The Adventures of an Ugly Girl

In spite of the turmoil of mind under which I had labored since my interview with my father, I had already formed somewhat definite plans for my future.

I had made all my arrangements as if I were really going to the Grange, and had had my boxes labeled accordingly. Thus Lady Elizabeth had not alarmed herself about me, knowing that my comfort would be looked after at the Grange. My father, if he had taken the trouble to make any inquiries about me, would also think he knew whither I was bound; and, even if visited by a faint feeling of compunction on my behalf, would consider that I was as well off in one place as in another.

But since he had ordered me from his house, I meant to take him literally at his word, and had resolved never to cast my shadow within any threshold of his again. I was but ill equipped for earning my livelihood, but I had a certain determination of purpose at whose bidding I was prepared to cast aside all false pride, such as might possibly throw obstacles in the way of my progress. Thus I realized that it might become necessary for me to adopt a means of living perfectly honest and honorable in itself, but which had hitherto never entered into the calculations of a Courtney.

Circumstances had precluded my having many friends to whom I could turn in my present need. But I felt that I could rely upon the vicar of Moorbye and his kindly wife. Both the Rev. Horace Garth and Mrs. Garth had always shown some interest in me and in my doings, and they were among the few people who seemed to be uninfluenced by the physical disadvantages which were such a sore source of trouble to me. It was to the Moorbye vicarage, therefore, that I resorted for aid and counsel in this my great extremity. I felt some trepidation as I was swiftly whirled along in the second-class compartment, for which a sense of the necessity of economizing the money I had at my disposal had induced me to take a ticket. As to what kind of traveling companions I had, it is impossible for me to say, for I was too much engrossed with my troubles to take notice of my surroundings.

“Will the Garths welcome me, and do their best for me; or will, they consider me to blame, and wash their hands of me?”

This was the question that was uppermost in my mind, and I could scarcely refrain from putting it into so many words, when, on alighting at Moorbye Station, whom should I see but the vicar himself welcoming two ladies who had evidently traveled from town by the same train which had conveyed myself.

Leaving the porter, who gave me a respectful recognition, to see after my luggage for the present, I hurried up to the vicar and accosted him.

“Mr. Garth, can you give me a moment’s private conversation? If these ladies will kindly excuse you, I will not keep you long.”

“Why, Dorrie! What brings you here just now?” Mr. Garth exclaimed, as he, fortified by the permission of his friends, walked along the platform with me. “And how do you happen to be traveling alone?”

“My father has turned me out of his house. Until I can find some means of earning my living, I have no one to whom I can go for counsel but yourself. I hoped to have been able to stay with you to-night, but I see you already have visitors.”

“Tut, tut, child! As if that mattered. You would always be welcome. Now, not a word of all this until we can talk the matter over later on. Meanwhile, come and be introduced to my friends.—Oh, I say, Thompson, see that Miss Courtney’s luggage is sent up to the vicarage with the rest.—Ah, here we are! Mrs. Marshall, I am glad to introduce to your notice Miss Dora Courtney, who has kindly come to cheer her old friends up a bit. Miss May, you will be pleased to have a clever companion of your own age while you are down here. Dorrie, these are old friends and near relatives of ours, Mrs. Frank Marshall and Miss May Morris.”

What wonderful power there is in generous good nature combined with tact! Five minutes before I reached Moorbye Station I was among the most miserable upon earth, wondering whether even a civil welcome awaited me. Five minutes after my arrival I was being bowled toward the vicarage in Mrs. Garth’s funny little governess car, and was laughing merrily with the others at the small space at our individual disposal.

“My dear, I have an unexpected pleasure in store for you. Here are our cousins, and here is Dora Courtney, also come to favor us with a visit.”

Thus said the vicar, on our arrival at his home. There was a warm welcome from Mrs. Garth, supplemented by a somewhat boisterous one from Master Vincent Garth, who betrayed great curiosity concerning my outward appearance.

“Do come right into the middle of the hall, just for one minute,” he demanded, “while we have a real good look at you.”

Quite unconscious of the purport of his impetuosity, I laughingly obeyed him, the rest meanwhile standing by in indulgent amusement. For some seconds the child looked at me gravely. Then his face became quickly clouded with disappointment, and, considerably to the surprise of us all, he burst into loud lamentations, of which it was some time before we could gather the meaning.

