The Fortunes of the Farrells.

by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey.

CHAPTER ONE.

FROM PRETENCE TO REALITY.

"Berengaria, what do you generally do with your old court trains? How do you use them up?"

The fire had died down to a dull red glow; only one tiny flame remained, which, flickering to and fro, showed a wide expanse of floor, and two easy-chairs drawn up before the fender, on which reclined vague, feminine figures. The voice which had asked the question was slow and languid, and breathed a wearied indifference to the world in general, which was more than equalled in the tone of the reply--

"Really, don't you know, I can't say! I put them away, meaning to use them for cloaks or evening-dresses; but I forget, or they get mislaid, or the maid confiscates them for her own purposes. I expect, as a matter of fact, she makes them up into Sunday blouses."

"You spoil that woman, dear! You are so absurdly easy-going that she robs you right and left. Do take my advice, and give her notice at once!"

"I couldn't, darling, even to please you! It bores me so to deal with strangers, and no one else could do my hair like Elsie. If it pleases her to use up a few of my garments, why shouldn't the poor soul have her pleasure like the rest? That reminds me, Lucille--are you going to the d.u.c.h.ess's ball to-night? I suppose it is superfluous to ask, since no entertainment is complete without you nowadays."

"Oh, I suppose so! If I am not too f.a.gged, that is to say. But I have a dinner first, and two At-homes, and people make such a fuss if you don't put in an appearance. One hardly feels up to dancing after struggling through two of the asphyxiating mobs dignified by the name of entertainments; still, I promised Arthur the cotillion, and he will be desolated if I play him false; and I have a new frock for the occasion which is really rather a dream. Silver tissue over satin, and shoulder- straps of diamonds. I had them reset on purpose. I spend quite a fortune on resetting jewels nowadays; but one must be original, or die!"

"My dear, you will be too bewitching! Lord Arthur will be more desperate than ever. My poor little self will be nowhere beside you!

I'm going to be sweet and simple in chiffon and pearls. Paquin made the gown. Don't ask what it cost! I tore up the bill and threw it in the fire. Really, don't you know, it made me quite depressed! So perishable, too! I expect I shall be in rags before the evening is over. But it's quite sweet at present--all frilly-w.i.l.l.ys from top to toe. I do love to be fluffy and feminine, and my pearls really are unique! The princess examined them quite carefully when I met her last winter, and said she had rarely seen finer specimens. I wouldn't wear them at all unless they were good. I cannot endure inferior jewels!"

The speaker lolled still more luxuriously in her chair, then started forward, as the door opened with a bang, and a harsh voice accosted her by name--

"Miss Mollie, your mother wants to know if you have finished darning the socks? She is putting away the clean clothes, and wants to sort them with the rest."

The Lady Lucille--otherwise Mollie Farrell, the penniless daughter of an impoverished house--jumped up from her chair, and clasped her hands in dismay. In blissful contemplation of imagining chiffons and cotillions, the prosaic duties of reality had slipped from her mind, and recollection brought with it a pang of remorse.

"Misery me! I forgot the very existence of the wretched things! Never mind. Tell mother, Annie, that I'll set to work this minute, and put them away myself as soon as they are done. Tell her I'm sorry; tell her I'll be as quick as I possibly can!"

Annie stood for a moment in eloquent silence then shut the door and descended the stairs; while Mollie groped her way across the room, and Berengaria lifted herself from her chair with a sigh, and slipped her hand along the mantelpiece.

"I'll light the gas. How horrid it is, being dragged back to earth by these sordid interruptions! It's always the way--as soon as I begin to forget myself, and enjoy a taste of luxury, back I'm dragged to the same dull old life. I really saw that silver tissue, and felt the coldness of the diamonds against my shoulder; and then--_socks_! Those wretched, thick, ugly socks, with the heels all out, and the toes in rags! I think schoolboys ought to be obliged to darn their own clothes, just to teach them a little care!"

"Well, be aisy; you haven't to darn them, anyway. It's my work, which is the best of reasons why it is left undone. Hurry with the gas, there's a dear. There's no time for conundrums, if I am to finish to- night!"

Another sigh, the striking of a match, and the light sprang up, and showed a tall, girlish figure, clad in a blue serge skirt, and a flannel blouse, faded from repeated washing, and showing signs of a decided shortage of material.

Considered as a costume, it was a painful contrast to the silver and diamonds of the fair Berengaria; but the shabby garments looked their best on Ruth Farrell's slight form, and the face reflected in the strip of mirror above the mantelpiece had a distinct charm of its own. A low brow below ma.s.ses of brown hair; a flush of carmine on the cheeks; soft lips, drooping pathetically at the corners; and--most striking feature of all--thickly marked eyebrows of almost jetty black, stretching in long, straight lines above the grey eyes. A pretty, almost a beautiful face, full of character, full of thought, full of a restless, unsatisfied yearning.

