Two Mistakes

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A BY SYDNEY CHRISTIAN AUTHOR OF "LYDIA," "SARAH, AÆ&RVIVM." LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY, LTD. St. Hunstan's jfyoutt Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. CONTENTS. WORLDLINGS. CHArTER TAGE I. Miss Ray 3 II. Miss Ray's Servant 35 III. Miss Ray's Lover 56 IV. Miss Ray's Servant's Lover ... 73 V. Miss Ray's Exit 107 UNMARRIED. 1 123 II 156 III WORLDLINGS. •^k^ K " For Man's well-being, Faith is properly the one thing needful ; without it, Worldlings puke up their sick existence by suicide in the midst of luxury. All wounds, the crush of long-continued Destitution, the stab of false Friendship, and of false Love, all wounds in thy so genial heart, would have healed again, had not its life-warmth been withdrawn." WORLDLINGS.

Chapter I. Miss Ray

IJfcSWftY dear Sybil, you ought not to I_»jw !> have attempted to live in a flat." SSSSfily* " My dear Kate, a rich woman like you, with an adoring husband and children, cannot judge." " What is the use of an adoring husband who tells me I can have my cousin to live with me, if she will not come ? It simply is not proper for you to live here without a servant." " Kate, I know it. Give me credit for having done my best. I have had ten since May, and this is November." " None of them have been what / should call a servant," returned Mrs. Ferrars, loftily. " Truly, I did not pay them five-and twenty pounds a year, and supply them with a buttons to wait on them. I cannot afford it." " Don't be silly. What are you earn ing?" " A hundred and fifty pounds a year, and this flat costs me thirty." " That leaves you plenty over, I am sure.

It is quite enough to pay for living in this wretched neighbourhood. I wish you would come nearer to us." Sybil Ray fidgeted impatiently. " We have proved that to be impossible so often. Let us talk of something else," she said. " Why don't you marry Daly Fanshaw ?" Because he has not asked me." Will you if he does ? " Why, certainly." " There will be a fine gloomy pair of you," said Mrs. Ferrars, regarding her Ilorldli/igs. 5 handsome cousin curiously ; then she added, " Why do you always wear blue gowns, Sybil ? " " Because I >al\ likes them." " lie is in und out here very often, is he not?" " Yes, very often." "Vou must have a servant at once, declared Mrs. Ferrars. " 1 have got one coming to night." " Now why didn't you tell me before, and relieve my anxiety," cried Mrs. Ferrars, with .i kindly air of scolding.

" 1 forgot," '..u.l Miss U.i\ , tranquilly. "Have you not been nervous these last three nights, sleeping in here by your self? " "Horribly," " Then why did not you lock the door, take ,i hansom, und come over to us?" "1 never thought of it. How stupid of me!" " Vou could not have felt very nervous, or you .simply could not have stayed here," returned Mrs. Ferrars, rising to go, and wrapping her velvet mantle round her. " I lay awake with a lighted candle straight through the first night. The second night I did not go to bed till four o'clock, in order that I might be tired enough to sleep, and last night " " Well ? " demanded Mrs. Ferrars, paus ing with the clasps of her cloak in her two hands, " Well, and last night— ? " " I tired myself out by going to the theatre with Daly Fanshaw." Mrs. Ferrars brought the clasps together with an impatient snap, picked up her muff, arranged her veil over the trim fringe on her forehead, and walked to the door.

" Good-bye, Sybil, you are incorrigible." Sybil jumped up from her chair, smiling sarcastically, and moved to open the door. " Ah, now you are angry, Kate. I knew that would be the last straw. Why do you persist in asking about my doings? Worldlings. 7 I am alone in the world, with just these two roomfuls of beautiful things left me by my poor father, and not a sixpence but what I earn." " I wish you had no furniture, or china, or books. I believe you took this horrid flat just to keep these few possessions in, not for your own pleasure. Furniture has parted friends before now, and many a creature would travel or stay with friends or their relations respectably, if it were not for a sneaking fondness they have for an old table or chair." " I love my own things, I must confess," returned Sybil Ray.

