By the next train Bertha saw Maurice
Trevor off to London. When she had done so, she
went slowly in the direction of the sands. She
had induced Mrs. Aylmer to put off her drive until
the afternoon. Bertha was now very anxious to
see Florence.
In all probability Florence would
be on the beach: she would know that Bertha was
coming to get the answer which Florence had not given
her the day before. She walked slowly, holding
her parasol up to shade her face from the sun, and
thinking her thoughts.
“At any rate, Maurice Trevor
is safe for the day,” she said to herself; “and
before the evening has passed, I shall have Florence’s
promise that she will not betray me to Mrs. Aylmer.
Mrs. Aylmer is just the sort of person, if Florence
made the worst of things, to turn against me and take
Florence back again. Then indeed, she would be
avenged, and I should be routed. Such a state
of things cannot be.”
Bertha thought quickly. Her thoughts
turned to a little account which was weekly swelling
in importance, and which stood to her credit in the
Post Office Savings Bank. She was intensely fond
of money, but she knew that the time had come when
it might be necessary to sacrifice some of her savings.
Presently she gave a well-assumed start; said:
“Hullo, Flo, is that you?” and went to
meet Florence Aylmer.
Florence’s face was quite pale,
and her eyes were red as if she had been crying.
“Goodness!” said Bertha;
“what does this mean? Have you had any domestic
calamity since I saw you last?”
“No, not any except what you
are making,” replied Florence. “I
wish you would go away, Bertha: I hate to see
you again. I wish you would leave me in peace.”
“Well, darling, we return to
Aylmer’s Court to-morrow, so you will not be
long worried by us. I have just been seeing that
nice young fellow, Maurice Trevor, off to town.”
“Indeed,” answered Florence.
“Don’t you like him extremely?”
continued Bertha, giving her companion a quick glance.
“I scarcely know him,” replied Florence.
“But you do just know him. How did you
become acquainted with him?”
“My mother introduced him.”
“Ah! just like the little widow,”
said Bertha, in a thoughtful voice. “Well,
Flo, you and I have a good deal to say to each other.
Let us walk to the other end of the sands, where we
shall be alone.”
Florence hesitated. For a moment
she looked as if she were going to refuse; then she
said, in an almost sulky tone: “Very well.”
They turned in that direction and walked slowly.
At last they reached the spot where Mrs. Aylmer had
discovered Kitty and Florence the day before.
“It was here I first saw him,”
thought Florence Aylmer to herself. “What
a true, good expression he had in his blue eyes.
How upright he looked! How different from Bertha!
Oh, what a miserable wretched girl I am! Why
do I not tell Bertha that I do not fear her? Why
should I put myself in her power?”
At last they reached the rocks.
“It is nice here, and quite
romantic,” said Bertha; “we can come to
our little arrangement. You have made up your
mind, of course, Florence, that you will not speak
to Mrs. Aylmer of what you know about me?”
“I do not see why I should keep
your secret for you,” said Florence; “I
do not particularly want to injure you, much as you
injured me in the past; but at the same time why should
I make a promise about it? The time may come
when it will be to my benefit to tell Mrs. Aylmer what
I know.”
“At the present moment she would
not speak to you. She hates you as she hates
no one else in the world. Your very name is as
a red rag to her. If I want to rouse her worst
passions, I have but to allude to you. Even if
you told her, she would not believe a word against
me.”
“I am not so sure of that.
Mrs. Aylmer may be forced to listen to me, and if
you rouse my evil feelings I may tell her just to spite
you, Bertha.”
“But you will not,” said
Bertha. “You want money badly. You
would like to be independent.”
“That is quite true.”
“You have had a fairly good
education and you want to earn your own living?”
“I mean to earn it.”
“But you will require a little
money until you do. Now, look here, Florence:
I don’t want to injure you. I know I did
long ago; I did it for my own benefit. I was
cast penniless on the world, and I was forced to invent
all kinds of subterfuges to make my way. I pity
girls who are placed as I was placed. I have
now managed to get into a comfortable nest. As
I said before, I am in your nest. It suits me,
and I do not mean to go out of it; but I pity you,
and I should like to help you. Will you borrow
a little money from me?”
“Borrow money from you?
No, no,” said Florence; but she trembled as she
said the words.
“I can quite conveniently lend
you fifty pounds,” continued Bertha, gazing
as she spoke across the summer sea. “It
is not much, but it is something. With fifty
pounds in your pocket you can go, say to London or
to any other large town and advertise what you are
worth. You have, I presume, something to sell:
some knowledge, for instance, which you can impart
to others; or perhaps you have a talent for writing.
Don’t you remember our wonderful essay?”
“Don’t!” said Florence;
“don’t!” She covered her face with
her hands; the crimson colour had flooded her face.
Bertha gave a queer smile.
“Now, I could earn money by
writing essays,” she said; “very smart
essays they would be, and I could earn money by writing
stories. Suppose, suppose I write stories still,
and send them to you, and you publish them as your
own how would that do? Why should you
not? I like writing stories, and I do not want
money, and you could polish them up if you liked and
sell them as your own. That is an excellent idea.
Will you do it? I am quite agreeable. I
will furnish you with a short story, say, once a fortnight,
or once a month. Will you take one with you and
try to sell it as your own? I can do it in the
evenings, and you shall have it. Don’t
you think that I am paying you well, now, to keep
silence? I am offering you an honourable livelihood,
and in the meantime there is the fifty pounds:
you may as well have it; it will keep you until the
money for the stories comes in, and you can pay me
back when you like. I dare not appear before
the world as a writer, for Mrs. Aylmer is hard to
please, and she would not like me to write or to do
anything but devote my time to her; but there are hours
at night when she goes to bed which I can devote to
your service. Now, what do you say? It seems
to me to be a very good offer.”
“It is a tempting offer, certainly,”
said Florence; “but I never thought of writing.
I have no particular taste for it.”
“Well, think it over,”
said Bertha, rising as she spoke, “and in the
meantime I will send you the money this evening.”
“Oh, I cannot take it; please don’t.”
“I will send it to you,”
said Bertha, in a gay voice; “it is quite arranged.
Good-bye, dear; I wish you success. When you are
a great writer we can cast up accounts and see on
which side the balance lies. You quite understand?
I have a gift in that way which I think can be turned
to account. You will agree to do what I wish,
will you not, Florence?”
“It is all horrible! I
do not know what to say,” answered Florence.
“I see in your eyes that you
mean to accept; you cannot help yourself. You
cannot possibly starve, and you will find when you
go to London that the posts of teachers and secretaries
are overfull; but the writer of clever short stories
can always find a market for his or her wares.”
Florence rose to her feet.
“I don’t like it,”
she said; “I am thoroughly miserable. I
wish there were some other way; but there is not.”
“Well, try for yourself before
you think of the story part; but, anyhow, you must
take the fifty pounds you really must.”
Bertha rose, touched Florence lightly
on her cheek, and before the other girl could say
a word turned and left her. She walked across
the beach now with a dancing step.
“I have scored a point,”
she said to herself; “Florence won’t dare
to tell. She is as certain to accept that fifty
pounds as she is to eat her breakfast to-morrow morning.
After all, I am very generous to her; but I see my
way, I think, to win Maurice Trevor. I see my
way to prevent these two becoming friends, and at
the worst, if Maurice does meet Florence again, and
does fall in love with her, I shall take good care
that he is not Mrs. Aylmer’s heir. It is
but to alter her will and heigh presto! the riches
are mine!”