The Wyndham Girls

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER III

  WAYS AND MEANS

  Events moved swiftly for the Wyndhams, impelled by the force ofnecessity. The trust company that had made the loan to Mr. Abbott whichhad been secured by Mrs. Wyndham's house, learning of the failure ofthe corporation and that it was unable to meet its indebtedness, fellback on its security, and seized the house so unfortunately pledged toit.

  Although Mrs. Wyndham was prepared for this inevitable result of herfatal confidence in Mr. Abbott, it came upon her like a bewilderingblow that her house was hers no longer. This, and the fact that theexpense of running such an immense establishment would make ruinousinroads on her slender principal in a few weeks, determined her uponhastening her movements and quitting as soon as possible the homeshe loved, taking up an existence which seemed to her, as she triedto picture it, a horrible nightmare in which she must die if she didnot waken.

  It was no more difficult for her true friends to misleadMrs. Wyndham kindly in business matters than it had been for herfalse friend to defraud her. Mr. Hurd and Mrs. Van Alyn combined totake advantage of her ignorance of affairs, to her profit. It wasa bad time of year for a sale, as Mr. Hurd had said; but it was ofparamount importance that the painful severing of old ties should bemade quickly, not only because it was necessary to begin to receive anincome immediately, but in order to avoid the torture of keeping theWyndhams' troubles an open wound.

  To all those whom she hoped the news might interest, Mrs. Van Alynsent notices that the pictures were to be sold. Collectors and dealerscame not only from the city, but from Boston and Philadelphia, forMr. Wyndham had been well known for the value of his art treasures.Offers were made for the pictures as they hung on the walls, as wellas for the marbles and bronzes; on the whole, the prices were fair,considering that it was a forced sale, with no time margin to allowthe owners opportunity to do better. At least this method saved thecommission on an auction sale, which had to be added to net profits inestimating them.

  The horses brought an excellent price; they were young, perfectlymatched, and spirited, yet gentle. Parting from them was perhaps thehardest pang Barbara had to endure. Castor and Pollux were really herfriends--as, indeed, any animal she came in contact with was sure tobe. But she derived a grain of comfort from the promise, which shewent personally to obtain from their new owner, that even if they beganto break down he would never allow them to be sold into hardship--apromise which, it is to be hoped, was kept for the sake of the girl whohad tried to protect the creatures she loved.

  Mrs. Van Alyn persuaded Mrs. Wyndham to come to her for the final twoweeks of her nominal ownership of the house. It would be less painful,she thought, if the poor lady could pass its threshold for the lasttime, shutting the door on everything as she had loved it, rather thanremain during the dismantling, to see profane hands ruthlessly draggingfrom their places the mementos of her happy marriage and the childhoodof her daughters.

  Accordingly, one warm, sunny morning, Mrs. Van Alyn's rotund horsesdrew up at the door, and Mrs. Wyndham, looking very frail and newlywidowed under her long veil, came slowly down the stairs, leaning onJessamy's arm. She had made a painful pilgrimage to each room, pausingat certain spots, laying her hand lingeringly on the furniture, andkneeling long before the great brown-leather chair which had been herhusband's, her face hidden on its glossy seat, which was wet with hertears when she raised her head.

  At each door she stopped, rested her cheek a moment against thecasement, and kissed the dark wood as lovingly as a Jew would kiss the_mazuzah_ on the casement; for this had been her home, a sacred temple,and the law of love was written on its door-posts. It was a longand weary task to get the poor creature to the end of her stationsof sorrow, and the three girls, as well as she, were white and faintwhen they reached the hall. But finally Mrs. Wyndham came forth on thedoor-step, and for the last time the heavy mahogany door swung close,shutting out its mistress forever.

  Jessamy drove with her mother to the kind friend who waited her withloving welcome, but Phyllis and Bab sobbed long and tempestuously onthe stairs after Mrs. Wyndham had gone, and black Violet and blackerSally, with Irish Ellen, the laundress, on the basement stairs, sobbedwith them.

  That afternoon the work of stripping the house was begun. The pictureswere boxed for their various owners, vans were coming and going, takingthe furniture to auction-rooms, and all was melancholy confusion.