" But the sight of them in their present condition makes me want to rush out and sell them all in stantly." Mrs. Ferrars glanced upwards at a long shelf crammed with china, at prints and etchings on the walls, at one or two marble groups on pedestals ; all were covered with thick dust, and along the shelf lay many broken pieces of china. " The place is in a disgraceful state. All that egg-shell china broken, and that enor mous hole burnt in this pile carpet, and that straggling, dried-up old palm standing in a Sevres plate ; and oh, my dear Sybil, there is that beautiful calf-bound ' Stones of Venice ' under that pot of ferns ! What has your last servant been thinking of?" " Her babies, I expect ; she had two. I let them live in the kitchen. She would not have come to me without them. And I could not get anybody else last month."

" Well, I should be wretched living like this," said Mrs. Ferrars, sighing ; " but you must learn by experience, I suppose. What is your new servant like ? " " I don't know anything about her, except that she is called Elizabeth Appleton." " Sybil ! " " I don't. The pew-opener at the chapel at the corner is sending her. He says she is a treasure, but then they all say that." Worldlings. 9 ' What character have you with her ? " " None. She has not been out be fore." " Why is she going into service now, and how old is she ? " " Twenty-four ; four years younger than I am. A stepmother, I believe, is the reason for her leaving home." " Do send her home directly she comes, and let me send Vassall down to you. I think she would come to oblige me," im plored Mrs. Ferrars in despair. " No, thank you, Kate ; you are very kind, but Vassall is much too grand for me.

It would be cruel, too, to send your excellent housemaid into my grimy Palace of Varie ties. She would not know what to do, and I am out all day. Perhaps now you are not so very surprised I went out with Daly last night." " It is all wrong somehow," said Mrs. Ferrars dolefully ; " I suppose there will be no servants soon, and no chaperons. We shall wait on each other, and girls will be too busy to go to parties, and women too busy to chaperon " "And men too matter-of-fact to miss either one or the other ? Come, cheer up, Kate ; your mission is clearly to float your four nice girls in the world ; mine to earn my own living, and to wrestle with domestics." " And Daly's ? " " To write a little, laugh a little, idle a little, and do many a good turn by the way." " Daly would have made a name for himself by now if he had not inherited a few hundreds a year.

He has become a thorough pessimist. There is nothing like a little private income for spoiling a man's career and character." " Daly is an original, he is not to be judged by any ordinary standard," said Sybil, loftily. " That is another way of saying that he is abominably selfish," returned Mrs. Ferrars, drily. Then, kissing her cousin, Worldlings. 11 she went down the public stone staircase to her carriage. Miss Ray stood still in the middle of her dusty, untidy room. There was a fire, but the ashes of the day before lay piled on the hearth ; the fog had settled on everything ; the curtains at the window were a deep yellow with dirt, smuts covered the papers on her writing table, and three pairs of her muddy, uncleaned boots rested, soles up wards, drying in the fender. There was a vista through the open kitchen door of piles of dirty plates, and a fireless stove covered with greasy saucepans ; on the floor lay a valuable Oriental plate, out of which a fierce black cat was dragging fish bones, while on a padded wicker chair lay a pile of uncleaned knives.

" I suppose I am a very bad manager," she pondered ; " and that Jenny was a regular slattern, a plausible slattern. Stay though, she did not drink, and three of the others did, and she did not steal like poor Meg, and she did not borrow my most valuable books and thumb them like Ada did, or go out in my best hat like Mary Anne. Of course Kate cannot understand ; she can pay for good servants ; the class I can afford to pay are several grades lower than hers. Yet surely some good girl must exist somewhere who would be glad of a quiet, respectable home, and not consider it dull. I am very hungry, but I really will not go out and buy my supper, it is too foggy. Besides, I must look up my lectures for to-morrow. I must make that cold mutton do, or go without. I suppose my new treasure will give me notice in the morning ; I should, if I came into such a filthy kitchen, and found nothing to eat.

