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The Palace Beautiful by L. T. Meade

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"Your little sister must not stay at home by herself," she said. "She
shall come to me. While I am teaching Miss Jasmine, Daisy can play or
work as she pleases, only not by herself in your lodgings, young
ladies, but in the room with her sister."

So it was arranged, and the three girls might fairly have been said to
commence their work.

When Primrose had gone to Mr. Danesfield and asked him to allow her to
draw their little capital out of his bank, he had made wonderfully
few objections. Of all their friends, he was the one who had opposed
Primrose's scheme the least, and perhaps for that reason she was more
willing to take his advice, and to be guided by him, than by either
Mrs. Ellsworthy or Miss Martineau. Mr. Danesfield had said to her: "My
dear, you and your sisters are in some particulars in a very unique
and unfortunate position. You are all three very young, yet you are
absolutely your own mistresses. No one in all the world has any real
control over you. If you ask me for your money, I cannot refuse you--I
have absolutely no choice in the matter; the money is yours, and when
you want it you must have it. Now I tell you plainly that Mrs.
Ellsworthy and Miss Martineau are dreadfully shocked with your scheme.
I may be wrong, but I confess I am not shocked. I fancy that you are
the kind of girls who will come out victorious, and that though you
will have rather a hard struggle, you will not be beaten; but there is
one thing I am most anxious to do for you, and that is to keep part of
your money. You have exactly two hundred pounds. How much of this
little capital do you propose to spend a year?"

"As little as ever we can," answered Primrose.

"Yes, my dear young lady, but you must have some sort of idea with
regard to your expenses. I would counsel you on no account to spend
more of your capital than seventy pounds a year; by restricting
yourselves to this sum you will have a very tiny but certain, income
for two years, and will have something to fall back on even in the
third year, if you are not then earning enough. Suppose I divide your
seventy pounds into four quarterly instalments, and send it to you as
you require it. You know nothing of keeping a banking account
yourself, and it will absolutely not be safe for you to live in London
lodgings, and have a large sum of money with you. Take my advice in
this particular, Miss Primrose, and allow me still to be your banker."

"There is one little difficulty," said Primrose; "we really want to be
independent, and as we know that there will be difficulties and
discouragements in the career we are marking out for ourselves, and
that we may often grow faint-hearted and lonely, Jasmine and I feel
that we had better put ourselves quite out of the way of temptation.
We have, therefore, made up our minds not to give our address to any
one in Rosebury for at least two years. How can you send us the money,
Mr. Danesfield, if you don't know where to send it?"

"My dear young lady, I fear you are a little bit too headstrong, and
though I admire your spirit, I cannot quite approve of your cutting
yourselves off from all communications with your friends. However, it
is not for me to interfere. Will this satisfy you, Miss
Primrose?--shall I give you my solemn promise only to use the address
with which you favor me to forward your money each quarter, and never
to divulge your secret to anybody else?"

Finally this plan was adopted, and Primrose received her small
quarterly allowance with great regularity.




CHAPTER XXII.

CROSS PURPOSES.


After his interview with Jasmine in St. Paul's Cathedral, Arthur Noel
went home to his very luxurious chambers in Westminster, and wrote the
following letter to Mrs. Ellsworthy:--

"MY DEAR MOTHER-FRIEND,

"The most curious thing has happened. I came accidentally to-day
across the three girls about whom you were so interested. I met them
at St. Paul's, and could not help speaking to the second one. The
brightness, and yet the melancholy, of her little face attracted my
attention. She was not with the rest of her party, but sat for some of
the time on one of the chairs, and then knelt down and covered her
face. Poor little soul! I think she was crying. My sympathies were
roused by her, and I spoke. She flashed up a very bright glance at me,
and we became friends on the spot. I took her about the cathedral, and
showed her one or two objects of interest. She was full of
intelligence. Then her sisters joined her, and your boy came up, and,
of course, his name came out; and there was confusion and wondering
glances, and the girl whom I had spoken to turned first crimson, and
then white, and her dark grey eyes became full of tears. 'I know the
Ellsworthys; they are my dear, dear friends!' she exclaimed.

"I found out where the three lived before I left them. They were
accompanied by a prim-looking maiden lady, who was introduced to me as
a Miss Slowcum, and who appeared to be taking excellent care of the
pretty creatures. All three are delightful, and I have lost my heart
to them all.

