A Humble Enterprise Part 6

The fact was that he had given the small creatures an outing on purpose that they might introduce him to the tea-room. It seemed so much easier to appear before Miss Liddon on their behalf than on his own, and their presence was calculated to attract that notice and interest which he did not imagine he would receive for his own sake. He was not desperately anxious to see Miss Liddon, but he was curious. What he had seen of her, and what Mary and his father had told him (particularly about the hundred pounds that had been offered and refused), had struck his fancy; that was all--at present.

When he appeared at the door of the yellow chamber, with a Liberty-sashed, granny-bonneted mite clinging to either hand, Jenny saw him at once, and experienced that strange shock of leaping blood which makes heart shake and eyes dim for an ecstatic moment--such as we all understand much better than we can describe it. For days she had been aching for a sight of him, despite her savage mortification that it should be so; and here he was at last in the charming guise of a man loving and caring for little children, which, as every woman knows, is a guarantee of goodness that never proves false.

It was after six o'clock, when people were thinking of dinner rather than tea--when little Grace and Geraldine should have been on their way to Toorak, where their nursery meal awaited them--and the tea-room crowd had thinned to half a dozen, all of whom had their plates and brown pots beside them. This also he had in a measure antic.i.p.ated. Jenny was free, and came forward a step or two to meet him, glancing at the children with a soft, maternal look, as it seemed to him.

"I hope these little people will not be troublesome," he said, bowing with his best politeness. "They have been to see the lions and tigers fed, and I think it has made them hungry."

"Oh, yes," said Jenny flutteringly. "I will get them some scones--not quite the newest ones. And--and don't you think they are too young for tea? May I get them some milk instead?"

"Thank you--thank you very much--if you are sure you can spare it. I daresay it would be better for them."

"I am sure it would, and we have plenty. It is very good milk."

She set the children into chairs, took off their smart bonnets, tucked napkins (napkins were kept for occasions, though not for general use) round their little chins, and put two scones into their hands; Anthony watching her with eyes that she felt piercing like two gimlets through the back of her head. He was noticing what fine, bright hair she had, and what delicate skin, and remembering that her father had been an Eton boy.

"I am awfully sorry to give you so much trouble," he mumbled.

"It is no trouble at all," she replied. "Now I will get them some milk."

She dared to glance up at him. "You, sir--will you have some tea for yourself?"

"Oh, if you please--if it won't be troubling you. It's such perfectly delicious tea."

Jenny danced off--trying not to dance--and was back in a twinkling, with the tray in her arms. Her trays were light, and did not drag her into ungraceful att.i.tudes, but he objected to see her carrying one for him.

As before, he took it from her! and the little courtesy made her cheeks flush and her heart swell.

"Only he," she said to herself, "would do that."

And he would not sit to drink his tea, while she stood by, as she did, to wait upon the children--to see that they didn't b.u.t.ter their sashes and slop milk down their frocks; and under the circ.u.mstances it was impossible not to talk to her.

"Will you allow me to introduce myself?" he ventured to say, during a pause in her ministrations, when she seemed uncertain whether to go or stay. "I am Anthony Churchill--of the firm, you know. I hope I am not taking a liberty, but your father was such an old friend. I grieve indeed to hear--I knew nothing about it when I came the other day----"

Jenny flushed and fluttered, and, because she was physically weary, could not bear to be reminded of her father, who used to take such tender care of her. For an instant her eyes glistened, warning him to hurry from the subject.

"I think it is so brave of you to do what you are doing. My sister has been telling me about it."

"Oh, thank you--but my mother and sister do more than I do, in proportion to their strength. My sister is delicate; I'm afraid it is not good for her to sit here all day." After a pause, she added, "Mrs.

Oxenham has been very, very kind to me; your father too."

"I am sure they were only too glad, if they had the chance. I wish--I wish I were privileged to be some help."

"Oh, thank you! The only help we wish for is for people to come and drink our tea, and show themselves satisfied with it."

"May I come and drink it sometimes? I feel as if men were out of place here; I am sure you would rather not have them--but I am a very quiet fellow, and I have a woman's pa.s.sion for tea." He had nothing of the sort, but that didn't matter.

"Anyone has a right to come who chooses," she answered, turning from him to attend to little Grace.

The words were discouraging, but he thought the tone was not; and he determined to come again, and alone, at the earliest opportunity.

