CHAPTER V

PHYLLIS AND BARBARA ENTER THE LISTS

Aunt Henrietta always stayed until November in her cottage near Marblehead. She said that she never enjoyed the ocean until she was alone with it, and Jessamy suggested afterward that it was a trifle hard on the ocean--a severe remark for Jessamy, whose genuinely high standards of good breeding forbade unkind comment on others--even on Aunt Henrietta, though she was trying.

Immediately on her return to town, Mrs. Hewlett came to look up "her fallen kindred," as Barbara said. That young lady went down to the parlor to conduct her great-aunt to her mother. "It would make a lovely title for a Sunday-school book, wouldn't it?" she said, turning from the glass, where she had been inspecting the last faint trace of the mishap to her nose. "'Little Barbara's Upward Leading,' or 'Toward the Skies,' or 'Helped Upward,' or 'Mounting Heavenward,' or even simply 'Uplifted.'"

"Barbara, I am ashamed of you!" said her mother, as severely as she could, while trying not to laugh.

"Now, Bab, do be nice," pleaded Jessamy.

"Nice! I'd like to know what could be nicer than to plan moral little titles like those?" said Bab, in an injured tone. "But don't worry; I'll be a sweet morsel when I get down there."

"You look thinner," said Aunt Henrietta, when Barbara had delicately touched the unresponsive cheek offered her to kiss.

"I _am_ thinner, aunt; we're none of us waxing fleshy. Black Sally's marketing and cooking seemed rather more comforting than our present fare," said Bab.

"H'm! Where under heavens are your rooms?" asked Mrs. Hewlett.

"Just there, Aunt Henrietta. Right under heavens--on the top floor," laughed Barbara.

"Do you mean to say you have taken your delicate mother up all those flights?" demanded her great-aunt. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

"What could we do, aunt?" asked Barbara, meekly, though her cheeks grew very red. "We were not able to make any boarding-house keeper give us better rooms at our price for mama's sake."

"Do? You ought to be earning money--three great healthy girls--and Phyllis only a niece-in-law of your mother's into the bargain! I came to talk to you about this," said Mrs. Hewlett.

"Please wait till we get up-stairs; I fancy there are always ears about here," said Bab, and led the way to their own quarters. "'Excelsior!' is our motto, aunt," she said, pausing at the head of the second flight, and finding malicious pleasure in her relative's labored breathing.

"Well, Emily, the consequences of your imprudence are severe. I am sorry to find you thus; you don't look well," was Aunt Henrietta's greeting to Mrs. Wyndham. "Now, I want to get down to business without delay," she added, removing her splendid furs. "I suppose you are using your principal?"

"On the contrary, our living, such as it is, comes well within the limits of our income," replied Mrs. Wyndham.

"Really!" exclaimed Mrs. Hewlett, disappointed of the chance to find fault on that score, but swiftly rallying to another point of attack. "Then it is because you are living so wretchedly in order to keep these girls fine ladies. You always spoiled them, Emily; but your weakness really should have some limit. It is outrageous for you to be compelled to climb all these stairs, that a slender income may support four people. These girls should be a source of income, not a drain upon you; you can't be poor and be fine ladies at the same time."

"We hope that we can be, aunt," said Jessamy; "but you are quite mistaken if you think we wish to spare ourselves at mother's expense."

Only Mrs. Wyndham's hand holding Bab's wrist tight kept that small torpedo from exploding. "This question has been discussed among us, aunt, especially lately," said Mrs. Wyndham, quietly, though her voice trembled. "Jessamy has clearly determined her course; she has talent, and we all think can do good book illustrations. She is going to fit herself for her work, and we hope will be successful. From the first Jessamy has declared that she should prepare herself to do something well, and devote herself to one vocation."

"Jessamy has sense," said Aunt Henrietta, surveying the girl with something like approbation. "She is so pretty that she will undoubtedly marry before she follows any business long. I only hope that she will remember your necessities, and marry well."

"If by 'well' you mean a good man, whom she loves, I hope so too, Aunt Henrietta," said Mrs. Wyndham, with heightened color. "Bitter as our recent trouble has been, it would be unbearable if I thought it would lead one of my girls to sell herself, forgetful of self-respect, goodness, and true womanliness. Thank heaven, I believe there is no danger of what I should feel was a great crime."

