Wrecked at the Outset

Front matter

WRECKED AT THE OUTSET "Flashes of Romance" Series Uniform with Wrecked at the Outset." Cr. Svo, cloth, price _>s. 6d. THE BLIND ARTIST'S PICTURES. By Nora Vynne, [ziid Edition. "These tales are remarkable for the freshness and originality of the idealism which is displayed in almost all of them." — Spectator. Miss Vynne is a writer who not only has a story to tell, but tells it well." — Review of Reviews. PUTT'S NOTIONS. By Mrs. Charles Hervey. [New Edition. "Such pieces as 'The Gardener's Story' and ' iwjmebody Else's Story,' deserve very high praise indeed." — Western Morning News. ' If this is Mrs. Charles Hervey's first literary effort, we congratulate her on the promise it contains." — Whitehall Reiiiew. WRECKED AT THE OUTSET. By Theo. Gift. London: Jarrold & Sons, 10 & 11, Warwick Lane, E.C. And of All Booksellers.

RECKED AT THE OUTSET By THEO GIFT Author of "Pretty Miss Bellew," "Lil Lorimer," "Victims," "Dishonoured," "An Island Princess," &c., &c. " Like ships that sailed for sunny isles But never came to shore." Thomas K. Hervev LONDON JARROLD AND SONS WARWICK LANE E.C. CONTENTS. TAGS Left Outside ... ... ... . , 9 The Disappearance of Mrs. Houghton ... ... 91 A Young Person ._ ... ... ... LEFT OUTSIDE THE OUTSET. LEFT OUTSIDE.

Chapter I. Ayouxg

lady and a little girl were sitting on a bench in Kensington Gardens. It was one of those perfect days in early June, when we Londoners are wont to say with enthusiasm, " How lovely it must be in the country ! " but when our inner consciousness tells us at the same time that, while it is so lovely in town, we have no wish to go to the country, or anywhere else. The May was over, of course, and so were the horse-chestnuts and the rhododendrons, save for an occasional coronet of deep crimson or palest pink crowning some spray among the dark-green masses of the last-named shrubs ; but to make amends for this, there was such a wealth of verdure there, of still unsullied emerald grass below, and fluttering, I LIE OUTSET. 10 tender, vivid green above, here massed together in richly solid luxuriance, there tossed high in the air like a fairy plume, there again swaying softly downwards in long, feathery lines, whose shifting shadows swept the grass beneath, that one scarcely missed the spring blossoms, and was content for the most part to think that a world made up of such green and blue, such trees and grass, such turquoise sky and sapphire water could not have anything very serious wanting to it.

For the rest, the people scattered here and there along the walks, and more especially the shoals of children dotted about everywhere in their bright summer garments, and encircling the Round Pond like a wreath of living flowers, quite made up the com plement of warm colouring desirable under a sunshine as cloudless and glowing as that of an Italian sky. Perhaps there was a little too much of sunshine and colour altogether where the young lady was sitting, for though the bench itself was under the shade of a broad-spreading chestnut, it faced the dancing, sparkling circle of water about which the children were gathered, with the wide ring of bare, sun-scorched ground around it, and the red roof of Kensington Palace winking in the sunshine beyond ; but the smaller maiden wished to see the water and the ducks, and therefore it was necessary for the elder one, not only to keep near them, but to turn her face in that direction, lest LEFT OUTSIDE. 11 her little charge should run off to the water, or get into other mischief without her knowledge.

It was a very young face, not telling at all that it had seen one-and-twenty summers already ; but that was owing to the almost infantile softness and purity of its outlines, the slightly parted lips, and innocent and limpid eyes. It was grave enough for thirty — wearing, indeed, that settled gravity which looks so pathetic on a young face — and was not by any means beautiful, the eyes being simply grey, with no hint of blue in them ; the nose too short and straight ; the hair a dull light brown, drawn plainly back with no attempt at fringe ; and the complexion so devoid of colour as to give you the impression of a plant which has been reared altogether in the dark. Yet it must have known sunshine somewhere or at some time of its budding, for if she laughed — which was very rarely — or if anything startled her, there came into her cheeks such a sudden rush of exquisite rose-colour as made her for the moment almost beautiful ; but it was gone again almost as suddenly ; and then she looked once more a plain, pasty-faced girl, just the sort of " young person " to be taking care of the white-frocked, black-stockinged little girl with the big sailor-hat, the crinkly mane of very bright red hair, and immaculate white silk gloves, who was no sooner seated on the bench beside her than she wriggled off it again, and rushed away, flinging a bright-coloured ball before her with shrill shrieks of laughter.

