Sunset

Front matter

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CHAPTER I. 0, Lady dear, hast thou no fear

Why and what art thou dreaming here f

Edgar Allan Poe.

The nursery was not an inviting precinct in the little house in Norton Street. Both it and its controller Elizabeth were alike overworked, the nurse was alluded to by her mistress as a “ good, dull, old factotum.” The possessor of so useful a flesh and blood machine as a factotum may be congratulated, though the human machinery, personally, is not to be envied overmuch.

If the nurse was said to be a factotum, then her domain in its way was a factotum too, for it was day and night nursery, it was work-room and fitting-room, and play-room, all inclosed in seventeen by fifteen feet of space.

Fortunately its five-year-old occupant was not of an age to be critical, the nursery contained all her treasures and therefore her heart; and she sat flat upon the linoleum floor, a tattered doll lying supine across her thin little legs, hard at work; and was, in her quiet way, quite happy and content.

She cast a glance from her mild blue eyes oe- 1

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casionally at her offspring, but she was too seriously engaged in the threading of a bead necklet to waste time on pleasure.

A needle in Alix’s life was a serious thing, it was an implement of labor such as no one would dream of treating lightly.

A deal table above her head was littered with an entanglement of thread, reels, pins, scraps, lining, tapes, ribbons, laces, and silk, out of which confounding disorder skillful hands and a needle were called upon to evolve order in the form of raiment. Beyond the deal table, behind the child, stood an open box of crippled toys — toys crippled in honest service, but out of which no creditable resurrection was possible.

Alix was an only child, and she spent a great part of this evening hour alone — she was alone now. By nature children, like animals, object to their own company; art, in the form of custom, had familiarized the little girl with solitude; she did not grumble at being left alone, nor for some time did she realize that she was shivering, or that the fire in the grate was on the wane. Such warmth as the sinking coals gave out was fenced off by a barrier of silk and “ lacy ” garments that hung on the high guard.

It was a bitterly cold day toward the end of February, and after a while Alix was conscious that some power was working against her; the needle would not do its duty, because of the stiffness of her perished fingers, — cold must pinch viciously before little people recognize its existence.

But when a favorite bead, bigger and brighter than its neighbors, rolled out of her grasp, and at

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the same instant the needle, slipping, pierced the palm of her left hand, she consciously shivered, and rising stiffly to her feet fell foul of her persecutor.

“ It is being so cold, so very cold,” she said, shaking her wounded hand with a vague idea of frightening the smart out of it.

She was a patient child, and she was fairly plucky, — though the little room in London did not conduce to hardihood — but when she saw a drop or two of blood, that had oozed from the ball of her thumb, she became certain that she was hurt, and she began to be alarmed.

There was no one to reassure her, no one to say that it was nothing, to console and confuse her into that state of bewilderment, in which nursery bumps and bruises are supposed to heal most readily.

In the scare she dropped her box of beads, fell over her cherished Yiolet, and called for her nurse, who was out of earshot and did not come.

“ Issabissa,” she cried, “ Issabissa, I have got a poor hand. You come and see, do come here and see.”

The wording of the tragedy seemed, as it constantly does, to heighten the injury; when Elizabeth did not come and did not answer, Alix was filled with consternation; and she to whom tears were a forbidden luxury began to cry.

“ Tush, tush, for shame! What in the world is the matter now? ”

Sorrow would often — I had almost written always — be scolded if humanity had its way — and humanity can have its way with a child.

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“ All alone and crying. Come, come, Miss Alix, for shame.”

This bracing greeting came from Ellen, the housemaid, who at this moment entered the nursery with a hot-water can in her hand. The u shame ” of being alone and crying dried Alix’s eyes; b’lame is more bracing than the air of the east coast, even though the blame be unreasonable as this; for solitary grief may be a luxury to a poet, but not to a child.

“ Where is Issabissa? ” she asked, her voice quavering. “ I want Issabissa.”

