THE ATTIC DESIRE CH:10

"Are you?" said Florence. "And do you mean to tell me? I can't tell you how I love exciting stories. I have always pined to go to a first-class school. Over and over again I've said to father, 'If only you would send me to Miss Peacock's!' But father thinks Miss Peacock too much of a fine lady; he says she's affected."

"No, she isn't," said Star. "She is a lady, that is all."

"What a nice way you have of talking, Miss Lestrange! And you are so pretty, too! Oh, I am interested in you and your school! I don't mind a bit what father says. He is just eaten up with jealousy; that's a fact. If Miss Peacock would employ him as her lawyer, father would think her the most delightful woman in the world. As it is, of course, he is jealous. He'd give his eyes to have me admitted into the school. He said so once; he said he'd pay double fees if Miss Peacock would have me. Oh, I should so love it! All the other girls would be mad with jealousy. Now, there are the Manners girls. You don't know them, do you, Miss Lestrange?"

"No."

"Well, they're not really in our class of life at all. I sometimes think it rather trying that I should be expected to know them. They are the daughters of that greengrocer who owns the huge shop just round the corner. Oh, and here they are coming to meet us! They'll want me to introduce you. Do you mind?"

Star said she did not mind. In her heart of hearts she felt that she could scarcely know a more vulgar or common girl than Florence.

"If you will only tell them the truth, that I came to church because I wished to speak to you, I don't mind what else you do," said Star.

[Pg 285]

The Manners girls came up slowly. They were thin, with straw-colored hair, very pale complexions, and small, weak-looking eyes. They were showily dressed, and in some ways looked even more commonplace than Florence. When they saw her they made a rush towards her. Then the younger one drew back a little, and it was the elder Miss Manners who came trippingly up to the two little girls.

"I have come in person to answer you, Florence. As you have got the note—I mean the one Miss Thompson gave you——"

"Oh, hush, hush!" said Florence. She could not have grown any paler than she did at that moment.

Star moved a step or two away from her.

"You told me just now——" she began.

"I did—I did! Don't speak to me for a minute, Miss Lestrange. I must walk on with you just to explain myself."

"Can I endure it?" thought Star. "And yet I must, for I must find out what has really happened."

"Of course I got the note," said Florence the minute they were alone; "but I was not going to tell, for poor Maudie didn't wish it. Now you know, however, you will take her back a message. Will you say to her that I am going to speak to the Mannerses, and if we can we will comply with her wishes? You may tell her at the same time that we don't like people who blow both hot and cold. The sort of friends we appreciate are those who say a thing and do it whatever the consequences. You will tell her. Oh, I know you despise me. Some day you will understand that a girl of my sort hasn't a chance with a girl of your sort. But, all the same, there's some good in me. I like you just awfully, for instance. I think you are sweetly pretty; and you have got such—oh, such an air about you! You might be[Pg 286] anyone. I know I'll dream of you to-night; I quite love you. You are fifty times nicer than Susan Marsh—although the Mannerses and I thought a lot of her—or than Maud Thompson, or than—— Oh, dear me! Miss Lestrange, I do wish you could get me into your school. You don't know how fine you'd polish me up; you'd show me that I ought always to speak the truth and everything else. Can't you try?"

Florence's bold face looked wonderfully soft at that moment, and there were actually tears in her black eyes. Star wondered she could speak to her, and yet when she looked again she felt touched by the expression on Florence's face.

"I am sorry for you, but I can't promise to—to help you to get into the school. All the same, I am sorry. You could not, I suppose, let me have that note. I wouldn't read it; I'd just give it back to Maud Thompson."

"My dear child," replied Florence, her manner instantly altering, and a hard, flippant tone coming into her voice, "I have not told you anything about the note. You asked me if I had got one, and I said 'No.' The Manners girls gave me away, and I was forced to confess that I had told a little white lie. White lies are allowable, aren't they?"

"They are not," said Star stoutly.

"Well, anyhow, they are amongst my set. As to the note itself, it was of such small consequence that I tore it up. Well, good-by. Glad to see you another day when you come to church and want a cup of tea."

Star looked back for a moment to where the Manners girls were standing; then she put wings to her feet and ran the rest of the way back to Penwerne Manor.

"What did she want? How is it you have got so chummy with her?" said Ethel Manners, turning to[Pg 287] Florence. "You did look upset when we met you! And didn't you blaze up as crimson as anything when we spoke of the note! Did we do wrong to speak of it?"

"You were just horribly nasty, Ethel," said Florence. "You might have known that when I was walking with a strange girl you two ought not to intrude. You don't know your places, and that's a fact."

"We're every bit as good as you are, Florry," said Emma. "It was only yesterday father said that your father and he used to chum together at the same school, but that he had pennies in his pocket and your father had none. Don't be a goose, Florry. Let's walk arm-in-arm. Wouldn't you like to come in and have a bit of supper? Aunt Phœbe said if we met you we might ask you. And there are sweetbreads for supper, and fried liver and bacon. You know how fond you are of those things."

