The Lark (Nesbit)/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
Hot water, the ballet-dancer's remedy for a sprain, does indeed work wonders. Doctors have been known to recommend cold water for this ailment. Charles Reade points out that the interest of the ballet-dancer is to expedite the cure, whereas the doctor's interest . . . But let us have no scandal about doctors. All we are at present concerned with is Jane's ankle, which cured itself "a perfect miracle," as Mrs. Doveton said, so that by the time the board was painted and dry, and the giver of the board notified of the new store of flowers that would be purchasable at Cedar Court, Jane was able to hobble to the gate to receive his congratulations.
"I never would 'a beleft it," said Mr. Simmons—did I say before that his name was Simmons? Anyhow, it was. "Never, I wouldn't. All the talk is as the old cove's loony, and now for him to do a sensible thing like that. It don't seem natural, do it?"
Mr. Simmons was very sympathetic about the sprained ankle. "You ain't 'ad a doctor?" he said. "No, and that's where you're wise. But you want something to cheer it up like, after all that hot sopping. Got any rosemary in either of your gardens? Nor rue either? You don't know? Well, well I I'll bring you a bit to-morrow. You mash it up well in boiling water, and strain off the liquor, and wet a rag with it and put on that foot o' yours. You'll be as right as ninepence in a couple of days."
They showed him the board and he admired and approved it. "I was afraid, being young ladies, you might have drawed it a bit too fancy," he said. "But no. Plain and clear. That's the style. Have you thought how you'll fix it up?"
"We thought we'd nail it on the post under the board that says 'This House is Not to Let.'"
"Better let me clip it on the railings for you," said he "with a couple of nuts and bolts. It'll be more noticeable, and the boys won't nick it, I'll bring them herbs along to-night, and you'll see, day after to-morrow, you'll be able to walk down to the Court. That'll be Saturday, and I'll be there."
"How did you come to know so much about herbs?" Lucilla asked.
"I do know a bit," he said. "I learned it off my granny. She was a great one for herbs. Ay, and spells too. She'd alius got a rhyme to say when you took the herb tea or whatever it was."
"0h, do tell us what to say when you use the rosemary."
"I can't remember," he said; "but the rue one, it goes like this:
'Rue, rue, fair, kind and true,
Do as I would have thee do;
In a night, in a day,
Take my pains and griefs away.'"
"How lovely!" said Jane. "Say it again! I shall say it when I put the rue on my foot. And 'griefs' too? It's a cure for heartache."
"I understand from the book," said Simmons, "that in those old times when that book was written they just mean pains when they said griefs. It says rue will cure all ache and grief in the bones."
"Have you got the book?" the girls asked together and eagerly.
"That I have—I'll show it you some day," said Simmons. "Funny old book it is, with a picture at the beginning of a gentleman being ill in a four-poster and a doctor with a ham-frill round his neck holding a knife and a basin. Thank you, miss, I should like a few vilets for a buttonhole if it's not troubling you too much."
So Lucilla gathered them and Jane pinned them in and Mr. Simmons went on his way.
"What a nice world it is,"said Lucilla; "how nice everybody is!"
"Not everybody," said Jane sternly. "But I do think Mr. Simmons is a dear. Fancy his knowing that old rhyme. What a lot of friends we're making—Mr. Simmons, old Mr. Rochester, Mrs. Doveton . . . and all the men who buy flowers of us that we don't know the names of. We'll open our shop on Saturday, Luce. What do you think we'd better wear?"
"Whatever does it matter?"
"It's most important," said Jane, "to produce a good impression. We want something that looks at once attractive and businesslike. Come indoors now, this minute, and let us go through our things and see if we can't find frocks that will be at once elegant and sensible. Yes—I know it's not usual."
They went in; in the hall Lucilla stopped to say solemnly, "Jane, we ought to have overalls. Something different from any overalls that anyone has ever had before. Do you think it would be wrong to cut up those dark Indian cotton bedspreads in the servant's bedroom? They're very lovely—rich and rare and crimson and blue. And there are two of them."
"Angel!" said Jane. "Let's cut out the overalls now, and make them ourselves."
"But we don't know how."
"We'll cut them like those blue Chinese coats our kind guardian sent us—make them a bit longer. They'll be all right, you'll see. What a lark it will be to sell flowers in radiant Eastern garments! Your aunt's little sewing-machine. We can use that and do the hems and necks by hand. Do you think we ought to wear caps? Or coloured handkerchiefs knotted round our heads?"
