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diff --git a/37866-h/37866-h.htm b/37866-h/37866-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77a679d --- /dev/null +++ b/37866-h/37866-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6108 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Humble Enterprise, by Ada Cambridge. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i12 { + display: block; + margin-left: 12em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i24 { + display: block; + margin-left: 24em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Humble Enterprise, by Ada Cambridge + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Humble Enterprise + +Author: Ada Cambridge + +Illustrator: St. Clair Simmons + +Release Date: October 27, 2011 [EBook #37866] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HUMBLE ENTERPRISE *** + + + + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Beth, Shannon Barker and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>A<br /> +HUMBLE ENTERPRISE</h1> + +<h2>BY<br /> +ADA CAMBRIDGE</h2> + +<p class="center"> +AUTHOR OF<br /> +"THE THREE MISS KINGS," "FIDELIS,"<br /> +"A LITTLE MINX," ETC.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ST. CLAIR SIMMONS</i></p> + +<p class="center">Second Edition</p> + +<p class="center">LONDON<br /> +WARD, LOCK, & BOWDEN, LIMITED<br /> +WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.</p> + +<p class="center">NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE<br /> +1896</p> + +<p class="center">[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Pinned the fragrant morsel to her throat."<br /> +<i>A Humble Enterprise.</i> <i>Page 97.</i></h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + + + +<table> +<tr><td>CHAP. </td><td> </td><td> PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">I. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL</a></td><td align="right">9</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">HER FIRST FRIEND</a></td><td align="right">24</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">AFLOAT</a></td><td align="right">33</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">THE HERO</a></td><td align="right">45</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">HE MEETS THE HEROINE</a></td><td align="right">56</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">THE INEVITABLE ENSUES</a></td><td align="right">69</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">THERE ARE SUCH WOMEN IN THE WORLD</a></td><td align="right">82</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW</a></td><td align="right">92</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IX. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">THE POTENTIAL HUSBAND</a></td><td align="right">105</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">X. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">AS THE WIND BLOWS</a></td><td align="right">115</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XI. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">NATURE SPEAKS</a></td><td align="right">125</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XII. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">TWO WISE MEN</a></td><td align="right">138</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIII. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">TWO UNWISE WOMEN</a></td><td align="right">150</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIV. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">A WEAK FATHER</a></td><td align="right">159</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XV. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">A STRAW AGAINST THE TIDE</a></td><td align="right">171</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVI. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">A STAR IN TWILIGHT</a></td><td align="right">184</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVII. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">"YOU NEED NOT EXPECT ME BACK"</a></td><td align="right">193</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVIII. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">JENNY IS TREATED LIKE A LADY</a></td><td align="right">204</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIX. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">WOMAN'S RIGHTS REFUSED</a></td><td align="right">216</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XX. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">SHE CARES NOT</a></td><td align="right">228</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXI. </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">THE BEST AVAILABLE</a></td><td align="right">236</td></tr> +</table> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A HUMBLE ENTERPRISE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL</h3> + + +<p>Joseph Liddon was deaf, and one day, when he was having a holiday in the +country, he crossed a curving railway line, and a train, sweeping round +the corner when he was looking another way, swept him out of existence. +On his shoulder he was carrying the infrequent and delightful +gun—reminiscent of happy days in English coverts and stubble +fields—and in his hand he held a dangling hare, about the cooking of +which he was dreaming pleasantly, wondering whether his wife would have +it jugged or baked. When they stopped the train and gathered him up, he +was as dead as the hare, dissolved into mere formless tatters, and his +women-folk were not allowed to see him afterwards. They came up from +town to the inquest and funeral—wife and two daughters, escorted by a +downy-lipped son—all dazed and bewildered in their suddenly transformed +world; and a gun and a broken watch and a few studs, that had been +carefully washed and polished, were the only "remains" on which they +could expend the valedictory kiss and tear. Their last memory of him was +full of the gay bustle of farewell at Spencer Street when he set forth +upon his trip. It was such an event for him to have a holiday, and to go +away by himself, that the whole family had to see him off. Even young +Joe was on the platform to carry his father's bag, and buy him the +evening papers, his train being the Sydney express, which did not leave +till after office hours. When they knew how the holiday had ended, their +bitter regrets for not having accompanied him further were greatly +soothed by the knowledge that they had gone with him so far—had closed +their life together with an act of love that had made him happy.</p> + +<p>He had been born a gentleman in the technical sense, and had lived a +true man in every sense. In spite of this—to a great extent, probably, +because of it—he had not been very successful in the world; that is to +say, he had not made himself important or rich. Money had not come to +him with his gentle blood, and he had not had the art to command it, nor +ever would have had. It is a pursuit that requires the whole energies of +one's mind, and his mind had been distributed a good deal. He was fond +of books, which was a fatal weakness; he was fond of little scientific +experiments, which was worse; he was indifferent to the sovereign rule +of public opinion and the advantages enjoyed by those who can cut a +dash, which was worst of all. And, besides, he was deaf. He had begun to +grow deaf when quite a young man, after having a fever, and by the time +he was fifty one had to shout at him.</p> + +<p>So, when at fifty-six he met his untimely end, because he could not hear +the train behind him, he was in the position of a clerk in a merchant's +office, highly valued and trusted indeed, but worth no more than £370 +per annum, which salary he had received for sixteen years. The £70 had +paid the rent of the little house in which he had dwelt with his family +for the greater part of that time, and on the remainder they had lived +quite comfortably, in a small way, by dint of good management, without +owing a penny to anybody. Mrs. Liddon, otherwise a comparatively +uncultured person, was an accomplished cook and domestic administrator; +Jenny, the eldest daughter, in whom the qualities of both parents +blended, got up early in the morning to buy provisions at the market, +and did all the dressmaking for the family; Joe, a junior in his +father's office, paid something for his board, and otherwise kept and +clothed himself; and Sarah, the youngest, who had a bent spine, was +literary, like her father, in whose intellectual pursuits she had had +the largest share, and morally indispensable, though not practically +supporting, in the economy of the household.</p> + +<p>When the father was gone, the income was gone too, and the home as it +had been. Mother and children found themselves possessed of £500, paid +by an insurance office, and their little family belongings, and a few +pounds that had been kept in store for the casual rainy day. To this the +firm who had employed him would have added a gift of £100 had the pride +of these humble folks allowed it; and their relatives were also +prepared to "do something" in the way of what seemed necessary help. But +the first resolution come to by the bereaved ones, when resolutions had +to be taken, was to decline all such help and depend upon themselves. +That being settled, they sat down to consult together as to how they +might invest their capital to the best advantage, so as to make it the +foundation of their future livelihood. Jenny called the meeting a few +days after their return from the funeral, and insisted that all should +rouse themselves to a sense of the extreme seriousness of the situation.</p> + +<p>"We must at once set to work," she said impressively; "and we must not +shilly-shally about it either. Make your suggestions first, and then, if +I don't like them, I will make mine. What is your notion, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, I'm sure I don't know," quavered Mrs. Liddon, as she drew +forth the constant handkerchief; "I have no heart to think of anything +yet." She sobbed. "I suppose a boarding-house—that's the usual thing. +We <i>must</i> have our own house and keep together; I could never bear to +part with any of you—all I've got now!" The handkerchief went to her +eyes, "Certainly we will all keep together," the children declared, +extending arms towards her. "That's understood, of course. That's what +we are planning for, first of all."</p> + +<p>"And seeing that I can <i>cook</i>," whimpered the widow, "if I can't do +anything else——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," Jenny broke in. "But I don't think a boarding-house would +do, somehow. We haven't enough to make a good one, and to make it safe. +You see Melbourne simply swarms with them already."</p> + +<p>"And you'd have to take men—women are no good, and, besides, there +aren't any—and I won't have all sorts of clerks and cads making free in +the house with my sisters," said young Joe severely.</p> + +<p>"We needn't let them make free," said Jenny, smiling.</p> + +<p>"And you're only a clerk yourself," said Sarah.</p> + +<p>"And I don't think there's a boarding-house in the town that would have +a table like mine for the money," said his mother, with spirit, and with +the air of having considered the subject.</p> + +<p>Jenny thought for a minute or two, rapidly; then she shook her head. +"Too much outlay," she objected, "and the result too uncertain."</p> + +<p>"Everything is uncertain in this world," sighed Mrs. Liddon, +disappointed and discouraged. "Then what do you propose yourself, my +dear? A school?"</p> + +<p>Jenny shook her head again. "The place is literally <i>stiff</i> with them," +she replied. "And, even if there were room for us, we are not +qualified."</p> + +<p>"Let us have a four-roomed cottage," said Sarah, "and keep ourselves to +ourselves; have no servant, and take in sewing or type-writing."</p> + +<p>"We should be insolvent in a couple of years or so," her sister replied, +"and we should cripple Joey."</p> + +<p>"As to that," said Joey, "I'm not afraid. I <i>want</i> to take care of you, +and I <i>ought</i>. I am the only man in the family, and women have no +business to work and slave while they have a man to do for them."</p> + +<p>"My poor boy! On a hundred and thirty pounds a year!"</p> + +<p>"It won't always be a hundred and thirty."</p> + +<p>"No, Joe. We can do better than that. Thank you all the same, old +fellow."</p> + +<p>"Well, tell us how you can do better."</p> + +<p>He squared his arms on the table and looked at her. Her mother and +sister also looked at her, for it was evident that she was about to +bring forth her scheme, and that she expected it to impress them.</p> + +<p>"What I should have <i>liked</i>," she began, "if there had been money enough +for a fair start—which there isn't—is a—quite a peculiar and +particular—not in any way a conventional—<i>shop</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!"</p> + +<p>"Go <i>on</i>!"</p> + +<p>"You needn't all look so shocked. A shop such as <i>I</i> should have would +be a different kind of thing from the common, I assure you. I have often +thought of it. I have always felt"—with a smile of confidence—"that I +had it in me to conduct a good business—that I could give the +traditional shopkeeper 'points,' as Joey would say. However, like the +boarding-house, it would swallow up all the money at one gulp, so it +can't be done."</p> + +<p>"A good job too," said Joey with a rough laugh.</p> + +<p>"Don't say that without thinking," rejoined the girl, whose intelligent +face had brightened with the mention of her scheme. "I daresay you would +rather be a millionaire—so would I; but you must remember we have to +earn our bread, without much choice as to ways of doing it. It would +have been nice, after a day's work"—she looked persuadingly at +Sarah—"to have had tea in our own back parlour, all alone by ourselves, +free and comfortable; and in the evening to have totted up our takings +for the day—all cash, of course—and seen them getting steadily bigger +and bigger; and by-and-by—because I <i>know</i> that, with a good start, I +should have succeeded—to have become well enough off to sell out, and +go to travel in Europe, and do things."</p> + +<p>"Ah—<i>that</i>!" sighed Sarah, who had a thin, large-eyed, eager face that +betokened romantic aspirations.</p> + +<p>"If I had only myself to consider, I would do it now," said Jenny. "But +there are you three—<i>your</i> money must not be risked."</p> + +<p>Joey thought of an elegant little cousin up country, the daughter of a +bank manager, who naturally turned up her nose at retail trade; and he +said that, as the present head of the family—he was afraid Jenny was +over-looking the fact that he held this position by divine right of +sex—he should certainly withhold his sanction from any such absurd +project, risk or no risk. "Thank the Lord," he blustered angrily, "we +have not come down to <i>that</i>—not yet!"</p> + +<p>She laughed in his face. "You talked about cads just now," she said; +"take care you don't get tainted with their ideas yourself. And don't +forget that you are only nineteen, while I am twenty-four, and mother is +just twice as old as that; and that what little we have is hers; and +that women in these days are as good as men, and much better than boys; +and that you are expected to allow us to know what is best for a few +years more."</p> + +<p>She was a diminutive creature, barely five feet high; but she had the +moral powers of a giantess, and was really a remarkable little person, +though her family was not aware of it. Joey loved her dearly in an +easy-going brotherly way, but maintained that she "bossed the show" +unduly at times, and on such occasions he was apt to kick against her +pretensions. Lest he should do so now, and an unseemly squabble ensue, +Mrs. Liddon interposed with the remark that it was useless to discuss +what was impracticable, and begged her daughter to come to business.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Jenny then, fixing her bright eyes on the boy's sulky but +otherwise handsome face, "this is my proposal—that we open a +tea-room—a sort of refined little restaurant for quiet people, don't +you know; a kind of——"</p> + +<p>Joey rose ostentatiously from his chair.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Joey, and listen to me," commanded Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to sit down and listen to a lot of tommy-rot," was Joey's +scornful reply.</p> + +<p>"Very well—go away, then; we can talk a great deal better without you. +Take a walk. And when you come back we will tell you what we have +decided on."</p> + +<p>This advice had its natural effect. Joey sat down again, stretched out +his legs, and thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets. Jenny +proceeded to unfold her plan to her mother and sister, taking no notice +of his sarcastic criticisms.</p> + +<p>"Now, dears," she said earnestly, "you know we <i>must</i> do something to +keep ourselves, and at the same time to keep a home; don't you?"</p> + +<p>They sighed acquiescence.</p> + +<p>"And that isn't playwork—we don't expect it to be all pleasure; and we +can't afford to have fine-lady fancies, can we?"</p> + +<p>They agreed to this, reluctantly.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, if we can't do what we would like, we must do what we can. +And I can't think of anything more promising than this. I would have +quite a small place to begin with—one room, and some sort of kitchen to +prepare things in—because rent is the only serious matter, and we must +make the thing self-supporting from the first; that is the attraction of +my plan, if it has an attraction—the thing I have been specially +scheming for. Because, you see, then, if we fail, there won't be any +great harm done."</p> + +<p>"The publicity!" murmured Mrs. Liddon; and Joey took up the word, and +drew offensive pictures of rowdy men invading the establishment, calling +for food and drink, and addressing these born ladies as "my dear."</p> + +<p>"There will be nothing of that sort," said Jenny calmly. "The place +will have no attractions for that class. We must not prohibit men, for +that would discourage general custom——"</p> + +<p>"Oh—custom!" sneered Joey, with an air of loathing.</p> + +<p>"But it will be a woman's place, that men would not think of coming to +except to bring women. Just a quiet room, mother; not all rows of chairs +and tables, like a common restaurant—the best of our own furniture, +with some wicker chairs added, and a few small tables, like a +comfortable private sitting-room, only not so crowded; and floored with +linoleum, so that we can wash it easily. Then just tea and coffee and +scones—perhaps some little cakes—nothing perishable or messy; perhaps +some delicate sandwiches, so that ladies can make a lunch. Only these +simple things, but <i>they</i> as perfectly good as it is possible to make +them. Mother, <i>your</i> scones——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Liddon smiled. She saw at once that her scones alone would make the +tea-room famous.</p> + +<p>"We must do everything ourselves," said Jenny, "<i>everything</i>; no +out-goings except for rent and our few superfine groceries. +Consequently we must not undertake too much. Say we open at eleven +o'clock and close at eight—no, at seven. That will give us time to +prepare in the morning, and our evenings for rest. Mother, dear, you +must cook. I will wait. We cannot accommodate more than twenty or so at +first, and I can manage that. Sarah can get ready the tea and coffee, +and perhaps take the money when we are busy. A few dozen of nice white +cups and saucers and a lot of plates—I could get them wholesale. I wish +we could afford nice table covers, but I am afraid they, and the +washing, would cost too much; we must have American cloth, I suppose. +And butter—we must be very careful what arrangements we make for +butter, to be sure of having it new every morning; and we must keep it +cold—<i>that</i>, above all things. Though we only give tea and scones, let +everybody say that they never bought such tea and scones before. Eh, +mother?"</p> + +<p>"They won't buy better, if I have anything to do with it," said Mrs. +Liddon, putting her handkerchief in her pocket.</p> + +<p>Thus Jenny unfolded her scheme, and gradually talked her family into a +conditional agreement with it. Only Joey was persistently hostile, and +he, when she begged him to suggest a better, was fain to acknowledge +that no better occurred to him. All he hoped and trusted was that his +sister would not drag the family name into the mire—that was to say, +not more so than the wretched state of things necessitated. "The +Liddons," said the boy, as he rose from the interview, "have never been +in trade before."</p> + +<p>"And wouldn't you rather be a proprietor in Churchill & Son's than a +junior clerk?" was Jenny's quick retort, as he left the room.</p> + +<p>The only possible rejoinder was to bang the door, and Joey banged it +heartily.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>HER FIRST FRIEND</h3> + + +<p>The chief of Churchill & Son suffered no social disadvantage from being +in trade, and enjoyed many satisfactions that are unknown to the wealthy +who have nothing to do. His mind was alert and keen, his large, +wholesome-looking body a picture of well-being and contentment, his +attitude towards the world and things in general one of consistent +self-respect. He was one of that numerous band of perfectly-dressed and +exquisitely clean old gentlemen who pervade the city-wending tram-cars +of a morning between 9 and 10 o'clock, and are a delight to the eyes of +all true lovers of their country, as comprising the solid base of its +material prosperity. Solid in every sense was Mr. Nicholas Churchill, a +sound, just man, whose word was his bond, and whose signature was good +for six figures at the bank; a man who had succeeded in life and +commerce without cheating anybody, and was esteemed according to his +deserts, as we all are—though we don't always think so.</p> + +<p>He walked into the breakfast-room of his little palace at Toorak, on a +certain spring morning, and, having kissed his children and shaken hands +with the governess, sat down to table and propped his newspaper before +him. His wife, a smart young lady in a long-tailed lace-frilled gown, +poured out his coffee, and his married daughter helped him to fish; for +it was a rule of the house to save him all trouble of helping himself or +others at this end of the day. The married daughter, Mrs. Oxenham, was +rather older than his wife, and was not now a member of the household, +but a visitor from a large station in the north-eastern hills; she had +come down to meet the mail which was bringing out her brother, Mr. +Churchill's eldest son, from home, and the arrival of which at +Adelaide had been telegraphed the day before. She was a tall, +distinguished-looking woman, a source of great pride and enjoyment to +her father, who addressed to her the most of what little conversation he +had time for.</p> + +<p>"This is curious," he remarked, between two mouthfuls of buttered +toast. "Look here, Mary—poor old Liddon's wife, I'll bet you anything. +Read this."</p> + +<p>She leaned over to him, and looked at the newspaper where he had fixed +it to the table with a broad thumb. After a short silence she +ejaculated, "Oh, <i>poor</i> things!" It was her comment upon the following +advertisement:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"TO LADIES SHOPPING. Quiet room, with good tea and scones. Open +from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. <span class="smcap">Mrs. Liddon</span>, No. ——, Little Collins +Street, W."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Churchill, "it is not our fault. We were ready and +willing to assist them."</p> + +<p>"As was only right," Mrs. Oxenham murmured, "seeing how long he was with +the firm."</p> + +<p>"And as good a servant as it ever had. Yes, I felt that it was our duty +to do something for the widow and children, and I sent them a little +sum—a cheque for a hundred it was—thinking it might be acceptable. +You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? I've done it before, dozens of +times, and always found 'em grateful. But here—well, they just sent it +back by return of post."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" A faint flush overspread his daughter's face. "Did you put it +nicely, do you think?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> didn't put it at all, but it was a very proper letter—I read it +before I signed it—speaking most highly of the old fellow's character +and services, and all that sort of thing. In fact, they thanked us for +what we said of him, and didn't seem to feel insulted—it was a nice +little note enough——"</p> + +<p>"Whose?"</p> + +<p>"Janet Liddon was the name—his daughter, writing on her mother's +behalf. But the money they wouldn't touch with a pair of tongs. Too +proud, of course."</p> + +<p>"Of course. Oh, I do like to hear of that kind of pride! I was afraid it +had died right out in these sordid times."</p> + +<p>"So was I. I can tell you it struck me uncommonly; I thought about it a +good deal; it was so unusual. I spoke to the young fellow, and he said +it was his mother and sister—his sister chiefly—who wouldn't have it. +And now they've opened this little place—it is they, I am convinced—to +keep themselves. I'll tell you what it is, Mary, they're fine women, +that mother and daughter—fine women, my dear. I'd like to look them +up—sort of apologise for offering alms, as it were—eh? They'll want +custom for their tea-room. Maude—I say, Maude"—the young lady of the +house was so deep in talk with the governess about house decorations for +a party that it was difficult to gain her ear—"Maude, my child, can't +you take some of your friends to tea there, and give them a start?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Churchill's vague eye roamed for a moment, and she said, +"What—where—I wasn't listening," like one in a dream.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Mrs. Oxenham, "I will. I am to have some dresses +fitted this morning——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, are you going to Mrs. Earl?" cried her stepmother, suddenly alert +and glowing. "Oh, Mary, dear, <i>would</i> you take a message for me? Tell +her I must, I simply <i>must</i> have my pink gown to-morrow." To look at +her, one would have imagined it a matter of life and death.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later her husband and stepdaughter, two highly-finished, +perfectly-tailored figures, sober and stately, severely unpretentious, +yet breathing wealth and consequence at every point, set forth together +through spacious gardens to the road and the tram—which appeared to the +minute, as it always does for men of the Churchill stamp, who are never +too soon or too late for anything. They rode together to Collins Street, +and there separated and went east and west, the daughter to have her Cup +dresses tried on at one end of that thoroughfare, and the father to +resume command of his commercial kingdom at the other.</p> + +<p>He had not been in his office many minutes before he sent for Joseph +Liddon. When the young man appeared, neat and spruce, as became a clerk +of the great house, Mr. Churchill held out the <i>Argus</i>, folded, and +pointed to the advertisement of the tea-room.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask you, Liddon, if this is your mother?" he said, in his +quick, business way.</p> + +<p>Joey did not need to look, but dropped his eyes to the paper, and +crimsoned to the roots of his hair. For a dreadful moment he was in +danger of saying, "No, sir," but was mercifully spared from the +perpetration of what would have been to him and his a most disastrous +lie. Then he was on the point of saying he didn't know, but had the +sense to perceive that such an evasion would but make the inevitable +disclosure worse; and finally braced himself to the agony of confession. +He had implored the relentless Jenny not to allow their name to appear +in connection with her undertaking, and lo, here it was, published to +the world of supercilious fellow-clerks and magnificent proprietors. He +was ready to sink into the ground with shame.