CHAPTER III
AFLOAT
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 æsthetic 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.
"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."
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.
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.
"Miss Liddon, I presume?"
"Yes, sir."
They bowed to each other.
"Hm – ha – I must introduce myself – Mr. Churchill, my dear – excuse my freedom – I am not exactly a stranger – "
"Oh no, sir!"
She was violently crimson, thinking of the returned cheque; so was he, from the same cause.
"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."
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.
Jenny received her with emotion – a swift whisk of a handkerchief across her eyes and an impassioned smile.
"This, mother, is Mr. Churchill. He is so good as to take an interest in our experiment. He has come to wish us success."
"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."
"You know his son, sir," murmured the widow, who was very proud of her handsome boy.
"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?"
She looked down, and again coloured violently.
"Ah, I see. You felt yourself grossly insulted. I am sure you did."
"Oh, no, no," the mother eagerly interposed. "Pray don't think that. We were all most grateful – indeed, we were. But Jenny said – "
"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."
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.
"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."
"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.
"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."
"They would have been cheaper," he said, "if you had come to me. Mind you come to me when you want some more."
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.
"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."
"I know," said Jenny. "And that we may do it, we have undertaken nothing but 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 can make a batch in a quarter of an hour, if necessary."
"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.
"I am," replied Sarah, from behind her little table, on which stood two wooden bowls and neat piles of paper tickets.
"And what's to pay?" he inquired, advancing with his hand full of loose silver.
"Sixpence," said she shyly.
"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."
"You are very good," murmured Jenny; "and I will."
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.
"What! you, Mary?" he exclaimed, for he had forgotten all about her.
"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?"
"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."
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.
CHAPTER IV
THE HERO
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.
"People talk of the troubles of stepmothers," she used to say, with her most maternal air. "I have never had any trouble. My stepchildren never objected to me for a moment, and they are just the comfort of my life."
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
"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 protégée as to how she was getting on.
"Beautifully," 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."
"Get me some, dear."
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.
"I am on my way to meet the mail steamer," she said, rising when she had finished her tea, and looking at her watch.
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Not wholly on tea and scones, I hope?"
"No," smiled Jenny. "Mother sees to that."
"You must take care to play no tricks with your health. Mind that."
"I am as careful as I can be, Mrs. Oxenham."
"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?"
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."
"Does he live with you?"
"Not now. He has taken lodgings for himself."
"He doesn't approve of the tea-room, does he?"
Jenny blushed a deeper hue. "He is only a boy," she murmured indulgently. "He doesn't understand. He will some day."
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.
"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."
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.
"It's early," he said, "but we may as well catch the 4.30. Better be too soon than too late."
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.
"How well he looks!" exclaimed Mrs. Oxenham – meaning how beautiful and distinguished, compared with other women's brothers.
"Splendid!" said the father proudly.
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.
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.
"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."
"What should she have in her?" asked Mrs. Oxenham, smiling.
"What you have in you, Polly," he replied. "Some sense. Some ideas beyond dressing and smirking at men."
"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."
"Thanks; but I'd rather find her for myself."
"A man never finds a woman of that sort. He doesn't know her when he sees her. He doesn't know any 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."
The wild idea that Jenny Liddon would suit him never crossed her mind for a moment, as a matter of course.
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.
"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?"
The brats came headlong downstairs, and flung themselves upon him from all sides at once.
"Oh, Tony! Tony! We are so glad you are back, dear Tony! What have you brought us, Tony?"