by Edith Nesbit
“Why, of course not!”
“Jamesie said you must never write letters to gentlemen; but suppose there’s something important that you want to say and you won’t be seeing them?”
“Common sense would settle that — for me,” said Lucilla, biting off her cotton.
“Gravy said a young lady must never invite a young gentleman to call. Well, we don’t have callers, but we ask gentlemen to dinner — that’s worse, I suppose?”
“Dinner is more emphatic than calling, certainly. Why are you beating about the bush like this, Jane? Out with it! What have you been doing?”
“I? Nothing but what you have too, so you can’t score off me there. It’s what we’ve both been doing.”
“We’ve not done anything wrong,” said Lucilla stoutly. “Of course not — don’t be silly! But have we been behaving like really nice girls?”
“You must have been talking to the servants,” said Lucilla scornfully. “The voice is the voice of Jane, but the mind is the mind of ‘ Sweet Pansy Faces’ or the ‘Duke and the Dairymaid.’”
“We aren’t the only people in the world.”
“How true!” said Lucilla. “And you haven’t got it out yet. Can’t you? In plain English?”
“Well, then, do you think Mr. Dix thinks we’re not behaving as ladies do behave, or do you think he looks down on us for not knowing the rules and doing just what we think we will?”
“I’m quite sure he doesn’t,” said Lucilla; “he’s not such an idiot. Why don’t you ask me what I think Mr. Rochester thinks?”
“I wasn’t thinking of him,” said Jane. (Oh, Jane!) “I was wondering whether Mrs. Dix in New Zealand would approve of the company her dear boy’s keeping.”
“If you were really wondering that,” said Lucilla, “it’s time you had something to occupy your mind. Come along. Let that poor little worried yard measure alone and let’s go and pick the rest of the black currants.”
They went. “But you weren’t really wondering that,” said Lucilla to herself, as they crouched under the thickleaved, strong-scented bushes. “You were thinking something quite different and yet exactly like it.” Aloud she said:
“Currants are jollier to pick than gooseberries, aren’t they, though your hands do get so grubby? At any rate, there aren’t any thorns.”
“I’d rather be wounded than be grubby,” said Jane.
“Oh, don’t be symbolic and Maeterlincky,” said Lucilla.
“I wasn’t,” said Jane.
There was something to occupy minds and tongues and fingers when the answers to the advertisements began to come in Mrs. Adela Dadd—’they had themselves chosen her from among a crowd of applicants; how, after this, could they rely on their own judgment?
Jane put it to Mrs. Doveton. “We don’t really know anything about choosing people to work for us,” she said, sitting on the kitchen table and watching Mrs. Doveton shredding black currants daintily with a silver fork. “Of course, I mean out of the people we can choose from. We wanted to choose you, Mrs. Doveton dear, but you wouldn’t be chosen. It wasn’t till we were in the depths of a dreadful scrape that you came and dug us out, like the angel you are.”
“You do talk so,” said Mrs. Doveton. “What is it you want now?”
“Well,” said Jane, “we want two things, and they haven’t anything to do with each other.”
“I don’t know that I wouldn’t rather you put off making cocoanut-ice again till I get these currants out of the way — if it’s that,” said Mrs. Doveton. “That” was one of the sweet busy-nesses that had ruffled the surface of the perfect calm.
“It isn’t cocoanut ice,” Jane assured her; “it’s much more serious.”
“It’s not to ask me to stay on permanent, I do hope and trust,” said Mrs. Doveton, “because—”
“No, no,” said Jane. “I should never dare to ask you that again, ever. But I do wish you’d see all these people for me.” She waved a sheaf of letters. “You’ve had experience; you know what sort of questions to ask them; you know what you ought to expect them to do; you know what wages they ought to have and what sort of references are good and what not. Oh, Mrs. Doveton, do be a duck and see them for me!”
Mrs. Doveton did not refuse, but she murmured something about not being particular fond of taking things upon herself, and it was plain that she said less than the truth.
“Can’t you see them yourself, miss? “ she said. “It’s quite easy. I’ll tell you all the sort of things you want to ask them.”