“We don’t like her any better,” he sobbed. “Susie said Miss Dora was to be a grand countess, and we’ve looked at her, and she isn’t turned grand. She’s just ugly.”

I believe Mrs. Garth hoped and fancied that I had not been able to understand Vinnie’s comments. But I had not found it very difficult to do so, and felt quite as much hurt as if this little stab to my vanity had proceeded from a responsible individual, instead of from an impulsive child, though I strove to hide my humiliated feelings as much as possible.

“What a horrid child,” whispered Miss Morris, as we passed up the fine old staircase, in the wake of our hostess, on the way to the rooms allotted to us. “He ought to be whipped for insulting any one like that.”

For a moment I was tempted to second her remark. Then my better nature prevailed, as I remembered how frank and generous Vinnie really was.

“I do not blame him,” I answered, somewhat soberly, it must be confessed. “Vinnie was only giving way to a natural disappointment, and did not dream of hurting my feelings, I am sure.”

“Now look at the accommodation I have for you, and tell me if you think it will do,” called out Mrs. Garth’s rich voice from a room which she and Mrs. Marshall had just entered. “I have only two spare bedrooms, which open out of this dressing-room,” she continued. “I had intended the large room for Madge, and the small one for May, but I am afraid I must ask two of you to use one bedroom jointly.”

“Oh, how delightful!” exclaimed May, who was evidently a very impulsive young lady. “Madge can have the small room, and Dora and I will sleep in the other. I may call you Dora, mayn’t I? I hate ceremony, and, do you know, I have taken quite a fancy to you.”

Of course all Miss May’s propositions were cheerfully acquiesced in, and we were all three soon occupied in unpacking our dinner-gowns. In the dressing-room a cozy little fire shed its comforting rays upon the pretty furniture and draperies, and gave an aspect of cheerfulness to the place which was by no means reflected in my own heart, though I strove to banish all outward semblance of dejection.

“Fancy a fire in June!” laughed May, as she insisted I should at once call her. “It strikes a Londoner as rather odd; but, do you know, I’m not at all sure that it isn’t quite cool down here. I gather that you are a native of these parts, Dora. Is it a usual thing to need fires in summer?”

“At the Grange,” I replied, as I fastened the dinner-dress which I would rather have been excused from wearing this evening, as I was both tired and overwrought, and would gladly have gone to bed, “at the Grange we seem to need fires all the year round in some of the rooms. Some parts of the neighborhood are inclined to be rather marshy and damp, and as coals are cheap about here, nearly everybody keeps the chills off in the only possible way.”

“Good gracious! I hope it isn’t a fever-and-ague sort of a neighborhood! What shall we do if it is? We are invited down here for a month, but if there is any danger in that direction, I shall betake myself off again. Fancy jerking your limbs first in one direction and then in another, and pulling grimaces at people just at the very moment when you want to be most polite! It’s too awful to think about, and I dare not risk it.”

“Why, you goose,” exclaimed Mrs. Marshall, “you are mixing up fever-and-ague with an entirely different complaint, called St. Vitus’s Dance. It is a nervous affection, not likely to be brought on by a chill.”

“And,” I added, “I don’t think you need alarm yourself about fever-and-ague, either. None of the Garth household have ever been troubled with it, and we have always enjoyed the same immunity at the Grange.”

“The Grange. That’s where you live, isn’t it?” inquired May. “It sounds quite old-worldish and jolly. I can fancy all sorts of spirits and hobgoblins disporting in its interminable corridors and secret chambers. What is the ghost like? Is it a woman dressed in gray silk, and with a heartbroken look on a beautiful face? And does she wring her hands, and cry, ‘Woe is me!’ Or is it a man, looking fierce and vengeful, and dragging clanking chains after him? They are mostly either one or the other, and oh! I forgot, the woman turns into a cat sometimes, and stands mewing over a place where there is a buried treasure. Isn’t it delightful to think of? Dora, you must take me to the Grange, and let me sleep with you one night. Then we’ll watch for the ghost, and perhaps we may solve the mystery of the treasure and become rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. And then I’ll write the ghost’s history. Mr. Stoach is great on ghosts lately, but our ghost tale will be much better and much more thrilling than any he has got hold of. I wonder if there are heaps of rubies and pearls and diamonds and sapphires among the treasure. It always is the case. Oh, won’t they be gorgeous! Dora, we must go not later than to-morrow night! I really cannot bear the suspense any longer. What do you say?”