Her favourite game seemed to be to throw it into a clump of shrubs at a little distance, and then call out in her shrill child's voice : " My ball's gone among the bushes, Miss Lane. Please get it out." On which the young lady (for the title " Miss " conceded her that dignity, though there was nothing in her cheap, simply-made gown of grey gingham, her plain black jacket and bonnet, and thread gloves to show that she was the child's governess, and not her nurse) got up obediently, and going to the bushes, poked and burrowed among them with her umbrella till she got the ball out. This had already occurred six times. Now the cry was raised again, and she was just about to rise as usual, when another voice, with a certain sharp ness of intonation in it which gave it a peculiar though not unpleasant accent, exclaimed : " I do declare that child's real ugly !

Why in wonder do you mind her ? " Susan Lane turned round with a start sudden enough to bring the pretty rush of colour afore mentioned into her face. Perhaps it was that which took the speaker's fancy. She was seated on the other side of the bench — a girl about Susie's age, and also wearing a grey gown, but such a girl and such a gown as seemed to be removed from Susie by a whole antipodes of quality and circum stances. She had a very pretty face, wanting, certainly, in the purely oval shape and soft outlines LEFT OUTSLDE. 13 of the young governess's, but all the more piquante and brilliant by comparison, with a delicate, sharply cut little nose ; a rosy Cupid's mouth ; a little pointed chin, so determined to come forward into the world that, for its sake alone, no one could have dared to overlook the owner ; eyes more blue than grey ; hair more golden than fair, drawn up high on the neck behind, and curled in an elaborate fringe in front ; and a complexion so dazzingly pure in its pale roses and lilies as not at all to need the slight nuance of powder with which she had thought proper to adorn it.

Her gown, too, though grey, as I have said, like the other's, was such a one as no English fingers ever made or conceived — a cobweb-coloured crepe, trimmed with ruffles of grey lace, and looped up a little at one side with knots of satin ribbon over a petticoat of flowered salmon-coloured silk. The bodice was made of the silk like a little jacket, ruffled round with lace, and opening over a blouse of the crepe, with sleeves puffed to the elbow, terminating in long grey kid-gloves, whilst on her head she wore a broad, fantastically-shaped hat of grey straw, adorned with salmon-coloured plumes, and on her feet, which were scarcely bigger than a child's, a pair of marvellous boots, with little embroidered tabs over stockings of salmon-coloured silk, and heels so high and pointed that the marvel was that she should be able to balance herself on them for a moment.

I am afraid that those boots alone would have condemned her among nine out of ten even of the male members of London society, and would have prompted any well-brought-up young woman, with even a grain of knowledge of this wicked world, to rise from the bench and withdraw herself as speedily as might be from the siren possessing them. But in the first place Susan Lane, reared in a quiet country village, and transplanted thence to the dullest of London schoolrooms, had even less knowledge of the " monde-mondaine " about her than her shrill little taskmaster with the ball ; and in the second, those innocent grey eyes of hers, with their wide-open, liquid glance, were sufficiently short-sighted not to take in the boots at all, and only received an impression of a bright, lovely face, and a costume so gorgeous, and yet so unlike any thing that the most gorgeously-appointed English girl is in the habit of wearing at eleven o'clock in the morning, less that she instinctively connected it with the peculiar accent of the speaker, and set her down as " foreign " ; in which innocence — not for the first time — hit the mark more truly than wisdom would have done.

" I — I beg your pardon ! Were you speaking to me ? " she said, with the little nervous smile of a very shy person. The other girl smiled too, not shyly, but good-humouredly. " Well, I was. I said I wondered you let that child tease you so. That is the seventh time she has done the same thing. You must be real good to stand it. I should have been mad with her long ago." " Oh, she is not bad enough for that," said Susie, smiling a little more easily because of the exaggerated phrase. " Children are always rather troublesome, you know, and — and I am only here to amuse and take care of her." " Well, I should quit," said the gaily-dressed girl briskly. " I am not fond of children, and I would rather help, if I had to, with anything else than nurse-work. I guess you are not so strong as I am, either.

