Yes! The world became a changed place to Jenny Liddon from the moment when Anthony Churchill stood up to take her tray, and to say "Thank you" in that indescribably feeling voice. That very moment it was, and she never marked it in her calendar.
"The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!"
"The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!"
Very seldom do we hear the bell. And therefore we are not really so silly as we seem. Jenny was quite unaware that she had fallen in love as suddenly as you would fall downstairs if you did not look where you were going; being the most proper little heroine that ever lived in a proper family story the idea of such a thing would have covered her with shame. Oh, she would have died sooner than so forget herself! She was merely conscious of some new, sweet scent in the atmosphere of life, some light ether in the brain, some—but what's the use of trying to describe what everybody understands already?
When the hero had ceased to watch her out of the corner of his eye, had vacated his basket-chair and vanished from the scene, the tea-room became a place of dreams, and not a place of business. She took the orders of customers with an empty, far-away, idiotic smile; she drifted about with plates and teapots like an active sleep-walker. Oh, how handsome he was! How big and strong! How considerate and kind! What perfect courtesy—taking her tray from her, and thanking her in that way, as if she were a condescending queen! How thoroughly one's ideal of a gentleman and a man! These impassioned thoughts absorbed her.
She went down to St. Kilda in the evening, and sat upon the pier. It was absolutely necessary to have the sea to commune with, under the circumstances—darkness and the sea.
"You're tired, duckie," the old mother said, aware of a difference and vaguely anxious. "Oh, don't deny it—I can see you are quite done up."
"My legs do ache," the girl confessed, with a tear and a trembling lip and an ecstatic smile. "Running after so many customers. I am not going to complain of that. Let me sit here and rest, while you and Sarah walk up and down.Yourlegs want stretching."
They thought not, but she was sure of it. "Go, go, dears—dogo; I am all right—I am quite happy by myself—Ilikeit!"
They wrapped her up and left her; and while they perambulated the pleasant platform, talking of their commercial successes, and how dear Joey would come round when he heard of them, she sat quite still and stared at the sea. It murmured musically in the cold, clear night, full of sympathy for her.
All at once she seemed to catch an inkling of the truth. She turned hot and cold, sat bolt upright and shook herself, and inwardly exclaimed, with a gust of rage, "Oh, what afoolI am!" then walked home briskly to give renewed attention to business.
Business prospered as well as heart could wish. The little push given by the powerful Churchill family to her humble enterprise, without which it might have struggled and languished like so many worthy enterprises, floated it into fashion within a week; and, though she had plenty of hard work, insomuch that the basket-maker's wife's niece had to be hired to wash cups and saucers and hand the teapots round the screen, all anxiety as to income was set at rest. Nothing remained to make the tea-room a sound concern but to "keep it up" as it had begun; and she and her mother were resolute to do that. Not a pot of ill-made tea nor a defective scone was ever placed before a customer by those conscientious tradeswomen. Mrs. Liddon, who was happily of a tough and active constitution, laboured to sift her fine flour and test the temperature of her oven, as if each batch of scones was to compete for a prize in an agricultural show. They were not large, substantial scones, like those of the common restaurant, but no bigger than the top of a wineglass, and of a marvellous puffy lightness. She never made more than an ovenful at a time, mixing and cutting one batch while the previous one was baking; and this rapid treatment of the dough, with her previous elaborate siftings, and a leavening of her own composition, produced the perfect article for which she became justly famous. Two scones were put before each customer, and if only one was eaten the other was not wasted. Churchill & Son soon began to provide the tea, which was of the best quality, at a price no storekeeper could buy it for; and the very boiling of the water was watched and regulated, that the freshness should not boil out of it before it was used. The principle on which this establishment was conducted was to do little, and to do that little well—an admirable system, too rarely observed in the commercial world; but, as Jenny had not unjustly boasted, she had the instincts of a good woman of business in her. She resisted all her mother's pleadings for coffee and cakes, when the number of customers seemed to call for larger transactions. Coffee and tea, she said, would be too much upon their minds (since coffee as well as tea must be absolutely perfect), and cakes could be bought anywhere. Let them be content to know, and have it known, that for tea and scones that were always good they were to be invariably depended on. So Mrs. Liddon sifted and baked till eleven in the morning, while Sarah prepared the trays and Jenny washed the tea-room floor; and then the latter, having tidied her dainty person, trotted about with hardly a pause till seven at night, while the bent-backed sister received the little stream of coin that steadily poured in, and dreamed all day of growing rich enough to go to Europe and do things.
Jenny had no fears about the success of her undertaking; it seemed almost too successful sometimes, when her back was aching and her legs too tired to carry her; but she had one constant and ever-increasing anxiety, which beset her every morning, after keeping her more or less awake through the night. This was lest Mr. Anthony Churchill should not come to the tea-room during the day.
His stepmother never took him again, after the first visit; and she herself lost interest in the place, which had been but the fad of an hour or two. She could get a cup of tea whenever she wanted, without paying for it, or putting herself out of the way; and the Little Collins Street premises were very stuffy as the summer came on. They were too crowded for comfort—i.e., for a sentimentaltête-à-tête; and the girl was too good-looking to expose Tony to, with his absurd ideas of her being a lady. So Mrs. Churchill gave the tea-room up.
Tony, however, did not give it up. Several days elapsed between his first visit and the second, because it was so difficult to go and sit down there and ask Miss Liddon to wait on him. He quite agreed with Mary that men should not be admitted. A girl like that, brought up as she had been, ought not to be at the beck and call of those coarse creatures. Nevertheless, as men did go, he wanted to be one of them. As representing the firm with which her father had been so closely and for so long connected, it was only right that he should keep an eye on her, and lend her a helping hand if she seemed to need it.
He said nothing of his purpose to Mrs. Oxenham, who continued to refresh herself with the admirable tea and scones at hours that could be fairly calculated upon and avoided. The first she heard of his having gone to the tea-room on his own account was from her little half-sisters, who did not happen to mention it to their mother. These children were much attached to him, and he to them, and one day he took them to the Royal Park, and treated them to tea and scones on their way home. He thought scones were better for them than sweets, he said, and he was able to get them milk instead of tea. Mary commended him for his fatherly care of their digestions, and thought no more of the matter.
The fact was that he had given the small creatures an outing on purpose that they might introduce him to the tea-room. It seemed so much easier to appear before Miss Liddon on their behalf than on his own, and their presence was calculated to attract that notice and interest which he did not imagine he would receive for his own sake. He was not desperately anxious to see Miss Liddon, but he was curious. What he had seen of her, and what Mary and his father had told him (particularly about the hundred pounds that had been offered and refused), had struck his fancy; that was all—at present.
When he appeared at the door of the yellow chamber, with a Liberty-sashed, granny-bonneted mite clinging to either hand, Jenny saw him at once, and experienced that strange shock of leaping blood which makes heart shake and eyes dim for an ecstatic moment—such as we all understand much better than we can describe it. For days she had been aching for a sight of him, despite her savage mortification that it should be so; and here he was at last in the charming guise of a man loving and caring for little children, which, as every woman knows, is a guarantee of goodness that never proves false.