“ Elizabeth is with your ma,” said Ellen, looking about her, and taking in all the discomforts of the room with a professional eye. “ No wonder you are crying, Miss Alix. Why, you are starved with the cold.”

There was sympathy now in Ellen’s voice, to which Alix responded by stretching out her palm to show the wound. The disappointing blood was gone, but even in this world of vast surprises she was astonished to find the pain gone too.

“ It is got better,” she said apologetically, — without a witness to its existence pain is treated with incredulity, — “ but I did have a poor hand. Mother’s got plaster, little tiny bits,” admiringly, “ of black plaster.”

“ Plaster, fiddlesticks! There is nothing to be seen. You are blue with the cold, chilled through and through, that is what’s the matter with you.”

Grown-up people know best, no doubt; Alix accepted Ellen’s remark, and turned her attention likewise to the fire, the expiring life of which the good-natured woman set about saving scientifically.

Science demands sacrifice, but Alix did not know that.

“ You shall see me light the fire up a bit, Miss Alix,” said she, walking over to the heap of mangled remains confined in the box, and selecting therefrom stray legs and wheels, stumps and odds and ends from unrecognizable portions of toys. “ We will have a blaze in a couple of minutes,” and she unhitched the high guard, pulling it aside so that Alix could press in beside her, and look at the irresistibly fascinating forbidden-fruit of fire-making.

Alix watched Ellen’s fat, red enviable fingers stow the dry wood among the coal, she watched the stacking of the pile, she watched the striking of the matches and the kindling of the flames.

The sight was so entrancing, that until the guard was replaced and the fire was flaming red and warm, Alix did not count the cost of the entertainment.

Then with a pang at heart she walked across the room, and kneeling down before the toy-box anxiously scanned its contents; she had had many a casualty, but never an absolute loss among her remnants of dear friends. Her peeky little face grew longer than ever, her lips straightened, she began to search among the debris, scattering it right and left; all the time she did this the murderous crackling and clicking went on in the grate.

“ Ellen has burned Brownie,” she said to herself, her anxiety becoming articulate at last. Her sense of justice prevented her from making her accusation quite aloud, for if Brownie was burned she had had a share in the cremation ; she had recognized some legs and reels and odds and ends and had let them go,

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but she bad not seen ber dear old Brownie in tbe conflagration.

Ellen bad not intended that she should do so, she bad purposely concealed the identity of tbe little brown two-legged horse, thrusting his inflammable carcass well back among the coals; for Ellen knew that children are capricious and that they value queer bits of rubbish ; she wanted a substantial bit of tinder, if she was to succeed in the Herculean task of rekindling a dying flame. Yes, Ellen had burned Brownie; Alix found his off hind leg, the one with the tin tack hammered into it, but the little horse himself was gone. She went slowly back to the fireside stunned by her bereavement; she could just see over the fence of airing clothes upon the guard, and watch the fire making merry with its victims. Poking his tough blackened head through the bars, Alix recognized her poor toy, his familiar face was unaltered, though his wretched body was char and ash.

“ Ellen, here he is, I see him,” the cry was exulting, and arrested Ellen in the doorway. “ Get him out, take him out ; he’s got his head through, and he’s burning all to pieces.”

If the child had not begun to cry again, when she hesitated about rescuing the horse, Ellen said afterward that she should most certainly have done as she was asked, though the toy was black all over and not fit to be touched. But every one in the house knew that Miss Alix was not to be spoiled, every one knew that Mr. Beaumont had a horror of spoiled children. Therefore a point was to be made of never fulfilling any desire of the little girl, if such fulfillment cost serious trouble.

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So Ellen still stood at the door with the can in her hand, and said, “ Hush, Miss Alix, you have got a box full of toys. Hush, hush, for shame to make such a noise with a strange young lady next door. The ’orse is burned now, and that’s the long and short of it.”

“ Get him out,” passionately, “ take him out.”