How can rich people understand ? I don't blame them. I should not myself have understood a year ago." Then Miss Ray irritably jerked down the blind, lit a lamp, dragged the loaded table nearer the fire, and, sitting down, worked at her lecture. Often she paused to yawn, from sheer hunger and sleepiness. Presently Worldlings. 13 an overpowering smell of smoke and oil caused her to jump up and run into her little bedroom. It was full of black smoke, and smuts eddied in clouds in the air, dis turbed by her opening the door. She had forgotten to look to the stove she had lighted an hour or two ago and evidently had turned up too high. Resignedly she turned out the light, but blacks covered everything ; her footprints showed clear on the blackened carpet, the print of her hand came off on the counterpane as she touched the bed, long-neglected cobwebs suddenly sprang into aggressive notice waving and clinging in sooty festoons all over the ceiling.

" Now she will certainly give notice, very likely before we go to bed," thought Miss Ray, desperately. Then she went back to the sitting-room, leaving the blackened, smelling bed-chamber in darkness. In the foggy street outside a row was going on ; but as there was generally a street row on a foggy night, she was not frightened at the shouts and oaths and screams. Overhead somebody was practising the banjo ; on her own floor a baby was screaming miserably. Sybil Ray suddenly threw down her pen, tossed her lecture on to the floor, and burst into tears. " It's a horrible place, and it is mere sentimental nonsense to talk of these people as 'our equals.' They are not. It is perfectly odious to be poor. I shall sell all my beloved things and go into a board ing-house." Just then her door-bell rang.

She jumped up, drying her eyes with a handkerchief that smelt of lamp-oil. With a disgusted exclamation she threw it into the fire, and went to open her outer door. A thin girl stood there drest in neat black ; she wore a felt hat and a veil, she carried a trim little hand-bag ; she looked with great melancholy eyes at Sybil Ray, and said in a clear, sad voice, " This is a. terrible fog. Does Miss Ray live here ? " Worldlings 15 "Yes, I am Miss Ray. What do you want ? " The girl's full lips parted in a wan smile, showing white teeth. " I am Bess Appleton," she said. " You" gasped Sybil Ray, as she re signedly saw the girl's eyes take in the dirt, discomfort, and disorder visible through the open doors. She led the way into the sitting-room and sat down. The girl stood respectfully in front of her, waiting for her to speak.

" My last servant was very untidy ; you will find everything in a great mess. Are you sure you understood the sort of place you were coming to ? " " Yes, Miss. My aunt told me all about the place." " I cannot afford to give you any help, you will have everything to do yourself," pursued Miss Ray, looking doubtfully at the ladylike figure before her, and noticing the long, curled lashes of her beautiful eyes. " You have been crying," said the girl, suddenly. " I'm not surprised," she went on energetically ; " this place is all in a muck, and I daresay you've had not a bit of supper." There was nothing but sympathy in her tones ; Miss Ray could not be offended. Bess wasted no more words. " Excuse me, Miss," she said, politely ; then, lifting the lamp, she marched away into the kitchen. Miss Ray stared after her in helpless amazement.

The girl went into the bedroom, and finally returned, setting down the lamp again. " Oil, just what I smelt. And I must say, Miss, I never was in such a filthy place ; a real dishonest drabby lot your servants must have been. They ought to have been ashamed to treat a lady's place like this. You can't sleep there ; and excuse me, Miss, but I can't sleep in my room, neither, there's more company there than I'm used to." Worldlings. 17 " What, you don't mean it's as bad as that ? " demanded Miss Ray. Bess sur veyed her with her melancholy gaze. " You are hungry, and nobody has cleaned your boots for three days, and you look as if you needed a good wash, and there is not a drop of hot water ; and I hope you'll ex cuse a cap and apron to-night, I really can't see as it's right to put on white things in this mucky place.