It was after six o'clock, when people were thinking of dinner rather than tea—when little Grace and Geraldine should have been on their way to Toorak, where their nursery meal awaited them—and the tea-room crowd had thinned to half a dozen, all of whom had their plates and brown pots beside them. This also he had in a measure anticipated. Jenny was free, and came forward a step or two to meet him, glancing at the children with a soft, maternal look, as it seemed to him.
"I hope these little people will not be troublesome," he said, bowing with his best politeness. "They have been to see the lions and tigers fed, and I think it has made them hungry."
"Oh, yes," said Jenny flutteringly. "I will get them some scones—not quite the newest ones. And—and don't you think they are too young for tea? May I get them some milk instead?"
"Thank you—thank you very much—if you are sure you can spare it. I daresay it would be better for them."
"I am sure it would, and we have plenty. It is very good milk."
She set the children into chairs, took off their smart bonnets, tucked napkins (napkins were kept for occasions, though not for general use) round their little chins, and put two scones into their hands; Anthony watching her with eyes that she felt piercing like two gimlets through the back of her head. He was noticing what fine, bright hair she had, and what delicate skin, and remembering that her father had been an Eton boy.
"I am awfully sorry to give you so much trouble," he mumbled.
"It is no trouble at all," she replied. "Now I will get them some milk." She dared to glance up at him. "You, sir—will you have some tea for yourself?"
"Oh, if you please—if it won't be troubling you. It's such perfectly delicious tea."
Jenny danced off—trying not to dance—and was back in a twinkling, with the tray in her arms. Her trays were light, and did not drag her into ungraceful attitudes, but he objected to see her carrying one for him. As before, he took it from her! and the little courtesy made her cheeks flush and her heart swell.
"Only he," she said to herself, "would do that."
And he would not sit to drink his tea, while she stood by, as she did, to wait upon the children—to see that they didn't butter their sashes and slop milk down their frocks; and under the circumstances it was impossible not to talk to her.
"Will you allow me to introduce myself?" he ventured to say, during a pause in her ministrations, when she seemed uncertain whether to go or stay. "I am Anthony Churchill—of the firm, you know. I hope I am not taking a liberty, but your father was such an old friend. I grieve indeed to hear—I knew nothing about it when I came the other day——"
Jenny flushed and fluttered, and, because she was physically weary, could not bear to be reminded of her father, who used to take such tender care of her. For an instant her eyes glistened, warning him to hurry from the subject.
"I think it is so brave of you to do what you are doing. My sister has been telling me about it."
"Oh, thank you—but my mother and sister do more than I do, in proportion to their strength. My sister is delicate; I'm afraid it is not good for her to sit here all day." After a pause, she added, "Mrs. Oxenham has been very, very kind to me; your father too."
"I am sure they were only too glad, if they had the chance. I wish—I wish I were privileged to be some help."
"Oh, thank you! The only help we wish for is for people to come and drink our tea, and show themselves satisfied with it."
"May I come and drink it sometimes? I feel as if men were out of place here; I am sure you would rather not have them—but I am a very quiet fellow, and I have a woman's passion for tea." He had nothing of the sort, but that didn't matter.
"Anyone has a right to come who chooses," she answered, turning from him to attend to little Grace.
The words were discouraging, but he thought the tone was not; and he determined to come again, and alone, at the earliest opportunity.
Duly carrying out his intention on the very next day, Anthony was annoyed to find the room full, and Jenny flitting hither and thither like the choice butterfly that defies the collector's net. More than that, the basket-maker's wife, who was acquiring an ever-deepening interest in the restaurant business, was being initiated into the art of serving customers, in preparation for the expected crush of race time; and this unattractive person it was who brought him his tea and scone.
Very sedately he sat in the chair that looked best able to bear his weight until his tray was placed beside him, and it became evident that he was to get no satisfaction out of Jenny beyond that of looking at her. He looked at her for some minutes with an interest that surprised himself, and she was conscious of the direction of his eyes, and of every turn of his head, as if she had herself a hundred eyes to watch him. Then he quietly took up cup and plate, and passed over to Sarah's table. Sarah's table was a common, four-legged cedar affair, with an æsthetic cloth on it, and bore only her money bowls and the needlework that she was accustomed to occupy herself with at odd moments. It stood in a retired corner, partly sheltered by the screen.
"Do you mind if I sit here with you?" he said pleasantly—with proper respect, of course, but not with the deference she had noted in his attitude to Jenny. "I feel so out of it, with no lady to excuse my presence, monopolising one of those pretty little tables that were never meant for such as me."
Now Sarah was a child in years, but she was old in novel-reading and like exercises of the mind; and she had already cast a hungry eye upon Mr. Anthony Churchill and her sister, scenting a possible romance before a thought of such a thing had occurred to either of them. During their interview on the previous afternoon she had observed them with quite a passionate interest; and all through the night she had listened to Jenny's restless movements in her adjoining bed, like a careful doctor noting the symptoms of incipient fever. She had been all day watching for his return to the tea-room, as for a potential lover of her own—lovers, she knew, were not for her—abandoning her dreams of European travel to build gorgeous air-castles on Jenny's behalf. "Ifthisshould be the result of keeping a restaurant—oh, ifthisshould be the reward of her goodness and courage, and all her hard work!" she sighed to herself, in an ecstasy of exultation. "Oh, if he should marry her, and make a great lady of her—as she deserves to be—what would Joey say to the tea-roomthen?"
So, when Mr. Churchill presented himself, he found no difficulty in making friends with her. She swept her work-basket from the table, to give him room for his cup and plate, and responded to his advances with a ready self-possession that surprised him in a girl so young; for Sarah, under-sized and crippled, did not look her age by several years. For herself she would have been shy and awkward, but for Jenny she was bold enough. She had determined that, if she could help to bring about the realisation of her new dream, her best wits should not be wanting.
He soon began to speak of Jenny.
"Your sister seems very busy," he said, with a lightness of tone that did not deceive the listener.
"Yes; too busy. She gets very tired at night sometimes."
"I am afraid so. She has not been used to so much running about."
"No. She never expected to have so many customers. I am sorry now that we did not open for the afternoon only; it would have been quite enough for her."
"I suppose the afternoon is the busiest time?"
"Oh, yes. There are very few in the morning. Sometimes she is able to sit down and sew for a few minutes."
Mr. Churchill made a mental note of that. "I should have thought she had enough to do at the slackest time without doing sewing," he said, watching the flitting figure furtively.
"Oh, she must be doing something; she is never idle. She makes her own dresses always—and the most of ours."
"You don't say so!" He stared at Jenny boldly now. "Do you mean to say she made that one that she's got on?"
"Certainly. And it looks all right, doesn't it?"
"Mrs. Earl couldn't beat her," he said absurdly; and he really thought so, not knowing anything about it, except that Jenny's frock was simple and neat—a style that men are always partial to. "But then Mrs. Earl doesn't often get such a figure to fit, does she?"
"Oh, I suppose so. Plenty of them."
"I am sure she doesn't. It's so very graceful and—and high-bred, you know. Nobody but a lady could move and turn as she does. I hope you don't think I'm very impertinent to make these remarks."