But for a little while I was beyond saying anything, for every time I tried to speak a fit of laughter prevented the utterance of a single intelligible word. Mrs. Marshall, too, though she laughed like one who was more familiar with Miss May’s flights of fancy and vagaries than I was, enjoyed the situation thoroughly.

“That’s the way with May,” she smiled. “You will get used to her by-and-by, no doubt. She pictures the wildest things, and accepts the freaks of her own imagination as gospel truth.”

“But,” interrupted May, whose face looked comically anxious. “There is a ghost, isn’t there? And there is a treasure, isn’t there?”

“I’m afraid that the Grange possesses neither of those hall-marks of antiquity,” I responded, as gravely as I could. “At least, I have never heard of them.”

“That’s just it!” cried May, renewed hope sparkling in her eyes. “Perhaps you are rather nervous, and they didn’t like to tell you about the ghost. But it’s there, all the same. Have you never heard it pattering along the deserted corridors, or tapping gently against the window panes, to attract your attention, or sighing mournfully through the keyhole, or—”

“May, do be less absurd,” pleaded Mrs. Marshall. “You will not be ready to go down with us to dinner if you do not hurry up, instead of standing chattering about rubbish.”

“Rubbish, indeed! Ghosts are not rubbish. Treasure is not rubbish. I wish I had some of the latter now, so that I could have a maid to dress me. Dora, you must, you really must, let us make a start at solving the mystery to-morrow.”

“But there is no mystery.”

“That remains to be seen. At any rate, you will take me to the Grange to-morrow, will you not?”

I was glad that just at this moment we were summoned to dinner, as May’s persistence about visiting the Grange worried me a little, and I did not want to commit myself in any way until I had had the private talk with Mr. Garth that had been agreed upon. So “We will see about it” was all the reply on the subject which May received just then. But it satisfied her for the time being, for she immediately went off into ecstasies of thanks and speculation, which bubbled over even after we had sat down to dinner.

“What do you think?” she exclaimed to Mr. and Mrs. Garth. “I’m in for no end of adventure. Dora has promised to take me to the Grange, to exorcise the ghost and recover the buried treasure. And we’re going to spend our wealth abroad. We shall wear our diamonds at the foreign courts, and I intend to marry nothing under a duke. And my children will be princes, and perhaps—Good gracious! who’s the next heir to the throne of Germany?”

By this time the whole company was convulsed with laughter, which Miss May did not seem to appreciate; for she froze up immediately, cast a withering look of scorn at the callously inappreciative company, and spoke not another word for at least two minutes, at the end of which time her tongue was languishing for exercise.

“And how did you leave Lady Elizabeth?” inquired Mrs. Garth, during this momentary break in the conversation.

“I do not like her present condition at all,” was my reply. “She has fretted a good deal ever—ever since the earl died.”

It cost me much to utter these words quietly, for the mere thought of my poor old lover’s mysterious death always moved me to sudden anger.

“But surely she is not fretting herself ill?” said Mr. Garth, in some surprise. “We know that she was much attached to her father; but, after all, he was really old, and she has many compensating blessings, if I am not mistaken.”

“You are not mistaken,” was my answer. “But Lady Elizabeth’s grief is not selfish or unreasonable, though it may be incomprehensible to all but herself and me.”

“Then you think you understand fully why she is allowing it to prey on her health?”

“God help me, yes!” I cried passionately. “Why do you torture me like this? Cannot you understand that the whole subject is too bitter for me to talk of more than can be helped?”

“Poor child!” exclaimed Mrs. Garth penitently. “Of course it is. I ought to have known.”

“No, no, I am the one to blame. How can you possibly know all that occupies my mind? Forgive my hasty words, they were foolish and unwarrantable.”

Mrs. Garth protested against this last assertion of mine, but I need hardly remark that our party was not quite so cheerful as it had been, and that we were all somewhat relieved when it was time to adjourn to the drawing-room.

“Dorrie,” said Mr. Garth, “can you spare me a few moments before we join the others?”

“Certainly.”

“Then we will have a chat in my study.”

