The Lark Read online

  ‘But surely you’ll give him an opportunity to …’

  ‘To what? To tell us that he deceived us? Give him the chance to do it again? Not much. If you like to see him and listen to his lies, do. I’ll go to my room.’

  She moved on the sofa as if to get up.

  ‘Oh, don’t!’ said Lucilla. ‘Of course I’ll do as you like. But I don’t care what you say – I believe it’s somehow not his fault.’

  ‘If it’s any comfort to you to believe it, go on believing by all means. Meantime tell Mrs Doveton. Death to all traitors. If you can’t behead them you can at least cut them dead.’

  Thus it happened that the helpful young man with the nice, kind face, coming to call on two ladies from whom he had parted on quite friendly terms, was met at the door by a neat, drab-haired woman who entirely filled the doorway and said stolidly:

  ‘Not at home, sir.’

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘I am expected.’

  ‘Not at home, sir,’ was the reply.

  ‘I was to call at five.’

  ‘Not at home,’ said Mrs Doveton monotonously, faithful to her trust.

  ‘Oh, very well,’ said the young man, and went down the white steps of Hope Cottage.

  ‘He does look furious,’ Lucilla said, peeping round the yellow damask curtains; ‘and well he may! Oh!’ she added, drawing back hastily.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Jane.

  ‘He turned round,’ said Lucilla.

  ‘And saw you, of course. Well, you’ve done it thoroughly this time, Lucy.’

  ‘Done it?’ said Lucilla, bewildered.

  ‘Yes – we can never make it up with him now, whatever explanations he gives.’

  ‘But you don’t want to make it up with him. You said he couldn’t have any explanations,’ Lucilla urged.

  ‘Still, there’s such a thing as manners. Saying not at home is one thing, but looking out of the window and putting out your tongue at him is another.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, the principle’s the same. Don’t let’s weep over him. We shall never see him again, or know how he came to have the keys, or why he isn’t the owner, or how he dared to burgle the cellar for that port wine – or any single thing.’

  ‘But you don’t want to know.’

  ‘Of course I don’t. He’s dead and done with. But Cedar Court, Lucy – Cedar Court. Don’t let’s talk of silly young men with kind faces and black, false, knavish hearts. Let’s talk about Cedar Court. Our Cedar Court. Aren’t I tactful? Don’t I always do the right thing? How extraordinarily clever it was of me to fall down those stairs, wasn’t it? If I hadn’t done that, Mr James Rochester would never have come to see us, and we should never have got our heart’s desire. Our Cedar Court.’

  ‘It isn’t ours,’ said Lucilla – ‘only the garden and one room.’

  ‘Ah – but that garden and that room – don’t you see what that is? It’s the thin end of the wedge, my dear. And not such a very thin wedge either. And on second thoughts we won’t talk about Cedar Court, because I want you to slip on your bonnet and pop up street, as cook used to say at school. What a long time ago that seems, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What do you want “up street”?’

  ‘Why, a bath-chair, of course,’ said Jane. ‘You don’t suppose I can keep away from Cedar Court? And a carriage couldn’t go all over the place. And a bath-chair can. And you can push it, can’t you? We won’t have any wheezy old pug of a bath-chair man spying on us. We’ll take possession of Cedar Court all by ourselves – just us two.’

  They did. The key and the note from Mr Rochester were duly brought that very evening by a sober-faced man-servant. The bath-chair was found, with some difficulty. It was the only one in the district, Lucilla was assured – and the chickens had unfortunately taken to roosting on it, in the outhouse where it had spent its later years. But it should be well cleaned, miss, you might be sure, and brought round to Hope Cottage at ten to the minute. And it was.

  It was, as Jane said, a moment worth living for, when, the big key having unlocked the wrought-iron gate, Jane and Lucilla and the bath-chair passed through.

  ‘Lock the gate,’ said Jane. ‘We’ll not leave it open till we’ve got our board up. We’ll paint that to-night. What a lovely lot of things we’ve got to do.’

  ‘Garden first?’ Lucilla asked, pushing the wicker bath-chair up the mossy drive.

  ‘Rather – we’ll keep the gas-green room for the last. Oh, look at the hyacinths! And the daffodils! And the narcissus! And the forget-me-nots just coming out!’

