A Bevy of Girls

Chapter One

The Departure

The girls stood in a cluster round Miss Aldworth. They surrounded her to right and left, both before and behind. She was a tall, dark-eyed, grave looking girl herself; her age was about twenty. The girls were schoolgirls; they were none of them more than fifteen years of age. They adored Marcia Aldworth; she was the favourite teacher in the school. She was going away to England suddenly, her mother was very ill, and she might not return. The girls all spoke to her in her native tongue. They belonged to several nationalities; some German, some French, some Dutch, some Hungarian; there was a sprinkling of Spanish girls and a good many English. The school was supposed to be conducted on English principles, and the head teacher was an Englishwoman.

There was a distant sound of music in the concert room not far away, but the girls, the principal girls of the school, took no notice of it.

“You will write to us, dear, dear Marcia,” said Gunda Lehman. “I’ll forget all my English and I’ll make all sorts of mistakes. You’ll write to me, and if I send you an English letter you’ll correct it, won’t you, dear, dear Miss?”

Miss Aldworth made the necessary promise, which was echoed from one to another amongst the girls. There was an American girl with a head of tousled hair, very bright china-blue eyes, and a sort of mocking face. She had not spoken at all up to the present, but now she came forward, took Miss Aldworth’s hand, and said:

“I’ll never forget you, and if ever you come to my country be sure you ask for me, Marie M. Belloc. I won’t forget you, and you won’t forget me, will you?”

“No, I won’t forget you, Marie. I’ll ask for you if ever I come to your country.”

Miss Aldworth moved off into the hall. Here the head mistress began to speak to her.

“Move aside, girls,” she said, “move aside. You have said your good-byes. Oh, here are your flowers – ”

A porter appeared with a huge basket of flowers. These were tied up with different coloured ribbons. They were presented by each girl in succession to her favourite English teacher.

“How am I to carry them away with me?” thought poor Miss Aldworth, as she received them; but her eyes filled with tears all the same, and she thanked each loving young personality in the way she knew best.

A few minutes later she found herself alone in the cab which was to bear her to the railway station. Mrs Silchester’s school at Frankfort was left behind; the now silenced voices began to echo in her ears. When she found herself virtually alone in the railway carriage, she arranged her flowers in order, then seated herself in a corner of the carriage and burst into uncontrollable crying. She was going home! Her bright life at the school was over. Her stepmother wanted her; her stepmother was ill. She knew exactly what it all meant. She had resisted several letters which she had received from home lately. They had come from her younger sisters, they had come from her brother; they had come from her father. Still she had rebelled and had struggled to keep away. She sent them half her salary, but it was no use. Her mother wanted her; she must come back.

At last there arrived a more alarming message, a more indignant remonstrance. She could not help herself any longer. It was not as though it were her own mother; it was only her stepmother who wanted her, and she had never been specially good to Marcia, who had always been something of a drudge in the family. Her salary was not half as important as her services. She must come back.

She consulted Mrs Silchester; she even gave her a hint of the truth. Mrs Silchester had hesitated, had longed to advise the girl to remain with them.

“You are the making of the school,” she said. “You keep all those unruly girls in order. They adore you; you teach them English most beautifully, and you are my right hand. Why should you leave me?”

“I suppose it is my duty,” said Marcia. She paused for a minute and looked straight before her. She and Mrs Silchester were in a private sitting room belonging to the latter lady, who glanced firmly at the tall, fine, handsome girl.

“Duty,” she said, “it is a sorry bugbear sometimes, isn’t it?”

“To me it is,” said Marcia. “I have sacrificed all my life to my sense of duty; but perhaps I am mistaken.”

“I do not think so; it seems the only thing to do.”

“Then in that case I will write and say that I will go back at once.”

“I tell you what, my dear, if your mother is better when you return, and you can so arrange matters, I will keep this place open for you. I will get a lady in as a substitute for a short time; I won’t have a permanent teacher, but I will have you back. When you return to England, write to me and tell me if there is any use my pursuing this idea.”

Marcia said firmly:

“I know I shall never be able to return; once I am back I shall have to stay. There is no use in thinking of anything else.”