You're busy ; you give lessons, I know. I'm interested in teachers myself; they have a deal to answer for in the moulding of the minds of the young. Mr. Herbert Spencer was a clever gentle man — I suppose you have read his works. But there, we can talk after we are clean. I should say it will take three clear days to get this flat straight." While thus talking, she divested herself of hat and jacket and laid them, with her bag, on a chair by the door ; then she announced : " I'm afraid, Miss, you must put up with me sleeping on the floor in here along with you just for to night. I'll soon make up our beds." c "Anything you like," said Miss Ray, thankfully and obediently. " I am sorry it is so uncomfortable for you." " Never mind, Miss, it ain't your fault. But I do wish I could have a word with the dirty creatures as have been in my room.

There's poor and poor. You are poor, or you would pay me more than eleven pounds a year. I'm poor myself, or I should not take it. So is father, so is aunt ; but there, live-stock in our rooms is what we never have been accustomed to. I see there's a bit of cold mutton, and a nice new loaf and some butter. Will you have your supper, now, Miss ? " " Yes, please," sighed Miss Ray, leaning back in an armchair with a sensation of content. Presently Bess returned with a tray in one hand and the kitchen kettle in the other, which last she placed on the fire. " Sweet and clean, even if you do have an empty inside, is my maxim," she de clared, as she cleared a space on the table, Worldlings. 19 cut a round of bread, and kneeling down on the hearth-rug began to toast it. Miss Ray noted the masses of golden brown hair plaited thickly all over the girl's head, her clean, white collar, and well-fitting dress.

The hand that held the toasting-fork was rosy and strong, but very clean and soft. " I suppose you have not been accustomed to rough work," she remarked. Bess turned her head with a slow, considering move ment which seemed part of her, and answered with an indulgent smile which made her mournful face look the more mournful, " I've done all there was to do, except what's not fit for a female's constitu tion. Mother died when I was fourteen, and I've brought 'em all up, made and mended, washed an' schooled 'em all, nursed 'em through scarlet fever, cleaned our house, papered it, whitewashed it, be sides sewing all that father wanted in the workshop. There's six besides me." " What is your father ? " " A carpenter, Miss. He works for his master. Father's clever, so he often has jobs at 'ome, too, making up ladies' work, footstools, and chairs and suchlike.

Then there's upholstering he does at odd times — that's when I help him on my machine. It don't do to let your hands get too rough, or the skin catches on the wool or the silk, let alone that the sight of hands like a nut meg-grater turns my inside." Here Bess got up from her knees, poured boiling water on the tea, pushed the table close up to Miss Ray, and said persuasively, " Eat that toast while it's hot. I'll be back presently." Then she retired, catching up her outdoor clothes as she went out, and to her dismay Miss Ray heard the outer door close be hind her. It seemed to her as though all the light had suddenly left the room. She discussed her tea in silence, and began to feel warmed and cheered as she devoured the hot toast. After a time the bell rang again. She got up and opened the door to find Bess laden with small parcels.

Worldlings. 21 " I've took the liberty of spending one and sevenpence ha'penny for you, Miss," she announced as she laid the parcels down one by one on the dirty kitchen table, and rapidly rattled off the prices. " You see I must begin early to-morrow, and I saw you ain't got any cleanin' things. Hearthstone a penny, mottled soap fivepence, seven pounds o' soda threepence, black lead a penny, blacking twopence, fire-wood six pence — the boy is coming across with that in a minute, it's too heavy for a female — emery paper three 'a'pence. There ! You can pay me when it's convenient to you." " I am very much obliged. What a number of things one wants to clean with, and I only bought fresh wood two days ago." "What a shame, Miss. Your last took it away with her, I expect. Oh yes, then there's a flannel to wash my floors with.