"Can I do anything for them? Of course you have already told me what
perverse creatures they are, and Miss Jasmine confirmed your story,
only, of course, she put her own coloring on it. I pity them, and yet,
to a certain extent--forgive me, mother-friend--I admire their spirit.
That eldest girl had a look about her face which will certainly keep
every one from being rude to her. Such an expression of innocence and
dignity combined I have seldom come across. Now, can I help them? It
is an extraordinary thing, but I have a wonderful fellow-feeling for
them. I can never forget the old days when I too was alone in London,
and you took me up. Do you remember how you met me, and took my thin
and dirty hands in yours, and looked into my face and said: 'Surely
this is a gentleman's son, although he is clothed in rags?' I could
just remember that I was a gentleman's son, and that I used to put my
arms round a beautiful lady's neck and kiss her, and call her mother.
Between her face and me there was a great horror of darkness, and
suffering, and ill-usage; and my memories were feeble and dream-like.
I don't even now recall them more vividly. You took me up, and--you
know the rest of my history.

"Well, it is a strange thing, but those girls, especially that little
Jasmine, brought back the memory of the lady whose sweet face I used
to kiss. Can I do anything for your girls? There are a thousand ways
in which I could help them without hurting their proud spirits.

"Yours affectionately,
"ARTHUR NOEL."

In a very short time Mr. Noel received a brief communication from Mrs.
Ellsworthy:--

MY DEAR ARTHUR,

"Your letter has been an untold relief. It was a special and good
Providence that directed your steps to St. Paul's on that afternoon.
My dear little Jasmine!--she is my pet of all the three. My dear
Arthur, pray call on the girls at that dreadful Penelope Mansion; they
are so naughty and so obstinate that they simply must be caught by
guile. You must use your influence to get them out of that dreadful
place. Look for respectable and nice lodgings, and go beforehand to
the landlady. If she is very nice, confide in her, and tell her she is
to look to me for payment, but she is on no account to let out this
fact to the girls. Kensington is a nice, quiet, respectable
neighborhood; you might take the drawing-room floor of a very quiet,
nice house, and ask the landlady to offer it to the girls for five
shillings a week, or something nominal of that sort. Primrose is so
innocent at present that she will think five shillings quite a large
sum; but tell the lady of the house to let it include all extras--I
mean such as gas and firing. I suppose you could not get a house with
the electric light?--no, of course not; it is not used yet in private
dwellings--gas is so unwholesome, but the girls might use candles.
Tell the landlady to provide them with the best candles, and tell her
I'll pay her something handsome if she'll go out with them. And, my
dear Arthur, _don't_ let them go in omnibuses. Do your best, and,
above all things, take them away from that awful mansion as soon as
possible.

"Your affectionate Mother-Friend,
"KATE ELLSWORTHY."

But alas! when Arthur Noel, in accordance with Mrs. Ellsworthy's
instructions, went to see the girls, he was confronted first by Mrs.
Flint, who assured him in her soft and cushion-like style that the
young ladies had left, and as they had been undutiful enough not to
confide in her she could furnish him with no address. As he was
leaving the mansion Poppy Jenkins rushed up to him.

"I heard you asking for my young ladies, sir, but it ain't no use, for
they're gone. Flowers of beauty they was--beautiful in manner and in
face--but they ain't to be found here no more. The Mansion didn't suit
them, and the people in the Mansion didn't suit them, and that isn't
to be wondered at. I suppose they has gone to a more congenial place,
but the address is hid from me; no, sir, I know nothing at all about
them. Yes, sir, it's quite true--I misses them most bitter!"

Here poor Poppy, covering her face with her hands, burst into tears
and disappeared down the back staircase.

Noel wrote to Mrs. Ellsworthy, and Mrs. Ellsworthy wrote back to him,
and between them they made many inquiries, and took many steps, which
they felt quite sure must lead to discovery, but notwithstanding all
their efforts they obtained no clue to the whereabouts of the
Mainwaring girls.




CHAPTER XXIII.

DARK DAYS.


"How bitterly cold it is, Primrose!"

The speaker was Jasmine; she sat huddled up to a small, but bright
fire, which burned in the sitting-room grate.

The girls had now been several months in Eden Street, and all the
summer weather and the summer flowers had departed, and the evening in
question was a very dull and foggy one in late November.