“ Hush, hush. You will have a policeman here to know what is the matter. Little girls who cry for nothing, must be given something to cry for.”

There is a large crop of the great incomprehensible “ must” in nursery life. Little girls who cry for nothing must be given something to cry for. Alix had heard that decree before. Was the “ nothing ” the death of her Brownie? Then what would the dreadful “ something ” be?

She turned back again to the fire in silence.

“ There, there, be a good child; ” Ellen was sorry about the horse, but Miss Alix could not be allowed to cry with her father not 'far off, and a visitor next door within earshot. “ Crying won’t bring that old bit of rubbish out of the fire; you go and play with your dolly, she’s lying at your feet.”

So saying, Ellen closed the door, and went off straightway with the hot water to the tiresome young lady, whose advent that afternoon had put poor Ellen out; for in that house work was plentiful, and space exceeding scarce. Therefore a visitor, whose visit the servants heard was to be of indefinite length, was not in one sense a welcome guest.

The little spare room was, in fact, not spare at all. All that morning Ellen had been removing stacks of her mistress’s superfluous clothes from the wardrobes

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and clipboards therein, and carting them to new quarters. Every peg and drawer had been emptied for Miss Blake’s convenience at infinite labor, and here the young lady stood in the middle of her room, with an armful of clothes, and asked Ellen, in a vigorous, brisk tone,

“ Where can I put my things? ”

She was such a tall young lady, broad too; the tiny room was a ludicrous size both for her, and for her shoals of belongings.

Ellen looked round at the boxes and rugs, holdalls arid bags, and said somewhat gruffly,

“ In the wardrobe, miss, or the cupboard. I cleared all my mistress’s dinner dresses out of this room this morning. I am afraid there isn’t another hole in the house, where you could put as much as a petticoat.” It seemed that Miss Blake was a reasonable person, for she gave a comprehending, good-humored nod, and allowed Ellen to get away without any waste of words, or of labor.

Frances Blake was always reasonable, she was usually good-humored, but she was not specially adaptable. She looked about her, and thought it would not be easy to fit herself comfortably into this tiny room : she was used to space, and she liked space. However, she had deliberately chosen to make her cousin’s little house in Norton Street her headquarters for a while; she had done this, as she did most things, of her own free will. She was of an age to judge for herself, and she thought herself capable of counting costs; she was five-and-twenty years old. For many a year now she had known her own mind, and, unthwarted, had followed its commonplace inclinations. She considered

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herself a lucky woman, she had a clear head, an even temper, as many friends as she needed; and last, hut not least, a nice handy little income of eight hundred pounds a year, which formed a firm background to an independent spirit.

Her fortune was a windfall of recent years, and she, who had a great appreciation of the comforts of life, appreciated her possession.

Life with her had been easy, she had not hankered for its exaggerated delights, she had wished to be comfortable, and she was comfortable. She had no extravagant tastes, she was not dangerously good-looking, she had not been at all seriously in love since she was seventeen, she had had no exuberant emotions; her health was excellent, her strongest sense had been common sense.

Of late her life and her plans had alike been upset by her only relative, a widowed sister, who had elected to marry again. Constance had chosen to marry a dull, respectable, briefless barrister, and consequently the home in Devonshire which the sisters shared was, for the time at least, shut up, and Frances was left alone.

It was she who had settled that Wayfield should be closed; she made no misfortune of the situation, and while the pair were honeymooning on the Continent she left Devonshire, she left the village, Sylvester, where she had been reared; and planted herself for the time in the little house in Horton Street, — that narrow street which lies so near Belgrave Square, that air, and light, and space are hardly necessities for the Babylonian dwellers therein.

“ Isabel Beaumont and I get on very well,” she

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had said to her sister, discussing the pros and cons of the future, “ I shall put up with her — if she’ll have me — while you are away. I like Isabel, and I like being* in the house with a woman who is as decorative as a beautiful picture. Not clever, did you say? She is clever enough for me. If one wants extra intelligence there is always John, he’d provide a Minerva with mental exercise.”

