A GROCERY ORDER
Miss Bibby had been awake nearly all the night, her blood at fever heat.
Hugh Kinross a stone’s-throw away! Hugh Kinross, the author of Liars All, and In the Teeth of the World, and other books, that had thrilled her and set her nerves tingling as if a whip had been applied to her back!
No book had ever so agitated her as Liars All. And she had paid it the highest compliment in her power—she had flung aside her political novel, and the historical one that she had been touching up, and the detective tale that she had been copying afresh, and she had started feverishly upon a short story that she had entitled Hypocrites. And she had tried desperately to “lay about her with a bludgeon,” and say biting, savage things of hypocritical human nature, and hold a relentless mirror up to its little faults. Kinross would have been convulsed could he have seen it.
[p61]
Miss Bibby lay in her quiet bed and illustrated Kinross for herself, since she had never been able to find a portrait of him in any magazine. He was very tall, austere-looking, very thin; the only smile that ever crossed his face was a cynical, a sardonic one. His hair and his eyes were black. He was clean-shaven and his lip and chin were blue.
And she would meet him—she could hardly help meeting him. Possibly she would never get so far as knowing him to speak to, but she would see his tall, spare figure moving slowly about the verandah as he wove his plots, and perhaps the shadow of his head on the blind of a lighted window far into the night.
The fever in her blood drove her from bed. She got up and bathed, and dressed herself with the punctilious care she always bestowed upon her toilet.
Over the choice of her morning dress she hesitated a moment. She wore dainty washing blouses, and neatly-cut serge skirts as a rule; but this morning something induced her to don a limp lavender muslin that took all the freshness from her cheeks.
Then she went out to the faithful performance of her duties, which no amount of fever in her blood could make her neglect. The hot-water ordeal was gone through, the children were turned out speckless from their [p62] bedrooms, the bedclothes were put to air, and not even her own “deep-breathing exercises” were omitted.
But then she missed Max and Lynn. And after a world of trouble dragged it from Pauline that they had actually gone across to “Tenby” to try to induce Hugh Kinross to give his orders for bacon and such things to Larkin.
Hugh Kinross and bacon! Miss Bibby ran down to the gate almost choking with agitation and distress.
There was a figure crossing the road, with Lynn held by the hand, and the red tricycle, and Max flanking it on the other side. It was a figure of merely medium height, more than a trifle inclined to stoutness, with an ordinary kindly face and shrewd eyes. He wore a white linen suit, creased all over with bad packing, and a soft shirt with a low collar. When he took off his old Panama hat, Miss Bibby saw, quite with a shock, the bald patch at the back of his head.
“Good-morning,” he said pleasantly; “my little friend here tells me you are Miss Bibby. May I introduce myself? My name is Kinross. I have met the Judge on several occasions and I think he will vouch for my respectability. May I take these small ones up the road with me? We are going in hot pursuit of two of the world’s best things—eggs [p63] and bacon. I will return them safely—thank you very much. Good-bye.”
That was all. Not another word, though Miss Bibby, going over and over again in her mind the great meeting, tried hard to imagine that she had forgotten some notable thing he had said. Then she began to torture herself with fears that she had behaved stupidly. The suddenness had been too much for her; she could not recollect one solitary thing that she had said except a fluttering “Certainly,” when he asked permission to take the children with him. What must he have thought of her?
Ah, if it could only happen over again when she should have had time to collect her faculties and make some brilliant and scathing repartee as the women in his books so frequently did. But then again, what chance had his speech offered for repartee? What kindling of conversation could there be when the only tinder provided was—eggs and bacon?
She worried herself to such a degree that when breakfast-time came, her appetite, usually small, had almost reached vanishing-point.
The cause of her flutterings was striding along the red dusty road, Lynn and Max having all they could do to keep up with him.
