The Two Henriettas

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THE TWO HENRIETTAS " I am trying to get a good start and make myself independent. Perhaps y> u are on the same errand?'" — Page 102. THE TWO HENRIETTAS BY EMMA MARSHALL AUTHOR OF " EACLEHURST TOWERS," " FINE GOLD," ETC. ETC. " If thou bast yesterday thy duty done, And thereby cleared firm sooting sor to-day, Whatever clouds make dark to-morrow's sun, Thou shalt not miss thy solitary way." LONDON S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO. 8 & 9 PATERNOSTER ROW CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. CHANGES ....... 7 II. REPARATION . . . . . 1 8 III. GOODBYES 31 IV. THE ARRIVAL 41 V. THE CONTRAST __2 VI. DETERMINATION 63 VII. MARY . . . . . . -72 VIII. PROMISES ....... 80 IK. INTERVIEWS ...... 89 X. HOPE SPRINGS UP . . . . IOO XI A MEETING Ill XII. CONFIDENCES . . . . . . 120 XIII. EVENING WORK ..... 132 XIV. WORDS IN SEASON .....

I43 XV. REWARDED LABOUR 1 53 XVI. ANOTHER CONSULTATION .... 162 XVII. HUGH KINGSBURY 1 73 XVIII. TANGLES 1 85 XIX. IN MITRE COURT . . . . -194 v VI CONTENTS CHAP. PACE XX. THE FIRST REVIEWS .... 205 XXI. A GRUMBLING-BLOCK . . . . 2l6 XXII. OUT IN THE STORM .... 225 XXIII. HOME-COMING ..... 235 XXIV. A SUMMONS ...... 245 XXV. A MEETING ...... 253 XXVI. THE LINE OF DUTY . . . . 265 XXVII. CAPTAIN LANGLEY ..... 274 XXVIII. QUESTIONS 288 XXIX. YES 297 XXX. TWO HOMES . . . . . -314

Chapter I Changes

" Henrietta — Etta ! " The feeble voice came from a sofa in a little homely parlour on the Devonshire moors, where a sick man lay. "Yes, father!" " I am dying, Henrietta, and I want to talk to you while I can." " I think you have been stronger for the last two days," Etta said, with that desperate desire we all know, to blind herself to her father's critical state. " No ; and if I have, it is only the nicker of the flame before it goes out for ever. Come and sit near me, child, and listen to what I have to say. I have prepared a telegram ; you will find it in my desk ; it must be sent as soon I am dead. It will bring a man here who will tell you what you and little Daisy have to live upon. It will be scarcely enough to keep soul and body together. You know why I came here to this cottage, far away from any peering or inquisitive people ?

You know why, Etta ? " "I know you have lost all your money," Etta said quickly. " But do not distress your self, father. I shall be able to get on. I have a little gift, you know, of writing, thanks to you, and I shall be able to earn money for myself and Daisy ; and dear old Burton will never leave us." "How can three people do anything but starve on twenty pounds a year ? " the poor man said irritably. "No, we won't starve, father. Do not look so sad ; trust to me." " My child, my dear, good child ! You know nothing of the world. You don't know what you are saying. But listen ! if you take Hugh Kingsbury in the right way, he will stand your friend. He is a diamond, though a rough one. Be sure to take him in the right way," he repeated. " Then there is the owner of this furnished cottage.

The rent is due — has been due for three quarters. Oh, it is a miserable thing for a man to leave two helpless CHANGES 9 children to the cold world unprovided for. I have had a sad life, Henrietta — far sadder than you know, or ever will know." " Dear father, I wish I could have made you happier. I — I have tried." " You have been a dear, good little daughter to me, Henrietta ; would that I had been a better father to you. Hugh Kingsbury is to be trusted ; don't be thrown back by his rough manner. I have a small case of your poor mother's trinkets saved from the wreck. You may make a little by selling them, though I never could make up my mind to part with them. There is literally nothing else — nothing else," he repeated, as his head fell back on the cushion of the sofa, and Henrietta hastened to give him the medicine left for him by the doctor, who came on his rounds once a week in his high gig, which was a travelling dispensary, filled with every variety of pills and potions.

Henrietta smoothed back the thick grey hair from her father's forehead, and kissing it, said gently, " Do not be afraid for me and Daisy, father. God will take care of us." As she said this the door was opened with a sudden burst, and a child of eleven or twelve came dancing into the room. " Etta," she called out in a ringing voice. Henrietta held up her hand and said, " Hush, Daisy." The child paused on her way to the sofa, her long golden hair shining in the western sunlight. " Is he worse ? " she said ; " is daddy worse ? Oh, daddy dear, kiss me, please." " Stoop down and kiss him, Daisy, gently, and then go away." " I want to eo to the Rock Farm to tea. Mrs. Borett is in the cart at the back-door. Burton says I mustn't. Do let me go, Etta ? " "Yes, yes, run away;" for Henrietta saw that her father was too much exhausted to speak.

