The Rejuvenation Of Miss Semaphore: A Farcical Novel - free ebook by Charlotte O'Conor Eccles

The Rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore A FARCICAL NOVEL

COOMBS’ COOMBS’ Cures Cold in the Head, cures Nervous Headache, instantly relieves Hay Fever and Neuralgia in the Head, is the best remedy for Faintness and Dizziness....

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CHAPTER I. WHICH INTRODUCES MISS SEMAPHORE.

Seven o’clock had struck. The gong at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, South Kensington, thundered under the vigorous strokes of the bow-legged German waiter. By one, by two, by three, the boarders trooped down to dinner, the more sensitive to noise stopping their ears as they descended. The very deafest could not ignore that gong. Müller always attacked it suddenly, as if running amuck or possessed by a demon. It reverberated far and near, and echoed faintly to Gloucester Road Station. Boarders, arriv

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CHAPTER II. A BOARDING-HOUSE EVENING, AND AN IMPORTANT LETTER.

Boarding-houses all the world over have certain features in common. These are the result of haphazard association between people without common interests. No. 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, South Kensington, was no exception to the rule. Its inmates were chiefly women, the widows and daughters of professional men. A few childless married couples lived there, and a sprinkling of unmarried men who were either old or extremely young. Some of the people were well-connected, others well-off, all were dull

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CHAPTER III. MISS SEMAPHORE RECEIVES AN ANSWER.

“I am perfectly proportioned,” said the medical lady confidentially to Mrs. Whitley. Mrs. Whitley would not have thought so herself, but she made an assenting murmur, out of politeness. They were seated at breakfast two or three mornings later, and the medical lady’s statement was interrupted by the entrance of Miss Semaphore, who glided quietly to her place, and took up her correspondence with some appearance of anxiety. “Perfectly proportioned,” went on the medical lady in a lower key; “my dre

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CHAPTER IV. CASTLES IN THE AIR.

That evening, a little shamefacedly, Miss Semaphore told Prudence how she had answered the advertisement in The Pictorial , and received a reply from Mrs. Geldheraus. Prudence was very much surprised and delighted, being in one of her rare spasms of remembrance that she no longer was a girl. She expressed herself as not only willing but ready and anxious to help in raising half of the money required, if the explorer’s widow persisted in demanding a thousand pounds. The sisters resolved, however,

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CHAPTER V. THE WATER OF YOUTH.

Usually the fond imaginations of the night wear a different aspect in the dawn; but the visions of the Misses Semaphore had lost none of their attractiveness by morning. Though, as before said, they tried now and then to check their super-abounding joy by the cold reflection that perhaps the explorer’s widow was a humbug, and the Water of Youth liquid drawn from the nearest well, they had much ado to keep their excitement within bounds. Indeed their manner, despite all efforts, betrayed such sup

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CHAPTER VI. AN ACCIDENT AND ITS RESULTS.

With ill-concealed impatience did Miss Semaphore await her usual hour for retiring. With a sense of agreeable expectancy did she at last seat herself in her room before the looking-glass and proceed to brush out her scanty tresses. In the open drawer of the table reposed the abundant coils that graced by day the back of her head. As she brushed, she reflected that expensive though the Water of Youth undoubtedly was, it would at any rate spare her buying “Jetoline,” her favourite dye, for many ye

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CHAPTER VII. PRUDENCE RECEIVES A SHOCK.

Miss Prudence Semaphore slept placidly. It was her nature to do everything as placidly as possible. Nightmares rarely visited her. When Miss Augusta was crosser than usual, or the latest man at 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, on whom she tried to fix her easy affections, showed that he had no thought of her, she sometimes wept herself to sleep. Seldom, however, did she experience the discomfort of a nuit blanche . On this particular occasion she dreamt that she was flying through space to Florida in s

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CHAPTER VIII. A CAREER OF DECEPTION.