"Oh, no," laughed Sarah, who glowed with satisfaction. "I like to hear her praised. To me she's the best and dearest person in the world.Idon't think there is anybody like her."
"Well, there can't be many like her," said Anthony, seriously reflecting upon the girl's energy and high-mindedness.
Jenny was quite aware that she was being talked of, and presently she approached them, flushed, bright-eyed, vividly charming, as she had never been in the days before Mr. Anthony appeared. He rose at once, and stood while she asked him whether he had been properly attended to.
"Yes, thank you," he replied; and Sarah noticed his change of tone. "I have been taking the liberty of making myself acquainted with your sister."
Jenny laid a hand on Sarah's shoulder. "You are very kind," she said. "I'm afraid she is a bit dull and lonely in this corner by herself all day."
"The kindness has been the other way," said he, but was grateful that she otherwise regarded it, perceiving a future advantage to himself therein. "I fear you are tired, Miss Liddon."
"Not a bit," she said—and said truly—for his presence had filled body and soul with life. "And if I am, it's a pleasant way of getting tired."
"You must not over-exert yourself," he urged, with a serious solicitude that thrilled her. "What profiteth it to gain custom and lose your health?"
"That's what I am always telling her," said Sarah.
"My health is excellent," Jenny said, smiling happily. "And we are taking our landlady into the firm, you see, with a view to contingencies."
"Yes, I was so glad to see that. It would take twenty of her to do what you do, but still it's something; and she'll get more alert in time, I hope. If necessary, you must take in still more helpers, Miss Liddon—anything, rather than overstrain yourself and break down. You must see to that"—turning to Sarah; "you must make her take care of herself. And if she won't, report her to me, and I'll bring my father to bear upon her. He looks on her as his special charge, I know."
As they were standing apart from the tea-drinkers, and as it were in private life, he held out his hand in farewell, bending his tall head in a most courteous bow. He could not sit down again, after getting up, his own tea and scone being disposed of, and thought it wise to resist his strong desire to linger.
Being still afraid of taking liberties, he kept away from the tea-room for a day or two, taking his pleasures in other walks of life. Then the spirit moved him to return thither, and he chose the morning for his visit, when Jenny might be finding time to sit down to sew. Busy little bee! What a contrast to the girls who courted him at Maude's tennis and theatre parties—girls who appeared to have no motive or purpose in the world beyond stalking husbands, and bringing them down, if possible, by fair means or foul—women whose brains and hands seemed never to be nobly exercised. He found himself continually drawing comparisons, to their disadvantage.
Since it was obviously impossible that a man could want tea and scones in the morning, he had to invent another excuse for going to see Miss Liddon at that time of day, and the happy thought occurred to him of taking some flowers to Sarah. He selected from Paton's beautiful window a wisp of moss and ferns and lilies of the valley, which was the choicest thing he could see there, hid it in his hansom as he went through the street, and carried it with some shamefacedness to the table of the money-changer, where the two sisters were sitting together, awaiting customers.
"Good morning, Miss Liddon. Don't get up. I have not come for tea this time. It just struck me that it would refresh Miss Sarah, sitting here all day, if she had a flower to look at." And he presented his bouquet to the crippled girl, pretending that Jenny had nothing to do with it.
"Oh!" she breathed deeply. "How good! How lovely!" And, "Oh, oh—h!" cried Sarah simultaneously. They smelt the flowers in ecstasy, and Jenny ran to draw a tumbler of water from her big filter.
"It's only rubbish," he mumbled disparagingly, "but it's sweet. I'm awfully fond of the smell of lilies of the valley myself."
"So am I," said Sarah. "And I don't know how to thank you."
"Oh, it's nothing! I just thought you might like it, don't you know. It seemed a weary thing for you to sit here for hours, with nothing but the money-boxes to look at."
He opened and shut his watch. Jenny was standing beside him, visible palpitating, touching the white bells with the tips of her fingers, saying nothing. There was a sound of footsteps and rustlings on the stairs. It was impossible to prolong the interview.
"Well, good-bye," he said suddenly, extending his hand. "I must go back to work."
As he plunged down the dark stairs into the narrow street his heart was beating in quite a new style, and he was distinctly aware of it. "Little bit of a hand!" he said to himself, opening and shutting his own broad palm, that had just swallowed it as if it had been a baby's. "Little mite of a creature! I could crush her between my finger and thumb—and she's got the pluck of a whole army of men like me. I used to think there were no such women in the world nowadays; but there are—there are, after all. Little wisp of a thing! I could take her up in my arms and carry her on my shoulder as easily as I do the children. I wish to Heaven Icouldcarry her—out of that beastly place, which will kill her when the summer comes. Hullo! If I don't look out, I shall be falling in love before I know where I am. And with a restaurant-keeper, of all people! A pretty kettle of fish that would be!"
He turned into Collins Street, and made his way back to his office, still musing in this dangerous fashion: "What a housekeeper she would make! What a mother! What a pride she'd take in her home! Those other girls, once they'd got a house, would let it take care of itself, and their husbands too, while they ruffled about, like peacocks in the sun, and entertained themselves with Platonic love affairs. As long as there was a useful person to pay the bills they wouldn't bother their heads about the butcher and baker. Oh, I know them! Butshe'snot that sort. She wouldn't take our money, honest money as it was—she wouldn't be beholden to anybody—brave little thing! And such a ridiculous mite as it is, to go and do battle with the world for independence!"
Passing through a small army of busy clerks, his eye lit on Joey, who was regarding him with the veneration due from a mortal to an Olympian god.
"Oh, Liddon—you are Liddon, aren't you?—how are you getting on?" he demanded suddenly.
"Very well, sir, thank you. I believe I am giving every satisfaction," said Joey, with his young complacency.
Anthony regarded him for a moment in deep thought, and then asked him how long he had been in the firm's employ.
"About two years," said Joey.
"And what's your salary?"
"A hundred and thirty, sir."
"Oh, well, I must make inquiries, and see if it isn't getting time to be thinking of a rise." Nobody had thought of a rise for poor Liddon, senior, who had been worth a dozen of this boy. "And how is your mother getting on with the—the little business she has entered into?"
"I hardly know," said Joey, with a blush and a stammer. "I don't see very much of them now."
"Why not?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir. Somehow I can't take to the tea-room scheme. I can't bear to see my mother and sisters doing that sort of thing, when our family has never been connected with trade in any way."
"Don't despise trade, young man. You are connected with it yourself—and not at all to your disadvantage, it strikes me—as your father was before you."
"Yes, sir; but this is a very different sort of thing, and my father, as you may have heard, sir, was an Eton boy."
"I have heard so. Well, you follow in your father's steps, my lad, and do your duty as well as he did. And your first duty is to look after your womenkind, and save them in every way you can. Out of office hours you could do a great deal for them, couldn't you?"
"I'm sure," complained Joey aggrievedly, "I'm ready to do anything—only Jenny won't let me. She will manage and control things, as if she were the head of the family. She would go into this low tea-room business in spite of all I could say. However"—drawing himself up—"I hope it won't be very long before she is in a different position."
A stinging thought flashed into Mr. Churchill's mind, and changed his amused smile into an anxious frown. "Do you mean by marriage?" he asked; saying to himself that she was just the woman to take up with a loafing vagabond, who would live upon her at his ease, while she worked to support him.