The child did as she was told, and shut the door gently as she left the room. Then Henrietta was left to her own thoughts. She sat quietly by her father's side, with a heap of manuscript on her knee. Now and again she turned over the leaves gently for fear of disturbing him, and read a few lines here and there. " I think it is in me to write," she said to herself. " I believe I shall be able to earn money by my pen. All the newspapers and CHANGES 11 magazines want fresh writers ; why should I be unable to get work? There is Daisy to think of. I must try to educate her, but she will be hard to manage • it is all I can do. I have no proficiency in music, and no artistic powers, and no certificate, and no Higher Education. They always put these things as necessary in advertisements. It is no use my answering them — no use at all.

And yet — I must work ; I must try to get work." Poor child ! she was scarcely nineteen, and, as her father said, "ignorant of the world and its ways." Henrietta Brightwin had been entirely out of the way of "society" and " society novels." Her father had been a man of culture in his time, and he had taught her to read French and German, and her style had been formed on the model of English classics. Old-fashioned books, as they are called now — Scott's novels, Cowper's Letters, Lockhart's Life of his father-in-law, old copies of the Spectator, and Jane Austen's novels, had all been saved from the wreck of his once extensive library for her sake. Thus, a good foundation had been laid, and, equipped with what she had learned from these and other standard works, Henrietta was really more fitted to try her fortune in the overcrowded field of literature and journalism than many girls of the time — girls who, alas ! are up-to-date in the bad and demoralising books which are poured out in a flood every year, treating of subjects in a light and frivolous manner, which are unfit for the eyes and lips of any pure-minded woman, and are the poisonous food on which so many feed, to the lasting injury of their minds and de struction of all the higher and nobler aims of womanhood.

A few days later and all was over. The long illness, the breaking down of every power of mind and body, had ended, and Henrietta and Daisy Brightwin had seen their father laid to rest in the solitary churchyard on the moor, where the winds of heaven moaned in the lone grass which grew unheeded above the graves — graves often with no stone to record who were lying there, or if with stones, they were so overgrown with moss and lichen, so defaced by the hand of Time, as to be illegible to the passers-by. The day after the funeral Henrietta was sitting before a mass of papers in the little CHANGES 13 parlour, and trying to decide which were of value and which she should destroy, when a loud rap at the door under the trellised porch made her start up. " Mr. Kingsbury, perhaps ! How odd it is he took no notice of the telegram."

No, it was not Mr. Kingsbury, for in another moment a large heavy -featured man came abruptly into the parlour. "Oh, Miss Brightwin," he began, wiping his bald head with a large red and yellow pocket-handkerchief, " I am the owner of this 'ouse, as no doubt you know. I've had no rent paid for three quarters, and you must turn out as soon as may be. The old gentle man was always promising and never per forming, and I trusted to him, like a fool. Furnished 'ouses in these parts ain't so easy to let, and so I went on and on. Twenty pounds is due, and I take it you'll pay it ? " Henrietta clasped her hands tightly together, but she answered calmly. " I have no money — I mean, only enough to live upon till I can get some work to do." "Work ! " with a disagreeable chuckle meant for a laugh ; "you look a pretty one to work, you do !

" " I expected a friend of my father's to be here yesterday at the funeral, but he has as yet taken no notice of the telegram. I have written to him, but I have had no answer." "And what have I got to do with that?" was the reply. " I want my rent, you see." " Yes, and this gentleman may be able to help me to pay it. Anyhow, he will tell me what I am to do — what we are to do, for I have a little sister to think of as well as myself." " Well, look you here. You were rich folks once, till your father, as I have heard, gambled and cheated " "Stop, please," Henrietta said. "I cannot let you speak in that dreadful way of — of — my father." " Oh, well, this is no time for parleying. It's a pretty piece of business all round ; but p'raps you'll turn out, bag and baggage, by to-morrow evening. I must get the place cleaned up ; and in case of injury to my pro perty, I'll thank you to give me the address of the man you say you wrote to, and I'll touch him up and state my case.

