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So quickly did Jenny, aided by her impetuous lover, effect the transfer
of her business, that she was out of it before Christmas Day. The
basket-maker's wife had the benefit of the holiday custom, and the
ex-proprietors the pleasant consciousness of having laboured
successfully, in every sense of the word, and being now entitled to that
rest and recreation which only those who have worked well can
appreciate. They were all glad to be free. They had not realised the
severity of the constant strain until it was removed, and wondered that
people who could spend their days as they pleased were not more grateful
for the privilege.
"And now," said Anthony, "I want you all to be my guests for Christmas.
A friend has lent me his yacht, and we will go for a cruise wherever you
like--inside the Bay or outside--according to how you stand it. Sarah is
looking thin--she wants taking right out of this air; and the mother
will not be the worse for a sea blow after living at the oven-mouth so
long. Tell Joe to bring a mate--any male friend he likes. I have invited
one of my own--a very good fellow--who wants to know you. Jenny, is a
day long enough to get ready in? You don't want any finery."
"Quite," she replied, for she had been previously acquainted with this
plan for enabling him and her to enjoy long days together; and she set
to work to pack for the family with her business-like promptitude.
While thus engaged she was called into their little parlour to receive a
visit from Mr. Churchill. The old gentleman presented himself in his
most benevolent aspect, bearing a bouquet of flowers; and, while Jenny
could hardly speak for blushing gratitude, he asked her if she would
give an old man a kiss, and secured her doting affection for ever by
that gracious recognition of her new rights.
"And so you are going to be my daughter," he said, patting her head.
"Well, well!"
"I know I am unworthy of him," murmured Jenny.
"Oh, not at all! Just at first, perhaps----But then fathers are old
fools. They never do think anything good enough for their children. I am
quite pleased, my dear--quite satisfied and pleased. I am proud of my
son for making such a choice. He has looked for true worth, rather than
a brilliant match. Not many young men in his position have the
discernment, the--a--what shall I say?"
"I have no worth," repeated Jenny, who really thought so, "compared with
him. I know I am not fit for him."
"Tut, tut! He says differently, and so do I. It's your gallant conduct
since your father's death, my dear--that's what it is. And I'm proud of
my boy, to think he can fall in love for such a cause. He's got a bit of
his mother in him--a good seed that hasn't been choked with riches
and--and so on. The more I think of it the more I approve of him. We had
an idea of marrying him to a lady of title, and making a great swell of
him; but there--it's best as it is. A good wife is above rubies, doesn't
the Bible say?--something like it--a crown to her husband, eh? You'll
make a good wife, I'll warrant, and, after all, that's the main thing."
"I will indeed," declared Jenny solemnly, "if love and trying can do
it--though I shall never be good enough for him."
"Oh, he's not an angel, any more than other men; I know that, though he
is my son, and a good son too. You mustn't disparage yourself,
Sally--isn't your name Sally?--no, Jenny, of course--nice, old-fashioned
name. You are his equal, as I have been telling Mrs. Churchill--but
these young ladies go so much by appearances--his equal in all but
money, which anybody can have, and no credit to him. Your father
was"--she thought he was going to say an "Eton boy," but he spared
her--"a true gentleman, my dear, upright and honourable, the sort of man
to breed good stock--if you'll excuse the phrase--the sort of blood one
needn't be afraid to see in one's children's children. But there, I
won't keep you. You are getting ready for your little trip? I wish you a
happy Christmas, my dear, and a happy married life, you and him
together, and--and--and I hope you'll look on me as your father, my
dear----"
Emotion overpowered him, and a second kiss, warmer than the first,
concluded the interview. Jenny let him out of the house, and then ran
upstairs to tell her anxious sister that Anthony's father transcended
the winged seraphs for goodness. And Mr. Churchill returned to Toorak
with a swelling breast, to keep a careful silence towards his wife as to
what he had been doing. For Maude had declared that nothing should ever
induce her to recognise "that person" whom Tony had chosen to pick out
of the gutter; and her outraged family abetted her in this resolve.