"No, sir. But my father's uncle, who is a great age, is rich, and we expect to come in for some of his property when he dies."
"Oh!" in an accent of relief. "I wouldn't advise you to count on any contingencies of that sort. Just stick to business, and depend on your own exertions—as your sister does. Take pattern by her, and you won't go far wrong."
Joey looked at his young chief with a new expression.
"Do you know my sister?" he inquired.
"I knowofher," said Anthony warily. "My father and Mrs. Churchill, and my sister, Mrs. Oxenham, have taken a great interest in the tea-room ever since it was first opened; I have heard from them of her noble efforts to help her family."
This was a new view of the case to Joey, who decided to go and see his mother and sisters in the evening.
Just before Anthony passed out of the tea-room, after giving his flowers to Sarah, two stout countrywomen with children came in; people who had arrived by train, with the dust of travel in their throats, and to whom a cup of tea never came amiss at any time. Jenny made them comfortable in soft chairs, and gave them a pot and a pile of scones; then she came back to Sarah's table, and, kneeling down, encircled the lilies of the valley with her arms. She inhaled deep breaths of perfume, and gave them forth in long sighs, with her eyes shut. Sarah watched her.
"They are the very dearest flowers you can buy," she remarked. "And I know they are bought, because of the wires on the stalks."
Jenny opened her eyes and gloated on them. "You have seven, Sally," she said wistfully. "You might give me one."
"For the matter of that, they are more yours than mine," said Sarah. "But take all you like."
Jenny took one green stalk in her fingers, and, walking to the fireplace, over which their old family pier-glass, its gilt frame swathed in Liberty muslin, afforded customers the opportunity of seeing that their bonnets were on straight, pinned the fragrant morsel at her throat. The white bells lay under her chin, and she was looking down her nose and sniffing at them all day.
Anthony came for tea at five o'clock, and saw them there, and, one minute after, saw them not there. On that occasion he had no conversation with the wearer, but talked for twenty minutes with her sister, becoming very confidential. On the following day he came also, bringing violets and English primroses in a little basket from the Toorak garden; having given Maude to understand that they were for the adornment of his own rooms. On the day after that he came again; and Mrs. Oxenham, whom he had imagined to be paying calls with her stepmother, came at the same hour and caught him. He was comfortably taking his tea at Sarah's table, when he was suddenly made to feel like a little schoolboy playing the truant.
Mary beckoned him to her, and took him to task forthwith.
"My dear boy, what are you doing here?"
"Having tea and scones. It's what everybody does who comes here."
"But you have not brought any one?"
"No; I had a fancy for a solitary cup."
"Oh, solitary! You think I didn't see you, lolling with your arms on that girl's table and talking to her—looking as if you had been sitting there for hours."
"I really hadn't been sitting there for hours; I have not been in the room five minutes."
"In that case, you are evidently very much at home here. Now, Tony dear, itdoesn't do, you know."
"What doesn't do? What iniquity am I accused of? Maude brings me here, and gives me the taste for tea; and I find the Liddons keeping the place, and take that interest in the fact which we all do, and are in duty bound to do; and I talk a little to that poor crippled child—I can't talk to the other one, because she's always too busy; and here you look at me as if I were a shameless profligate——"
"Hush—sh! don't talk so loud. Some tea, dear, please,"—to Jenny, who approached to serve her patroness. "There's no real harm in your coming here by yourself, of course—you don't suppose I am not quite aware of that; but it's the look of the thing, Tony. A man alone doesnotlook well in a place like this."
"I don't think I ever thought of how I looked."
"You know what I mean.Wecome here, father and Maude and I, to help the place, and because wedowant tea, Maude and I, at any rate——"
"So do I. I want tea occasionally, as well as other mortals sweltering in the city dust; and I'm sure I want to help the place."
"Don't be provoking, Tony. You never want tea—it's nonsense. When you are thirsty you want whisky and soda. And as for helping the place, you do exactly the other thing—and you must know it."
"What is the other thing?"
He lowered his voice, and Mrs. Oxenham did not answer him for some minutes, Jenny being present, looking rather unusually dignified, arranging the tray on the table. A faint perfume of violets exhaled from that small person as she passed him, whereby he knew that she had his flowers about her somewhere—in her breast, he fancied. He rose and stood, as he always did, when she was moving about him.
"The other thing," continued Mary, when he again took his seat, "is that you expose that poor girl to injurious suspicions."
"Good Heavens!" he ejaculated.
"It is of her that I think, and of whom you ought to think—not of your own idle man-about-town whims. You see she is a lady, Tony, not the sort of person one usually finds in these places—really a lady, I mean."
"Certainly. And I never thought of her as anything else, I assure you."
"She is quite helpless, poor child. She can't prevent men from coming in by themselves and loafing here, if they choose to do it. I don't think she ever sufficiently considered what she might be exposing herself to in that way, when she entered upon this business; but I know she intended the place to be a ladies' place."
Mrs. Oxenham sipped her tea with a vexed air, while Tony looked at her gravely, drawing his moustache between his lips, and meditatively biting it.
"You see, Tony, a number of people come here who know you, at any rate by sight—I can count at least half a dozen at this moment—and what do you suppose they say when they see you as I saw you just now?"
"I don't think I care much what they say."
"No; it doesn't affectyou. It never does affect a man; but it affects my little Jenny, whom I have been so anxious to protect from anything of the sort. In the absence of all other reasonable attractions—to a man like you—they will say that you come here to amuse yourself with her."
"Anybody must see that it is impossible for a fellow to say a word to her. No will-o'-the-wisp could be more difficult to catch hold of."
"There are plenty of slack times—there are opportunities enough, of course, if one chooses to make them. Nobody will be so silly as not to know that. And it's not fair to her, Tony dear.Youwould not be blamed—oh, not in the least, of course; but she would be held cheap, on your account. They would forget that she was a lady—a great number don't remember it, don't know it, as it is; and the tea-room might lose some of its repute as a select little place. If she could help herself—if she could choose whether you are to be let in or not—it would be different. Don't you see?"
"I see," said Tony thoughtfully.
He sat back in his chair, absently gnawing his moustache, while Mrs. Oxenham, satisfied that she had explained herself and was understood, concluded her repast; and he even allowed her to go to Sarah's desk to pay for it. Then, at a signal from her, he perfunctorily escorted her downstairs, put her in the carriage, and saw her smilingly depart to pick up their stepmother, who was paying a visit to Mrs. Earl.
Walking meditatively into Elizabeth Street by himself, it suddenly occurred to him that he had not paid for his own tea and scone, in the peaceful enjoyment of which he had been so rudely interrupted. He hurried back to Sarah, with his sixpence in his hand, and apologies for his absent-mindedness.
Something in the intelligent face, as she looked keenly at him, prompted him to say—what he had not dreamed of saying—"My sister has been scolding me. She says I am not to come here any more, because Miss Liddon does not want men—men on their own account, I mean."
"I don't think she does—as a rule," said Sarah.
"I am sorry."
"Yes, so am I."
"I—I wonder whether I might call on you some day—where you live?"
