Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “Yes,” said Jane, and sniffed. “They were hateful. When I said I was Miss Quested they said they meant the elder Miss Quested, and when I said there wasn’t one they snorted. They did really.” She sniffed again.

  He caught her hand and pulled her quickly and gently and quite irresistibly into the room he had just left.

  “Half a moment,” he said; “they may come down. I want to ask you, but I never get a word with you — your Lucilla’s always there. I want to know... Gracious heavens, what’s the matter! “ he ended on a complete change to, one for now he had suddenly seen Jane’s face.

  “Oh, nothing — silliness. Mrs. Dadd was hateful and I’ve sacked her. And then those Pigs. I suppose I’m tired. That’s what makes me so silly.”

  “Sit down a minute,” he said, still holding her hand. “It’s infamous that you should be worried by these old women. It’s all my uncle’s fault for saddling you with this house. Do sit down and tell me all about it.”

  “I can’t,” said Jane. “They are gibbering now for their hateful luggage to be carried up — it’s al in the hall and then belatedly she pulled her hand away. But this did not improve the situation, for Mr. Rochester’s arm went round her, and for one moment she let her head lean against his arm, with the most extraordinary feeling of being comforted and protected. Thus they stood, almost in the position which a couple assume when the dance begins.

  “Jane,” he whispered. “Jane dear.”

  But that broke the spell, and Jane shook herself free. “Dearest.” said Mr. Rochester, not at once perceiving that the spell was broken, and he reached his hands out to her. But Jane backed towards the door.

  “I don’t blame you,” said she, standing very upright and looking him straight in the eyes. “I brought it on myself by going about howling like a silly kid. I don’t blame you, and I’ll forget it if you will. But I want you to understand that I’m not at all that sort of girl. No, don’t say anything,” she said fiercely. “I don’t blame you — this once; but I want you to understand that I’m not going to have that sort of nonsense. Not ever. Do you understand?”

  “Jane,” said he, “don’t you believe in omens — in Fate?”

  “Never mind what I believe in,” said Jane, instinctively putting her hands up to her hair to ascertain whether its momentary contact with Mr. Rochester’s jacket had disarranged it. “At least I’ll tell you what I do believe in. I believe in attending to business and being good friends, and not being silly and sloppy. And you’re not to call me Jane.” Mr. Rochester experienced all the emotions familiar to those who have been stroking a kitten and have suddenly found claws where a moment ago only soft fur was. This, and a good deal more, he felt in the brief moment before he said:

  “Very well. And now forgive me — in earnest, like a good comrade, and let’s be friends again.”

  “That’s what I want to be to you,” said Jane, charmed by the old camouflage that love has worn so threadbare.

  “Then shake hands on it.”

  They did — a good, strong, manly shake.

  “And now we’re real friends, tell me just one thing. You do like me better than that wretched Dix, don’t you? Say you do — just a little better?”

  “I like you both very much,” said Jane sedately; and then with a spark of malice she added: “Just now perhaps I like him a little the best, because he hasn’t seen me make a fool of myself.”

  A bell pealed violently.

  “It’s those Pigs — their luggage — Mr. Dix....”

  “Oh, I’ll carry it up,” said Mr. Rochester. “Come and show me which rooms.”

  They met Lucilla on the stairs.

  “They want tea,” she whispered, “and it’s six. Forbes is getting it, but she says it’s not her place. She’s going to take it up to their rooms. And the mutton’s not in yet, and the potatoes aren’t peeled. And Forbes say, she’ll either cook the dinner or wait at table, whichever we like, but she can’t do both — and she won’t.”

  “Can’t Gladys wait?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Lucilla. “And I’m sure she can’t cook. It’s rather unfortunate, isn’t it? Because its quite important to make a good impression on your Pigs the first day. I wish they sold roast legs of mutton in enormous tins. Why don’t they?”

  “Look here,” said Rochester, “surely Mrs. Doveton would come, just for once, to get you out of a fix? Set Gladys to peel the potatoes and I’ll go after Mrs. Doveton.

  Don’t worry; we shall pull through all right. I shall be back with her in time to see to the mutton.”

  But when he came back it was not with Mrs. Doveton, but with Simmons.