You don't look it." " Thank you, I am quite strong, and — and I am not little Flo's nurse. I am her governess," Susan said, with just sufficient touch of dignity to bring a faint shade of colour to her soft cheeks. She had not much to be dignified about, poor little girl ! Yet to be taken for a servant — though, indeed, how much better off was she ? — hurt and mortified her. She was startled, however, to see the other's vivid blush and quickly outstretched hand. " Well, I do beg your pardon," she said cordially. " I hadn't the least thought of offending you, though I did take you for the nurse-girl, and that is the truth. You see I knew you were a real lady the moment I heard you speak, and that was why I felt so bad for you. I should not have cared else ; but I know ladies do go out to help, and " " I know they do," said Susie.

It was quite impossible for her not to feel cordially towards this warm-hearted girl — she who got so little kindness from anyone. Why, it was the most delightfully rare experience even to feel the clasp of those slender, grey-gloved fingers ; and then the stranger's quick, impetuous speech, and odd lingual lapses, unusual, to say the least, in young ladies of the upper ten, as Susan imagined them, gave the latter a feeling of being quite old by comparison, and took away some of that sense of mental and cultural inferiority which generally oppressed her in the presence of others. There was a pathetic glistening in those short-sighted grey eyes of hers as she surrendered her soft, shapely, bare hand, with its needle-pricked forefinger (for she had taken off her gloves when she sat down) to the other girl's kindly pressure, and added : " I am not at all offended, and indeed, when I said I was a governess, I think — that is, I meant that I was engaged as one ; but I daresay I should only be called a lady-help in some houses ; for though little Flo has a nurse as well, there are four other children, and I do nearly everything for her — make her clothes and mend them, and see to her hair and — and all that."

Poor Susan was blushing terribly. It seemed to her now that she had made herself supremely ridiculous by her precious boast ; but all the same the necessity for entire honesty at all costs was too imperious within her to be silenced, and at this moment little Flo herself interrupted the discourse. " Miss Lane," she said, coming closer and lifting a small, pale, freckled face, on which righteous indignation was written in a hundred little vertical lines, to her teacher, " I said my ball was in those bushes, and you won't get it for me." " I am going to get it, Flo," said Susan, "but I was speaking to this lady, and — and you should try to keep it out of the bushes, dear." Flo turned round instantly, and stared hard at the lady. She did not speak for a moment, during which her small, sharp eyes were taking in every detail of the latter's magnificence, and then delivered herself of the abruptly childish speech : "You're not a friend of Miss Lane's, I know.

Are you one of my mamma's visitors ? " " I am not," said the young lady briskly, " and what's more I don't want to be. I shouldn't care for visiting any house that had in it such a down right ugly little girl as you." " Oh, don't, pray ! " broke from Susan in a tone of distress as real as if the epithet had been applied to her ; " It — it isn't kind, and indeed I think — I mean many people think — that she is quite — not that it matters though, Flo," turning to the child with sudden remembrance of what it was right to say on such occasions, " for people like little girls because they're good, not because they're pretty. That doesn't matter at all, really ; but " U The other girl burst out laughing. " Do tell ! " she exclaimed ; " if I'm not offend ing you again, and I didn't mean that sort of ' ugly ' at all. 1 forgot how you English use the word.

When we say ' ugly,' we mean ugly mannered and ugly-tempered ; and a child might have the cunningest little face in creation, but I wouldn't care a butter-nut for her if she was mean enough to make her teacher go burrowing under those bushes half-a-dozen times in a minute, and never even say, ' Thank you.' " " I shall tell my mamma if you say I'm mean and ugly," said Flo, whose vanity had a vindictive sentiment in it. " And she says Miss Lane is to play with me. You know you are to," she added, frowning on Susie, who was, however, given no time to answer. " And I know," put in her pretty champion, " that if you tease teacher, and tell tales, I shan't feel like giving you any candies. Say now," holding up a tin)' velvet bag, " who's going to sit still, like a good child, and have a lovely time eating the nice things I've got here, while poor teacher gets a rest ?

" Flo hastened to declare that she was the child in question, the greed of seven-years-old proving too much for the more precocious pangs of wounded pride ; and though Susie remonstrated very honestly, her opposition received no attention, the stranger only laughing as she emptied a handful of bonbons into Flo's lap, and observed : t; I guess they won't hurt her. Calton — that's my brother — says they're the best sort, real whole some ; and he buys them for me himself at Duclos'. You know his store, don't you ? It's a mean kind of one to look at, but I will say the things there are most as good as any you get in Paris ; don't you think so ? " " I — I don't know," said Susie shyly, " I have never been in Paris, and — and I don't know Du — - the stores you speak of either. I never go any where in London but here, and now and then to the Grove — Westbourne Grove, I mean — when I am wanted to do any shopping."

