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

God what a very ignorant, very unhappy little girl ought to do. Oh, Primrose, it's all about a promise—a promise that was most faithfully given. What shall I do about it?"

"Do you want to keep it, or to break it?" asked Primrose.

"It seems to me I ought to keep it, Primrose, because a promise, faithfully given, ought always to be kept; but Mr. Noel says I ought to break this promise; oh, I don't know what to do!"

"Your heart won't be at rest, Daisy, and you won't really get better, until you do know what to do," answered Primrose. "Of course, I will kneel down and ask God to tell you."

Then the elder sister prayed aloud a very few earnest words, and the little one joined her in whispered sentences. The prayer was not long, but in Daisy's case it was quickly answered. When the morning quite broke, and the real working-day had begun, Primrose sent a message to Noel to come at once to see the child. Daisy received him with a touching little smile.

"Was the little girl me?" she asked. "And was the wicked, wicked ogre, Mr. Dove?"

"It is clever of you to guess that much, Daisy," answered Noel.

"Am I the little girl?" continued Daisy, "who made a promise which she ought now to break? Will God forgive me for breaking a promise which I made so very, very faithfully? Mr. Noel, I will tell you something. That promise has nearly killed me. The old Daisy went away when that promise was made, and such a poor, cowardly, wretched Daisy came in her place. She'd have been selfish, too, but for you; but you taught her a little bit about the Palace Beautiful, and she was trying to be good in spite of the dreadful promise. Then the ogre came again, and the second time he was so dreadful that she even became very selfish to get rid of him. Oh, Mr. Noel, is it right for me—will God think it really right for me—to break that dreadful promise?"

"He will, Daisy. The promise ought never to have been made. Only an innocent and ignorant little child would have made it; yes, Daisy, dear, yours is one of the rare cases of a promise better broken than kept. See, I am the Prince, and I'm going to take the spell of the ogre from you. The wicked ogre is locked up in a dungeon instead of you, and the Prince commands the poor little captive to tell him everything."

Then Daisy, with some broken sobs, and with a piteous light in her blue eyes, told Noel the whole cruel story. He listened without once interrupting the little narrator. When she had finished, he kissed her, and told her that she now had nothing to fear, and then, bidding her sleep away all her troubles, he left her to Primrose's care. By the next train he himself went to London in full time to attend Dove's trial.

That worthy was at first inclined to brazen matters out, but when Noel, primed with Daisy's confession, appeared on the scene, his face underwent a remarkable change. Its rubicund tints quite deserted it, an alarming pallor spreading over every feature. Tommy Dove, who might have been seen in a foremost position amongst the crowd of spectators, was heard audibly to exclaim—

"Law, I guess there ain't no leg for my respected pa to stand on now!"

This, although not expressed aloud, seemed also to be Dove's opinion, for he then and there made a full confession of his wicked practices, and of the cruel threats he had employed to terrify Daisy. He received his sentence, which was a severe one, with much stoicism, and, as he was led away from his place in the prisoner's dock, addressed a parting word to his affectionate and hysterical spouse—

"Never mind, Mrs. Dove, my only love, even fourteen years comes to an end somehow, and when we meets again we'll make a rule for there being no attic lodgers."

"To the very end his was a poetic turn," his wife afterwards remarked to her favorite cronies.

CHAPTER XLVII. ALMOST DEFEATED.

With the weight of her secret removed Daisy began slowly, very slowly, to mend. The strain she had undergone had been too great for her quickly to recover her strength; but little by little a faint color did return to her white cheeks, she slept more peacefully, and began to eat again.

"There's nothing at all for you to do, Miss Primrose," said Hannah, "but to give up that post of continually screaming out book and newspaper stuff to a deaf old lady."

"She isn't deaf, Hannah," interrupted Primrose. "She wants me to read to her because her sight is very bad."

"Well, well," replied Hannah Martin, in a testy tone, "whether she's deaf or whether she's blind, it ain't no way a fit post for you, Miss Primrose. You've got to stay here now, and take care of that precious little lamb, and you had better send for Miss Jasmine to keep you company."

"I am certainly not going to leave Daisy at present," replied Primrose. "I've got money enough to go on with, but I must go back to town as soon as possible in order to earn enough to return Mr. Noel's money to him. As to Jasmine, do you know, Hannah, she has got quite a nice way of making a little income? You remember how cleverly she always arranged the flowers in our drawing-room at dear Rosebury, and how our mother always asked her to make bouquets for her? It now seems that Jasmine has got rather remarkable taste, and some fine ladies in London are employing her to arrange flowers on their dinner-tables. They pay her very well indeed for this, and the labor is nothing at all."

"Hoot!" said Hannah; "I think it's rather demeaning of herself. Well, Miss Primrose, I suppose the poor dear will want a holiday the same as the rest of you. To tell the truth, Miss Primrose, my old eyes ache to see the darling, she was always such a bonny one."

Primrose smiled.

"When the fine ladies go out of town, Hannah, we will have Jasmine down, and you shall squeeze us all into that nice, cosy little bedroom of yours. What a good thing it was, Hannah; that you did not follow us to London, but that you started this nice shop in the country, for now we three girls can have our change in the country at such small expense."