  They had turned the corner of the house and, passing close to the yew hedge, now rough and, as it were, hairy, instead of close-shaved, as yew hedges should be, came upon a lawn surrounded by trees and shrubs.

  At the end of the lawn two tall cedars stood like king and queen. On each side a weeping ash, its long branches trained over iron hoops, stood, as Jane said, like crinolined ladies-in-waiting. Round the lawn were grouped the courtiers – all in court mourning for last summer, but with the promise of new green suits already displayed. Lilac, broom, gueldre-rose, American currant, and almond trees like pretty girls in their coming-out dresses. And all among the grass and along the edges of the shrubberies were flowers, and flowers, and more flowers again.

  ‘It’s like the field of the Cloth of Gold,’ said Jane. ‘Why, what’s the matter, Lucy?’

  ‘It’s all too perfect,’ said Lucilla, sniffing. ‘Look at the trees and the grass and the quiet. What on earth can we have done to deserve this?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Jane. ‘Let’s hope we shall do something to deserve it before we die.’

  CHAPTER VII

  Hot water, the ballet-dancer’s remedy for a sprain, does indeed work wonders. Doctors have been known to recommend cold water for this ailment. Charles Reade points out that the interest of the ballet-dancer is to expedite the cure, whereas the doctor’s interest … But let us have no scandal about doctors. All we are at present concerned with is Jane’s ankle, which cured itself ‘a perfect miracle,’ as Mrs Doveton said, so that by the time the board was painted and dry, and the giver of the board notified of the new store of flowers that would be purchasable at Cedar Court, Jane was able to hobble to the gate to receive his congratulations.

  ‘I never would ’a beleft it,’ said Mr Simmons – did I say before that his name was Simmons? Anyhow, it was. ‘Never, I wouldn’t. All the talk is as the old cove’s loony, and now for him to do a sensible thing like that. It don’t seem natural, do it?’

  Mr Simmons was very sympathetic about the sprained ankle. ‘You ain’t ’ad a doctor?’ he said. ‘No, and that’s where you’re wise. But you want something to cheer it up like, after all that hot sopping. Got any rosemary in either of your gardens? Nor rue either? You don’t know? Well, well! I’ll bring you a bit to-morrow. You mash it up well in boiling water, and strain off the liquor, and wet a rag with it and put on that foot o’ yours. You’ll be as right as ninepence in a couple of days.’

  They showed him the board and he admired and approved it. ‘I was afraid, being young ladies, you might have drawed it a bit too fancy,’ he said. ‘But no. Plain and clear. That’s the style. Have you thought how you’ll fix it up?’

  ‘We thought we’d nail it on the post under the board that says “This House is Not to Let”.’

  ‘Better let me clip it on the railings for you,’ said he, ‘with a couple of nuts and bolts. It’ll be more noticeable, and the boys won’t nick it. I’ll bring them herbs along to-night, and you’ll see, day after to-morrow, you’ll be able to walk down to the Court. That’ll be Saturday, and I’ll be there.’

  ‘How did you come to know so much about herbs?’ Lucilla asked.

  ‘I do know a bit,’ he said. ‘I learned it off my granny. She was a great one for herbs. Ay, and spells too. She’d allus got a rhyme to say when you took the herb tea or whatever it was.’

  ‘Oh, do tell us what to say when you use the rosemary.’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ he said; ‘but the rue one, it goes like this:

  ‘ “Rue, rue, fair, kind and true.

  Do as I would have thee do;

  In a night, in a day,

  Take my pains and griefs away.” ’

  ‘How lovely!’ said Jane. ‘Say it again! I shall say it when I put the rue on my foot. And “griefs” too? It’s a cure for heartache.’

  ‘I understand from the book,’ said Simmons, ‘that in those old times when that book was written they just mean pains when they said griefs. It says rue will cure all ache and grief in the bones.’

  ‘Have you got the book?’ the girls asked together and eagerly.

  ‘That I have – I’ll show it you some day,’ said Simmons. ‘Funny old book it is, with a picture at the beginning of a gentleman being ill in a four-poster and a doctor with a ham-frill round his neck holding a knife and a basin. Thank you, miss, I should like a few violets for a buttonhole if it’s not troubling you too much.’