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to say it is, sir," he mumbled, cringing and quivering. +"Quite against my wishes—I've had nothing to do with it. It's my +sister—she would do it—she's a very odd girl——"</p> + +<p>"It was your sister who insisted on returning our cheque, was it not? I +remember she wrote the note that enclosed it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. She's the eldest. She's—she's very odd."</p> + +<p>"She <i>is</i> odd," said the merchant, keenly smiling. "And I should like +very much to have the honour of her acquaintance."</p> + +<p>Joey stared, doubtful whether this was joke or earnest. And the clerk +who now occupied his father's place coming in with papers, the chief +bade him good-morning, and he retired, much puzzled as to how that +potentate had really taken the news of his (Joey's) social downfall. And +his mind resumed its effort to concoct suitable explanations for his +office colleagues, when they should come and ask him whether that Mrs. +Liddon was his mother—from which the summons of "the boss" had +disturbed him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Churchill's mind, bent, as it supposed, upon business, did not turn +out Miss Liddon as easily as it had dismissed her brother. It was taken +with the idea of a girl who would not receive money, and dared to risk +her little conventional title to be a lady for the sake of making an +honest living; his own business rectitude and high-mindedness qualified +him to appreciate a woman of that sort—so different from the swarm of +idle damsels with whom he was in daily contact, who lived for nothing +but their own pleasures, and on anybody who would keep them, with no +sense whatever of any responsibility in life, whose frivolities he was +always denouncing, more or less, in a good-natured way, though his own +dear wife was one of them. So greatly was he interested in this +exception to the rule that he presently conceived the wish to go and +see her, to see what she was like. He looked at the advertisement again; +the place was quite close by. He looked at his watch; it was eleven +o'clock. Tea and scones were about the last things he could desire at +that hour, but he might try them. She had announced that they would be +good, and he did not think she was the person to make a vain boast. And +Mary would probably be there, to keep him in countenance. The invitation +was addressed to "ladies shopping," but gentlemen were not prohibited; +if there should be any difficulty on the ground of his sex he could say +he had called for his daughter. No, he would tell Miss Liddon and her +mother who he was, and give them the encouragement of his good wishes in +their plucky enterprise. Taking down his smart brown hat, which matched +his smart heather-brown suit, he stole across to Little Collins Street +in search of the tea-room.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>AFLOAT</h3> + + +<p>It was discovered over a basket-maker's shop at the top of a rather dark +staircase; a deterring approach, as Mr. Churchill reflected, but he +rightly supposed they had not had much choice of premises. On reaching +the room, however, he was surprised to see how nice it looked, and how +very unlike a restaurant. It had been used to warehouse the +basket-maker's stock, and had a spacious floor, though a rather low +ceiling, and, like the staircase, was ill lighted for its present +purpose. But Jenny and her mother had papered it with a yellow paper, +and draped yellow muslin around, not over, the dim windows; by which +means they had put light and brightness into it, as well as an air of +elegance not to be expected in such a place. It was the day of art +muslins, and this was very pretty art muslin, with a brownish pattern +meandering through the yellow; and it had little frills at the edges, +and brown bands to draw the curtains to the wall, which had a cultured +look. And, although these decorations were comparatively perishable and +soilable, they had cost little, and would last a considerable time, if +not for ever. The floor was covered with plain brown linoleum, that +looked like brown paint, and scattered in inviting groups about it were +a number of low chairs and tables in brown wickerwork, supplied by the +basket-maker downstairs, who had been glad to deal reasonably in this +matter as in other arrangements, with a view to mutual benefits from the +amalgamation of the new enterprise with his own struggling trade, +hitherto crushed by the weight of central city rents. The chair bottoms +were cushioned in various pretty chintzes of ĉsthetic hue, and each +table-top furnished with a Japanese tray, containing cups and saucers +and a little glass sugar-basin and milk-jug, protected by a square of +muslin from the wandering fly. Heavier chairs and more solid tables, +furniture from the old home, were mixed with these, and a capacious +family sideboard bore a multitude of brown earthen teapots of different +sizes. The whole effect of these inexpensive arrangements was soothing +to the cultivated eye and the instructed mind.</p> + +<p>"I wish I had known," said Mr. Churchill to himself, as he calculated +the rough cost in one comprehensive glance. "I would have supplied them +with all they wanted at first cost."</p> + +<p>He looked for his daughter, but she was still detained by Mrs. Earl, a +lady more rushed by clients than a fashionable doctor, and he found that +he was the only customer of the tea-room, and the first. His heavy step +stumbling on the staircase had announced his approach, and two of the +proprietors received him with an anxious air. One of these, a +bent-backed, immature girl with a sharp-featured face, retired to a +table in a corner, where she began to sew, watching him the while; the +other came forward to play the hostess with a charming dignity of mien. +He did not know her, but she knew him—Joey had pointed out "the boss" +to her in a hundred crowds; Mrs. Liddon, peeping from behind the screen +that masked the passage to her kitchen, nervous at the approach of a +lone man, knew him also, and pardonably remained in ambush to learn +what he had to say. She did hope he was not one of those gay old +gentlemen who were worse than the young ones in their pursuit of +defenceless girls.</p> + +<p>Jenny was looking very sweet at that moment, with the flush of +excitement in her small, bright face. She had clear, straight-browed +eyes, and a slightly tilted nose, and an assertive chin, which somehow +combined to make a whole that nobody said was beautiful and yet +everybody was attracted by; it was piquant and spirited, finely finished +and full of life. Her small figure was as refined as her face, and the +plain black gown and bibbed holland apron that she wore became it +perfectly. She was a picture of neatness and capability as she stepped +forward to receive her unexpected guest, and his business-like soul +warmed towards her. Though he was not the philanderer so much dreaded by +Mrs. Liddon, he admired her as a mere woman with that part of his soul +which was not business-like. She looked so sincere and wholesome.</p> + +<p>"Miss Liddon, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>They bowed to each other.</p> + +<p>"Hm—ha—I must introduce myself—Mr. Churchill, my dear—excuse my +freedom—I am not exactly a stranger——"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, sir!"</p> + +<p>She was violently crimson, thinking of the returned cheque; so was he, +from the same cause.</p> + +<p>"I—I—I was reading my paper this morning—I wasn't sure if it was the +same—I thought it might be—and—and I owe much to your good father, my +dear—his long and faithful services—a heavy loss to the firm—there, +there! I beg your pardon for mentioning it—all I meant to say was that +we take a great interest in his family, and I thought—I fancied +perhaps—in short, my dear, I have come to congratulate you on your +courage and energy. I see it all—I understand—I am a business man +myself—I should have done the same in your place, though it grieved me +to have it come back—it did, indeed; I was so anxious to do something. +Anyway, I thought you wouldn't mind my coming to see how you were +getting on—your father's old friend—and to offer you my good wishes, +and whatever assistance you will honour me by accepting. Oh, not +money—I know you won't have that—but advice as to buying goods, and +so on—matters in which my experience might be of help to you. It would +be a pleasure to me, my dear, I do assure you."</p> + +<p>Jenny listened with heaving breast and drooping head, and tears began to +well up, overflow, and fall; seeing which, the old man took her little +hand and paternally patted it. Whereupon Mrs. Liddon rushed out from +behind her screen.</p> + +<p>Jenny received her with emotion—a swift whisk of a handkerchief across +her eyes and an impassioned smile.</p> + +<p>"This, mother, is Mr. Churchill. He is so good as to take an interest in +our experiment. He has come to wish us success."</p> + +<p>"Madam," said the old gentleman, who was thoroughly enjoying himself, "I +am proud and happy to make your acquaintance. And let me say that +success is assured to an enterprise undertaken in such a spirit and with +so much good sense. I don't know when I have been so interested as in +seeing this young lady—this delicate young creature"—indicating Jenny, +who was as tough as perfect health and an active life could make +her—"turning to, and setting her shoulder to the wheel, in this—this +gallant fashion. Your husband, ma'am, was one of the best of men and +gentlemen—I always knew that; but I did not know that he was so blessed +in his family. I did not, indeed."</p> + +<p>"You know his son, sir," murmured the widow, who was very proud of her +handsome boy.</p> + +<p>"Your son," said Mr. Churchill, "is very well—a very good son, I make +no doubt; but he's not half the man that your daughter is. My dear, I +mean that for a compliment, though it may not sound like one." He gazed +at Jenny's now smiling face, and added abruptly, "It was you who +wouldn't be beholden to us for a trumpery hundred pounds, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>She looked down, and again coloured violently.</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see. You felt yourself grossly insulted. I am sure you did."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no," the mother eagerly interposed. "Pray don't think that. We +were all most grateful—indeed, we were. But Jenny said——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I understand. Her name is Jenny, is it? I think I can guess what +Miss Jenny said. She's as proud as Lucifer—I can see that; but I +honour her for it. I honour you for it, my dear. It's the sort of pride +that a good many would be the better for. You are a born lady, my dear, +and that's the short and the long of it."</p> + +<p>Then he asked to be shown the premises, and the happy women took him +over them, and displayed all their economical contrivances, which quite +bore out his preconceptions of Jenny's excellence as a business manager +and a woman. He attributed it all to Jenny, and indeed it was her hands +which had made the frilled curtains and the restful chair cushions, and +devised whatever was original in the commissariat arrangements. Mrs. +Liddon's kitchen was her own great pride, and also her store of new-made +scones, which were as light as feathers.</p> + +<p>"You must give me some tea and scones," said Mr. Churchill, "that I may +taste what they are like. I must do that, you know, before I recommend +them to my friends."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Jenny; and she quickly arranged a table, with two +scones on a plate and a tiny pat of iced butter; and her mother handed +her a small, hot teapot from behind the screen.</p> + +<p>"Earthen pots seemed sweeter than metal, for so much use," she said, +placing it before him; "and we thought these trays nicer to eat from +than anything else we could afford. Both are liable to break, but they +were cheap."</p> + +<p>"They would have been cheaper," he said, "if you had come to me. Mind +you come to me when you want some more."</p> + +<p>Then he ate and drank and smacked his lips, gravely, as if judging wine +for experts. The women hung upon the verdict with trembling anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Excellent," he exclaimed, "excellent! Never tasted better tea in my +life—nor scones either. And butter delicious. Keep it up at this, my +dear, and you'll do. I'll send everybody I know to have tea with you, if +you'll only promise to keep it up. All depends on that, you know."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Jenny. "And that we may do it, we have undertaken nothing +<i>but</i> tea and scones at present. By-and-by we will have coffee, and, +perhaps, cakes and other things. But at present, doing everything +ourselves, we have to be careful not to get muddled—not to try more +than we can do well. We can't run out of tea and scones, nor need we +waste any. Mother <i>can</i> make a batch in a quarter of an hour, if +necessary."</p> + +<p>"Good," said the merchant, to whom the smallest details were important +in matters of business; and he began to fumble in his pocket. "Who's the +cashier?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I am," replied Sarah, from behind her little table, on which stood two +wooden bowls and neat piles of paper tickets.</p> + +<p>"And what's to pay?" he inquired, advancing with his hand full of loose +silver.</p> + +<p>"Sixpence," said she shyly.</p> + +<p>"Sixpence," he repeated, with a meditative air, "sixpence; yes, that +will do. Neither too much nor too little—though that's expensive tea. +When you want a fresh stock of tea, Miss Jenny, let me know, will you? +Come, you needn't hesitate; I'm not offering to give it to you. I'm as +much a business man as you are."</p> + +<p>"You are very good," murmured Jenny; "and I will."</p> + +<p>He took change for the shilling, which was his smallest coin; and then +he began to think it time to return to his office, from which he had +been absent nearly an hour. As he was stumbling downstairs, after warmly +shaking hands with the family, he met his daughter coming up.</p> + +<p>"What! you, Mary?" he exclaimed, for he had forgotten all about her.</p> + +<p>"What! you, father?" she responded. "Are you here before me? That is +kind of you. Oh, I'm so tired! Two frocks in one morning! But I suppose +I ought to be thankful that she'll do them. Is the tea really good, +father? If it is, I think I'll make my lunch here, instead of going +home, and Maude can pick me up at the office when she comes in this +afternoon. Telephone to her when you go back, and say so, will you, +dear?"</p> + +<p>"I will," said Mr. Churchill. "And the tea and scones are all that they +profess to be. A charming little place, and people too. Come, I will +introduce you before I go."</p> + +<p>He took her in, introduced her, and left her. She stayed till nearly one +o'clock, talking much as her father had done, with all his kindness and +her own more dignified reserve, and rejoined him at the office, after +some shopping, much impressed with Jenny. Later, Mrs. Churchill, +resplendent, drove into town, and her big carriage got itself into +Little Collins Street, and she was made to take tea and scones in her +turn, and found them so excellent that she spent the rest of the +afternoon in talking about them to her friends, and about the pretty, +poky place that was so sensationally opposed to all one's ideas of a +restaurant. It was the amusement of the day, and resulted in making the +tea-room fashionable.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE HERO</h3> + + +<p>The junior Churchill partner returned home next day from a six months' +trip, and the house at Toorak was much excited by the event, for he was +a great man in its eyes. He lived an independent life at the club and in +a suite of sumptuous chambers in East Melbourne, when on this side of +the world, but was received by his father and stepmother on his first +arrival, and entertained until his own establishment was ready for him. +His stepmother, before she was his stepmother, had badly wanted to be +his wife, and it was a source of extreme satisfaction to her that he +still remained unmarried and disengaged, though thirty-five last +birthday, and one of the greatest catches in the colony. She never would +have a pretty governess in the house, lest Anthony should be tempted; +and she kept a sharp eye upon the girls who sought and sighed for +him—their name was legion—when able to do so, and systematically +circumvented them. He was too good, she said, to be thrown away. In +other words, it would be too dreadful not to have him at dinner on +Sundays, and in and out of the house all the week through, petting her +(in a strictly filial manner), and escorting her about when his father +was busy.</p> + +<p>"People talk of the troubles of stepmothers," she used to say, with her +most maternal air. "<i>I</i> have never had any trouble. My stepchildren +never objected to me for a moment, and they are just the comfort of my +life."</p> + +<p>Of the two, Anthony was her greatest comfort; he was always there—when +he was not in England. Mary Oxenham was a dear woman, but she seldom +came to town.</p> + +<p>Mary and her father went to meet the ship that brought Anthony back. +Mrs. Churchill stayed at home, to put flowers into his bedroom, and be +ready to welcome him on the doorstep in a twenty-guinea tea-gown, +designed on purpose. The boat, they had been informed by telephone from +the office, was expected at five o'clock, but when Mrs. Oxenham called +for her father at half-past three, he told her it would not be in before +six at the earliest; and he was in rather a state of mind lest +Anthony's dinner should be spoiled. He sent a message to his wife to +postpone it to half-past eight, and Mrs. Oxenham said she would kill +time by going to the tea-room.</p> + +<p>She drove thither in Maude's carriage, which had brought her in, because +she thought that its appearance at the door would be good for custom. +She was much interested in Miss Liddon and her praiseworthy efforts, and +anxious to assist them; and she and Maude had agreed that it would be +very nice if they could keep the tea-room select—a place where they +could meet their friends in comfort. They thought this might be managed +if they made a little effort at the start, and that, once established on +those lines, the coming season would provide as much custom of the right +sort as the Liddons could manage. Mrs. Oxenham desired it rather for +Jenny's sake than their own; she did not like to think of that lady-like +girl having to wait on rough people.</p> + +<p>On entering the yellow room, it was evident to her that all was well, so +far. Several people were taking tea and scones, and the newcomer was +more or less acquainted with them all. A frisky matron whom Maude had +introduced there yesterday had come again, and she had a frisky man +along with her—having promptly recognised the possibilities of the new +establishment as a place for meeting one's friends. She was lounging at +great ease in one of the low, cushioned chairs, with her feet crossed +and her gloves in her lap, and he was sitting in another, with his arms +on his knees, which touched her pretty gown; they both sat up very +suddenly when Mrs. Oxenham appeared. Two other ladies, with two other +gentlemen, made a group at the furthest possible distance from them; and +three smart girls in another corner were letting their tea grow cold +while they chaffed and were chaffed by a couple of high-collared youths, +who certainly had no business to be with them in their unchaperoned +condition.</p> + +<p>"So this is the first result," said Mrs. Oxenham to herself, as she +bowed slightly in response to unnecessarily cordial smiles. "Oh, well, +it don't matter to her, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Her" was Jenny Liddon, who came forward with a glowing face, and +directed her patroness to a particularly nice chair in Sarah's +neighbourhood. Mrs. Oxenham sat down, and made kind inquiries of her +<i>protégée</i> as to how she was getting on.</p> + +<p>"<i>Beautifully</i>," Jenny replied with fervour, "thanks to you and Mr. +Churchill. We have had quite a number of customers already—we are +paying our way, even now—and they all say that the tea and scones are +good."</p> + +<p>"Get me some, dear."</p> + +<p>Jenny flitted round the screen, and came back with the fragrant teapot +and the pat of sweet butter that she was so careful to keep cool; and +Mrs. Oxenham ate and drank with the enjoyment of a dainty woman +accustomed to the best, and not always finding it where it should be. +She talked to her young hostess as the girl passed to and fro, with the +object of making her feel that she was still recognised as a lady as +well as a restaurant-keeper; for Mrs. Oxenham had ideas as to the status +of women, and what determined it, which were much in advance of those +popularly held.</p> + +<p>"I am on my way to meet the mail steamer," she said, rising when she had +finished her tea, and looking at her watch.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jenny. "My brother told me Mr. Anthony Churchill was +expected." She added with a little sigh, "The sea will be looking lovely +now."</p> + +<p>"You ought to get down to it when you can," said Mrs. Oxenham. "The air +in this street is not very wholesome. You should have a blow on the St. +Kilda pier of a night, when work is over."</p> + +<p>"By-and-by," said Jenny, "when we can afford it, we will have a little +home there, and come in and out by tram. At present we do not spend a +penny more than is quite necessary. We walk to the house where we sleep, +and back. We just keep a room to sleep in; our landlady at this place is +a fixture, and takes charge in our absence. But we live here."</p> + +<p>"Not wholly on tea and scones, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"No," smiled Jenny. "Mother sees to that."</p> + +<p>"You must take care to play no tricks with your health. Mind that."</p> + +<p>"I am as careful as I can be, Mrs. Oxenham."</p> + +<p>"Take my advice, and don't grudge sixpence for a blow on the pier; it +will be the most paying investment of all, you'll find. Where's your +brother? What does he do for you?"</p> + +<p>Jenny blushed slightly. "There's nothing he wouldn't do for us if we +would let him," she said. "But we won't allow him to cripple himself."</p> + +<p>"Does he live with you?"</p> + +<p>"Not now. He has taken lodgings for himself."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't approve of the tea-room, does he?"</p> + +<p>Jenny blushed a deeper hue. "He is only a boy," she murmured +indulgently. "He doesn't understand. He will some day."</p> + +<p>She saw some of her customers make a movement to rise, and Mrs. Oxenham +smiled farewell and departed, glad to be blocked on the dark staircase +by new people coming up.</p> + +<p>"Brave little creature!" was her inward ejaculation, as she stepped into +her carriage, which seemed to block the narrow street. "I see what she +has had to fight against. Ah, well, women are not all talking dolls, as +Tony calls them. I wonder what Tony will say to her?" She paused to +consider, and thought it would be as well not to take Tony there. "I +hate to see all those men lounging about on her little chairs," she said +to herself. "They are not meant for men. I do hope and trust they won't +any of them take it into their empty heads to make love to her. She is +not exactly pretty, but she is very attractive—dreadfully attractive, +for such a place. She doesn't know it in the least, but she has a face +that one can hardly take one's eyes off."</p> + +<p>The carriage clattered up to the door of the palatial business premises +of Churchill & Son, and the chief stepped out with the alertness of a +young man.</p> + +<p>"It's early," he said, "but we may as well catch the 4.30. Better be too +soon than too late."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oxenham agreed, and they were driven to the neighbouring station, +where they bade the coachman return to meet the special, and took train +for Williamstown. Arrived there, the old gentleman buttoned his +great-coat and helped his daughter into a sealskin mantle; and they +prepared for a long pacing up and down the breezy pier, between the +rails and trucks, while they waited for Tony. But in half an hour the +ship appeared, and for another half hour, while she was being warped +into her place, they had the bliss of seeing the dear fellow, though +they could not reach him, and of hearing the beloved voice shouting +greetings and questions at them. Amongst the swarm of passengers hanging +over the rails, Anthony Churchill, with his red beard on a level with +the hats of ordinary men, was easily distinguishable. He was a fine man, +and a handsome one, as well as amiable and rich; so it was no wonder +that the girls, of whom there seem such a terrible number in proportion +to their possible suitors, ran after him.</p> + +<p>"How well he looks!" exclaimed Mrs. Oxenham—meaning how beautiful and +distinguished, compared with other women's brothers.</p> + +<p>"Splendid!" said the father proudly.</p> + +<p>Then the gangways were fixed, and he came hurling down through the +ascending and descending crowd, and the majestic woman put her arms +round his neck and kissed him.</p> + +<p>They climbed into the special, and sat there and talked till it filled +up and was ready to start. They wanted to know what was doing, and how +everybody was. Anthony inquired after "Mother," as he facetiously called +her, and his father and sister after that young lady for whom he had +been searching so long. For they had a desire to see him settled with a +nice wife, and bringing up sons and daughters, though Maude had not.</p> + +<p>"I have not found her yet," the young man confessed. "I suppose I am +hard to please, but I don't seem to have met anybody with enough in her +to make it worth while to go so far as matrimony."</p> + +<p>"What should she have in her?" asked Mrs. Oxenham, smiling.</p> + +<p>"What you have in you, Polly," he replied. "Some sense. Some ideas +beyond dressing and smirking at men."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, you had better put yourself in my hands," said she. "As I +know there are plenty of such women, I'll undertake to find you one."</p> + +<p>"Thanks; but I'd rather find her for myself."</p> + +<p>"A man never finds a woman of that sort. He doesn't know her when he +sees her. He doesn't know <i>any</i> woman when he sees her. You leave it to +me, Tony. Time is getting on, and we can't allow you to degenerate into +a selfish old club bachelor, thinking of nothing but your dinner. I +shall begin at once. I know what would suit you far better than you can +know yourself."</p> + +<p>The wild idea that Jenny Liddon would suit him never crossed her mind +for a moment, as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>It was not quite seven o'clock when they reached town, and they got home +to Toorak before it was time to dress for dinner. As the carriage rolled +up to the door, Mrs. Churchill swam into the hall, with her fine laces +foaming about her, and cast herself into her stepson's arms, as she was +lawfully privileged to do.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother," he cried gaily, as he kissed her curly-fringed brow—a +thing he never did unless she made him—"and how's your little self? And +how are the brats?"</p> + +<p>The brats came headlong downstairs, and flung themselves upon him from +all sides at once.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tony! Tony! We are so glad you are back, dear Tony! What have you +brought us, Tony?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>HE MEETS THE HEROINE</h3> + + +<p>"Polly, come and have a look round, and give me your advice, will you? +My fellow says he's got all the luggage up, and he wants to know where +to put some of the new things."