"Unfortunately, we don't live anywhere—except here—we only sleep."
"Not on Sundays?"
"We have not made ourselves comfortable, even for Sundays, yet. She was so afraid of incurring expense till she saw how the business was going to answer. Now she is talking of a proper sitting-room, but of course it will take a little time. We used up our furniture for this." Sarah looked at him again, and, after an inward struggle, added in a lower tone, "We spend nearly all our fine evenings on the St. Kilda pier. Being kept in all day, we want air when we can get it, and sea air, if possible. She loves the sea, and it is easy to get down there when the tea-room is shut. Mrs. Oxenham recommended it."
He held out his hand—though the room was full, and three women who wanted his attentions for themselves were watching him—and his eyes said "Thank you" as plainly as eyes could speak. Carefully looking away from the spot where Jenny was busy, but hungrily observing him, and from the faces of his lady acquaintances, he plunged down the stairs, and swung away to his club, with a light step.
At the top of Collins Street he encountered the carriage, with Maude and Mary in it, and they stopped to speak to him.
"Come home to dinner with us, Tony," his stepmother entreated, with all her smiles and wiles.
"Can't," he briefly answered her.
"Oh, why not? We are just going out."
"Another engagement, unfortunately."
"What engagement? There's nothing on to-night, I'm sure."
He didn't know what to say, so he nodded in the direction of the club. For all the engagement he had was to go and walk up and down the St. Kilda pier.
Sarah found herself obliged to go home when the tea-room closed. It was absolutely necessary, she said, to wash her hair. She would not be longer than she could help, and if Jenny liked to go to the pier by herself—forsheshould not lose the refreshment of the sea air, so fagged as she looked—her mother and sister could join her there when the hair was dried sufficiently.
Jenny did not feel called upon to forego the recreation of which she was so much in need, and had long been accustomed to go about at all hours by herself, safe and fearless, though Sarah was not allowed to do so. So the proposition was agreed to; in fact, it was jumped at.
"And if you find it late before you are ready, dears," said Jenny, fixing her hat by the tea-room pier-glass, "don't mind about fetching me. I can bring myself back quite well. It isn't worth while to waste a shilling on mere going and coming."
"All right," said Sarah; and mentally added, "I ought to be ashamed of myself, I know—but I don't care!"
She set out briskly to walk home with her mother, glad of the exercise after sitting for so many hours; and her sister spent an extra penny to ride from Spencer Street to the bridge because of her over-tired legs. It was their habit to take the tram to St. Kilda in preference to the train, in order to be freely blown by such air as there was on the journey to and fro; and she seated herself on the fore end of the dummy on this occasion, quite unaware of the fact that a man in the following vehicle was in chase of her. She anticipated a long evening of lonely meditation, which was the thing above all others that she desired just now—two whole hours in which she might hug the image of Mr. Anthony Churchill in peace.
That gentleman in his proper person watched her flitting down the seaward road. He had not seen her in her hat before, and daylight was failing fast, but he knew the shape and style of the airy little figure a long way off. He suspected Sarah of having contrived that it should be alone to-night; but he knew that Jenny was guiltless of any knowledge that lovers were around. Was he her lover? He put the question to himself, but shirked answering it. He would see what he was a couple of hours hence. One thing he was quite clear about, however, and that was that her defencelessness was to be respected.
Unconscious of his neighbourhood, she made her way to the pier, which was almost deserted, and seated herself on the furthest bench. There she composed herself in a little cloak that she had brought with her, and began to stare into the grey haze of sky and sea, starred with the riding lights of the ships at Williamstown, never once turning her head to look behind her. Anthony sat down at the inner angle of the pier, stealthily lit a pipe, crossed his legs, laid his right arm on the rail, and watched her.
"After all," he thought, "her father was an Eton boy; he really was—I have proved it—and he had a marquis to fag for him. His people were gentlefolks; so was he; showed it in every word he spoke, poor old boy. Maude, now—her grandfather was a bullock-driver, and couldn't write his name; and her father's a vulgar brute, in spite of his knighthood and his money-bags. And Oxenham is a Manchester cotton fellow—got the crest for his carriage and tablespoons out of a book. I don't see why they should want to make a row. Trade is trade, and we are all tarred with that brush. Goodness knows it would be a better world than it is if we all conducted business as she does—were as scrupulous and high-minded in our dealings with money. We are in no position to look down upon her on that ground. As for money, there's plenty; I don't want any more."
He puffed at his pipe, and the little figure grew dimmer and dimmer; but he could see that she had not stirred.
"Little mite of a thing! No bigger than a child she looks, sitting there—like a baby to nurse upon one's knee. In the firelight ... in the dusk before the lamps are lit ... gathered up in her husband's arms, with that little head tucked under his ear——"
He tapped his pipe on the pier-rail, rose, and walked up and down.
"Why not?" he asked himself plainly. "Could I regret it, when she is so evidently the woman tolast? Beauty is but skin deep, as the copy-books so justly remark, but her beauty is not that sort; she's sound all through—a woman who won't be beholden to anybody for a penny—who makes her own frocks—takes care of them all like a father—stands against the whole world, with her back to the wall——"
Such were his musings. And, my dear girls—to whom this modest tale is more particularly addressed—I am credibly informed that quite a large number of men are inclined to matrimony or otherwise by considerations of the same kind.Youdon't think so, when you are at play together in the ball-room and on the tennis-ground, and you fancy it is your "day out," so to speak; but they tell me in confidence that it is the fact. They adore your pretty face and your pretty frocks; they are immensely exhilarated by your sprightly banter and sentimental overtures; they absolutely revel in the pastime of making love, and will go miles and miles for the chance of it; but when it comes to thinking of a home and family, the vital circumstances of life for its entire remaining term, why, they really are not the heedless idiots that they appear—at any rate, not all of them.
I was talking the other day to a much greater "swell" than Anthony Churchill ever was—a handsome and charming bachelor of high rank in the Royal Navy, about whom the young ladies buzzed like summer flies round a pot of treacle—and he was very serious upon the subject, and desperately melancholy. He was turning forty, and wearying for a haven of peace. There must have been any number of girls simply dying to help him to it, and yet he considered his prospects hopeless. "I see nothing for it," he said, "but to marry a good, honest cook, or spend a comfortless old age in solitude,"—not meaning by this that his dinner was of paramount importance to him, for his tastes were simple, but that he despaired of finding a lady whom the home of his dreams—and of his means—would hold. His dreams, he seemed to think, were out of date. In fact, he shared the views of the man inPunch, who was prevented from getting married by his love of a domestic life. And many others share those views. And thus the army of old maids waxes ever bigger and bigger—and they wonder why.
Not, of course, that I wish to disparage the old maid, especially if she can't help it; and far be it from me to teach the pernicious doctrine that a girl's business in life is to spread lures for a husband. I only say that an unmarried woman is not a woman, but merely a more or less old child; that marriage should come at the proper time, like birth and death; and that if it doesn't—if it falls out of fashion, as everybody can see that it is doing, in spite of nature and the parties concerned—then something must be very rotten somewhere. We will leave it at that.