I am just a loser by being too good-natured. I should have insisted on the old gentleman forking out, or turned him out — one or t'other. But lor ! he CHANGES 15 said he was ill, and 1 didn't want to be hard on a dying man. But right is right, and I must let the 'ouse to a party inquiring for it ; and you must turn out — that is all I have to say. And now I wish you good morning. I am going back to Exeter, and you will please to leave the keys at the post-office till called for. I'll give you, on second thoughts, till Wednesday morning. Come, that's all I can do, and you may thank your stars I am not a hard-hearted man. But" — and he turned back — "there, I am going off without the lawyer man's address. Write it down for me." Henrietta took a pen from the table, and wrote on a card, " Hugh Kingsbury, Esquire, Mitre Court, Temple, London," in her clear, distinct hand.

Her young heart was very full ; but when the landlord was gone, she stood where he had left her, and did not give way to tears. Her face was very pale, but there was a strength of purpose in the lines of her mouth and a light in her eyes which seemed to tell of determination to overcome difficulties, and fight a battle with the world for herself and her young sister. Broken down in health, and failing in mind and body, Mr. Brightwin had lived in complete seclusion in the cottage on the moor. He had never encouraged any visits, and wished to be left to himself; he soon found that the very few neighbours who might have made over tures to him fulfilled that wish. He had a sour, uninviting manner at all times ; his losses and his failures had embittered him. He hated the world, which he thought had been an enemy to him, whereas he had been his own enemy — his own worst enemy, and that is not a pleasant reflection when forced upon any of us.

As Henrietta stood by the table in the little parlour with the spring sunshine making an aureole round her fair white brow as it in tensified the rich gold of her abundant hair, she made a picture on which an artist would love to linger and transfer to his canvas. Tall and slight, with delicately cut features and large wistful eyes, at this moment, as I have said, kindled with the lieht of a comine struggle, which she was resolute to meet, Henrietta was thinking over her position, and questioning how it was that the man her father had said would stand his children's friend, if she took him in the right way, had made no sign of having received the telegram duly CHANGES 17 despatched the day her father died, or the letter which had followed it. " A faithless friend, probably," she said. " My father was mistaken about him, and yet how firmly he seemed to believe in him.

I am not alone. I have dear Burton and Daisy ; but Daisy is so careless, and sometimes I wonder if she has any heart at all. She takes nothing seriously, and talking to her is mere waste of breath. Poor child ! poor little girl ! I daresay poverty will be worse for her to bear than for me. But I must go and find Burton, and tell her we ought to begin to get ready at once to be off, as that dreadful man said, ' bag and baggage,' on Wednesday morning." B

Chapter II Reparation

Burton, alias Bunny, was one of the old type of faithful servants, who never allow the changes and chances of life to weaken their entire allegiance to the family of which they have become an integral part. " Bunny dear," Henrietta said, calling her from the kitchen, which was at the back of the parlour, " Bunny dear, come and sit down ; we must have a long talk. We have to leave this house early on Wednesday morning." " On Wednesday ! " Bunny exclaimed. " It can't be done." "It must be done," Henrietta said. "That man who came here an hour ago is the land lord, and he says we are to turn out." " Shameful cruelty,- 1 call it. He must be a bad, hard-hearted man." " I don't think he could do anything else, dear. You see, the rent for three quarters is i. REPARATION 19 due, and, of course, if he can get a tenant, he is bound to get rid of us.

I have got ten pounds, and I am going to earn money to pay the rent and the funeral, and " Henrietta stopped. "Dear heart!" Burton exclaimed. "You talk of earning money ! How are you to do it?" " I see a way, I think. We will go to London — you and I and Daisy. I shall go about looking for work. You know, before poor father got past taking an interest in any thing, he taught me a great deal. I can teach small children, and I shall try to get a place as a daily governess, or I will write for a paper. And I will write a story. I have tried to do so before now. Oh, we shall get on. So begin, dear Bunny, to pack at once, and I will go out into the village and ask Mr. Borett to let us have the cart on Wednesday to drive to Chagford ; and we three — you and I and Daisy — will go to London, and find out Jane Evans, who lived with us once.

Don't you remember ? She married a tradesman in the Edgware Road — I have forgotten the number, but I know it was a newspaper and stationer's shop — and we shall find her out." "To hear the child talk like this!" Burton said, throwing her apron over her head, and bursting into tears, which she vainly tried to stop. " Now, Bunny, you must not cry. You must help me to get ready. We have so much to do, but not much to pack, have we ? I shall not leave a single book behind. I shall want them, and so will Daisy. Come ; while I go into the village, and see the people, and find out how much I owe, you must begin operations. There is an old chest in which the books can be packed. I will help you, or Daisy can help you." Burton strangled a sob, and uncovering her face, took Henrietta in her arms, stroked her hair, kissed her, and called her her own pretty darling, and prayed God might help her to do her duty by her and Daisy as long as she lived.