</p> + +<p>Mr. Anthony Churchill would have felt himself insulted if you had called +his "fellow" a valet. Australian gentlemen don't keep valets. The person +in question had certainly filled that office in England, where his +master had picked him up, but was now merely a sort of private male +housemaid of superior quality, who waited on his employer in the East +Melbourne chambers, and made him more comfortable than anybody else +could have done. When he was away travelling, Maude took on his servant +as an extra footman, in order to guard him against the seductions of +other wealthy bachelors who were known to covet him; but when Tony was +at home, Jarvis was his indispensable attendant. Mary Oxenham used to +say that Jarvis was the main cause of that celibacy which she could not +but deplore in a man of thirty-five, who could so well afford a wife and +family.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," she said, in response to his proposal; "I shall be +delighted." She rose from the Toorak luncheon-table to dress for the +expedition.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tony, you are <i>not</i> going away?" cried Mrs. Churchill, +prettily aghast. "When I have hardly had a word with you! And when you +know it is my day at home, and I can't come with you! Mary, it's very +nasty and selfish of you, to carry him off and keep him all to +yourself—especially when he has been in town the whole morning."</p> + +<p>"I'll come back to dinner," he said soothingly. "And we'll have a game +of billiards together in the evening, if you like."</p> + +<p>"But I want you <i>now</i>, Tony! All the world is coming this afternoon, +just on purpose to see you, and I did so want to show you off."</p> + +<p>"The very reason, madam, why I go. I don't like being shown off."</p> + +<p>"But you know what I mean, Tony—you can do exactly what you like—go +away and smoke, or anything. And there are several new girls—pretty +girls—whom you haven't seen before."</p> + +<p>"Pretty girls have ceased to interest me very much. I've seen such a lot +of them."</p> + +<p>"You are a nasty, horrid, disagreeable boy! I suppose <i>I</i> have ceased to +interest you—that's what you'd like to say if you weren't too polite."</p> + +<p>"I'd cut my tongue out before I'd say such a thing."</p> + +<p>He smiled down upon her, strong, calm, amused, indifferent, as if she +were a kitten frisking. He was always interested in her, if only because +he had to be always on his guard to keep her from making a fool of +herself. She looked up at him, with a pout and a laugh, and proceeded to +make hay while the sun shone—to make the most of the little time that +Mary gave her for the enjoyment of his company.</p> + +<p>Brother and sister departed as soon as the latter was ready, preferring +the homely tram to the carriage that Mrs. Churchill desired to order for +them; and spent a quiet hour together in Tony's chambers, where Jarvis +had left nothing to find fault with. There were pictures for Mrs. +Oxenham to see, and a multitude of pretty things that Tony had brought +out to adorn his rooms, or as presents for his friends; and these were +very interesting to a lady of modern culture, as she was, secretly proud +of and confident in her discriminating artistic sense. And she much +enjoyed an uninterrupted gossip with her brother, he and she having been +close comrades for many years before Maude was heard of. They had a +great deal to say that they didn't care to say when she was present.</p> + +<p>Jarvis offered tea, but it was declined. "No, thank you," said Mary. +"There's a little place where I make a point of having tea whenever I am +in town—kept by some people whom I am interested in. And it isn't good +for me to drink too much. I think, Tony, I'll be going, as I have a +commission to do for Maude."</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you," said Tony, "if you'll just let me finish my pipe. +It's the sweetest pipe I have had for a long time. After all"—with a +luxurious sigh—"there's no place like home."</p> + +<p>"Don't call <i>this</i> a home," his sister retorted.</p> + +<p>He cast a complacent eye around the handsome room, which had witnessed +so many masculine symposiums. "I might go further and fare worse," he +said, with a comfortable laugh. "Do you remember the man in <i>Punch</i> who +didn't marry because he was so domesticated? I think I am like him. I +love a quiet life. I like my armchair and my fireside of an evening." He +puffed meditatively, while Mary drew on her gloves. "What's your errand +for Maude?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"She wants me to tell Mrs. Earl something."</p> + +<p>"I could have sworn it. Now, if I had a wife who thought of nothing but +her clothes——"</p> + +<p>"Who <i>wants</i> you to have a wife who thinks of nothing but her clothes? +Do you suppose they are all Maudes? Come along, and don't aggravate me."</p> + +<p>He heaved himself out of his deep chair, retired to take off his +smoking-jacket, and escorted her to the tram and to Collins Street.</p> + +<p>"If you are going to be long," he said, at Mrs. Earl's door, "I'll look +into the club for a few minutes."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to be a second, but don't wait for me," she answered, "Go +to your club, old fogey, but be home in good time for dinner."</p> + +<p>However, when she had done her errand, which was only to deliver an +urgent message concerning the trimming of a Cup gown—to which Mrs. Earl +was not likely to pay the least attention, knowing her business better +than any lady could teach her—there was Tony on the pavement, still in +devoted attendance.</p> + +<p>"Where do you want to go now, Polly?" he asked, as if clubs were nothing +to him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nowhere—except just to get my tea. Don't wait, dear boy."</p> + +<p>"Where do you go for your tea?"</p> + +<p>"To a room in Little Collins Street."</p> + +<p>"What an extraordinary place to have one's tea in!" He signalled for a +hansom. "I'll go with you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; don't you bother. It's not a place for men."</p> + +<p>"I'll take you to the door, at any rate."</p> + +<p>He took her to the door, and the outside of the basket-maker's premises +made him curious to see the inside, and he begged to be allowed to +escort her upstairs. "If only to see that you are not robbed and +murdered," he said.</p> + +<p>"No fear of that," she returned, laughing. "You go and amuse yourself at +the club. This is a ladies' place."</p> + +<p>"Men prohibited?"</p> + +<p>"Not prohibited, but they don't want them."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll leave the cab for you."</p> + +<p>He went to his club, and she to her tea and scones (the room was +satisfactorily full, and Jenny too busy to be talked to); and they met +again at Toorak in time to entertain Maude for half an hour before she +had to dress.</p> + +<p>Next day Maude was determined to have her stepson for +herself—especially as there was a dark rumour that he was going to +desert her the day after for the superior attractions of Jarvis and his +bachelor abode; and Anthony was quite willing to gratify her. +Recognising that she would be <i>de trop</i>, Mary Oxenham chose to stay at +home and amuse the children; and he and his pretty stepmother (seven +years his junior) drove away after luncheon for the ostensible purpose +of paying calls together.</p> + +<p>They paid two calls, and then, being in East Melbourne, Maude proposed +that they should go and have some tea.</p> + +<p>"What!" exclaimed Tony. "Haven't you had enough tea for one afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"It was horribly bad tea," said she, "and I know a place where you can +get it exceptionally good. I am just dying for a cup."</p> + +<p>"Where is your place?"</p> + +<p>"In Little Collins Street. The funniest place you ever saw."</p> + +<p>"Why, that must be the place Mary wouldn't take me to yesterday. She +said men were not admitted."</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a story!"</p> + +<p>"Well, she said the people there didn't want them."</p> + +<p>"Stuff! Of course they do. Didn't you hear Mrs. Bullivant say she was +there yesterday with Captain what's-his-name, that charming new A.D.C.? +No, you were flirting with Miss Baxter—oh, I saw you!—and had no eyes +or ears for anybody else."</p> + +<p>"Then I presume I may accompany you, and have some tea too?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you may. You'll be charmed—everybody is. There are dear +little chairs, in which you can actually rest yourself, and tables so +high"—spreading her hand on a level with her knee. "And it's awfully +retired and peaceful, if you want to talk. I only hope"—regardless of +her previous efforts to compass that end—"that it won't get too well +known. That would spoil it."</p> + +<p>Anthony stalked through the basket-maker's shop (that customers passed +that way, in view of his wares, was a consideration that largely +affected the rent, to Mrs. Liddon's advantage), and knocked his head and +his elbows on the dark staircase, and thought it was indeed the funniest +place of its kind that he had ever seen. But when he reached the +tea-room, and looked round with his cultured eyes upon its singular +appointments, he was quite as charmed as Maude had expected him to be, +and more surprised than charmed.</p> + +<p>"How very extraordinary!" he ejaculated. "What an oasis in the howling +desert of Little Collins Street!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, isn't it?" returned Maude, jerking her head from side to side. "I +knew you would like it. But, oh, do look how full it is! How tiresome of +people to come flocking here, as if there were no other place in the +whole town! There's hardly a table left. Oh, here's one! I'll get that +girl to put it in the corner yonder. She knows me."</p> + +<p>"It will do here," said Anthony, with a little peremptory air that she +was quite accustomed to. "Sit down."</p> + +<p>He dropped himself into a basket-chair, and it creaked ominously.</p> + +<p>"What a very extraordinary place!" he repeated, as his stepmother drew +off her gloves in preparation for prolonged repose and conversation. +Then, as Jenny advanced, blushing a little—for she knew this was the +junior partner, and he stared at her intently—"What a very——" He left +that sentence unfinished.</p> + +<p>"Tea and scones for two, if you please. Yes, she's quite a new type, +isn't she?—like her tea-room. She's the daughter of old Liddon, who +used to be in the office, and who was killed by being run over on the +railway the other day. Mary says she's quite well educated."</p> + +<p>"What!" cried Anthony. He sat bolt upright in his chair. "Old Liddon +dead! Good heavens! And his daughter keeping a restaurant! Why, I +thought they rather prided themselves on being gentlefolks. The old man +used to tell me he was an Eton boy—quite true, too."</p> + +<p>"He married his cook," said Mrs. Churchill—which was a libel, for poor +old Mrs. Liddon's family was as "genteel" as her own—"and I suppose the +girl takes after her. Mrs. Liddon's cooking talents are now exercised on +the tea and scones that they sell here, and they do her credit, as you +will see. I'm sure I wish to goodness I could find a good cook!"</p> + +<p>"If that is Miss Liddon," said Anthony, who was watching the screen for +her reappearance, "I think I ought to speak to her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you oughtn't, Tony. It would never do. Mary doesn't want men to +talk to her. Mary is taking a great interest in her, you must know, and +she'd like to keep men out of the room altogether—only she doesn't want +to hinder custom—just for Miss Liddon's sake, for fear she should be +taken liberties with, or annoyed in any way, as if she were a common +waitress."</p> + +<p>This was a very injudicious speech, but then Maude was nearly always +injudicious.</p> + +<p>"I don't annoy women," said her stepson severely; "and I am not 'men.' I +am a partner of the firm that has lost her father's services—if we have +lost them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; he was killed on the spot—all smashed to little bits."</p> + +<p>"I would merely say a word—of sympathy, you know."</p> + +<p>"Don't do it, Tony; it would be most improper. If you attempt to scrape +acquaintance with her I'll never bring you here again. Mary would blame +me, and make a dreadful fuss."</p> + +<p>"Mary is so much in the habit of making a fuss, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"I assure you she would. You see she wouldn't let you come yesterday. +You can make your condolences to the brother in the office."</p> + +<p>So Anthony did not say anything to Miss Liddon, except "Thank you," in a +very gentle tone. As she approached with the tea and scones, he rose and +stood—her little head was not much above his elbow—and he took the +tray from her hands. The unwonted courtesy brought a flush to Jenny's +pale cheeks—they were pale with the weariness of being on her feet all +day—and Mrs. Churchill had her first suspicion that the young person +was pretty. She determined that she would not bring Tony to the tea-room +again.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, being there, and very comfortable, she would have sat on +with him indefinitely, had he allowed it; but he would not allow it. Her +meal finished, she was taking the place and time of paying clients, as +several others were doing, causing Jenny to wonder if she had not made a +mistake in providing cushioned chairs. He proposed to call at the office +for his father, and drive the old gentleman home—an attention from his +charming wife that always gratified him; and Maude did not see her way +to object. They returned to Toorak quite early, and Tony lit a pipe and +went off with his sister for a saunter in the shrubberies (to get the +history of the Liddons up to date), while his stepmother was hastily +getting into a yellow satin tea-gown with a view to an ante-dinner +<i>tête-à-tête</i> on her own account.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE INEVITABLE ENSUES</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>Your</i> legs want stretching."</p> + +<p>They thought not, but she was sure of it. "Go, go, dears—<i>do</i> go; I am +all right—I am quite happy by myself—I <i>like</i> it!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 a <i>fool</i> I am!" then walked home briskly +to give renewed attention to business.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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>i.e.</i>, for a sentimental <i>tête-à-tête</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you—thank you very much—if you are sure you can spare it. I +daresay it would be better for them."</p> + +<p>"I am sure it would, and we have plenty. It is very good milk."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I am awfully sorry to give you so much trouble," he mumbled.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you please—if it won't be troubling you. It's such perfectly +delicious tea."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Only he," she said to herself, "would do that."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I think it is so brave of you to do what you are doing. My sister has +been telling me about it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I am sure they were only too glad, if they had the chance. I wish—I +wish I were privileged to be some help."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you! The only help we wish for is for people to come and +drink our tea, and show themselves satisfied with it."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Anyone has a right to come who chooses," she answered, turning from +him to attend to little Grace.</p> + +<p>The words were discouraging, but he thought the tone was not; and he +determined to come again, and alone, at the earliest opportunity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THERE ARE SUCH WOMEN IN THE WORLD</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +ĉsthetic 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 +<i>this</i> should be the result of keeping a restaurant—oh, if <i>this</i> +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 <i>then</i>?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He soon began to speak of Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Your sister seems very busy," he said, with a lightness of tone that +did not deceive the listener.</p> + +<p>"Yes; too busy. She gets very tired at night sometimes."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid so. She has not been used to so much running about."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I suppose the afternoon is the busiest time?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. There are very few in the morning. Sometimes she is able to +sit down and sew for a few minutes."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she must be doing something; she is never idle. She makes her own +dresses always—and the most of ours."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. And it looks all right, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I suppose so. Plenty of them."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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>I</i> +don't think there is anybody like her."</p> + +<p>"Well, there can't be many like her," said Anthony, seriously reflecting +upon the girl's energy and high-mindedness.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I am always telling her," said Sarah.</p> + +<p>"My health is excellent," Jenny said, smiling happily. "And we are +taking our landlady into the firm, you see, with a view to +contingencies."</p> + +<p>"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—<i>anything</i>, 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"It's only rubbish," he mumbled disparagingly, "but it's sweet. I'm +awfully fond of the smell of lilies of the valley myself."</p> + +<p>"So am I," said Sarah. "And I don't know how to thank you."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye," he said suddenly, extending his hand. "I must go back +to work."</p> + +<p>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 <i>could</i> 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!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW</h3> + + +<p>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 <i>she's</i> 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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Liddon—you are Liddon, aren't you?—how are you getting on?" he +demanded suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir, thank you. I believe I am giving every satisfaction," +said Joey, with his young complacency.</p> + +<p>Anthony regarded him for a moment in deep thought, and then asked him +how long he had been in the firm's employ.</p> + +<p>"About two years," said Joey.</p> + +<p>"And what's your salary?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred and thirty, sir."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I hardly know," said Joey, with a blush and a stammer. "I don't see +very much of them now."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; but this is a very different sort of thing, and my father, as +you may have heard, sir, was an Eton boy."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Joey looked at his young chief with a new expression.</p> + +<p>"Do you know my sister?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"I know <i>of</i> 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."</p> + +<p>This was a new view of the case to Joey, who decided to go and see his +mother and sisters in the evening.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"They are the very dearest flowers you can buy," she remarked. "And I +know they are bought, because of the wires on the stalks."</p> + +<p>Jenny opened her eyes and gloated on them. "You have seven, Sally," she +said wistfully. "You might give me one."</p> + +<p>"For the matter of that, they are more yours than mine," said Sarah. +"But take all you like."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mary beckoned him to her, and took him to task forthwith.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, what are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"Having tea and scones. It's what everybody does who comes here."</p> + +<p>"But you have not brought any one?"</p> + +<p>"No; I had a fancy for a solitary cup."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I really hadn't been sitting there for hours; I have not been in the +room five minutes."</p> + +<p>"In that case, you are evidently very much at home here. Now, Tony dear, +it <i>doesn't do</i>, you know."</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>"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 <i>not</i> look +well in a place like this."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I ever thought of how I looked."</p> + +<p>"You know what I mean. <i>We</i> come here, father and Maude and I, to help +the place, and because we <i>do</i> want tea, Maude and I, at any rate——"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What is the other thing?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The other thing," continued Mary, when he again took his seat, "is that +you expose that poor girl to injurious suspicions."</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" he ejaculated.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Certainly. And I never thought of her as anything else, I assure you."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I care much what they say."</p> + +<p>"No; it doesn't affect <i>you</i>. 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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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. <i>You</i> 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?"</p> + +<p>"I see," said Tony thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"I don't think she does—as a rule," said Sarah.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry."</p> + +<p>"Yes, so am I."</p> + +<p>"I—I wonder whether I might call on you some day—where you live?"</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately, we don't live anywhere—except here—we only sleep."</p> + +<p>"Not on Sundays?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At the top of Collins Street he encountered the carriage, with Maude and +Mary in it, and they stopped to speak to him.</p> + +<p>"Come home to dinner with us, Tony," his stepmother entreated, with all +her smiles and wiles.</p> + +<p>"Can't," he briefly answered her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, why not? We are just going out."</p> + +<p>"Another engagement, unfortunately."</p> + +<p>"What engagement? There's nothing on to-night, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE POTENTIAL HUSBAND</h3> + + +<p>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—for <i>she</i> should 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"All right," said Sarah; and mentally added, "I ought to be ashamed of +myself, I know—but I don't care!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He puffed at his pipe, and the little figure grew dimmer and dimmer; but +he could see that she had not stirred.</p> + +<p>"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——"</p> + +<p>He tapped his pipe on the pier-rail, rose, and walked up and down.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked himself plainly. "Could I regret it, when she is so +evidently the woman to <i>last</i>? 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——"</p> + +<p>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. <i>You</i> don'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.</p> + +<p>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 in <i>Punch</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"And little thinking that I was coming back to do a thing like this!"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"What <i>would</i> they 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.</p> + +<p>Then he sat down again, and looked at the shadow of her hat against the +sky.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He stepped towards her in a casual way.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>AS THE WIND BLOWS</h3> + + +<p>"Is that you, Miss Liddon? Getting a breath of sea air? That's right. +Where are Mrs. Liddon and Miss Sarah?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Where?" asked Jenny; not that she wanted to see it, but that she +didn't know what else to say at this upsetting moment.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Never."</p> + +<p>"Then you don't know what a tedious thing it is."</p> + +<p>"I only wish I did know," responded Jenny, who had gathered herself +together. "I don't fancy <i>I</i> should suffer from tedium, somehow."</p> + +<p>"Why? Do you want so much to travel? But of course you do, if you have +never done it."</p> + +<p>"Above all things," she said earnestly. "It is the dream of our life—my +sister and I."</p> + +<p>"You are happy in having it to come—in not being satiated, as I am. +<i>My</i> dream just now is to settle down in a peaceful home, and never stir +away from it any more."</p> + +<p>The green light was on her face, and he saw her smile, as if no longer +afraid of him.</p> + +<p>"You can have whatever you dream," she said. "We shall probably never +realise ours. Still, we can dream on. That costs nothing."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You'll get there," said Anthony confidently; "don't doubt it."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I have stayed too long already," she said. "I ought not to have been +here alone—so late."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To tell the honest truth, as a faithful chronicler should do, our hero +very nearly <i>did</i> abandon 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.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>NATURE SPEAKS</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>"Stay with us—in his own father's house—of course," Mrs. Churchill +interposed promptly. "You can come down, Mary."</p> + +<p>"I can't, Maude; I must be at home, as well as you. You won't come to me +for Christmas, Tony?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"Well, come when you can, dear old fellow. I want to have you all to +myself, if it's only for a few days."</p> + +<p>"I will, Polly, I will. Good-bye, and take care of yourself. Are you +really going away before we come back?"</p> + +<p>"At the end of the week, Tony. I have been away too long—all your +fault, bad boy. Well, good-bye again. <i>Bon voyage</i>, everybody!"</p> + +<p>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 her <i>protégée</i> during the bustle of the last +few weeks, and felt a twinge of self-reproach in consequence.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what is the matter?" cried Mrs. Oxenham, hurrying forward. "What +ails Jenny? Oh, poor child, how ill she looks!"</p> + +<p>"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. She <i>will</i> come 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."</p> + +<p>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, I <i>am</i> a fool! Mrs. Oxenham, I am so +sorry—so ashamed——"</p> + +<p>Her mother held the glass between her chattering teeth, and she drank a +little brandy and water, and choked, and burst out crying.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It is the very, <i>very</i> thing to set her up," she cried, in exultation. +"And, oh, it <i>is</i> good of you, Mrs. Oxenham!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oxenham made her lie on a springy sofa for an hour, while they +quietly talked together; then they had a <i>tête-à-tête</i> lunch—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's <i>Lieder</i>, +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.