“Oh, I can’t,” said Jane. “You see, there are paying guests to see too — and you know what I am. I shall find myself telling the cook she can have breakfast in bed if she likes, and asking the young married lady with husband or brother engaged all day whether she understands plain cooking and if she’s an early riser and quick and clean at her work.”
“There, now,” said Mrs. Doveton, “you see you do know what to ask ‘em. And is there many more lodgers coming — if that’s what you call them, miss, if I may ask?”
“Oh, we call them Pigs,” said Jane frankly; “at least, we used to, but I shall begin calling them lodgers at once. It’s much kinder — and besides, they are lodgers.”
“Boarders, if with meals,” said Mrs. Doveton. “I shouldn’t have too many at a time, miss, if I was you — not all at once. Make the gells discontented — and you’ve got a couple that knows their work, that’s one thing.”
It was evident that in Mrs. Doveton’s mind there were other things which knowing their work was not.
“Let me help you with the currants,” said Jane, getting another fork. (“A silver one, please, miss,” said Mrs. Doveton.) There were a good many currants, but the leaves at the bottom of the basket were showing plainly — leaves streaked with currant-juice and sprinkled with strigs. Jane’s hands were deeply dyed again before Mrs. Doveton began to yield.
“Well, miss, if I do see these persons for you, you won’t blame me if —— —” she was saying, and Jane was interrupting her with assurances of her complete immunity from blame whatever the creatures turned out like, when the front-door bell rang.
“Good gracious!” said Mrs. Doveton. “I can’t go, miss, with my hands this state.”
“But where’s Forbes? Where’s Stanley?”
“They’re both out, miss. I gave ’em leave to go together for shopping. Neither of them can trust their own taste when it comes to camisoles. Perhaps Miss Lucy’ll go.”
“I’ll get some of this off in case she’s down the garden,” said Jane, drawing water from the boiler, but she had made very little impression on the rich purple stains when the bell rang again.
“Oh, bother!” said Jane. “Here, I must go as I am. It may be a priceless Pig — I mean lodger — and it may go away if—” She snatched down a towel from the rack, but before her hands were half dried the kitchen door cracked open with a noise like a pistol-shot and Gladys burst in, very highly coloured in the face and very bright as to the eye. “Oh, miss!” she said, and no more.
“Whatever is it now?” Jane asked, in the tone of a camel enquiring as to the exact nature of the last straw. “ Why aren’t you at the shop?”
“Mr. Herbert was passing, on his way to see you, Mrs. Doveton, and I asked him to keep the shop while I — while I — while I answered the bell.” She giggled as one in possession of a secret joke.
“Well, who was it?” Jane asked, more relieved by Gladys’s news than Mrs. Doveton appeared to be.
Gladys giggled again. “It’s a lady, miss — an old lady — at least... And she asked to see you, miss.”
“Well, I can’t see her,” said Jane, turning her purple palms upwards. “Find Miss Lucilla and ask her to see the lady.”
“Miss Lucilla wouldn’t do, the lady said. It was you, miss, as she wanted to see. Do excuse me going off like this, miss.” Gladys was still tittering tremulously. “I don’t know what’s come over me, I’m sure! It must be the weather or something.”
&
nbsp; “Did you show her into the drawing-room?”
“Of course, miss,” said Gladys virtuously.
“I wish I’d done the flowers this morning,” said Jane, at the glass by the window, dabbing at her hair with repressive fingers.
“I drew down the blinds, miss: the lady’s eyes is weak — so she says. And oh, miss, I can’t help laughing!” It was plain that she could not. “You with your hands like that and all. It do seem a sort of judgment — I mean a providence. Oh, I don’t know what I mean!”
“I think you’re forgetting yourself, my gell,” said Mrs. Doveton sharply. “What’s the lady’s name?”
“Oh,” said Gladys, “didn’t I tell you? It’s Mrs. Rochester — our young gentleman’s ma. What a pity about your hands, miss!”
Well, it certainly was.