The little sitting-room still wore its rose-tinted paper, but the
white curtains at the windows had assumed a decided and permanent tint
of yellow, and the fog found its way in through the badly-fitting
attic windows, and made the whole room look cloudy. The girls' faces,
too, had altered with the months. Jasmine had lost a good deal of her
vivacity, her expression was slightly fretful, and she no longer
looked the spruce and sparkling little lass who had gone away from
Rosebury in the summer. Primrose had lost the faint color which used
to tinge her cheeks; they were now almost too white for beauty, but
her eyes were still clear, calm, and sweet; her dress was still the
essence of simplicity and neatness, and her bearing was gentle and
dignified as of old. The alteration in Daisy was less apparent at this
moment, for she was stretched on two cushions in one corner of the
sitting-room, and with a warm rug thrown over her, and with the Pink
curled up in her arms, was fast asleep.

"How cold it is, Primrose," repeated Jasmine; then, as her sister made
no reply, but went on calmly darning some stockings, she continued, "I
think you have really grown stingy. Why can't we have some more coal?
this is much too small a fire for weather with snow on the ground, and
a horrid, odious fog filling every corner."

"Hush!" said Primrose, laying down her work, and stooping towards her
younger sister, who sat on the hearthrug, "I am keeping the coal to
put on until Daisy wakes. You know, Jasmine, we resolved not to run up
any bills, and I cannot get in any coal until Mr. Danesfield sends us
our next quarter's allowance--wrap my fur cloak round you, darling,
and then you will be quite warm."

Jasmine shivered, but rising slowly, she went into the bedroom, and
returned in a moment, not with the fur cloak, but with a white woolly
shawl. "The day for Mr. Danesfield's money will arrive in less than a
week," she said. "Oh, Primrose! I thought you were going to be a good
manager; I did not think you were going to bring us to this."

Primrose smiled.

"Jasmine, dear," she said, "you are not quite brave to-night, or you
would not speak to me in that tone. You forget that we should not have
been short of money had not that five-pound note been stolen from us.
When Mr. Danesfield's allowance comes in we shall be able to go on as
usual, and then you need not suffer from a short allowance of fire.
Jasmine, I know what is the matter with you; you did not eat half
enough dinner to-day. When I was out this afternoon I called to see
Miss Egerton, and she gave me three delicious new-laid eggs--really
new-laid--we'll have them for supper."

"No, we won't," said Jasmine, her eyes suddenly filling with tears,
and her pettish mood changing to a tender and very sad one--"those
eggs were given for Daisy, and no one else shall eat them. Do you
know, Primrose, that Miss Egerton does not think Daisy at all strong?"

"Oh, she is mistaken," said Primrose. "No one who does not know her
thinks Daisy strong; she has a fragile look, but it is only her look.
All my courage would go if I thought Daisy were ill--she is not ill;
look at her now, what a sweet color she has on her cheeks."

"Miss Egerton says she is like a little sister of her own," continued
Jasmine. Then she stopped suddenly. "Oh! Primrose, you are not going
to cry? oh, don't; it would be dreadful if you gave way! No, Primrose,
she is not like little Constance Egerton; she is just our own Daisy,
who never looks strong, but who is very strong--she shall never be
cold, and she shall have all the nourishment--you and I don't mind how
plainly we live, do we, Queen Rose?"

Primrose had quickly wiped away her sudden tears. She rose to her
feet, and, going up to Jasmine, gave her a hasty kiss.

"We'll remember our good old resolution," she said brightly, "not to
grumble, not to fret, not to cry. Ah! here is our dear little birdie
waking from her sleep. Now, Jasmine on with the coals, and let us have
a merry blaze while I see to the supper--porridge for you and me, and
a nice fresh egg and a cup of warm milk for the Daisy-flower."

"The Pink must have some milk too," said Daisy, as she tumbled lazily
out of her soft nest of cushions; "the Pink isn't half as fat as she
used to be--I can feel all the bones down her spine--I know she wants
cream. Oh, Primrose! I had such a darling dream--I thought the Prince
came and found us!"

"The Prince, Daisy?"

"Yes; and he had the look of the gentleman we met long, long, long ago
at St. Paul's Cathedral! Oh, Primrose, I'm so tired of London!"

"Never mind, darling," answered Primrose; "I'm always telling you you
are only seeing the shady side at present. Only wait till Christmas
comes, and Mr. Danesfield sends us our money."

"I wrote another poem last night," said Jasmine; "I called it 'The
Uses of Adversity.' It was very mournful indeed; it was a sort of
story in blank verse of people who were cold and hungry, and I mixed
up London fogs, and attic rooms, and curtains that were once white,
and had now turned yellow, and sloppy streets covered with snow, with
the story. It was really very sad, and I cried a great deal over it. I
am looking out now for a journal which likes melancholy things to send
it to. I have not ventured to submit it to Miss Egerton, for she is so
dreadfully severe, and I don't think much of her taste. She will never
praise anything I do unless it is so simple as to be almost babyish.
Now 'The Uses of Adversity' is as far as possible formed on the model
of Milton's 'Paradise Lost'--it is strong, but gloomy. Shall I read it
to you after supper, Primrose?"

