The Lark (Nesbit)/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
For once Jane was speechless. It was Lucilla who rose instantly and went towards the old landlord, with both hands outstretched, delighted recognition in her eyes, and on her lips—words of wonder, indeed, but also of welcome.
"You?" she said. "How wonderful! We thought you were at the Alhambra or Bilbao or somewhere, and here you are! It is nice."
By this time Jane was almost herself again, ready to offer her hand and then to push forward the easiest chair.
"It seems rather cheek to offer you tea in your own house," she said, "but it would be worse still not to, seeing that we're here and the tea's here and you're here."
"I am sorry if I am inopportune," said the landlord, quite without cordiality. But he took the chair. And again he looked round him.
"You seem to have made yourselves thoroughly at home," he said, and he said it grudgingly.
"Yes," said Jane, preoccupied with the kettle and spirit-lamp. "And you're not a bit inopportune. In fact it's very much nicer for you to come when we're all tidy, though perhaps you'd rather have come on a working day, and found us up to our ears in wet ferns and flower-stalks, and as likely as not no tea ready—at least, it wouldn't have been such a nice tea as this, and certainly not the best cups."
"I'm glad to hear that, at any rate," he said grimly.
"Oh, of course we wouldn't use those lovely cups every day," said Lucilla, one ear for him and one for the step of the jail-bird on the gravel. Jane's ears were also doing a double, or, rather, a divided, duty. Both girls were desperately searching for something to say—something to delay the moment when old Mr. Rochester should repeat his first big-bear question, Both felt that the longer that could be delayed the better—if they could only get him comfortable, get him interested, give him a really good cup of tea and some of the fat, home-made cakes before having to explain about the panelling.
"The garden," Jane began, and, "The flowers," said Lucilla, at exactly the same moment, and both stopped.
Then:
"The board," they said simultaneously, and again stopped short.
"Why not speak one at a time," suggested Mr. Rochester, "and explain to me . . ."
"I was just trying to," said Jane very quickly, and got in before Lucilla that time. "I do hope you don't mind the board? We couldn't have sold anything to speak of without a board—and we left the original label . . ."
"Label?"
"'This house is not to let.' I do think that's lovely," said Jane, with an air of the completest candour. "Do you know, Mr. Rochester, I knew you were nice. The very minute I saw that notice I knew it. And when they told me you were . . ."
"They told you I was what?"
"We knew it was only that they didn't understand you," Lucilla put in.
"They didn't say anything really dreadful, you know," said Jane; "only that they didn't think you would let anyone have the house."
"Was that all?"
"Well," Jane acknowledged, "one person did say you were a grampus, but I don't think he could have been serious."
Mr. Rochester gave a short, sharp bark of a laugh.
("Come, that's something!" Jane told herself. "If we can only make him laugh!")
"Do you take milk and sugar?" she asked hastily, and acted on his reply.
"Do have a cake. They aren't bought ones. Our Mrs. Doveton made them herself, out of one of Aunt Lucilla's receipt-books."
Lucilla was keeping her end up. "It's such a darling book, bound in violet morocco with gold ferns on it, and the pages are different colours—like girls' albums—and there re bits of poetry and little pictures stuck in all among the recipes. Dear little pencil sketches of ruined abbeys and thatched cottages, and little paintings of auriculas and tulips and Spanish dancers with fans and white stockings, and valentines with silver loves and cupids and the loveliest verses."
"It must be a very interesting book," said Mr. Rochester. "And does your Mrs. Doveton find her way easily among the poetry and the paintings and the recipes?"
"Oh no!" said Lucilla, shocked, "The book's never been in the kitchen. We copy out what she's to make, on the kitchen slate. We tried buying cakes—but they aren't really nice in the shops here. I can't think they're made of real eggs and butter, and they all taste of essence of lemon. Besides, the shop-people call them pastries, and that does sound so dreadful, doesn't it?"