"Sentimentality! You never were practical, Emily," said Aunt Henrietta, impatiently, but too intent on her object to quarrel. "Now, how about Phyllis and Barbara!"

"I agree with Aunt Henrietta that I, at least, ought to be earning money," said Phyllis.

"Not you any more than me, Phyl," cried Barbara, with more warmth than correctness.

"Well, I cut out an advertisement from the morning paper for one of you to answer," said Aunt Henrietta, producing a clipping. "I want to help you get started. Barbara, you might try this; it would probably be easy employment, and you are too flighty for most things."

"Thanks, aunt," said Bab, with double intent, and read aloud: "'Wanted: A young lady correspondence clerk in gentleman's office. Good salary to right person. Address X. Y. Z. Trumpet, Downtown Office.'"

"That sounds rather nice," commented Barbara, spearing the slip to the pin-cushion with a hat-pin. "I will answer it, Aunt Henrietta."

"If you write now, I'll post it when I go out," suggested Mrs. Hewlett.

"Afraid to trust me? I always do what I say I will, but I would as lief write now as any time," said Bab, and seated herself at the table.

"How is this?" she asked later, and read: "'The inclosed advertisement from "The Trumpet" noted. The undersigned applicant for the situation would say that she is seventeen years old. This note is a specimen of her handwriting; and for character, ability, personal qualities, etc., she can furnish best city references. An interview requested. Address,' etc. Will that do? I'm not so sure about the reference for ability, but I hope some one would guarantee my honesty."

"Mercy, Bab! where did you learn such business-like forms?" cried Jessamy.

"Oh, but fancy my little Bab--my baby--going down to business every day! There is no doubt that it is a misfortune for women to be forced to compete with men; I never could let little Babbie do it," cried poor Mrs. Wyndham.

"I promise not to compete, Madrina; the men shall go on as if nothing--as if I, at any rate--had never happened. It can't do any harm to send in my application," said Bab.

"There is just where your foolish pride comes in, Emily," said Aunt Henrietta, sternly. "Your daughters are no better than other people's daughters; and every one knows that if a girl behaves herself no harm can befall her under any circumstances."

"It is not pride," said Mrs. Wyndham, stung to self-defense. "Nor do I fear harm, exactly. Unwomenly women are a misfortune to themselves and all the community, and it is impossible to knock about the world without losing something of that dear and delicate loveliness which, at best, is fast going out of fashion. If it can be avoided, I think no girl should be placed in the thick of the fight, striding through the world in fierce competition with men."

"If it can be avoided--precisely; but it cannot be avoided," said Aunt Henrietta, calmly; "for none of your relatives can afford to help you, Emily."

"Help? When did I ever dream of wanting or being willing to accept help, aunt?" cried Mrs. Wyndham, hysterically. "But if I prefer to practise stern self-denial to keep my girls sheltered until such time as they can help me in more feminine ways than you propose--or would let them follow if they were your own, I feel sure--is that wrong?"

"Not wrong," said Aunt Henrietta, with exasperating soothing in her voice, and entire conviction of being right, "but utterly foolish and impractical. Now, I have a proposition for Phyllis. A friend--an acquaintance of mine--desires a nursery governess. She has three charming children, and will pay a girl twenty-five dollars a month to teach them the simple things children between six and three years of age learn, take them out--in short, be, as I said, nursery governess; you know what those duties are as well as I do. There is no exposure to the world in that position, so you ought to like it, Emily."

"Could I go and come every day, aunt?" asked Phyllis, while Mrs. Wyndham twisted her handkerchief nervously. This was bringing poverty home to her; she clung strongly, poor lady, to the hope of sheltering her little brood, and no amount of privation at home seemed to her like thrusting the burden on them, as did their going out into the world to earn their living.

"She would want you to," said Aunt Henrietta, rising, well pleased at finding her grand-nieces so amenable to reason--"amenable to reason" meaning, to her mind, as to most others, readiness to accept her opinion. "I wrote this introductory line on the back of my visiting-card. You will find Mrs. Haines at that number on East Forty ---- Street, just beyond Fifth Avenue. You will do well to apply at once, for there will be many after the situation."

