The Time of Roses. Meade L. T.

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СКАЧАТЬ I am shabby, having turned and turned and contrived and contrived until my clothes are past wearing. Your aunt has not sent me a box of her cast-offs for over a year, and I think it is extremely unkind of her."

      "But you have not told me yet where you slept last night, dear Mrs. Aylmer," said Kitty.

      "Well, dear, if you must know, I slept here in this room. I slept on the dining-table. I borrowed some extra pillows from a neighbour, or, rather, Sukey borrowed them for me, for it would never do for my friends to suppose that I have not got abundance of pillows in my own house. I have had quite a luxurious night, my dear girls; so pray don't trouble about me."

      Kitty looked somewhat inclined to cry, but Florence burst out laughing. She jumped up, went to her mother, and put her arms round her neck.

      "You dear little Mummy," she said; "you are too comical for anything."

      "There is no doubt whatever," replied Mrs. Aylmer, in answer to this caress, "that God Almighty makes us each in the most useful shape and form. Now, you are big, Florence, and could never manage on a table, but a little woman like me – why, it comes in most handy. Everything is arranged for the best, and so I always say." Here she glanced around her with her black eyes full of merriment, and certainly she looked as happy, notwithstanding her uncomfortable bed, as woman could look.

      "I thought of sharing the kitchen with Sukey," she said; "but she won't stand any disarrangement of her habits, so there was nothing but the table, and if you think that it isn't worth that small discomfort for the sake of having you two bright young things about the house, and the neighbours remarking on you and wondering how I am managing, and I with fifteen shillings a week to the good in my pocket, why, you don't know your mother, Florence Aylmer."

      "Well, Mummy, and what was that thought you said you had in the back of your head?" continued Florence.

      "Oh, that," said Mrs. Aylmer – here she looked at both girls. "I wonder, Kitty Sharston," she said, "if you can keep a secret?"

      "Try me, Mrs. Aylmer," replied Kitty.

      "Well, I was thinking things over in the night, and it struck me that the very best possible way to punish my sister-in-law, Susan Aylmer, and have everything that was wrong put right, is for you, Florence, to secure the young man, Maurice Trevor, as your husband."

      "Oh, mother, how can you talk such nonsense?" said Florence. "As if I would," she added, jumping to her feet and shaking the crumbs from her dress.

      "There," said Mrs. Aylmer, "that's just like you. I have been planning it all. You have but to show the fascinations which all women ought to possess, and you will soon twist him round your little finger."

      "I could never, never think of it, mother; and I am distressed that you should say it, and more particularly before Kitty," was Florence's answer.

      Mrs. Aylmer laughed.

      "Girls always say that," she remarked, "but in the end they yield to the inevitable. It would be a splendid coup; it would serve her right. She would be forced to have you living with her after all. I am told she has made the young man the heir of all she possesses, and – but what is the matter, my dear?"

      "I really won't listen to another word," cried Florence, and she jumped up and ran out of the room.

      Mrs. Aylmer's eyes now filled with tears. She looked full at Kitty.

      "I don't know what is the matter with Florence," she said. "I had hoped that that dreadful thing which happened years ago had subdued her spirit and tamed her a trifle, but she seems just as obdurate as ever. It was such a beautiful idea, and it came over me in the night, and I thought I would tell Florence at once, and we might put our heads together and contrive a means by which the young folks could meet; but if she takes it up in that dreadful spirit, what is to be done?"

      "But, of course, Mrs. Aylmer, it would never do," said Kitty. "How can you think of such a thing for a single moment?"

      CHAPTER III.

      A STARTLING MEETING

      Kitty went out soon afterwards and joined Florence on the beach. They walked up and down, chatting eagerly. For a time nothing whatever was said about Mrs. Aylmer's queer suggestion; then suddenly Florence spoke of it.

      "There is one thing I ought to say, Kitty."

      "What is that?" asked Kitty.

      "You must never mind the little Mummy's oddities. She has lived alone on extremely circumscribed means for many years, and when she gets an idea into her head she broods on it."

      "You mean, of course, what she said with regard to Mr. – Mr. Trevor," said Kitty, flushing as she spoke.

      "Yes, it wasn't nice of her," said Florence, with a sigh; "and we won't either of us think of it again. Kitty, I have made up my mind not to marry."

      "Why so?"

      "For a great many reasons. One of them is that I vastly prefer my independence. Another is that I do not think a rich nice man is likely to come in my way, and I do not want to have anything to do with a poor man, whether he is nice or nasty. I have seen too much of poverty. I have had it close to me all my days. I mean to do well in the world: to be beholden to no one. In a fortnight's time I am going to London. I am just taking this one fortnight of rest and refreshment: then I go to London. I have in my trunk half a dozen introductions to different people. I mean to use them; I mean to get something to do; I mean to step from the lowest rung of the ladder up to the highest. I mean to be a success: to prove to the world that a girl can fight her own battles, live her own life, secure her reward – be, in short, a success."

      "Why, Florence," said her companion, "how well you speak; how excited you look!"

      "I have not gone through all I have gone through in my life for nothing," was Florence's reply. "I will never scheme again, I will never again do anything underhand, and I will not marry the man my mother has singled out for me."

      She had scarcely said the words before the attention of both girls was arrested by the sound of a merry laugh not ten yards away. They both looked round, and Florence's cheeks first of all grew vivid and then turned white. A gracefully-dressed woman, or rather girl, was crossing the sands, accompanied by a young man in a grey suit. The man had broad shoulders, closely-cropped, rather fair hair, a sweeping moustache, and eyes as blue as the sky. He had a nice, open sort of face. He was tall, nearly six feet in height, and held himself as erect as a grenadier. He was bending towards the girl and talking to her, and the girl continued to laugh, and once she glanced with a quick, darting movement in the direction where Kitty and Florence were sitting. Then, touching her companion on the arm, she said: "I am tired; will you take me back to the hotel?"

      Neither Kitty nor Florence said a word until the pair – the good-looking, well-set-up young man and the girl in her pretty summer dress – disappeared from view. Then Florence turned to Kitty.

      "It is?" said Florence.

      Kitty nodded.

      "Who would have believed it?" continued Florence. She started up in her excitement.

      "I do not think I can quite stand this," she said.

      "But where has she come from?" said Kitty again.

      "How can I tell? I never want to see her wicked face again."

      "She looks just as young as she did six years ago," said СКАЧАТЬ