He, too, had had his moment of disappointment. [p64] Lynn had told him there was no other lady in their house but Miss Bibby; and then the figure that had given him some pleasurable emotions an hour ago—the slender white figure that had walked on the path between the flowers—turned out on close view to be merely a thin woman of almost forty, in a floppy puce-coloured muslin gown.
And Lynn was unwittingly merciless to the temporary occupant of her mother’s place. When Kinross had asked her if it was Miss Bibby who was up so early and walking among the trees, she volunteered, in addition to the affirmative—which would have been quite enough—that she walked about like that when she was doing some of her deep-breathing exercises. And that after her deep-breathing exercises she always skipped backwards for five minutes, and after the skipping she lay down flat on the floor and kept lifting up her head in such a funny way.
And of course this led to an account of Miss Bibby’s eccentricities of diet, of which Kinross soon knew all that seemed worth knowing. At first he had hardly listened as the irrepressibles chattered away, or he might have bidden them respect the lady’s idiosyncrasies. But a sudden image confronted him of the figure in limp muslin, solemnly skipping for the good of her health, and he gave a great roar of laughter and [p65] vowed to himself he would use her for “copy” some day.
But now they were at the shops and Lynn and Max were greatly excited.
They pointed out the different places to him.
This was Benson’s, and he made the most delicious drop cakes that ever were; they always bought some when they were going for picnics, and gen’ally on a Saturday, when Anna had no time to make cakes, they had them again. Hugh was solemnly warned not to be beguiled into dealing with Dunks. Dunks did give, it was true, nine for sixpence; but then Pauline had measured them once with Miss Bibby’s tape measure—measured them “longways, and broadways, and fatways,” and Benson’s had been fully half an inch superior.
These were the two photographers. It was advisable to deal with this one, for he always gave you the whole tray down to choose from when you went to buy picture post-cards, and the other man didn’t, ’cause he was afraid your hands were dirty. But they never were when you went for a walk, only Max’s sometimes, because he still fell down a lot (this point Max contested hotly).
These were the two shoe-makers: if you broke the strap of your sandals this one could fix it best; but if you wore out your climbing [p66] shoes, and wanted a new pair made, it was advisable to patronize this one.
And these were the grocers. Poor old Septimus Smith would have stirred uncomfortably in the dreams that still held him, could he have heard Lynn and Max vigorously advising Burunda’s latest stranger never on any pretence whatever to buy as much as half a pound of butter at his establishment.
And Octavius, sleepily sweeping his shop and doing the manifold duties of little Larkin, who was fast nearing the poor selection for his dearly-earned holiday,—Octavius would himself have been amazed at the number of good points his business had. His currants—how much cleaner than the currants of Septimus,—his bacon—words seemed inadequate to describe his bacon. He gave you a whole penny box of chocolates each when you went with Anna to pay his bill. He saved you the tinfoil from his tea-boxes and the lovely paper ribbon off the boxes of raisins.
Hugh heard again about Blanche and Emma and the piano, and the rapt vision of the buying up of both the Smiths, and the future conduct of one grocery business only by a person of the name of Larkin.
“Not another word,” he said; “you have more than convinced me that no one who has any regard for his immortal soul would deal anywhere but at Octavius Smith’s. Let [p67] us go on and swell Larkin’s commission at once. You are probably better up in housekeeping than I am, Lynn,—if I forget any item you must jog my memory. My sister will be quite delighted that we have saved her all this trouble.”
Octavius was speedily wide-awake.
He had always liked the Judge’s children, and took a special interest in Lynn, who had composed the following song for him:—
“You must deal at the shop of Octave
Ius Smith if you’re anxious to save.
But into the small shop of Sept
We hope that you never have stept.”
But this was beyond everything good and thoughtful of the child. And as to Larkin, who had obtained her interest so well—well, the lad should have a “thumping” commission on the order.
The old man’s hand began positively to shake as he wrote and wrote at the order.
It was Lynn who suggested everything, with Max occasionally coming in with a brilliant thought like “hundreds and lousands of laspberry jam.”