  Mrs. Van Alyn and Phyllis took charge of the painful work. Mrs. VanAlyn quietly set aside some of the dearer mementos of past happinessnot too valuable to be kept out of the sale, to be sent to a store-roomshe had taken for the purpose. Nothing splendid was retained; only thepictures in the girls' rooms, their own special pet chairs, desks,tables, Bab's piano, and Mr. Wyndham's library chair. Mrs. Van Alynforesaw and tried to provide for the day when, in one way or another,some of the Wyndhams would again have a home in which this flotsam andjetsam from their early shipwreck would be welcome. Not even Phyllisknew that their kind friend was doing this, though she unconsciouslyfurnished the information which guided Mrs. Van Alyn in making herselections.

  It took but a week to undo the work of twenty years. Mr. Wyndham hadbought this house on his marriage, and his family had known no otherhome; yet by the Saturday following the Monday on which Mrs. Wyndhamhad gone away from it, it was barren of everything except a bonnet andshawl hanging on a hook behind the kitchen door, the property of thewoman who had come in to sweep out the empty rooms.

  Jessamy, Phyllis, and Barbara roamed through the house as their motherhad done, like her, bidding it farewell in every corner, listening,half frightened, to the echo of their footsteps on the bare floors.Their power to feel had been spent in the preceding days of theirpainful tasks; utterly weary in body and mind, they closed the door oftheir dismantled home behind them, and passed down the steps into theirnew existence.

  It had been agreed at first among the Wyndhams that they would notaccept Mrs. Van Alyn's invitation to Mount Desert for the summer; butMrs. Wyndham was so ill with utter prostration of nerves and strength,and the girls themselves so unfit to encounter any further trials, thatthe question decided itself otherwise. They gladly availed themselvesof another kindness from the devoted friend who was an antidote againstheavy doses of the poisonous bitterness of finding there were many thewarmth of whose affection was much tempered by change of fortune.

  The summer at Mount Desert sent the Wyndhams back to New York fortifiedin mind and body to meet their fate. Phyllis especially was muchcheered by the fact that she had made a friend in Maine in the personof an old lady from Boston, who had been quite charmed by her, of whomshe always spoke as "the dear little girl," and to whom she promised aposition as reader and companion to herself at any time that fortunefailed Phyllis in New York or that her family could spare her.

  The sale of the Wyndhams' effects--silver, glass, jewelry, as well aspictures, marbles, furniture, and horses--had brought but a trifleover twenty thousand dollars. Fortunately Mrs. Wyndham disapproved ofbills, so there was but little outstanding indebtedness to dischargebefore investing the remnant of their fortune. But even at six percent. it could not yield more than half of the sum they had calculatedon having, and the once lightly valued legacy to the girls from theirunknown great-aunt Amelia was required to bring their little capital upto the point of returning them two thousand a year.

  The first step to be made by these novices in the ungentle art ofliving was to find a boarding-place. This undertaking was assumed byJessamy and Phyllis, aided by Ruth Wells, who knew better than they didwhat to seek and what to avoid.

  The limitations of their purse defined the boundaries of their search;only places where low prices obtained were open to the Wyndhams--a factin itself difficult to master at first; and the poor little pilgrimsup Poverty Hill shrank from the mere exterior of some of the houses,the advertisements of which they had cut out and pasted on a sheet ofpaper, making a "vertebrate" like Mrs. March's in Howells's story.

  At last they summoned courage to ring
the bell of an old-fashioned,high-stoop house in a quiet down-town street.

  "What a queer smell, Ruth!" murmured Phyllis, sniffing the aircritically and speaking low, because the sight and sound of some onemoving about, opening and shutting drawers in the back parlor, weredistinctly visible and audible through the plain places in the patternof the ground-glass panels of the folding doors.

  "Boarding-house!" said Ruth, laconically. "It's the regular odor;ghosts of Christmases--past Christmas dinners, I mean--Fourth of July,and no particular days besides."

  At this moment the doors slid back, revealing a folding-bed, let downand unmade, and a gaunt figure in a worn black silk skirt and lavenderwaist stood confessed.

  "We are looking for board for four ladies--a widow with two daughtersand a niece," said Ruth, making herself spokeswoman. "You takeboarders, I believe? We saw your advertisement in yesterday's 'Herald.'"