"I've got a little money saved," she said, "and you shall have it. It's in a box under my bed. I'll fetch it down." " No, no ; not yet, Bunny, not yet. We will not take it till we really can't do without it ; then I will take it." " I don't want it," poor Burton said. " I REPARATION 21 only want to see you and Daisy happy. But then I am sometimes afraid I never shall live to see it. To think of you, young ladies born, working for your living like poor people ! It goes against me, that it does." " Daisy is at the Farm," Henrietta said. " I will bring her back when I have been my round." Then Henrietta put on her black jacket and a hat upon which Burton had put a band of crape, and went out into the loveliness of the April morning. First to the churchyard, to the newly-made grave, which had the sad, bare appearance of such mounds till the turf covers them.

The flowers were still fresh which Henrietta had put there the evening before, and she rearranged them, and made an edge with a handful of daffodils — which she had gathered from the little square of garden — round the grave. "Oh, poor father!" she sighed. "What a life his was, and he was only forty-eight ! Poor, poor father ! " Then turning, she saw the old clergyman, who lived at some distance across the moor. "I was on my way to see you, Miss Brightwin. Is there anything I can do for you ? I should, as you know, have often been glad to visit your father, but he would not admit me." "Yes," Henrietta said, "I know it was so. I am going with our old nurse and my little sister to London the day after to-morrow. The landlord has just told me I must leave Myrtle Cottage at once." "Dear, dear!

I am very sorry to hear it. Have you any relations in London?" " No. We have no relations in England. Indeed, we have none anywhere that I know of. My mother had a brother in one of the Colonies ; but he was offended with father, and we have heard nothing of him for years." " Is it not a risk for you to go to London ? " Mr. Chase said. " I am going to find work, which would be impossible here. You know, Daisy and I shall have our dear old nurse with us. She will take care of us. I think," she went on, after a pause, " I think I ought to tell you that I am afraid our poor father has left debts behind him, and I am determined to do what I can to pay them. I am now going to speak to Mrs. Broome, who made our black frocks, and ask her to be so kind as to wait for the money, and I think she will.

I hoped a gentleman, for whom father left REPARATION 23 a telegram, would have come here to help us, but he has not taken any notice of the telegram or of my letter. All this time," Henrietta said, " I have not asked you to come in and rest." " I rode over on my pony, which I have left at the ' Feathers.' But, my dear young lady, I feel very anxious about your going to London. What kind of work do you mean to get ? " " Teaching as a nursery governess ; and I can write a little. I have several manuscripts ready, and I shall take them to publishers or newspaper editors, and I expect I shall get one, at least, taken." It all sounded very rash and extraordinary to Mr. Chase. He had lived in his old-world vicarage of Spinksworth, two miles from the church and village of Tormorton, which had been affiliated to it, as the name shows, and knew little or nothing of the spirit which has been at work of late, rendering it possible for women to work and earn their own living by honourable exertion.

Mr. Chase looked at the slight girlish figure before him with real pity and sympathy as she repeated — " I shall be sure to find work in London, and when I have succeeded I will write to you and tell you, sor you seem to care about me, and I have not many friends." "My dear," the old man said, "I feel so much for you. I only wish I could think of something or some way to help you." " No one can help me. I must help myself. I am not afraid." Then she added in a low reverent tone — "God will help me. He will not forsake me." "Put your trust in Him, my child, and all will be well. May He bless you and your little sister." And as they parted Mr. Chase said — " I have not much of this world's goods, but I remember the injunction that we are to con sider the needs of those poorer than ourselves.

So I hope, my dear, you will let me throw in a mite to your treasury, which I will send you to-morrow." And so Mr. Chase left her. Henrietta's brave spirit and resolution carried her through all the preparations for departure. She seemed to her faithful Burton suddenly transformed from a gentle, retiring girl to a determined woman. But Henrietta saw tliat one of her difficulties would be Daisy. The child was like a butterfly, skimming over REPARATION 2 25 flowers and dancing in the sun's rays. If clouds came, she resented it as far as she herself was affected ; but if her own comfort were not inter fered with, she did not concern herself keenly about other people's troubles. Just as Henrietta had finished clearing away the books in the little sitting-room, Daisy came in, a wreath of blackthorn twisted round her hat, and her hands full of flowers.