And to Mr. Garth’s study we went. Here, so far as it was advisable for me to do, I confided the details of my history and perplexities to my host, who listened with the greatest attention to all I had to tell him.

“Do you think I am much to blame?” I asked at last.

“I cannot think that you have much to reproach yourself with, as, though somewhat impulsive at times, I believe you to be very fair and just. But, to be candid, I do not quite realize the necessity for all this extreme feeling. That, I suppose, is because I do not know all the workings of the case. Is that so?”

“You are quite right. But I cannot be more explicit than I have been. I have no right to press the subject further on any one’s notice. But I can assure you honestly that I have done nothing of which I need be ashamed, and that it would be utterly impossible for me to live in the same house with my sister again. Not that she need be blamed much, either. But we seem to be naturally antagonistic to each other and are best apart.”

“But what will you do with yourself, child? That you should earn your own living has never been contemplated for you, and you are consequently handicapped at every point.”

“I am not afraid of work. Teaching is not much in my line. I believe I can play the fiddle sufficiently well to perform at an occasional concert, but that would not do much toward keeping me.”

“You might teach the violin—”

“Oh, dear no. I am afraid I should find myself rapping the knuckles of my pupils if they should turn out extra stupid. That wouldn’t do at all. I could go out as amanuensis, or companion, or something of that sort; for I write a neat hand, have more than a smattering of French and German, and am A1 at making Everton taffy and pickled cabbage.”

“Two very indispensable acquisitions for an amanuensis! Still, your other qualifications might fetch somebody. What do you say if we advertise? Would you mind going abroad?”

“Just what I would be best pleased to do at present.”

“Now about Mrs. Marshall and Miss Morris. It will be necessary to tell them something—”

“We will just tell them that I have had a deal of trouble, that I wish to turn my back on the scenes of my trouble for a time, and that while away from home I have a fancy for earning my own living. Such part of my troubles as are already public property you may of course confide to them.”

“Then things are settled so far. I will see about the advertisement being sent off for you, and you must understand that we are by no means in a hurry to get rid of you. You will be more than welcome to stay here until you find something to your liking to do.”

Somehow all this kindness robbed me of the composure which a strict business-like attitude on Mr. Garth’s part might have helped me to preserve. I could only thank him brokenly, and beg him to excuse my appearance in the drawing-room, as I felt fit for nothing but solitude and bed. He readily promised to do what I wished, and at length I felt at liberty to retire for the night. But by this time I had a distracting headache, and though I bathed my forehead with eau-de-cologne, and tried various other infallible specifics, I found it impossible to go to sleep, or even to subdue the pain which tormented me. From below I could occasionally hear the sound of singing, though I was unable to judge whether the vocalist was the elder or the younger of the two visitors.

About twelve o’clock, as judged from the periodical chiming of the little clock in the dressing-room, it became evident that the other visitors were coming up to bed, and I forthwith feigned the sleep which refused to come at my bidding, lest voluble Miss May might expect me to talk with her. The two ladies made as little noise as possible in the dressing-room for a while, and I was just thinking that my bedfellow would soon join me, when I heard the most blood-curdling shriek imaginable, and a white figure fairly flew into the bedroom, jumped into the bed, drew the clothes frantically over her head and ears, and moaned in a state of shuddering terror. My own natural alarm was speedily quenched by the appearance of Mrs. Marshall, bearing every evidence of extreme anger.

“I do believe you are losing your senses altogether!” she exclaimed, giving her sister’s shoulder a vigorous shake, which, so far from pacifying the young lady, only sent her into a fresh paroxysm of terror, and caused her to give a louder shriek than the first. By this time Mrs. Garth had run into the room, to see what was the matter, while at the door could be heard the voices of a startled group of people, composed of the vicar, the cook and the housemaid, all of them wondering what on earth the commotion was about. Inside the bedroom, the tableau was not without interest. Mrs. Garth stood with a lighted candle raised above her head, looking almost as frightened as May seemed to be. Mrs. Marshall was trying to convince her sister that there was nothing to be afraid of. May was steadily trying to bury herself under the bedclothes, and I was sitting up in bed, vainly struggling to wrest my legitimate share of sheets and blankets from the frantic clasp of their unceremonious appropriator.

