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'But, nursie, you don't think Eva is doing what is right, do you?' inquired Vava, who was quite put out at this way of taking what the girl had been half-afraid to tell her, for fear the old woman should refuse to have anything more to do with Eva.
She was to be yet further surprised, for the housekeeper turned on her severely. 'And who am I, to say whether the poor young lady is doing right or wrong? As for what she says about religion, we know she is mistaken; but all you have to do is to refuse to talk about it. I never knew any good come of arguing on such matters, especially amongst young people. You can say a prayer for Miss Eva, and that's all you have to say,' she said, and turned to poke the fire.
Vava was silenced for the moment, and then her irrepressible spirits, which had returned at sight of her old nurse and the new home, burst forth, 'What will you do in summer, nursie? You'll have no fire to poke then, and you won't be able to change the conversation when you want!'
Nurse gave a smile of grim amusement (she rarely laughed) at Vava's shrewdness. 'I think I'll manage it without the poker, Miss Vava,' she declared.
At any rate, though she had not been very sympathetic, and did not seem to think it mattered, or that Eva was worse than any one else (or so Vava imagined), she had set the girl's mind at rest; and as neither nursie nor Stella seemed to think her an undesirable companion, she and Doreen must just invite her to go with them on their expeditions, when, if she chose, Eva could be very amusing, only that lately she had not chosen, or else had been too unhappy; for, in spite of all her talk about enjoying life, she did not look happy.
'All right,' said Doreen, with a shrug of her shoulders when Vava told her. 'I'm sure I don't want to be a Pharisee, and if we've got no poker to turn the conversation, as Mrs. Morrison has, we can use our tongues, and perhaps she's right, and that it would be no good even for her to talk to Eva; she's frightfully obstinate.'
The two Wharton sisters, it will be remembered, shared a large bedroom, which was in the front of the house, and the other two girls had smaller bedrooms at the back; while Mrs. Morrison's was half-way up the stairs, and here Vava always went to say good-night and get her 'evening text' from her old nurse, with whom it had been a practice ever since she had been a little girl to say a text to her, generally one which she had read that evening, to take to bed with her, as the old woman put it.
She had said good-night to the housekeeper, and was going to her own room, when she heard what sounded like a moan from Eva's room as she passed the door. 'Eva!' she cried, 'are you ill?'
There was no answer; but, as it seemed to the listener, a scuffle and a kind of gasp. Vava had a vivid imagination, and her mind jumped to the conclusion that this meant a burglar with whom Eva was struggling. Vava was no coward, and she was a strong athletic girl as well, so she did not hesitate a moment, but opened the door and burst into Eva's room. She stopped in amazement, for there was no burglar; but Eva, her face swollen with crying, was apparently making a survey of all her wardrobe and other possessions, for the bed, chairs, and floor were strewn with clothes, books, and all sorts of things.
'What do you want? Why didn't you knock at the door?' she inquired, looking annoyed and trying to dry her eyes.
'I am very sorry; I thought you were ill, or that there was something the matter,' stammered Vava, who wanted badly to comfort Eva, but did not know how to set about it.
'There's nothing the matter; I'm simply tidying up, and had a fit of the blues. Go to bed and don't say anything about it, there's a good girl,' replied Eva.
'Good-night, Eva. I 'm sorry you've got the blues. Are you sure there is nothing I can do for you?' asked Vava.
'No, nothing. Good-night,' said Eva, shutting and locking the door after her visitor.
Vava went slowly upstairs. The voice in which Eva had said 'nothing' made her feel miserable; but she did not see what she could do, and, even if the latter had not asked her not to say anything about it, she had not met with so much encouragement the last time she had talked about Eva and her concerns as to make her do so again.
After she was gone, Eva threw herself upon the bed, regardless of the piles of clothing already covering it, and gave way to a fit of weeping which seemed to do her good, for she sat up, and with a long sigh began to tidy up, which she had told Vava she was doing, though it certainly had not looked like it. And having put nearly everything away in the wardrobe or chest of drawers, she made up two parcels – one quite small, containing a gold bracelet and watch; and the other a large one, in which she put a very pretty silk frock. Then, with another huge sigh, she went to bed.