" What are you doing, Etta ? I want a jug of water to put out the flowers. What are you doing ? " she repeated. " Packing. We are going away on Wed nesday morning." Going ! Where ? " To London." Why can't we stay here ? ' " Because we have no money to pay the rent here." "Oh, how horrid! I had much sooner stay here." "So would I — for some reasons, not for all. Now I think you might go and help Bunny upstairs. She is making her back ache over one of the chests she is filling with some of our possessions." Daisy still stood looking down on her sister, who was kneeling by a pile of books, from which she was wiping the dust with a cloth. " I don't know what to do with all these flowers," she grumbled. " Mrs. Borett gave them to me, and Hannah trimmed my hat with the blackthorn They said I was a picture," then she laughed.

" I like the Boretts ; they are always so jolly and nice, though they may not be ladies — I mean Mrs. Borett and Hannah. I should not mind a bit staying at the Farm with them. Why can't I ?" Henrietta did not think it worth while enter ing into any further particulars with Daisy. "We must all be ready on Wednesday, and I shall go up to the Farm this afternoon and ask for the cart to take us to Chagford." " When are we going to have dinner ? I am so hungry. I wish I had stayed with the Boretts, as they asked me." Then, without another word, she ran off, and instead of going upstairs to Burton, she flew over the moor to the Farm to take the news of their speedy departure, and to be petted and caressed, and, seated next Mrs. Borett at the head of the table, was fed on the choicest morsels from the board, which was literally groaning with farm produce.

REPARATION 27 " Lor bless me ! you are never going away ? " Mrs. Borett said. "We shan't know how to get on without our dear little Miss Daisy ; shall we, Hannah ?" " No, indeed ! " said Hannah, a big, rosy faced Devonshire maiden. " I am fit to cry to think of it. What makes sister go off so sudden-like, I wonder?" Mrs. Borett said. " Sure, you may guess," the good farmer exclaimed. " I've heard enough in the village to let me into the reason." " Borett, hush ! " his wife said. Daisy looked at them inquiringly. "What is the reason?" she asked. " Sister will tell you, no doubt. Now eat a bit more of the junket ; there's a dear ! " Poor Daisy ! it was her misfortune to be treated like a baby and flattered by her friends at the Farm. She swallowed the flattery whole sale, and hearing from Hannah continually that she was a " perfect picture" and as beautiful as a princess — which was rather an ambiguous compliment — Daisy had a very exalted opinion of her own perfections, and was continually in Hannah's company, who was never tired of telling the neighbours that little Miss Daisy was never so happy as when she was with her.

Henrietta had long seen that this intimacy was by no means wholesome for Daisy, but she had been so closely tied to her father for many months that she had no power to interfere. And indeed, when Daisy was in the cottage, she was very restless, and pouted and grumbled if Henrietta insisted on her sitting quietly for half-an-hour at needlework, or any lessons which were set her to learn. It was perhaps natural that Daisy should find the little par lour dull, and prefer the free life at the Farm, where Hannah was her willing slave, and ad ministered doses of flattery ; where she fed chickens and turkeys, rode for half-an-hour on the old grey mare, Hannah walking by her side ; and in the summer revelling in the straw berries, currants, and raspberries, which were packed in large crates or baskets, and sent to Chagford to be despatched to the market at Exeter.

When Henrietta had made way with her packing, she sat down to a frugal meal of bread and butter, and the remains of a cream cheese which had come from the Farm. "Daisy will get her dinner at the Farm, Bur- REPARATION 29 ton ; so you can finish what is here, and then rest a little. I am going out into the village, and shall call for Daisy at the Boretts'." " Do so, my dear Miss Etta ; and I am not sorry, for my part, that the child will have done with that Hannah Borett. There has been no help for it, but she has been with these folks too much." " They are kind, worthy people," Henrietta said ; but in her secret heart she agreed with Burton's view of the subject. Henrietta found Miss Broome, the dress maker, kind and considerate, and ready to let any little account stand over till it was quite convenient to pay.

The other neighbours were equally kind, and Henrietta was cheered by the sympathy ex pressed for her, and by the kindness shown her. The consumption of food at Myrtle Cottage had been very small. Mr. Brightwin had lived principally on milk and vegetables. As his mind grew weaker he had refused food, and was with difficulty persuaded to take nourish ment. Henrietta's healthy young appetite was satisfied with loaves from the Farm, and now and again a plump fowl or fat duckling would be sent, "with Mrs. Borett's duty." Simple in her tastes, Henrietta had not longed for more luxuries, and the pure bracing air of the moor had strengthened and invigo rated both sisters. There were no heavy bills to pay, and there was a general desire shown to be as accom modating as possible to " the poor orphan children."