"So I am," said Florence; "and I had such a wretched tea. It's awfully uncomfortable at home on Sunday; the kids make such a row all over the house. Our servant is out, and there's no one to look after anything."

"Well," said Emma, "Aunt Phœbe looks after things for us, and she loves something hot for supper. She's going to make pancakes, too; and we can have toasted cheese afterwards if we like."

"Oh, yes, and we can make coffee," said Ethel. "We are going to have a real jolly time. Will you come?—for if you don't, we'll ask Mary Ann Pomfret."

Mary Ann Pomfret was the one girl in the whole of Tregellick whom Florence detested.

"You can please yourself," she said. "I won't come near you if you have Mary, but I'd love to come to you alone. Your place always seems so comfy on Sundays."

"Then let's walk arm-in-arm," said Emma; and she[Pg 288] ran round to Florence's left side, and Ethel took hold of her other arm, and in this fashion they walked up the High Street.

"I call it specially mean," said Ethel, "after we have made those lovely cakes and prepared all those things to give Susan and the other girls a right good time. There can be no earthly excuse in their not having us. Just because a girl—and a new girl—happens to be a bit ill."

"But they say she is very ill," said Florence. "She was prayed for in church twice to-day. What do you mean to do, Ethel?"

"Go, of course," said Ethel.

"Do you really mean it?"

"Certainly I do. I'm going. Aren't you, Emma?"

"I'll do whatever you do, Ethel," replied the younger sister.

"Then I have a good mind to join you," said Florence. "You know, to tell the truth, I'm not specially taken with Susan Marsh. I don't think she's a bit better than we are, only she just puts on airs because she's a Manor girl. Perhaps Maud Thompson is a wee bit better. But what a beautiful girl that was I walked with to-day—Miss Lestrange! She must be quite the beauty of the school. Hasn't she eyes like stars? And such a refined, sweet little face! She's very pretty; and oh, she's fetching!"

"She's a perfect beauty," said Emma.

"I don't say she's as good-looking as all that;" said Ethel; "but she is handsome, and has what I call an air about her."

"She's very different from Susan Marsh," said Florence. "I could be good to please a girl like that. I am sure she would hate our going to the school on Wednesday."

[Pg 289]

"Did she say anything about it?"

"Not a word; only she was awfully bothered about that note. I can't imagine why she should come sneaking round after it, as it were; but she did, and she looked so piteous when she asked me to give it back to her, and I had it snug in my pocket all the time. But of course I couldn't give it to her; it would be hard on poor Maud."

"So it would," said Ethel. "Well, here we are at home now. Aunt Phœbe will soon begin to fry the supper. I do feel starving!"

Ethel let herself and her companions into the house with a latchkey. They passed the great shop where the vegetables were sold, and the huge appleroom where the fruits were kept from Saturday night to Monday morning. Up the narrow stairs they went, until at last they found themselves in a broad, low, cheerful sort of room—a nondescript room, with a thick red felt carpet on the floor, and heavy red curtains to the windows, and a laughing, cheerful, blazing fire in the grate. Florence gave a sigh of relief.

"It is peaceful here," she said. "I wish we had a room of this sort at home."

After the girls had eaten their supper, they put their heads together and had a long and earnest consultation as to what they were to do with regard to the girls at Penwerne Manor. There was little doubt that they were all intensely disappointed. The Manor had seemed to them, ever since they could remember anything, as a sort of earthly paradise; the girls who walked in twos up and down the sheltered, cloister-like enclosures, the girls who came to church at Tregellick Sunday after Sunday, the girls who occasionally rode over the neighboring moors, the girls who went to the seashore in the summer and enjoyed themselves bathing or in little[Pg 290] boats in the harbor, were all girls of a superior degree to those commonplace children in the town of Tregellick. They adored them; they envied them. The chance of getting into their midst was a golden and dazzling prospect, and they were intensely loath to give it up. It was Emma at last who seemed to come to a satisfactory decision.

"I tell you what," she said; "Susan has bound herself to receive us. We have put money into this thing; we have arranged to bring a good deal of the feast ourselves. Susan owes me seven and six——"

"And me five shillings," said Florence.

"And she has borrowed my best sash," said Ethel. "She said she would be very careful of it, and let me have it back at the first opportunity."

"I wonder you lent it to her," said Emma.

"She had such a coaxing way, and she said she wanted it so badly. In short, she made it a sort of condition with regard to giving us this pleasure."

"Oh, never mind that sort of thing now," said Florence impatiently. "I'll have to go back home very shortly or Rufus will be coming thundering round, making no end of a fuss. What shall we do, girls? That is the question. This is Sunday night; Wednesday is no way off at all. Are we to go and enjoy ourselves, or are we to meekly sit down and give up our bit of fun?"

"What do you think?" said Emma.

"I think we ought to go. I shouldn't hesitate a moment, only that poor Miss Lestrange looked so pleading, and she seems really fond of the sick girl. And if father found out by any chance that we'd been kicking up a rumpus in a house where a girl was dangerously ill, why, he'd never forgive me."

It was at that moment that Emma Manners came to the rescue with her dazzling suggestion.