</p> + +<p>"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 of +<i>repoussé</i> silver that enshrined the image of a burly fellow with a +plain but honest face. "And this is my young stepmother, whom I think +you <i>have</i> seen; 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 only +<i>own</i> brother; him, I think, you have also seen."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" she mentally exclaimed. "I do hope and trust that boy +has not been thoughtless!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Harry, dear," she said, "I want to ask you something."</p> + +<p>"Ask away," he returned affably.</p> + +<p>"Would you have any objection to my having that girl to stay with me for +Christmas—that is, if she will come?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Who else is coming?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Eh? You don't say so!" This was certainly a strong argument.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What about Tony?" asked Mr. Oxenham.</p> + +<p>"He is not coming. I asked him, but he said he couldn't leave town. He +is too much engaged with Lady Louisa, I suppose; and if she didn't keep +him, Maude would. Oh, if there was the slightest chance of Tony being at +Wandooyamba, of course I shouldn't ask Miss Liddon there."</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, I'm sure I don't care, one way or another. Do just what +you think best."</p> + +<p>"You are quite sure you don't mind, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least. What's good enough for you is good enough for me, +and, personally, I think she's an awfully nice little thing."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall go and settle it with her mother in the morning," said +Mrs. Oxenham, "and we will take her back with us."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>TWO WISE MEN</h3> + + +<p>It was not far from Christmas when Anthony returned from his cruise, +which he did in a listless, yawning, world-weary frame of mind. He had +not enjoyed himself as he had expected to do, and wished he had remained +in Melbourne at work, and given his old father a holiday instead. +Tasmania had looked beautiful, to be sure, but he had seen too many +things that were more so, and seen them too recently, to be impressed by +its hills and streams; while the sea had no charm after his recent +voyage. He had wholly depended on his company for entertainment, and his +company had disappointed him. Few, indeed, can stand the test of such +conditions as those under which they were expected to shine, as under a +microscope, with double lustre and meaning (he had not stood it +himself); and it was not surprising that the brilliant Lady Louisa had +failed to substantiate her pretensions to be a clever woman, or that +Mrs. Churchill had contrived to make a most kindly-disposed stepson hate +her. Not, of course, that it was necessary for Lady Louisa to show +herself clever in order to captivate our hero, or any man; it was +because her stupidity had led her to waste her blandishments on a +brainless idiot of a whisky-drinking globe-trotter, whose name was his +only title to be called a gentleman, that it had manifested itself so +unmistakably to her superseded slave. When the bookless, newspaperless, +trifling time was over, he stepped ashore with a sense of being released +from an irksome bondage, and determined to keep clear of his late too +close companions for many a long day. One only was excepted—an old chum +and crony, who had accompanied him on the voyage from England, a +Queensland squatter, who lived nine months of the year in +Melbourne—Adam Danesbury by name. Mr. Danesbury had afforded much +amusement on board the yacht by boasting modestly of his recent +engagement to a girl at home; showing her likeness, worn in a locket on +his watch-chain, to the ladies, and confiding to them his plan for +returning to marry and fetch her out as soon as he had got his northern +shearing over. The ladies thought it was so very funny of him; any other +man, they said, would have kept such a thing as dark as possible, under +the circumstances. But Anthony Churchill, who had always made a friend +of Danesbury, had never liked him so well as he liked him now.</p> + +<p>"Come up to my place and dine with me to-night," he said to him, as the +party were dispersing in the yard of the railway station; "and let's +have a quiet pipe and a little peace, after all this racket."</p> + +<p>"All right," said Mr. Danesbury, "I'm on."</p> + +<p>They spoke in low tones, like a couple of conspirators.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Churchill! Mr. Churchill!" called Lady Louisa from a Government +House carriage, to which a callow aide had escorted her. "What have I +done that I should be neglected in this manner? Are you not even going +to say good-bye to me?"</p> + +<p>Anthony advanced with his man-of-the-world courtliness, and pressed her +outstretched hand. "No," he said, "I never mean to say good-bye to +you—until I am obliged."</p> + +<p>"<i>Au revoir</i>, then," she laughed. "You will come and see me soon?"</p> + +<p>He bowed as to a queen, while the young A.D.C., whose enchantress she +was at the moment, notwithstanding the fact that she was almost old +enough to be his mother, glared ferociously.</p> + +<p>"These conceited colonials!" he muttered to himself; "these trading +cads, putting on the airs of gentlemen! What presumption of the fellow +to speak in that tone to HER!"</p> + +<p>"Tony," cried Maude, from the midst of her bags and bundles, which her +maid was counting into the hands of a cabman, "you will see me safe +home, Tony?"</p> + +<p>"Well, really, Maude, I don't see how you can help getting home safely, +with your own husband to take care of you," Tony replied, a little +irritably (his father, delighted to get his young wife back again, was +calling her carriage up). "You don't want me now."</p> + +<p>"Tony, you know I <i>always</i> want you. And you <i>might</i> come just for a cup +of tea and to see the children. They'll be expecting you."</p> + +<p>"I'll see them on Sunday. I must go home and get washed and decent."</p> + +<p>"As if you couldn't get washed in our house, where you've got your own +rooms, and dozens of suits of clothes lying in your drawers!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know; but you must excuse me now, really. There'll be letters and +all sorts of things at my chambers, waiting for me, and I telegraphed to +Jarvis to have my dinner ready."</p> + +<p>He detached himself from her clutches, and, when her carriage drove off, +called up his hansom and flung himself into it with a sigh of relief. +"Thank God, that's over!" he ejaculated, drawing his cigar-case from his +pocket. "What fools women are! The more I see of them, the more sick of +them I get."</p> + +<p>It was great luxury to find himself in his own bachelor home, where the +priceless Jarvis had everything in order and ready for him, and where he +was his own man, as he could never be elsewhere. He had an iced drink, +and read his letters, and glanced at half a dozen newspapers, lolling +bare-armed upon a sofa, with a pipe in his mouth and slippered feet in +the air; and then he had a bath and elaborately dressed himself, putting +a silk coat over his diamond-studded shirt; and Jarvis set the dainty +dinner-table, and Danesbury arrived.</p> + +<p>"Come in, old fellow!" shouted the emancipated one, hearing his friend +in the hall. "Now we'll enjoy ourselves! Take off that black coat—no +ladies to consider now; we may as well be cool and comfortable when we +do get the chance. Dinner ready, Jarvis? All's vanity and vexation of +spirit, old man, except one's dinner. Thank God, we've still got that to +fall back upon!"</p> + +<p>"We've got something more than that to fall back upon, let us hope," +said Mr. Danesbury, smiling. "At any rate, I have."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>you</i>! You've got Miss Lennox to fall back on, of course. But we +are not all so lucky."</p> + +<p>"What's happened to you, that you should class yourself with the unlucky +ones? But I know; Lady Louisa hasn't appreciated you. I can quite +understand that you feel bad about it, being so little accustomed to +such treatment."</p> + +<p>"Hang Lady Louisa! A battered old campaigner, with no more heart or +brains than a Dutch doll! I should be sorry to feel bad over a woman of +that sort."</p> + +<p>"What then?"</p> + +<p>"Lord knows. A troubled conscience, perhaps, for having wasted so much +valuable time. Dinner, as I said before, will restore me. Sit down."</p> + +<p>They sat down, and did justice to Jarvis's preparations. Anthony's +little dinners were famous amongst dining men, who knew better than to +disturb enjoyment and digestion with too much conversation while they +were in progress; but when this meal had reached the stage of coffee and +cigarettes, the two friends fell into very confidential talk.</p> + +<p>"What you want," said Adam Danesbury, "is to get married, Tony."</p> + +<p>"Why," said the host, "you've been the loudest of us all in denouncing +those bonds—till now. Because you've lost your tail, is that any reason +why we should cut off ours?"</p> + +<p>"That's all very well while we're young and foolish," said Mr. Danesbury +sedately (he was a sedate person always, but "a devil of a fellow," all +the same, at times). "And I denounce the thing still, when it's nothing +but a buying and selling business, like what we so often see. But get a +good girl, Tony—a girl like <i>my</i> girl—one who doesn't make a bargain +of you, but loves the ground you walk on, though you may go +barefoot—<i>then</i> it's all right. Think of our advanced age, if you +please. Byron was in the sere and yellow leaf before he was as old as I +am, and you are close up. Twenty years hence we shall be old fogies, and +we shall have lost our appetite for cakes, if not for ale, and they will +shunt us into corners; then we shall want our girls and boys to ruffle +it in our place. If we don't look sharp, those girls and boys won't be +there, Tony, and it will feel lonely—I know it will."</p> + +<p>"These be the words of wisdom," said Tony reflectively. "I must confess +I had forgotten about the girls and boys."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but, apart from them, it's a mistake to put it off, after a certain +time of life—that is, of course, if you can find the right sort of +woman. For God's sake, don't go and throw yourself away on one of these +society girls. What a fellow wants is a home, and they don't seem to +know the meaning of the word."</p> + +<p>"How would you describe the right sort of woman?" asked Anthony, pushing +the wine towards his friend.</p> + +<p>"I would say, a woman like Rose Lennox."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course—naturally. Only, unfortunately, I don't know Miss +Lennox."</p> + +<p>"I wish you did, Tony. If you had come down to my father's place, as I +wanted you to, you would have met her. However, you will see her before +long, I trust."</p> + +<p>Anthony spread his arms over the table, and looked curiously at the man +in whom Miss Lennox had wrought so great a change.</p> + +<p>"Tell me about her, will you, old fellow?" he said. "Tell me, so that I +may know what the right woman is like, when I do happen to see her."</p> + +<p>Mr. Danesbury was nothing loth. He, too, spread his arms on the table, +with an air of preparation, having placed his unconsumed cigarette in +the ash-tray beside him.</p> + +<p>"Well, in the first place, I must tell you she is poor," he began. "But +she's none the worse for that."</p> + +<p>"No, the better—the better!" cried Anthony, delighted. "I believe it's +just money that spoils them all."</p> + +<p>"Though she's poor, she's the most perfect lady that ever stepped."</p> + +<p>The host nodded comprehendingly.</p> + +<p>"Her father has the parish next to my father's; old Lennox got the +living after I left home. It's supposed to be worth two-fifty, but if he +gets two it's as much as he does; and there are seven children. My Rose +is the eldest—twenty-three next birthday."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" Anthony had left off smoking, and was listening as men seldom +listened to this love-sick swain.</p> + +<p>"The way I knew her first—my sisters gave a garden party—you know +those little clerical garden parties?—parsons and their wives and +daughters from miles round, coming in their washed frocks and their +little basket carriages; and two of the Lennox girls were there—nice, +interesting little things, but not Rose. We had three tennis afternoons +before I knew of her existence. I used to hear my sisters say, 'Why +don't you make Rose come?' but never took any heed; until one day I had +to drive some of them home, because a storm was coming, and they hadn't +any carriage; and just as I got there the storm burst, and I went in to +wait till it was over. And there I saw that girl—my Rose—sitting at a +table, mending stockings, with half a dozen little brats saying their +lessons to her. This was what she did every day—sewed, and kept house, +and taught the children, while her sisters went out to play tennis. She +said it was so good for them to have a little recreation—as if <i>she</i> +wasn't to be thought of at all. That's the sort of woman she is."</p> + +<p>Anthony stretched out his hand. "Show me that locket again, will you?"</p> + +<p>Adam Danesbury detached watch and chain, and pushed them over the table. +"It don't do her justice," he said tenderly. "She's got hair that you +can see yourself in, and a complexion like milk; the colour comes and +goes with every word you say to her, and her expression changes in the +same way. Photography always fails with people of that sort. +Still—there she is."</p> + +<p>Photography had evidently not done justice to Miss Lennox. The ladies on +the yacht had called her dowdy, and insignificant, and plain, wondering +at Mr. Danesbury's taste; but, helped by that gentleman's description of +her, Anthony made out a sweet and modest face, which held his gaze for +several minutes. Her lover watched him eagerly—this accomplished +connoisseur—and swelled with pride to see her so appreciated.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he said challengingly.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Anthony, as he snapped the locket, "she's a charming +creature, and you are an enviable fellow."</p> + +<p>"I am that," rejoined the lover, re-opening the case before hanging it +to his button-hole. "And I shall be a great deal more enviable this time +next year, please God."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>TWO UNWISE WOMEN</h3> + + +<p>This conversation haunted our young man all night, and drove him in the +morning to the tea-room, in serious pursuit of the right kind of woman, +if haply she might be found there. To his surprise and consternation the +bird had flown.</p> + +<p>"Not ill, I trust?" he said in alarm, at the end of five restless +minutes, during which he had scarcely taken his eyes from the screen.</p> + +<p>Sarah was arranging the flowers he had just brought her. She had +patiently waited for this question. "No," she said, with a nonchalant +air. "She <i>was</i> ill—very ill indeed—but she is all right now."</p> + +<p>"Is she—she is not away?"</p> + +<p>"Just now she is. She wanted a change so badly, poor dear."</p> + +<p>"With friends?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. They are most kind to her. It was just what she wanted, for she +was quite worn out. The hard work at Cup time prostrated her."</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully sorry to hear it. You are sure she is all right again?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, quite. They weigh her every now and then, and she has gained half a +stone."</p> + +<p>"In this hot weather, too! Evidently it is doing her good. The sea, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No. Mountains. At least I suppose they are mountains—I never was there +myself."</p> + +<p>"You must miss her very much?"</p> + +<p>"Dreadfully. And I am afraid she worries about us. But the room goes on +all right. Lucinda Allonby is a cat, but she is smart at waiting; and +her aunt is a good soul. She is regularly in the partnership now."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Did you say your sister had gone to Healesville?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't."</p> + +<p>She laughed mischievously, and Anthony laughed too, his bronzed cheek +reddening.</p> + +<p>"What then?" he pleaded. "Come, tell me, there's a good child."</p> + +<p>"I should have thought you'd known," said Sarah, playing with his +growing impatience.</p> + +<p>"How was I to know anything, away on the sea?"</p> + +<p>"I should have thought Mrs. Oxenham would have written to you."</p> + +<p>"Of course she has written to me. I got two letters from her last night. +But she has been out of town as long as I have."</p> + +<p>"Not quite as long. She stayed a few days after you left, and then she +went home; and she took Jenny with her."</p> + +<p>"<i>What!</i>" Anthony almost bounded from his chair. "Took Jenny to +Wandooyamba? As her guest?"</p> + +<p>Sarah nodded carelessly. "Wasn't it good of her? She found Jenny looking +very ill, and she said she must have a change and rest. And we hurried +to get her clothes ready and fix up an evening dress for her, and off +she went, and there she has been ever since."</p> + +<p>"Ever since," groaned Anthony; "while I have been dawdling on that +cursed yacht. If I'd only known——"</p> + +<p>"I don't see," said Sarah demurely, "what it has to do with you."</p> + +<p>She was a little sore about his long desertion, and wanted to know what +it meant before she permitted herself to be confidential.</p> + +<p>He plumped down on his seat in front of her. "It has everything to do +with me," he said; "everything. Sarah—I am going to call you Sarah from +this moment—shall I tell you something?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, holding her breath.</p> + +<p>"You must keep it a secret for a little while, until I know whether she +will have me. I am going to ask Jenny to be my wife."</p> + +<p>He met her eyes boldly, for he had made up his mind; and she, seeing him +serious and determined, clasped her hands in a speechless ecstasy of +gratitude to Heaven for its goodness to her.</p> + +<p>Then he went home and wrote a letter.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Polly</span>,—</p> + +<p>"Many thanks for yours, which I got both together last night. We +only returned yesterday, or I would have written before. I am glad +you found all well at home, and that the kiddies were pleased with +their presents. Give them my love. Tell Harry I will see about the +buggy and the stores at once; the latter shall go up by goods +train to-morrow. I suppose he wants the waggonette big enough to +hold you all—something like the old one, only lighter. It might +have been rather serious, that smash. He's too risky with his +half-broken cattle and his fancy driving, and that Emily always was +a fiend incarnate. If she belonged to me I'd shoot her.</p> + +<p>"I didn't have such a gaudy time as you seem to think. I'm sure I +don't know what I went for, unless it was to get cool, which there +was little chance of in a boat so crowded. Lord Nettlebury made a +beast of himself as usual, regardless of the ladies, who pretended +not to see it just because it was Nettlebury. I told Maude they +disgraced themselves more than he did, by their indulgence of him; +but women are all alike—or nearly all. It was sickening to see +them fawning over the disgusting little brute, who ought to have +been pitched overboard.</p> + +<p>"Danesbury is the best of fellows—mad on his little English +<i>fiancée</i>, and with no eyes for anybody else. They chaffed him +unmercifully, but he liked it. She has wonderfully improved him. He +says they are going to live in the country when she comes out, and +he's looking for a place in this colony not too fatiguingly far +from town. He's in the right there. Melbourne isn't wholesome. I'm +sick of it myself—that is, I'm sick of streets, which are the same +everywhere, and of sea, and of men and women who make a child's +game of life. I want a sniff of the bush air before I settle down, +and I think I'll run up to you to-morrow night, when I've seen +about Harry's commissions. We have hardly had a good talk since I +came back, and the kids will be forgetting me. Our stepmother has +been rather getting on my nerves lately; it will be a relief to be +out of her reach for a day or two. And my liver (perhaps that's why +I've been so bored) wants horse exercise after so much loafing. Hal +and I will have some rides together, tell him. I suppose the poor +little beggars have done school, and are in the full swing of +holidays by now. They won't object to a few more toys for Santa +Claus's stocking, I daresay. I will bring you up some fish in ice, +if I can get them fresh enough.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">"Yours affectionately,<br /></span> +<span class="i24">"<span class="smcap">A. Churchill</span>."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>The writer of this letter posted it at the G.P.O. while spending his +afternoon about town, buying buggies and Christmas presents for his +sister's family, consequently it went up country by the five o'clock +express, and Mrs. Oxenham received it before noon next day. No answer +was expected or required, and therefore Tony was surprised and annoyed +to get a telegram from her, just as he was thinking it time to change +his clothes for his journey, to say,—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Come to-morrow if equally convenient. Meet you night train."</p></blockquote> + +<p>"What the deuce—oh, here, Jarvis, hold on a bit. Confound the—what on +earth does she mean? Can't have got that great house full of guests, so +that there isn't a corner for me to sleep in—that would be too absurd. +Going out, perhaps—but she wouldn't stop me for that. Can't be +Jenny—she'd stop me altogether if she meant <i>that</i>. It's a dashed +nuisance anyhow."</p> + +<p>The packing was stayed, and he mooned away to the club, because he +didn't know what else to do with himself. He was lost for want of +occupation, and ridiculously angry at having to kick his heels for +twenty-four hours for no earthly purpose that he could see. There was +nothing to do or to interest one—there never is under these +circumstances; his journey put back at the last moment, he was stranded +until it could be put on again. So he drifted to the club.</p> + +<p>There he found his father. It was the old gentleman's habit to play +tennis after business, to keep his fat down—a habit formed long years +before the lawn variety of the game had been invented; and Tony found +him hard at it, and watched him listlessly.</p> + +<p>As soon as Mr. Churchill was aware of his son's presence, he exclaimed: +"Why, I thought you were off to Wandooyamba to-night!"</p> + +<p>"Going to-morrow," returned Tony.</p> + +<p>And when the game was over, the father said, "Come out and dine with us +to-night, boy. You are deserting us altogether these days, and I've got +a lot of business I want to talk over with you."</p> + +<p>Tony recognised that it was his duty to accede, because he really had +been neglecting his father (but that was Maude's fault); and he acceded +accordingly, as cheerfully as he could. Jarvis having been informed by +telephone, the two gentlemen took tram together, and were presently +seen by Maude from her bedroom window sauntering up the garden, +affectionately arm in arm. She dashed aside the gown that had been +chosen for the evening, and called for Mrs. Earl's latest—a white +brocade, full of gold threads, that was very splendid.</p> + +<p>Anthony had leisurely dressed himself in the clothes he kept at Toorak +for these chance occasions, and was pulling his coat lappets straight +over his big chest when he heard her knock on his door.</p> + +<p>"That you, mother?" he called. "How are you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tony! Are you ready, Tony?" she called back.</p> + +<p>"Yes—no, not quite, I sha'n't be long."</p> + +<p>"Do—do make haste and come downstairs. I've something I want to say to +you—very particularly—before the others come down."</p> + +<p>"All right. I won't be a minute."</p> + +<p>He thought he would dawdle on until he heard the "others"—<i>i.e.</i>, his +father—on the stairs; then he thought he might as well hear what the +wonderful secret was. It was never safe to put her off. She was liable +to burst at wrong times if kept bottled up too long.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>A WEAK FATHER</h3> + + +<p>He found her pacing up and down the long drawing-room with excitement in +her face, all the gold drops on the crape front of her dress swinging +and twinkling, the stiff train scratching over the carpet. She almost +rushed at him when he appeared.</p> + +<p>"Tony," she said, laying her heavily diamonded hand upon his arm, "your +father says you are going up to Wandooyamba."</p> + +<p>He flushed a little, admitting that he was. "And what then?"</p> + +<p>"Tony, you—are—not—to—go."</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed! And pray, madam, who are you, to give me orders—<i>me</i>, that +was dux of my school when you were in your cradle?"</p> + +<p>"I am your mother, sir. It is a mother's business to give orders, and a +son's to obey them. And I say you are not to go to Wandooyamba."</p> + +<p>"If a mother is to issue commands of that sort, and in that tone of +voice, the least she can do is to give her reasons for them."</p> + +<p>"The reason is that Mary has company up there—people—a <i>person</i>—a +person that I don't choose you to associate with."</p> + +<p>"And who may that person be? A he or a she?"</p> + +<p>"You know quite well, so don't pretend you don't."</p> + +<p>"I know nothing," said Tony mendaciously, "and am most anxious for +information. I cannot imagine Mary associating with anybody who isn't +fit to associate with me. But perhaps it is I who am not fit? Who's the +almighty swell that I'm not good enough for?"</p> + +<p>"No swell at all—quite the contrary. It's that tea-room girl—oh, Tony, +I believe you knew all the time, only you like to put that mask on, +because you know how I hate to see you look at me like a wooden image! +It's that Liddon girl, that she made such an absurd fuss about. She +wasn't well, and Mary took her to Wandooyamba to recruit, and she's +there now."</p> + +<p>"I don't see what that has to do with me," said he in a stately way; +and he tried to move away from her.</p> + +<p>Maude clutched him with both hands round his arm, and moved with him. +"If it doesn't matter now, it will matter when you get under the same +roof with her. Oh!"—looking up at him—"you <i>did</i> know she was there, +and you <i>are</i> going after her! You used to sneak to the tea-room on the +sly—heaps of people have told me—and now you are going to Wandooyamba +just on purpose to make love to her—I can see it in your face, though +you have your mask on! Oh! Tony dear, don't—<i>don't</i> be a naughty, bad +boy—for my sake!"</p> + +<p>"If I have ever been bad—bad to women," said Tony, removing his mask, +"that time is over. Don't distress yourself. If I should by chance make +love to Miss Liddon, it will be quite respectably, I assure you."</p> + +<p>"But that would be <i>worse</i>!" shrieked Maude, coming to a standstill in +the middle of the room, horrified. "Oh, Tony, what are you talking +about—you, that have always been so fastidious! A tea-room girl! Oh, +you are only trying to aggravate me! I didn't save you from Lady Louisa +to have you throw yourself away on a tea-room girl!"</p> + +<p>He almost shook her, he was so angry with her. "May I ask you to be so +very good as to mind your own business, and allow me to manage mine?" he +said, with a sort of cold fury in his voice and eyes. It was not the way +a son should speak to his mother—indeed, it was quite brutal—but he +could not restrain himself; and she, looking at him, guessed what the +sudden rage portended.