  “Mrs. Doveton was out — and Simmons is a regular cordon bleu. The dinner will be all right.”

  “Mrs. Dadd has gone, that’s something,” said Jane.

  “Couldn’t Mr. Dix help? “ suggested Lucilla, but Rochester said that it was not worth while to trouble Mr. Dix. Then Lucilla had her brilliant idea.

  “Oh, Jane,” she said, “don’t you think it would be a good thing if Mr. Rochester would have dinner with us? Because who’s to carve the mutton?”

  “I wish you would,” said Jane, not displeased at being able to show Mr. Rochester that her feelings were quite friendly. “They can’t trample on us so heavily if you’re here.”

  “I should love it,” he said. “Shall I dress?”

  Mr. Rochester was careful not to suggest that Forbes could carve the mutton on the sideboard.

  “Oh yes,” said both the girls, and Jane added: “It would be so much more impressive.” But the next moment she changed her mind.

  “Perhaps better not,” she said. “Evening dress might look swanky — and besides...”

  Rochester understood that “besides” when he arrived at eight o’clock to find “that wretched Dix” already in the drawing-room being agreeable to one of the potato-faced ladies. Jane and Lucilla in very pretty frocks were timidly submitting to be trampled on by the other two.

  Mr. Simmons in the kitchen, assisted by a glowing Gladys, produced a real dinner. The soup was tinned, it is true, but the fish was not, and the pineapples were made into fritters; the peaches were coated with crème caramel, there was a cheese soufflé, and perfect coffee appeared at the right moment. There were double doors between hall and what are called the domestic offices, but once, during fish (which Simmons had bought on the way to his duties), the two doors were left open and shouts of laughter were wafted across to the dining room, where four people were trying earnestly to make the best of three.

  “Your servants seem very noisy,” said Mrs. Smale.

  “We like them to enjoy themselves,” said Jane stoutly.

  “I thought I heard a man’s laugh.”

  “Did you?” said Lucilla, who had heard it too.

  “What a terrible earthquake that was in Vitruvia!” said Mr. Dix quickly.

  “Yes, wasn’t it? “said Mr. Rochester, seconding him ably with details, which Mr. Dix capped. The incident drew them together, for of course there hadn’t been any earthquake in Vitruvia, wherever Vitruvia may be.

  Mrs. Smale and her sisters wore stuffy, black, beady dresses and had no conversation. They were like a dark blight. They did not seem to have read any books. They were not fond of music. They knew nothing of politics, and they did not care for gardens. They seemed weakly curious about the two young men. And during the interval of separation after dinner Mrs. Smale drew Jane aside and spoke.

  “Those gentlemen? I didn’t quite catch their names.”

  Jane gave the names.

  “Relatives?’

  “Not exactly,” said Jane.

  “Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Smale archly. “Your intendeds?’

  “Not exactly,” said Jane again.

  “I see,” said Mrs. Smale, in the tone of one who didn’t.

  The long evening dragged itself out.

  The young men went at ten, and before the three paying guests retired they made it quite plain
that they wanted early tea in their rooms — at eight — hot water at half-past, and breakfast at nine. Mrs. Smale liked fish and perhaps an egg. Miss Markham had been ordered meat three times a day by a Harley Street physician, and her sister could touch nothing but bacon and tomatoes. Always — every day. And they might as well mention that they each liked a glass of milk at eleven in the morning. Doctor’s orders again. Yes, every day. Yes, that was all. If they thought of anything else they could always mention it.

  The guests disposed of, the girls sought Gladys. They found her in the kitchen just concluding an informal banquet with Mr. Simmons. Both faces were radiant.

  The girls, who had never before seen Mr. Simmons at his ease, looked with wondering eyes, for the fat man was transfigured. But even as they looked the mask of shyness fell on him again, and he was as they had always known him.

  “We don’t know how to thank you,” said Jane.

  “No need, miss,” said Mr. Simmons; “ it’s been a pleasure to oblige you, let alone obliging my boss, and not to say nothing about pleasant company.”

  “Mr. Simmons does go on so,” said Gladys with a giggling toss of her head. She had found time to put on a transparent rainbow-radiant blouse and a string of green glass beads.

