A Humble Enterprise. Ada Cambridge
son, from home, and the arrival of which at Adelaide had been telegraphed the day before. She was a tall, distinguished-looking woman, a source of great pride and enjoyment to her father, who addressed to her the most of what little conversation he had time for.
"This is curious," he remarked, between two mouthfuls of buttered toast. "Look here, Mary – poor old Liddon's wife, I'll bet you anything. Read this."
She leaned over to him, and looked at the newspaper where he had fixed it to the table with a broad thumb. After a short silence she ejaculated, "Oh, poor things!" It was her comment upon the following advertisement: —
"TO LADIES SHOPPING. Quiet room, with good tea and scones. Open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mrs. Liddon, No. – , Little Collins Street, W."
"Well," said Mr. Churchill, "it is not our fault. We were ready and willing to assist them."
"As was only right," Mrs. Oxenham murmured, "seeing how long he was with the firm."
"And as good a servant as it ever had. Yes, I felt that it was our duty to do something for the widow and children, and I sent them a little sum – a cheque for a hundred it was – thinking it might be acceptable. You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? I've done it before, dozens of times, and always found 'em grateful. But here – well, they just sent it back by return of post."
"Oh!" A faint flush overspread his daughter's face. "Did you put it nicely, do you think?"
"I didn't put it at all, but it was a very proper letter – I read it before I signed it – speaking most highly of the old fellow's character and services, and all that sort of thing. In fact, they thanked us for what we said of him, and didn't seem to feel insulted – it was a nice little note enough – "
"Whose?"
"Janet Liddon was the name – his daughter, writing on her mother's behalf. But the money they wouldn't touch with a pair of tongs. Too proud, of course."
"Of course. Oh, I do like to hear of that kind of pride! I was afraid it had died right out in these sordid times."
"So was I. I can tell you it struck me uncommonly; I thought about it a good deal; it was so unusual. I spoke to the young fellow, and he said it was his mother and sister – his sister chiefly – who wouldn't have it. And now they've opened this little place – it is they, I am convinced – to keep themselves. I'll tell you what it is, Mary, they're fine women, that mother and daughter – fine women, my dear. I'd like to look them up – sort of apologise for offering alms, as it were – eh? They'll want custom for their tea-room. Maude – I say, Maude" – the young lady of the house was so deep in talk with the governess about house decorations for a party that it was difficult to gain her ear – "Maude, my child, can't you take some of your friends to tea there, and give them a start?"
Mrs. Churchill's vague eye roamed for a moment, and she said, "What – where – I wasn't listening," like one in a dream.
"Never mind," said Mrs. Oxenham, "I will. I am to have some dresses fitted this morning – "
"Oh, are you going to Mrs. Earl?" cried her stepmother, suddenly alert and glowing. "Oh, Mary, dear, would you take a message for me? Tell her I must, I simply must have my pink gown to-morrow." To look at her, one would have imagined it a matter of life and death.
Half an hour later her husband and stepdaughter, two highly-finished, perfectly-tailored figures, sober and stately, severely unpretentious, yet breathing wealth and consequence at every point, set forth together through spacious gardens to the road and the tram – which appeared to the minute, as it always does for men of the Churchill stamp, who are never too soon or too late for anything. They rode together to Collins Street, and there separated and went east and west, the daughter to have her Cup dresses tried on at one end of that thoroughfare, and the father to resume command of his commercial kingdom at the other.
He had not been in his office many minutes before he sent for Joseph Liddon. When the young man appeared, neat and spruce, as became a clerk of the great house, Mr. Churchill held out the Argus, folded, and pointed to the advertisement of the tea-room.
"I wanted to ask you, Liddon, if this is your mother?" he said, in his quick, business way.
Joey did not need to look, but dropped his eyes to the paper, and crimsoned to the roots of his hair. For a dreadful moment he was in danger of saying, "No, sir," but was mercifully spared from the perpetration of what would have been to him and his a most disastrous lie. Then he was on the point of saying he didn't know, but had the sense to perceive that such an evasion would but make the inevitable disclosure worse; and finally braced himself to the agony of confession. He had implored the relentless Jenny not to allow their name to appear in connection with her undertaking, and lo, here it was, published to the world of supercilious fellow-clerks and magnificent proprietors. He was ready to sink into the ground with shame.
"I'm sorry to say it is, sir," he mumbled, cringing and quivering. "Quite against my wishes – I've had nothing to do with it. It's my sister – she would do it – she's a very odd girl – "
"It was your sister who insisted on returning our cheque, was it not? I remember she wrote the note that enclosed it."
"Yes, sir. She's the eldest. She's – she's very odd."
"She is odd," said the merchant, keenly smiling. "And I should like very much to have the honour of her acquaintance."
Joey stared, doubtful whether this was joke or earnest. And the clerk who now occupied his father's place coming in with papers, the chief bade him good-morning, and he retired, much puzzled as to how that potentate had really taken the news of his (Joey's) social downfall. And his mind resumed its effort to concoct suitable explanations for his office colleagues, when they should come and ask him whether that Mrs. Liddon was his mother – from which the summons of "the boss" had disturbed him.
Mr. Churchill's mind, bent, as it supposed, upon business, did not turn out Miss Liddon as easily as it had dismissed her brother. It was taken with the idea of a girl who would not receive money, and dared to risk her little conventional title to be a lady for the sake of making an honest living; his own business rectitude and high-mindedness qualified him to appreciate a woman of that sort – so different from the swarm of idle damsels with whom he was in daily contact, who lived for nothing but their own pleasures, and on anybody who would keep them, with no sense whatever of any responsibility in life, whose frivolities he was always denouncing, more or less, in a good-natured way, though his own dear wife was one of them. So greatly was he interested in this exception to the rule that he presently conceived the wish to go and see her, to see what she was like. He looked at the advertisement again; the place was quite close by. He looked at his watch; it was eleven o'clock. Tea and scones were about the last things he could desire at that hour, but he might try them. She had announced that they would be good, and he did not think she was the person to make a vain boast. And Mary would probably be there, to keep him in countenance. The invitation was addressed to "ladies shopping," but gentlemen were not prohibited; if there should be any difficulty on the ground of his sex he could say he had called for his daughter. No, he would tell Miss Liddon and her mother who he was, and give them the encouragement of his good wishes in their plucky enterprise. Taking down his smart brown hat, which matched his smart heather-brown suit, he stole across to Little Collins Street in search of the tea-room.
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