  "We receive a few guests," replied the gaunt person, correctively. "Weprefer gentlemen."

  "Yes; we knew that on general principles," said Ruth, easily; "butthese are ladies. What rooms have you?"

  "A hall bedroom on the second and two square rooms on the third,"returned the gaunt one. "Will you look at them?"

  "If you please," said Jessamy, and they were conducted up the dingystairs to the third floor. The floors were covered alike with redBrussels carpet; the wall-papers--gray with gilt figures in one,brown with red roses in the other--were alike tarnished and stained.A marble-topped bureau of black walnut, a bedstead, and three chairs,with one rocker, all of the same expressionless wood, furnished eachroom.

  "We could never put up with this, Ruth; don't delay here," whisperedJessamy, but Ruth shook her head. "What do you ask for these rooms?"she inquired.

  "Twenty dollars a week for each, two in a room," replied the gauntperson.

  "Thank you; they would not answer," said Jessamy. "Why, I should diehere, or go mad of odors and ugliness," she added for Phyllis's privateear.

  "We might consider thirty-five a week, as it is one family," suggestedthe gaunt person at the door.

  "No, thanks," said Phyllis. "Only fancy! Seven dollars more than wemean to pay, and for what? Are all boarding-houses like this, Ruth?"

  "Not in detail; similar in genus. I tell you, you would be far betteroff in your own little flat, cooking your own little meals on yourown little gas-range, in your own little spider. However, don'tlose heart at the first one; there are degrees of badness," laughedRuth.

  The second attempt was made further up town, in a street among theThirties. The parlor into which the girls were ushered was morecheerful here than in the first case, but was furnished in a style thatjarred on the nerves through the eyes, just as grating slate-pencilsjar them through the ears.

  A portly person, with a much jetted front, sailed into the room,smiling affably.

  "We take a few guests," she said in reply to the inquiry for board,precisely as the gaunt person down town had replied, adding, like her,that she "preferred gentlemen." "I have the back parlor on this floorand a hall bedroom on the third vacant just now, though we rarely havea vacancy," she said graciously. "You might manage with a folding-bedin the large room and the hall bedroom."

  "And your prices?" asked Phyllis. "Still, it doesn't matter; we musthave two square rooms near each other."

  "I should charge eighteen dollars for two in the back parlor, and Iwould let the hall bedroom to two for fourteen--my table board is sixdollars apiece without a room," said she of the jets.

  "No; we shall pay only fourteen for each of the rooms we are lookingfor," said Jessamy, whose courage was rising.

  "Oh, I couldn't consider it," said the landlady, sternly. "Still, thereare two lovely rooms on the top floor you might have for that. Thefurnace does not go up there, so they would be heated by a stove. Youwouldn't mind looking after your own fires?"

  "I should mind my mother going up so many flights; still, we will lookat the rooms," said Jessamy. The long climb to the top of the housebrought them to two rooms together, though not connected; sunny, rathercheerful, and, though plainly furnished, not so ugly as the first ones.

  "We are not willing to go up so high, but we will let you know if weconsider them further," said Jessamy.

  "I should require references as to respectability," said the landlady,firmly.

  "I am glad to hear it; so should I," said Jessamy, and departed,cutting short a list of distinguished people who had once boarded there.

  Three days of weary search brought forth no better results. The maindifference in the places the discouraged girls visited was that in onehouse the stairs went up on the right side of the hall, in another onthe left; that in one the furniture of the rooms was black walnut, inanother oak--when it was maple or mahogany it was beyond the Wyndhams'limit of price.

  These days taught the three girls--for Barbara had joined theothers--more of life than their entire years so far had shown them, andthe fruit of this tree of knowledge was bitter indeed.

  They were unable to find anything within their means better than theupper rooms in the West Thirty ---- Street house, and decided torisk the four flights--five including the basement--and the dubiousprospect of the care of their own fires.

  Having decided, they proceeded to make the best of what each felt inher heart to be a very bad bargain, with the courage each possessed indifferent forms.

  There were two days intervening between that on which the newboarding-place was engaged and the day on which it was to be"infested," as Bab called taking possession. That young person assumedthe task of beautifying their unattractive quarters, nor would shepermit any of the others to see her improvements, but hammered herthumbs and strained her unaccustomed arms putting up curtains, shelves,casts, and photographs unassisted, in order to "usher her family into abower of bliss" when it moved in.