John Beaumont was a second cousin of the sisters, and it was his wife, Isabel, whom they were discussing. If Mrs. Beaumont was loath that the dinner dresses should be driven from their haven, she was nothing loath to welcome Frances to her house.

Frances amused John, Frances was cheery, arranged flowers to perfection, and dressed well. She was well off, too, for a girl, and Mrs. Beaumont was the sort of a woman who appreciates all the nice things which are connected with £. s. d. She and her husband were suffering from the universal shrinkage of the age. Their income had been modest always; not increasing, as incomes should, with their expenses. Miss Blake knew this, and she had fixed her plans accordingly.

“ With per cents., and rents, and business down to zero,” she had written, “ don’t imagine that I am going to bestow nothing but my society upon you. I would not come at all, upon my own suggestion, if that was , to be the arrangement.”

She knew that Isabel would fall in with this proposal, because she was an unassertive woman, who was not credited with having a will of her own; and so she did, accepting Frances’s proffered company

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graciously, as she accepted the most part of her life. And the question was settled.

The master of the house liked his cousin, and was content to accept the plans of the womenkind; the solitude-a-deux in Norton Street was not of the kind the loss of which is grudged. During the long hours that the bread-winner passed in the City, digging and delving with no very encouraging success, it would be well that his wife should have a sensible woman in the house. Isabel was as amiable as she was fair to look upon, but the domestic hearth had no attraction for her, she lived in what John designated as an “ eternal racketing.”

Mr. Beaumont had married for beauty, he had chosen a helpmate because he, like his cousin, coveted a beautiful picture in his dwelling-place. No man should ask more of a picture than the colors on the canvas, no man should be guilty of scratching at the paint, and running the chance of scraping it bare.

But John was a man who, in business and elsewhere, was never content to let things be; he was not wont to be satisfied with that which he possessed, and he was for ever endeavoring to alter, to improve, to perfect his properties. Human properties occasionally do not appreciate that order of proprietor. John’s expectations were large, he was consequently fairly well assured of being what the world calls a disappointed man. Great expectations are ever a cumbrous possession in a work-a-day world.

Idealizing did not run in the family, for if Frances had ideals she had never used them as standards by which to measure her neighbors.

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She took people as she found them, and she generally contrived to find them pleasant; she was truthful, therefore she was credulous and believed what she was told. She was not interested in the recesses, the deep nooks, the unexposed regions of her companions’ minds. Hitherto she had skimmed humanity, and was quite content to continue doing so.

Just then a cloud was on her forehead, — she had a low brow on which the brown hair grew thick and heavy, and was brushed back to form an elaborate twisted coil at the back of a well-formed head; she stood scanning the capacities of her wardrobe with a critical eye; in her big airy home she had had no reason to study economy of space, to her economy of any form was distasteful. She had a wholesome, country horror of London smuts, and London dirt, and she held in her arms a delicately-wrought gown of peach-bloom hue; a good dress it was, a dress which was dear to her heart, and which seemed likely to become a white elephant, crowded as it was from drawer and wardrobe.

The problem which she tried to solve was hopeless, space is a thing which thinking does not form.

Hark! What was that cry? Hot a street cry, not one of the eternal “ winners.” Ho, there — again — that was close by, in the next room. The child was shrieking; shrill sharp cries of fear.

Frances was a quick thinker and a quick mover, with the dress still in her arms she -had rushed out upon the landing, and burst, not a whit too soon, into the nursery, before the echo of the cry had ceased. The “ something to cry for,” which had been

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threatened, had befallen the little daughter of the house.

Flat upon its back, among a heap of smoking frills and laces, lay the high nursery guard; live coals were airing Mrs. Beaumont’s delicate clothing over-well, and beside them Alix, choking with fear, and smoke, and pain, her pinafore ablaze, was trying to lift the burning heap into position.