The yacht sailed on Christmas Eve, with a party of seven in addition to
the crew; and Jenny had her first taste of the luxury that was
thenceforth to be her portion. She found herself a little queen on
board. Mr. Danesbury was introduced to her at the gangway, and rendered
a quiet homage that Maude and Lady Louisa, on the previous cruise, had
looked for at his hands in vain. Jarvis was there, in the capacity of
cabin steward, and was called up to be introduced to her as his future
mistress; and Jarvis waited on her as only he could wait, anticipating
her little wants and wishes before she had time to form them. He had
felt that, in the course of nature, he must have a mistress some day, if
he remained in his present service; and, from a first impression that
she might have been worse, he gradually adopted his master's view that
she could hardly have been better, and treated her accordingly.
"The best servant in the country," Anthony said to her. "And I think
we'll take him with us on our travels. You'd find him fifty times more
useful than a maid. When we come back and set up housekeeping, he is to
be our butler."
Jenny smiled at the prospect.
"How absurd it is!" she ejaculated.
"I don't see it," said Tony.
"I suppose not," she rejoined.
Lest unseasoned persons should have their appetites interfered with, the
yacht did not venture outside the Heads, but cruised about in quiet
waters, touching now and then at little piers, for the variation of a
shore ramble or a picnic in the scrub; and it was a beautiful time. Adam
Danesbury and Sarah became great friends. She talked to him by the hour
of the virtues of her beloved sister, and he to her of the equal
excellencies of Miss Lennox; topics of interest that never palled upon
them. Mrs. Liddon was happy, knitting a shawl for Jenny's trousseau,
and losing herself in sensational novels, and getting "wrinkles," as she
called them, from the very swell cook who daily concocted dishes that
she had never so much as heard of. If there was a fly in the sweet
ointment of her satisfaction, it lay in the fact that Joey was not taken
much notice of. But Mr. Churchill was not interested in Joey, and had
invited the friend on purpose to relieve himself of the obligation to
take much notice. The young men had each other's company, together with
tobacco, books, cards, chess, and Jarvis to bring them cool drinks when
they were thirsty; what could junior clerks require more? Joey was a
very good boy on this occasion, very subdued and inoffensive, keeping
all his swagger until he should return to the office to tell of his
doings and the high company he had kept; and he was undeniably a
handsome youth, with the proper bearing of a gentleman. But his sex was
against him. Crippled Sarah, wizened and sallow, was infinitely more
interesting to the distinguished host Between him and her a very strong
bond existed.
And, as he had foreseen, the yachting arrangement was perfect for
lovers on whose behalf every other member of the party was minded to be
unobtrusive and discreet. What days were those that he and Jenny had
together in the first bloom of their courtship! What fresh sea-mornings,
in which to feel young blood coursing to the tune of the salt wind and
the bubble of the seething wake! What dream-times under the awning in
the tempered heat, with soft cushions and poetry books! What rambles on
the lonely shores, and rests in ti-tree arbours, and talks and
companionship that grew daily fuller and deeper, and more and more
intimate and satisfying! In the quiet evenings four people sat down to
whist round the lamp in the little cabin, and the fifth dozed over her
knitting, so that the remaining two had the deck to themselves, and the
romantic hours to revel in undisturbed. Then Tony smoked a little
because Jenny wished it, and she leaned on his arm as they paced to and
fro; and they opened those sacred chambers of thought which are kept
locked in the daytime, and acquainted each other with dim feelings and
aspirations that expressed themselves in sympathetic silences better
than in speech.
Thus did they grow together so closely that Jenny's wedding-day came to
her with no shock of change or fear. After the Christmas cruise he
called to see her at all hours--to disturb her at her flying needlework,
which she would slave at, in spite of him--making her own "things" to
save expense, as if expense mattered; nightly taking her down to St
Kilda for that blow on the pier which still refreshed her more than
anything. And very soon they saw the mail boat come in--the very mail
boat in which he had taken berths for their wedding journey. As they
watched her passing in the falling dusk, they recalled their first
meeting in that place--how very few mails had arrived since then, and
what stupendous things had happened in the interval!