The next morning at breakfast Eva's place was vacant.
'Where is Eva? Is she not down?' asked Amy, who was generally the last, and now sat down to take a hurried breakfast.
'No, she has not appeared yet. – You might run and see if she has overslept herself, Vava,' suggested Stella.
'I wish you'd go, Stella,' replied Vava.
Stella did not look at all pleased at Vava's disobligingness; but she was too dignified to argue, and getting up she went herself to Eva's room.
Amy looked with disapproval at Vava, who said, 'Eva did not like it when I went to her room last night.'
'I think she had a headache; she said so when I knocked at her door,' observed Amy.
'She is not in her room!' exclaimed Stella on her return.
Amy got up, looking disturbed. 'I wonder if Mrs. Morrison has seen her?' she remarked, and went to inquire.
'Yes, she's had her breakfast and has gone off to town,' said the old lady.
'Gone to town? It's only a quarter-past eight! Why has she gone so early?' she inquired.
'That I can't tell you,' said Mrs. Morrison.
'I shall come up with you; I do dislike travelling by myself in these morning trains. I can't understand Eva,' Amy said with a sigh.
It did not occur to Amy to ask the housekeeper if Eva had left any message or explanation for her, and so she got none. As a matter of fact, Eva had said as she went out, 'If they ask where I've gone just say I have business in town.'
Mrs. Morrison made no reply, nor did she appear to see the two parcels which Eva tried to hide as she left the house; but when the gate shut behind her Mrs. Morrison looked after her with kindly pity. 'Poor bairn, she'll learn by this bitter lesson,' she said to herself; and yet Eva had made no confidences to her, nor had Mrs. Morrison said anything to the girl about her private affairs. In fact, Vava was inclined to think that the old woman was blind to Eva's faults, for she seemed to pet her even more than the rest.
She would have been confirmed in this opinion if she had been down earlier; for when Eva came into the kitchen and asked in a hurried way if she could have a cup of tea, as she wanted to go earlier to town, instead of saying she ought to have told her the evening before, Mrs. Morrison said pleasantly, 'You can have your breakfast as soon as you like. What train must you catch?'
'The 8.5,' replied Eva.
'Then you have twenty-five minutes to eat a good breakfast, and if you will be so good as to sit by the fire and toast this bread I will have it ready for you in five minutes,' declared the housekeeper.
It was a cold March morning, and Eva looked very chilly, and perhaps it was that which made the kindly Scotchwoman suggest the toast and draw up a chair for her before the bright kitchen fire, for as a matter of fact she generally made it on the toaster.
Eva was only too glad to sit close to the fire and watch the good woman moving so quietly about and yet getting everything so quickly. 'Let me have it here, may I?' she cried impulsively, for the old woman's presence and her motherly attentions soothed the girl.
'If you wish. I doubt if the sitting-room is very warm yet, so I'll put your tray on this table near the fire, and you'll get well-warmed before you go out, and that's the secret of not taking chills,' remarked the old woman as she put a plate of crisp bacon on the tray and a hot roll beside it.
'You are a lovely cook, Mrs. Morrison,' said Eva. 'When I'm rich I'd like you to live with me.'
'If you want to be rich when you are old you must save when you are young. I'm thinking of buying you all money-boxes and putting into them all the money I save for you every week,' she observed, for she was given the housekeeping money every week, on Saturday, and after putting aside for the rent, the rest was left with her to do as she thought best; and on the next Saturday she accounted for it to Stella and Amy, who, she insisted, must go into the accounts and see how it all went, and to their astonishment and delight there was always a small balance, which they left with the housekeeper for emergencies.
'I don't know how you manage to save anything. I couldn't. In fact, I can't live on what I earn. If I don't get a rise I don't know what I am to do,' said Eva.
'But you have more than my young lady, so you told me; if she can live on it, why can't you?' objected the housekeeper.
'Because I am extravagant, I suppose; but I can't, and there's the end of it,' said Eva.