"It does," said he, with the first glance of approval that they dared to recognise. "And I am very glad that you perceive it. The vulgarism is getting itself accepted, somehow. 'Pastries!' We shall have people talking of 'grouses' next, and 'deers' and 'snipes.' Already the Daily Yell, I understand, allows its American contributors to write of billiards-rooms, to say 'around' when they mean 'round,' and to use the expression, 'he made himself scarce,' in a serious narrative. One of the saddest things in this machine-made century," he added, "is the neglect, the decay, the corruption, of the English language."
"I saw billiards-rooms myself, the day we bought a lot of newspapers," said Jane helpfully, "and I thought it looked horrid, but then I thought it must be a mistake of the printers."
"Not at all," said Mr. Rochester, "it is intentional. So is that revolting and unnatural plural 'pastries'; so is . . ."
He was launched. Jane and Lucilla found means to exchange glances of congratulations. But still ears were pricked—as far as young ladies' ears can be pricked—for the sound of the feet of jailbirds on the gravel. And still none came.
It seemed to Jane that she and Lucilla had quite enough on their hands in this sudden necessity for soothing Mr. Rochester and compelling him to refrain from the subject of the panels till he could contemplate it through a haze of shortcake, without having to introduce to him such an acquaintance as Mr. Dix, a young man who had not only been in prison—that, Jane felt, might happen by accident to any of us—but was actually not ashamed of it.
". . . The degradation of the language," Mr. Rochester was saying. "The depraved Cockney accent of half-educated teachers replacing the sturdy local dialects . . ."
The girls leaned forward, attitude and expression alike designed to convey the impression of rapt attention. "If he'll only keep on till he's had his second cup," Jane told herself, "it won't be so bad." He finished the first and accepted the second. There was a pause, which both girls were afraid to break.
"What," he asked suddenly, "do you call the article of food which is baked in an earthenware dish, rather deep and usually of an oval form, though sometimes round or oblong: outside is pastry, within are apples, cloves and sugar? What do you call it?"
"Is it a riddle?" Jane asked.
"No, no," he said impatiently; "a perfectly plain question. You recognise the thing from my description? Well, what do you call it?"
"An apple-pie, of course," said Lucilla and Jane almost together.
"Good," said Mr, Rochester, actually rubbing his hands, "but, believe me, there are young women—yes, and women old enough to know better—who think that they show refinement by calling an apple-pie an apple-tart. Why don't they consult their dictionaries? A tart is an open piece of pastry with jam, apple, or what-not on it. In the pie the apple or other adjunct is covered."
"Of course it is."
"Of course it is," repeated Mr. Rochester; "and now," he went on, putting down his cup and speaking quite mildly, "perhaps you will tell me . . ."
They looked at each other and felt that the hour had struck. They must tell the truth about the panelling.
". . . Tell me," he ended unexpectedly, "how you managed to get into the house again?"
"But we didn't," said Jane. "You said we weren't to and we didn't. Of course we didn't."
"Then how did you get these things out?"
"?"
"The chairs and tables—the tea-things—the flower-vases—the Belgian pottery?"
Again, and now really startled, they looked at each other. Was it possible that their benefactor could be insane?
"You put them here for us—don't you remember?" said Jane gently.
"It won't do, my dear," he answered with almost equal gentleness. "I may be absent-minded—in fact I am. I may be forgetful—of trifles—but I am not so silly as you suppose. Come—why deny it, when here the things are? Own up! How did you get into the house?"
"We didn't," said Jane with extreme coldness. "Please don't doubt our word. We shouldn't have dreamed of doing anything so dishonourable."
