Those who remember “A Bunch
of Cherries” will recall the fact that Florence
Aylmer left Cherry Court School under a cloud:
that Kitty Sharston won the prize offered by Sir John
Wallis, and of course stayed on at the school; and
that Bertha Keys, finding her game was up and her
wickedness discovered, disappeared it was
hoped by the unhappy girl whom she had injured never
to show her face again.
In this old world of ours, however,
bad people do not always receive their punishment,
and it came to pass that Bertha Keys, although she
had failed in the case of Cherry Court School, did
manage to feather her nest and to secure a very comfortable
post for herself.
So daring an adventuress was this
young woman that she absolutely made up her mind to
lay siege to no less a person than Mrs. Aylmer the
great.
It was easy for her to do this.
Mrs. Aylmer had not noticed her on that auspicious
occasion when all the girls of the school were collected
in Sir John Wallis’s fine old house. The
part that Bertha had played in the affair, which had
lowered her niece in her eyes for ever, was very slightly
impressed on her memory. There was a pupil teacher
who had not behaved right, but what the name of that
pupil teacher was had never sunk into the good lady’s
memory.
She was terribly disappointed about
her niece Florence, although she pretended not to
care, and a month or two afterwards she advertised
in a local paper for a companion.
The person who answered this advertisement
was Bertha Keys. She managed to satisfy the good
lady with regard to testimonials, taking care never
to breathe the name of Cherry Court School. She
secured the post, and from that moment ruled Mrs.
Aylmer, although Mrs. Aylmer supposed that she ruled
her.
Florence found a friend in Sir John
Wallis, who put her on the foundation of an excellent
school which he knew of. She was well educated,
and now at the age of twenty was prepared to fight
the battle of life.
Florence had received a present of
twenty pounds from Sir John Wallis on leaving school,
and with this slender provision she meant to fight
the world and find her own niche.
Kitty Sharston had fulfilled all her
early promise of beauty and grace. Her father
was now returning to England, and she was to go and
live with him.
Mrs. Aylmer the less was just as determined
and just as peculiar as in the days of old. She
always spoke out what she thought, and the next morning
at breakfast, as the two girls with rosy faces and
bright eyes sat round the very tiny board, she expounded
her views.
“Florence,” she said, “I am nothing
if I am not frank.”
“We know that, Mummy,”
replied her daughter, with a twinkle in her bright
dark eyes; “what is up now?”
“Only this: I have been thinking things
in the night.”
“Oh, do satisfy my curiosity,
Mrs. Aylmer,” exclaimed Kitty; “where did
you sleep last night? You don’t know how
uncomfortable Florry and I were, fearing we had taken
your bed.”
“Which you did, my dear.
If it was a subject of fear, your fears were realised,”
responded the little widow.
“Oh, but this is quite dreadful:
ought we to stay on here, Florry, or, at least, ought
I to stay on?”
“How much, Florry, are you going
to pay me per week?” now exclaimed Mrs. Aylmer.
“I wish I could take you, my dear, darling child,
for nothing; but the fact is, I cannot, and if I could
Sukey would not allow it. Sukey says that a greater
stint she will not bear, and twelve pounds ten a quarter
cannot be made to go farther than we two poor women
make it go, Florence. Do you think you could
rise to the sum of fifteen shillings a week if I give
you meat every day?”
“Of course, Mummy, of course.”
“And I must and will pay a pound
a week,” said Kitty; “why, it is cheap so
cheap that father will be more than astonished, and
the place is so lovely, and I am enjoying it greatly.
Can you put me up and give me what food I require
for a pound a week, Mrs. Aylmer?”
“It will be riches,” said
Mrs. Aylmer, with tears in her eyes. “The
fact is, I can feed you both comfortably for ten shillings
a piece, and the rest will be clear profit: fifteen
shillings over for clear profit. Why, I won’t
know myself. I might be able to buy some new clothes;
for I declare, my dears, 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?”