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 sturdy 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 nobody 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 nobody 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 township 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
constitutions, 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 ship 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 blushing, 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 nobody 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 ship, as it
happens; it is Mr. Daunt's," she said. "And what do you know about
ships, 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. "Dickson can
drive us. I am going to the township 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 instituted, 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 attitude 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 blushing 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.
"And now, when are you coming to us, Jenny?" Cousin Alice inquired.
"Couldn't you come and spend the day to-morrow? And couldn't _you_ come,
Mrs. Oxenham? Our tennis club is having a tournament, and we are giving
a tea on the ground--under nice shady trees, you know. It would be such
an honour if you would come and look on at us."
"I'm afraid _I_ couldn't," said Mary, with a pretence of thinking it
over. "But Jenny, if she likes, I could send her in."
"Oh, yes! And couldn't she spend a few days with us when she was here?
We have seen nothing of her. We could drive her back to Wandooyamba."
This was what Mrs. Oxenham had fished for, had roasted herself in the
sun for, and she roused herself to deal with the timely opportunity. She
looked at Jenny, and Jenny looked back at her with eyes that said "No"
so unmistakably as to suggest the thought that perhaps she knew of
Anthony's coming to the mind of the suspicious woman. This made her
resolute.
"What do you say, dear?" she inquired genially; and in a moment Jenny
understood that her friend wished her to accept the invitation, and was
wondering in a startled way whether she had outstayed her welcome at
Wandooyamba. "Don't consider us--we must not be selfish--and you will
come back to us, of course. Dickson could drive you over when he goes
for the letters, and that would give you the afternoon to see the
tournament."
There was nothing to say but "thank you" all round, and Jenny said it
with good taste, determined to bring her holiday to an end as soon as
possible--not to return to Wandooyamba after leaving it, but to spend
Christmas with her own too-long deserted family. Mary had an inkling of
what was going on in the girl's mind, but said to herself that it
couldn't be helped. Anthony must be saved at all hazards.