Anthony Churchill had had a hundred butterfly sweethearts, and been a few times in love. Earlier in life he might have bartered his future income for an inadequate sum down, had not happy accident intervened. Now he was experienced enough to know the risks he ran, old enough to understand what was for a man's good and comfort in his ripe years—that is, partly. No man can be quite wise enough until too late for wisdom to avail him anything. It must be a terrible thing to have the right of practically unrestricted choice in selecting a mate that you may never exchange or get rid of! To find, perchance, that you have blundered in the most awful possible manner, entirely of your own free will!
Though, as to that, free will is an empty term. We are purblind puppets all. To see through a glass darkly is the most that we can do. There was a long and slender shadow on the sea—a mail boat coming in, bringing travellers home—and as our hero watched it, standing with his back to the unconscious heroine, he thought how he had been as one of them but a few days ago.
"And little thinking that I was coming back to do a thing like this!"
He walked up and down once more, feeling all the weight of destiny upon him. And Jenny sat and thought of him, and thought that never, never would he give a thought to her!
"Whatwouldthey say," he asked himself, "if I really were to do it? I—I! And she the daughter of one of my clerks, and a restaurant-keeper!" He put the question from the Toorak point of view, and at the first blush was appalled by it.
Then he sat down again, and looked at the shadow of her hat against the sky.
"What do I care? They will see what she is—little creature, with that deer-like head!" He went off into dreams. "She shall not make her own frocks again, sweet as she looks in them—her children's pinafores, if she likes—monograms for my handkerchiefs—pretty things for her house. What a house she'll have!—all in order from top to bottom, and she looking after everything, as the old-fashioned wives used to do. I think I see her cooking, in a white apron, with her sleeves turned up. When the cooks are a nuisance, like Maude's, that's what she'll do—turn to and cook her husband's dinner herself. Catch Maude cooking a dinner for anybody! By Jove, I shouldn't like to be the one to eat it." The pipe had been set a-going unconsciously, and he puffed in happy mood. "A real home to come back to of a night, when a fellow's tired—when a fellow grows old.... Sitting down with him after dinner, with her sewing in her hands—not wanting to be at a theatre or a dance every night of her life—not bringing up her daughters to want it. How quickly she sews! I watched her at it—able to do anything with those little hands, no bigger than a child's. But she's no child—not she; no doll, for an hour's amusement, like those others. A woman—a real woman, understanding life—a mind-companion, that one can tell things to; knows what love is too, if I'm not mistaken—or will do, when I teach her. Oh, to teach it to a woman with a face like that—with living eyes like those!"
He was at the end of the main pier, looking over the bulwark at the narrow shadow on the sea. It was nearly abreast of St. Kilda now, gliding ghostly, so dim that he only knew where it was by seeing where it was not. Standing sideways to Jenny's bench, he saw her get up, and saw the living eyes shine in the light of the green lamp.
He stepped towards her in a casual way.
"Is that you, Miss Liddon? Getting a breath of sea air? That's right. Where are Mrs. Liddon and Miss Sarah?"
"Good evening, Mr. Churchill. Yes—a whiff; it is so pleasant when the sun is gone. My mother and sister were not able to come to-night, I—I am just going back to them."
"That you are not," said Mr. Churchill mentally; "not if I know it. But I must be careful what I'm about. She's shaking like a leaf—I can hear it in her voice. I mustn't be brutal and frighten her. Little lady that she is! She mustn't get the idea that I'm a Don Juan on the loose." He half turned as he dropped her hand, and said quietly, "I've been watching the mail boat. She's late. Do you see her over there?"
"Where?" asked Jenny; not that she wanted to see it, but that she didn't know what else to say at this upsetting moment.
"Just over there. But it's almost too dark to distinguish her. How glad they'll all be to get home in time for supper and a shore bed! Have you ever had a voyage?"
"Never."
"Then you don't know what a tedious thing it is."
"I only wish I did know," responded Jenny, who had gathered herself together. "I don't fancyIshould suffer from tedium, somehow."
"Why? Do you want so much to travel? But of course you do, if you have never done it."
"Above all things," she said earnestly. "It is the dream of our life—my sister and I."
"You are happy in having it to come—in not being satiated, as I am.Mydream just now is to settle down in a peaceful home, and never stir away from it any more."
The green light was on her face, and he saw her smile, as if no longer afraid of him.
"You can have whatever you dream," she said. "We shall probably never realise ours. Still, we can dream on. That costs nothing."
"Oh, you will realise it—never fear." He abandoned his peaceful home upon the spot, and determined to take her travelling directly they were married. And there was no prospect of tedium in that plan either, for his experience, full as it was, had never included the charm of such a companion, the delight of educating and enriching the mind of an intelligent woman who was also his own wife.
"Meanwhile," said Jenny, "we get books from the library, and read about the places that we want to see, and the routes to them. We know the Orient Line guide by heart. We hunt for pictures, and photographs, and illustrated books. There are some nooks and corners of Europe we know so well that we shall never want a guide when we get there—if we ever do get there."
"You'll get there," said Anthony confidently; "don't doubt it."
It never occurred to him that she might decline to be personally conducted by him, but that was natural in a man of whom women had always made so much. He added, struck by a bright thought, "If you are fond of looking at pictures of places, I will send you a portfolio of photos that I have—mementoes of my many wanderings—if I may. They would amuse Miss Sarah. I should like to give her some amusement, if I could, poor little girl." But he never thought of Sarah in his plan for becoming the showman of the world, except that she must be disposed of somehow—she and her mother and that young ass in the office—so that Jenny might be free, and at the same time easy in her mind about them.
Jenny received the offer of the photos in silence; then said, "Thank you" with a perplexed expression, indicating that a "but" was on its way. He hastened to intercept it.
"There's the steamer—do you see? Patience rewarded. They have a Lord on board and a returning Chief Justice, and the loyal citizens down to meet them have had no dinner. They've been waiting on the pier at Williamstown for hours. Come and sit down, won't you? I'm sure your little feet must be tired."
He used the adjective inadvertently, and Jenny shied at it for a moment, like a dazzled horse. But she had not the strength to resist her intense desire to be with him a little longer, especially with that word, that tone of voice, compelling her.
"I must be going home," she murmured, but was drawn as by a magnet after him when he turned to the bench on which she had before been sitting.
"It can't be more than eight o'clock, and now's the time you ought to be out, when it's cool and fresh," said he. "Don't you find the heat of that room very trying since the warm weather came?"
They talked about the tea-room in an ordinary way. Then they drifted into confidences about each other's private lives and interests; and from that they went on to discuss their respective views as to books, creeds, and the serious matters of life; and all the time Anthony Churchill kept a tight hand upon himself, that he might not frighten her. It had to be a very strenuous hand indeed, for it was a sentimental night, with the sea and the stars and the soft wind, and she had never looked so sweet as now, away from all the associations of the tea-room, which he had grown to hate, sitting pensively at rest, with her little hands in her lap. More than that, he had never known how well she was educated, how much thinking she had done, how intellectually interesting she was, until he had had this talk with her.
At last, in an unguarded moment, he said more than he had meant to say. Laying his hat beside him, that he might feel the cool fan of the wind over his slightly fevered brain, he drew a long breath, and exclaimed in a burst, "Well, you have given me a happy hour! I wonder when you'll give me another like it?"
