The Quiver, 2/ 1900. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
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By Scott Graham, Author of "The Link between Them," Etc.
CHAPTER I.
Dependent upon Charity.
I t was a radiant June morning, and the fashionable watering-place—Beachbourne—was looking its best in the brilliant sunshine. Smart carriages dashed past, well-dressed cyclists careered gaily along, and the High Street shops were thronged with fashionable customers.
A tall, refined-looking girl, whose exquisitely fitting garb lent additional elegance to her graceful figure, came along the pavement, holding by the hand a pretty, fair-haired child of six, likewise beautifully dressed. At a confectioner's window the child suddenly stopped. "Oh, mummy, do buy me one of those dear little chocolate pigs! I haven't had any sweets for ever so long!"
"Don't tease, Doris. I have no money to buy sweets."
The child opened great eyes of wonder.
"Why, mummy, you've got shillings, sovewins, great heaps of them, in your purse! I saw them!" she remonstrated. And, indeed, Mrs. Burnside's dainty, silver-mounted purse was literally bulging with coin.
"They all belong to auntie, and she wants them to pay her bills." And she turned resolutely from the enticing window, whereupon Doris, who was tired with the walk and the heat, burst into loud crying.
As her mortified mother strove to check her, a young man in a professional frock-coat and tall hat, who was passing, turned to see the cause of the uproar. Mrs. Burnside's fair face flushed. "My little girl is very naughty this morning, Dr. Inglis," she said, answering the inquiry in his grey eyes. They were but slightly acquainted, occasionally meeting in society.
"I want—a choc'late pig," wailed Doris. "Mummy won't buy me one—unkind mummy!"
"Hush, Doris," rebuked the young doctor. "A chocolate pig! If that's all the trouble——" and he fingered the few coins in his vest pocket. "May she have one, Mrs. Burnside?"
So Doris got her wish; and, once inside the confectioner's, she fancied so many things that very little remained to Dr. Inglis out of a shilling; and he needed all his shillings badly. But he loved children, and already May Burnside's blue eyes had begun to haunt him, She held out her beautifully gloved hand with a grateful smile; and he noticed how thoroughbred she looked as she went with the now happy Doris down the sunny street.
There was a shadow on the young man's face as he sped home to his scanty luncheon. He was too poor to take a house, so he rented three rooms in a sedate-looking villa in a side street. Doctors simply swarmed at Beachbourne, and sometimes Harold Inglis doubted the wisdom of trying to work up a connection there. The eldest son of an impoverished country squire, he had to depend upon his own exertions; and, after a brilliant college career, came to Beachbourne, hoping to work up a practice, as he was too poor to buy one. Could he have taken a fine house and kept a carriage, he might have succeeded; for he was a gentleman to the backbone, and had a pleasant face and manner. But he remained almost unknown, and, after a year of heart-breaking disappointments, found himself barely able to live.
Before sitting down to the bread and cheese awaiting him in the bare little sitting-room, he thriftily changed his frock-coat for an old boating blazer. Dress was a terribly heavy item in his expenditure; the well-cut clothes, the glossy hat, and the snowy linen prescribed by medical etiquette being only procured at the cost of semi-starvation. To the hungry labourer or vagrant many people will give a meal; but, to my mind, the gentleman who has to go hungry that he may be well-dressed is far more deserving of pity. And many a professional man has to go hungry in these sad days when "all the markets overflow."
Meanwhile May and Doris Burnside were bound for Victoria Square, the most fashionable locality in Beachbourne. Mrs. Burnside resided with her aunt, Miss Waller, a sprightly spinster of fifty, who lived at the very top of her handsome income, and was a leader of local fashion. A smart footman opened the door, and the beautiful drawing-room they entered was a great contrast to Dr. Inglis's bare sitting-room.
"I want a choc'late pig," wailed Doris.—p. 395.
Miss Waller, a good-looking woman with white hair, and very richly dressed, turned round from a fine old Chippendale writing-table. "Oh! there you are." Then, as Doris began some childish babble about the chocolate pig, she added impatiently, "Ring for Mary to take that child upstairs. I wish you wouldn't bring her in here!"
Miss Waller had no love for children; and Doris was too well trained to defy her great-aunt. Still hugging her precious sweets, she was whisked away; whilst the spinster, producing a gilt-edged account-book, methodically entered the sums paid by her niece that morning out of a twenty-pound note. Every halfpenny was accounted for, and when May closed her purse just one solitary sixpence remained in it which she could really call her own. Sometimes she had not even that.
"I've ordered the carriage for three," announced Miss Waller. "We must call on Lady Lee, and the Amberys, and it's Mrs. Edgell's 'at home' day. Put on your grey dress and your new hat."
"Yes, aunt," meekly responded May.
"And to-morrow you must unpick my green dinner-dress. I intend to have it dyed."
"Yes, aunt," repeated Mrs. Burnside, as she went to the door. "Yes, aunt," was what she was obliged to say all day long; to have said "No, aunt," would have been a complete reversal of all the Victoria Square traditions.
To do good by stealth is unfashionable nowadays, and when Miss Waller, to her great disgust, found herself obliged to offer a home to her widowed niece and her child, she took care that all Beachbourne should know and extol her generosity.
"How delightful for Mrs. Burnside to have such a luxurious home!" remarked many people who saw the aunt and niece that afternoon, gorgeously arrayed; for it was known that, but for Miss Waller, May would have been obliged to earn a living. Many a tired governess or poor shop-assistant looked enviously at the pretty girl dashing by in the smart carriage—the pretty girl who was dressed in silk and chiffon, but had only sixpence in her pocket!
The daughter of a struggling country doctor, May had fallen in love at eighteen with a handsome but dissipated assistant of her father's, who persuaded her into a clandestine marriage. She knew Arthur Burnside was far from steady, but it seemed noble and heroic to marry him that she might undertake his reformation. Poor foolish child! she failed to realise that if a man is too weak to stand alone, without some woman to prop him up continually, the chances are that he will bring ruin upon both. May shuddered to recall those four miserable years of ill-treatment, disgrace, and privation, which ended in the death of her husband, and left her absolutely penniless. Her father was dead, his other children were scattered, and, but for Miss Waller, she and Doris might have starved.
Yet, despite the outward prosperity of her new life, she found the bread of dependence so bitter that, but for Doris, she would have tried to earn her living. She was not highly educated, and could only have hoped for a subordinate post; but it was so galling never to have a garment to wear or a coin to spend, save through her aunt's bounty, that she often thought she would be happier as a nurse or parlourmaid. She mixed as an equal with rich and fashionable people, and had to talk as if want of money were absolutely unknown, though she could not even afford to buy her child a few sweets. She dared not ask her aunt for pocket-money, for she well knew that, though Miss Waller supplied her with fashionable clothes, it was only because she could not bear to be disgraced by shabby relations, and she secretly