The peach-bloom gown was not to be a white elephant after all, for in the twinkling of an eye Frances had thrown it around the little girl, and wrapping it closely and tightly about her, had crushed the life out of the flames, — the priceless lace was thick, and served well to smother the fire.

The guard was roughly kicked to its duty, and the cambric debris thrust upon the fire; the clouds of smoke were choking Frances, and she carried the child swiftly out upon the landing and into her own room.

Chapter II

The future comes not from before to meet us, but streams up from behind over our head.

Rah el Leoin.

When Frances had laid Alix down on her bed, she kept one protecting hand upon the trembling child, and stretching out the other, she reached across to the hell-rope and rung it lustily. In her household at Wayfield this sort of disorganization was impossible. Why had the child been left alone, and where on earth were the servants?

For the second time she caught at the bell-rope, and this time she absolutely pulled it down.

It was some relief to find that this accident had the effect of calming poor Alix, so that through her tumultuous sobbing she could articulate,

“ You have broke the bell,” she wept, “ and Issabissa don’t allow you to touch it.”

Then she shuddered and moaned, sobbing again more pitifully than ever.

Frances had always had a soft spot in her heart for children, but her sister was childless, and she had had but little to do with nursery denizens, as she possessed no small kith or kin save Alix. She knew little of the government of the high life above stairs.

She knelt by the bed, soothing the sufferer with 14

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tender epithets such as were foreign to her lips, but which swelled up impulsively from a hot heart.

“ Where is your nurse, darling? ”

“ She is with Mummy, I fink; she went away all day, dressing the wire lady.”

“ I will go and call her.”

And she went out upon the landing and called loudly and impatiently for the nurse, with a strong wish that she was, for a quarter of an hour or so, mistress of that culpable domestic.

An elderly woman came panting up the stairs in answer to Miss Blake’s rousing summons, who, when she found her little lady in so sad a plight, assuaged Frances’s wrath by her agonies of fear and horror.

The smoke was still thick on the landing, the smell of burning was creeping through the house; but it took a minute or more to make Elizabeth understand what happened, for she was old and a little deaf.

In those households where eggs are of necessity counted, some evils have to be tolerated, and Elizabeth had many valuable qualities to counterbalance her affliction ; she sewed like a Singer, and would have worked her skillful fingers to the bone to please her mistress.

The peach-bloom dress, blackened and tumbled, was still round the child; Frances had been afraid to touch it, and it sickened her to see Elizabeth unwrapping the folds.

As sores and burns and wounds abound in the world, it is lucky that all folk are not too squeamish to see, to dress, and, if need be, to probe them. Compassion is not first aid to the wounded. Frances was

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ashamed to feel her knees knocking together beneath her, she prided herself on nerves of steel.

Alix’s sailor dress of thick serge had been her salvation, it was scorched, but it had resisted the flames, only the pretty embroidered pinafore was burned, and that not wholly.

“ Dear, dear, bless my heart; now, come, Miss Alix; don’t yon? There is not much damage done.” Elizabeth was crooning over the poor little hands, that ached so fiercely. “ It will be better presently, there is only a streak or two scorched, and a bit of a blister.”

“ It is a most miraculous escape,” Frances said severely, and she bent and kissed Alix’s quivering face.

“ My dear, my dear, be brave,” said Elizabeth; advice which we beseech our fellows to follow, both on their account and on our own. “ Be brave, and whatever did you go to the fire for, when you have been told not? ”

Out came the story then in raised shrill gasps, for Alix knew that the ears were very hard of hearing.

“ Ellen stuffed Brownie in the fire stead of sticks, lie were black all over, but he weren’t gone up the chimney. I gotted him out with the poker. It was awful heavy, it failed back, and I failed too. When Cousin Francie corned I was all fiery. It does hurt, Issabissa, it does hurt.”

“ Yes, yes, my dear, it does hurt, I know; something shall be fetched to make you better, only don’t cry so loud, be brave.”