"What a funk you _were_ in!" said Tony, laying his big hand over the
small one on his arm. "Poor little mite! You took me for a gay devil
walking about seeking whom I might devour, didn't you? What would you
have thought if you had known I had followed you all the way--stalked
you like a cat after a mouse--eh?"
"You _didn't_, Tony!"
"I did, sweetheart. It was Sarah put me up to it."
"Sarah! I won't believe such a thing of my sister."
"Ask her, then. Sarah understood me a long time before you did. And I
made a vow that I'd repay her for that good turn, and I haven't done it
yet. What do you think she would like best?"
"I know what she would _like_," said Jenny wistfully. "To go abroad with
us. It has been the dream of her life."
"Not this time, pet. Next time she shall. This time I must have only
you, and you must have only me. Besides, she wouldn't go, not if you
went on your knees to her. She knows better. She's a deal cleverer than
you are--in some things."
"I know she is. Poor Sally! And she might have been like me, with
everything heart can wish for! Mother says she was a finer baby than
I--beautifully formed and healthy; but she had an accident that hurt her
back--a fall. And so all the sweetness of life has been taken from her,
while I--I am overwhelmed with it."
"Not all," said Tony. "We shall make her happy between us."
"If she can't have _this_," said Jenny, pressing his arm, "she can't
know what happiness means."
He drew the warm hand up, and kissed the tips of her fingers, on which
gloves were never allowed on these occasions.
"I foresee," he said gravely, "that I shall have to beat you and refuse
to give you money for new bonnets, to make you realise that your little
feet are standing on the earth, Jenny, and not on the clouds of heaven."
They were married in February, that they might have a quiet month before
sailing in March. Mrs. Rogerson wanted to undertake the wedding, but was
politely informed that there was to be no wedding; and there was none in
her sense. Jenny went out for a walk with her mother and sister, and
Anthony went out for a walk with Adam Danesbury; old Mr. Churchill and
his daughter Mary, who happened to be staying with him, took a hansom
from the office, Joey having been released from his desk therein; and
these people met together for a few minutes, transacted their business
briefly, and adjourned to the Cafe Anglais for lunch; after which the
bride and bridegroom, being already dressed for travel, with their
baggage at the station, fared forth into the wide world.
* * * * *
Thus ended the tea-room enterprise.
And I don't know whether the moral of Jenny's story is bad or good. It
depends on the point of view. Virtue, of course, ought to be its own
reward--at any rate, it should seek no other; and there are people who
think a husband no reward at all, under any circumstances, but quite the
contrary. For myself, I regard a rich marriage as rather a vulgar sort
of thing, and by no means the proper goal of a good girl's ambitions.
Also, however well a marriage may begin, nobody can foretell how it will
eventually turn out. It is a matter of a thousand compromises, take it
at its best, and all we can say of it is that there is nothing above it
in the scale of human satisfactions.
_That_ I will maintain as beyond a doubt, because it is the dictum of
nature, who is the mother of all wisdom. She says that even an unlucky
marriage, which is a living martyrdom, is better than none, but that a
marriage like that which arose out of Jenny's tea-room is a door to the
sanctuary of the temple of life, never opened to the undeserving--the
nearest approach to happiness that has been discovered at present.
Yes--although, without beating her or keeping her short of pocket-money,
the husband necessarily makes his wife feel that the earth is her
habitation and the clouds of heaven many miles away.
THE END.
_Warwick House_
_Salisbury Square LONDON E. C._
A List of New and Recent
COPYRIGHT NOVELS
And other Popular Works
PUBLISHED BY
WARD LOCK & BOWDEN LIMITED
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HENRY KINGSLEY
New Library Edition of HENRY KINGSLEY'S NOVELS. Edited by CLEMENT
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