Immediately she began to recollect how late it was, and to be in a flurry to get home to her mother. All at once the suspicion that he might be divining her feeling for him, and that she might be running wicked risks, assailed her. She rose from her seat without speaking.
"Not yet!" he pleaded impulsively, as she looked for him to rise too; "not yet! Five minutes more!" And he took her hand, which hung near him, and tried to draw her back to his side, looking up at her in all the beauty of his broad brows, and his bold nose, and his commanding manliness, with eyes that burned through hers to her shaking heart. This was love-making, she knew, though not a word of love was spoken, and, under all the circumstances surrounding him and her in their social life, it terrified her.
"I have stayed too long already," she said. "I ought not to have been here alone—so late."
The tremble in her voice, as well as the implication of her words, shocked him, and he pulled himself up sharply, regretting his indiscretions as much as she did hers.
"Oh, it's not late. But I'm imposing on good nature, trying to keep you merely to talk to me. Fact is, I seldom come across people that I care to talk to." He held his watch open under a lamp. "Later than I thought, though—late for you to be about alone, as you say, Miss Liddon. You don't mind my seeing you home, do you?"
She thanked him, and they walked to the tram together, without saying anything except that they thought rain was at hand; and the tram set her down almost at the door of her lodgings, where Mrs. Liddon and Sarah awaited her on the doorstep—Sarah in an ecstasy of secret joy at the apparent success of her manœuvres.
Jenny never went alone to the pier after that night, and her admirer sought for another happy hour in vain. On the two occasions that he went to St. Kilda in the hope of a meeting, she had her family with her, and not all Sarah's artifices could disintegrate the party. Jenny loved him more distractedly than ever, but, having no assurance that he loved her in the right way, or loved her at all, she knew what her duty was. And she had the resolution to act accordingly, though it was a hard task. He had scruples about going to the tea-room by himself, after what Mary had said to him; and he found it no fun to go with her, or other ladies. Then the rush of the races set in. Mr. Oxenham and other guests arrived from the country; horses had to be inspected; betting business became brisk and absorbing; lunches, garden parties, dinners, balls, crowded upon one another in a way to carry a society man and bachelor off his feet. In short, for a few weeks Mr. Anthony Churchill almost forgot the tea-room. Almost—not quite. The portfolio of photographs arrived by the carrier (and the formal note of thanks for it was preserved, and is extant to this day); flowers for Sarah came from Paton's, at short intervals, with all the air of having been specially selected; Joey swaggered into the new sitting-room with news of his rise to £200 a year, imagining it to be the reward of transcendent merit. But poor little Jenny, harried with great crushes of tea-drinkers, worn with fatigue and heat and bad air and a restless mind, ready to go into hysterics at a touch, but for the fact that there was no time for such frivolities, sighed for the refreshment of her beloved's voice and face in vain. Day after day, week after week, she watched for his return, and he came not. She concluded that her effort to do her duty had been successful, and—though she would have done the same again, if necessary—she was heart-broken at the thought.
To tell the honest truth, as a faithful chronicler should do, our hero very nearlydidabandon her at this juncture. When love, even the very best of love, is in its early stages, it is easily nipped by little accidents, like other young things. It wants time to toughen the tender sprout, and develop its growth and strength until it can defy vicissitudes; nothing but time will do it, let poets and novelists say what they like to the contrary. And so Anthony, not having been in love with Jenny Liddon for more than a few days (and having been many times in love), was seduced by the charms of the stable and the betting-ring and the good company in which he found himself, when deprived by circumstances of the higher pleasure of her society. More than that, her image was temporarily superseded by that of a beautiful and brilliant London woman who was on a visit to Government House, and whom in this time of festivity he was constantly meeting. She was a lady of title and high connections, and she singled him out for special favour because he was big and handsome, travel-polished and proper-mannered, and altogether good style as an attendant cavalier. His family (barring his stepmother), proudly aware of the mutual attraction, and pleased to hear it joked of and commented on amongst their friends, formed the confident expectation that a marriage would result, whereby their Tony would have a wife and a position of a dignity commensurate with his own surpassing worth.
At the end of the gay season, when races were over, and multitudinous parties had become a weariness to the flesh, a few people of the highest fashion went on a yachting cruise, to recruit their strength after all they had gone through. Of these Tony was one, and Lady Louisa, whom he was expected to bring back as his affianced bride (she was a widow of thirty-five), was another; and Maude Churchill (without her husband, and bent on circumventing Lady Louisa) was a third. They were got up elaborately in blue serge and white flannel and gold buttons, and the smartest of straw hats and knotted neckties, and they set off on a hot morning of late November, when the breeze was fair.
Mary Oxenham saw them start. She had refused to accompany them, partly because she felt she was too quiet for such a party, and partly because she wanted to return to her own household and children, whom she seldom left for so long. As she bade the voyagers good-bye she said to her brother, "What are you going to do at Christmas, Tony?"
"Stay with us—in his own father's house—of course," Mrs. Churchill interposed promptly. "You can come down, Mary."
"I can't, Maude; I must be at home, as well as you. You won't come to me for Christmas, Tony?"
"I don't think so, Polly—many thanks," he answered. "I expect my father will want me here." The fact was, he had too many interests in Melbourne to wish to leave at present.
"Well, come when you can, dear old fellow. I want to have you all to myself, if it's only for a few days."
"I will, Polly, I will. Good-bye, and take care of yourself. Are you really going away before we come back?"
"At the end of the week, Tony. I have been away too long—all your fault, bad boy. Well, good-bye again.Bon voyage, everybody!"
The town clock was striking the quarter before noon when she re-entered her carriage at Spencer Street, and it occurred to her to drive to the tea-room, to see how Jenny was getting on. Like Tony, she had been forgetting and deserting herprotégéeduring the bustle of the last few weeks, and felt a twinge of self-reproach in consequence.
Entering the room, which fortunately chanced to have no customer at the moment, she was surprised to see Jenny sitting, or rather lying, in one of the low chairs, with her head laid back and her eyes closed, her chest slowly rising and falling in heavy, dumb sobs—evident symptoms of some sort of hysterical collapse. Sarah and her mother were hanging over her in great alarm and distress, as at a spectacle they were wholly unused to, Mrs. Liddon persuading her to drink some brandy and water which the landlady had hastily produced.
"Oh, what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Oxenham, hurrying forward. "What ails Jenny? Oh, poor child, how ill she looks!"
"She's just worn out," said Mrs. Liddon. "I've seen it coming on for weeks, and nothing that I could say would make her take care of herself. Shewillcome here and work when she's not fit to stand. We wanted her to stay at home this morning, but no—she wouldn't listen to us."
Jenny struggled to sit up and shake herself together. "Oh, mother, don't scold me," she said. "It's just the heat, I think. It's nothing. I shall be right in a moment I—I—oh, Iama fool! Mrs. Oxenham, I am so sorry—so ashamed——"
Her mother held the glass between her chattering teeth, and she drank a little brandy and water, and choked, and burst out crying.
