Part 27 (2/2)

”Well, dear, I know it goes very sore with you, and I hope, with all my heart and soul, that it may not be necessary.”

”Necessary!” I said, ”what do you mean? O Jane! don't talk in that way, you'll drive me mad. I cannot stay in the house with the Fannings any more.”

”Let me think for a moment,” answered Jane. She looked very careworn and distressed, her face had grown thin and haggard. She looked years older than before we had started the boarding-house. I was quite sorry to see the change in her face.

”Our life does not suit you,” I said.

”Oh, it suits me well enough,” she replied, ”and I never leave a sinking s.h.i.+p.”

”But why should this s.h.i.+p be sinking? I thought we were doing so well, the house is almost always full.”

”It is just this,” said Jane: ”we charged too little when we started.

If the house was choke-full, all the attics and the three different floors let, we could not make the thing pay, that's the awful fact, and you ought to know it, Westenra. We should have begun by charging more.”

”Then why didn't we?” I said. ”I left all those matters to you, Jane.

I was very ignorant, and you came and----”

”I am not blaming you, my dear Westenra,” said Jane; ”only it is very, very hard to go on toiling, toiling all day and almost all night, and to feel at the same time that the thing cannot pay, that it can never pay.”

”But why didn't we begin by charging more, and why can't we charge more now?”

”Because people who live in Bloomsbury never pay more,” answered Miss Mullins, ”that is it, dear. If we meant this thing to succeed we should have started our boarding-house in Mayfair, and then perhaps we might have had a chance of managing. Perhaps with a connection like yours we could have made it pay.”

”Never,” I said, ”none of our friends would come to us, they would have been scandalised. It would never have done, Jane.”

”Well, well, we have got ourselves into a trap, and we must get out the best way we can,” was Jane's lugubrious answer.

”Oh, never mind about our being in money difficulties now,” I cried, ”do think of me, Jane, just for a moment, do make things possible for me. Remember that I am very young, and I was never accustomed to people of the Fanning type. Do, I beseech of you, ask them to go. Mr.

Fanning's action to-day will make your request possible. Jane, if I went on my knees and stayed there all my life, I could not marry him, and the sooner he knows it the better.”

”I will think things over,” said Jane. I never saw anything like the look of despair which was creeping over her face.

”Things are coming to a crisis,” she continued, ”and I must confide in you fully, but not just now, we must get dinner over first. Your mother was ill while you were away, she won't come to dinner to-night.”

”Mother ill! Anything serious?” I cried in alarm.

”Only a little faintness. I have got her comfortably to bed.”

”Well, of course, I shan't dine to-night, I shall stay with mother.”

”But you must, my love, it is absolutely necessary that you should appear at dinner, and you must be quite cheerful too in her room. She is quite herself now, and is looking over a new book, and when you go to her you will see that she has had a nice dinner, nouris.h.i.+ng and suitable. Now go and change your dress, and make yourself look smart.

Now that Mr. Randolph is gone, and your mother is too ill to be often in the drawing-room and dining-room, the affairs of the household rest upon you. You must make yourself smart; you must make yourself attractive. It must be done, Westenra, it must, and for your mother's sake.”

Jane spoke with such determination that she stimulated my courage, and I went away to my own room determined to act on her advice.

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