A Humble Enterprise Part 15

CHAPTER XV

A STRAW AGAINST THE TIDE

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.

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 st.u.r.dy 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.

She was never in anybody's way, and yet she was always at hand if there was anything to be done that n.o.body 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 n.o.body 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.

"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."

"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.

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.

"Now, isn't that just _too_ 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!"

"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----"

"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 _know_ 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."

"You can't very well tell him not to come, my dear."

"I know I can't. Besides, that would only make him the more determined."

"Nor yet pack Miss Liddon home, after asking her to stay over Christmas--like a schoolgirl expelled for misconduct."

"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."

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 towns.h.i.+p for her.

"I have put him off till to-morrow," she said. "You can tell him the horses were lame, or something."

Mr. Oxenham, who had scores of buggy horses, all jumping out of their skins with the exhilaration of their spring coats and renewed const.i.tutions, said she must think of something that Tony would be more likely to believe than _that_. And she said, "Oh, leave it to me!" And he replied that he would do so with the very greatest pleasure.

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.

"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.

His wife regarded the girl with infinite kindness, but no compunction whatever--for she was a woman, and not a man.

"Jenny, dear," she said, "do you think you would enjoy a little drive this afternoon? I don't think it is too hot."

"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."

"Me, too," clamoured little Hal. "Let me go too, mother! Then I can tell Miss Liddon some more about Uncle Tony's s.h.i.+p that he's gone to Tasmania in."

With the explosion of this unexpected bomb the colour flew over Jenny's face, and, because she knew she was blus.h.i.+ng, 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 n.o.body knew how she thought about him.

Mrs. Oxenham flashed one lightning glance at her guest, and leisurely helped her little son to gravy. "It isn't Uncle Tony's s.h.i.+p, as it happens; it is Mr. Daunt's," she said. "And what do you know about s.h.i.+ps, you monkey?"

She looked at her husband, and he knew she looked at him, though he was eating industriously, with his eyes upon his plate.

"I sha'n't be able to take you this afternoon, Mary," he mumbled, with his mouth full, visibly shrinking. "I shall be busy."

"We shall not want you, dear," she calmly answered him. "d.i.c.kson can drive us. I am going to the towns.h.i.+p to do a little shopping for Christmas. And, Jenny, we will call on your aunt at the bank; it will be a good opportunity."

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 inst.i.tuted, 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 att.i.tude 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."

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.

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.

"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."

And the coachman was ordered thither.

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.

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.

"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."

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.

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."

"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."

"I know," said blus.h.i.+ng Jenny, who often wished devoutly that her father had gone to a state school.

"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."

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.

"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, _did_ 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?"

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.