You must find me a piece. How Mr. George Herbert did respect cleaning, didn't he, Miss ? " " I don't know him," said Sybil Ray, watching Bess rapidly putting the parcels away in the cupboard. " ' Who sweeps a room as for God's laws, Makes that an' the action fine.' " Good gracious, Miss, look at the black beetles ! " Sybil Ray laughed. " I'll send father a postcard to bring me up one o' our beetle traps. I've got two at home, one's quite enough now, they're mostly gone. Father can bring it along with my box on Friday." After this Bess reigned supreme in the flat. When Miss Ray got home the next day towards six o'clock, Bess opened the door in spotless cap and smart parlour maid's apron of a style that would have stood criticism from even Mrs. Ferrars, and a smile in her large, languid eyes.

The kitchen was absolutely glittering with cleanliness, and Miss Ray's tea was spread on the table. Bess began to announce her arrange- Worldlings. 23 ments with smiling, slow satisfaction. " I put you here to sit to-night, Miss. I've done my kitchen an' your bedroom, and black I was an hour ago. Never had that carpet o' yours had a broom come near it this six months, I know. To-morrow I'll do your sitting-room, but it's unsanitary to keep your victuals in a foul place — that's why I did my kitchen first. I've cooked you a vegetarian dish ; too much meat is bad for those as studies much." While her mistress rested in the clean, warm kitchen, Bess went to and fro with books, pens and ink, which she arranged on the other half of the table, and finally said : " If you want nothin' more, I'm going to bed.

I ache all over. Oh, Miss, I hope you won't be cross with me. I went out and found a man to take that crawly mattress away, and there was a pile of bones and fat in that cupboard, smelt awful. I expect she put 'em there to sell, and forgot. A man gave me a halfpenny for the lot." Here Bess laid the coin down before her mistress. " And now the muck is all gone, we shall soon be sweet and clean. I took the liberty of going to your book-case. I wanted something to read in my dinner hour, so I borrowed Mr. Brown ing's Poems. He is a grand man, I think ; some thinks more of Lord Tennyson. I can't say I do." So saying, Bess supplied herself with a jug of hot water from the boiler, filled a stone hot water bottle, and carried it to Miss Ray's bed, then put her head in once more to say good-night, and retired to her bed on the sitting-room floor.

Sybil Ray turned round to the glowing fire, rested her feet on the shining fender, and leisurely sipped her tea. She had no idea of the labour that Bess must have gone through, of the dust and dirt she had fought with single-handed, of the arm-aches caused by rubbing up copper and brass. and of the clearness of brain which had planned the day's work. Worldlings. 25 The room looked clean and comfortable now ; she supposed it was merely a servant's duty. But the girl's personality interested her. She was pretty, and Sybil Ray dis liked to have anything ugly about her. Her acquaintance with books was of course merely a bit of brag, by which she tried to show her mistress how condescending it was of her to serve her for eleven pounds a year. Also she thought Bess had taken rather a liberty to have disposed of any of her property without leave, even though it was only bones and fat, and a mattress full of live-stock.

Somebody slowly coming up the stone stairs caused her to go quickly and open her outer door, even before the bell rang. A man entered and walked languidly into the bright, warm kitchen. He looked around him, and then in her face lazily. " Your new ' Marchioness ' seems to have ideas," he said, as he hung his hat on the kitchen door, and pulled off his rough over coat with white, nervous hands. Then he sat down in the comfortable chair which Miss Ray had risen from, while she drew up a hard kitchen chair and sat down opposite to him. " Yes, she has quite taken me in hand. I think she will be the ' treasure ' one is always looking for, but never finds." Daly Fanshaw leaned back in his chair and smiled gently. " You should not trouble yourself to look for things. I never do. They come to me."