Never did a placid, good-natured woman, habitually truthful, unaccustomed to all save the shallowest of plots, unused to taking the initiative, and indeed, preferring to depend on the advice of others, find herself in a more unpleasant predicament than did Miss Prudence Semaphore. That her dilemma originated in no fault of her own, served in no wise to console her. To a certain extent she rose to the situation and decided, with a promptitude that for her was marvellous, on a course of action, bu

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CHAPTER IX. A PROMISING ADVERTISEMENT.

With no little diffidence did Miss Prudence Semaphore, a woman quite unused to the ways and wants of babies, present herself at the special counter in Whiteley’s devoted to their needs, and falter out that she required a complete outfit for an infant. The attendant who waited on her considered that she had a most extraordinary customer to deal with, for the lady neither knew the age of the child nor the names and quantities of the needful garments, and when she finally took everything that was s

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CHAPTER X. IN WHICH MISS PRUDENCE EXPLAINS MATTERS.

The next thing Miss Prudence felt she should do was to see Mrs. Wilcox and prepare her for hearing at any time that Augusta had left suddenly. Mrs. Wilcox sat in the little room she called her Office, where she received callers on business, made up her books, wrote letters, and otherwise employed herself. “I am so sorry to hear your sister is not well,” she said as Prudence entered. “I hope she feels better now.” “Not much, I am afraid,” said Prudence. “Will she be able to come down to tea?” “I—

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CHAPTER XI. THE MEDICAL LADY INTERVENES.

Miss Prudence did not appear at afternoon tea, so the symptoms of her sister, her refusal, or, at least, disinclination to call in a doctor, her extraordinary confusion and contradictory statements, as detailed by Mrs. Wilcox, were canvassed with much freedom by the boarders present. Mrs. Wilcox discreetly abstained from mentioning her suspicions, or using the ugly word “infection,” but she privately requested the medical lady to visit the invalid, and make a truthful report as to her condition.

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CHAPTER XII. “GOOD MRS. BROWN.”

Early next morning Prudence carefully locked all the doors of her own room and of her sister’s apartment and went round to the stationer’s to see if a letter had come for her from X. Y. Z. With much relief she picked out, from a bundle of others, a missive addressed to P. S., and proceeded to read it. It was tolerably written and spelled, the paper was clean, and the communication was signed “Mrs. Brown.” “Mrs. Brown” agreed to meet Prudence at nine o’clock that evening in the first-class waitin

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CHAPTER XIII. THE MEDICAL LADY BAFFLED.

No. 37, Beaconsfield Gardens, South Kensington, was in a ferment of excitement. Something had happened. The boarders did not quite know what, but there was in the air that electrical unrest that spreads so rapidly from one individual to another. The mystery of Miss Semaphore’s illness was under discussion. What ailed her? She had eaten nothing for two days. Was she really better? Was she worse? Why this secrecy and embarrassment on the part of the usually garrulous and impulsive Prudence? Why wa

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CHAPTER XIV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.

The two following days passed peacefully over. Prudence told her carefully-concocted story to Mrs. Wilcox, and said she would probably follow her sister in a fortnight. She despatched a great box, avowedly for the use of Augusta, to Paddington Station, and left it at the cloak-room to be kept till called for. She took every precaution that suggested itself to her, and even contemplated announcing at table the receipt of a letter from her sister declaring she was enjoying the fine sea air. In fac

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CHAPTER XV. PRUDENCE CALLS AT PLUMMER’S COTTAGES.

Next morning Prudence, after a restless night, was up betimes. Never in the past had the placid, good-natured spinster known sleeplessness, except in a very modified form. Since Augusta’s misfortune, however, that was changed. She thought more than she ever had thought in her life, and constant anxiety was making her face look drawn and worn. Her brief triumph at having got her sister safely out of the house had vanished with the unexpected and unwelcome visit of “good Mrs. Brown.” Wearily tossi

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CHAPTER XVI. MRS. DUMARESQ IN AN UNDIPLOMATIC CIRCLE.