As for instance—soap. “Yes, you will need soap,” Lynn said; “how much? Oh, I think you always order grocery things in half-dozens.”
“Half-dozens be it,” said Hugh.
[p68] “Six bars of soap,” wrote Octavius, who was a little deaf, and had not heard the quantity difficulty. “Six pounds of sago, six tins of curry-powder, y-y-yes, six jars of honey, certainly, six tins of tongue, six tins of asparagus, six pounds of pepper, six clothes pegs. Bacon? Any favourite brand?”
“Well, all I’m particular about,” said Hugh, with a twinkle in his eye, “is that it shall be prime middle cut and elevenpence a pound.”
“Just the very thing I make a speciality of!” cried the old man marvelling.
Finally the order was complete; it took two pages of the order book. Octavius would have to borrow Burunda’s one cart to deliver so tremendous an order; the usual thing was for Larkin to carry goods in a basket on horseback.
He would have to go over to his brother Septimus and borrow some things,—asparagus, for instance; he never kept more than two tins at a time of so expensive an article. And pepper—his whole stock of pepper at present was but three pounds!
He bowed his customers out, rubbing his hands together, praising the day, the view—everything. Some enormously wealthy friend of the Judge, without a doubt. Possibly the Premier from some other State—yes, most likely a Premier—who else could want six tins of tongue? Doubtless he was going to [p69] entertain the Ministers at a picnic at the waterfall.
“The Premier” came back after he had gone a step or two.
“Look here,” he said, “just wrap me up some of that bacon and a few eggs, and I’ll take them with me now. We’ve nothing for breakfast at our house.”
Half-way down the hill again, Lynn, speechless with the thought of telling Pauline and Muffie about her brilliant success, Max, a little depressed—he could never walk before breakfast without feeling very large and hollow inside—Hugh, blandly holding to him the parcel of eggs and bacon, met an unexpected sight—Kate toiling along up the steep grade on her bicycle.
“He-he-he!” giggled Lynn; “look at that funny fat woman on a bicycle.”
“It’s only a lack bicycle,” said Max critically, “mine’s led.”
The funny fat woman got off in a most agile fashion when they came alongside.
“My dear Hugh!” she said, “and I imagined you still sound asleep. What on earth are you after now?”
“Eggs and bacon,” said Hugh promptly, “and you can just come home and fry them for me. Exercise must wait for a more suitable time.”
“Exercise!” panted the lady indignantly, [p70] “why, I was just killing myself to get up to a store, and buy some butter for your breakfast, I had quite forgotten to bring any.”
“We have ordered it,” said Hugh—“six pounds of it. My little lady friend here informs me that it is the correct thing to order groceries in half-dozens. I like doing the correct thing, though a doubt did cross my mind as to the advisability of laying in six pounds of pepper.”
“Six pounds of pepper! Oh, Hugh, you are joking.”
She looked helplessly at Lynn.
But Lynn’s sensitive little face was scarlet; she had called this bicycle lady “a funny fat woman,” and here she was a friend of this very nice man’s.
She did not know whether to gasp out an apology or remain silent. The latter course commended itself, however, to her, as it ever does to children.
“You don’t mean to say you have given a grocery order without consulting me, Hugh?” insisted the lady.
“Just a little one to see us over to-day,” said Hugh. “Half a dozen ox-tongues, half a dozen bars of soap—I forget the rest. I thought they would come in useful.”
“Why, man,” cried Kate, “the kitchen is full of packing-cases of groceries that I brought from town. You don’t imagine I [p71] was going to let you run the risk of inferior things from a country store!”
“It is prime middle cut, I assure you,” said Hugh seriously.
“I am going up to cancel your ridiculous order,” said Kate determinedly, preparing to mount. “I shall explain to the storekeeper that you are not responsible for your actions.”
“You are going home to fry my bacon,” said Hugh, as he whirled her bicycle round; “if you don’t I swear I’ll sit down here and eat it raw.”
[Back to [Contents]]