" You are one of the people born to have everything fortunate happen to them," said Sybil Ray, enviously. " Exactly so. I never can make out how the poor devils live who are born with the opposite fate." " Ah, you believe in Fate." He slowly drew out his cigarette case, selected one for himself, and held out the case to her. She shook her head. " Not ? Ah, well, I know I may. That is one of the things I am fortunate in. If Worldlings. 27 you had not allowed me to smoke we could never have been friends. Fate now," he pursued, stretching his feet towards the fire, " do I believe in her ? How unnecessary a question when you know I believe in nothing." "Nonsense," rejoined Sybil, sharply. "You are full of ideals." " Ah, that is so kind of you to invent a conventional little creed for me; it is a sort of protest, I suppose, for having none your self."

" I only wish I had," she replied, staring into the fire. " ' Are there no beggars at your gates ? ' ' Go teach the orphan boy to read,' etc., etc.," he drawled. " I have no enthusiasms," she said, shortly. " Nor I, thank the benign Powers ! " "We have neither of us attained to the age of thirty years. Can it be possible that life has nothing more to offer to us ? " " That depends upon our capacity for being interested," he returned. Sybil Ray began fiercely poking the ashes out of the lower bar of the grate. Daly Fanshaw watched her with a smile of lazy appreciation, and said at last : " Life cannot cease to interest you so long as there exists anything capable of making you look as you do now." " I should not think that it would make the smallest difference to anybody if we both blew our brains out to-night," she surmised, gloomily.

" Not the smallest, I should say." " Well, I can't help thinking that it ought to make a difference to somebody. It is wretched to live and to feel your ceasing to exist would make no difference to any body." " Heroics," he returned ; "feminine heroics, a great waste of tissue." She laughed nervously. " You are more of a Pagan even than I am." " You are a very handsome Pagan," he returned. " You commend your creed." Worldlings. 29 These two had known each other all their lives, but seldom had Daly Fanshaw ex pressed the least opinion to her regarding her personal appearance. Her restless face became almost gentle. " I, too, admire all that is beautiful ; it is my misfortune," she said. " Why so ? " " Because I am poor now, and shall always have to live amongst all that is sordid." He made no answer.

" But come now, suppose we cease this gruesome talk, and you tell me your very latest craze." He threw the end of his cigarette into the fire, clasped his hands behind his head, leant back and answered : " My very latest craze — let me see. This afternoon I took shares in a farm with two other fellows in Nebraska. We are going out in the spring." " We" gasped Sybil, leaning forward, " who ? " " My wife and I, I expect." " Are you going to be married ? " " I am afraid so." He was staring at the fire, with a smile of amusement at his own decision ; he did not see his companion's perturbed countenance. " When ? " she asked. " Ah, that depends upon the lady. I am hoping she will agree to come out with me tolerably early in the year. What a very slightly boring thing it is to talk to you, Sybil," he went on ; " you demand nothing except what I happen to want to give.

Marriage is the only thing you and I have not tried ; I long to share my experiences with you." " Do you ? " she said, in a puzzled voice. " How does the idea of life out in the West strike you ? No conventionalities, no shops, afternoon teas, theatres or crushes, or private views. A change, eh ? " " A relief! a great relief! " she cried. " I am tired of everything here. We are growing more vulgar and more frothy every day ; conversation has degenerated into Worldlings. 31 talk, amusement into sensation, religion into a kind of moral gymnastics, and friendship has ceased to be possible — " She paused. " And friendship," he asked gently, as he fitted the tips of the fingers on each hand together to a nicety, and watched her nar rowly, " has ceased to be possible ? " " Between man and woman," she declared.

" Indeed ? I should have said there had never been an age when it was more possible." " We are not earnest enough," she cried ; " the man or the woman gets burnt — generally the woman. People used to be bound as friends through a fervent belief in some interest common toboth — political, patriotic, religious. Now nobody really cares about anything, except notoriety, perhaps, even cheap notoriety, rather than none ; so a friendship, say such as ours, is cemented by nothing more noble than the discontent common to both of us." " Divine discontent," he murmured softly. She shook her head impatiently. " You and I do not even say clever things in our ' divine discontent,' as you call it. We are mere common grumblers. We are miserable, and we are cynics ; in itself that is unpardonable and unattractive.