The stranger's blue eyes opened in very genuine astonishment. " Nowhere but to two places ! " she repeated blankly. " Oh, and to church. I go to church every Sunday morning, and sometimes with the boys of an afternoon too," said Susie, correcting herself. The wonder in the blue eyes did not lessen. " Only that ! Don't you go anywhere else, ever?" then as the young governess shook her head, smiling a little : " but perhaps you've not been located here time enough to see about you yet. We came to London six weeks ago, and I haven't seen half I want to by now ; but that's the worst of having a brother who has been every where, and knows everything. He's real good to me, I will own, and takes me out somewhere most every night ; but it's all an old story to him, and he don't like me to look round or ask questions.

He says it isn't English. He's fearfully particular about that ; and of course when you've only one brother you must fix yourself out to please him. I guess now you wouldn't have surmised I wasn't English ? " she added with a delightful little laugh so expressive of perfect confidence in the nature of Susie's answer that, candid as the latter was, she lacked brutality to give it. Fortunately her companion did not wait for a reply. "Well, I'm not!" she said, triumphing in the surprise; "and what's more, though scarcely any of our acquaintances here will allow it's possible, I only came to England this May. I'm American" (she called it " Amurri can," but that is a detail. I am not reproducing this young lady's pronunciation), "and till mother concluded last fall to come over and look after Calton, I hadn't a thought of visiting Europe till I was married.

Mother's been always so taken up with Lucretia, my married sister, that I've never stayed home much since I came out. I used to live half my time with an uncle in New England, and the other half with an aunt out West. Calton said it wasn't fair, and wanted father to send me to the Sacre Cceur to be finished; but I told him I must keep Paris" (and here again I am tempted to mention that she always called that city " Parris ") " for my wedding- LEFT OUTSLPE. 21 trip. I've done it now, however, so I shall have to keep Rome for that. We've not been there yet. We went to Paris first half of the winter, and then to Florence ; but mother got sick there, it was so cold ; so we went to Cannes instead, and back to Paris for Easter before coming here. Cannes is the loveliest place, and we had the loveliest time imaginable.

Were you ever there before you came to London ? " " At — Cannes ? Oh, no," said Susie, whose geographical excursions with Flo had as yet been of such a limited nature that she had been com pelled to make a pause for mental survey of the map of France before answering. " I never went anywhere much before I came to town. We lived in the country, and except when my father took me in his gig But I have been in London four years now. I am not a new comer like you," she added, breaking off with the slight blush of one fearful of chattering too much on her own affairs. The American girl looked at her pityingly. " Four years in one city, and never been any where but to church and shop, and these gardens ! It don't seem believable. Don't you even go and see your friends ? " Susie's smile was a little sad.

" I have none — here, and if I had, I should have no time. Little Flo and the boys want me in the da)'." " Not all day ? " " Oh, yes ; there is always something to do." " Well, I do feel bad for you ; but couldn't you go out evenings ? You have them, haven't you ? " " No — oh, I don't think Mrs. Farquharson would like that," said Susie, blushing and hesitating ; " indeed, I never even thought of it myself, and as I have no friends But it is kind of you to feel sorry for me," she added, smiling a little, and lifting her eyes gratefully to her energetic companion. The latter was looking really shocked. " Do tell ! " she exclaimed again. " How can you make out to endure such a life ? But what do you do, then, at all ? " "Of an evening? Oh, my own mending or any other needlework, and sometimes I write letters home, or try to study a little to improve myself.

Oh, and when Mr. Farquharson is out, so that the piano can't be an annoyance, I practise. I am always glad to do that, and one doesn't want to sit up late when one is tired," said Susie smiling again. " I'm tired," Flo broke in suddenly. "I haven't got any more sweets, and I don't want to play, and I've got an ache in my stomach, and I want to go home now." Miss Lane rose at once in evident concern. "An ache in your— — Oh, Flo, I'm sorry, dear. I hope you have not eaten too many sweets. We'll go home at once," she said compunctiously ; but the American girl had already slid off her side of the seat and pounced on the small maiden in a half-coaxing, half-threatening manner, so merry and pretty, that the young damsel was too fascinated by it to be offended. " Come now, I guess that's all a mistake," she said, stooping her plumed hat and laughing eyes to the level of the little fretful face.