  “I don’t know how you’ll manage for the rest of the day,” said Mr. Simmons, “but I’ll come round and see to the dinner to-morrow, miss, and till you get another cook. The last one’s no oss, from what I can see — not a pan clean nor yet a plate. Miss Gladys and me, we had to wash every mortal thing. But all’s clean now,” he said, with proper pride. “Don’t keep thanking me, miss. I’ll be round to-morrow.”

  But to-morrow brought Mrs. Doveton.

  “Of course, miss, I couldn’t stand aside, with you in all this upset,” she said, and fell to work.

  And when Mr. Simmons came all that could be done was to ask him to stay to supper. He stayed, and it is to be recorded that even Mrs. Doveton was heard to laugh. Mr. Simmons was, plainly, a wit, but only in his own circles; outside them he could not shine. Neither Jane nor Lucilla ever heard him say anything amusing. But Gladys, it seems, did.

  And Gladys was inclined to resent Mrs. Doveton. But on Gladys’s day out she appeared before her mistresses. clothed, as Jane said afterwards, like Solomon in all his glory, and said almost bashfully: “Please, miss, may I stay out till ten? I’m going to drink tea with Mr. Simmons’s sister as he lives with.”

  Her conscious simper spoke volumes.

  The presence of the paying guests was indeed hard to bear. The black blight deepened every day. It was only by constantly reminding themselves and each other that it meant nine guineas a week that they were able to bear it at all. Regular meals, in the dining-room, every day, and no picnics or breakfasts out of doors.

  “I’d no idea it would be like this,” said Jane. “It’s perfectly ghastly. You’re never free of them. All day long and the evenings too. To think of them out in galoshes to watch us play tennis!”

  “We must bear it,” said Lucilla. “Three hundred and sixteen pounds a year. I worked it out on a bit of paper.”

  “I suppose they have some good qualities,” said Jane. “All right, we’ll try to bear it.”

  And they did bear it — for nearly a fortnight.

  Then one day Gladys abruptly asked if they had seen the colour of the visitors’ money. They reproved her. But the question rankled. When it had formed the chief subject of their conversation for some days the girls decided that Lucilla should ask the guests to pay weekly.

  “Certainly,” said Mrs. Smale, with almost the first smile they had seen on her large, pale countenance. “We usually pay monthly, but if you prefer it I will write a cheque in the morning.”

  But she did not write a cheque in the morning, or, if she did, it was not drawn to Lucilla’s order nor to Jane’s. For in the morning there was no one to drink the three cups of tea or eat the three plethoric breakfasts. The potatofaced ladies had gone from Cedar Court. No one ever knew at what hour in the night they had crept hence; no one knew how they got their luggage away.

  “They ain’t slep’ in their beds, nor yet they ain’t washed in their hot water,” said Gladys, announcing the flitting to her young mistresses then at their own morning toilet. “Them nasty old triplets has done a bunk right enough. And done you proper! I lay you never see the colour of their money, now did you, miss?”

  “Oh, go along, Gladys,” said Jane, twisting up her hair very quickly. “Go and tell Mrs. Doveton we’ll have breakfast on the lawn, and you bring it out if Forbes says it isn’t her place.”

  “That Forbes!” said Gladys. “This wouldn’t be her place long if I was you.... All right, Miss Jane, all right. I’m going.”

  “We’ve had the most horrible fortnight of our lives,” said Lucilla. “ I’d no idea anything could be so horrid. We’ve fed those old cats with the loveliest meals and we’ve lost eighteen guineas. I don’t feel like breakfast in the garden, I can tell you.”

  “Oh yes, you do! “said Jane. “ Yes, you do, exactly like it! Why, dear me, Luce, it’s worth twice the money to have got rid of them! And nothing to reproach ourselves with! Nothing! It’s not our fault they’ve gone — and they have gone. Why, my blessed angel, it’s an absolute godsend!”

  CHAPTER XXII

  WITH the Pigs so happily gone, and Mrs. Doveton still filling with admirable contrast the gap left by Mrs. Adela Dadd, with the mature maids doing their work as by well-oiled machinery, with Gladys to see to the shop and Mr. Dix to see to the garden, a spell of peace settled on Cedar Court, and Jane and Lucilla tasted for a few days the habitual calm and leisure of the really well-to-do.