When Prudence found herself in the street, she looked in a bewildered fashion from right to left, not knowing which way to turn. The good-natured young constable pointed out the direction of the workhouse, telling her it was quite near, and thither she bent her steps. Knowing nothing of the intricacies of the neighbourhood, she walked some considerable way before realising that she was lost, and that her best plan was to take a cab. Cabs, however, were few about there, and she discovered one wit

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CHAPTER XVII. A SENSATION IN “THE STAR.”

When dinner was over, and the feminine boarders had filed upstairs as usual, a fresh shock awaited poor Prudence. There was sudden great excitement in the street. A dozen newsboys, with stentorian lungs, bellowed up and down Beaconsfield Gardens the words, “Extry Speschul—’orrible case— Re -volting details,” alone being distinctly audible. The women crowded to the window trying to hear, and speculating what the sensation might be. Major Jones went to the front door and bought a copy of The Star

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CHAPTER XVIII. A DETECTIVE ON THE TRACK.

Boarding-house life tends to make one selfish; “each for himself and God for us all,” is the boarders’ motto. Where people come and go, drifting in and out like weeds upon the tide, deep interests or affections are rare, but even in boarding-houses men are sometimes thoughtful, and women sympathetic. This is especially true in cases of illness. The medical lady and Mrs. Dumaresq rushed to the assistance of Prudence when she stumbled off the sofa in a dead faint. She was conveyed to her room, sme

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CHAPTER XIX. A COUNCIL OF WAR.

That evening there was a mysterious private gathering of ladies in Mrs. Dumaresq’s room, chosen because it was the largest. To it came first of all the medical woman, bursting with importance and revelations. Mrs. Whitley, Mrs. Dumaresq herself, and the specially invited Mrs. Wilcox made up the conclave. Mrs. Wilcox was nervous and agitated. She felt sure the medical woman had something dreadful to tell her, and whether that something related to the contagious nature of Miss Prudence Semaphore’s

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CHAPTER XX. NOTICE TO QUIT.

With the curious intuition common to the sick, Prudence felt that something was wrong. There was an atmosphere of unrest about her. She noted the frown on the brow of Mrs. Wilcox and the hardness of her tone when she asked her how she felt, and if she thought she would be able to sit up for a while to-morrow, though Mrs. Wilcox did her best to speak in her natural voice. She remarked the averted face of her old enemy, the medical woman, but she was too prostrate to heed them, or to enquire if an

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CHAPTER XXI. AT THE ARROW STREET POLICE COURT.

Nervous people are generally too early, and on the fatal Monday morning Miss Prudence Semaphore, who was still weak and ill, but meantime had found comparative repose in her quiet and obscure lodgings, presented herself at the door of the Arrow Street Police Court almost as soon as it was opened. She was dressed all in black, and with her white face and long veil looked like a newly made widow. The baby farming case had excited great interest in the neighbourhood, where “good Mrs. Brown” was a w

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CHAPTER XXII. A SCENE IN COURT.

Miss Prudence Semaphore, in after years describing her sensations when placed in the witness box, was accustomed to say she didn’t know whether she stood on her head or her heels. If any desire to experience the feeling, without enduring the varied miseries that a cruel fate inflicted on the unhappy lady, let them, if unaccustomed to public speaking, be called on for an afterdinner speech. The swimming in the head, the sea of faces dimly seen, the weakness in the knees, dryness of the tongue and

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CHAPTER XXIII. CONCLUSION.

Of our story little remains to tell. Augusta was driven to her sister’s lodgings and put to bed. In less than twenty-four hours she had arrived once more at the time of life she had temporarily abandoned. Her experience had been a disappointment, but her intense relief in feeling that she was once more in command of the helm, prevented her dwelling on that. It was delightful to array herself once more in her own clothes, to be no longer a helpless infant, pinched, tweaked, starved, insulted to h

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