Now the whole thing was over; the girls had cried and had clung to her, had lavished their love upon her, and the other teachers were sorry, and Mrs Silchester had almost shed tears – she who never cried. But it was over; the wrench had been made, the parting was at an end. Their bright lives would go on; they would still enjoy their fun and their lessons; they could go to the opera, to the theatre; they would still have their little tea parties, and their friends would take them about, and they would have a better time than English girls of their class usually have. They would talk privately to each other just the same as ever, about their future homes, and their probable dots, and of the sort of husbands that had been arranged for them to marry, and how much linen their good mothers were putting away into great linen chests for them to carry away with them. They would talk to each other of all these things, and she, who had been part and parcel of the life, would be out of it. She always would be out of it in the future.

Nevertheless, her sense of duty carried her forward. She felt that under no possibility could she do otherwise. She had a long and rather tiresome journey, and arrived at her destination on the following evening.

Her home was in the North of England, in an outlying suburb of the great bustling town of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Marcia arrived first at the general station; she then took a local train and in about a quarter of an hour she arrived at the suburb where her family resided. There a tall gaunt figure in a long overcoat was pacing up and down the platform. Several other people got out of the train; they were mostly business men, returning from their day’s work. The tall figure did not notice them, but when the girl sprang out of the train the man in the overcoat pulled himself together and came forward with a quickened movement and took both her hands.

“Thank God you have come, Marcia,” he said. “Molly and Ethel and Nesta were all in terror that you would send a wire at the last moment. Horace said he thought you had spunk enough to do your duty, but the rest of us were afraid. You have come, thank God. That’s all right.”

“Yes, father,” she said in a lifeless sort of voice, “I have come. Am I wanted so very badly!”

“Wanted?” he said. “Now let’s see to your luggage; I’ll tell you about that afterwards as we are walking home.”

Marcia produced her ticket, and after a short delay her two modest trunks were secured from the luggage van. A porter was desired to bring them to Number 7 Alison Road as quickly as possible, and the father and daughter left the railway station and turned their steps homeward.

Marcia opened her eyes and shut them again. Then she opened them wide. Was it a dream after all? Had she really been at delightful Frankfort, at the gay school with its gay life not two days ago? And was she now – what she had been doing the greater part of her life – walking by her father’s side, down the well-known road, turning round by the well-known corner, seeing the row of neat, dull, semi-detached houses, the little gardens in front, the little gates that most of them never kept shut, but which clapped and clapped with the wind; the little hall doors, made half of glass, to look artistic, and to let in a little more cold than they would otherwise have done, a picture of the little nail, the dingy linoleum on the floor; the look of the whole place?

By-and-by they reached their own gate; of course it needed mending.

“Oh, father,” Marcia could not help saying, “you ought to see to that.”

“Yes, but Molly has put it off week after week. She said you’d do it when you came home.”

“I’ll manage it. But how is mother? Is she very bad?”

“She is worse than usual; she requires more care, constant attention. There was no one else who would suit,” he added. “Come along now, I’ll tell you all presently.”

“You don’t want me to see her to-night, do you?”

“Not unless you wish to. She is upstairs.”

“Does she know I have come?”

“Yes, she knows; at least she hopes with the rest of us that you have come. You had better run in and see her for a few minutes; you needn’t begin your duties until to-morrow.”

“Thank God for that reprieve,” thought Marcia.

The next instant there was a loud clamour in the hall, and three exceedingly pretty girls, varying in age from fourteen to eighteen, bustled out and surrounded Marcia.

“You have come! What an old dear you are! Now you’ll tell us all about Germany. Oh, isn’t it fun!”

Nesta’s voice was the most ringing. She was the youngest of the girls, and her hair was not yet put up. She was wearing it in a long plait down her back. It curled gracefully round her pretty temples. She had sweet blue eyes and a caressing manner; she was rather untidy in her dress, but there was a little attempt at finery about her. The other two sisters were more commonplace. Molly was very round and fat, with rosy cheeks, small, dark eyes and a good-humoured mouth, a gay laugh and a somewhat tiresome habit of giggling on the smallest provocation.

Ethel was the exact counterpart of Molly, but not quite so good-looking. These three girls were Marcia’s step-sisters.