"You won't mind if Phyllis mentions that she is your niece, in case she does decide to apply?" inquired Jessamy, with meaning hidden under a gentle manner.

But the satire was quite lost on Aunt Henrietta. "Not at all; you are only my grand-nieces, and my social position is beyond being affected by trifles," she said, in self-gratulatory tones. Then she went away, leaving a perturbed roomful behind her.

"Now, let me tell you, my dearest auntie-mother, that I think I'll try the nursery governess," said Phyllis. "Twenty-five dollars a month will nearly pay my board, and I'd be happier to feel I were helping. It won't be the end of my career, I hope, but it will answer for a beginning. I honestly think our beloved metallic great-aunt is right--that we ought to be bettering matters, rather than settle down satisfied to such a life as this. Jessamy and I have reached that conclusion lately."

Mrs. Wyndham was crying softly. "To think that if I had heeded Mr. Hurd we should still have enough," she moaned.

"If--if! Mama, what is the use of 'ifs' now?" cried Barbara. "You did what you thought right, and we can't bear to have you reproach yourself. My letter has gone, and we will try to enter the lists to fight for you like true knights--pity we're girls, for it spoils my fine simile."

"I think not, Babbie baby; a knightly spirit is quite as often in a girl's breast as in a boy's," said her mother, kissing her.

"The worst of it is that I feel so mean and selfish to let you all help, while I stay at home," said Jessamy. "But I honestly believe I can do more and help better by waiting and following my natural bent. You won't think me shirking? When even little Bab is answering advertisements, I feel horribly indolent and self-seeking."

"'Even little Bab'--who is anything but even--is only a year younger than you, miss," said Bab; while Phyllis put her arms around Jessamy and kissed her as she said: "No one could ever suspect you of not playing fair, my crystal cousin."

Phyllis went forth in her dark-blue gown the next day to "secure the young ideas which in the end she would probably want to shoot," Bab said.

Mrs. Haines was at home, and came down immediately. Phyllis presented her card of introduction, and stated her errand.

"It seems absurd to inquire into the qualifications of a Miss Wyndham to teach children as young as mine are--but do you understand kindergarten methods?" Mrs. Haines asked affably.

"I am sorry, but I do not," said Phyllis.

"No; you would hardly have studied them, not having foreseen the necessity of teaching. The books can give you suggestions, and you can easily pick up those charming song-games. You sing?"

"A little; enough for that," said Phyllis.

"And speak French?"

"As well as English," said Phyllis, glad to answer one inquiry affirmatively.

"Oh, then I should be glad if you would speak it with the children," exclaimed Mrs. Haines. "Fancy having a daughter of Mr. Henry Wyndham for one's nursery governess! What a land of reverses America is! Frankly, I made up my mind to take you the moment you came."

The vulgarity of this remark struck Phyllis dumb for a moment. Never in her life had she felt that the money standard existed. In her home she had been surrounded by luxury, but never before had she imagined that any one could estimate a person by what he had, or desire to know those who had wealth, merely for that reason. In a flash, the vision of a world of shams, snobbishness, insincerity, spread before her, calling forth the fierce revolt, the sickening repulsion, proper and natural to her youth and better teaching.

"I am not Mr. Henry Wyndham's daughter," she said; "I am his brother's daughter, but I have lived with my uncle since I was almost a baby, and neither of my cousins feels any difference between me and her own sister."

"Oh, but there _is_ a difference; your uncle and aunt must have felt it, if the children did not, or if they were too kind to let you see it. They were very nice to look after you. Are you the only one who is going to work, now that the money is gone? Why did not one of the others come?" asked Mrs. Haines, with evident disappointment, wrinkling her pretty, if rather common, face fretfully.

"Miss Wyndham and Miss Barbara Wyndham have other plans," said Phyllis, haughtily. Then, realizing that she was actually the applicant for a position, and that this tone would never do, she added, with the intention of influencing the shallow creature before her, though she despised herself for appealing to such motives: "I doubt very much if the world knows which is niece and which are daughters. We have always been to every one merely 'the Wyndham girls,' with no distinction to outsiders any more than among ourselves."

"How lovely! Of course it makes no real difference; you must come to me, just the same," said Mrs. Haines, brightening. "Would you like to see the children and the nursery? All mothers _think_ their babies sweetest, but I _know_ that mine are." And she led the way up-stairs.

