Part 3 (1/2)
”Mama,” said she, ”it is the loveliest of spring days. You think it cold, I daresay, as you have a fire, but it is just like summer, and I am going to drive you and Selina; and afterwards I will drive the boys, if they are very good. We will go very slowly; not in the streets, but away in the country. Mama, you are not afraid of my driving?” Mrs Vane shook her head. ”No, love; I am not afraid. I am sure you can drive the ponies; but it is a long time since I was out. Selina will like to go, however.”
”And you too, mama--just a little way. Are you not so well, mama? You are tired. Something has tired you. Ah! these papers. I see. She could not have gone to church, and said her prayers quite happily, unless she had left you something to vex yourself with while she was away. Where are they? Why, mama, these are the very same I saw at Christmas--some of them at least,” added she, after turning over a bundle of papers that lay on the dressing-table. ”I see butcher's bill--baker's bill--grocer's bill. What quant.i.ties you and Selina must eat, mama! I don't understand them in the least. Were not all these things paid before, mama?”
”Some of them must have been,” replied Mrs Vane, wearily; ”but I do not understand them.”
”And why should you be vexed? Is not Mrs Ascot here for no other reason than to save you all this trouble? And surely papa--”
Mrs Vane made a sudden impatient gesture. ”Papa can do nothing. There is nothing to be done but pay the bills, and he cannot pay them.”
”Has anything happened since we were at home?” asked Frederica anxiously. ”Have we grown poor?”
”No, no. Everything is as usual. Indeed, Mr St. Cyr gave me more money than usual. Rents have risen, he says. He was here not a month since, but the money has all gone--'to pay servants' wages and old debts,' Mrs Ascot says. I do not understand how it can be.”
”But, mama, there must be some mistake. I wish I knew about bills and things. Papa ought to examine these. He would understand them. Why should you be vexed about them?”
”My love, there is nothing to understand, he says, but that the bills must be paid; and he says I must ask Mr St. Cyr for more money--that we have not enough to live upon. I cannot do it. It is not in his power to increase it. He gave me more once, but I think, it was his own. It was for Mrs Glencairn. I could not bear that she who is so good to you should be without her money. But I could not ask him again.”
”But, mama,” said Frederica, hesitating, ”has papa no money? He goes to the office, and all that--and has he no salary, like other gentlemen?”
”There is many a family kept on less than his income, Mr St. Cyr told me; but the keeping up of the place is expensive; and I cannot ask him.
And oh, darling, to think that I should have spoiled your holiday with all this!”
”Mama, don't you remember how you put these bills away at Christmas, not to vex yourself and us? And here they are again. It is right that I should be vexed with what vexes you, although I am a child.”
”Yes, if you could help me, dear.”
The children had gone out to the garden by this time. Selina sat holding her mother's hand, listening with a grave face to all that pa.s.sed.
”Mama,” said she, ”Frederica ought to know. She is a child, but she has sense; and, with her to help us, we might be able to understand. Have you the papers, Frederica? Mama read them all at Christmas after you went away, and she gave Madame Ascot money to pay some of them at least, and it cannot be right that they all should come back. There must be some mistake.”
Frederica opened a great many papers and read patiently through long household accounts, and in a little while became utterly bewildered.
Nothing but the grave looks of her mother and Selina prevented her from bursting into childish laughter, so comical did the going over and over the same thing seem to her. The grocer's bill was the most amusing.
”Tea, sugar, coffee, soap, candles, salt,” and so on, over again.
”Dear me, mama, how many things people need?”
Then there were other bills, the butcher's, the baker's, and then a wine merchant's bill. There was one which had ”paid M. Leroy” at the end of it, and Frederica said--
”Madame Ascot did not intend you should have this, mama. However, we may as well put it with the rest.”
Selina listened earnestly, but said nothing. Indeed, when they had all wearied themselves, they were no wiser, and no nearer the end of their trouble.
”Mama, ought people to have bills?” said Frederica; ”ought not people to pay when they buy things? It would save a great deal of trouble.”
”I think they ought; but Mrs Ascot seems to have fallen into this way.
It was not done when I was well. Oh, if I were only able to attend to these things myself! It is quite wrong that things should have fallen into such a state. I do not believe there is any need that it should be so. Everything is wrong, and I can do nothing. I do not trust Madame Ascot: and your father,--there is no use speaking to him.”
She was getting excited, and would be ill soon, her daughters knew, unless this could be put out of her mind.
”I will tell you what we must do, mama. We will take all these papers to Mr St. Cyr--not to ask more money. But he will understand them, and he will help us. Mama, he was quite nice to-day, not at all cross, though we nearly knocked him down; and he said I was to come to him when I was in trouble, and I am sure this is dreadful trouble. Selina, don't you think we might go to Mr St. Cyr?”