"If you like, dear," answered Primrose; "but why do you try to write
such very sad things, Jasmine?"

"Oh, I don't know; they suit me. Primrose, do you know of a very, very
melancholy periodical?"

"Several of the periodicals seem to me rather melancholy," answered
Primrose; "there is one I sometimes see on Mrs. Dove's table--it is
called _The Watch_. I glanced at it one day, and I thought it seemed
very morbid."

"Oh, I know," answered Jasmine; "but there is a worse one than
that--Mrs. Dove showed it to me. Mrs. Dove is very fond of reading,
and she told me that she would not give a farthing for any literature
that could not draw forth the salt and bitter tear; she says the
magazine she likes best at present is a new one called _The Downfall_.
She says it is very little known, but its melancholy is profound.
Shall I send my verses to _The Downfall_, Primrose?"

"If you like, dear; but I don't at all admire the name, and I really
do not think Mrs. Dove ought to be your guide in such matters,
Jasmine."

"Oh, she has very good taste," answered Jasmine; "she says that only
real talent is admitted on the staff of _The Downfall_. Of course I'd
rather write for one of the shilling magazines. Well, if you like,
I'll send my poem to one of them first."

Before Primrose could answer Jasmine on this weighty point there came
a knock on the sitting-room door, and Mrs. Dove, with her face wrapped
up in a thick woollen shawl, entered the room.

"Very sorry to disturb you, young ladies," she said, "but could you
oblige me with the loan of three and tenpence-halfpenny. Dove has put
in no appearance, and unless I can pay three and tenpence-halfpenny on
account to the baker he refuses positive to allow me sufficient bread
to see Sunday through."

When Mrs. Dove made this request Primrose's face became intensely
pale. She was silent for half a minute, then she said--

"I will lend you the money this time, Mrs. Dove, but please don't ask
me again; you know that at this present moment you owe me very nearly
two pounds."

"Thank you, my dear Miss Mainwaring," answered Mrs. Dove, in a very
suave voice, as she hastily pocketed poor Primrose's few shillings.
"You are always obliging, and this, with the other trifle due, shall
be returned the moment Dove comes in--Dove is on a very good piece of
work just at present, and the money is as safe as safe. Oh, Miss
Jasmine, I have brought you this week's copy of _The Downfall_--the
serial in it is really of the most powerful order. I have shed a
deluge of tears over it. The lowest person of rank in the pages is a
marquess; but the story mostly deals in ducal families. It was a
terrible blow to come down to the baker from the duke's ancestral
halls--you read it, Miss Jasmine; you'll be very much overcome."




CHAPTER XXIV.

DOVE'S JOKE.


Primrose had always been considered a very good manager. Her talents
for contriving, for buying, and, in short, for making a shilling do
the utmost that a shilling was capable of, had been observable from
her earliest days. In the last years of her mother's life Primrose had
been entrusted with the family purse, and the shopkeepers at Rosebury
had known better than not to offer this bright-looking young lady the
best that they had at the lowest price. Primrose, therefore, when she
came to London, had felt pretty confident that the talents which she
knew she possessed would stand her in good stead. She still hoped to
find the cheapest shops and to get the best for her money. She laid
her plans with accuracy and common sense, she divided the little sum
which the three had to live on into weekly instalments--she resolved
not to go beyond these. But, alas! Primrose had never reckoned on a
certain grave difficulty which here confronted her. Hitherto her
dealings had been with honest tradespeople; now it was her
misfortune, and her sisters', to get into a house where honesty was
far from practised. In a thousand little ways Mrs. Dove could pilfer
from the girls--she would not for the world have acknowledged to
herself that she would really steal; oh, no--but she did not consider
it stealing to use their coal instead of her own--of course, by
mistake; she by no means considered it stealing when she baked a
little joint for them in her oven on Sunday to boil it first, and in
this way secure a very good soup for various hungry young Doves; she
did not consider it stealing to so confuse the baker's account that
some of the loaves consumed by her children were paid for by Primrose;
nor did she consider it stealing to add water to the milk with which
she supplied the Mainwarings; above all things, and on this point she
was most emphatic, she thought it the reverse of stealing to borrow.
Primrose had not been a fortnight in her house before she began to ask
first for the loan of an odd sixpence, then for half-a-crown, for a
shilling here, and two shillings there. When she returned the
half-crown it was generally done in this fashion--

"Oh, if you please, miss, I want to settle my little account. Oh,
dear, dear! I was certain I had half-a-crown in my purse. Well, to be
sure, I forgot that Dove took it with him when he went out to his
work this morning. Please, Miss Mainwaring, will you accept one and
sixpence on account, and we'll settle the rest in an hour or two.
There, miss, that's quite comfortable."