She threw the burnt-out match on to the fire, and turned to survey the room--surely the most motley and curious apartment that could be imagined! The sloping roof proved at a glance the position under the leads, and a peep at the outside of the door would have shown the word "Attica" painted in bold white letters on the top panel.

Attica--or the land of attic--const.i.tuted the boudoirs of the Ladies Berengaria and Lucille, the work-rooms and play-rooms, dens and havens of refuge, of Ruth and Mollie Farrell, and their young stepsisters, Trix and Betty Connor; for it was of generous proportions, measuring a square eight yards or more, and the floor was divided into four equal sections by lines of white paint against the brown of the original staining.

Each sister held an exclusive right to her own domain, and for another to enter therein without special invitation was held as an outrage against decency and good taste.

In the beginning of things, Ruth, as the eldest, had claimed the right of first choice, and, being a young woman who liked her comforts, had instantly and unhesitatingly appropriated the fireside.

Mollie, coming next in order, plumped for the window, it being her sunny habit to look forward to an endless summer; Trix, grumbling vigorously, appropriated the angle made by the blank walls nearest the fire; and poor Betty made her lair in the direct draught of the doorway, and enjoyed a permanent cold in the head from November to March.

A glance at the four corners of the room afforded a very fair idea of the characters of its inhabitants. Ruth's "Fireland" domain had an air of luxury of its own, though the draperies were of simple turkey-red, and the pictures mounted on home-made frames of brown paper. There was a row of shelves against the wall, holding quite a goodly show of volumes, ranged neatly side by side, while a curtained recess at one end contained tea-cups and canister, and a small metal kettle, as scrupulously bright as on the day when it had left the shop.

An old folding-chair had been painted green, and supplied with frilled cushions. There was a sensible little table, holding a hand-machine, and a work-basket--yawning apart, it is true, but neatly strapped to prevent accident; and on the mantelpiece a crowd of photographs, and a few oddments of blue china, all carefully dusted by the owner's hand, and set out with artistic effect.

Last, and crowning luxury of all, a screen stood behind the low chair, manufactured out of a clothes-horse flounced with turkey-red, which was at once the comfort and distraction of Ruth's soul; for while, from her point of view, it was an indispensable comfort, shutting out draughts from window and door, and giving to her little nook the last blessing of privacy, Trix denounced the innovation as the incarnation of selfishness, Betty's teeth chattered with a noise like castanets, and Mollie peered round the corner with her shoulders huddled in a shawl, and her face at once so cheerful, so unreproving, and so bleached with cold, that it was not in human nature to refuse the desired invitation.

Mollie's domain of "Bellevue" comprised the square-shaped window, on the sill of which she cultivated nasturtiums and mignonette in summer, and in the embrasure stood a window-seat covered with blue cloth, that was really the remains of an old winter skirt.

Visitors to "Bellevue" always paused to admire the sprays of flowers which were embroidered here and there on this blue background; and then Mollie "dissembled," as she called it, smiling sweet recognition of the praise, but never once breathing the secret that the whole being and intent of these flowers was to hide the joins beneath.

She also possessed a table and a work-basket; but the former was decidedly ancient and insecure as to legs, while the basket made no pretence of shutting, but looked on unabashed while its contents lay scattered over the rug.

A dressmaker's stand stood in the corner, on which a blouse, more or less complete, was invariably pinned, waiting for the moment when Mollie had time to devote to her favourite occupation. There were no book- shelves, but a litter of magazines behind a cushion on the window-seat, and innumerable photographs were secured to the wall by black-headed pins, to fade slowly but surely into unrecognition in the unbroken glare of light.

Mollie herself pined for curtains to mitigate the draught during the winter months, but the three other inmates of Attica loudly declared that they could not spare a fraction of light, so she gave way smiling, as her custom was. Mollie never grumbled; it was so dull, as she said, and she loved to be gay. An invincible cheeriness of heart carried her gallantly over the quicksands in which Ruth was submerged by reason of her moodiness, and Trix by her quick temper, and made it a physical impossibility to repine over the inevitable.

Fifteen-year-old Trix was in that stage when the Oxford examination seems the end-all and be-all of existence. Her section of Attica was proudly dubbed "The Study," and had its walls covered with maps, cla.s.s lists, and "memos" of great variety. The desk was strewn with papers and exercise-books, and there lingered in the air that indescribable scent of sponge, slate, indiarubber, and freshly sharpened pencils which seem inseparable from youthful study.