In the distance there appeared the towering form of a young man with very broad shoulders, and a resolute face. He was Marcia’s own brother. She gave one really glad cry when she saw him, and flung herself into his arms.

“Good old girl! I said you’d have the spunk to do your duty,” he whispered in her ear, and he patted her on the shoulder.

She felt a strange sense of comfort; she had hardly thought of him during the journey; once he had been all in all to her, but circumstances had divided them. He had been angry with her, and she had felt his anger very much. He had preached duty to her until she was sick of the word and hated the subject. She had rejected his advice. Now he was here, and he approved of her, so things would not be quite so bad. His love was worth that of a hundred schoolgirls.

“Oh, yes, yes,” she whispered back, and he saw the pent-up emotion in her at once.

“Marcia, come upstairs,” said Nesta. “I want to see you. You needn’t go to Mummy yet. She said you weren’t to be worried. Mummy is too delighted for anything. We have put a new dressing gown on her, and she looks so smart, and we’ve tidied up the room.”

“Of course,” said Ethel, “we’ve, tidied up the room.”

“We have,” said Molly, “and we’ve put a white coverlet over the bed, and Mummy looks ever so pleased. She says you’ll read to her for hours and hours.”

“Of course you will, Marcia,” said Nesta. “It does so tire my throat when I read aloud for a long time.”

“And mine!” said Molly.

“And mine!” said Ethel.

“You know Ethel and Molly are out now,” said Nesta. “They’re asked a good deal to tea parties and dances.”

“Yes, we are,” said Molly; “we’re going to a dance to-morrow night.”

“Yes, yes!” said Ethel, skipping about. “I want to show you our dresses.”

“They made them themselves,” said Nesta.

“We did; we did, wasn’t it clever of us?” said the other two, speaking almost in a breath.

“They’re awfully fashionable looking,” went on Nesta – “the dresses I mean.”

Molly giggled in her commonplace way. Ethel did not giggle, but she laughed. Nesta squeezed Marcia’s arm.

“You dear darling, what a tower of strength you are,” she said. “We thought of course you wouldn’t come.”

“We thought you’d be much too selfish,” said Molly.

“Yes, we did truly,” said Ethel.

“We were certain you wouldn’t do it,” said Nesta. “We said: ‘She’ll have to give up, and why should she give up?’ That’s what we said; but Horace said you’d do it, if it was put to you strongly.”

“Put to me strongly?” said Marcia. “Oh, girls, I have had a long, tiring journey, and my head aches. Is this my room? Would you think me frightfully unkind if I asked you for a jug of hot water, and to let me be alone for ten minutes?”

“Oh dear, dear, but don’t you want us three in the room with you? We have such a lot to tell you.”

“Darlings, you shall come in afterwards. I just want ten minutes to rest and to be quiet.”

“Girls, come downstairs at once,” said Horace from below.

The girls hurried off, glancing behind them, nodding to Marcia, kissing their hands to her, giggling, bubbling over with irrepressible mirth. Oh, it did not matter to them; their prison doors were open wide.

“So,” thought Marcia, “they are going to put it all on me in the future, even Horace. Oh, how can I bear it?”

Chapter Two

Share and Share Alike

The next morning Marcia commenced her duties. She had said to herself the night before that the prison doors were closing on her. They were firmly closed the next morning. She saw her stepmother for a few minutes on the night of her arrival. She was a tall, very lanky, tired-looking woman, who was the victim of nerves; her irritability was well-known and dreaded. Marcia had lived with it for some years of her life; the younger girls had been brought up with it, and now, when they were pretty and young, and “coming out,” as Molly expressed it, they were tired of it. The invalid was not dangerously ill. If she would only exert herself she might even get quite well; but Mrs Aldworth had not the least intention of exerting herself. She liked to make the worst of her ailments. As a matter of fact she lived on them; she pondered them over in the dead of night, and in the morning she told whoever her faithful companion might happen to be, what had occurred. She spoke of fresh symptoms during the day, and often sobbed and bemoaned herself, and she rated her companion and made her life a terrible burden. Marcia knew all about it. She thought of it as she lay in bed that first night, and firmly determined to make a strong line.