"Certainly not," said Lucilla; "we don't want to look like actresses. I'll go and get the bedspreads."
••••••
The bath-chair was very useful in conveying not only Jane—who did not desire to risk the journey on the restored ankle—but the finished overalls and complete tea equipage, scissors, bast, the oilcloth from the kitchen table, and various other desired objects. It made several journeys–the last with a number of glass jampots and a few pretty china vases.
Lucilla hung the board provisionally from the top of the railings by a cord, as pictures are hung. Then she took the ever-useful bath-chair and the bread-knife and went into the garden to cut the flowers.
Jane remained in the garden room. It was a panelled room, small and rather high, with a curious domed ceiling. An unusually wide French window opened on the drive, and on each side of this were casements, so that almost all that side of the room was of clear glass. The room was at the end of the left wing of the house, which, so to speak, balanced the round tower on the right side of the building. Another window, also unusually large, opened on the lawn where the cedars stood. In the corner was a door leading to the stairs down which Jane had tumbled, but this door was now locked. Opposite the cedar window was the fireplace, of carved wood, an elegant Adam design. A corner cupboard charmingly panelled stood between fireplace and French window. There were also cupboards on each side of the cedar window—these set in the thickness of the wall. The floor was of black and white stone, laid diamond-wise.
For furniture there were two low chairs with curved carved backs and soft red and green coloured tapestry seats of the shape associated with the name of the Empress Eugenie; two or three polished beechwood chairs, ladder-backed, rush-bottomed; a large long table and a little round table! A polished pierced brass fender and a dark rug before it completed the furnishing. It would have been a quaint and elegant room but for its colour—the walls, cupboards, mantelpiece, all were painted a clear gas-green.
"But it's not such a bad background for flowers," Jane told herself, as she opened one of the cupboards to stow away the tea-things. "Hullo!" she added thoughtfully.
For the cupboard, which had been empty at their last visit, now held a tray of Japanese lacquer, delicate blue-and-white Chinese tea-cups, other blue-and-white china, and the most delightful collection of jugs and mugs and pots and vases that Jane had ever seen.
Green Bruges pottery, Welsh lustre, Grès de Flanders, old pewter. Jane looked at the jampots huddled on the floor and laughed. She sat down to laugh more at her ease, and was still sitting and still laughing when Lucilla returned wheeling a bath-chair full of daffodils, forget-me-nots, and big budding boughs.
"If ever there was a fairy godmother," she said, "it's Mr. James Rochester. Look in that cupboard! There's forethought for you! There's delicacy! There's taste! Every kind of possible pot to put flowers in, and not an inch of water for them! We shall have to carry every drop of water for our flowers from Hope Cottage. He might have trusted us with the key of the scullery!"
"He's done better," said Lucilla, carefully laying the flowers on the long table where Jane had spread the kitchen oilcloth. "Come here." She led the way to the window; just at the side, where it could conveniently be reached from the stone doorstep, was a tap, perfectly new, as its own brightness and the bluish bloom of its lead pipes alike testified.
"Is he an angel, or isn't he?" demanded Lucilla. "You get these flowers in water and I'll get some more. Let's set up pots on those wide window4edges each side of the door, and we'll put the little table outside to make a show. I'll go and get some more flowers. And let's put our pinafores on. And put away our hats and coats—they spoil the look of the room. There's nothing in the other cupboard, I suppose?"
"This door's jolly heavy. You want too much," said Jane. "You've almost got it too." she said, falling back a little from the open door.
For in the cupboard was a jug and wash-basin, painted with large roses and peonies and gaily-feathered birds, and to the inside of the door was fixed a long looking-glass.
"Replete," said Jane thoughtfully, "with every modern convenience."
"It's very wonderful," said Lucilla. "I mean he must be very wonderful. I can imagine a young person taking all this trouble—but an old man . . ."
"All old people don't forget what it felt like to be young," said Jane, voicing a great and rarely recognised truth. "Get all the flowers you can. When Mr. Simmons comes we'll get him to help lift out the big table. This is going to look more attractive than any bazaar stall, Lucy. But I don't like the oilcloth—those little lilac spots. . . . And yet, I don't know—it's cottagy. Oh, hurry up! This is going to be what Gladys calls a fair treat."