"We found the things here, you know," Lucilla explained quietly. "Don't you think you must have given orders for the place to be made nice for us, and then forgotten about it? We found it all ready for us, and the looking-glass and the jug and basin"—she swung open the door of the further cupboard as she spoke—"and all the beautiful jugs and vases. The other cupboard opened at her touch, confirming her words. "And the new tap by the front door—all so convenient and so lovely. And we did think it so frightfully nice of you; and we have been so grateful and thought about you such a lot—and wished you luck, and that you might find whatever you were looking for in Spain. You are absent-minded, you know. You must have ordered it, and forgotten, Do try to remember. And don't be so cross," she added, with a sudden inspiration of courage, "because we really haven't done anything to deserve it."
"I apologise for having doubted a lady's word," said Mr. Rochester with blighting courtesy, "but my position is a difficult one. The age of miracles is past. And I know that I did not give any such order as you suggest, because I remember perfectly a sudden sense of remissness which overcame me between Tours and Bordeaux, just because I had not given such an order. I wondered how you would get on, and whether you would have to disarrange Hope Cottage in order to make the garden room possible even as a living-room for part of the day."
All the while, through his talking and their own, they had been listening for the footfall of Mr. Dix. And now at last it sounded on the gravel. They were almost grateful. They felt that they could trust Mr. Rochester not to scold them before Mr. Dix. And if only Mr. Dix would not talk about his prison life . . .
"I'm rather early, I'm afraid," said the newcomer apologetically, "butHullo, uncle!"
Again it was not Mr. Dix. It was the younger Mr. Rochester.
"You are just in time to solve a trifling mystery for us," said his uncle, when the little bustle of greetings had died down. "Can you suggest any way in which the chairs and tables and teacups out of the house can have transferred themselves into the garden room?"
Men should not blush, but Mr. Rochester did it; he tried, however, to conceal the blush by instant speech.
"I did, uncle, of course. I knew you'd wish it. I felt certain you'd have done it yourself, or given orders about it, if you hadn't left in such a hurry. I hope you approve my choice," he added, taking up a tea-cup and putting it down again.
"So the miracle's explained," said old Mr. Rochester; "and the explanation's like that of all miracles, quite simple when you know it."
"I knew it, of course," said Lucilla, "directly you said it wasn't you who put the things here."
"Oh, you did, did you?" said the old gentleman.
"Why, of course," said Jane; "but we couldn't give Mr. Rochester away, could we? We didn't know whether you would approve his choice," she added, looking up at the old gentleman under her eyelashes in a way which the young gentleman thought might have charmed the most savage breast. "But you do, don't you? You said you thought of it between Tours and Bordeaux, and wished you had."
"So I did. You were quite right, my boy. Thank you."
"And now we may thank you," said Lucilla., "It wouldn't have done for us to thank you until we were quite sure that your uncle approved, would it?" she turned on the uncle a glance half-timid, half arch.
"We do thank you—both of you, as much as ever you'll let us," said Jane. "I didn't think there were such kind people in the world—people who aren't your relations or anything, I mean. I think it's wonderful. And, dear Mr. Rochester, it was our fault that the paint was scraped off the panelling; we thought you'd like it, and Lucy and I tried to do it ourselves, and then Mr. Rochester—your nephew I mean—came and helped, and Mr. Simmons helped, and it really does seem as if everybody is ready to help us, and if you're not pleased I really don't know what we shall do. We did so very much want to please you. You are pleased, aren't you? It does look nice, doesn't it?"
"I'm more pleased than I can say," said old Mr. Rochester most unexpectedly. "I can't imagine why you thought I wasn't pleased."
"Why, the way you asked who'd been messing about with the panelling."
"Oh, that was before I'd seen what had happened. Coming in out of the sun, in the half light, I thought someone had repainted everything brown. But when I saw the grain of the wood—why, I was delighted."
"Oh," said Lucilla, "I do wish you'd said so! We've been so afraid you were cross! And now it's all right."
And Jane was saying to herself: "Yes—it's all right. Everything turns out lucky for us. I believe we are born lucky. Mr. Dix can come when he likes! Who's afraid? Let him come!"
But Mr. Dix did not come.