.”
The white frocks were ironed by Bridget’s skilful fingers. It is true, they were only the sort of dresses worn by schoolgirls, but they were quite pretty, and of the very best material. They were somewhat short for the two tall girls, and Brenda smiled at herself when she saw her dress, which only reached a trifle below her ankles. As to Florence, she skipped about the room in hers. She was in wonderfully high spirits. For girls who had been brought up as heiresses, and who expected all the world to bow before them, this was extraordinary. And now it was borne in upon her that she had only forty pounds in the world, not even quite that, for already a little of the five pounds advanced by Mr. Timmins had been spent. Mrs. Fortescue insisted upon it. She said, “You ought to wear real flowers; I will order some for you at the florist’s round the corner.”
Now flowers at Christmas time are expensive, but Florence was reckless and ordered roses and lilies of the valley. Brenda looked unutterable things, but after opening her lips as though to speak, decided to remain silent. Why should not Florence have her pretty way for once? She looked at her sister with great admiration. She thought again of her beauty, which was of the sort which can scarcely be described, and deals more with expression than feature. Wherever this girl went, her bright eyes did their own work. They drew people towards them as towards a magnet. Her charming manners effected the rest of the fascination. She was not self-conscious either, so that women liked her as much as men did.
But now Christmas Day had really come, and Mrs. Fortescue, in the highest of high spirits, accompanied her young charges to Colonel Arbuthnot’s house. Year by year, the girls had eaten their Christmas dinner at the old Colonel’s house, which was known by the commonplace name of The Grange. It was a corner house in Langdale, abutting straight on to the street, but evidently at one time there had been a big garden in front, and just before the hall door was an enormous oak tree, which spread its shadows over the low stone steps in summer, and caused the dining-room windows which faced the street to be cool even in the hottest weather.
At the back of the house was a glorious old garden. No one had touched that. It measured nearly three acres. It had its walled-in enclosure, its small paddock, and its wealth of flower garden. The flowers, as far as Florence and Brenda could make out, seemed to grow without expense or trouble, for Colonel Arbuthnot was not a rich man, and could not even afford a gardener every day, but he worked a good deal himself, and was helped by his daughter Susie, a buxom, rather matronly young woman of six or seven and thirty. The girls liked Susie very much, although they considered her quite an old maid.
No; Colonel Arbuthnot was by no means rich—that is, as far as money is concerned; but he possessed other riches—the riches of a brave and noble heart. He was straight as a die in all his dealings with his fellow-men.