'Nay, my bairn, that's not the end of it; the end of it is a very bad one – debt and dishonesty, for they are the same thing to me – if one does not try to put a better end to it; and, I'm sure, you would not keep in debt, would you? But there, it's no time for such conversation at this hour, when you ought to be eating a good breakfast before going out to earn an honest livelihood. Have a piece more bacon, Miss Eva; it's hot and will keep you going till dinner-time – you've a long morning before you, remember,' urged the housekeeper.
Then she made up a little parcel with Eva's lunch, for she declared it was extravagant to pay sixpence a day for dinner when she could always give them pies or sandwiches to eat at midday, and cook them a nice hot dinner in the evening.
Eva did not say anything, but though she was quiet she looked less miserable than she had done when she came down. That day she did not go to the Enterprise Club, where they ate their cold lunch or had the pies heated if they liked; and when Amy rang her up on the telephone she said she was lunching with a friend. Nor did she come home by the same train as Amy, who even waited for the next, and then gave her up in despair.
'What happened to you, Eva?' asked Stella. Neither Amy nor Vava cared or dared to question her when she did come in, looking very tired and with dark rims round her eyes.
'I missed my train,' she replied, throwing herself into a chair in an attitude of utter exhaustion.
'You must have missed two trains,' said Amy.
'Yes, I did; I saw the second one go out of the station as I came in; the office clock must have been slow,' observed Eva.
'I should not trust to the office clock,' said Stella.
'I thought you said your watch had never lost a minute since you had had it,' remarked Vava.
It seemed an innocent enough remark; but Eva flushed crimson, and said, 'I wish you would not worry me like this. I suppose I can miss my train without all this fuss?' Then she got up and left the room, and they noticed that she had not her wrist-watch on.
No one made any remark upon her conduct, and at dinner they tried to cheer her up by being very cheerful themselves; but the effort proved a vain one. After a rather depressing meal, Eva got up and went to bed, as she said; at all events, she retired to her room. Vava went off to do her lessons with Doreen, and Amy and Stella were left together.
'Stella, what are we to do? We can't let her go on like this!' cried Amy.
'I don't see what we are to do. Of course it is easy to see that something is upsetting her, and I suppose it is the payment for that furniture; but I do not think she is in the mood to be spoken to about it. We must just wait until she says something herself, and be as nice to her as we can meanwhile,' was Stella's advice.
'I am so afraid she will get into more and more trouble; this friend, whoever she is, with whom she lunched to-day has not a good influence upon her. I always notice that she propounds some of her reckless ideas after she has been with her, and I have no doubt it was she who persuaded her to buy that wretched furniture, which is far too large for her room,' said Amy.
'She must buy her own experience, as nursie says; and, by the way, she told me the other day not to worry about Eva, as she would come all right, for her heart was in the right place,' said Stella.
'One consolation is that she is going to her old home for Easter, and I am hoping that seeing her old friends will bring her back to what she was when she came up to town. I am going there too. I know most of her friends, and I am sure they will do her good,' said Amy.
The object of all this solicitude had gone to bed, and was lying there reading a book she did not wish them to see downstairs, which engrossed her so much that she fell asleep over it and left her gas burning all night!
CHAPTER XXII.
DANTE'S IDYLL
'We shall just have a quiet Easter here with nursie, Vava; you won't mind not having sea-breezes now that you have her, will you?' Stella inquired of her sister a week before the Easter holidays began.
They were sitting in the Enterprise Club waiting for Amy, who now had frequently to go home alone, as Eva was often very late, and had told her friend not to wait for her. So, as it only meant getting home half-an-hour later, the sisters had promised to wait for Amy to-day.
All round them were girls talking of their Easter holidays, and every one was going away somewhere, either to the sea or to the country, or to their respective homes, wherever they were.
Stella knew very few of them, and those only to say good-morning to; but they all turned to ask her where she was spending her holidays and how long she had; and when she had told them she had ten days, and meant to spend them at home, they were loud in their expression of surprise.
And Vava too seemed to be depressed at hearing of all these plans for pleasure; though when they asked her if she did not want to go away she immediately answered by saying of course she did not.
One of the girls, with less tact than the others, guessing that it was a matter of expense, remarked, 'I should go away if I were you if only for the day, if you can't afford more. But it really wouldn't cost much; there are lots of places where they take in business girls for as little as ten shillings a week, and it will cost you nearly that at home. I can give you some addresses if you like.'
