The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls, L. T. Meade [fun books to read for adults txt] 📗

small, but bona-fide orders for work. They came not through Mr. Jones, who pocketed her money and exhibited her wares in a dusty and uncertain fashion, but through Miss Egerton, who was proving herself a real friend to the girls. Primrose was immensely cheered by these little orders, and, in consequence, Christmas Day—the girls' first Christmas Day without a home and a mother—passed not uncheerfully. Things might have gone well with the three but for an incident which occurred just at the beginning of the New Year.

One morning Daisy awoke shivering, and complaining of fresh cold. She refused, however, to stay at home by herself, and begged of Jasmine to wrap her up, and take her across to Miss Egerton's, but when the two girls reached the kind mistress's door they were informed that she had been suddenly sent for to the country, and would not be back until the following day.

"You must go back now, my pet," said Jasmine. "I'll take you back myself, and I'll build up such a nice fire for you, and you shall look at the dear old scrap-book which we made when we were all happy at Rosebury."

"I wish we were back at Rosebury," said little Daisy, in a very sad and plaintive voice. "I don't think London is at all a cheerful place. We made a great mistake about it, didn't we, Jasmine? Oh, Jasmine, darling, you are not going to leave me by myself, for I really don't feel well this morning."

"I'll come back ever so quickly, Eyebright, but I really think I must do Primrose's shopping for her, now that I am not going to Miss Egerton. Primrose is working very hard at her china-painting order, and it is not fair she should be interrupted. You won't be selfish, will you, Eyebright? You know we arranged long ago that the way you were to help matters forward was not to hinder us older girls in our work."

"I know," answered Daisy, with a patient sigh. "I won't be selfish, Jasmine. Just kiss me before you go."

Jasmine went away, and Daisy, taking the Pink into her arms, sat down close to the fire. She was not exactly nervous, but she scarcely liked to be left in the attics by herself. She wished Mrs. Dove would come up, or even that Tommy Dove, who was a rude boy, and whom, as a rule, she particularly disliked, would pay her a visit. Any company, however she reflected, would be better than none, for she was feeling heavy and depressed with her cold. The warm feel of the Pink's furry little body, elapsed tightly in her arms, comforted her not a little. She remembered with some satisfaction that Jasmine had locked the door, and she began already to count the moments for her sister's return.

An hour passed, and still Daisy listened for Jasmine's light and springing step on the attic stairs.

She was very tired now, and her head ached. She thought she would go into the bedroom and, lying down on her little white bed, sleep away the weary moments. Taking the Pink with her, she did so, wrapping the counterpane well up over them both.

In a very few moments the child was in a heavy slumber.

She awoke, after what seemed to herself a very short nap, to hear sounds in the bedroom. She stirred sleepily, and, opening her eyes, said—

"Oh, Jasmine, what a time you've been away!"

No answer from Jasmine, but a smothered exclamation from some one else; a heavy tread on the uncarpeted boards, and Dove, his face red, his shoes off, and something which looked like a screw-driver in his hands, came up and bent over the child.

"Oh! what are you doing here, Mr. Dove?" exclaimed little Daisy. The man bent down over her, and stared hard into her wide open blue eyes.

THE MAN BENT DOWN OVER HER. Palace B.

"I didn't know you was here, missie; it was very cunning of you to feign sleep like that—it was very cunning and over sharp, but it don't come round me. No, no; you has got to speak up now, and say what you has seen, and what you hasn't seen. I allow of no nonsense with little girls, and I can always see through them when they mean to tell a lie. You know where the children who tell lies go to, so you'd better speak up, and the whole truth, missie." Dove spoke in a very rough voice, and poor Daisy felt terribly frightened.

"I didn't see anything," she began, in her innocent way. "I was fast, fast asleep. I thought you were Jasmine—Jasmine should have been back long ago. I have a bad cold, and I was trying to pass the time by going to sleep. I haven't seen anything, Mr. Dove."

"Let me look into your eyes, miss," said Dove; "open them wide, and let me look well into them."

"Oh! you frighten me, Mr. Dove," said Daisy, beginning to cry. "I was very lonely, and I'd have liked you to come up half an hour ago; but you look so queer now, and you speak in such a rough voiced—what is the matter? Perhaps you were bringing up some of those books for Jasmine. Oh! I don't know why you should speak to me like that."

Dove's brow cleared; he began to believe that the child had really been asleep, and had not seen the peculiar manner in which he had been employing himself for the last ten minutes.

"Look here, miss," he said, "I don't mean to be rough to you, you pretty little lady. Look here, what I was after was all kindness. I only spoke rough as a bit of a joke. I has got some lollipops in my pocket for a nice little maid; I wonder now who these yere lollipops are for?"

"For me, perhaps?" said Daisy, who, although she could not have swallowed a sweety to save her life at that moment, had sense enough to know that her wisest plan was to propitiate Dove.

"You're fond of lollipops then, missie? you didn't think as 'twas because poor Dove guessed that, that he travelled up all these weary stairs? Kind of him, wasn't it? but you're real fond of lollipops, ain't you, missy?"