  On the afternoon before this event, Barbara came along Thirty ----Street from Sixth Avenue. Her arms were full of flower-pots--two filledthem--and a boy came behind with a basket containing six more. Bab hadnot been able to resist the temptation to invest in plants to fillher mother's sunny window and make the room a little more cheerful.She hurried down the street, and paused at the foot of the steps longenough to let her listless attendant squire catch up with her. She hadno hand to give her skirts, but she sprang up the steps, regardless ofthe danger of tripping. At the same instant the front door opened and acocker spaniel rushed out, barking wildly and throwing himself downwardwith that apparent utter disregard of whether head or tail wentfirst, and of anything which might be in his path, characteristic of ayoung and blissful little dog.

  "A YOUNG MAN DASHED DOWN THE STEPS INTO THE RUINS."]

  He flung himself down, and Barbara stepped aside; her balance wasuncertain, and her skirts unmanageable by reason of her laden arms.She tripped, fell, and flower-pots, dog, and girl rolled crashing andscattering dirt in all directions into the boy and basket two stepslower, ending in a tangle on the sidewalk.

  From the doorway a horrified voice cried: "Good heavens! Nixie!" and ayoung man dashed down the steps into the ruins.

  "Are you hurt?" he cried anxiously, as he fished Barbara out of thewreck. Nixie had already slunk out from under, and was wagging histail deprecatingly, with glances of mingled shame and amazement at hismaster.

  "I think I am," said Barbara, raising her head and trying to speakcheerfully.

  The young man replaced her hat--it had fallen over her eyes--andrevealed a woebegone little face. Earth plastered the saucy chin, onecheek was cut, and blood trickled from the bridge of the poor littletilted nose, making a paste wherever the loam from the flower-pots hadspattered, and this was nearly everywhere. Barbara's hair was comingdown, her hat was shapeless, and her eyes tearful from the smartingwounds.

  "By Jove, you're a wreck! It's a shame!" cried the young man. "I'llwhip Nixie."

  "You'll do nothing of the sort!" said Barbara, with spirit. "How didhe know I was coming up--coming up like a flower--at that moment? Youmight as well w
hip me. Nobody is to blame, and I'll be all right whenI've washed and sewed and plastered, and done a few other things."

  "Well, you're plucky," said the youth, admiringly. "I'm a doctor inembryo--full fledged next June. I'll take you in and fix you up. Doyou--you don't live here?"

  "We shall to-morrow; I'm a new boarder," said Barbara. "Oh, I hope myplants aren't broken! Can they be re-potted? We've become poor, and Iought not to have bought them. Why on earth doesn't that boy get up? Ishe killed?" she demanded, realizing that her companion in misery wasstill lying, with his head in the basket, under a debris of flower-pots.

  "It's why _in_ earth, rather," laughed the medical student. "Here, youboy, are you alive? You're buried all right! Get up."

  The listless boy gathered himself slowly together. "Well, I'll bedarned!" he said.

  "You'll have to be," cried the doctor, sitting down to laugh, andpointing to the rent across the shoulders of the inert one's jacket.

  "What ailed that dog? Did he have a fit?" drawled the boy, scowling atNixie, who slunk behind Barbara self-consciously.

  "He wasn't a dog; he was a cat-apult," gasped the doctor.

  "Oh, please help me into the house," cried Barbara, half laughing, halfcrying. Several people had paused to gaze, grinning sympathetically atthe scene.

  "I beg your pardon! What an idiot to keep you standing here!" criedthe medical student, jumping up. "Here, hustle these plants into yourbasket," he added to the boy. "They're not broken; we can fix them upall right. Where's my key?--there you are! Walk in. Get into the house,Nixie, you crazy pup; you've lost your walk. Leave those plants in thehall, boy, and rush back to your employer and tell him you want as manypots as you had at first, and a bag of dirt, and hurry back with it.Now, Mrs. Black--Mrs. Black, where are you?"

  "Here," said the landlady, emerging from the rear. "Why, Miss Wyndham,what has happened?"

  "Introduce us, please; we met on the steps," said Barbara's newacquaintance.

