Not Like Other Girls

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

Dorothy grew huffy at the mention of the fire, and would not aid or abet her young lady’s “fad,” as she called it.

“If you don’t want me, I think I will go to bed, Miss Phillis. Susan went off a long time ago.” And, as Phillis cheerfully acquiesced in this arrangement, Dorothy decamped with a frown on her brow, and left Phillis mistress of the situation.

“There, now, I have got rid of the cross old thing,” she observed, in a tone of relief, as she filled the kettle and arranged the little tea-tray.

She carried them both into the room, poising the tray skilfully in her hand. Nan looked up in a relieved way as she entered. Mrs. Challoner was stretching out her chilled hands to the blaze. Her face had lost its pinched unnatural expression; it was as 47 though the presence of her girls fenced her in securely, and her misfortune grew more shadowy and faded into the background. She drank the tea when it was given to her, and even begged Nan to follow her example. Nan took a little to please her, though she hardly believed its solace would be great; but Phillis and Dulce drank theirs in a business-like way, as though they needed support and were not ashamed to own it. It was Nan who put down her cup first, and leaned her cheek against her mother’s hand.

“Now, mother dear, we want to hear all about it. Does Mr. Trinder say we are really so dreadfully poor?”

“We have been getting poorer for along time,” returned her mother, mournfully; “but if we had only a little left us I would not complain. You see, your father would persist in these investments in spite of all Mr. Trinder could say, and now his words have come true.” But this vague statement did not satisfy Nan; and patiently, and with difficulty, she drew from her mother all that the lawyer had told her.

Mr. Challoner had been called to the bar early in life, but his career had hardly been a successful one. He had held few briefs, and, though he worked hard, and had good capabilities, he had never achieved fortune; and as he lived up to his income, and was rather fond of the good things of this life, he got through most of his wife’s money, and, contrary to the advice of older and wiser heads, invested the remainder in the business of a connection who only wanted capital to make his fortune and Mr. Challoner’s too.

It was a grievous error; and yet, if Mr. Challoner had lived, those few thousands would hardly have been so sorely missed. He was young in his profession, and if he had been spared, success would have come to him as to other men; but he was cut off unexpectedly in the prime of life, and Mrs. Challoner gave up her large house at Kensington, and settled at Glen Cottage with her three daughters, understanding that life was changed for her, and that they should have to be content with small means and few wants.

Hitherto they had had sufficient; but of late there had been dark whispers concerning that invested money; things were not quite square and above-board; the integrity of the firm was doubted. Mr. Trinder, almost with tears in his eyes, begged Mrs. Challoner to be prudent and spend less. The crash which he had foreseen, and had vainly tried to avert, had come to-night. Gardiner & Fowler were bankrupt, and their greatest creditor, Mrs. Challoner, was ruined.

“We cannot get our money. Mr. Trinder says we never shall. They have been paying their dividends correctly, keeping it up as a sort of blind, he says: but all the capital is eaten away. George Gardiner, too, your father’s cousin, the man he trusted above every one,—he to defraud the widow and the fatherless, to take our money—my children’s only portion—and 48 to leave us beggared.” And Mrs. Challoner, made tragical by this great blow, clasped her hands and looked at her girls with two large tears rolling down her face.