It was some days after the naming of the cottage that Mrs. Bobby
admitted me into her financial secrets, and explained the difficulties
that threatened her peace of mind. She still has twenty-five pounds
to pay before Comfort Cottage is really her own. With her cow and
her vegetable garden, to say nothing of her procrastinating fowl, she
manages to eke out a frugal existence, now that her eldest son is in a
blacksmith's shop at Worcester, and is sending her part of his weekly
savings. But it has been a poor season for canaries, and a still poorer
one for lodgers; for people in these degenerate days prefer to be nearer
the hotels and the mild gaieties of the larger settlements. It is all
very well so long as I remain with her, and she wishes fervently that
that may be for ever; for never, she says, eloquently, never in all her
Cheltenham and Belvern experience, has she encountered such a jewel of a
lodger as her dear Miss 'Amilton, so little trouble, and always a bit of
praise for her plain cooking, and a pleasant word for the children, to
whom most lodgers object, and such an interest in the cow and the fowl
and the garden and the canaries, and such kindness in painting the
name of the cottage, so that it is the finest thing in the village, and
nobody can get past the 'ouse without stopping to gape at it! But when
her American lodger leaves her, she asks,--and who is she that can
expect to keep a beautiful young lady who will be naming her own cottage
and painting signboards for herself before long, likely?--but when
her American lodger is gone, how is she, Mrs. Bobby, to put by a few
shillings a month towards the debt on the cottage? These are some of the
problems she presents to me. I have turned them over and over in my mind
as I have worked, and even asked Willie Beresford in my weekly letter
what he could suggest. Of course he could not suggest anything: men
never can; although he offered to come there and lodge for a month at
twenty-five pounds a week. All at once, one morning, a happy idea struck
me, and I ran down to Mrs. Bobby, who was weeding the onion-bed in the
back garden.
“Mrs. Bobby,” I said, sitting down comfortably on the edge of the
lettuce-frame, “I am sure I know how you can earn many a shilling during
the summer and autumn months, and you must begin the experiment while
I am here to advise you. I want you to serve five-o'clock tea in your
garden.”
“But, miss, thanking you kindly, nobody would think of stoppin' 'ere for
a cup of tea once in a twelvemonth.”
“You never know what people will do until you try them. People will do
almost anything, Mrs. Bobby, if you only put it into their heads, and
this is the way we shall make our suggestion to the public. I will paint
a second signboard to hang below 'Comfort Cottage.' It will be much more
beautiful than the other, for it shall have a steaming kettle on it,
and a cup and saucer, and the words 'Tea Served Here' underneath, the
letters all intertwined with tea-plants. I don't know how tea-plants
look, but then neither does the public. You will set one round table on
the porch, so that if it threatens rain, as it sometimes does, you know,
in England, people will not be afraid to sit down; and the other
you will put under the yew-tree near the gate. The tables must be
immaculate; no spotted, rumpled cloths and chipped cups at Comfort
Cottage, which is to be a strictly first-class tea station. You will
put vases of flowers on the tables, and you will not mix red, yellow,
purple, and blue ones in the same vase-”
“It's the way the good Lord mixes 'em in the fields,” interjected Mrs.
Bobby piously.
“Very likely; but you will permit me to remark that the good Lord can
manage things successfully which we poor humans cannot. You will set out
your cream-jug that was presented to Mrs. Martha Buggins by her friends
and neighbours as a token of respect in 1823, and the bowl that was
presented to Mr. Bobby as a sword and shooting prize in 1860, and all
your pretty little odds and ends. You will get everything ready in the
kitchen, so that customers won't have to wait long; but you will not
prepare much in advance, so that there'll be nothing wasted.”
“It sounds beautiful in your mouth, miss, and it surely wouldn't be any
'arm to make a trial of it.”
“Of course it won't. There is no inn here where nice people will stop
(who would ever think of asking for tea at the Retired Soldier?), and
the moment they see our sign, in walking or driving past, that moment
they will be consumed with thirst. You do not begin to appreciate
our advantages as a tea station. In the first place, there is a
watering-trough not far from the gate, and drivers very often stop
to water their horses; then we have the lovely garden which everybody
admires; and if everything else fails, there is the baby. Put that faded
pink flannel slip on Jem, showing his tanned arms and legs as usual,
tie up his sleeves with blue bows as you did last Sunday, put my white
tennis-cap on the back of his yellow curls, turn him loose in the
hollyhocks, and await results. Did I not open the gate the moment I saw
him, though there was no apartment sign in the window?”
Mrs. Bobby was overcome by the magic of my arguments, and as there were
positively no attendant risks, we decided on an early opening. The
very next day after the hanging of the second sign, I superintended the
arrangements myself. It was a nice thirsty afternoon, and as I filled
the flower-vases I felt such a desire for custom and such a love of
trade animating me that I was positively ashamed. At three o'clock I
went upstairs and threw myself on the bed for a nap, for I had been
sketching on the hills since early morning. It may have been an hour
later when I heard the sound of voices and the stopping of a heavy
vehicle before the house. I stole to the front window, and, peeping
under the shelter of the vines, saw a char-a-bancs, on the way from
Great Belvern to the Beacon. It held three gentlemen, two ladies, and
four children, and everything had worked precisely as I intended.
The driver had seen the watering-trough, the gentlemen had seen the
tea-sign, the children had seen the flowers and the canaries, and
the ladies had seen the baby. I went to the back window to call an
encouraging word to Mrs. Bobby, but to my horror I saw that worthy woman
disappearing at the extreme end of the lane in full chase of our cow,
that had broken down the fence, and was now at large with some of our
neighbour's turnip-tops hanging from her mouth.