Tears started to Hannah's eyes.

"I've been always saving up for this, Miss Primrose, and if you will talk of paying me at all, I'll never forgive you; aren't you my nurslings, all three of you, and the only creatures I have got to live for?"

In the meantime while things were mending for Primrose and Daisy, and Daisy was beginning once more to get that soft pink in her cheeks which gave her such a curious and touching likeness to her name-flower, poor little Jasmine, left behind in her Palace Beautiful, was not having quite so good a time.

Jasmine was beset by several worries and anxieties; she was also extremely lonely, for Miss Egerton, owing to the dangerous illness of a near relation, was still absent from home, and Poppy, driven by the dire necessity of earning bread to eat, had been obliged to return, as little maid-of-all-work, to Penelope Mansion.

Jasmine was alone, but she was a brave child, and her strong longing now was to help Primrose, and above all things not to ask for any money from her.

For the first few days after Primrose had gone to the country the poor little girl's resources were very meagre indeed. She had thought that first sovereign she had earned simply inexhaustible, but it was surprising how it melted in her inexperienced grasp, and how very, very little it seemed capable of purchasing.

In her first delight at finding herself capable of earning money she had written an extravagantly hopeful letter to Primrose.

"You need not think at all of me, dear Primrose," she wrote; "keep all the money you can collect to buy nice nourishing things for dear little Daisy. Perhaps I shall become quite famous as an arranger of flowers on great London dinner-tables. If I do get orders, and I think I am sure of them, I shall not only be able to pay my own London expenses, but will save something towards our emergency fund. Oh, Primrose, my heart burns with longings to earn lots of money, and to be great and strong and famous!"

This poor little enthusiastic letter reached Primrose when Daisy was at her worst, and it so happened that it lightened her cares about the little sister alone in London. She felt quite sure that Jasmine was getting plenty of orders, and was earning sufficient money for her own modest wants in the pretty way she spoke of; and in consequence she did not send her any of the money which Daisy had returned to her.

But poor little Jasmine was not receiving orders so fast as Primrose anticipated. One or two other ladies did ask her to dress their dinner-tables for them, and one or two more promised to do so, and then forgot all about it; but no one paid her as well as Mrs. Daintree had done. Noel was out of town, and was unable to interest himself in her behalf, and so it came to pass that the slender purse could not supply the modest needs, and Jasmine was much too proud, and too determined to help herself, to write to Primrose for money.

These were hard days for the little girl—days which were to prove the stuff she was made of to the very uttermost—but doubtless they gave her, as all anxious days of pain bravely borne do, a valuable experience and a depth of character which she could not otherwise have acquired.

The lesson she was to learn, however, was a painful one, and its sharpness was to be felt very quickly.

Jasmine's hope of hopes lay in her beloved manuscript. That story, the first-fruits of her young genius, must surely make her purse bulky, and must wreathe her little brow with laurels. That story, too, was to refund poor Poppy the money she had lent, and was to enable Jasmine to live in comfort during her sister's absence.

One day, about ten days after Primrose had gone to Rosebury, Jasmine stood by the windows of the Palace Beautiful to watch the postman. He was coming up the street, and Jasmine greatly, greatly hoped he would stop at Miss Egerton's and drop into the letter-box, perhaps, a letter from Primrose, and more delightful still, a roll of proofs of her dear story. The postman, however, passed on his way, and gave his loud rat-tat at the doors to right and the doors to left, but neither sounded the bell nor gave his double-knock at Miss Egerton's door. Jasmine sighed deeply, and retiring from the window, sat down to her frugal breakfast. She looked pale, and her eyes were not as bright and starry as usual. Presently she took out her purse and looked at its contents. This was Thursday. She had dressed a dinner-table on Monday, and had received seven and sixpence. Her purse now contained three shillings, and she certainly could not accuse herself of any extravagance in the matter of diet.

"This will never do," she said to herself. "I believe if I do not get any more money I shall be obliged to apply to Primrose, and it was only last night I heard from dear old Rose saying how glad she was that I was able to support myself. She said Daisy's illness had cost a great deal, and we must all economize in every possible manner for some time. Dear darling old Primrose, I will not ask her to help me—I will manage for myself. Now how shall I do it? I am afraid those ladies did not care for the star arrangement of flowers which I made at that last house. I thought them lovely, peeping out through their dark green leaves, but I heard Mrs. Lee whispering to Mrs. Mansell, 'How peculiar! do you quite like it?' and then Mrs. Mansell said nothing more about my dressing her dinner-table. Her dinner-party was to have been to-day, and she almost promised to have me when I arrived in the morning. Well, there is no use thinking of that; I cannot swell my purse in that manner this day, that is very evident. Oh, dear! oh, dear! what shall I do?"

Here a sudden thought came to Jasmine. Under its influence her cheeks flushed, and her eyes began to shine.

"Why, of course," she exclaimed; "how very silly of me to forget!—my hundred copies of The Joy-bell ought to have arrived by now. Yes, of course they ought, and perhaps I