"Some kinds," answered Daisy, who was really a most fastidious child, and who shrank from the sticky-looking sweetmeats proffered to her by Dove. "I like the very best chocolate creams; Primrose brings them to me sometimes, but they are rather expensive. Oh! and I like sticky sweets too," she continued seeing an ominous frown gathering on Dove's brow. "I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Dove." Then making a great effort, she put out her little white hand to take one of the sweeties.

But Dove drew back quickly.

"No, no," he said, "not till they're arned—by no means until they're arned. You don't suppose as a poor man—a poor man with a large family, and an only love of a wife—can afford to bring sweeties all for nothing to rich little ladies like yourself. No, no, miss; you arn them, and you shall have them."

"But I'd rather not, please," said Daisy, "I'm not very hungry for sweeties to-day on account of my cold, and I think, on the whole, you had better keep them, Mr. Dove. Indeed, I don't know how to earn them—Primrose and Jasmine say I'm too young to earn."

Here Dove drew himself up to his full height, and stared hard at the child.

"There's one way of arning," he said, "and one only. Look you here, Miss Daisy Mainwaring, you are young, but you ain't no fool. Ef you please, miss, you has got to make me a promise—you has got to say that you will never tell, not to Miss Primrose nor to Miss Jasmine, nor to no one, that you've seen me in this room. I don't wish it to be known. I has my reasons, and whatever happens, you are never to tell. Ef you make me the promise true and faithful, why you shall have the sweeties, and I'll stick up for you, and be your friend through thick and thin. You'll have Dove for your friend, Miss Daisy, and I can tell you he ain't a friend to be lightly put aside. But if you ever tell—and however secret you do it, I have got little birds who will whisper it back to me—why, then Dove will be your enemy. You don't know what that means, and you won't like to know. I was my own boy Tommy's enemy once, and I locked him up in the dark for twenty-four hours, where no one could hear him screaming. Now, miss, you had better make me your friend; I'm real desperate in earnest, so you promise me."

Daisy's face had grown deadly white, her breath came in gasps, her eyes were fixed on the cruel man.

"You promise me, miss?"

"Oh yes, Mr. Dove."

"That's right, missy. Now you say these words after me:—'Mr. Dove, I promise never to tell as you came up to my room to give me the nice sweeties. I'll never tell nobody in all the wide world, so help me, God.'"

"Oh, I don't like that last part," said little Daisy. "I'll say it—I'll say all the words, only not the last ones, and I'll keep my promise as true as true; only please, please, please, Mr. Dove, don't ask me to say the last words, for I don't think it's quite reverent to say them just to keep a secret about sweeties."

"Well, missy, as you please. Now put your hands in mine, and say all the other words."

Daisy did so.

"That's right, miss; now my mind's easy. I have got your promise, miss, and I'll keep the little birds a-watching to find out if ever you go near to breathing it. There's a dark cellar, too, most handy for them children who turn out to be Dove's enemies, and you know where the people who tell lies go to. Now, good-bye, miss—eat up your sweeties."

CHAPTER XXVI. A DELIGHTFUL PLAN.

Neither Primrose nor Jasmine could quite understand their little sister that night—her cold was worse, but that fact Primrose accounted for by Jasmine's imprudence in taking her out; but what neither she nor Jasmine could understand was Daisy's great nervousness—her shrinking fear of being left for a moment by herself, and the worried and anxious look which had settled down on her usually quiet little face. Primrose determined to do what she had never done yet since they had come to London—she would commit the unheard-of extravagance of calling in a doctor.

"I think Daisy is very feverish," she said to Jasmine; "only that it seems impossible, I would say she has got some kind of shock, and was trying to conceal something. You are quite sure that you locked the door when you left her alone here this afternoon, Jasmine?"

"Oh, yes," answered Jasmine, "and I found it locked all right when I came back. I was rather longer away than I meant to be, for I did such a venturesome thing, Primrose—I took my 'Ode to Adversity' to the Editor of The Downfall. I saw him, too—he was a red-faced man, with such a loud voice, and he didn't seem at all melancholy—he said he would look at the poem, but he wasn't very encouraging. I told him what Mrs. Dove said about his readers liking tearful things, and he gave quite a rude laugh; however, I shouldn't be surprised if the poem was taken; if it fails in that quarter, I must only try one of the very best magazines. Oh, what was I saying about Daisy? I think she was asleep when I came back—she was lying very quiet, only her cheeks were rather flushed. Of course, Primrose, nothing happened to our little Daisy; if there did, she would tell us."

"I will send for the doctor, at any rate," said Primrose; "I don't like her look. I will send for the doctor, and—and—"

But Primrose's brave voice broke, and she turned her face away.

Jasmine ran up to her, and put her arms round her neck.

"What is it, Rose darling?—are you really troubled about Daisy? or are you thinking of the expense? I wonder what a London doctor will charge? Have you got any money to pay him, Primrose?"

"I've got Mr. Danesfield's money," said Primrose; "I have always kept it for an emergency. I had hoped never to need it, but if the real emergency comes it is right to spend it. Yes, Jasmine, I can pay the doctor and you had better go down and ask the Doves the name of one, for I don't know a single doctor in London."

"Yes," said Jasmine, "I'll run down at once."

Mr. and Mrs.