  They advertised anew for paying guests and for a cook. “And until we get answers,” said Jane, “we may as well enjoy ourselves. Let’s pretend we’re the idle rich.”

  “I should like to be rich,” said Lucilla, “ and I daresay I could manage to be idle, though I believe it’s more difficult than you’d think; but I certainly shouldn’t ever be rich and idle. Doesn’t it make you want to hang people to lampposts when you see them with bags of money and not the faintest idea what to do with it? The only thing they seem to think of are motors...”

  “And guzzling,” said Jane.

  “I don’t blame them for having nice things to eat,” said Lucilla firmly. “I should do that myself. What I blame them for is not enjoying things. They have everything they want, every day — and, of course, a peach is just dessert to them and not the fruit of Paradise.”

  “If you ever write poetry,” said Jane with conviction, “it’ll be about things to eat.”

  “No,” insisted Lucilla; “but if I were rich I’d live just nicely — like this — and every now and then I’d have something sudden and splendid — six peaches for breakfast, or roast chicken every day for a week — and then go back to plain mutton for a bit.”

  “You would spend your whole income on food then?” Jane said innocently.

  “Yes, cat, I would,” said Lucilla—”or nearly all. But I shouldn’t eat it all myself. I should give lots of it away.

  ‘The Responsibilities of the Really Rich.’ Let’s write a book about them, Jane. You want to help the hard-up. How are you to know which are the respectable ones?”

  “And why are we to care?”

  “You can’t help everybody, and you have to choose, and you may as well choose people your help is likely to be some help to.”

  “I believe everybody knows more people that help would be a help to than they have money to give the help with.”

  “Yes. There’s our Mr. Dix — wants a market garden.”

  “Well, he’s got it, hasn’t he?” said Lucilla shortly.

  “And Mr. Rochester — he wants a job.”

  “Not acutely, I think.”

  “Well, then there’s our Mr. Doveton — he wants to better himself; one could help there. Mr. Simmons wants to give up carpentering and grow herbs and better the world. Gladys wants—”

&nb
sp; “Gladys wants someone to go out with — and she’s got it.”

  “So have we, come to think of it. Lucy, do you think a chaperone could have any real objection — any just objection, I mean — to one’s going on the river on Sundays with two perfectly respectable young men?”

  Two such excursions had, indeed, been part of the leisured happiness of that halcyon time.

  “A real chaperone might have real objections,” said Lucilla. “ I don’t know. But we are each other’s chaperones — and we have more sense.”

  “Yes,” said Jane doubtfully. “At the same time, don’t you think there’s something to be said for aunts? ‘The Aunt in the Home: Her Use and Abuse.’ It would do for another little book. But I don’t mean a really abusive aunt. Just a nice, comfortable aunt to admire your jewels and your singing and be a little bit shocked at your slang, and say, ‘I may be old-fashioned, but I don’t think I would, my dear, if I were you.’ It would give a sort of solidity to the establishment, like a mahogany sideboard or a dinner-table that lets out.”

  “I never,” said Lucilla, sewing placidly at a pink print gown in process of remodelling, “I never thought you’d hanker after chaperones.”

  “It isn’t chaperones I want,” Jane explained, winding and unwinding the yard measure. “But I should like to have someone who knows the rules. We may be doing quite wrong and not knowing it. There was a play once, or a book or something, called ‘The Girl Who Took the Wrong Turning.’ For anything we know, we may be taking the wrong turning a hundred times a day. We’ve nothing to guide us.”

  “We’ve got our own common sense,” Lucilla pointed out. “ Yes, but it isn’t common sense that makes those rules. It’s something deep and mysterious that we don’t understand. Why, even in little things... Is it common sense that decides that you mustn’t eat apple-pie with a spoon or take mustard with mutton? Is it common sense that says you must always wear a hat in church except when you’re being confirmed?”

  “No, dear, that’s religion,” said Lucilla.

  “And all those other rules about what you may and mayn’t do with young men? You may dance with them, but you mustn’t let them hold your hand or put their arms round your waist except when you’re dancing.”