  "Miss Wyndham--Doctor Leighton," said the bewildered Mrs. Black,automatically.

  "Happy to have the honor, Miss Wyndham. There was a mix-up on thesteps, Mrs. Black; there's some of it there yet. Let me have some warmwater and a sponge, please. Miss Wyndham, take off your hat and haveyour face washed," said the unabashed boy.

  "Not by you," said Barbara.

  "Precisely. I'm almost a doctor, and I'm going to see that no dirt isleft in your wounds to scar you. Don't be foolish, Miss Wyndham; it'snot exactly a ceremonious occasion."

  Barbara submitted with no further demur, and soon her face was adornedwith strips of court-plaster laid on in a plaid pattern.

  "Shall I be scarred?" she asked, surveying the crisscross lines on thebridge of her nose.

  "Not a bit," said Doctor Leighton, cheerfully. "Mrs. Black might giveyou a cup of tea to brace you up."

  "Yes," said Mrs. Black, without enthusiasm.

  "No, thanks; I hate tea, and I'll be all right. There's the boy backwith the new pots," said Barbara.

  "Let me help you get the plants in, and I'll settle with the boy,because it's all Nixie's fault," said the young doctor. "Not a word!Get to work, Miss Wyndham."

  He placed papers on the floor in the rear hall, apparently obliviousto Mrs. Black's icy disapproval, which inexperienced Barbara foundoppressive.

  "My father and your father were friends," said the young fellow,packing the earth around a begonia. "I knew you were coming here toboard, and I know about the hard blow you've had. It's a shame, andit's all the fault of that scoundrel Abbott."

  "Oh, how nice that your father knew papa! That is almost like beingfriends ourselves," said Barbara, simply. "Yes, it's dreadful for mamato be poor, and for Jessamy. Phyl and I are not going to mind it somuch."

  "Is Phil your brother?"

  "No; Phyllis it is; she's my cousin, only she's just as much my sisteras Jessamy, for she has always lived with us. I'm a year younger thanshe and Jessamy. Jessamy's perfectly beautiful and princessfied, andPhyllis is the most unselfish blessing in the world. I'm only Barbara."

  "And I'm only Tom; I'm not a doctor yet. It's awfully jolly you'recoming here. Mrs. Black gone? Yes. There isn't any one in the house Icare to know; the young people are not my sort. I hope you'll forgiveNixie and me enough to speak to us once in a while," said Tom, gettingup and dusting his knees.

  "Oh, we shall want to talk to you; Nixie is such a nice dog," laughedBarbara.

  "Only Nixie? Well, love my dog, love--oh, it's the other way about!Never mind, though; we can improve old saws. Where are your rooms?"

  "First floor from the Milky Way," laughed Bab. "We hate to have mamaclimb so far, but we couldn't afford better rooms."

  Tom Leighton looked down on the swollen, patched little face withbrotherly kindness; respect and pity were in his voice as he saidgently: "You will make any room bright and homelike. I see why you tookyour tumble down the steps so well. You are brave in falling, MissBarbara."

  Barbara stooped suddenly to pat Nixie, hiding her wounded face in hisglossy curls.

  "I'm not always brave," she said huskily. "I am ashamed to think somuch about my beautiful room and home. I feel so little and lost inthis boarding-house."

  "Poor little woman!" said Tom Leighton. "Try to feel you have onefriend in it. I have two sisters, and it was lonely for me when I lefthome. Good-by; we shall meet to-morrow." They shook hands, feeling likeold friends; and Nixie sat up to shake hands too, though the dignity ofhis farewell was much damaged by a surreptitious lick of his quick redtongue on Bab's chin.

  Tom departed, whistling, to give Nixie the walk the accident hadpostponed; he found himself seeing, all down the street, a tiltedlittle nose adorned with court-plaster, and brown eyes, wistful likeNixie's. "She's plucky and simple and frank; just the girl to be afellow's good chum," he thought. "What luck they're coming to theBlackboard!"--Tom's name for his residence.

  Bab finished her tasks, and went home with glowing accounts of thelittle dog who had undone her and the jolly boy who had patched her up.

  "There are two nice things in our new home," she said; "and I believewe'll be happy, in spite of fate."