CHAPTER XXIII
“SEND in tea if I ring once,” said Jane, preparing to face Mr. Rochester’s mother in a crumpled blue print, with her hair very untidy and her hands deeply empurpled. Her dress was empurpled too, because amid the bushes she had happened to kneel on a currant or two — but of this she was mercifully unaware. The carnation tint in her cheeks, induced by agitation, was very becoming, and she looked her prettiest. But she did not know this either. “Once for tea, Mrs. Doveton. Twice if I want you to let the lady out. At least, of course, Gladys must do that.”
“I’ll be handy, miss, you may be sure,” said Gladys enthusiastically. “I’ll hang round like in the hall.”
“No, you won’t, my gell,” said Mrs. Doveton with some smartness. “I’ll find you a job to do while you’re waiting.”
“P’r’aps I’d better go back to the shop,” Gladys tried. “You hear the drawing-room bell quite plainly there, and I dessay Mr. Herbert wouldn’t mind staying to take over the shop when I was called away.”
“Mr. Herbert,” said Mr. Herbert’s mother, “will stay where he is, and you’ll stay where you are. Don’t you be flustered, Miss Jane. I daresay the old ady’s quite mild really. Them short-set men with tempers to match often have quite quiet mothers.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” said Jane, beginning to feel some sympathy with the giggles of Gladys. “You’ll have tea all ready, won’t you?”
She was annoyed to find, as she reached the drawingroom door, that her heart seemed to have left its normal position just above where you tuck the rose into your belt, and to have shifted itself to less suitable quarters immediately under the short string of beads that encircles your throat. And annoyance changed to fury when she found that she was trembling all over.
Had he written to his mother about her? Why should he have written? What could he have said? Why had she come? Why could she have come? To inspect? Why? To interfere? What with? To tell Miss Quested that young men’s mothers didn’t approve of unchaperoned days on rivers? To say what she thought of unchaperoned girls anyhow, and to take her boy away? Whatever she had come for, her coming would change things so that they could never be the same again, and Jane had to admit to herself that she did not want things changed. This wonder and these admissions all found time to be between her laying her hand on the knob of the door and her turning it. Then she did turn it, and went in.
The room seemed full of a dusky golden twilight; the flowers, she noted with relief, looked quite decent — only the lupins had shed their petals all over the Sheraton card-table in that aggravating way lupins have.
Then she found herself laying her violet-tinted hand in a cool, gloved hand which seemed to expect it, and saying that she was very pleased to see Mrs. Rochester, because this seemed to be the right thing to say.
“Thank you so much,” said the visitor in a thin, high voice. “That’s very sweet of you. You see, I was in the neighbourhood and I couldn’t resist the temptation to call. I have heard so much of you from my son. You must know,” she added, with an elegant little simper, “you must know I’m a very devoted mother.”
“I’m afraid you’re rather affected,” said Jane, but not aloud. Aloud she said:
“How nice” — again because that seemed the best thing to say.
“Ah, well, family affection involves great anxieties.”
“What are we coming to now?” Jane murmured, but the other did not pursue the theme of the affections, family or otherwise.
“What a delightful old-world spot this is,” she said—”so quaint and picturesque. It has all the lure of the bygone, has it not?”
“I’m glad you think so,” said Jane politely, but in her heart she was saying, “ I wonder whether you always talk like the Woman’s Page in the Daily Yell. How awful for hint if you do.”
“I suppose you live quite an idyllic life here — surrounded by friends and relations... no anxieties?”
“Not at all, thank you,” said Jane “No, of course not. At your age life is a garden of roses, is it not? But what I really wanted to talk to you about was a little private matter between us two,” the thin voice went on with a detestable archness. “And I needn’t apologise for bringing it up, need I? For I’m sure it’s a subject in which you take an interest.... Young people, you know — so sympathetic. Now tell me candidly, and don’t be afraid of offending me, dear: don’t you think he’s wasting his time — just the least in the world?”
“Who?” Jane felt obliged to ask.
“Why, my boy. Don’t you think he’s wasting his time, just a wee bit?”
Jane, heavy with astonishment and impotent rage, could only say she supposed his mother knew best.
“Oh no!” A delicately-gloved but intolerably waggish forefinger was shaken in Jane’s face. She would have liked to bite it. “ Oh no — you can judge far better than I can. You have so many more opportunities of seeing my dear son.” Jane ventured to suppose that Mr. Rochester knew his own business best.
