“Good Heavens!” exclaimed Mrs. Bannister, “what is the use of trying to do some people a service? Here have I been scheming as to how I could manage to avail myself of this chance, and now this ungrateful girl turns round and tells me she doesn’t want the situation. Do you know what you are refusing, Eleanor Vane? Have you learnt your father’s habit of pauperism, that you prefer to be a burden upon this penniless music-teacher and her son, or nephew, or whatever he is, rather than make an honest effort to get your own living?”
Eleanor started up from the piano: she had been sitting before it until now, softly fingering the keys, and admiring the beauty of the tones. She started up, looking at her sister, and blushing indignantly to the very roots of her auburn hair.
Could this be true? Could she be indeed a burden to the friends she loved so dearly?
“If you think that, Hortensia,” she said, “if you think I am any burden to the dear Signora, or Richard, I will take any situation you like, however hard. I’ll toil night and day, and work my fingers to the bone, rather than be a trouble or a burden to them any longer.”
She remembered how little she earned by her few pupils. Yes, Hortensia was no doubt right. She was a burden to those good people who had taken her to their home in her hour of desolation and misery.
“I’ll take the situation, Hortensia,” she cried. “I’ll take a false name. I’ll do anything in the world rather than impose upon the goodness of my friends.”
“Very well,” answered Mrs. Bannister, coldly. “Pray do not let us have any heroics about it. The situation is a very good one, I can assure you; and there are many girls who would be glad to snap at such a chance. I will write to my friend, Mrs. Darrell, and recommend you to her notice. I can do no more. I cannot, of course, ensure you success; but Ellen Darrell and I were great friends some years since, and I know that I have considerable influence with her. I’ll write and tell you the result of my recommendation.”
Eleanor left Hyde Park Gardens after taking two or three sips of some pale sherry which her half-sister gave her. The wine seemed of a sorry vintage, and tasted very much as if the grapes of which it was made had never seen the sun. Miss Vane was glad to set down her wine-glass and escape from the cold splendour of her half-sister’s drawing-room.
She walked slowly and sorrowfully back to Bloomsbury. She was to leave her dear friends there—leave the shabby rooms in which she had been so happy, and to go out into the bleak world a dependant upon grand people, so low and humiliated that even her own name must be abandoned by her before she could enter upon the state of dependence. The Bohemian sociality of the Pilasters was to be exchanged for the dreary splendour of a household in which she was to be something a little above the servants.
But it would be cowardly and selfish to refuse this situation, for no doubt cruel Mrs. Bannister had spoken the truth. Eleanor began to think that she had been a burden upon her poor friends.