Jan and Her Job Part 18

"Now, chicks, this is London, the friendly town," Jan announced, as the taxi drove away from Charing Cross station.

"Flendly little London, dirty little London," her niece rejoined, as she bounced up and down on Jan's knee. She had slept during the very good crossing and was full of conversation and ready to be pleased with all she saw.

Tony was very quiet. He had suffered far more in the swift journey across France than during the whole of the voyage, and it was difficult to decide whether he or Ayah were the more extraordinary colour.

Greenish-white and miserable he sat beside his aunt, silent and observing.

"Here's dear old Piccadilly," Jan exclaimed, as the taxi turned out of St. James's Street. "Doesn't it look jolly in the suns.h.i.+ne?"

Tony turned even greener than before, and gasped:

"This! Piccadilly!"

This not very wide street with shops and great houses towering above them, the endless streams of traffic in the road and on the crowded pavements!

"Did Mrs. Bond live in one of those houses?" he wondered, "and if so, where did she keep her ducks? And where, oh, where, were the tulips and the lilies of his dream?"

He uttered no sound, but his mind kept exclaiming, "This! Piccadilly?"

"See," said Jan, oblivious of Tony and intent on keeping her lively niece upon her knee. "There's the Green Park."

Tony breathed more freely.

After all, there _were_ trees and gra.s.s; good gra.s.s, and more of it than in the Resident's garden. He took heart a little and summoned up courage to inquire: "But where are the tulips?"

"It's too early for tulips yet," Jan answered. "By and by there will be quant.i.ties. How did you know about them? Did dear Mummy tell you? But they're in Hyde Park, not here."

Tony made no answer. He was, as usual, weighing and considering and making up his mind.

Presently he spoke. "It's different," he said, slowly, "but I rather like to look at it."

Tony never said whether he thought things were pretty or ugly. All he knew was that certain people and places, pictures and words, sometimes filled him with an exquisite sense of pleasure, while others merely bored or exasperated or were positively painful.

His highest praise was "I like to look at it." When he didn't like to look at it, he had found it wiser to express no opinion at all, except in moments of confidential expansion, and these were rare with Tony.

Meg had found them a nice little furnished flat on the fifth floor in one of the blocks behind Kensington High Street, and Hannah must surely have been waiting behind the door, so instantaneously was it opened, when Jan and her party left the lift.

There were tears in Hannah's eyes and her nose was red as she welcomed "Miss Fay's motherless bairns." She was rather shocked that there was no sign of mourning about any of them except Jan, who wore--mainly as a concession to Hannah's prejudices--a thin black coat and skirt she had got just before she left Bombay.

Tony stared stonily at Hannah and decided he did not like to look at her. She was as surprising as the newly-found Piccadilly, but she gratified no sensuous perception whatsoever.

Ayah might not be exactly beautiful, but she was harmonious. Her body was well proportioned, her sari fell in gracious flowing lines, and she moved with dignity. Without knowing why, Tony felt that there was something pleasing to the eye in Ayah. Hannah, on the contrary, was the reverse of graceful; stumpy and heavy-footed, she gave an impression of abrupt terminations. Everything about her seemed too short except her caps, which were unusually tall and white and starchy. Her afternoon ap.r.o.ns, too, were stiffer and whiter and more voluminous than those of other folk. She did not regard these things as vain adornings of her person, rather were they the outward and visible sign of her office as housekeeper to Miss Ross. They were a partial expression of the dignity of that office, just as a minister's gown is the badge of his.

By the time everyone was washed and brushed Meg returned with the luggage and Hannah brought in tea.

"I thought you'd like to give the bairns their tea yourself the first day, Miss Jan. Will that Hindu body have hers in the nursery?"

"That would be best," Jan said hastily. "And Hannah, you mustn't be surprised if she sits on the floor. Indian servants always do."

"_Nothing_ she can do will surprise me," Hannah announced loftily. "I've not forgotten the body that came back with Mrs. Tancred, with a ring through her nose and a red wafer on her forehead."

Jan, herself, went with Ayah to the nursery, where she found that in spite of her disparaging sniffs, Hannah had put out everything poor Ayah could possibly want.

The children were hungry and tea was a lengthy meal. It was not until they had departed with Ayah for more was.h.i.+ngs that Jan found time to say: "Why don't you take off your hat, Meg dear? I can't see you properly in that extinguisher. Is it the latest fas.h.i.+on?"

"The very latest."

Meg looked queerly at Jan as she slowly took off her hat.

"There!" she said.

Her hair was cropped as short as a boy's, except for the soft, tawny rings that framed her face.

"Meg!" Jan cried. "Why on earth have you cut off your hair?"

"Chill penury's the cause. I've turned it into good hard cash. It happens to be the fas.h.i.+onable colour just now."

"Did you really need to? I thought you were getting quite a good salary with those Hoffmeyers."

"No English governess gets a _good_ salary in Bremen, and mine was but a modest remuneration, so I wanted more. Do you remember Lady Penelope Pottinger?"

"Hazily. She was pretty, wasn't she ... and very smart?"

"She was and is ... smarter than ever now--mind, I put you on your honour never to mention it--_she's_ got my hair."

"Do you mean she asked you to sell it?"

"No, my child. I offered it for sale and she was all over me with eagerness to purchase. Hair's the defective wire in her lighting apparatus. Her own, at the best, is skimpy and straight, though very much my colour, and what with permanent waving and instantaneous hair colouring it was positively dwindling away."

"I wish you had let it dwindle."

"No, I rather like her--so I suggested she should give her own poor locks a rest and have an artistic _postiche_ made with mine; it made two, one to come and one to go--to the hairdresser. She looks perfectly charming. I'd no idea my hair was so decent till I saw it on her head."

"I hope _I_ never shall," Jan said gloomily. "I think it was silly of you, for it makes you look younger and more irresponsible than ever; and what about posts?"

"I've got a post in view where it won't matter if only I can run things my own way."

"Will you have to go at once? I thought, perhaps----"

"I wish to take this post at once," Meg interposed quickly, "but it depends on you whether I get it."

"On me?"

"On no one else. Look here, Jan, will you take me on as nurse to Fay's children? A real nurse, mind, none of your fine lady arrangements; only you must pay me forty pounds a year. I can't manage with less if I'm to give my poor little Papa any chirps ... I suppose that's a frightful lot for a nurse?"

"Not for a good nurse ... But, Meg, you got eighty when you taught the little boys, and I know they'd jump at you again in that school, hair or no hair."

"Listen, Jan." Meg put her elbows on the table and leaned her sharp little chin on her two hands while she held Jan's eyes with hers. "For nine long years, except that time with the Trents, I've been teaching, teaching, teaching, and I'm sick of teaching. I'd rather sweep a crossing."

"Yet you teach so well; you know the little boys adored you."