  So Lucilla gathered them and Jane pinned them in and Mr Simmons went on his way.

  ‘What a nice world it is,’ said Lucilla; ‘how nice everybody is!’

  ‘Not everybody,’ said Jane sternly. ‘But I do think Mr Simmons is a dear. Fancy his knowing that old rhyme. What a lot of friends we’re making – Mr Simmons, old Mr Rochester, Mrs Doveton … and all the men who buy flowers of us that we don’t know the names of. We’ll open our shop on Saturday, Luce. What do you think we’d better wear?’

  ‘Whatever does it matter?’

  ‘It’s most important,’ said Jane, ‘to produce a good impression. We want something that looks at once attractive and business-like. Come indoors now, this minute, and let us go through our things and see if we can’t find
frocks that will be at once elegant and sensible. Yes – I know it’s not usual.’

  They went in; in the hall Lucilla stopped to say solemnly, ‘Jane, we ought to have overalls. Something different from any overalls that anyone has ever had before. Do you think it would be wrong to cut up those dark Indian cotton bedspreads in the servant’s bedroom? They’re very lovely – rich and rare and crimson and blue. And there are two of them.’

  ‘Angel!’ said Jane. ‘Let’s cut out the overalls now, and make them ourselves.’

  ‘But we don’t know how.’

  ‘We’ll cut them like those blue Chinese coats our kind guardian sent us – make them a bit longer. They’ll be all right, you’ll see. What a lark it will be to sell flowers in radiant Eastern garments! Your aunt’s little sewing-machine. We can use that and do the hems and necks by hand. Do you think we ought to wear caps? Or coloured handkerchiefs knotted round our heads?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Lucilla; ‘we don’t want to look like actresses. I’ll go and get the bedspreads.’

  The bath-chair was very useful in conveying not only Jane – who did not desire to risk the journey on the restored ankle – but the finished overalls and complete tea equipage, scissors, bast, the oilcloth from the kitchen table, and various other desired objects. It made several journeys – the last with a number of glass jampots and a few pretty china vases.

  Lucilla hung the board provisionally from the top of the railings by a cord, as pictures are hung. Then she took the ever-useful bath-chair and the bread-knife and went into the garden to cut the flowers.

  Jane remained in the garden room. It was a panelled room, small and rather high, with a curious domed ceiling. An unusually wide French window opened on the drive, and on each side of this were casements, so that almost all that side of the room was of clear glass. The room was at the end of the left wing of the house, which, so to speak, balanced the round tower on the right side of the building. Another window, also unusually large, opened on the lawn where the cedars stood. In the corner was a door leading to the stairs down which Jane had tumbled, but this door was now locked. Opposite the cedar window was the fireplace, of carved wood, an elegant Adam design. A corner cupboard charmingly panelled stood between fireplace and French window. There were also cupboards on each side of the cedar window – these set in the thickness of the wall. The floor was of black and white stone, laid diamond-wise.

  For furniture there were two low chairs with curved, carved backs and soft red and green coloured tapestry seats of the shape associated with the name of the Empress Eugenie; two or three polished beechwood chairs, ladder-backed, rush-bottomed; a large long table and a little round table. A polished pierced brass fender and a dark rug before it completed the furnishing. It would have been a quaint and elegant room but for its colour – the walls, cupboards, mantelpiece, all were painted a clear gas-green.

  ‘But it’s not such a bad background for flowers,’ Jane told herself, as she opened one of the cupboards to stow away the tea-things. ‘Hullo!’ she added thoughtfully.

  For the cupboard, which had been empty at their last visit, now held a tray of Japanese lacquer, delicate blue-and-white Chinese tea-cups, other blue-and-white china, and the most delightful collection of jugs and mugs and pots and vases that Jane had ever seen.

  Green Bruges pottery, Welsh lustre, Grès de Flanders, old pewter. Jane looked at the jampots huddled on the floor and laughed. She sat down to laugh more at her ease, and was still sitting and still laughing when Lucilla returned wheeling a bath-chair full of daffodils, forget-me-nots, and big budding boughs.