“Oh no!” The voice was too thin for cooing, but it tried to coo. “Young men never know best — never. We have to think for them, we poor, weak women. He has his way to make in the world, and —— —”
“Well, let him make it!” said Jane, suddenly aware that her temper was going and feeling that it was almost time it did go.
“Ah! — but the white hands on the bridle-rein. Two charming girls — quite charming, I’m sure. From a child my son John was so susceptible — almost painfully susceptible.”
“What?” cried Jane, in quite a new voice.
“Er — susceptible,” said the other, quailing a little.
“Nonsense!” said Jane loudly, and she leapt from her chair and with one purposeful jerk she pulled up a blind. Then, with the intent ferocity of a well-bred bulldog in a good way of business, she approached the visitor, who retreated with some activity. But in vain. Jane pursued her, caught her by the console table, took her by the shoulders and shook her.
“You beast,” she said vehemently, “you absolute beast!” It was a strange scene — a scene such as that sober drawingroom had perhaps never witnessed: the shrinking figure of an elderly lady being thoroughly and systematically shaken by a small, slim girl with flame on her cheeks and daggers in her eyes. It was almost a pity that such a scene should have had no spectators. So, evidently, it appeared to the Fates, for they remedied the oversight by permitting Gladys to escape from Mrs. Doveton and enjoy the spectacle to the full through the crack of the library door.
“You beast — you little beast! “Jane repeated, and then Mrs. Rochester’s bonnet fell off and Mrs. Rochester’s hair came down, and it was Lucilla that Jane was shaking — Lucilla, half-laughing through the little wrinkles that were now so plainly only grease-paint, and begging for mercy in the voice that was her own.
“Don’t, Jane, don’t, you’re choking me!”
“I should hope so,” said Jane, and went on shaking.
“Didn’t she do it lovely!” Gladys permitted herself to say, opening the door widely enough for that purpose.
Jane stopped shaking Lucilla.
“Have you been listening at the door?” she asked, turning like a
whirlwind. “Because if you have...”
“Of course not, miss,” said Gladys, deeply injured. “But when I heard the blind click — Mrs. Doveton heard it too, we was both in the kitchen — I knew it was all up, and I come to help Miss Lucy off with her things. It was as good as a play when she went outside and rang the bell, and me inside, ready to open. And she says:
“‘Miss Quested at home? ‘and says she’d seen the advertisement and she wished to recommend a cook. Nobody couldn’t have known her.”
Jane’s face cleared a little at this evidence that at least Lucilla had retained some vestiges of tact. She caught at her self-possession.
“Well, you needn’t wait, Gladys,” she said. “The fun’s over now. Yes, it was very amusing.” She made herself laugh, and reflected that she would have to laugh sooner or later, and might as well begin now and laugh generously. She laughed again with more sincerity.
“I’ll help Miss Lucy to undress,” she said. “ Yes, it was jolly good. It quite took me in. It was a right-down regular do. And a thorough lark.”
“Yes, wasn’t it?” said Gladys. Miss Lucy ought to be on the halls. All right, miss — all right. I’m off...”
“It was a fair score,” said Jane, folding up the silk dress that the false Mrs. Rochester had worn. “You were absolutely IT. You took me in completely. Your voice was splendid — about an octave above your natural voice, wasn’t it? And that affected little laugh — like a neigh! You’re a born actress, Lucilla — Gladys is quite right. There was something about the voice that seemed familiar, but I thought our Mr. Rochester’s voice perhaps was like his mother’s.”
“It isn’t a bit like that voice,” said Lucilla, spluttering among warm soapsuds; “it was a nice voice, wasn’t it?”
“Whatever made you think of doing it?”
“The rubbish you were talking about chaperones, I expect. I thought I’d call and offer myself as one. Then I thought I’d pretend to be a potential Pig, and when Gladys said, ‘What name?’ — she acted all right too, except for giggling — I could think of nothing but Rochester. I thought you’d see through me directly. It was Gladys who thought of pulling down the blinds. I never expected to say more than, ‘How do you do?’ before you recognised me. I couldn’t have kept it up much longer. I couldn’t think of anything to say.”