“I have given up Frankfort,” she thought, “and the pleasures of my school life, and the chance of earning money, and some distinction – for they own that I am the best English mistress they have ever had; I have given up the friendship of those dear girls, and the opera, and the music, and all that I most delight in; but I will not – I vow it – give up all my liberty. It is right, of course, that I, who am not so young as my sisters, should have some of the burden; but they must share it.”

She went downstairs, therefore, to breakfast, resolved to speak her mind. The girls were there, looking very pretty and merry. Nesta said eagerly:

“Molly, you will be able to go to the Chattertons to-day.”

“I mean to,” said Molly. “Ethel, you mustn’t be jealous, but I am coming with you.”

“And she’s got a charming new hat,” said Nesta.

“I know,” said Ethel. “She trimmed it yesterday with some of the ribbon left over from my new ball dress.”

“She’ll wear it,” said Nesta, “and she’ll look as pretty as you, Ethel.”

Ethel shook herself somewhat disdainfully.

“And I’m going to play tennis with Matilda Fortescue,” continued Nesta. “Oh, hurrah! hurrah! Isn’t it nice to have a day of freedom?”

“What do you mean, girls?” said Marcia at that moment.

Her voice had a new quality in it; the girls were arrested in their idle talk.

“What do we mean?” said Nesta, who was far and away the most pert of the sisters. “Why, this is what we mean: Dear old Marcia, the old darling, has come back, and we’re free.”

“I wish to tell you,” said Marcia, “that this is a mistake.”

“What do you mean?” said Molly. “Do you mean to insinuate that you are not our sister, our dear old sister?”

“I mean to assure you,” said Marcia, “that I am your sister, and I have come back to share your work and to help you, but not to take your duties from you.”

“Our duties!” cried Molly, with a laugh. “Why, of course we have heaps of duties – more than we can attend to. We make our own clothes, don’t we, Nesta?”

“And beautifully we do it,” said Nesta. “And don’t we trim our own hats?”

“Yes, I’m not talking about those things. Those are pleasures.”

“Pleasures? But we must be clothed?”

“Yes, dears; but you will understand me when I speak quite plainly. Part of your duty is to try to make your poor mother’s life as happy as you can.”

“But you will do that, darling,” said Nesta, coming close up to her sister and putting her arms round her neck.

Nesta had a very pretty and confiding way, and at another time Marcia would have done what the little girl expected, clasped her to her heart and said that she would do all, and leave her dear little young sister to her gay pleasures. But Marcia on this occasion said nothing of the sort.

“I wish to be absolutely candid,” she said. “I will look after mother every second morning, and every second afternoon. There are four of us altogether, and I will have every day either my morning or my afternoon to myself. I will take her one day from after breakfast until after early dinner, and afterwards on the day that I do that, I shall be quite at liberty to pursue my own way until the following morning. On alternate days, I will go to her after early dinner, and stay with her until she is settled for the night. More I will not do; for I will go out – I will have time to write letters, and to study, and to pursue some of those things which mean the whole of life to me. If you don’t approve of this arrangement, girls, I will go back to Frankfort.”

Marcia’s determined speech, the firm stand she took, the resolute look on her face, absolutely frightened the girls.

“You will go back to Frankfort?” said Nesta, tears trembling in her eyes.

Just at that instant Mr Aldworth and Horace came into the room.

“My dear girls, how nice to see you all four together,” said the father.

“Marcia, I trust you are rested,” said Horace.

“Oh, Horace,” said Nesta, “she has been saying such cruel things.”

“Not at all,” said Marcia. “I am very glad you have come in, father, and I am glad you have come in, Horace. You must listen to me, all of you. I am twenty, and I am my own mistress. My stepmother does not stand in quite the same relation to me as my own mother would have done. She is not as near to me as she is to Ethel, and Molly, and Nesta; but I love her, and am willing, abundantly willing, to take more than my share of nursing her.”

“That’s right, Marcia,” said her father.