After a while May grew calmer and popped her head from under the clothes with a sudden jerk, which caused it to come into contact with the chin of her sister, who was bending over her, in an attempt to pacify her. The result was somewhat painful for Mrs. Marshall, and caused May to scream out again in terror.

“Keep it off! Keep it off!” she cried wildly.

“Keep what off? What on earth do you mean?” I shouted, feeling utterly unnerved and vexed at the same time.

“Oh, the ghost! the ghost! Keep it off!” was the shuddering response.

“How can you be so silly,” I said, out of all patience. “What do you mean by a ghost?”

By this time, May began to seem more rational, and cautiously sat up, surveying the room with a scared look. “I heard it,” she said, solemnly. “And I felt it touch my shoulders.”

“It was no ghost other than myself who touched your shoulders,” spoke up Mrs. Marshall, still hugging her jaw in an attitude of pain. “I wish I could shake some sense into you.”

“Oh! it was you, was it?” quoth May. “But it wasn’t you who gave three unearthly taps at the window. I heard them quite distinctly, and I’m sure it was all done by a ghost.”

“It was done by the Virginia Creeper which climbs all over this side of the house,” said Mrs. Garth. “You will very likely hear it again, but may go to sleep comfortably.”

“And let other people go to sleep,” added Mrs. Marshall, as she went back to her own room.

Mrs. Garth, after bidding us both good-night, also retired, and May subsided angrily into a recumbent position. “Just like Madge, to try and make me look ridiculous,” she grumbled. “All the same, it was a ghost, and I won’t stay here after to-morrow.”

And this was the girl who, only a few hours before, had talked of laying a ghost and unearthing the ghostly buried treasure with which her prolific imagination haunted the home of my childhood!

Certainly her escapade had had one good effect. It had banished my headache, and I did not suffer any more from insomnia that night.

When I awoke the next morning, May Morris was looking at me with a comical expression of disgust on her pretty face.

“Do you know,” she said solemnly, “I believe I made a perfect idiot of myself last night. I can’t think what it was that so unnerved me. The fact is, it was the unexpectedness of the whole thing. Now, if I had known beforehand that the house was haunted, I shouldn’t have been frightened a bit. You wait and see what a bold front I shall put on when we see the Grange ghost.”

“My dear,” I said, with a smile born of a conscious superiority in matters nervous, “there are two reasons why I cannot show the Grange ghost.”

“And what are they?”

“I am not likely to visit the interior of the Grange, and, if I did visit it, I could not show any one its ghost, because it hasn’t got one.”

“Hasn’t it, really?”

“No—really.”

“What a pity! And just when I thought I was going to have a share of the treasure! Never mind, I shall find another some day. Oh, by-the-by, Mr. Garth told me a funny thing last night. He said that you, a rich young lady, belonging to a county family, and, as one might almost say, the widow of an earl, wanted to take a situation and earn your own living!”

“He is quite right in what he has stated.”

“Then I believe I know just the sort of thing that would suit you, that is, if you would care to go to Russia.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you see, it is such a queer place. It swarms all over with nihilists, and anarchists, and spies, and caviare, and bomb-shells, and there are prisons at every street corner, into which they clap you without so much as a minute’s notice, if you don’t happen to salaam humbly every time a government official goes by in his amber gown and scarlet turban. In fact, it’s just a horrid place, where they can’t speak English, and where they murder everybody who can’t pronounce the word ‘Peccavi.’”

“Upon my word, May, you’ll be the death of me yet! You seem to get awfully mixed up in your information. Somebody must have been slandering Russia to you a little. Of course, it could never be half so nice as England at its best; but even the Evil One, you know, isn’t half so black as he’s painted, and we’ll give Russia the benefit of doubt. Anyhow, your description hasn’t frightened me, and, if you don’t mind, you shall give me the particulars of the situation you were speaking of, while I complete my toilet.”

“All right, I’ll tell you about it. But if you are put in prison and tickled to death, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I dare say you have heard that when Madge and I are at home we live at South Kensington. Now next door to us there lives a Russian lady with her little daughter and a whole swarm of servants. We met Madame Kominski at Lady Tranmere’s At Home last week, and heard that she was looking out for a useful companion to take back to Russia with her. She wanted somebody who was a real lady, who could be treated on a family footing, and who could speak French or German. She had had several applicants for the post, but none of them suited.”

“I wonder why?”

