Lights, Laughter and a Lady. Barbara Cartland
protective towards her.
‘I hope Connie will not be ashamed of me,’ she murmured to herself.
She remembered how smart Connie had looked the last time she had come home and she thought it odd that her father had not told her that he had seen her when he was in London.
‘It was unlike Papa to be so secretive,’ she thought and then wondered if he had had any reason for it.
The cabbie seemed to drive for a very long way through crowded streets.
Looking out of the window, Minella was fascinated by the variety of vehicles she could see everywhere.
Most of all she found herself riveted by the smart carriages and the broughams drawn by two horses wearing, she was sure, bearing-reins, which she considered cruel.
They were driven by two men on the box wearing crested top hats and extremely smart liveries.
There were also the hansoms that her father had described to her so often, but which she had never seen before.
She laughed at their sloping fronts with the driver high up over the roof and their large wheels and she was surprised at the fast pace they could travel at.
It made her feel that London was as exciting as her father had always thought it to be.
She longed to be able to travel in a hansom, but she was sure that it would be incorrect for a lady to travel alone and that one should be accompanied by a very elegant man wearing a shining top hat slightly on the side of his head.
After they had driven quite a long way down very crowded streets in which there was so much to see that Minella kept looking excitedly from side to side, they turned into a much quieter street.
The carriage stopped outside a high rather ugly building with steps up to the front door and railings half-hiding the basement beneath it.
The cabbie climbed down to open the door for her.
“Shall I carry your trunks in, miss?” he asked.
“Will you wait one moment, please?” Minella asked. “I may not be able to stay here.”
“That’s all right,” he answered, “but don’t be long. I wants to be orf ’ome soon.”
“I will be as quick as I can,” Minella promised.
She ran up the steps and rang the bell, thinking that Connie lived in a very grand house.
It took some moments before the door was opened by a rather slovenly maid in a dirty apron and with her cap crooked on her untidy hair.
“Yus?” she asked in an uncompromising voice.
“Does Miss Connie Langford live here?” Minella enquired.
The maid jerked her thumb upwards.
“Second floor,” she said and without saying anything more she hurried down the narrow stairs that obviously led to the basement.
Surprised at such an abrupt reception, Minella climbed quickly up the stairs, passing the first floor where there were two doors, each having a card tacked onto it bearing a different name.
It was then she understood that this house contained flats and on the second floor must be the flat that Connie had thanked her father for.
When she reached it, there were two doors and she went to the first one and saw that it had a card containing a man’s name.
Then on the second, written in Connie’s own hand was the name she was seeking, Miss Connie Langford.
Now she felt more nervous than she had before but, realising that the cabby was waiting for her, she raised the small brass knocker that was above the card.
The noise she made did not sound very effective and, because she was afraid that Connie would not be at home, she waited for a moment and then knocked on the door again, this time more loudly.
Now she heard footsteps from within and a minute later the door opened and to her relief Connie stood there.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Then, as Minella stared at her for a moment, unable to speak, Connie exclaimed,
“Minella! It cannot be! What are you doing here?”
“I have come to ask you for your help, Connie.”
“My help? Why? Is your father with you?”
“Papa is – dead. Did you not – know?”
For a moment Connie stared at her as if she could hardly believe what she had heard.
Then she said,
“Dead – I just don’t believe it.”
“He died a few weeks ago from a – poisoned hand.”
“But he was – here in London – and I have never known him so – so – ”
Connie stopped.
“We cannot stand here talking about it,” she suggested. “Come on in.”
“I have come to London because I have to find work,” Minella said, “and my luggage is downstairs.”
For a moment Connie was silent.
And then she said,
“You had better tell the cabbie to leave it inside the front door.”
“Yes, of course.”
Minella did not wait to hear anything more, but hurried down the stairs as quickly as she could, feeling that by this time the cabbie would be growing impatient.
However, he lifted her trunks off his cab and carried them upstairs to dump them down just inside the hall on the linoleum, which, Minella noticed, needed cleaning.
While he was doing so, she took a shilling and four pennies out of her purse, thinking that she must give him an extra penny as he had waited so long.
He stared at the coins as if he was somewhat suspicious of them.
Then he asked her,
“Can you make it another tuppence?”
“Yes, of course,” Minella said. “You have been very kind.”
He took the two pennies from her and then looked up the stairs with what she thought was a disdainful glance before he said,
“If you will take me advice, which you won’t, you’ll find somewhere better to stay than this!”
Minella looked at him in surprise.
“What is wrong with it?”
She thought that he was about to say something, but then he changed his mind.
“You’re too young fur this sort of thing,” he said. “Go back to your mother, that’s where you oughta be, and forget London. It ain’t the place for the likes of you!”
He did not wait for her to answer, but clumped down the steps, climbed back on his box and drove off without looking at her again.
As he drove away, Minella gave a little sigh.
It seemed to her very strange that everybody in London seemed to think how young and foolish she was.
‘It must be my clothes,’ she told herself, but she knew that it would be impossible for her to afford any others.
She had thought when her father died that she should wear mourning, but apart from one black gown of her mother’s, which was too elaborate for her to wear in the country, she had nothing black.
After what Mr. Mercer had told her, she thought that it would be an extremely stupid extravagance to spend any of her precious money on clothes.
She was acutely conscious that a few of her father’s personal debts had still