CHAPTER VII

THERE ARE SUCH WOMEN IN THE WORLD

Duly carrying out his intention on the very next day, Anthony was annoyed to find the room full, and Jenny flitting hither and thither like the choice b.u.t.terfly that defies the collector's net. More than that, the basket-maker's wife, who was acquiring an ever-deepening interest in the restaurant business, was being initiated into the art of serving customers, in preparation for the expected crush of race time; and this unattractive person it was who brought him his tea and scone.

Very sedately he sat in the chair that looked best able to bear his weight until his tray was placed beside him, and it became evident that he was to get no satisfaction out of Jenny beyond that of looking at her. He looked at her for some minutes with an interest that surprised himself, and she was conscious of the direction of his eyes, and of every turn of his head, as if she had herself a hundred eyes to watch him. Then he quietly took up cup and plate, and pa.s.sed over to Sarah's table. Sarah's table was a common, four-legged cedar affair, with an aesthetic cloth on it, and bore only her money bowls and the needlework that she was accustomed to occupy herself with at odd moments. It stood in a retired corner, partly sheltered by the screen.

"Do you mind if I sit here with you?" he said pleasantly--with proper respect, of course, but not with the deference she had noted in his att.i.tude to Jenny. "I feel so out of it, with no lady to excuse my presence, monopolising one of those pretty little tables that were never meant for such as me."

Now Sarah was a child in years, but she was old in novel-reading and like exercises of the mind; and she had already cast a hungry eye upon Mr. Anthony Churchill and her sister, scenting a possible romance before a thought of such a thing had occurred to either of them. During their interview on the previous afternoon she had observed them with quite a pa.s.sionate interest; and all through the night she had listened to Jenny's restless movements in her adjoining bed, like a careful doctor noting the symptoms of incipient fever. She had been all day watching for his return to the tea-room, as for a potential lover of her own--lovers, she knew, were not for her--abandoning her dreams of European travel to build gorgeous air-castles on Jenny's behalf. "If _this_ should be the result of keeping a restaurant--oh, if _this_ should be the reward of her goodness and courage, and all her hard work!" she sighed to herself, in an ecstasy of exultation. "Oh, if he should marry her, and make a great lady of her--as she deserves to be--what would Joey say to the tea-room _then_?"

So, when Mr. Churchill presented himself, he found no difficulty in making friends with her. She swept her work-basket from the table, to give him room for his cup and plate, and responded to his advances with a ready self-possession that surprised him in a girl so young; for Sarah, under-sized and crippled, did not look her age by several years.

For herself she would have been shy and awkward, but for Jenny she was bold enough. She had determined that, if she could help to bring about the realisation of her new dream, her best wits should not be wanting.

He soon began to speak of Jenny.

"Your sister seems very busy," he said, with a lightness of tone that did not deceive the listener.

"Yes; too busy. She gets very tired at night sometimes."

"I am afraid so. She has not been used to so much running about."

"No. She never expected to have so many customers. I am sorry now that we did not open for the afternoon only; it would have been quite enough for her."

"I suppose the afternoon is the busiest time?"

"Oh, yes. There are very few in the morning. Sometimes she is able to sit down and sew for a few minutes."

Mr. Churchill made a mental note of that. "I should have thought she had enough to do at the slackest time without doing sewing," he said, watching the flitting figure furtively.

"Oh, she must be doing something; she is never idle. She makes her own dresses always--and the most of ours."

"You don't say so!" He stared at Jenny boldly now. "Do you mean to say she made that one that she's got on?"

"Certainly. And it looks all right, doesn't it?"

"Mrs. Earl couldn't beat her," he said absurdly; and he really thought so, not knowing anything about it, except that Jenny's frock was simple and neat--a style that men are always partial to. "But then Mrs. Earl doesn't often get such a figure to fit, does she?"

"Oh, I suppose so. Plenty of them."

"I am sure she doesn't. It's so very graceful and--and high-bred, you know. n.o.body but a lady could move and turn as she does. I hope you don't think I'm very impertinent to make these remarks."

"Oh, no," laughed Sarah, who glowed with satisfaction. "I like to hear her praised. To me she's the best and dearest person in the world. _I_ don't think there is anybody like her."

"Well, there can't be many like her," said Anthony, seriously reflecting upon the girl's energy and high-mindedness.