Kitabı oku: «A Humble Enterprise», sayfa 4

CHAPTER VII
THERE ARE SUCH WOMEN IN THE WORLD

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. "If this should be the result of keeping a restaurant – oh, if this should 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-room then?"

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. I don'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 I could carry 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!"

CHAPTER VIII
ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW

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! But she's not 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 know of her," 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, it doesn'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 does not look well in a place like this."

"I don't think I ever thought of how I looked."

"You know what I mean. We come here, father and Maude and I, to help the place, and because we do want 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 affect you. 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. You would 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.