'No, thank you,' said Stella with stiff politeness, and she was glad that Amy appeared just then, so that she could get out of the club-room, which had never been so distasteful to her before.
'All the same, Stella,' observed Vava, when the three of them were in the train, and although Stella had made no remark upon the subject, 'I should like to go away for the day on Easter Monday. They say Bank Holiday is a horrid day in London, and you can get very cheap tickets to the sea on that day.'
'Go in an excursion train!' cried Stella in accents of dismay.
'You would not like it at all, Vava; it would be ten times worse than stopping in town. Besides, Blackstead is not town, and you will not see many holiday-makers down Heather Road; it will be quieter than an excursion train, with twenty people crowded into one carriage, and then spending the day at a crowded seaside resort,' said Amy.
'Oh well, I think it was only to say I had been somewhere; all the girls at school are going away, even Doreen will be away; but I don't really mind,' said Vava.
And so it was arranged, and the next week was spent in rehearsing a play for Founder's Day.
'Fancy, Stella, I am to be Beatrice in our play; only it is not called Beatrice, but "Beatreechee,"' explained Vava, pronouncing it, as she hoped, in correct Italian fashion.
'What play are you acting – Shakespeare's?' inquired Stella.
'No, Dante's, and the proper Beatrice has got ill, and they have chosen me, partly because I am the same height, and so her clothes will fit me, and partly because they say my face suits, though I don't think I am a bit Italian-looking. Do you think so, Stella?' Vava demanded.
Stella looked at her sister, and then remarked with a smile, 'No, I don't think you are; at least, not the type we call Italian.' But she privately thought the stage-manager had made a very good choice, for Vava had improved in looks since her arrival in London, and would make a handsome Beatrice.
'Miss Briggs says it does not matter, as none of us are Italian, nor look it; but that, as I have a good memory and can learn quickly, I shall be able to learn up her part. It's a lovely part, Stella, though Miss Briggs says it's not historical at all, and that Dante never said anything about talking to Beatrice, and she doesn't believe he ever spoke to her; but that's nonsense. How could any man write pages and pages of poetry about a person he had never spoken to?' demanded Vava.
'Quite well. Imagination goes a long way with poets, and I was just wondering how you were going to act Beatrice. She does not say much in the poem, and then only as a spirit; so you don't want clothes to fit.'
'Ah, but it is all her life before she dies; the play begins at the party where Dante first meets Beatrice,' said Vava, who had the book of words in her hand and was studying it.
'But you, or rather Beatrice, are only nine years old at that party. How are you going to manage that?' demanded Stella, for Vava was a tall girl, and had grown taller and slimmer since she had been in London.
'We can't take any notice of that; you have no imagination, Stella. How can I make myself into a little child in the first act, and then be grown-up in the second?' she asked impatiently.
'Then I think I should not attempt such a play; it is making a parody of Dante's glorious poem,' protested Stella, who had studied Dante with her father, and thought this play presumptuous.
'It's not a parody, and my opinion is that it's better than Dante's,' declared Vava.
Stella laughed outright at this assertion.
But Vava was not crushed. 'You wait and see; it's got some lovely scenes in it, and the stage scenery is beautifully painted by ourselves – at least, in the school by the painting-mistress and the girls. There's the Bridge of the Trinità at Florence, where Dante meets me and makes a beautiful speech, and I have quite a lot to say to him there,' said Vava.
'You ought not to have,' interposed Stella, meaning from a historical point of view.
But Vava – who was 'rehearsing her play' to Stella more for her own benefit than to entertain her sister – was not at all pleased at this criticism, and replied irately, 'If you want to see your old Dante you'd better not come, for we are not going by it at all.'
'So it appears,' observed Stella dryly.
'How could we – horrid, gruesome stuff? Pray, how would you expect us to put on the stage a lake of boiling pitch, with a lot of people in it heads downwards and their legs struggling in the air? And who would come to see it if we did? I wouldn't take part in such a horrid piece! Why, even the reading of it made me feel quite ill,' argued Vava.
