CHAPTER III
When Fortune suddenly upsets the coach and tumbles you on to the hard, dusty road, you can, of course, sit where you are and weep. If you do, something will certainly run over you and your distress will be increased. Or you can move to the side of the road and sit down and cry here in comparative safety. Or you can go your way afoot, cursing the coach and the driver and your own beggarly luck. Or you can pick yourself up with a laugh, protesting that you are not at all hurt and that walking is much better fun than riding. The last is, on every count, the course to be recommended, but it is not everyone who has the qualities needed for such a snapping of the fingers at Fate. To do the thing convincingly you must have courage, a light heart, and, above all, presence of mind. The gesture of "I don't care" must not come as a second thought. You must not cry out and then protest that you are not hurt. The laugh must follow the smash without an instant's pause, to be followed as quickly by insistence on the charms of walking—so much superior to carriage exercise. Afterwards you can talk things over with your fellow-victims, if you have any, and decide how fast you shall walk and how far, what shoes are best for walking, and which road you shall walk on.
Jane, spilled out of the quite luxurious carriage of a comfortable income, had at least the presence of mind to laugh and to feed the rabbit.
"And now," she said firmly, turning away from his green munchings. "Then there's nothing to do but to go for a walk. Come along in and put on thick boots, Lucy. We're going to walk miles."
"All right," said Lucilla shortly. And they went in.
"And look here," said Jane, "don't let's talk."
"I'm not the one who usually wants to talk," said Lucilla, busy with bootlaces.
"No. I know. It's me. But not this time. This time I want to think. Really to think. I'm not sure, but I don't believe I ever have really thought yet. I've only dreamed and imagined and planned. Now I'm going to try to think. Come on—how horribly narrow these stairs are! Latch the gate; it looks tidier. Now we'll step out. Which way? It doesn't matter a bit. What was I saying? Oh, that I meant to try to think. And you try to, too. It won't be easy, because I don't believe you've ever done it before either. And when we get home we'll tell each other what we think. If we begin to talk about everything now we shall only get confused. We want to see it clearly and see it whole, and"
"I thought we weren't going to talk?" Lucilla put in.
"No more we are. I'll shut up like a knife in a minute. I want to say one thing, though."
"So do I," said Lucilla. "I want to say I think it's a beastly shame."
"No, no!" said Jane eagerly. "Don't start your thinking with that, or you'll never get anywhere. It isn't a shame and it isn't beastly. I'll tell you what it is, Lucy. And that's where we must start our thinking from. Everything that's happening to us—yes, everything—is to be regarded as a lark. See? This is my last word. This. Is. Going. To. Be. A. Lark."
"Is it?" said Lucilla. "And that's my last word."
They walked on in silence. The houses grew fewer. There were fields instead of market-gardens. Trees; hedges. A lonely, tumble-down cottage. A big deserted house, with windows boarded up, standing in a walled garden. A lane; a stile; more trees, and a long stretch of white grass-bordered road—real country. They walked sturdily along the dusty road. The sun was warm and grew warmer. The road rose and fell in gentle undulations. Still in perfect silence the girls walked on. But their pace was not so good as at first—one might almost indeed have said that their footsteps lagged.
A turn of the road brought to view a village green, a duck-pond, a pleasant-looking inn. In front of this Lucilla stopped.
"Look here, Jane," she said.
"We said we wouldn't talk," said Jane rather faintly.
"Who wants to talk?" Lucilla asked. "What I want isn't talk, it's something to eat. Do you realise that you dragged me out without breakfast?"
"It was silly," said Jane; "very. At the same time, I'm quite sure we couldn't have eaten a proper breakfast just after reading that letter."
"Perhaps not," Lucilla admitted, "but I want my breakfast, and I'm going to have it here—in these tea-gardens at the side of the inn."
"I'm hungry too," said Jane; "at least, I feel as if I'd been for hours in a swing-boat. I suppose that's what people mean when they say they feel faint for want of food. But oh, Lucy, I'm so sorry. I didn't bring any money!"
"I did," said Lucilla grimly, and led the way to the green-latticed tea-gardens.
In a tumble-down arbour, with faded blue seats and a faded blue, warped table, breakfast was presently served to them.
"Oh, Lucilla, you are It!" Jane admitted. "Doesn't the bacon smell lovely? And the coffee? Sweeter than roses in their prime. . . . And real toast in a proper toast-rack! . . ."
"Don't talk," said Lucilla; "eat."
After a silence full of emotion Jane spoke again.
"I never had breakfast out of doors before—and all by our two selves, too. . . . Surely even you will admit that this is a lark?"