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> my business," she retorted, with equal passion. "It is my +family's business—it is all our businesses—to see that we are not +disgraced."</p> + +<p>"Disgraced!" he drawled, with bitter amusement. "Good Lord!"</p> + +<p>The white gauze over her bosom heaved like foam on a flowing tide, the +gold drops studding it shook like harebells in a breeze.</p> + +<p>"Tony," she burst out fiercely, "I shall tell your father of you."</p> + +<p>She swept out of the room, and he heard her long tail scraping over the +tiles of the hall, and rustling up the broad stairs.</p> + +<p>"Little devil!" he muttered in his teeth; and then he laughed, and his +eyes cleared, and he went out upon the colonnaded verandah and walked up +and down, with his hands behind him, till the gong clanged for dinner.</p> + +<p>Sedately he marched into the dining-room and stood by the table, he and +the servants, all silent alike, waiting for host and hostess to come +downstairs. Then in flounced Maude, in her glittering whiteness, with +her head up, and a wicked flash of triumph in her eyes as she met the +wooden stare of her stepson; and her husband followed at her heels, +furtive, downcast, troubled—pretending for the present that all was +well, and failing to convince even the footman that it was so. Tony was +at once aware that Maude had "told his father of him," and all through +dinner he was trying to forecast what the result would be. She sparkled +balefully for a time, trying to tease him into disputatious talk; but +his cold irresponsiveness cowed her into silence too, and the resource +of wistful glances that hinted at remorse and tears. It was a dismal +meal. When it was happily at an end, and she rose from her plate of +strawberries, he marched to the door and held it open for her, standing +stiffly, like a soldier sentinel. She looked at him appealingly, and +whispered "Forgive me," as she swept slowly out; but he stared stonily +over her head and took no notice.</p> + +<p>Shutting the door sharply behind her, he returned to his seat at the +table. The gliding servants vanished, and his father pushed the wine +towards him. There was a long silence, which he would not break. The old +man cleared his throat a few times, and smacked his lips over his old +port. At last their eyes met, and the spell was lifted.</p> + +<p>"What's this, my boy, about—about poor Liddon's daughter?"</p> + +<p>Anthony laid a broad palm over his father's hand resting on the table. +"Don't let us talk of it here, daddy," he said, with gruff gentleness. +"Finish your wine comfortably. Then we'll go into the smoking-room, and +I'll tell you all about it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Churchill brisked up, tossed off his port, and was ready for the +smoking-room at once. It was detached from the house, and its French +doors opened upon a retired lawn, on which the moon shone between the +shadows of shrubs and trees. They drew armchairs towards the threshold, +and lit their pipes, but not the lamps, and talked and talked in the +cooling twilight, as men who had confidence in one another.</p> + +<p>At first the father would not hear of the projected match. He belonged +to a vulgar little world that was eaten up with the love of money, and +could not despise the conventions of his caste. He argued, gently but +obstinately, that it would "never do, you know," for quite a long time, +thinking of what Maude would say to him if he failed to be firm; but a +mention of Maude's homely predecessor, and the days when there was no +high fashion in the family, touched his susceptible heart. Tony drew +comparisons between his dead mother, his stepmother and his proposed +wife, and morals therefrom.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," the old gentleman admitted, "there's something in that."</p> + +<p>"Where would you have been without <i>her</i>, all that time when you were +poor and struggling?"</p> + +<p>"True. But you are not poor and struggling."</p> + +<p>"I may be. No one can tell. Any sort of misfortune may come to a man. +And in the day of adversity—well, you can see what she would be."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's a good girl—I never denied it—as good as they make 'em."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I should fall ill? Maude's sister was at a ball the night +before her husband died."</p> + +<p>"She didn't know he was so bad, of course."</p> + +<p>"She would have guessed if she'd been a woman of the right sort. Jenny +won't go to balls when I am ill in bed, if it's only a cold or a +headache."</p> + +<p>"No doubt that's the sort to stick to you and comfort you." The old +father sighed as he reflected on his increasing gout. "And I +daresay—after all—in the long run perhaps——"</p> + +<p>"Exactly. I am firmly convinced of it. She will last it out. And +meanwhile, think of the cosy home I'll have! Oh, I may have been a +careless, fast fellow, but I've had my ideas of what I would like to be, +and like my home to be. And then there's the children—if anybody has +got the makings of a good mother in her, she has. Don't you see it +yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. A good daughter always makes a good mother."</p> + +<p>"If you'd seen her with Maude's brats—washing the milk and butter +stains from their hands and mouths! And they took to her on the spot, as +if they'd known her for years. It is a sure sign."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is—it is! Your mother had that way. Poor old girl! Many's the +time I've seen her at the wash-tub, and ironing my shirts, and cooking +my dinner, and you children hanging round her all the while. But it's +odd to see a swell fellow like you caring for that sort of thing. You've +been brought up so differently."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it's my mother's nature cropping out in me. But, in fact, it's +because I've seen too much, sir."</p> + +<p>"Too much what?"</p> + +<p>"Too much woman—of the sort that I know <i>don't</i> make good wives—at any +rate, not good enough for me."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you're wise! I daresay you do take after your mother; she was +better than I am. You are wiser for yourself than I should have been for +you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that it's wisdom, consciously. It's pure selfishness, as +like as not. I know she'll be good to me, and take care of me, and +stick to me through thick and thin."</p> + +<p>"You must stick to her, too, Tony."</p> + +<p>"No fear. A man couldn't play the beast, with a wife of that sort; at +least, I hope not. I mean to be a pattern husband."</p> + +<p>After the third pipe he rose up stealthily.</p> + +<p>"I'll just go and change my clothes and get home to bed," he said. "Say +good-night to Maude for me. I won't disturb her again."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, my boy. And you may tell her I've given my consent, if you +like. Only, mind you, we shall have to abolish the tea-room for the sake +of the family."</p> + +<p>"We'll hand it over to the basket-maker's wife, and that fellow in the +office must make a home for his remaining relatives. Good-night, +dad—good old dad!"</p> + +<p>He stole up to his room and changed his clothes, stole down again and +out into the moonlit garden. As the road gate clicked behind him he saw +the front-door open, and in the effulgent aperture a white figure that +glittered vaguely. A wailing note came through the scented dusk.</p> + +<p>"<i>Tony!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Good-night," he called back, and turned to run towards an approaching +tram. He made his voice as cheerful and kindly as he could, for he +forgave her now; but he said to himself, "Oh, you little Jezebel!" and +then, in a graver spirit, "Thank God, my Jenny is not one of that +breed!"</p> + +<p>He went home to bed and slept like a new-born baby. Next morning he went +early to the tea-room to tell Sarah that his father had given his +consent and good wishes, and to inquire if Jenny was still at +Wandooyamba—because Mary's telegram had made him nervous. Sarah said +her sister was with Mrs. Oxenham still, and not to return till after +Christmas; and Sarah wept a little for pure happiness, and kissed her +potential brother behind the screen. He would have spoken to Mrs. +Liddon, as suitor to guardian, before going away; but she was busy with +her scones, and the girl declared they would all be spoiled and the +credit of the tea-room ruined if such a surprise were sprung upon her at +such a time. So he left the matter in Sarah's hands, and went away and +did some more shopping; bought a beautiful little ring with a pea-sized +pearl in it, in addition to fish and lollies. No more telegrams +arrived, and Jarvis took the portmanteau to the station, and stood the +crush of ticket-getting, and put his master's coat and the evening +papers into the best corner of the smoking carriage on the express; and +at 4.55 the happy man was borne upon his way, feeling certain that he +was to see the wife he had promised himself before he went to bed that +night.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>A STRAW AGAINST THE TIDE</h3> + + +<p>Jenny was having an idyllic time at Wandooyamba. Mrs. Oxenham was not +the woman to do things by halves, and, having undertaken to restore the +girl to health, she set about the task with her native wisdom and +capability. New milk in the morning; broth at eleven o'clock; drives +behind Harry's wild teams, which never made her afraid; rides on a quiet +pony with him and little Hal; rambles in the wooded hills about the +house—the lone bush that she loved, but had never had her fill of; +these things, in conjunction with a kindness from all around her that +never allowed her to feel like an outsider, promptly brought a glow to +the magnolia-petal whiteness of the little face, and a clear light to +the eyes that had been so dull and tired.</p> + +<p>She was so perfectly well-mannered and well-bred, and she looked so +pretty in her neat gowns—particularly when she wore the black silk +that had been cut low and frilled with lace for the evening, showing her +delicately-curved and fine-skinned throat—that neither host nor hostess +felt any incongruity in her position as their social equal and the equal +of their friends. If they remembered the tea-room, they remembered also +the father who had been an Eton boy; but soon they forgot all about her +antecedents and belongings, and esteemed her wholly on her own merits. +They wished they could have kept her altogether, as housekeeper, or +companion, or governess to the children (two sturdy boys, who loved her +with all the sincerity of their discriminating little hearts), because +she was so gentle, and so useful, and never in anybody's way.</p> + +<p>She was never in anybody's way, and yet she was always at hand if there +was anything to be done that nobody else was ready to do. Until she had +left the house no one realised the amount of unostentatious service that +she represented. She made toys for the boys; she made sailor suits for +them (though nobody had wanted her to do that); she arranged the +flowers; she sewed and cut the weekly papers; she marked handkerchiefs; +she made the tea; she took the children for walks, and kept them good by +telling stories to them—a great relief to the house when school-time +was over and the governess had gone away.</p> + +<p>"She's just my right hand," Mary said to her husband one day; "and I +don't know what I shall do without her when the time comes to send her +home. It's like having a younger sister to stay with one."</p> + +<p>"It is," said Mr. Oxenham, who had just found his favourite driving +gloves, of which several fingers and thumbs had opened, mended so neatly +that they were as good as ever.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, neither of them had any idea of making an actual younger +sister of Jenny Liddon, and when Tony's letter arrived there was +consternation over its contents.</p> + +<p>"Now, isn't that just <i>too</i> bad?" Mary cried, as she dashed it on the +table, and stamped her foot with vexation (Jenny being in the +school-room with the boys). "When I wanted him to come, he wouldn't; and +now I don't want him he starts off, without giving me any warning, in +this way! Oh, it really is too provoking of him! To-morrow—that's this +very night, less than twelve hours from now—he will be here, Harry. And +that girl in the house!"</p> + +<p>"It's awkward," said Harry, picking up the letter and perusing it for +himself. "A fetching little thing like her, and a handsome, fast fellow +like him, both under the same roof——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it must not be," Mrs. Oxenham declared impetuously. "It must be +prevented at all costs. I have a duty to Jenny as well as to my brother. +I only hope and trust he doesn't <i>know</i> she is here—I asked them not to +mention it, and you see he says nothing about her; but, whether or no, I +am not going to let either of them make fools of themselves, if I can +help it."</p> + +<p>"You can't very well tell him not to come, my dear."</p> + +<p>"I know I can't. Besides, that would only make him the more determined."</p> + +<p>"Nor yet pack Miss Liddon home, after asking her to stay over +Christmas—like a schoolgirl expelled for misconduct."</p> + +<p>"I know that too. I must scheme and plot to deceive them, like the bad +women in novels; only they do it to harm people, while I shall do it +for their good. Go away, Harry, and let me think."</p> + +<p>He went away, and was uncomfortable till lunch time, when she met him +with a calm face and a telegram in her hand, which she asked him to +despatch to the township for her.</p> + +<p>"I have put him off till to-morrow," she said. "You can tell him the +horses were lame, or something."</p> + +<p>Mr. Oxenham, who had scores of buggy horses, all jumping out of their +skins with the exhilaration of their spring coats and renewed +constitutions, said she must think of something that Tony would be more +likely to believe than <i>that</i>. And she said, "Oh, leave it to me!" And +he replied that he would do so with the very greatest pleasure.</p> + +<p>The luncheon bell rang, and Jenny came into the pleasant dining-room, +with the children clinging to her. She put them in high chairs on either +side of her place at the table, and tied on their bibs, and cut up their +roast mutton and potato, like the little mother that her lover dreamed +of.</p> + +<p>"Why do you bother about those brats, Miss Liddon, while the nurse +spends all her time flirting over the back fence?" their father said, +in a gay but compunctious tone. And he helped her to mayonnaise, and to +her special wine, and to cool soda-water, and to salt, and to anything +he could lay his hands on; for he feared they were going to treat her +badly, and he wanted to put in all the good treatment that he could +beforehand.</p> + +<p>His wife regarded the girl with infinite kindness, but no compunction +whatever—for she was a woman, and not a man.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, dear," she said, "do you think you would enjoy a little drive +this afternoon? I don't think it is too hot."</p> + +<p>"I should, greatly," Jenny replied, the ready glow in her face. "But I +enjoy everything—whether out of doors or in—whatever you like best."</p> + +<p>"Me, too," clamoured little Hal. "Let me go too, mother! Then I can tell +Miss Liddon some more about Uncle Tony's ship that he's gone to Tasmania +in."</p> + +<p>With the explosion of this unexpected bomb the colour flew over Jenny's +face, and, because she knew she was blushing, it deepened to the hue of +a peony. Anthony had not been named in the family circle since her +arrival, except to and by this terrible infant; even Sarah had been +afraid to interfere with the march of events by any allusion to him in +her letters. So that Jenny believed him to be still upon the sea, and +that nobody knew how she thought about him.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oxenham flashed one lightning glance at her guest, and leisurely +helped her little son to gravy. "It isn't Uncle Tony's ship, as it +happens; it is Mr. Daunt's," she said. "And what do you know about +ships, you monkey?"</p> + +<p>She looked at her husband, and he knew she looked at him, though he was +eating industriously, with his eyes upon his plate.</p> + +<p>"I sha'n't be able to take you this afternoon, Mary," he mumbled, with +his mouth full, visibly shrinking. "I shall be busy."</p> + +<p>"We shall not want you, dear," she calmly answered him. "Dickson can +drive us. I am going to the township to do a little shopping for +Christmas. And, Jenny, we will call on your aunt at the bank; it will be +a good opportunity."</p> + +<p>Jenny's aunt, her mother's sister, chanced to live in the town which was +the Oxenhams' post-town and their railway terminus. Neither aunt, +uncle, nor cousins had communicated with the Liddons since the tea-room +was instituted, and had intended never again to do so; but when they +discovered that the arch-offender against the pride of the Rogersons was +a guest at Wandooyamba, the great house of the district, which had never +conferred such a distinction upon them, their attitude towards this +kinswoman changed completely. They rushed to call upon her, and to clasp +her in their arms, and to beg that she would go and see them while she +was so near. Their call had not yet been returned, and the invitation +had been disregarded, because Mrs. Oxenham had looked a little coldly +upon the connection, and Jenny had preferred her friend to her +relations; but now Mary considered that the time had come to attend to +them. "We will go and see your aunt and cousins," she said cheerfully. +"They must wonder what has become of you."</p> + +<p>And Jenny thought it was so good of her to trouble about people she +didn't care for, for the sake of a guest who was of no account, and +thanked her gratefully.</p> + +<p>They set out immediately after luncheon. They had six miles to go, +mostly up-hill, and the light breeze was behind them, carrying the dust +of hot December into their necks and ears. Mrs. Oxenham beguiled the way +with prattle about Mr. Daunt's yachting party and the beautiful Lady +Louisa who held her brother in bonds; and Jenny looked annoyingly pale +and tired when they arrived.</p> + +<p>"We will go to the bank first," said the elder lady, "in the hope that +Mrs. Rogerson will give us a good cup of tea."</p> + +<p>And the coachman was ordered thither.</p> + +<p>The maid who answered his ring at the private door announced that Mrs. +Rogerson was in, and ushered the visitors upstairs into a stifling +drawing-room—only used for the reception of callers and an occasional +evening party. Here they sat for full ten minutes, fanning themselves +with their handkerchiefs, and looking round upon the art muslin +draperies, and be-ribboned tambourines, and Liberty-silk-swathed plates +and photographs, waiting for their hostess to appear. Mrs. Oxenham made +no remarks upon what she saw, nor upon the rustlings and whisperings +that she heard, because these people were Jenny's relatives; and Jenny +took no notice of anything.</p> + +<p>Her aunt came in, damp and flushed with heat and haste and the weight of +a silk dress covered with beads. She was a great contrast to Mrs. +Liddon, as she was well aware; much more stylish in every way—much more +on a level with this distinguished squatter's wife, whom she gushed over +effusively.</p> + +<p>"And you, too, Jenny!"—kissing the girl, who offered her cheek and not +her lips to the salute. "I really thought you had gone home without +coming to see us."</p> + +<p>This was just what Jenny would have done, if left to her own devices, +having no desire for intimacy with Aunt Emma or her family after the way +they had treated her about the tea-room; and she made no reply.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oxenham answered for her, however. "I should not have allowed that, +you may be sure. Aunts and cousins"—disregarding Jenny's protesting +eyes—"are more to one than strangers."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Rogerson. "And I want to hear about my poor +sister—poor thing! When we were girls together, and papa and mamma +giving us every luxury that money could buy, I little thought what she +was to come to, Mrs. Oxenham. And we believed she had made a good +marriage too. Your father, Jenny, was an Eton boy."</p> + +<p>"I know," said blushing Jenny, who often wished devoutly that her father +had gone to a state school.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Liddon was a gentleman," said Mary, "and his daughter takes after +him. I'm sure I don't know what Mr. Oxenham and I will do without her +when she leaves us. It is like having one of our own."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Rogerson gushed afresh—over her niece this time; and two smart +girl-cousins came in and gushed with her. They sat on either side of +Jenny and held her hands, until one of them (Joey's adored one) got up +to make the tea.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Rogerson. "She was always a favourite with us; +we always knew she was a lady born, in spite of her absurd notions about +tea-rooms and so forth—which, I must confess, <i>did</i> make us a little +angry with her. You would have felt it yourself, Mrs. Oxenham, now +wouldn't you? But, after all, blood is blood, isn't it? You can't alter +that. Our own grandfather was nephew to a baronet—Sir Timothy Smith. +You may have heard of him?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oxenham said she did not remember to have done so—that perhaps he +was before her time—and graciously took another cup of tea, which she +declared was delicious.</p> + +<p>"And now, when are you coming to us, Jenny?" Cousin Alice inquired. +"Couldn't you come and spend the day to-morrow? And couldn't <i>you</i> come, +Mrs. Oxenham? Our tennis club is having a tournament, and we are giving +a tea on the ground—under nice shady trees, you know. It would be such +an honour if you would come and look on at us."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid <i>I</i> couldn't," said Mary, with a pretence of thinking it +over. "But Jenny, if she likes, I could send her in."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! And couldn't she spend a few days with us when she was here? +We have seen nothing of her. We could drive her back to Wandooyamba."</p> + +<p>This was what Mrs. Oxenham had fished for, had roasted herself in the +sun for, and she roused herself to deal with the timely opportunity. She +looked at Jenny, and Jenny looked back at her with eyes that said "No" +so unmistakably as to suggest the thought that perhaps she knew of +Anthony's coming to the mind of the suspicious woman. This made her +resolute.</p> + +<p>"What do you say, dear?" she inquired genially; and in a moment Jenny +understood that her friend wished her to accept the invitation, and was +wondering in a startled way whether she had outstayed her welcome at +Wandooyamba. "Don't consider us—we must not be selfish—and you will +come back to us, of course. Dickson could drive you over when he goes +for the letters, and that would give you the afternoon to see the +tournament."</p> + +<p>There was nothing to say but "thank you" all round, and Jenny said it +with good taste, determined to bring her holiday to an end as soon as +possible—not to return to Wandooyamba after leaving it, but to spend +Christmas with her own too-long deserted family. Mary had an inkling of +what was going on in the girl's mind, but said to herself that it +couldn't be helped. Anthony must be saved at all hazards.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>A STAR IN TWILIGHT</h3> + + +<p>Mrs. Oxenham was immensely kind to Jenny when the pair were again upon +the road.</p> + +<p>"They seemed to want you so much, darling, and I thought your mother +would wish you to show them some attention," she said. "But goodness +knows what Harry and I will do without you! We shall be quite lost, and +the children too, till you come back again."</p> + +<p>"You are too good to me," murmured Jenny, half inclined to cry. "I think +I am getting quite spoiled."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! You are not one of the spoilable sort," said Mary tenderly.</p> + +<p>Jenny had but one portmanteau with her, and into this she packed all her +belongings before starting off next day. Mr. Oxenham put it and her into +the buggy with his own hands, and, because he was not directly +responsible for her departure, bewailed it loudly.</p> + +<p>"I call it too bad of you—downright mean, I call it—to run away from +us like this, Miss Liddon," he said to her again and again, to the +unconcealed irritation of his wife.</p> + +<p>"You go on, Harry, as if she were leaving us for ever. We haven't seen +the last of her yet—not by a long way, have we, dear?"</p> + +<p>The parting guest was sped with warmest kisses and handclasps, and +bidden vaguely to come back again soon. But as she stood up to wave her +handkerchief to the children from the middle of the home paddock, +looking back upon the great, rambling house, where she had had such a +good time, she said to herself that she should go back no more. If +matters had turned out differently she would have called her conviction +of that moment a presentiment.</p> + +<p>Aunt Emma and Cousins Clementine and Alice received her cordially, and +at once began to pelt her with questions concerning the Oxenham +household, and as to what she knew of the Churchills in town. Uncle +John, the bank manager, lunching with his family, asked about Joey, and +the state of the restaurant business, and other practical matters. In +the afternoon she helped to carry cakes and cream jugs to the +tennis-ground, and was there introduced to the rank and fashion of the +town, not as "My cousin, who keeps the tea-room in Little Collins +Street," but as "My cousin, who is staying with Mrs. Oxenham at +Wandooyamba," and she sat under a tree and watched the players, and +talked when she was obliged to talk, and, when she wasn't, thought her +own thoughts, which were chiefly concerned in devising some way of +getting home immediately.</p> + +<p>The tennis-tea was followed by tea at the bank, composed of the remains +of the former, with cold meat and eggs; and by-and-by the moon got up, +and it was proposed that the young people should have a walk to enjoy +the pleasant night. A bank-clerk and a bachelor lawyer, who had "dropped +in," attached themselves to Clem and Alice, and Mrs. Rogerson and her +niece soberly chaperoned the party, and talked family affairs together.</p> + +<p>The night train from Melbourne came in at ten o'clock, and the little +township loved to catch it in the act. All townships which have a train +do. It is a never-failing joy to them. And, finding themselves in the +neighbourhood of the station at about 9.35, the Rogerson girls exclaimed +with one voice, "Let's stay and see the train come in."</p> + +<p>The motion was carried unanimously, and for half an hour they loitered +up and down the platform, looking into the vagueness of the moonlit +night, and talking and laughing rather loudly; all but Jenny, who, +though she was so much less genteel than these relations, did not think +it good manners to make a noise. And so it came to pass that she +presently saw a buggy dash into the station-yard, and recognised it as +the one that had brought her in in the morning.</p> + +<p>"That's to meet somebody," said Clem to Alice, with intense curiosity. +"Jenny, who's expected at Wandooyamba to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody, that I know of," said Jenny. "They are always sending for +parcels and things."