'You need not pick out that particular scene; there are beautiful passages in Dante; but I do not think it is suitable for staging, and I can't understand why it has been chosen,' remarked her sister.
'It is called Dante: an Idyll; and, as I said before, you wait and see whether it is not splendid. I must go and rehearse this with Doreen now,' replied Vava.
'Is Doreen to be in the play too?' asked Stella.
'Yes, she's a Florentine painter named Giotto. It's very funny, but her features are just like his in his picture; and there's a Jewish girl in the school with a long face who makes up very well as Dante. Oh you will be astonished when you see our play; we do things in style at our school, I can tell you!'
'Don't boast, Vava; it's very vulgar,' said Stella.
Vava did not answer back as she used to do, but went off to Doreen, whom she found studying her part diligently. 'I'm so glad you've come; it's no use saying this play to one's self. I know the words all right, but it's the coming in at the right place and the pronunciation. I wish, if you didn't mind, you would just say these speeches over first, and let me say them after you, and see if I can pronounce them like you. I would like to speak well, but I can't twist my mouth into shape as you do!' she exclaimed.
'But we don't twist our mouths; that is just what you do that you should not. See, talk like this, Doreen,' explained Vava; and for more than an hour she sat patiently repeating the words and correcting Doreen, who had a quick ear and copied her way of speaking fairly well, until at last Vava said, with a sigh of satisfaction, 'That's all right now, Doreen; you pronounce those words quite nicely, and you say your speeches ever so much better than the other girls; one would think you were a painter yourself, you speak with such feeling of the beautiful pictures you are supposed to be painting.'
'I don't know much about painting, though I like looking at pictures; but I do feel what I am saying, and I think it must have been splendid to have been Dante's friend as Giotto was, and have been inspired by him. No wonder he painted beautiful pictures, and one day I will go and see them all,' announced Doreen.
'I never thought of all that; then I ought to feel more still, because it is I that inspired Dante; but the worst of it is, Doreen, that I don't feel Beatrice at all,' Vava confided to her.
'How do you mean?' demanded Doreen.
'I don't feel as if I could possibly inspire a person like Dante; and, what's more, I don't want to,' she announced in a burst of confidence.
'You wouldn't like to have inspired the most beautiful poem that was ever written?' cried Doreen incredulously.
'No, I wouldn't like to have inspired a vision of such horrors,' maintained Vava stoutly.
Doreen could not help laughing at her tone. 'Then you can't admire some of my pictures,' she suggested.
'I like your little dog,' Vava replied, laughing too. This was an allusion to Giotto's famous sculpture of shepherds with a dog, on his beautiful tower at Florence.
And with this Doreen had to be satisfied.
'And you know, Doreen, they say I inspired him; but in this play I don't say anything very inspiring; it's Dante who has all the say, and utters all the beautiful speeches; I only have to try and look noble, and that's fearfully difficult and frightfully dull,' complained Vava.
'It's not difficult for you to look noble, because you are noble – in character, I mean – and you have a noble face,' declared Doreen.
'Oh Doreen! you horrid flatterer; that is just because you like me. I don't feel at all noble; but don't let's talk about that. Tell me if this is the proper way to move my hands when I am talking; the Italians gesticulate all the time they are talking, it appears. I don't know how they do it, for I have never been in Italy,' said Vava, talking rapidly, to prevent Doreen making any more such embarrassing remarks.
'You must wave them gracefully in the air, one at a time,' said Doreen, suiting the action to the word.
Doreen's action was anything but graceful, and Vava gave a peal of laughter.
'What is the matter?' demanded the former, stopping her windmill movements.
'I beg your pardon, but you did look so funny. I think I had better not pretend to be Italian; I can't move my hands gracefully, and I feel awkward all the time,' she said.
'Luckily I have not to be graceful, and I have a palette and paint-brush in my hands all the time; that gives me some occupation for my hands,' observed Doreen.
'Yes, but I don't believe you ought to point at people with your paint-brush; the Italians are a very polite nation, and I do not think they would do such a thing as that,' commented Vava.
Doreen looked grave. 'But I've got to point, and how am I to point except with my paint-brush, or the palette, which would be worse? I have one in each hand, and I haven't a third hand,' she said, after consideration.