Trix confessed to one weakness,--only one!--an overwhelming greed for pencil-boxes and sharpeners, and the contents of the wooden shelf above the desk testified to her indulgence in this craving. "The girls gave them to me!" she used to say when strangers exclaimed at the number of the piled-up boxes, but she blushed even as she spoke, knowing well that to keep sixpence in her pocket and pa.s.s a pencil-box of a new design, was a feat of self-denial beyond imagination.

Dear, chubby, placid Betty was only thirteen, and cared for nothing in the world but her relations, chocolate-creams, and scrambling through the day's cla.s.ses with as little exertion as possible. She shivered in her corner, poor mite, sucking audibly, to the distraction of her elders, the while she skimmed over her lessons, and looked forward to the time when she would be free to devote herself to the hobby of the hour.

Sometimes it was postcards; sometimes it was stamps; sometimes it was penny toys collected from street vendors. It had once soared as high as autographs, and a promising beginning of three signatures were already pasted into the remaining leaves of an exercise-book. Whatever the collection might be, it lived in heaps on the uncarpeted floor; and when Betty had a tidy fit, was covered with a crochet antimaca.s.sar which had known better days, and had grown decidedly mellow in tint.

On this particular afternoon, the two younger sisters were taking tea with school friends, while their elders enjoyed an uninterrupted _tete- a-tete_, when they could indulge in a favourite game. When life was unusually flat and prosaic, when the weather was wet, invitations conspicuous by their absence, and the want of pocket-money particularly poignant, Mollie would cry ardently: "Let's be Berengaria and Lucille!"

and, presto! the two girls were transplanted to another world--a world with the magic letter W added to its address, where empty purses and dyed dresses existed not, and all was joy, jewellery, and junketing.

Lucille had lately become the bride of a millionaire and adoring duke; the peerless Berengaria wrought havoc with the peace of Lord Arthur, and had more suitors than she could count on the fingers of both hands. It was a fascinating make-believe; but, as Ruth plaintively remarked, it did come with somewhat of a shock to be dragged back to earth by--socks!

She stood leaning against the mantelpiece, looking on with frowning brows while her sister collected together scattered materials, and carried them and the yawning basket back to the cosy corner in Fireland, where, for the hour, she was an invited guest.

"Quick's the word and sharp's the action!" cried Mollie cheerily. "Now for a grand old cobble; and if there are any heels out to-day, my fine young gentlemen, don't blame _me_ if you have to tread on knots for the rest of the week! It's the strangest thing on earth that I can remember nice things year after year without an effort, and yet forget this horrid mending every Sat.u.r.day as regularly as the day comes round."

"Carelessness!" replied Ruth shortly, and with the candour of near relations. "I couldn't forget if I tried. First thing when I wake in the morning I think of all the bothersome duties I have to do in the day, and the last thing at night I am thinking of them still. But you are so frivolous, Mollie!"

"And you are so morbid, my dear! You don't offer to help me, I observe; and since you are so conscientious as all that, I should think you might lend me a hand in my extremity. There! I'll give you Ransome's for a treat; he breaks out at the toes, but his heels are intact. It's playwork mending for him compared with the other boys."

She tossed a collection of brown woollen stockings into her sister's lap, and Ruth took them up, frowning heavily with her black brows, but never dreaming of refusing the request, though her own share of the household mending had kept her employed during the earlier part of the afternoon, while Mollie was amusing herself elsewhere. She took a darning-egg out of her basket, threaded a needle daintily, and set to work in the painstaking manner which characterised all her efforts; but she sighed as she worked, and Mollie sang, and that was the difference between them.

"Don't make such a noise, Mollie; you make my head ache. Another time, I wish you would do your mending when I do mine, and then we should get a chance of a rest. Just to-day, too, when the girls are out! I hate a large family, where there is never any privacy or repose. I wish the pater could afford to send the boys to a boarding-school. It would be the making of them, and such a blessing to us."

Mollie pursed her lips disapprovingly.

"I'd miss them horribly. They are naughty, of course, and noisy and tiresome, and make no end of work, but that's the nature of boys; on the other hand, they are full of fun and good-humour, if you take them the right way. And they are affectionate little ruffians, too; and so good- looking. I'm proud of them on Sundays, in their Eton suits."

"But there's only one Sunday, and six long days of shabbiness and patches! Bruce ought to have a new school suit; the one he is wearing has descended from the other two, and is disgracefully shabby. I spoke to mother about it to-day, and she said she had intended to buy one this month, but business was bad, and there was the coal bill to pay. The old story! Business always _is_ bad, and the coal bill is ever with us!"

Mollie crinkled her brows, and for a fraction of a second her face clouded.