</p> + +<p>The train signalled from a distance, hummed through the still night, and +clattered up to the platform, watched intently by all the eyes +available. It was not the great express, but a local off-shoot from it, +and the passengers it disgorged at this point were not very numerous. +The first to tumble out was a big man with a red beard.</p> + +<p>"Oh! <i>Oh!</i> OH! It's Mrs. Oxenham's brother! It's Mr. Anthony Churchill! +He hasn't been here for ages—they said he was in England. Oh, isn't he +handsome? Oh, I wonder if he will come to the town at all? Oh, Jenny, +just see what you have missed!"</p> + +<p>Jenny drew back into the dim crowd, on which he cast no glance as he +strode to the buggy, calling to a porter to bring his things. She said +nothing, but she thought—it was a thought that stung like fire—"Now I +know why I have been sent away from Wandooyamba."</p> + +<p>Anthony's journey had been a pleasant one—especially the latter part of +it, when the coolness of a dewy night had replaced the glare of day; +smoking quietly, and meditating upon his prospects, he would not have +changed places with a king. Since he had definitely made up his mind to +marry Jenny, and since his father had admitted the wisdom of that +proceeding, and consented to it, all seemed plain and clear before him; +for he had no fear of Mary, who was the first to know her worth, and +already treated her as a sister, and no fear at all that the girl +herself would for a moment dream of refusing him. He was too deeply +experienced in the signs and tokens of the supreme sentiment not to +recognise it when he saw it, and he had seen it very plainly once or +twice through the modest disguises that she flattered herself had +screened it from him.</p> + +<p>All the way up he had been thinking of her, imagining their meeting at +Wandooyamba, and all that he would do on the morrow, which was Sunday, +and a most beautiful day for love-making. He planned the time and +circumstances of his marriage, and how the other Liddons should be +disposed of while he was showing the world to his bride, and where he +and she would live, and what sort of home they would have when they +settled down after their travels. Being Saturday night, which passengers +by the express who want to go all the way to Sydney don't choose for +starting on that journey, if they can help it, he had room to put up his +legs and make a rug pillow for his head; in which condition of bodily +ease, his mind, so to speak, went out to play, and amused itself +delightfully. Jenny would not have known herself had she seen how she +was pictured in the fancies of his dreaming brain.</p> + +<p>Needless to say, he never dreamed of seeing her on the platform when he +arrived, and did not do so. At each of the country stations there was a +lounging crowd to see the train come in, people to whom it was the chief +entertainment in life, and who were a great nuisance occasionally to the +hungry and thirsty traveller with but a few minutes in which to get his +meal; but these had nothing to do with Jenny or with him, and were +ignored as far as possible. He distinctly heard the "Oh's" of Clementine +and Alice, and the sound of his name, and nothing was less likely to +suggest the presence of his little sweetheart, with her shy refinement. +He knew that a man would have been sent to meet the train, and looked +for him and him only. In two minutes his rug and luggage were in the +buggy, and the light vehicle spinning out of the town.</p> + +<p>The groom was a youth who was not supposed to know anything about the +inside of his master's house, and Anthony heard no news that interested +him—except that Mr. Oxenham did not intend to drive Emily again with +ladies and children behind her; which was a great relief to him. He lit +his pipe afresh, and leaned back in his corner with arms folded, and +thought of what was coming, in a mood of mind that he had imagined +himself to have outgrown years and years ago. The night was very sweet +and still, with its delicate mixture of moonlight and shadow; a night to +make the most world-hardened man feel sentimental. And the spell of the +lonely bush is very strong upon those who are native to it, when they +have been away for a long time.</p> + +<p>"There will be a moon again to-morrow night," he thought. "And all these +leagues of solitude to lose ourselves in! It shall be settled to-morrow +night, and then we will both stay for Christmas, while I teach her to +get used to it. Oh, this is better than the Richmond lodgings, or the +St. Kilda pier!"</p> + +<p>Through the trees he saw a dark bank, crowned with a cluster of low +roofs, uplifted from the valley pastures to the palely shining sky. He +looked at it with kindling eyes, and thought of the little figure moving +about the many rooms, in the atmosphere of cultured people—its native +air—and how considerate and sagacious his sister Mary was. A light +like a star stole out upon the hill, and another, and another. He hoped +devoutly that Mary had not sent her charge to bed.</p> + +<p>"What time do you make it, Pat?"</p> + +<p>"About eleven, sir; not more."</p> + +<p>Oh, that wasn't bed-time! And she was not ill now. Perhaps, however, she +would make an excuse to retire, lest she should be in the way at the +family meeting; it would be just like her. Perhaps she would go to bed +to avoid him, out of pure shyness. The doubt worried him, for he had set +his heart on seeing her that night—just to satisfy himself that she was +really alive and well, and had not been forgetting to care for him +during his long absence from her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>"YOU NEED NOT EXPECT ME BACK"</h3> + + +<p>Harry Oxenham, pipe in mouth, stood at the open garden gate. Mary stood +on the step of the front door. Conscious of guilt, they greeted him with +more than usual cordiality.</p> + +<p>"And so you have really come, after all, my dear old boy," his sister +cried, with her arms about his neck. "This <i>is</i> good of you! A piece of +luck that I <i>never</i> expected!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've come. Awfully glad to get into clean air, out of those +stinking streets. How are the kids? Why didn't you let me come last +night?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the kids are as right as possible. You won't know them, they have +grown so. Of course they are in bed and asleep, or they would be pulling +you down between them."</p> + +<p>She was hoping the tiresome brats wouldn't begin to talk of Jenny the +first thing in the morning, and he was anxiously peering over her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Why did you stop me yesterday, Polly?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, for reasons—never mind now, as long as you are here. Come in and +have some supper. You must be hungry and tired after your long journey. +Did you bring me some fish? Oh, thanks. It will be a treat, after weeks +of Murray cod."</p> + +<p>He followed her across the hall into the dining-room, where half the +table was spread with a tempting meal. He looked around; there was no +one there. He looked at Mary, and he thought she blushed.</p> + +<p>"Where is Miss Liddon?" he inquired coolly. "Has she gone to bed?"</p> + +<p>This time Mary blushed unmistakably. She exchanged a faltering glance +with her husband, who sidled out of the room; then she rallied her +dignity, and quietly replied that Miss Liddon was not with her.</p> + +<p>"She was here two days ago," said Tony darkly.</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind how I know it. Only I do, for a certainty."</p> + +<p>"Not from me; I have told nobody. If <i>she</i> has been writing to +you,"—Mrs. Oxenham, gentle woman that she was, flared up at the +thought—"all I can say is that I am shockingly deceived in her."</p> + +<p>"She never wrote to me in her life. But that's neither here nor there. +The fact remains that she was in this house two days ago, and is out of +it now. What have you done with her?"</p> + +<p>There was an irritating abruptness in his tone and manner, and his +sister threw up her head with a haughty gesture.</p> + +<p>"<i>I?</i> Is she a child, that anybody should do anything with her? She has +some relations living in the town, and has gone to stay with them."</p> + +<p>"When did she go?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear Tony, you are too absurd! And I don't choose to be +catechised in this fashion. Miss Liddon is nothing to you."</p> + +<p>"That's all you know about it. When did she go, Mary?"</p> + +<p>He looked hard at her, and she at him, and she held her breath for a +moment, trying to grasp the situation.</p> + +<p>"She went this morning."</p> + +<p>"And knew that I was coming to-night?"</p> + +<p>"How can I tell? I did not think it necessary to talk about it to her."</p> + +<p>"You mean you kept it from her? And that you contrived that she should +go to her relations—having put me off to give you time to do it—so as +to have her out of my way. I know about those relations. They have +snubbed and spurned her in her struggles, like the cads they are, and +she can't endure them."</p> + +<p>"They have been exceedingly attentive to her, and had asked her to visit +them a dozen times. They proposed to-day themselves."</p> + +<p>"I have it from her sister. And also that she was expecting to stay on +here. It was in a letter, dated two days ago. I read it. Mary, it seems +to me that you have behaved abominably. You simply turned her out."</p> + +<p>"Tony, I will not allow you to talk to me like that. And just let me ask +<i>you</i> one question:—Supposing I did, what in the world can it matter to +you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I came up on purpose to see her, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Oh! You are very complimentary to us. But you don't mean that, of +course. <i>You!</i> A man in your position can't possibly have any concern +with a girl in hers; at least, you have no business to have any."</p> + +<p>"That's worthy of Maude, Polly. In fact, the very words she said to me +yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Maude? What does she know about it? Tony, you are talking riddles. I +can't understand you in the least."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maude knows. So does my father. But <i>he</i> doesn't say those +insulting things. He says I have made a wise choice—as I know I +have—and has given us his consent and blessing in advance. Do you +understand now?"</p> + +<p>She understood, and was momentarily stunned. Not Lady Louisa, after all, +but this little no-account tea-room girl! It was a heavy shock. She +dropped into a chair, flung herself back in it, and ejaculated, +"<i>Well!</i>"—adding with a long breath, "And she never gave me the least +hint of it all this time!"</p> + +<p>"She couldn't very well, seeing that she hasn't the faintest idea of +such a thing herself—to the best of my knowledge."</p> + +<p>"Then"—eagerly—"you have not spoken yet?"</p> + +<p>"I am going to speak as soon as I can find her. And you are not going to +prevent me, though you may think you are."</p> + +<p>He poured out some whisky, and began to survey the dishes on the table. +He was very angry, and consequently calm.</p> + +<p>"Where's Harry?" he inquired. "I ordered the new buggy yesterday. I want +to tell him about it. Harry, where are you?"</p> + +<p>Harry came in, sheepish, but blustering, and was delighted to go into +the buggy question without delay. They sat down to supper, and the men +discussed business matters throughout the meal. Then Mr. Oxenham +faint-heartedly proposed a smoke.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," said Anthony. "I'm off to bed. Same room, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear." She followed him into the hall. "Aren't you going to say +good-night to me, Tony?"</p> + +<p>He kissed her coldly in silence.</p> + +<p>"I did not know," she whispered. "It is so sudden—so unexpected. We +will talk it over to-morrow, Tony."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to talk over," said he. And he marched off.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oxenham went to bed and cried. Then she thought deeply for a long +time. Then she woke her husband up to talk to him.</p> + +<p>"After all," she said, "it might have been worse. Some men, gentlemen of +the highest class, marry barmaids and actresses—the vulgarest +creatures. And Jenny isn't vulgar. However unsuitable she may be in +other ways, personally she is a lady. That's one comfort. And—and it's +very noble of him, don't you think?"</p> + +<p>She got up early in the morning, and wrote to Jenny.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Child</span>,—</p> + +<p>"My brother came last night, and was in a great way to find you +gone. Ask your aunt to be good enough to spare you again to us, for +I want you to help me to entertain him. We are talking of a picnic +to the ranges, and could not manage that without you. I am sending +Dickson with the buggy. Come back with him, and your aunt can have +you later.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">"Your affectionate friend,<br /></span> +<span class="i24">"<span class="smcap">Mary Oxenham</span>."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>This note was delivered at the bank at breakfast time, with the message +that the man was waiting for an answer. Jenny took it to her room, read +it, and penned the following reply with a violently shaking hand:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Oxenham</span>,—</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much for your kindness in wishing me to return to +you, but I think I ought not to prolong my holiday further, now +that I am quite strong again. I am sure they must be badly wanting +me at home, and I have decided to go back to-morrow, with some +friends of my aunt's who happen to be going down. I could not leave +her to-day, as I have but just come, and the time is so short. I am +very sorry you should have had the trouble of sending the buggy for +nothing. Please accept my grateful thanks for all your kindness, +which I shall never forget, and believe me,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">"Yours sincerely,<br /></span> +<span class="i24">"<span class="smcap">Jenny Liddon</span>."<br /></span> +</div></div> +</blockquote> + +<p>Anthony at Wandooyamba was restless and surly. Mary had always been his +ally in everything, and these devoted ones are the people we have no +compunction about punishing severely when they do happen inadvertently +to offend us. He would not forgive her for sending Jenny away.</p> + +<p>"Can you lend me a horse, Harry?" was the first thing he said on coming +down to breakfast—before he had even noticed the children, whom he had +not seen for so long.</p> + +<p>"A dozen, my dear fellow, if you want them," said Harry.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I only want one."</p> + +<p>Mary leaned over the table and whispered to him, "Wait a little. She is +coming back to-day."</p> + +<p>"Have you sent for her?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "She will know what she was turned out for, and she +won't come back."</p> + +<p>"She will—she will," said Mary, who devoutly hoped it. "Wait till +Dickson returns, at any rate."</p> + +<p>Dickson had a wife and family in the township, and when he found that he +had not to drive the young lady to Wandooyamba, he concluded that he +need not hurry home, but might take his ease in his own house, as he was +accustomed to do on the day of rest; so he pocketed Jenny's letter until +the evening. When he then delivered it—at past six o'clock—he was very +much surprised and offended at being taken to task for presuming to +exercise his own judgment in the matter. He little knew what the +consequences had been to Mr. Churchill's temper and his mistress's peace +of mind. Tony was a handful that day, and sincerely did Mary regret +having tried to play Providence to him.</p> + +<p>She went to church with her family—to her own little bush church which +her own money maintained; the parson, ritual, and general affairs of +which were wholly under her direction—hoping to find the lovers +together on her return. In the afternoon they all walked for miles on +the track of the expected buggy, and walked back again, casting wistful +looks behind them. Then Dickson came leisurely ambling home—they saw +him from the verandah sitting in solitary state—and Jenny's letter was +delivered and the suspense ended.</p> + +<p>Mary tore it open, read it with distress, almost with tears, and handed +it to her brother. He perused it with a grim smile, put it into his +pocket, and ordered a horse to be saddled immediately.</p> + +<p>"What, at <i>this</i> hour?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"I have wasted too many," he answered stiffly. "Good-night. You need not +expect me back again."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>JENNY IS TREATED LIKE A LADY</h3> + + +<p>That night the Rogersons went to church in a body, as usual, for they +were a churchy family. Mrs. Rogerson was that power in the congregation +which only a self-asserting, middle-aged, highly-respectable female of +pronounced religious views can be, and fully recognised her +responsibilities as such; knew that she was expected to set an example, +and believed that the parochial machine would certainly get out of gear +if she did not keep a constant eye upon it. Alice and Clementine were +both in the choir, and particularly indispensable to it of an evening, +when anthems were performed. Mr. Rogerson carried round the plate and +counted the money in the vestry—most important function and functionary +of them all. When the early tea was disposed of, and the table prepared +for the substantial supper which was the concluding ceremony of the +day, whereat the minister and several leading church members assisted, +the family put on their best bonnets, and brushed their hats, and went +forth to their devotions, leaving a godless young clerk, with a cigar +and a novel, to keep guard over the bank's treasure in their absence.</p> + +<p>Leaving also Jenny—not with the young bank-clerk, who was invisible, +but on a sofa in the hot drawing-room upstairs, complaining of a +headache, which she had legitimately come by through exciting her little +soul over Mrs. Oxenham's letter and the perplexing questions that it +raised. They had urged her to go to church, that she might hear the +anthem and see how well they did things, but her intense craving to be +alone to think gave her strength to resist their importunities. She was +provided with Drummond's <i>Natural Law</i> and a smelling-bottle, and left +in peace.</p> + +<p>Just as the church bells were silenced by the striking of the town +clock, Mr. Churchill reached the principal hotel; and he quickly +unpacked the small valise he had carried on his saddle, washed and +brushed, and fortified himself with whisky and a biscuit, in lieu of his +lost dinner, which he had not time to think of now. And at about the +moment when Clementine began her solo in the anthem he rang the bell at +the bank door. Somebody, he knew, would be upon the premises, and he was +prepared to explain the object of his visit to any whom it might +concern.</p> + +<p>The young clerk thought of burglars, and was at first reluctant, but, on +recognising the untimely caller, admitted the great man, and did what in +him lay to be obliging. Jenny heard the ring and the little stir in the +hall, but took no notice. She was entirely absorbed in wondering why +Mrs. Oxenham wanted to throw her at Mr. Churchill's head to-day, after +taking such extreme measures to remove her from him yesterday; and why +Mr. Churchill, supposed to be engaged to Lady Louisa, should be in "a +great way" because he had not found at Wandooyamba the girl of whom he +had taken no notice while they were both in town and he was at liberty +to interview her at any time. She was lying all along on a sofa, with +her arms thrown up and her hands under her head. Her little figure was +clad in a white gown—a costume insisted on by Mrs. Oxenham in this +midsummer weather. The light from the window beside her touched her +chestnut hair and her pure skin and her bright eyes, that were fixed in +deep abstraction upon the wall. If she had posed to look her prettiest, +she could not have succeeded better.</p> + +<p>A heavy step came up the stairs, and she did not stir, for <i>she</i> had no +thought of burglars. Not until it slackened and paused at the open door +of the drawing-room, threatening an intrusion upon her precious hour of +peace, did she turn her head apprehensively. When she saw who it was +that stood there, looking at her, she bounded to her feet as if she had +been shot.</p> + +<p>"Oh—h—h!" she breathed almost inaudibly.</p> + +<p>"Miss Liddon, I am so glad to find you at home."</p> + +<p>He was as sober as one could desire that a gentleman should be, but +probably it was whisky on an empty stomach which made him bold at a time +when most men are liable to be daunted; for, seeing her standing there, +trembling, cowering, but visibly glowing from head to foot, he made up +his mind that then and there would he settle the great question between +them. No, not <i>there</i>. As he took his resolution, he remembered how +short the evening service is, though it may not seem so to the persons +taking part in it, and how horrible it would be to be disturbed in the +middle of his proposal by the Rogersons and the parson and half a dozen +gossips of the township coming in. So he said to Jenny, holding her hand +very firmly, "As you wouldn't come to Wandooyamba, I have been obliged +to come to you. I have something of great importance to say to you; and +I want to know if you will come out for a little walk on the hills with +me? It is not very hot now."</p> + +<p>Jenny's colour deepened, and her tremblings increased. She withdrew her +hand. "There is no one here," she said.</p> + +<p>"But there will be soon. And I have a great deal to tell you—I want to +be free to talk. Come out for a walk. Your aunt won't object when she +knows it is I who am with you. Go and put your hat on—quick."</p> + +<p>She hesitated still. "It is not—not anything the matter? Not anybody +ill? Nothing wrong at home?"</p> + +<p>"No, no! Make haste and get ready, or they will be back before we can +get away."</p> + +<p>She ran off to her room, and there stood still for a minute, clenching +her hands and drawing long breaths that shook her little frame. Thoughts +raced too fast to be followed, but if she could not think she could +feel. If she could not understand him she was sure she could trust him; +his sister's endorsement of his proceedings was a guarantee of that. She +put on her hat, snatched up a pair of gloves, and returned to him +speechless.</p> + +<p>"You don't want gloves," he said, and took them from her, and laid them +on a table on the landing. They went downstairs, and the young clerk let +them out of the iron-lined door.</p> + +<p>"You can tell Mrs. Rogerson that I will bring Miss Liddon home safely," +said Anthony, with the air of a lawful guardian. It was nearly eight +o'clock, and daylight was fading fast. He had an idea that there would +be a moon, which would make a walk on the hills delicious, forgetting +that the moon was not due for another hour and a half. Jenny had no +ideas upon the subject; she left all to him.</p> + +<p>Immediately behind the township the rocky ranges began to rise and to +break like waves into little valleys and gorges that were as lonely as +a desert island, though so near the haunts of men. He knew all their ins +and outs, and in his own mind had marked the group of boulders where he +and Jenny would sit while he asked her to marry him. He had found it +years before, when out on a picnic; it had wattle-feathered rock on +three sides of it, and in front the ground fell into a ravine that +opened the whole way to the sunset. Two quiet streets, a lane, and a +rather weary mountain path led to this airy solitude, and one could +reach it with steady walking in a little over half-an-hour. One might +have thought it would certainly be occupied or invaded on a Sunday +night, with so many wanderers abroad, but as a fact the townspeople +cared nothing for the beautiful scenery at their doors, and did not go +into the ranges from year's end to year's end. Anthony knew that, and +chanced finding his eyrie untenanted.</p> + +<p>Through the streets where 'Arry and 'Arriet were strolling on the +footpaths and flirting over their garden gates, he led his spell-bound +companion, chatting commonplaces by the way.</p> + +<p>"You know that I have been absent from town?" he said.</p> + +<p>She replied that she had not known it till the other day.</p> + +<p>"Yes, for several weeks. And I had no idea you were here all this time. +Of course I got no letters at sea."</p> + +<p>"The sea must have been delicious in the hot weather," remarked Jenny, +thinking of her sufferings during the Cup season in the stifling air of +Little Collins Street.</p> + +<p>"No, it wasn't. At least, I did not enjoy it. I daresay the sea was +right enough; I might have enjoyed it in other company."</p> + +<p>"But I thought your company—Mrs. Oxenham told me——"</p> + +<p>"What did Mrs. Oxenham tell you?" But he divined what it was. "That +there was a lady on board whom I was specially interested in?"</p> + +<p>"She thought you were engaged to her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, did she? People have no business to <i>think</i> about those matters; +they ought to <i>know</i>, before they talk. That lady was just about the +last woman in the world to suit me. And they bored me to death—the +whole lot of them."</p> + +<p>Jenny's heart leaped in her breast, but still she did not dare to ask +herself what his words and his visit portended. They had begun to climb +the mountain pathway, a devious and stony track through wattle bushes +and gum saplings, and it had grown almost too dark to see his face.</p> + +<p>"Have we not gone far enough?" she asked him, pausing.</p> + +<p>"It is the scrub that shuts the light out," he said quickly. "And there +will be a moon directly. Just a little further, and we shall get the +breeze from the top. Does it tire you? Let me help you up."</p> + +<p>He offered his arm, but she declined it. She was not tired, but nervous +about being out so late and so far from home.</p> + +<p>"Not with me," he said; and added, "There's nothing clandestine about +it. Mrs. Rogerson knows—at any rate, she will when I take you home—and +so does Mary."</p> + +<p>"Does Mrs. Oxenham know that I am walking here with you?" she was +impelled to inquire, breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Most certainly she does."</p> + +<p>Jenny climbed on blindly, with her head spinning round. Presently they +reached the top, and the cool air blew in their faces. The town, the +inhabited world, was behind them, cut off by a granite wall and the +obliteration of the track in the gloom of night; in front the ravine +stretched away to the pale saffron of the west, and, looking in that +direction, it did not seem that day was over yet.</p> + +<p>"Now I must find you a place to sit and rest yourself," said Anthony. +"Take my hand over these rough stones."</p> + +<p>Her hand shook, and so did his; his voice had begun to sound a little +breathless, like hers. His exultation was mounting to his head, and +something like terror was making her heart quake. "Ought I to have +allowed him? Ought I to have done it?" she was asking herself. But it +was too late for such questions now, and all doubts were settled within +the next five minutes.</p> + +<p>"Here," he said. "This is the place. A flat stone to sit on, and the +sloping rock to lean against. Generally the rocks slope the wrong way, +but this slants back at the right angle exactly. Sit down here; you must +be tired after that climb. I will fan you with a wattle branch." He +began to break off boughs, while she sat down, because her knees +trembled so that it was difficult to stand. "Isn't this a charming +view? At sunset it is magnificent, when the tops of the ranges turn pink +and then indigo, like velvet. Can you hear the trickle of the creek down +there? It seems miles below us, in that depth of shadow, doesn't it? And +that humming sound—listen! It is a waterfall. What is the noise like? +Oh, I know—like a railway train in the distance. And the wind in the +gum leaves—can't you shut your eyes and imagine that is the sea? Do you +remember that night on the St Kilda pier, when you were so frightened? +You are not afraid of me now, Jenny?"