CHAPTER II.
RETROSPECTIVE.
It would be a new experience for me to take the lead, to be manager, financier, adviser. When I had restored Emma, after some difficulty, and left her comparatively composed—and armed with salts and fan—I ran up to my own room, locked the door, and sat down to think. Something must be done immediately; we ought to leave our extravagantly expensive lodgings without even a week’s delay. If Mrs. Keene would but let us off, it would save twelve guineas, and then we should have twelve pounds twelve shillings, to add to that ghastly eightpence. Mrs. Keene was always very pleasant to me: I would muster up courage, and go and speak to her, and tell her that we had received unexpected news, and were obliged to retrench. I must honestly confess that my heart beat fearfully fast as I knocked at the door of her sanctum, and heard her shrill “come in.”
The interview passed off much better than I anticipated—although the cauliflower still rankled in her mind. She, fortunately for us, had just heard of what she termed “a good let”—old customers, who wished to come in immediately, and she agreed to our prompt departure without demur, saying with immense condescension, “These sort of apartments are not suitable for any but wealthy folk, as can pay well, and is above fighting over vegetables!”
She, however, gave me some useful hints as to where to look for cheaper and humbler quarters. I hurried round to Madame Ninette, and countermanded my new dress, and, after a hasty lunch, Emma and I set out in quest of apartments in keeping with our means. We searched on foot the whole of that warm June afternoon, and at last discovered two neat, cheap little rooms over a dairy in a street in Chelsea. We took them on the spot, and returned to pack our belongings. I packed everything; for Emma, between the emotions of the morning and the miles we had trudged in the sun, was completely exhausted, and I easily prevailed on her to sit on the sofa and rest.
Beguiled by an amusing magazine, and a box of Fuller’s sweets—poor remnants of her little luxuries—she soon forgot all her sorrows, and to have seen her reclining there, looking so pretty in her cool black tea-gown, and dainty little beaded shoes, no one would have believed she had a care in the world. What a child she was in some ways! As for myself, I was not yet eighteen, but I had accepted such a leaden load of responsibility that I began to feel an old woman. The next morning our luggage, books, plants, and umbrellas were packed in and on a cab, and we started off for Carlyle Buildings, our future residence. As soon as we had rearranged our boxes, books, and plants, and given our meager orders—I was now housekeeper and purse-bearer—Emma sat down, as she expressed it, “to face the future resolutely.”
It was a great comfort that she owed no money, otherwise it was anything but a brilliant outlook. All that remained to her, when everything had been summed up, was her wardrobe, her jewelry, a small pension, and a large circle of Indian friends.
We lived through the winter on the proceeds of a splendid diamond bracelet, and the hopes of getting some Indian children. Yes, Emma entertained the not uncommon idea of setting up a happy home for the children of her acquaintances. She was as sanguine as possible. Nothing ever damped her good faith in the future, and “a turn of luck.”
“I shall take a charming, sunny old place deep in the country, about twenty miles from London; keep a nice pony-carriage, cows, a donkey, French bonnes, and a governess, and charge two hundred a year. I shall easily collect a dozen children—twelve will be ample to begin with—and there, you see, is upwards of two thousand a year at once! The Blairs, and Joneses, and Smithsons, dear old friends, will be only too thankful for the chance.”
And, full of enthusiasm, she despatched many eager letters to the parents among her acquaintance; but, strange to relate, not one of these correspondents availed herself of her kind proposals, though they wrote long, affectionate epistles, suggesting the offspring of other people! Perhaps they were afraid that pretty little Mrs. Hayes, ever impulsive, extravagant, and gay, was too lively and erratic to take charge of their delicate darlings—besides, she was poor.