  ‘If ever there was a fairy godmother,’ she said, ‘it’s Mr James Rochester. Look in that cupboard! There’s forethought for you! There’s delicacy! There’s taste! Every kind of possible pot to put flowers in, and not an inch of water for them! We shall have to carry every drop of water for our flowers from Hope Cottage. He might have trusted us with the key of the scullery!’

  ‘He’s done better,’ said Lucilla, carefully laying the flowers on the long table where Jane had spread the kitchen oilcloth. ‘Come here.’ She led the way to the window; just at the side, where it could conveniently be reached from the stone doorstep, was a tap, perfectly new, as its own brightness and the bluish bloom of its lead pipes alike testified.

  ‘Is he an angel, or isn’t he?’ demanded Lucilla. ‘You get these flowers in water and I’ll get some more. Let’s set up pots on those wide window-ledges each side of the door, and we’ll put the little table outside to make a show. I’ll go and get some more flowers. And let’s put our pinafores on. And put away our hats and coats – they spoil the look of the room. There’s nothing in the other cupboard, I suppose?’

  ‘This door’s jolly heavy. You want too much,’ said Jane. ‘You’ve almost got it too,’ she said, falling back a little from the open door.

  For in the cupboard was a jug and wash-basin, painted with large roses and peonies and gaily-feathered birds, and to the inside of the door was fixed a long looking-glass.

  ‘Replete,’ said Jane thoughtfully, ‘with every modern convenience.’

  ‘It’s very wonderful,’ said Lucilla. ‘I mean he must be very wonderful. I can imagine a young person taking all this trouble – but an old man …’

  ‘All old people don’t forget what it felt like to be young,’ said Jane, voicing a great and rarely recognised truth. ‘Get all the flowers you can. When Mr Simmons comes we’ll get him to help lift out the big table. This is going to look more attractive than any bazaar stall, Lucy. But I don’t like the oilcloth – those little lilac spots … And yet, I don’t know – it’s cottagy. Oh, hurry up! This is going to be what Gladys calls a fair treat.’

  It was, though, as Jane pointed out, they would never know how fair a treat it would have been, because the board attracted the notice of every passer-by and people came in to buy flowers long before the ‘shop,’ as they called it, was arranged, and, of course, the more flowers they sold the fewer they had to make the shop pretty with. Still, in spite of this drawback, it was very pretty. Table and window-ledges were golden with daffodils in green pots. Lucilla found a small garden bench, dragged it from its place, and set it up on the drive a couple of yards from the French window. On this was a double row of low pots running over with the blue of forget-me-nots, behind which rose-coloured tulips stood up like little lanterns. On the round table they put a great Flanders jug filled with tall boughs all leaf and blossom, and round it more forget-me-nots.

  ‘Heaven bless good old Mr Rochester for this!’ said Jane, washing her hands in the bird-painted basin. ‘And a towel and soap! I suppose he must be the best man who ever lived.’

  There was no doubt about the success of the shop. Every woman who passed, and who had a few pence to spare, came in, drawn by irresistible curiosity, through the open gates that had so long been closed. And when the dark stream of workmen came down the road it diverted its course through those same gates, and before Mr Simmons had finished the adjustment of his clips and bolts and nuts to the board and the railings, the shopkeepers were hugging each other behind the screen of the open cupboard door and repeating to each other in ecstasy the words: ‘Sold out, my dear, sold out!’

  ‘Sold out, Mr Simmons!’ they cried in chorus as he came up to the window to announce the completion of his clipping and bolting and nutting; ‘and we’ve got a whole bag of money, and thank you a thousand times for being such a friend.’

  ‘Sold out, have you?’ said he, looking a little wistfully at the bare, water-splashed tables and bench on which stood the empty vases. ‘I wish I’d ’a thought to ask you to save me a few.’

  ‘Oh, but we have,’ said Jane, ‘only we hid them because people did bother us so to let them have them. And, Mr Simmons, this isn’t business. It’s a presentation bouquet.’

  She took from the cupboard a bouquet of tulips and narcissus; a white paper stuck out stiffly from among the flowers. He read the paper slowly:

  ‘To Mr Simmons on the occasion of the opening of the Cedar Court shop. From his friends Jane Quested and Lucilla Craye.’