</p> + +<p>He flung himself on the ground beside her, and tossed his hat away.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am," she said, springing to her feet, and turning eastward +towards the town. "And I <i>must</i> go home, Mr. Churchill; it is not right +for me to be out here at this hour. You should not have brought me. It +is not treating me like—like a lady," she burst out, in a tone of +reproach and distress which reminded him that he had not yet given her +proper notice of his intentions.</p> + +<p>He sprang upright in an instant, and caught her arm, and, before she +knew it, had both his arms around her.</p> + +<p>"Don't you understand?" he exclaimed, in a deep voice. "I thought you +did—I thought Sarah would have told you. And my coming in this way—my +dragging you up here, to get you to myself—and Mary's letter—oh, my +poor little woman, you <i>didn't</i> think I was making an amusement of it, +<i>did</i> you? That's not treating me like a gentleman, Jenny."</p> + +<p>"But you can't——"</p> + +<p>"I can—I do. I want you to marry me, Jenny—there it is; and you can't +misunderstand now. And, what's more, all my family know it, too, and my +father says he's glad, and told me to tell you that he says so. And Mary +is awfully sorry that she sent you away yesterday. And you—<i>you</i> won't +say 'No'? It may be cheek and impudence to mention it, but I've seen it +in your dear little eyes a score of times."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>what</i> have you seen?" she asked, gasping, laughing, crying, +thrilling, all dazed and overwhelmed in this sea of joy.</p> + +<p>"This," he answered, stooping his head and putting a hand under her +chin. "Take off your hat, Jenny, so that I can kiss you comfortably."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>WOMAN'S RIGHTS REFUSED</h3> + + +<p>The transcendent minutes passed, and presently found them sitting under +their sloping rock, talking with some measure of sense and +self-possession. Both heads were uncovered, and, as Anthony had +anticipated, gloves were not required. The saffron sky had hardly a +vestige of colour left, stars were out overhead, the gorge at their feet +might have been the valley of death itself, so impenetrably deep and +dark it looked, with the steep, black hills heaving out of it. Through +the delicate air came a faint chime from far away behind them, the clock +at the post office striking nine.</p> + +<p>"Ought we not to go?" whispered Jenny.</p> + +<p>"No, darling. We couldn't go if we tried. On the other side it would be +too dark to see a step; we should only lose ourselves. We must wait for +the moon."</p> + +<p>"It won't be long, will it?"</p> + +<p>"About half an hour. Aren't you content to sit here with me? We shall be +home before eleven."</p> + +<p>She was quite content. Her head was not high enough to reach his +shoulder—it rested on his breast; he tucked away his beard that it +might not tickle her face. His own face he laid on her brown hair, or +stroked that hair with a big, soft hand. His arm supported her little +frame; it was so little and so light that he was afraid to hug it much, +for fear he should crush it.</p> + +<p>"What a ridiculous mite it is!" he murmured. "If you are tired, Jenny, I +can carry you home quite easily."</p> + +<p>She said she was not tired.</p> + +<p>"But you have been tired, my poor little girl! When I think of what you +have been doing, all this hot summer, while I have been loafing around +and amusing myself——! However, that won't happen again."</p> + +<p>"And yet you never came to the tea-room to see how I was getting on—not +for such a long, long time!"</p> + +<p>"And don't you know why that was? Mary found me going, and scolded me +for it, because she said it was compromising you. It was for fear that I +might do that—that only—that I kept away. Whereby, you see, I have +<i>always</i> treated you like a lady—from the very beginning. Oh, Jenny, +that <i>was</i> an unkind thing to say!"</p> + +<p>"But how was I to know? And you were so far above me——"</p> + +<p>He put his hand over her mouth.</p> + +<p>"But still I <i>do</i> think," she proceeded, when the impediment was +removed, "I do think it <i>was</i> cheek and impudence to make so sure. It's +like a Sultan and his slave—like Ahasuerus and Esther. And I never +<i>did</i> run after you—you know I never, never did!"</p> + +<p>Her voice was smothered in his moustache.</p> + +<p>"Poor little mite! No more it did! It was the very pink and pattern of +all that was proper. And yet I knew it—I knew it, Jenny, just as +certainly as if you had said, 'I love you' in so many words."</p> + +<p>"You had no business to know it—and you <i>couldn't</i>."</p> + +<p>"I could and did. You shouldn't have eyes so clear that one can see your +heart through them." He kissed the lids down over them, and held them +shut for a space. "And you are not ashamed of it, are you?"</p> + +<p>"I should have been ashamed if I had known it before, but I'm not now." +She stole an arm round his bent neck. "But you won't hold me cheap +by-and-by, because I gave myself away so easily, and was so far be——"</p> + +<p>Again he laid his hand over her mouth. "I can't very well do it now," he +said gravely, "but when I am your husband, and you say things like that +to me, I shall simply smack you, Jenny."</p> + +<p>He lifted her into a sitting posture, and fumbled in all his pockets.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here it is," drawing forth the ring he had purchased in Melbourne. +"You can't see it by this light, but it's the very nicest I could find. +Neat, but not gaudy, you know. It has a pearl in it, threaded on a gold +wire because it's so big, as white and pure as your own dear little +soul. Yes, I got it on purpose—so you see how sure I was of getting +<i>you</i>. Don't let its poor little pride be hurt. You couldn't have helped +it, you know, anyhow; because, if you hadn't given yourself, I should +have taken you as a matter of course, as the giant took Tom Thumb."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you would," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"You don't? Well, perhaps not I believe you are a match for any giant, +you little epitome of pluck! By-and-by we'll see. In the meantime let me +put this on your finger, and tell me if it's the right fit."</p> + +<p>He put it on, and it was exactly the right fit.</p> + +<p>"<i>There!</i> By whatever means I have got you, you are mine from this +moment—signed, sealed, and delivered." He lifted the little hand, and +kissed the ring reverently. "Till death us do part."</p> + +<p>She kissed it after him, and then flung herself on his breast, where he +held her, closely and in silence, until the moon rose and gave them +light enough to find their way home.</p> + +<p>After all, it was past eleven before they arrived; for the right track +was difficult to find while the moon was shut off from it by the tall +scrub, and its many pitfalls had to be encountered with care. Hand in +hand, and cautious step by step, the affianced lovers came down from +their mount of transfiguration, and could hardly believe their ears +when, still high above the town, they counted the chimes that told them +they had been more than three hours together.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Anthony. "In for a penny, in for a pound. And we +shall be able to give a good account of ourselves when we do get back."</p> + +<p>"Shall you give an account to-night?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly. In the first place, to justify this expedition; in the +second, to prove my right to take you home to-morrow, and otherwise to +control the situation. Isn't that what you wish?"</p> + +<p>She assented with a pressure of his hand. "When I see my aunt's +face—when I see them all knocked backwards by the shock—then perhaps I +shall believe in the miracle of being engaged to you," she said. And he +replied with truth, that if she didn't believe it now, it was not his +fault.</p> + +<p>The aunt's face it was which met them at the bank door. Mrs. Rogerson +believed that a deliberate assignation had been planned—and that on a +Sunday, when respectable young folks should have been at church—and +was properly concerned and scandalised. At the same time she was deeply +interested and flattered by the fact that it was Mr. Churchill who thus +took liberties with her household; and she felt there were mysteries to +be unravelled before she could decide upon any course of action. She +fell upon Jenny first, and her voice was a decided reprimand.</p> + +<p>"My <i>dear</i> child! where <i>have</i> you been? And <i>do</i> you know what time it +is?" Then with a gush, "Oh, Mr. Churchill, this <i>is</i> an unexpected +pleasure! Won't you walk in?"</p> + +<p>He shook hands and walked in. "I am afraid it's late," he said; "but you +must blame me, not Jenny. I took her for a little turn to see if the air +would do her headache good, and it got dark before we knew it, and we +lost our way. But I knew you would not be anxious, knowing she was with +me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no—certainly. Do come in. My husband will be so pleased to see +you. You are quite a stranger in these parts."</p> + +<p>She led the way to the dining-room, where an entirely new supper had +been arranged, on purpose for him, and where he was impressively +received by the urbane father and his fluttering daughters.</p> + +<p>"Our friends are gone, Jenny," said Clementine, all eyes for the great +man. "And Mrs. Simpson was so anxious to see you—to tell you she was +going down by Tuesday morning's train instead of to-morrow afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Anthony, "that doesn't matter. I am going down myself +to-morrow afternoon, and I'll take care of Jenny. I know she is anxious +to get home—aren't you, dear?"</p> + +<p>It was like an electric shock striking through the room. The eyes of the +startled family interrogated each other and Jenny's blushing face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's quite proper," said Anthony lightly, "since we are engaged +people—engaged with the consent of our families, moreover. She could +not have a more eligible escort. <i>Is</i> that chicken-pie, Miss Rogerson? +May I have some? I came away from Wandooyamba without my dinner, and I +am simply ravenous."</p> + +<p>The effect of the plain statement was all that Jenny had anticipated. +They were so stupefied for the moment that they could only gape and +stare, marvelling at the inscrutable ways of Providence and the +incalculable caprices of rich men. Perhaps the first sensation was one +of personal chagrin, in that the virtue of consistent gentility had gone +unrewarded, while the enormity of a tea-room was so unjustly condoned; +but personal pride in the prospective connection was the permanent and +predominating sentiment. Exclamations, questions, interjections, kisses, +hugs, wrapped Jenny as in a whirlwind; while her lover calmly ate his +pie and drank his bottled ale, as if it were an old story that +interested him no longer. He was not ashamed to ask for a second +helping.</p> + +<p>"And you never saw her on the platform last night?" said Clem archly, as +she waited upon him.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, no! What platform?"</p> + +<p>"Our platform. She must have known you were coming—I know she saw you +jump out of the carriage—and she never made a sign! And she's never +given us the faintest hint at all!"</p> + +<p>"That's her native modesty. And there are some things one doesn't talk +about, you know—except to one's nearest and dearest."</p> + +<p>"Who can be nearer than we?" demanded Mrs. Rogerson, caressing her +niece.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," he drawled carelessly. "There's nothing in being +mere relatives. I don't tell things to my relatives, and—a—you have +not been so <i>very</i> intimate, you know—at least, not since I've known +her."</p> + +<p>An uncomfortable pause was broken by a protest from Alice, who was given +to the saying of things that were better left unsaid. "I'm sure, +never—until the tea-room——"</p> + +<p>The mention of that bone of strife brought angry blushes to the family +cheek, and glares which stopped her from going further.</p> + +<p>"Don't speak ill of the tea-room, if you please," he said. "It is the +most admirable institution that I know. But for the tea-room I should +not have found my pattern wife—should not have known half her good +qualities."</p> + +<p>Jenny's intimacy with <i>him</i>—years old since eight o'clock—made her +fearless of what she said or did, and, as has been intimated before, she +was a person of spirit, with a good deal of human nature in her. She +moved to his side, laid her hand on his shoulder for a moment, and +said, with an ineffable air of self-justification, "<i>He</i> is not ashamed +of the tea-room."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, dear, I am proud of it," he responded quickly, +touching the little hand.</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless," proceeded Jenny, "I will give it up now. It has been a +success—I have earned a great deal of money—but I will dispose of it +when I go home."</p> + +<p>"We needn't talk about these things now," said Anthony, with a slight +frown.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear sir," the urbane uncle interposed, "I am her natural +guardian, don't you see. Joseph is a good boy—a very superior youth, in +fact—but he is <i>only</i> a boy. It is my duty, as her nearest male +relative, standing in the place of her father, to attend to her affairs +at this juncture."</p> + +<p>"I merely wanted to say," proceeded Jenny, with an air of resolution, +"that I wish to please those who have been so good to me—who have not +despised me because of what I did to make a living. I will not wait in +the tea-room again—for their sakes; and of course my mother and sister +must not work there without me. I will think of something else, that +shall not—not be disagreeable to anybody."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to think any more, Jenny," said Anthony quietly. "I am +going to do the thinking now."</p> + +<p>"Still," urged Mrs. Rogerson, with tardy generosity and misguided zeal, +"we can't allow <i>you</i> to be saddled with my sister and her children, Mr. +Churchill. They must not live on <i>your</i> money."</p> + +<p>"They won't," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I know they won't," said Anthony, "if they are made of the same stuff +as you. But please leave all that now, dear. And go to bed, or you will +be tired for your journey to-morrow."</p> + +<p>On the way to his hotel he confounded the impudence of her relatives in +many bad words, and laughed at the notion that she was going to "boss" +the family arrangements as heretofore.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>SHE CARES NOT</h3> + + +<p>Next morning, while he was sitting with his <i>fiancée</i> in the bank +drawing-room, the ladies of the house having discreetly pleaded domestic +engagements, Mrs. Oxenham was announced—to see Miss Liddon.</p> + +<p>Jenny rose from the sofa, pale and palpitating. Anthony neither moved +nor spoke, but watched his sister narrowly.</p> + +<p>"I have come," said Mary; and then she stopped, and held out her arms. +Jenny rushed into them, sobbing; and it was made evident that all +opposition was at an end, as far as this Churchill was concerned.</p> + +<p>"I am not <i>de trop</i>, am I?" she inquired, with a tremulous laugh. "You +don't mind my sitting here with you for a few minutes, do you, Tony?"</p> + +<p>He got up, and solemnly kissed her. "You are a good old girl, Polly," he +said, in a deep voice. "Sit down, and tell us that you wish us +joy—it's about the only thing that could make us happier than we are +already."</p> + +<p>"I came on purpose," she replied, "to wish you joy, dears, and to fetch +you both back to Wandooyamba. Jenny, you will come back to me, my +darling? I understand now—I didn't before. And Harry—he is your +devoted admirer, you must know—he commissioned me to say that he +expects you."</p> + +<p>Jenny looked at her lover, who shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Can't," he said. "We have telegraphed to her mother, and have arranged +to go down by this afternoon's train."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Tony!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Polly! we can't put it off now. I must see her mother. And we are +going to close the tea-room, and—and lots of things. But we can come +back again."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Oxenham was then prevailed on to wait to see them off, and the +Rogersons sent out for champagne that lunch might be served in a style +befitting the occasion. Having made up her mind to support Tony, there +was nothing Mary would not do to please him; and she fraternised with +Jenny's relatives, invited them to Wandooyamba, drove them to the +station, and otherwise effaced herself and her social prejudices, in the +spirit of a generous woman who is also a born lady. On the platform she +kissed the lovers in turn, regardless of spectators.</p> + +<p>"I declare," she said, aside to her brother, "it is ridiculous of you +two to be going away like this; you should have gone alone, Tony, and +left Jenny with me."</p> + +<p>He laughed derisively.</p> + +<p>"You could have come back for her when you had seen her mother, or I +could have brought her down. You look exactly like a bride and +bridegroom starting off on their honeymoon, with all this party seeing +you off."</p> + +<p>"We'll be that when we come back again," said he.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hope you are not going to put off coming to me till then!"</p> + +<p>He laughed again, and dropped his voice. "I'm going to take her to +Europe, Polly, and we must sail not later than March, you know, on +account of the Red Sea, and the English spring, which I don't want her +to miss."</p> + +<p>"<i>Tony!</i> You are <i>not</i> going off again, before we've hardly got you +back!"</p> + +<p>"She has never seen the world, as we have, and I'm going to show it to +her. It's what her little heart is set on. And time she had some +pleasure, after all her hard work."</p> + +<p>"Ah, ah! 'She' will be everything, now!"</p> + +<p>"She won't be everything, but she'll be first. Where is she, by the way? +Come, little one, jump in."</p> + +<p>Jenny stepped into a small compartment of the ancient carriages provided +for this unimportant branch line, and he sprang in after her. Though it +was close to Christmas, and other compartments were fairly full, they +had this one to themselves—whether by fair means or foul did not +transpire. As soon as they were off Anthony proceeded to unfold in +detail the plans he had been hatching through the night, because, he +said, the main line train would be crowded, and he might not have +another opportunity.</p> + +<p>"We'll go abroad, Jenny, first, and then settle——"</p> + +<p>"But I am not going to desert my family all in a moment, as you seem to +think," she protested. "Indeed, indeed I cannot——"</p> + +<p>He simply put his hand over her mouth.</p> + +<p>"It won't take very long, and I shall want to have a house preparing for +us to come to when we get back. I shall want to feel that we have a +home, all the same—for we may get tired of wandering at any minute. And +this is a thing one can't leave to other people. One must choose for +one's self. So I shall at once look round for a nice place—Hush, Jenny! +Don't interrupt me when I'm speaking, it's rude—and then I shall see if +I can't persuade your mother and sister to look after it for us. You +see, we shall be sending home furniture and all sorts of odds and ends +from different places as we travel about, and we shall want somebody we +can trust to receive the things and take care of them. I hardly like to +ask such a favour of her, but for your sake I believe your mother would +like the job; and I daresay she will feel lonesome with nothing to do +when the tea-room is shut up. I shall take passages <i>immediately</i>, +because berths are bespoken months before at this time of year. For +February, if possible."</p> + +<p>Jenny gasped. "Oh, talk of cheek and impudence—! Am I not to have any +say at all?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. An infinitesimal little mite like you!"</p> + +<p>"You seem to think that, because I am small, I'm not to be counted as a +woman with a will of her own."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. But you have had your turn of bossing people and managing +things. Now I'm going to have mine, and you must submit to be bossed in +your turn. Do you see? That's only fair."</p> + +<p>The sort of bossing that she received that day was too delicious for +words. After her long toil and struggle to take care of others, the +being cared for herself, in this strong and tender fashion, was perhaps +the sweetest experience she ever had in her life. The main line train +was crowded, but no one crowded her. Refreshments, such as they were, +were produced without any trouble to herself, whenever she wanted them. +But the charm of all was to sit beside him, content and peaceful, and +know that she had nothing to do or to fear—that the combined world was +powerless to touch her through the shield of his protection.</p> + +<p>Jarvis was at Spencer Street, and took her luggage and instructions what +to do with it. A hansom was waiting for his master, and into this he put +Jenny, and drove her home through the gas-lit streets to her impatient +mother and sister.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Liddon had been prepared by Sarah for the tale they had to tell; +nevertheless, she wept with joy when she heard it, and was particularly +enchanted to know that her sister Emma had been properly taught not to +look down on them that were as good as herself and better. Likewise she +thanked God that Joey's future was assured. And she folded her eldest +daughter to her breast, and declared that Mr. Churchill had got a +treasure, though she said it that shouldn't; and bade him forgive her +for being an old fool and crying over it, when she was really that happy +that she didn't know if she stood on her head or her heels.</p> + +<p>The tea-room had long been closed, and she had had time to exercise her +special talents in the production of a charming supper, to the +excellence of which he testified in the only satisfactory way. He ate +largely, and remarked that he had never enjoyed anything more in his +life.</p> + +<p>"Well, I never enjoyed cooking things more," she said; and added, rather +pathetically, "I must say I do get a little tired of making nothing but +scones, day after day."</p> + +<p>"You shall not make any more," said Jenny. "We are going to talk to Mrs. +Allonby in the morning, and see if she will not take over the tea-room, +and set us free."</p> + +<p>"She'll be only too glad to jump at the chance," said Mrs. Liddon +proudly, "if we make the terms reasonable. But, ah!"—shaking her +head—"she'll never make scones like I do."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>THE BEST AVAILABLE</h3> + + +<p>So quickly did Jenny, aided by her impetuous lover, effect the transfer +of her business, that she was out of it before Christmas Day. The +basket-maker's wife had the benefit of the holiday custom, and the +ex-proprietors the pleasant consciousness of having laboured +successfully, in every sense of the word, and being now entitled to that +rest and recreation which only those who have worked well can +appreciate. They were all glad to be free. They had not realised the +severity of the constant strain until it was removed, and wondered that +people who could spend their days as they pleased were not more grateful +for the privilege.</p> + +<p>"And now," said Anthony, "I want you all to be my guests for Christmas. +A friend has lent me his yacht, and we will go for a cruise wherever you +like—inside the Bay or outside—according to how you stand it. Sarah is +looking thin—she wants taking right out of this air; and the mother +will not be the worse for a sea blow after living at the oven-mouth so +long. Tell Joe to bring a mate—any male friend he likes. I have invited +one of my own—a very good fellow—who wants to know you. Jenny, is a +day long enough to get ready in? You don't want any finery."</p> + +<p>"Quite," she replied, for she had been previously acquainted with this +plan for enabling him and her to enjoy long days together; and she set +to work to pack for the family with her business-like promptitude.</p> + +<p>While thus engaged she was called into their little parlour to receive a +visit from Mr. Churchill. The old gentleman presented himself in his +most benevolent aspect, bearing a bouquet of flowers; and, while Jenny +could hardly speak for blushing gratitude, he asked her if she would +give an old man a kiss, and secured her doting affection for ever by +that gracious recognition of her new rights.</p> + +<p>"And so you are going to be my daughter," he said, patting her head. +"Well, well!"</p> + +<p>"I know I am unworthy of him," murmured Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all! Just at first, perhaps——But then fathers are old +fools. They never do think anything good enough for their children. I am +quite pleased, my dear—quite satisfied and pleased. I am proud of my +son for making such a choice. He has looked for true worth, rather than +a brilliant match. Not many young men in his position have the +discernment, the—a—what shall I say?"</p> + +<p>"I have no worth," repeated Jenny, who really thought so, "compared with +him. I know I am not fit for him."</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut! He says differently, and so do I. It's your gallant conduct +since your father's death, my dear—that's what it is. And I'm proud of +my boy, to think he can fall in love for such a cause. He's got a bit of +his mother in him—a good seed that hasn't been choked with riches +and—and so on. The more I think of it the more I approve of him. We had +an idea of marrying him to a lady of title, and making a great swell of +him; but there—it's best as it is. A good wife is above rubies, doesn't +the Bible say?—something like it—a crown to her husband, eh? You'll +make a good wife, I'll warrant, and, after all, that's the main thing."</p> + +<p>"I will indeed," declared Jenny solemnly, "if love and trying can do +it—though I shall never be good enough for him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's not an angel, any more than other men; I know that, though he +is my son, and a good son too. You mustn't disparage yourself, +Sally—isn't your name Sally?—no, Jenny, of course—nice, old-fashioned +name. You are his equal, as I have been telling Mrs. Churchill—but +these young ladies go so much by appearances—his equal in all but +money, which anybody can have, and no credit to him. Your father +was"—she thought he was going to say an "Eton boy," but he spared +her—"a true gentleman, my dear, upright and honourable, the sort of man +to breed good stock—if you'll excuse the phrase—the sort of blood one +needn't be afraid to see in one's children's children. But there, I +won't keep you. You are getting ready for your little trip? I wish you a +happy Christmas, my dear, and a happy married life, you and him +together, and—and—and I hope you'll look on me as your father, my +dear——"</p> + +<p>Emotion overpowered him, and a second kiss, warmer than the first, +concluded the interview. Jenny let him out of the house, and then ran +upstairs to tell her anxious sister that Anthony's father transcended +the winged seraphs for goodness. And Mr. Churchill returned to Toorak +with a swelling breast, to keep a careful silence towards his wife as to +what he had been doing. For Maude had declared that nothing should ever +induce her to recognise "that person" whom Tony had chosen to pick out +of the gutter; and her outraged family abetted her in this resolve.