"It would be," said Lucilla, "if"
"No ifs," said Jane. "It is a lark, unconditionally and without qualification. And I've been thinking-at least I haven't really till this moment, but I'm thinking now. Bacon is an admirable brain tonic. Don't speak for a minute. I am evolving what they call a philosophy of life."
"More coffee, please," said Lucilla.
"Well," said Jane, putting in far too much milk, "it's like this. If we're going to worry all the time about the past and the future we shan't have any time at all. We must take everything as it comes and enjoy everything that is—well, that is enjoyable; like this very lovely breakfast. Live for the moment—and do all you can to make the next moment jolly too, as Carlyle says, or is it Emerson?"
"It may be Plato or Aristotle," said Lucilla, cutting more bread, "but I think not."
"It's common sense," insisted Jane. "We've got to try to make our livings somehow. We'll try all sorts of things, and we'll get fun out of them if we don't worry and grouse, But we shall never do anything if we think of ourselves as two genteel spinsters who have seen better days. We must think of ourselves as adventurers with the whole world before us. Frightfully interesting."
"There's something in what you say," said Lucilla.
"There's much more in what I am going to say," Jane rejoined; "it's wonderful how bacon clears the mind, Have you ever thought seriously about marriage?"
"Don't be silly," said Lucilla,
"There—that's exactly what I mean," said Jane cryptically, "Now I have thought about marriage—a good deal; and I believe that one reason why so many married people don't get on together—well, you know they don't, don't you?—is that they're not polite to each other. They think they know each other well enough to say, 'Don't be silly,' and things like that. No, of course I'm not offended. It was all right to rag each other when we were just cousins with nothing to do but play the fool. But now we're partners, my dear; almost as much as if we were a married couple. And don't you think it would be a good scheme to try to be polite, and drop ragging each other?"
"You can't," said Lucilla.
"Well, anyhow, I think we shall have to try; at any rate, not to say, 'Don't be silly' before we know what the other one's going to say."
"I apologise," said Lucilla, "and leave the omnibus."
"Nonsense," said Jane. "I didn't mean that; it might just as well have been me. And now I'm going to tell you something."
"I beg your pardon," said a voice, "but can you tell me how far it is to Leabridge?"
They turned, to find at Lucilla's elbow a young man in knee-breeches. He held in one hand a panama hat and in the other a glass of gingerbeer.
"Oh!" said Lucilla, with what was almost a cry.
"I am sorry if I startled you," he said.
"Not at all," said Lucilla; "at least, you did rather, but it doesn't matter—and we don't know anything about Leabridge. I'm sorry. But they'd know in the inn, wouldn't they?"
"I suppose they would," said the young man, as though this were a completely new idea. "They're sensible people, I suppose?"
"I don't know," said Lucilla; "we aren't staying here. We just came to have breakfast"—she indicated the greasy plates and sloppy cups. "But they'll be sure to know, of course."
"Yes. Thank you so much," said the stranger. "You see, I've been in the Red Sea for over four years, and I don't seem to know where anything is. It's wonderful how different Kent is to the Red Sea."
"It must be," said Lucilla, rather stiffly. "I'm sorry we can't help you."
"Not at all," said he vaguely. "Thank you so much." And with that he retreated to the furthest of the green tables.
"We'd better go," said Jane. "Whatever did you want to snub him so for?"
"He didn't really want to know about Leabridge. He just wanted to talk to us."
"I should think he did! After four years of the Red Sea anybody would want to talk to anybody. But that wasn't it. Don't you see, he came into the garden just when I was saying I was going to tell you something. He had to let us know he was there. I think it was very, very nice of him. Now, Lucy, you must bow as we go by."
"We won't go by," said Lucilla; "we'll go round the other way, and turn our backs on him at once."
They did. And it was rather a pity, because if the young man had seen more of Jane than a large hat and a chin, and if Jane had seen the young man distinctly, either or both might have been moved to oppose Lucilla's severe and severing tactics. I don't quite see what either could have done—but I incline to think that the situation would have been changed.
As it was, Jane and Lucilla paid their bill and John Rochester was left to drink gingerbeer in the sun and wonder why he couldn't be allowed to talk for half an hour to two ladies just because no one had mumbled their names to him and his to them. He was thirsty for the companionship of women—any decent women. So that presently he carried his glass into the bar and tried to talk to the barmaid; he found a nice, respectable woman with very little conversation. Then he rode on to lunch with a wealthy uncle who had expressed a wish to see him. Later he would go down to his mother's. He had not seen her yet. The uncle had been imperative. He wondered whether Miss Antrobus was married, and then he thought of the gold-crowned child in the mmoonlit wood, and wondered. . . .