“Listen, father. I haven’t said all I mean to say. I will not give the girls absolute liberty at the expense of deserting their mother. I refuse to do so; I have told them that I will look after my stepmother for half of every day, sometimes in the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon; but I will not do more, so Molly or Ethel or Nesta, who is no baby, must share the looking after her with me. You can take this proposal of mine, girls, or leave it. If you take it, well and good; if you leave it I return to Frankfort to-morrow.”

Had a bombshell burst in the midst of that eager, animated group, it could not have caused greater consternation. Marcia, the eldest sister, who had always been somewhat downtrodden, who had always worked very, very hard, who always spared others and toiled herself, had suddenly turned round and dared them to take all her liberty from her.

But even as she spoke her heart sank. It was one thing to resolve and to tell her family so; but quite another thing to get that family to carry out her wishes. Nesta flung herself into her father’s arms and sobbed. Molly and Ethel frowned, and tears rolled down Ethel’s cheeks. But Horace went up to Marcia, and put his hand on her shoulder.

“I do think you are right,” he said. “It is fair enough. The only thing is that you must train them a bit, Marcia, just a bit, for they have not your orderly or sweet and gracious ways.”

“Then you take her part, do you?” cried the younger sisters in tones of different degrees of emotion.

“Yes, I do, and, father, you ought to.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Marcia, who somehow seemed not even to feel Horace’s approval of much moment just then. “I do what I said; I stay here for a month if you accede to my proposal. At the end of a month, if you have broken my wishes, and not taken your proper share of the nursing of your mother, I go back to Frankfort. Mrs Silchester has promised to keep my situation open for me for that time. Now I think you understand.”

Marcia went out of the room: she had obtained at least a moral victory, but how battered, how tired, how worn out she felt.

Chapter Three

Taking Mother

“Now, my dear,” said Mrs Aldworth, when Marcia entered her room, “I really expect to have some comfort. You have such a nice understanding way, Marcia. Oh, my dear, don’t let so much light into the room. How stupid. Do you see how that ray of sunlight will creep up my bed in a few moments and fall on my face. I assure you, Marcia, my nerves are so sensitive that if the sun were even to touch my cheek for an instant, I should have a sort of sunstroke. I endured agonies from Nesta’s carelessness in that way a few days ago.”

“Well, it will be all right now, mother,” said Marcia in a cheerful tone.

She was brave enough; she would take up her burden, what burden she thought it right to carry, with all the strength of her sweet, gracious womanhood.

Mrs Aldworth required a great deal of looking after, and Marcia spent a very busy morning. First of all there was the untidy room to put straight; then there was the invalid to wash and comfort and coddle. Presently she induced Mrs Aldworth to rise from her bed and lie on the sofa.

“It is a great exertion, and I shall suffer terribly afterwards,” said the good woman. “But you always were masterful, Marcia.”

“Well, you see,” said Marcia gently, “if I nurse you at all, I must do it according to my own lights. You are not feverish. The day is lovely, and there is no earthly reason why you should stay in bed.”

“But the exertion, with my weak heart.”

“Oh, mother, let me feel your pulse. Your heart is beating quite steadily.”

“Marcia, I do hope you are not learning to be unfeeling.”

“No,” replied the girl, “I am learning to be sensible.”

“You look so nice. Do sit opposite to me where I can watch your face, and tell me about your school, exactly what you did, what the girls were like; what the head mistress was like, and what the town of Frankfort is like.”

(Four pages missing here.)

“I am sorry, dear.”

“How could we go? Whoever is with mother this afternoon will be too fagged to go. We simply couldn’t go. And to think that this is to go on for ever. It’s more than we can stand.”

“I am waiting to know, not what you can stand, or what you cannot, but which of you will look after mother this afternoon? You won’t have a very hard time; her room is in perfect order, and her meals for the entire day are arranged. You have but to sit with her and chat, and amuse her.”

“We’re none of us fit to go near her, you know that perfectly well,” said Molly.

“Very well,” replied Marcia in a resolute tone. “You all know my firm resolve. You have got to face this thing, girls, and the more cheerfully you do it the better.”

In the end it was Molly who was induced to undertake the unwelcome task. She shrugged her shoulders and prepared to leave the room, her head drooping.

“Come, Molly,” said Marcia, following her. “You mustn’t go to mother in that spirit.”