</p> + +<p>The yacht sailed on Christmas Eve, with a party of seven in addition to +the crew; and Jenny had her first taste of the luxury that was +thenceforth to be her portion. She found herself a little queen on +board. Mr. Danesbury was introduced to her at the gangway, and rendered +a quiet homage that Maude and Lady Louisa, on the previous cruise, had +looked for at his hands in vain. Jarvis was there, in the capacity of +cabin steward, and was called up to be introduced to her as his future +mistress; and Jarvis waited on her as only he could wait, anticipating +her little wants and wishes before she had time to form them. He had +felt that, in the course of nature, he must have a mistress some day, if +he remained in his present service; and, from a first impression that +she might have been worse, he gradually adopted his master's view that +she could hardly have been better, and treated her accordingly.</p> + +<p>"The best servant in the country," Anthony said to her. "And I think +we'll take him with us on our travels. You'd find him fifty times more +useful than a maid. When we come back and set up housekeeping, he is to +be our butler."</p> + +<p>Jenny smiled at the prospect.</p> + +<p>"How absurd it is!" she ejaculated.</p> + +<p>"I don't see it," said Tony.</p> + +<p>"I suppose not," she rejoined.</p> + +<p>Lest unseasoned persons should have their appetites interfered with, the +yacht did not venture outside the Heads, but cruised about in quiet +waters, touching now and then at little piers, for the variation of a +shore ramble or a picnic in the scrub; and it was a beautiful time. Adam +Danesbury and Sarah became great friends. She talked to him by the hour +of the virtues of her beloved sister, and he to her of the equal +excellencies of Miss Lennox; topics of interest that never palled upon +them. Mrs. Liddon was happy, knitting a shawl for Jenny's trousseau, +and losing herself in sensational novels, and getting "wrinkles," as she +called them, from the very swell cook who daily concocted dishes that +she had never so much as heard of. If there was a fly in the sweet +ointment of her satisfaction, it lay in the fact that Joey was not taken +much notice of. But Mr. Churchill was not interested in Joey, and had +invited the friend on purpose to relieve himself of the obligation to +take much notice. The young men had each other's company, together with +tobacco, books, cards, chess, and Jarvis to bring them cool drinks when +they were thirsty; what could junior clerks require more? Joey was a +very good boy on this occasion, very subdued and inoffensive, keeping +all his swagger until he should return to the office to tell of his +doings and the high company he had kept; and he was undeniably a +handsome youth, with the proper bearing of a gentleman. But his sex was +against him. Crippled Sarah, wizened and sallow, was infinitely more +interesting to the distinguished host Between him and her a very strong +bond existed.</p> + +<p>And, as he had foreseen, the yachting arrangement was perfect for +lovers on whose behalf every other member of the party was minded to be +unobtrusive and discreet. What days were those that he and Jenny had +together in the first bloom of their courtship! What fresh sea-mornings, +in which to feel young blood coursing to the tune of the salt wind and +the bubble of the seething wake! What dream-times under the awning in +the tempered heat, with soft cushions and poetry books! What rambles on +the lonely shores, and rests in ti-tree arbours, and talks and +companionship that grew daily fuller and deeper, and more and more +intimate and satisfying! In the quiet evenings four people sat down to +whist round the lamp in the little cabin, and the fifth dozed over her +knitting, so that the remaining two had the deck to themselves, and the +romantic hours to revel in undisturbed. Then Tony smoked a little +because Jenny wished it, and she leaned on his arm as they paced to and +fro; and they opened those sacred chambers of thought which are kept +locked in the daytime, and acquainted each other with dim feelings and +aspirations that expressed themselves in sympathetic silences better +than in speech.</p> + +<p>Thus did they grow together so closely that Jenny's wedding-day came to +her with no shock of change or fear. After the Christmas cruise he +called to see her at all hours—to disturb her at her flying needlework, +which she would slave at, in spite of him—making her own "things" to +save expense, as if expense mattered; nightly taking her down to St +Kilda for that blow on the pier which still refreshed her more than +anything. And very soon they saw the mail boat come in—the very mail +boat in which he had taken berths for their wedding journey. As they +watched her passing in the falling dusk, they recalled their first +meeting in that place—how very few mails had arrived since then, and +what stupendous things had happened in the interval!</p> + +<p>"What a funk you <i>were</i> in!" said Tony, laying his big hand over the +small one on his arm. "Poor little mite! You took me for a gay devil +walking about seeking whom I might devour, didn't you? What would you +have thought if you had known I had followed you all the way—stalked +you like a cat after a mouse—eh?"</p> + +<p>"You <i>didn't</i>, Tony!"</p> + +<p>"I did, sweetheart. It was Sarah put me up to it."</p> + +<p>"Sarah! I won't believe such a thing of my sister."</p> + +<p>"Ask her, then. Sarah understood me a long time before you did. And I +made a vow that I'd repay her for that good turn, and I haven't done it +yet. What do you think she would like best?"</p> + +<p>"I know what she would <i>like</i>," said Jenny wistfully. "To go abroad with +us. It has been the dream of her life."</p> + +<p>"Not this time, pet. Next time she shall. This time I must have only +you, and you must have only me. Besides, she wouldn't go, not if you +went on your knees to her. She knows better. She's a deal cleverer than +you are—in some things."</p> + +<p>"I know she is. Poor Sally! And she might have been like me, with +everything heart can wish for! Mother says she was a finer baby than +I—beautifully formed and healthy; but she had an accident that hurt her +back—a fall. And so all the sweetness of life has been taken from her, +while I—I am overwhelmed with it."</p> + +<p>"Not all," said Tony. "We shall make her happy between us."</p> + +<p>"If she can't have <i>this</i>," said Jenny, pressing his arm, "she can't +know what happiness means."</p> + +<p>He drew the warm hand up, and kissed the tips of her fingers, on which +gloves were never allowed on these occasions.</p> + +<p>"I foresee," he said gravely, "that I shall have to beat you and refuse +to give you money for new bonnets, to make you realise that your little +feet are standing on the earth, Jenny, and not on the clouds of heaven."</p> + +<p>They were married in February, that they might have a quiet month before +sailing in March. Mrs. Rogerson wanted to undertake the wedding, but was +politely informed that there was to be no wedding; and there was none in +her sense. Jenny went out for a walk with her mother and sister, and +Anthony went out for a walk with Adam Danesbury; old Mr. Churchill and +his daughter Mary, who happened to be staying with him, took a hansom +from the office, Joey having been released from his desk therein; and +these people met together for a few minutes, transacted their business +briefly, and adjourned to the Café Anglais for lunch; after which the +bride and bridegroom, being already dressed for travel, with their +baggage at the station, fared forth into the wide world.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Thus ended the tea-room enterprise.</p> + +<p>And I don't know whether the moral of Jenny's story is bad or good. It +depends on the point of view. Virtue, of course, ought to be its own +reward—at any rate, it should seek no other; and there are people who +think a husband no reward at all, under any circumstances, but quite the +contrary. For myself, I regard a rich marriage as rather a vulgar sort +of thing, and by no means the proper goal of a good girl's ambitions. +Also, however well a marriage may begin, nobody can foretell how it will +eventually turn out. It is a matter of a thousand compromises, take it +at its best, and all we can say of it is that there is nothing above it +in the scale of human satisfactions.</p> + +<p><i>That</i> I will maintain as beyond a doubt, because it is the dictum of +nature, who is the mother of all wisdom. She says that even an unlucky +marriage, which is a living martyrdom, is better than none, but that a +marriage like that which arose out of Jenny's tea-room is a door to the +sanctuary of the temple of life, never opened to the undeserving—the +nearest approach to happiness that has been discovered at present. +Yes—although, without beating her or keeping her short of pocket-money, +the husband necessarily makes his wife feel that the earth is her +habitation and the clouds of heaven many miles away.</p> + + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + +<hr style="width: 100%;" /> + + +<p class="center"> +<i>Warwick House</i><br /> +<i>Salisbury Square LONDON E. C.</i><br /> +A List of New and Recent<br /> +COPYRIGHT NOVELS<br /> +And other Popular Works<br /> +PUBLISHED BY<br /> +WARD LOCK & BOWDEN LIMITED</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<h3>E. H. STRAIN</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>A Man's Foes.</i> A Tale of the Siege of Londonderry. New and cheap +edition. With Three Full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">A. Forestier</span>. Crown +8vo, cloth, 6s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Quite the best historical novel of the day."—<i>The Sketch.</i></p> + +<p>"A powerful and impressive historical novel.... A chronicle of intense +and unflagging interest."—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>"'A Man's Foes' is the best historical novel that we have had since Mr. +Conan Doyle published 'Micah Clarke.' ... One of the most picturesque, +dramatic and absorbing historical romances we have read for a long +day.... An exceptionally fine romance."—<i>Daily Chronicle.</i></p> + + +<h3>SHAN F. BULLOCK</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>By Thrasna River</i>: The Story of a Townland. Given by one John +Farmer, and Edited by his Friend, <span class="smcap">Shan F. Bullock</span>. With Four +Full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">St. Clair Simmons</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth +gilt, 6s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"This is a charming book, and affords quite the best picture of Irish +rural life that we have ever come across."—<i>The Athenĉum.</i></p> + +<p>"It is an Irish 'Thrums,' in which the character is drawn as straight +from life as in Mr. Barrie's delightful annals of Kirriemuir."—<i>The +Sketch.</i></p> + + +<h3>GUY BOOTHBY</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Beautiful White Devil.</i> By <span class="smcap">Guy Boothby</span>, Author of "Dr. +Nikola," "A Bid for Fortune," etc. With Six Full-page Illustrations +by <span class="smcap">Stanley L. Wood</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"A more lively, romantic and amazing bit of fiction than 'The Beautiful +White Devil' it would be hard to indicate.... It is full of surprise and +fascination for the fiction-lover, and is worthy of the reputation of +the creator of the famous Nikola."</p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>A Bid for Fortune</i>; or, Dr. Nikola's Vendetta. With about Fifty +Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Stanley L. Wood</span> and other Artists. Crown 8vo, +cloth gilt, 5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"He never allows the interest to drop from first page to the last.... +The plot is highly ingenious, and when once it has fairly thickened, +exciting to a degree."—<i>The Times.</i></p> + +<p>"It is impossible to give any idea of the verve and brightness with +which the story is told. Mr. Boothby may be congratulated on having +produced about the most original novel of the year."—<i>Manchester +Courier.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>In Strange Company.</i> A Story of Chili and the Southern Seas. With +Six Full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Stanley L. Wood</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth +gilt, bevelled boards, 5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"A capital novel of its kind—the sensational adventurous. It has the +quality of life and stir, and will carry the reader with curiosity +unabated to the end."—<i>The World.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Marriage of Esther</i>: A Torres Straits Sketch. With Four +Full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Stanley L. Wood</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"A story full of action, life, and dramatic interest.... There is a +vigour and a power of illusion about it that raises it quite above the +level of the ordinary novel of adventure."—<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></p> + + +<h3>BERTRAM MITFORD</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Expiation of Wynne Palliser.</i> By <span class="smcap">Bertram Mitford</span>, Author of +"The King's Assegai," etc. With Two Full-page Illustrations by +<span class="smcap">Stanley L. Wood</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Readers who wish to have a realistic picture of the South African life, +concerning which recent events have aroused such interest, should not +fail to get Mr. Mitford's new work. It brings the whole scene before the +reader's eye with startling vividness, and is an intensely interesting +story as well.</p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Curse of Clement Waynflete</i>: A Story of Two South African +Wars. With Four Full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Stanley L. Wood</span>. Crown +8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Telling us wonderful incidents of inter-racial warfare, of ambuscades, +sieges, surprises, and assaults almost without number.... A thoroughly +exciting story, full of bright descriptions and stirring +episodes."—<i>The Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>A Veldt Official</i>: A Novel of Circumstance. With Two Full-page +Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Stanley L. Wood</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"We have seldom come across a more thrilling narrative. From start to +finish Mr. Milford secures unflagging attention."—<i>Leeds Mercury.</i></p> + + +<h3>MAX PEMBERTON</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>Jewel Mysteries I Have Known.</i> By <span class="smcap">Max Pemberton</span>, Author of "The +Iron Pirate," "A Gentleman's Gentleman," etc. With Fifty +Illustrations by <span class="smcap">R. Caton Woodville</span> and <span class="smcap">Fred Barnard</span>. Demy 8vo, +cloth gilt, gilt edges, 5s. +</p></blockquote> + +<p>"The most interesting and entrancing 'mystery' stories that have +appeared since the publication of the doings of Mr. Sherlock +Holmes."—<i>The Literary World.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Pemberton has attempted a great deal more than to give mere plots +and police cases, and he has succeeded in capturing our attention, and +never letting it go, from the first story to the last."—<i>The Bookman.</i></p> + + +<h3>ARTHUR MORRISON</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>Martin Hewitt, Investigator.</i> By <span class="smcap">Arthur Morrison</span>, Author of "Tales +of Mean Streets," etc. With about Fifty Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Sydney +Paget</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Most people like tales of this sort, ... and no one writes them better +than Mr. Morrison does. The narratives are written not only with +ingenuity, but with conviction, which is, perhaps, even the more +valuable quality."—<i>Globe.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>Chronicles of Martin Hewitt.</i> Being the Second Series of "Martin +Hewitt, Investigator." With Thirty Illustrations by D. <span class="smcap">Murray +Smith</span>. Crown 8vo, art canvas, 5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Certainly the most ingenious and entertaining of the numerous +successors of Sherlock Holmes. There is not one of the stories in this +collection that is not ingeniously constructed and cleverly +written."—<i>The Academy.</i></p> + + +<h3>FRANCIS PREVOST</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>Rust of Gold.</i> By <span class="smcap">Francis Prevost</span>. Crown 8vo, art canvas, 5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"A series of nine <i>fin de siècle</i> stories of great power and +picturesqueness.... A more appalling tale than 'A Ghost of the Sea' has +not been recounted for many years past, nor have the tragical +potentialities of modern life, as lived by people of culture and +refinement, been more graphically illustrated than in 'Grass upon the +Housetops,' 'The Skirts of Chance,' and 'False Equivalents.' As +word-pictures they are simply masterpieces."—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>On the Verge.</i> By <span class="smcap">Francis Prevost</span>. Crown 8vo, art canvas, 5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Francis Prevost has as pretty a gift for style as any living writer. +He touches often upon serious problems, but always with so graceful a +touch that his books seem the lightest of reading. Each story is as +distinct as an etching. The characters are alive, and the dialogue is +witty and diverting. There is not a tale in the book which has not +sparkle and spice.</p> + + +<h3>HENRY KINGSLEY</h3> + +<blockquote><p>New Library Edition of <span class="smcap">Henry Kingsley's Novels</span>. Edited by <span class="smcap">Clement +K. Shorter</span>. Well printed (from type specially cast) on good paper, +and neatly and handsomely bound. With Frontispieces by eminent +Artists. Price 3s. 6d. per volume, cloth gilt.</p></blockquote> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">1 <i>The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">2 <i>Ravenshoe.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">3 <i>The Hillyars and the Burtons.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">4 <i>Silcote of Silcotes.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">5 <i>Stretton.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">6 <i>Austin Elliot and The Harveys.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">7 <i>Mdlle. Mathilde.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">8 <i>Old Margaret, and other Stories.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">9 <i>Valentin, and Number Seventeen.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">10 <i>Oakshott Castle and The Grange Garden.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">11 <i>Reginald Hetherege and Leighton Court.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">12 <i>The Boy in Grey, and other Stories.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Henry Kingsley was born to wear the purple of romance.... Where will +any one who is ordinary and sane find better comradeship? Scarcely +outside the novels of Walter Scott.... Messrs. Ward, Lock & Bowden's +edition of this despotic and satisfying romancer is cheap, and well +printed, and comfortable to hold. Those who love Kingsley will love him +again and better for this edition, and those who have not loved have a +joy in store that we envy them."—<i>The National Observer.</i></p> + +<p>"To Mr. Clement Shorter and to the publishers the unreserved thanks of +the public are warmly due; there can be no finer mission from the world +of fiction to the world of fact than the putting forth of these +ennobling novels afresh and in a fitting form."—<i>The Daily Chronicle.</i></p> + +<p>"To renew your acquaintance with Henry Kingsley is for Henry Kingsley to +stand forth victorious all along the line. His work, in truth, is moving +and entertaining now as it was moving and entertaining thirty odd years +ago."—<i>The Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p> + + +<h3>ETHEL TURNER</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>Seven Little Australians.</i> With Twenty-six Illustrations by <span class="smcap">A. J. +Johnson</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, bevelled, gilt edges, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Ought to capture hearts young and old as 'Helen's Babies' captured +them—a book which both children and adults will love."—<i>The Queen.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Family at Misrule.</i> A Sequel to the above. With Twenty-nine +Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, bevelled, gilt edges 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Its charm consists in its simple and natural style, its mingled fun and +pathos, and in the delineation of the characters."—<i>The Standard.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Story of a Baby.</i> With Two Full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">St. +Clair Simmons</span>. Square fcap. 8vo, cloth elegant, gilt top, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"A very fetching little story."—<i>The New Budget.</i></p> + +<p>"'The Story of a Baby' is charmingly written."—<i>Scotsman.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Little Duchess, and Other Stories.</i> With Two Full-page +Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Sydney Cowell</span>. Square fcap. 8vo, cloth elegant, +gilt top, price 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>The opening story, "The Little Duchess," is one of the most charming +pieces of work Miss Turner has ever done. A prettier and more pathetic +story has seldom been written. Some of the other stories in the book run +over with humour, and reveal Miss Turner in quite a new vein. To readers +who are weary of "problem-studies" and sex-stories—readers who want to +be delighted and amused—the volume will afford infinite pleasure.</p> + + +<h3>OUTRAM TRISTRAM</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Dead Gallant</i>; together with "<i>The King of Hearts</i>" By <span class="smcap">Outram +Tristram</span>. With Full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Hugh Thomson</span> and <span class="smcap">St. +George Hare</span>. Crown 8vo, art linen gilt, 5s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Both stories are well written in faultless English, and display a +knowledge of history, a careful study of character, and a fine +appreciation of a dramatic point, all too rare in these days of slipshod +fiction."—<i>National Observer.</i></p> + + +<h3>FRANCIS HINDES GROOME</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>Kriegspiel: the War Game.</i> A Novel. By <span class="smcap">Francis Hindes Groome</span>, +Author of "Two Suffolk Friends," "In Gypsy Tents," etc. Crown 8vo, +cloth gilt, 6s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Seemingly at one bound Mr. Groome has taken rank among the most +promising novelists of the day, so full is 'Kriegspiel' of interest, of +stirring incident, and of vivid and varied sketches of men and manners +from contemporary English life."—<i>The Illustrated London News.</i></p> + +<p>"As regards the pictures of gipsy life, the book is full of touches +which could only have come from a writer who has had intimate personal +contact with the Romanies, and who was at the same time deeply versed in +their traditional lore.... As a gipsy novel, as a novel depicting gipsy +life, 'Kriegspiel' is unrivalled."—<i>The Athenĉum.</i></p> + + +<h3>GEORGE MEREDITH</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Tale of Chloe</i>; The House on the Beach; and The Case of +General Ople and Lady Camper. By <span class="smcap">George Meredith</span>, Author of "The +Ordeal of Richard Feverel," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"'The Tale of Chloe' is one of the gems of English fiction.... We +question whether, even in Mr. Meredith's rich array of female +characters, there is any more lovable than Chloe."—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Tragic Comedians</i>: A Study in a well-known Story. With Note by +<span class="smcap">Clement Shorter</span>, and Photogravure Portrait of the Author. Crown +8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"One of the most brilliant of all George Meredith's novels."—<i>The +Speaker.</i></p> + + +<h3>EDITH JOHNSTONE</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>A Sunless Heart.</i> Third and Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Mr. W. T. Stead, in his article on 'Women Novelists,' writes of 'its +intrinsic merit, its originality and its pathos, its distinctively +woman's outlook on life, and the singular glow and genius of its +author.' ... Lotus is a distinct creation—vivid, life-like, and +original" (<i>Review of Reviews</i>).</p> + + +<h3>NORA VYNNE</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>Honey of Aloes, and other Stories.</i> By <span class="smcap">Nora Vynne</span>, Author of "The +Blind Artist's Pictures." Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Not only do they abound in literary merit, but in thrilling interest, +and there is not one of them that is not instinct with intense and +veracious humanity."—<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></p> + +<p>"Irresistibly amusing, full of character, humour, truth, with much +underlying pathos."—<i>The World.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>A Comedy of Honour.</i> With Two Full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Bertha +Newcombe</span>. Square fcap. 8vo, cloth elegant, gilt top, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"A bright and racy little story.... This charming and meritorious +story."—<i>Literary World.</i></p> + +<p>"The story is as clever and as witty as previous works by Miss +Vynne,"—<i>The Scotsman.</i></p> + + +<h3>CAPTAIN CHARLES KING</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>Fort Frayne.</i> A Story of Army Life in the North-West. With +Portrait of the Author. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"A rattling good story.... Keeps one interested and amused from first to +last."—<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>"A story of border warfare, so interesting that it is hard to lay it +down.... A very well-written story, full of keen interest and fine +character."—<i>Guardian.</i></p> + + +<h3>THOMAS NELSON PAGE</h3> + +<blockquote><p><i>In Ole Virginia</i>; or, "Marse Chan," and other Stories. By <span class="smcap">Thos. +Nelson Page</span>. With Introduction by <span class="smcap">T. P. O'Connor</span>, M.P., and +Frontispiece by <span class="smcap">George Hutchinson</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Pathos and humour are mingled with singular felicity.... Few will read +'Marse Chan' with dry eyes."—<i>Leeds Mercury.</i></p> + +<h4>By the same Author</h4> + +<blockquote><p><i>The Burial of the Guns</i>, and other Stories. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, +3s. 6d.</p></blockquote> + +<p>"Very beautiful and touching.... It is a heroic book, and also a most +pathetic one,"—<i>The Guardian.</i></p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Humble Enterprise, by Ada Cambridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HUMBLE ENTERPRISE *** + +***** This file should be named 37866-h.htm or 37866-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/8/6/37866/ + +Produced by Darleen Dove, Beth, Shannon Barker and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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