Little did he think—as our good old standard authors would say . . . But volumes could be ineffectually filled by the recital of what Mr. Rochester didn't think. The point for us is that he had seen the child again, and that she had seen him. He did not recognise her now that she wore a straw hat and the charm of nineteen instead of a crown and fifteen's wild woodland grace. And she did not recognise the face that had come in answer to her invocation, because four years in the Red Sea set their mark upon a man, even without that scar that he got when his ship was torpedoed. They have not recognised each other, but they are in the same county; more, they are in the same district: she anchored to a house called Hope Cottage, he less closely attached, but still attached, to a resident uncle. If there is anything in these old charms the two will meet again quite soon. If there isn't anything—well, still they will probably meet. Of course he may fall in love with Lucilla—it was she who spoke to him. If he does, we shall know that charms on St. John's Eve are worse than useless.
Anyhow, he is now definitely out of the picture, which concerns itself only with the desperate efforts of two inexperienced girls to establish, on the spur of the moment, a going concern that shall be at once agreeable and remunerative.
They talked it over. The forethought of the defaulting guardian in providing an intelligent, drab-haired woman to come in and do for them left them free to talk. And talk they did. Presently talk crystallised into little lists of possibilities. As thus:
Be milliners. Be dressmakers. Market-gardening. Keeping rabbits ("We've got one to begin with, anyhow," said Lucilla) . Keeping fowls. Taking paying guests. Writing novels. Going out as governesses ("Not if I know it," said Jane. "Think of Agnes Gray"). Selling the house and furniture and going to Canada ("Too cold," said Lucilla. "Besides, they have no old buildings," said Jane, "Your mind would be cold there as well as your body"). Wood-carving, Going about as strolling minstrels.
It was not an unhappy time. Freedom was theirs. They might be unlucky, but there was no one to tell them whose fault it was. The house, though small, was very comfortable, as houses are that have been lived in for years and had all that houses need gradually added, a little at a time—not crammed down their throats in one heavy, dusty meal, by a universal provider or a hire-system firm.
The garden was full of flowers—daffodils, tulips, wallflowers, forget-me-nots, pansies, oxlips, primroses—and on the walls of the house cherry-coloured Japanese quince. The buds of iris and peonies were already fat with promise, and roses were in leaf and tiny bud.
Twice a day a long procession of workmen passed the house, on their way to and from the new estate that was being (developed). The girls got quite used to the admiration which their garden excited in these men. As they passed every eye was turned to it. One day Jane was cutting the pyrus japonica for the house when the procession began.
"You might spare us a buttonhole," said a fat, jolly man with a carpenter's bag.
"All right," said Jane handsomely, and handed him a little sprig of red blossom.
"Thank you, I'm sure," said the workman.
"But what about me?" said the man behind him.
"Me, too," said another. "Give us a bit too, lady."
"I'm awful fond of flowers."
And next moment there was a crowd of men and boys holding on to the green railings of Hope Cottage, and all clamouring for just one flower. The group blocked the pathway, and newcomers stopped to see what was going on, and the crowd grew and grew,
Jane came to the fence and raised her voice. She had learned to do that in the school plays,
"Look here," she said, "I'm awfully sorry, but I can't give flowers to all of you."
"Never mind, miss," said one, "we know your heart's good."
"No need to give," said a black-bearded, serious-looking man. "I'll pay for mine."
"So'll I," said a dozen voices.
"I was first, miss."
"Me next."
"How much?"
"How much ought I to say?" Jane lowered her voice to ask her first friend, who had pinned her gift to his button-hole.
"Twopence a bit," he answered.
Jane broke off her cherry-coloured blossom into sprays and handed them over the railings, receiving many pennies in return.
"You ought to sell bokays, miss," said one of the men. "Lots of the chaps would like to take home a bunch to the missus of a Saturday. You put up a board and say, 'Flowers for sale here.' Not but what it would be a pity to rob the garden."
"Oh, but we want to sell the flowers," said Jane. "Thank you so much. I'll get a board ready."
"I'll bring you along a bit o' board," said the man with the carpenter's bag, "all ready painted white—and you can do the letters on it yourself with Brunswick black. All saves expense."
When the little crowd had dispersed, Jane was left rather breathless, with blackened hands and apron-pockets weighed down with what the police call bronze.
She heaved it all out onto the kitchen-table, where Lucilla sat busy as usual with pencil and paper. The coins rattled and rang and spun on the smooth scrubbed deal; a couple of adventurous sixpences and a rollicking halfpenny escaped to the floor, and at least three pence rolled under the dresser.
"What on earth's all this?" Lucilla asked, as well she might.
"Your destiny, my destiny," Jane told her. "It's the finger of Fate. Drop those everlasting lists. Away with them! We're in trade!"
"But where did you get all this money?" Lucilla asked, beginning to arrange the pennies in piles of twelve.