"Jenny," said Mrs. Oxenham, in a voice of authority, "you come away out of this immediately. I have the carriage here, and I will drive you home." In a flash she remembered that the mother and sister could not be spared from the tea-room, that the girl should not be left alone in lodgings, and that Maude and Tony were safely off to sea. "Home with me, I mean," she continued. "I will send you back to your mother to-night, when you are all right again. You can do quite well without her, can't you"—turning to Mrs. Liddon—"now that you have Mrs. Allonby's help?"
Mrs. Allonby, who was the basket-maker's wife, volubly assured Mrs. Oxenham that she could easily manage Miss Liddon's work now that the crush of race time was over, and if she couldn't, there was her niece to fall back upon. Mrs. Liddon and Sarah said the same as well as they could, but were almost speechless with gratitude. Sarah did not know that Mr. Anthony had sailed away, and she began to see visions and to dream dreams of the most beautiful description. She had a shrewd idea as to what Jenny's complaint arose from, though not a word had been breathed on the subject, and this seemed the very medicine for it. She ran to get her sister's hat and gloves, when they had composed her a little, and would not regard any protests whatever.
"It is the very,verything to set her up," she cried, in exultation. "And, oh, itisgood of you, Mrs. Oxenham!"
"Come, then," said that lady. "I will take care of her for the rest of the day, and you see if I don't send her back to you looking better than she does now. Quite a quiet day, Jenny dear; you need not look at your dress—it is quite nice. There's nobody in the house but my father and husband."
Before she had made up her mind whether to go or not, Jenny found herself dashing through the streets in Mrs. Churchill's landau, having been half-pushed, half-carried down the stairs and hoisted into it—she, who had been the controlling spirit hitherto. Joey, on the way to his dinner, saw her thus throned in state, and could scarcely believe his eyes. "There's my sister having a drive with the boss's daughter," he casually remarked to a couple of fellow-clerks, as if it were no new thing; but the spectacle deeply impressed him. That day he patronised the tea-room for the first time, to the delight of his adoring mother, and began to identify himself with his family.
Jenny recovered self-possession in the air. She was agitated by the new turn in her affairs—by the wonderful chance that had snatched her out of the turmoil of her petty cares into the serene atmosphere of the world of the well-to-do, who were untroubled by the necessity of earning their bread, into the enchanted sphere where her beloved's life revolved; but she no longer trembled and cried, like the weakly of her sex, because her nerves were too many for her. Nothing more discouraging than a discovery that the milk-jugs had not been washed by Mrs. Allonby's niece, whose duty it now was to prepare them overnight, had broken down the spirit that had withstood long wear and tear of strenuous battle like finely-tempered steel; and a like trifling encouragement was sufficient to lift it up again. The ease of the carriage was delicious; the relief of having nothing to do unspeakable; the sight of the beautiful gardens and stately rooms of the house that entertained her as a guest and equal, more refreshing than either. The day was such a holiday as the girl had never had before.
Mrs. Oxenham made her lie on a springy sofa for an hour, while they quietly talked together; then they had atête-à-têtelunch—delicate food and choice wine that comforted soul and body more than Jenny knew; and again she was made to rest on downy pillows—to sleep, if she could—while Mary in an adjoining room played Mendelssohn'sLieder, one after another, with a touch like wind-borne feathers. By-and-by the girl was shown about the house, made acquainted with precious pictures and works of art brought together from all quarters of the world, such as she had never seen or dreamed of; and great photographs, scattered about in costly frames, were named to her as she moved in and out amongst them.
"This is my husband, whom you have not seen—but he will be here to dinner, and you needn't be at all afraid of him, for he is one of the gentlest and dearest of men," said Mrs. Oxenham, taking up a mass ofrepoussésilver that enshrined the image of a burly fellow with a plain but honest face. "And this is my young stepmother, whom I think youhaveseen; she is in the dress she wore when she was presented at Court. This is my brother—I have a little half-brother, the sweetest baby, that we will have down to amuse us presently, but this is my onlyownbrother; him, I think, you have also seen."
She passed on to others, and Jenny passed on with her; but presently, while Mrs. Oxenham was writing a note, the girl returned to the table on which stood the counterfeit presentment of her red-bearded hero, in peaked cap and Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers and hob-nailed boots—such a magnificent figure in that crowd of distinguished nobodies! Looking up when she had finished her note, Mrs. Oxenham saw her standing, rapt and motionless, with the heavy frame in her hands, and was struck by the expression of her face and attitude.
"Good heavens!" she mentally exclaimed. "I do hope and trust that boy has not been thoughtless!"
She remembered how she had found him in the tea-room, and his proneness to amatory dalliance of a fleeting kind, inevitable in the case of a man so handsome, and so much sought after by flirting women; and she had a moment of grave uneasiness. Then she reflected upon Jenny's soberness of nature and Tony's opportune departure with Lady Louisa, and was at ease again.
Tea was served at five, and the children came down to be played with. Then Mr. Churchill and Mr. Oxenham returned from their club to dinner, and the latter was introduced to Jenny, and both did their part to put her at ease and make her feel at home and happy. The old gentleman took her in to dinner on his arm, and was concerned that she did not eat as she should, and told her she wanted a change to the seaside, racking his brains to think how he could manage to cozen her into accepting some assistance that would make such a thing practicable. Soon after dinner was over the hansom Mrs. Oxenham had ordered was announced, and the good old fellow, bustling in from his wine, declared his intention of seeing Miss Liddon home in person. He blamed Mary for sending her away so soon, but Mary said it was better for her to go to bed early; and then Mr. Churchill said he hoped Miss Liddon would soon come again—forgetting that his daughter was on the point of leaving him, and that his young wife would be little likely to endorse such an invitation.
Jenny left in a glow of inward happiness, and of gratitude that she could not express, though she tried to do so. Mrs. Oxenham wrapped her in a Chuddah shawl, and kissed her on the doorstep.
"Good-night, dear child," she said, quite tenderly. "Go straight to bed and to sleep, and don't go to the tea-room to-morrow. I shall come and see you early."
Having watched her charge depart in her father's care, this kind woman returned to her husband, whom she found alone in the dining-room, smoking, and reading the evening paper, with his coffee beside him.
"Harry, dear," she said, "I want to ask you something."
"Ask away," he returned affably.
"Would you have any objection to my having that girl to stay with me for Christmas—that is, if she will come?"
He laid down his paper and thought about it. Though he was a Manchester cotton man, he was no snob, or he would not have been Mary Churchill's husband; but this was, as he would have termed it, a large order.
"Who else is coming?" he inquired.
"Nobody. That is, I have not asked anybody at present. I think I'd rather we were quietly by ourselves. She's a lady, Harry, you can see it for yourself. Her father was an Eton boy."
"Eh? You don't say so!" This was certainly a strong argument.
"And she is thoroughly out of health. I never saw a girl so altered—shattered with hard work, poor little soul. I believe if she doesn't get a long rest and a change that she will have a severe illness, and then what would become of her mother and sister, and the business she has managed so splendidly? Now that Cup time is over, it is possible for them to do without her for awhile, and country air and good feeding and a little looking after would set her up, I know. And I don't see how else she is to get it. I am sure the children would like to have her, Harry; and she is so modest and quiet that she would never be in the way."