" You ain't sick a bit. Say now, are you ? For if you are, you'll never be let have another candy as long's you live ; and I was just fixing to bring you some — real nice ones too — next time I come here ; but if they make you sick " " They don't make me sick," said Flo promptly. " Will you weally bring me some more to morrow ? " " I will so," replied the young lady ; then, turning to Susie : " We are staying at the Hyde Park Hotel for a spell, and I come here most every morning when it's fine and I've nothing to do ; so we are bound to meet again. I hope so, anyway. Good-bye." " Good-bye — thank you," said Susie. If she had only not been so shy she would have liked to add something else — to say how she should look forward to another meeting between them, and express something of the pleasure this one had given her.

She thought of quite a number of things she might have said, as holding little Flo's hand in hers she made her way along the sunshiny, gritty paths in the direction of the Queen's Road Gate ; but she had been too shy, or her English reserve had been too much for her. She had very little expectation of ever seeing the brilliant stranger again.

Chapter II. There

is no denying that the life of a nursery-governess in a fashionable London household is generally of a somewhat monotonous and unex citing character ; so that I am not going to try to make it appear that that of Susan Lane was in anyway remarkably so. Some of her friends, indeed, thought it a very fortunate one, and perhaps they were right. The eldest daughter of a country surgeon, whose death had left his wife and family very badly off, she was considered exceptionally lucky in being taken at seventeen as companion by an elderly invalid iady, an old patient of her father's, and living within a mile or two of her home ; and Susie herself, though shedding many tears at parting for the first time in her life from mother and " the children," had rejoiced at being still within reach of them, and able to add to their comfort by the contribution of more than half of her small salary.

But the old lady, not taking to Dr. Lane's successor, removed to London very shortly after wards so as to be near some fashionable physician whose fame had reached her ; and under his assiduous care she grew so rapidly worse that Susie's twenty pounds soon became the hardest earned wages that ever girl received. She was patient and willing, most gentle of voice and touch, and with a temper so impossible of ruffling, that even jealous ladies'-maids and imperious cooks gave up the attempt in despair, and merely walked roughshod over her without attempting to embitter the performance by any undue aggravations. Her employer, too, was really fond of her ; but as her liking showed itself by letting no one else read aloud to her by da)r, sit up with her at night, or give her her food and medicine at all times, Susie's post proved no sinecure ; and the almost constant confinement to two hot rooms, from which every breath of outer air was jealously excluded, the disturbed nights and unvaried society of a feeble, querulous invalid, so told on her young health and strength, that only a very little while before the old lady's death she broke down herself, and had to be sent home to recruit.

It was a pity, for her employer only lived a few weeks longer, and, perhaps — who knows ? — if Susie had been with her to the end, might have remembered an oft-repeated promise, to leave the girl something at her death. As it was Susie got her salary paid to the day, and nothing more ; not even TILE OUTSET. a message in acknowledgment of her eighteen months of willing care and nursing, while at home she found several changes in prospect. An uncle in Canada had sent for her brother, offering to adopt him out there, and her mother was about to be married again to the vicar of the parish in which she had made her home since her widowhood. He, too, had been married before, had one son, and was by no means a rich man ; so, perhaps, he was justified in thinking that he did as much as could be expected of him when, for the sake of the pretty, plaintive-eyed little widow, he took upon him the burden of her two younger children, and bestirred himself to find a fresh situation for the elder girl, who had already proved herself capable of earning a living for herself.

Susie fully agreed with him. Why should she not work ? It was all quite just and fair, and she felt thankful to her future stepfather when, after staying at home barely two months to recruit her shattered health, he told her one day that he had found her a situation as nursery-governess to the children of a Mrs. Farquharson, in London. The lady had written that she did not require any severe accomplishments, her children being very young, but rather someone who would be patient, gentle, and energetic, moreover "a lady" (underlined), so as to require no vulgar supervision as to her own conduct ; and fond of exercise, as the little girl, being very delicate, required to be kept in the open air a great deal and amused, instead of having her mind forced by many lessons. Mrs. Lane declared with tears of gratitude that the place seemed made for dear Susie, and to the girl herself it sounded very pleasant.

Easy lessons, plenty of fresh air and exercise, and the merry prattle of children were just what would do her good after the close, stived-up rooms and wearisome invalid in her last situation ; and she looked forward to this with cheerful gratitude for having obtained it. She had held it now for more than two years, and though it had not turned out quite the paradise she expected, she was sufficiently exempt from any active ill-treatment or misery in it to have never once thought of leaving it. Mr. Farquharson was a stockbroker living in Clanricarde Gardens, and his wife, a very gay and fashionable person, not quite so well off in reality as she liked to appear to the world she lived in, and, therefore, more inclined to save in those necessary household matters which did not show than in the merely ornamental ones which did.