"In the garden," said Jane dramatically; "buried treasure—first instalment, to be continued in our next. No, don't look vacant, Luce darling. I'm not insane, and I will tell the truth as soon as I get my breath. Put away that pencil, burn that paper. No more lists! I got that money by selling flowers out of the garden. We will get our living by selling flowers out of the garden. Ourselves. To people who go by and admire. No sending our flowers to market to be sold all crushed and bruised and disheartened. 'Fresh flowers sold here'—that's what's going on the board. No, 'Fresh cut flowers sold here.' I shall paint the board to-morrow. Why, the board for the gate, of course, to show the world what we sell. Let's count the money. I make it fifteen and eight pence."
"It is fifteen and ninepence halfpenny," said Lucilla, and added slowly, "it's quite a good idea, Jane."
"Out with it," said Jane, adjusting the little silver tower of her eleven sixpences. "What's the dreadful drawback?"
"I hate to throw cold water," said Lucilla, "but how long will the flowers in our garden last if we sell them like this? You'll be 'sold out,' as the shops say, before the paint's dry on your board."
"But more flowers will come out."
"Not fast enough."
"We could buy flowers at Covent Garden and sell those."
"Then they wouldn't precisely be fresh-cut, would they?"
"True. How right you always are!"
"The fact is," Lucilla went on, "you make fun of my lists—but I've learned one thing by making them. I see that every plan we can make for making money here is made impossible by one thing. The house is too small."
"Then we must get another house."
"That's so easy, isn't it, with all the papers we bought at the station full of the housing problem? There aren't any other houses. You know there aren't."
"I don't know anything so absurd. There must be houses with bigger gardens than ours. People might want exchange."
"You think we might advertise: 'People who don't want to be bothered with large gardens can have small one in exchange'? It's our only chance. We can never do anything with Hope Cottage except live in it—and that we can't do on the interest of your five hundred pounds—or else let it. Now, if we let it furnished, we could partly live somewhere else on the money."
"I don't want to 'partly' live anywhere," said Jane, "I wish to warm both hands before the fire of life."
"Well, you'll never warm them here," said Lucilla.
"The worst of it is that you're so often right," said Jane, tying the money up in a clean blue-checked duster and hiding it in the plate-warmer, "No burglar will ever think of looking for it there. Now let's go out and look for a house."
When they had locked the front door behind them Lucilla stood on the step surveying the front garden.
"What's-his-name and the ruins of Carthage," said Jane, flippant, but a little uneasy too,
Lucilla walked to the corner of the house and looked round it.
"Why," she said, "there's not a flower in sight!"
"Fifteen and eightpence," said Jane—"I mean ninepence, and a good deal of that was ivy."
"I shouldn't put up the board here," said Lucilla, "it's hardly worth while."
"If we can't get another house I shall plant flowers here."
"Flowers take time to grow."
"Annuals don't—at least, not much. Let's go and buy a gardening book and find a house."
They did not find a house, but they bought a gardening book—and spent the evening over it. In the kitchen. You tend to sit in the kitchen when it is very light and clean bright with gay-coloured crockery and sparkling with silvery tinsmith's work; and when you have it to yourselves; and when, anyhow, you have to get your own supper, and you may as well eat it where you cook it. It saves carrying trays in and out, and you get it hotter—and afterwards, why bother to move? Especially when the kitchen window looks out on the back garden, where the fruit trees are near blossom, and the parlours both look out on the front garden, the whole of whose floral splendour has just been sold for fifteen shillings and ninepence.
A very happy evening they spent over the gardening book. Lucilla made a list of the seeds that would be wanted to carry out what was really a quite brilliant scheme for a year's flower-growing.
"Perhaps you're right," she owned; "something might be done with this garden. And then there'll be all the soft fruit coming on in the summer."
"Soft fruit? Yes, that's right, it says so in the book. Currants and raspberries and gooseberries—all the squashy kinds. Hard fruit's the sort on trees—apples and pears. We might make jam, put 'Home Made Jam' on the board."
"And 'New Laid Eggs' if we only had fowls."
"And 'New Milk' if we had a cow."
"And 'Home Cured Bacon' if we had a pig."
"And everything that people do sell if only we'd got room to grow it—if this were a decent-sized house instead of a chocolate-box."
"It's the perfect house for an old maid," said Jane. "A place for everything is easy, but everything you ought to have in the place where it ought to be—that's rare, Lucy, rare as black swans. That ought to mean money. Somewhere or other there is the real right tenant gaping open-mouthed for just this bait."
"Bed gapes for me," said Lucilla, "and it's mutual."
"I suppose being in trade does make you vulgar." Jane seemed to ponder. "Even the little bit of trade we've had."