It was, though, as Jane pointed out, they would never know how fair a treat it would have been, because the board attracted the notice of every passer-by and people came in to buy flowers long before the "shop," as they called it, was arranged, and, of course, the more flowers they sold the fewer they had to make the shop pretty with. Still, in spite of this drawback, it was very pretty. Table and window-ledges were golden with daffodils in green pots. Lucilla found a small garden bench, dragged it from its place, and set it up on the drive a couple of yards from the French window. On this was a double row of low pots running over with the blue of forget-me-nots, behind which rose-coloured tulips stood up like little lanterns. On the round table they put a great Flanders jug filled with tall boughs all leaf and blossom, and round it more forget-me-nots.
"Heaven bless good old Mr. Rochester for this!" said Jane, washing her hands in the bird-painted basin. "And a towel and soap! I suppose he must be the best man who ever lived."
There was no doubt about the success of the shop. Every woman who passed, and who had a few pence to spare, came in, drawn by irresistible curiosity, through the open gates that had so long been closed. And when the dark stream of workmen came down the road it diverted its course through those same gates, and before Mr. Simmons had finished the adjustment of his clips an<J bolts and nuts to the board and the railings, the shopkeepers were hugging each other behind the screen of the open cupboard door and repeating to each other in ecstasy the words: "Sold out, my dear, sold out!"
"Sold out, Mr. Simmons!" they cried in chorus as he came up to the window to announce the completion of his clipping and bolting and nuttting; "and we've got a whole bag of money, and thank you a thousand times for being such a friend."
"Sold out, have you?" said he, looking a little wistfully at the bare, water-splashed tables and bench on which stood the empty vases. "I wish I'd 'a thought to ask you to save me a few."
"Oh, but we have," said Jane, "only we hid them because people did bother us so to let them have them. And, Mr. Simmons, this isn't business. It's a presentation bouquet."
She took from the cupboard a bouquet of tulips and narcissus; a white paper stuck out stiffly from among the flowers. He read the paper slowly:
"To Mr. Simmons on the occasion of the opening of the Cedar Court shop. From his friends Jane Quested and Lucilla Craye."
"Well," he said, "I do take this kind. I never expected anything of the sort. I meant to"
"We know you did. But we like it best this way," said Jane; "and now we're going to have some tea, and you'll have a cup with us and tell us some more about the herb book."
It was not a merry tea-party, because Mr. Simmons was not yet wholly at his ease with his new friends, but it was a pleasant one, and when it was over Lucilla volunteered to show their guest round the garden.
"I don't know," he said, "as I like anything better than what I do a bit of garden."
Jane, left alone, put as much order as she could into the room, and was just beginning to think that the others were a long time gone when a shadow darkened the doorway. She looked up, expecting Mr. Simmons and Lucilla. But it was not Lucilla and Mr. Simmons. It was the "kind-faced viper," as Jane had called him. It was the young man who had carried her down when her foot was hurt and had got wine and a carriage for her, had promised secrecy and had then betrayed her trust.
"Good afternoon," he said. "I hope your foot is quite well again." Just like that—as though nothing had happened and he and she were the best of friends.
There was a very small silence. Jane, very white and with thunder on her brow, stood looking at him. Then she spoke.
"I wish you to understand," she said, "that we wish to have nothing more whatever to do with you. We decline the honour of your acquaintance," she insisted, so that there should be no doubt about the matter. And her pointed chin went up as she said it.
He stood looking at her, overwhelmed.
"Oh, I say!" were the only words he found ready for use.
And before either of them could speak again Lucilla and Simmons were standing beside him on the mossy path, and the young man and Simmons were shaking hands with violence, and Simmons was saying, "Oh, sir, to think of meeting you like this, sir! Oh, miss—oh, young ladies! What a day to be sure! This gentleman's my boss, that I was all through the war with—Suez and Aden and Jeddah and all. You'll excuse me, miss, but may I ask him in for a few minutes while the other young lady sees if she can't find him a few flowers? There's a one or two here and there in the garden. These young ladies as keeps the shop is friends of mine, sir, and I know I may take the liberty to ask you in."
"May I come in?" the young man gravely asked Jane.
And Jane said, with as little ice in her voice as she could manage, because of Simmons glowing in the joy of re-union, "Certainly, come in by all means."
So here they were!