Poor Phyllis! Her heart melted somewhat toward her future employer at this remark, but when she reached the nursery even her innocence could hardly help discovering that this too was a pose. No mother-light leaped into Mrs. Haines's eyes at the sight of the three little creatures playing there, nor did the children spring to meet her, as the three little Wyndhams had always sprung at the sight of their mother--mother to them all equally, in spite of Mrs. Haines's doubt.

Phyllis loved children, and her quick perception of the lack in the lives of these filled her with pity. She stooped down to them, and ran her fingers through the curls of the second child, a girl of four, and drew the baby, another girl of three, toward her. The eldest, a pale boy of six, gazed at her steadily. "Who are you?" then he said.

"This is Miss Wyndham, and she is coming to teach you and play with you every day," said his mother.

"Oh, wouldn't it be better for them to call me Miss Phyllis? It sounds less distant, and I want them to love me. You will love me, won't you?" said Phyllis.

"Don't touch my hair; you'll spoil it!" said the elder girl; but the baby laughed and cuddled closer, and the boy said gravely: "I think I shall, because you've got such a lamp behind your eyes."

"Decidedly, one of my charges is going to prove interesting," thought Phyllis; but she only said: "Won't you tell me your name, and your sisters'?"

"Mine is Lionel Ferdinand Haines. What would you do if the boys up in the park called you 'Nellie' Because you wore curls? My mother won't cut them off."

"Then I should laugh at the boys for trying to tease me when I didn't care what they said; and I should try to like curls because my mother liked them," said Phyllis. "And the girls' names?"

"The big one is Muriel Dorothy Haines, and the littlest one is Gladys Gertrude Haines," said Master Lionel, and was about to propound another question when his mother interrupted him to say that she must take Phyllis away, because she had an engagement.

"Shall I consider the matter settled, Miss Wyndham, and that you are coming?" she asked.

"Yes, please," said Phyllis.

"And at twenty-five dollars a month? Mrs. Hewlett mentioned the wages, I suppose?"

"Yes--please," said Phyllis again, forcing the last word, as she kissed the baby.

Lionel extended his hand to be shaken, but Muriel said "Good-by" crossly, refusing to be touched.

"I am engaged, girls," said Phyllis, coming into the room with very red cheeks on her return, and maintaining silence as to the discouraging aspects of her new employment.

Phyllis began her labors on the following Monday. Barbara, who had heard nothing further from her application for the correspondence clerkship, now turned to Mr. Hurd for help, and the little lawyer obtained for her the position of cashier with a friend of his own, where the young girl would at least be secure from many of the drawbacks to a business career which her mother dreaded for her.

But, to Bab's unspeakable mortification, she found that she was incompetent to fill the position. She made change slowly, often wrongly, and at night her columns would not add up right, no matter how often she went over them nor how carefully she counted her fingers. At the end of a week she came home crestfallen, having been kindly dismissed, to be comforted and petted by her mother and the girls. Accomplishments she had, but practical knowledge, especially arithmetic, she lacked. Phyllis had been right, in the first place, when she said they were not able to compete with their inferiors in doing the serious work of the world.

After this experience, Mr. Hurd placed Barbara in an office to address envelops. This she did well, for her fingers and brain were quick; but she was far from an expert, and her salary was but three dollars and a half a week. Fortunately, the office was within walking distance for her, so that car fare did not have to be deducted from this magnificent result of six days' labor.

Jessamy was working hard at her drawing. Phyllis said little of her daily experiences, from which her family concluded that they were not wholly pleasant.

A single ray of hope shone out of the gloom for Phyllis. A little story she had written was accepted by one of the large syndicates and paid for--fifteen dollars. The money was not much, though it was more than half of what she was paid monthly by Mrs. Haines; but the glory and the hope it shed on the future were invaluable.

On the whole, Phyllis and Barbara found their entrance into the lists not easy, and the blows of the tourney hard, but they kept on with a courage fine to see.

They all felt that in some way their skies would brighten when Mrs. Van Alyn returned; she was their "Lady from Philadelphia," and would be sure to find a way through their difficulties. But Mrs. Van Alyn had gone to England till February, and in the meantime the Wyndhams struggled on to the best of their ability.