_ CHAPTER IV. TO THE RESCUE
Miss Martineau told her news with considerable agitation. She considered it a terrible revelation. It seemed to her a very fearful and disastrous thing that three girls brought up like the Mainwarings, three girls still almost children, should be thrown on the world without any means for their support.
Simple and primitive as their lives had been at Rosebury, they still had been tenderly nurtured and warmly sheltered--no cold blast of unkindness or neglect had visited them--they had been surrounded ever by both love and respect. The love came principally from their mother and from one another, but the respect came from all who knew them. The Mainwaring girls, in their plain dresses and with their unsophisticated manners, looked like ladies, and invariably acted as such.
Soon after making her communication Miss Martineau took her leave; she hurried home, and sitting down in her dingy little parlor, began to think.
"No, thank you, Susan," she said to her little maid-of-all-work, "I shan't want any supper to-night. I have been at tea with my dear pupils, the Misses Mainwaring. You may bring the lamp presently, Susan, but not quite yet; it is a pity to waste the daylight, and there is quite another quarter of an hour in which I can see to knit. Yes, give me my knitting-basket; I can get on with Widow Joseph's mittens."
"And, if you please, ma'am," asked Susan, lingering for a moment at the door, "may I ask how, all things considering, the dear young ladies is?"
"On the whole, tranquil, Susan--yes, I may say it with confidence; my dear pupils may be considered in a resigned state of mind."
Susan closed the door after her, and Miss Martineau took up her knitting. Knitting woollen mittens is an occupation which harmonizes very well with reflection and while the old lady's active fingers moved her thoughts were busy.
"Thirty pounds a year," she said softly to herself, "thirty pounds certain, and a lump sum of two hundred in the bank. Doubtless they owe some of that for their mother's funeral and their own mourning. They probably owe quite thirty pounds of that, and to make it safe, I had better say forty. That leaves a balance of one hundred and sixty; just enough to put away for emergencies, illness, and so forth. My dear girls, my dear Primrose, and Jasmine, and my pretty little pet Daisy, you cannot touch your little capital; you may get a few pounds a year for it, or you may not--Mr. Danesfield must decide that--but all the money you can certainly reckon on for your expenses is thirty pounds per annum, and on that you cannot live."
Here Miss Martineau threw down her knitting, and began with some agitation to pace up and down her tiny room.
"What was to be done with these lonely and defenceless girls? how were they to meet the world? how were they to earn their living?"
Miss Martineau had never before found herself propounding so painful and interesting a problem; her mind worked round it, and tried to grapple with it, but though she stayed up far into the night, and even had recourse to figures, and marked down on paper the very lowest sum a girl could possibly exist on, she went to bed, having found no solution to this vexed question.
Even Miss Martineau, ignorant and narrow-minded as she was, could scarcely pronounce Primrose fit to do much in the educational world; Jasmine's, of course, was only a little giddy pate, and she required a vast amount of teaching herself; and pretty Daisy was still but a young child.
Miss Martineau went to bed and to sleep; she dreamed troubled dreams, but in the morning she awoke strengthened and restored, even by such restless slumbers, and quite resolved to do something.
"Sophia Martineau," she said--for living quite alone she was fond of holding conversations with herself--"Sophia Martineau, those girls are placed, to put it figuratively, at your door, and take them up you must. Gold you have none to bestow, but you can give interest; you can, in short, rouse others to help the helpless. This is your bounden duty, and you had better see to it at once."
Miss Martineau went briskly downstairs, ate her frugal breakfast, and then made her plans. These plans were decisive enough. At Rosebury no one thought of being so silly as to be over-educated. None of the young brains of the rising generation were over-forced or over-stimulated, and Miss Martineau felt no compunction whatever in writing a short note to each of six little pupils, and telling them that they need not come to her that morning, for she meant to give them a holiday.
Having done this, and sent Susan out with the notes, she went upstairs, and once more put on her black silk dress, her old-fashioned mantle, and her high poke bonnet. Thus attired, she started on an expedition which she trusted would lead to many happy results for the Mainwarings. _