“Well, between you and me and the post, I think I know. They were all too good-looking. Madame is both young and beautiful, and does not want a companion who will eclipse her.”

“Then I suppose I shall stand a chance of securing the coveted post, since I am almost ugly enough to serve as a foil even to a plain woman.”

“Now that is nasty of you, for I don’t call you a bit ugly. Only just unbeautiful enough to prevent madame from being jealous.”

“Very well. I will go back to London to-morrow and interview Madame Kominski, if you will furnish me with her address.”

“But why not write?”

“A letter would not describe my appearance accurately enough. If madam desires some one who is unbeautiful, as you put it, a sight of me will go far to convince her that she has found the treasure she is in search of.”

“I don’t quite understand you, but of course I will write the address down for you, and if you really get the appointment, you must write me regular accounts of your adventures. Then I’ll have them printed in a book, and if I can’t find a buried treasure, I shall perhaps be famous as an authoress.”

“A valuable wrinkle, my dear. I must be careful not to write anything that isn’t intended to become public property.”

“Oh, but you are sure to be in such a perpetual state of excitement that you will not be able to weigh all your words when you are writing. There is one difficulty. Suppose they put you in prison, how will you manage to send your letters off?”

“You must trust me for that. I am sure to find some way of dispatching all the letters I am likely to write to you while in prison. On your side, you must never mention anything about Russia or the Russians in any letter you may dispatch to the czar’s country. Then we shall be all right.”

“Very well, then that is all arranged. But before you go downstairs I am going to show you the loveliest, most ravishing, most delightful thing you ever saw in your life. Look here!”

As May spoke, she jumped up and dived into one of her boxes, whence she fished out a whole handful of photographs. I naturally expected to behold the presentment of a superlatively beautiful member of my own sex, and was not a little astounded to see a dozen portraits of a popular but by no means wonderfully handsome actor.

“Isn’t he bewitching?” May rhapsodized. “Did you ever see any one in your life half so handsome? Oh, he’s simply adorable!”

“And did he give you all those photographs?”

“Oh, dear no! I bought them all with my own pocket-money. I love him so dearly that I dream of him almost night and day, and I buy a copy of every fresh portrait of him that is issued. Oh, if you could only imagine how I love him!”

“And does he return your love?”

“Unfortunately for me, he does not know me. He has never even seen me.”

“Then I suppose you fell in love with him on the stage.”

“No, he is nearly always on tour, and I have never seen him act. Indeed, I have never seen him at all. I just saw a photograph of him in a shop-window, and straightway fell in love with it. You may think it only a passing fancy. But I feel that if I could only look upon his face, my greatest dreams of earthly bliss would be realized, and I would be content to die.”

“Mere romance, my dear girl. You will come across some one in the flesh who will prove much more charming than the counterfeit presentments of your adorable actor, who, by-the-by, becomes engaged to a fresh young lady about every six months.”

“I can’t help it. He is just all in all to me, and I shall never marry so long as he remains single. If, after all my devotion, my hero marries another woman, then I may think of accepting a gentleman who proposes to me every three months. Meanwhile, I have a little consolation. I often take a look at his house at Kensington, in the hope of catching a glimpse of him through one of the windows.”

And in this style May meandered on, the while I wondered whether she were really sane or not. She was evidently badly smitten, and by mere portraits, which must have revealed to her many beauties of expression which were hidden to me, for I could only look upon them as the faithful presentments of a man whom I had heard spoken of as selfish, conceited and unscrupulous in his dealings with women.

“I suppose you are quite disburdened of all the particulars of your wonderful romance by this time,” was Mrs. Marshall’s cheery greeting. “I knew it was no use interrupting you before you had confided the whole story to Miss Courtney. And what do you think of it, Miss Dora, now that you have heard it?”

This last question was addressed to me with such a humorous twinkle in Mrs. Marshall’s merry dark eyes, that, for the life of me, I could not help responding to it, and my comments were expressed in a burst of hearty laughter, which not all my latent worries could rob of its spontaneity. I was not sure that May might not resent our irreverence, but she took it very good-humoredly, and five minutes later we were all greeting our host and hostess at the breakfast-table.

As both the sisters were in quite a merry mood, they cheered the rest of us up wonderfully, and no one, to look at us, would imagine that we had ever become acquainted with care.