NOTHING could be less like a messenger of Fate than a mahogany sideboard
with a plate-glass back.
And yet——
“Here’s Mrs. Simpson’s little girl for the third time since seven!” said
Mrs. Jebb, coming hastily into the room, with ribbon-strings all
aflutter about her, as usual.
“What does she want?” said Andy, buttering his toast.
“Something about a sideboard,” said Mrs. Jebb, poised, as it were, upon
one hand at the table corner. “Three times before breakfast about a
sideboard! You really must make a stand, or you will never have a minute
to call your own. You are too good-natured.”
And she turned her head slightly, so as to give Andy the benefit of that
glance which the late Mr. Jebb found irresistible.
“Nonsense,” said Andy. “It’s what I’m paid for;” and he rustled his
letters together, carefully avoiding the amorous eye.
“As your aunt remarked, in engaging my services,” said Mrs. Jebb, “it is
a great thing for you to have a lady in the house. I hope you will let
me help you in any way that I can.”
“Thank you. I’ll go round to Mrs. Simpson’s at once,” said Andy, leaving
an excellent corner of the buttered toast. “By the way, I should like my
potatoes soft in the middle if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. Anything you wish, please mention at once,” said Mrs. Jebb.
Nothing could subdue her gaiety upon this summer morning, when the birds
were singing, and the sun was shining, and Hope threw wreaths upon the
tombstone of Mr. Jebb.
Andy glared at her.
“There is nothing more at present, thank you,” he said, going out; then
Mrs. Jebb went to the window and looked after him with an easy tear in
her eye.
“Impetuous,” she murmured, “impetuous, but _sweet_.”
Could Andy but have heard her!
However, by this time he was already entering the little garden before
Mrs. Simpson’s cottage at the lane end, and all his thoughts were
engrossed by the unexpected sight of the famous sideboard standings in
sections around the creeper-covered doorway. The widow sat weeping on an
empty box near that part containing the cellaret, while a dark,
anxious-looking little girl of about six stood pulling her mother’s
sleeve, and a big boy of three hammered the little girl with broad, fat
fists.
“Stop that,” said Andy, seizing the boy from behind; but the culprit
turned on him such a jolly, good-natured smile that he was disarmed, and
only said lamely—
“You shouldn’t hit your little sister.”
“I haven’t got nobody elth to hit,” lisped the cherub, looking up at
Andy with blue-eyed surprise.
“You mustn’t mind what he says,” interposed Sally anxiously. “Boys are
born naughty. They can’t help it.”
Andy glanced at Mrs. Simpson, who still sat with her face hidden,
evidently overcome by her feelings, and he braced himself for a scene of
tearful gratitude. It was unpleasant, but no doubt inevitable, so the
best thing to do was to get it over as soon as possible.
“H-hem! I see you got the sideboard all right, Mrs. Simpson. I am afraid
it would be rather late last night before you received it, but the
carrier——”
“I’ve been sitting on this box since six, waiting to see you,”
interposed Mrs. Simpson.
“Please don’t! Don’t say a word more. I’m only too delighted,” began
Andy.
“There’s nothing,” wept Mrs. Simpson, “to be delighted about. It won’t
go into the house. And you can’t keep a sideboard in a garden. Oh, I
know you meant well, but this makes me realise my comedown more than
anything else that has happened. After thinking I’d got it, it still has
to go all the same. I dreamt last night that rows of great girls came up
one after the other and banged hot-water cans down on the polished top,
and when I wasn’t dreaming I was looking out of the window to see if it
rained. And Mrs. Werrit will get my sideboard after all. And the Thorpe
family will say they were in the right not to buy it in for me. And I
shall look like a fool. I hate people that always turn out to be right
in the end.”
It was a very long speech for Mrs. Simpson, who was usually neither
tearful nor garrulous, and Andy saw that the woman had been stirred to
the foundations of her being.
“What can I do? If I could do anything?” he said helplessly.
Mrs. Simpson dabbed her eyes with a black-bordered handkerchief and
tried to pull herself together.
“I never gave way like this before—not even when my husband died. And
you mustn’t think me ungrateful. It was very kind indeed of you to buy
the sideboard for me. Only, you see how it all is.”
“Well, suppose we get the thing moved away from here at once,” said
Andy, ruefully surveying the scene.
Mrs. Simpson looked at him.
“There’s one thing—but I don’t suppose you would—one couldn’t
expect——”
“What is it?” demanded Andy. “I’d do anything I could, but I don’t
see——”
“Well, I was wondering if you could possibly take care of it for me at
the Vicarage until I did get a house where there was room for it.”
“Why, splendid!” said Andy. “The very thing. Of course I will.”
“Splendid!” said Jimmy, butting at Andy’s legs like a young goat.
“And mother can go across and shine it, can’t she?” said Sally gravely.
“She doesn’t never let anybody shine it but herself.”
“Of course she can,” said Andy, “and you too. I have heaps of empty
rooms.”
“But it must be in a room with a fire,” said Mrs. Simpson, beginning to
weep again. “It would soon look different if it was put away in an
unoccupied room.”
“It’s not a piano,” smiled Andy. “Oh, it’ll be all right in the
drawing-room. That isn’t furnished yet you know.”
“It ought to be in a room with a fire,” persisted Mrs. Simpson, setting
her lips.
“But my study is not large enough, and the dining-room is fully
furnished. I really could not——”
“Of course. I said not from very first. I couldn’t expect it,” said Mrs.
Simpson, rising with resigned sadness. “Shall I let Mrs. Will Werrit
know, or will you?”
“But, Mrs. Simpson, I assure you it’ll be _perfectly_ all right,” urged
Andy.
“I’m sure you think so, Mr. Deane, and I’m most grateful to you for what
you’ve done. I’ll drop a line to Mrs. Will Werrit at once.”
She turned to go into the cottage and Jimmy set up a piercing yell, the
tired little girl whimpered; there were loose straw and paper blowing
desolately about the garden. It seemed most melancholy to Andy, this
everyday trouble of a broken-up home. The dreariness of it pierced
through the young hope and glamour that surrounded him, and for one dull
moment he heard the hopeless chant which underlies all life: “Is it
worth while? Is it worth while?”
As Andy stood there, staring blankly at the dust and straw, the tasteful
appearance of his dining-room seemed quite suddenly to be a very small
thing—and he had thought it so tremendously important.
“We will put your sideboard into the dining-room, then, until we find a
better place for it,” he said.
“Well, that is good of you—though it’s an ornament to any room,” said
Mrs. Simpson, brightening at once. “We must make some arrangement by
which it becomes your property altogether if I die first,” she added, in
a burst of real gratitude.
“No,” said Andy, driven to asserting himself at last by the idea of
being saddled with the sideboard for life. “No. To that I will never
agree.” He paused. “But there’s no need to talk about dying at present.”
Mrs. Simpson dried her eyes, folded her hands, and spoke with almost her
wonted tranquillity.
“You never know. Anybody would have taken a lease of Mr. Simpson’s
life.”
“I am sorry I never knew your husband,” said Andy, resuming his
professional manner.
“Well,” said Mrs. Simpson, “I don’t suppose you’d have seen much of him
if he’d been here. He didn’t like the clergy. Not that he had anything
against them, but he didn’t like them.” She paused, then, wishful to
avoid offence, she added: “It was just a matter of taste. He never could
eat oysters either, and they’re a delicacy, as everybody knows.”
“Of course,” said Andy solemnly, his face grave but his heart light with
laughter, and the dolorous chanting of the underworld forgotten.
Life was a splendid thing—like the spring morning—and something
glorious must be round the corner.