“ I will run and fetch the something to make you better,” cried Frances, “ and I will tell mother to come to you; ” and our lady of action hurried from the room.

On Mrs. Beaumont’s threshold Frances pulled herself together, and tapped gently: she was considerate enough to wait for a “ come in ” before she entered.

“ Isabel,” she began, her voice was not what she intended, it was hoarse and breathless, “ you must not be frightened. It is very little, very little indeed — she is hardly hurt at all.”

The occupant of the room was arranging her flaxen hair before a cheval-glass, she put down her silver brush, and swept round slowly, facing this pale messenger of evil with puzzled eyes.

“ Who is hurt? ”

“ Alix. It is not much. Her hands are a little scorched, her pinafore caught fire. Of course it might have been serious, but it is not serious, it was put out in a moment, there is not much mischief done. Isabel, I would not say what is not true, she is hardly burned at all.”

The words were reassuring, the manner did not match them. Mrs. Beaumont hurried toward the speaker, looking scared.

“ Where is she ? ”

“ In my room. Yes, go up. I’ll run down and ask for flour, and send for the doctor.”

A burn, however reassuringly superficial it may * be, is a painful injury. When Frances returned to her premises she found Alix still crying and trembling on the bed, her mother bending over her, stroking the fair curls, patting her cheeks, and saying appealingly,

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“ Allie, dearest, you frighten me, don’t cry.—* Elizabeth, I am afraid she is frightfully burned.”

“ No, m’m, no, it is nothing but a scorch. If you’d please to stay up here a minute I’ll run down and send Ellen up with some flour, while I fetch over Dr. Bellot: I think he’d better see her hands, and then we shall be on the right side anyway.”

“ I’ve sent for the doctor, and here comes Ellen with the flour.”

“ Thank you, miss, it would have been a worse thing but for you.”

Frances was not blind to the fact. She felt that with advantage some of her rules and domestic regulations might be imported into the house; just now she held her tongue, watching Alix, who was evidently struggling with her sobs, and doing her best not to frighten her mother.

“ You are a very good, plucky child,” Frances said energetically; she had dredged the little hands thick with flour, and she smiled to see how the patient cheered up from interest in her whitened sepulchres. There was no reason for Frances to fancy that the occupant of the third- floor was a wholly neglected inmate of the house; it was charming to watch the caressing stroke of her mother’s slim hand on her hair, and it was Elizabeth who reminded Mrs. Beaumont of the hour, and how that inevitable fixture, dinner, was close at hand.

“ She is comfortable now, m’m, and I’ll take her into the nursery, and I won’t leave her if you can manage just this once.”

“ Of course I can manage. Yes, Frances, we must go; it is half -past seven,” the speaker glanced at

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the jeweled watch on her wrist, “ John has asked Mr. Brand to dinner; we mustn’t be late, John is so punctual.”

Involuntarily Prances glanced at the blackened roll of what could never he a white elephant again. Smoked, scorched, ruined, Frances gave it a little surreptitious kick with her foot, and smiled a whimsical smile, the meaning of which it was difficult to read. At a second thought she stooped and picked up the bundle. Then Elizabeth, full of lamentations over the carnage, lifted Alix and bore her off to her own room.

“ The dress doesn’t matter a straw, Isabel, no dress was ever more useful. If I’d had presence of mind I could have used the nursery table-cloth, but one never has economical ideas in an emergency.”

“ I am so thankful to you, Francie.”

“ I do believe,” said Frances seriously, even severely, “ that bells are things to be answered, not argued about. I say to my maids, ‘ Never mind whose bell it is, if its special slave isn’t there, answer it yourself.’ People are burned, and murdered, and smothered, because it isn’t the housemaid’s duty to answer the footman’s bell.”

“ What a litter this room is in. 'Why didn’t you make Ellen unpack your things ? ”

“ I didn’t think of it. Besides, I like to unpack and to know where everything is, when I am settling down for a real long visitation, as I am now.”