A Humble Enterprise Part 5

"In Little Collins Street. The funniest place you ever saw."

"Why, that must be the place Mary wouldn't take me to yesterday. She said men were not admitted."

"Oh, what a story!"

"Well, she said the people there didn't want them."

"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."

"Then I presume I may accompany you, and have some tea too?"

"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 compa.s.s that end--"that it won't get too well known. That would spoil it."

Anthony stalked through the basket-maker's shop (that customers pa.s.sed 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.

"How very extraordinary!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "What an oasis in the howling desert of Little Collins Street!"

"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."

"It will do here," said Anthony, with a little peremptory air that she was quite accustomed to. "Sit down."

He dropped himself into a basket-chair, and it creaked ominously.

"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.

"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."

"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."

"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!"

"If that is Miss Liddon," said Anthony, who was watching the screen for her reappearance, "I think I ought to speak to her."

"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."

This was a very injudicious speech, but then Maude was nearly always injudicious.

"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."

"Oh, yes; he was killed on the spot--all smashed to little bits."

"I would merely say a word--of sympathy, you know."

"Don't do it, Tony; it would be most improper. If you attempt to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with her I'll never bring you here again. Mary would blame me, and make a dreadful fuss."

"Mary is so much in the habit of making a fuss, isn't she?"

"I a.s.sure you she would. You see she wouldn't let you come yesterday.

You can make your condolences to the brother in the office."

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.

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 _tete-a-tete_ on her own account.

CHAPTER VI

THE INEVITABLE ENSUES

Yes! The world became a changed place to Jenny Liddon from the moment when Anthony Churchill stood up to take her tray, and to say "Thank you"

in that indescribably feeling voice. That very moment it was, and she never marked it in her calendar.

"The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell!"

Very seldom do we hear the bell. And therefore we are not really so silly as we seem. Jenny was quite unaware that she had fallen in love as suddenly as you would fall downstairs if you did not look where you were going; being the most proper little heroine that ever lived in a proper family story the idea of such a thing would have covered her with shame.

Oh, she would have died sooner than so forget herself! She was merely conscious of some new, sweet scent in the atmosphere of life, some light ether in the brain, some--but what's the use of trying to describe what everybody understands already?

When the hero had ceased to watch her out of the corner of his eye, had vacated his basket-chair and vanished from the scene, the tea-room became a place of dreams, and not a place of business. She took the orders of customers with an empty, far-away, idiotic smile; she drifted about with plates and teapots like an active sleep-walker. Oh, how handsome he was! How big and strong! How considerate and kind! What perfect courtesy--taking her tray from her, and thanking her in that way, as if she were a condescending queen! How thoroughly one's ideal of a gentleman and a man! These impa.s.sioned thoughts absorbed her.

She went down to St. Kilda in the evening, and sat upon the pier. It was absolutely necessary to have the sea to commune with, under the circ.u.mstances--darkness and the sea.

"You're tired, duckie," the old mother said, aware of a difference and vaguely anxious. "Oh, don't deny it--I can see you are quite done up."

"My legs do ache," the girl confessed, with a tear and a trembling lip and an ecstatic smile. "Running after so many customers. I am not going to complain of that. Let me sit here and rest, while you and Sarah walk up and down. _Your_ legs want stretching."

They thought not, but she was sure of it. "Go, go, dears--_do_ go; I am all right--I am quite happy by myself--I _like_ it!"

They wrapped her up and left her; and while they perambulated the pleasant platform, talking of their commercial successes, and how dear Joey would come round when he heard of them, she sat quite still and stared at the sea. It murmured musically in the cold, clear night, full of sympathy for her.

All at once she seemed to catch an inkling of the truth. She turned hot and cold, sat bolt upright and shook herself, and inwardly exclaimed, with a gust of rage, "Oh, what a _fool_ I am!" then walked home briskly to give renewed attention to business.

Business prospered as well as heart could wish. The little push given by the powerful Churchill family to her humble enterprise, without which it might have struggled and languished like so many worthy enterprises, floated it into fashion within a week; and, though she had plenty of hard work, insomuch that the basket-maker's wife's niece had to be hired to wash cups and saucers and hand the teapots round the screen, all anxiety as to income was set at rest. Nothing remained to make the tea-room a sound concern but to "keep it up" as it had begun; and she and her mother were resolute to do that. Not a pot of ill-made tea nor a defective scone was ever placed before a customer by those conscientious tradeswomen. Mrs. Liddon, who was happily of a tough and active const.i.tution, 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 winegla.s.s, and of a marvellous puffy lightness. She never made more than an ovenful at a time, mixing and cutting one batch while the previous one was baking; and this rapid treatment of the dough, with her previous elaborate siftings, and a leavening of her own composition, produced the perfect article for which she became justly famous. Two scones were put before each customer, and if only one was eaten the other was not wasted.

Churchill & Son soon began to provide the tea, which was of the best quality, at a price no storekeeper could buy it for; and the very boiling of the water was watched and regulated, that the freshness should not boil out of it before it was used. The principle on which this establishment was conducted was to do little, and to do that little well--an admirable system, too rarely observed in the commercial world; but, as Jenny had not unjustly boasted, she had the instincts of a good woman of business in her. She resisted all her mother's pleadings for coffee and cakes, when the number of customers seemed to call for larger transactions. Coffee and tea, she said, would be too much upon their minds (since coffee as well as tea must be absolutely perfect), and cakes could be bought anywhere. Let them be content to know, and have it known, that for tea and scones that were always good they were to be invariably depended on. So Mrs. Liddon sifted and baked till eleven in the morning, while Sarah prepared the trays and Jenny washed the tea-room floor; and then the latter, having tidied her dainty person, trotted about with hardly a pause till seven at night, while the bent-backed sister received the little stream of coin that steadily poured in, and dreamed all day of growing rich enough to go to Europe and do things.

Jenny had no fears about the success of her undertaking; it seemed almost too successful sometimes, when her back was aching and her legs too tired to carry her; but she had one constant and ever-increasing anxiety, which beset her every morning, after keeping her more or less awake through the night. This was lest Mr. Anthony Churchill should not come to the tea-room during the day.

His stepmother never took him again, after the first visit; and she herself lost interest in the place, which had been but the fad of an hour or two. She could get a cup of tea whenever she wanted, without paying for it, or putting herself out of the way; and the Little Collins Street premises were very stuffy as the summer came on. They were too crowded for comfort--_i.e._, for a sentimental _tete-a-tete_; and the girl was too good-looking to expose Tony to, with his absurd ideas of her being a lady. So Mrs. Churchill gave the tea-room up.

Tony, however, did not give it up. Several days elapsed between his first visit and the second, because it was so difficult to go and sit down there and ask Miss Liddon to wait on him. He quite agreed with Mary that men should not be admitted. A girl like that, brought up as she had been, ought not to be at the beck and call of those coa.r.s.e creatures.

Nevertheless, as men did go, he wanted to be one of them. As representing the firm with which her father had been so closely and for so long connected, it was only right that he should keep an eye on her, and lend her a helping hand if she seemed to need it.

He said nothing of his purpose to Mrs. Oxenham, who continued to refresh herself with the admirable tea and scones at hours that could be fairly calculated upon and avoided. The first she heard of his having gone to the tea-room on his own account was from her little half-sisters, who did not happen to mention it to their mother. These children were much attached to him, and he to them, and one day he took them to the Royal Park, and treated them to tea and scones on their way home. He thought scones were better for them than sweets, he said, and he was able to get them milk instead of tea. Mary commended him for his fatherly care of their digestions, and thought no more of the matter.