Yes, the arrangement was certainly quite comfortable for Mrs. Dove,
who could score out the half-crown debt from her slate, and quite
stare when Primrose ventured to ask her for the odd shilling still
owing.

Still, incredible as it may sound, Mrs. Dove considered herself a
strictly honest woman. Perhaps, had the girls only to deal with her
they might have struggled on, badly, it is true, but still after a
fashion. But, alas and alas! if Mrs. Dove considered herself honest,
Mr. Dove did not pretend to lay claim to this very excellent quality.
Poor Primrose little guessed that that lost five-pound note, which had
given her such trouble, and which had almost brought gray hairs to her
bright yellow head, had been really taken by Dove, who had come up to
the attics when the girls were away, had quietly taken the hinges off
Primrose's trunk at the back, had lifted the lid, and had helped
himself neatly and deftly to that solitary note!

When the girls discovered their loss no one had been more indignant
than Dove. He had come up himself to speak to them about it, had
examined the trunk in their presence, had told them that he had a
cousin of his own in the detective business whom he would put on the
scent of the thief, and in the meantime he'd be very pleased, although
he was a remarkably poor man, to lend the young ladies ten shillings.

Although they would not think of accepting his loan, the girls thought
that Dove had behaved rather kindly on this occasion, and they
certainly never in the least suspected it was into his pocket their
money had gone.

Without being at all, therefore, to blame, poor Primrose found
herself, as Christmas approached, and the days grew short and cold,
with very little money in her possession; of course, her quarter's
allowance would soon be due, but some days before it came she had
broken into her last sovereign. Still, she had a resource which her
sisters had forgotten, and which, luckily for her, Dove knew nothing
at all about--she still had that letter of Mr. Danesfield's. She had
never opened it, but she always kept it safely locked up in her trunk.
Not for worlds would she yet break the seal--no, no, this letter was
meant for an hour of great need. Primrose fondly and proudly hoped
that that dark and dreadful hour would never approach and that, having
won success, she and her sisters might yet return the letter unopened
to its kind donor. In these dark days before Christmas she kept up her
heart, and worked hard at her china-painting, achieving sufficient
success and power over her art to enable her to produce some pretty,
but, alas! as yet unsaleable articles. Mr. Jones, her master, assured
her, however, that her goods must ere long find a market, and she
struggled on bravely.

Perhaps, on the whole, Jasmine was more tried by her present life than
her sister. Jasmine's was a more highly-strung temperament; she could
be more easily depressed and more easily elated--hers was the kind of
nature which pours forth its sweetest and best in sunshine; did the
cold blasts of adversity blow too keenly on this rather tropical
little flower, then no expansion would come to the beautiful blossoms,
and the young life would fail to fulfil its promise. Jasmine was never
meant by nature to be poor; she had been born in Italy, and something
of the languor and the love of ease and beauty of her birthplace
seemed always to linger round her. She had talents--under certain
conditions she might even have developed genius, but in no sense of
the word was she hardy; where Primrose could endure, and even conquer,
Jasmine might die.

The little sister, who was too young to acutely feel any change which
did not part her from Primrose and Jasmine, was, perhaps, the only one
of the three whose spirits were on a par with what they were in the
old Rosebury days; but although Daisy's little mind remained tranquil,
and she did not trouble herself about ways and means, nor greatly fret
over the fact that the skies were leaden, and the attic room foggy,
still Daisy also suffered in her rather delicate little body. She
caught cold in the London fogs, and the cold brought on a cough, and
the cough produced loss of appetite. The two elder sisters, however,
were scarcely as yet uneasy about her, and it was only Miss Egerton
who saw the likeness to little Constance growing and growing in
Daisy's sweet face. Thus Christmas drew near, and the girls had not
yet found their mission in life; they were by no means crushed,
however, nor was Primrose tired of repeating what she firmly believed,
that with the New Year some of the sunshine of London life would be
theirs.

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