CHAPTER NINETEENTH
TEA AND TALK
"I used to think if ever I kept a shop there would be a bell on the door to jingle cheerily whenever a customer entered." Norah spoke from the window where she was occupied in making some changes. Outside the rain fell steadily, the terrace gardens had a soaked, dismal look, and the street was almost deserted, except for an occasional wagon.
"If it will add to your happiness, we will have it put in; but I doubt if you would be able to find one that would ring cheerily,—they usually jangle."
"I suppose that depends somewhat on the hearer; however, we must confine ourselves for the present to the strict necessities of life. Did it ever occur to you, Marion, how the old-fashioned bell is passing? When I was a child, the milkmen heralded their approach with bells; and maids would appear with bowls and pitchers and have the milk measured out to them from large tin cans."
"Your youth must have been in the Dark Ages. I never heard of such a thing."
"I am often impressed by your ignorance of simple matters. Yesterday, out in the southwestern part of this very town, where I went to look for a seamstress, I heard again one of those bells rung lustily, and there was the tin can, as of old, riding majestically on the front seat of the wagon; but probably as a concession to modern prejudice the milkman was supplied with bottles, too. Come and tell me what you think of my rainy-day window."
Marion crossed the room. "It looks cheerful," she said, "but I hardly think it will bring us many customers to-day. It is too bad even for James Mandeville."
Norah had ransacked their stock for the brightest draperies, gayest baskets, and oddest jars, making of them a sort of barbaric medley not ungrateful to the eye, which she regarded with satisfaction.
"Well," she said, "if we have no customers, I shall have all the more time to give to collars. I am sorry I could not find a seamstress. I did not dream there would be such a demand."
"And there is probably some one who would be glad to do them if we only knew," said Marion. "Would it be worth while to advertise?"
Not troubled with much custom, the shopkeepers were working and chatting in the south window that afternoon, when Miss Sarah Leigh put her head in at the door.
"I hate to come in, I'm so wet," she said; "I'll leave my umbrella outside."
"You need not mind," said Norah, rising. "As you see, we have a large rubber mat and an umbrella-stand, and this is the first time we have needed them."
"Thank you. I had to go to the grocery, and as Aunt Sally was out of knitting cotton, I dropped in to get some. It is a dreadful day."
Norah pushed a chair to the fire, "Sit down and have a cup of tea. Miss Carpenter and I are just going to have some."
Miss Sarah accepted the chair. "I have no business to,—I have a thousand things to do; but this seems a veritable haven of rest."
Susanna now entered, a model of the respectable, elderly maid, carrying a tray which she placed before Marion.
"Another cup please, Susanna," said Marion; and while she poured the tea, Norah coaxed the fire into a blaze, remarking that it had fallen into the way of sympathizing with the weather.
"Are you in the habit of treating your customers in this fashion?" Miss Sarah asked, accepting the cup and helping herself from the plate of warm tea-cakes with which Susanna returned.
"This is a reward to rainy-day callers," answered Marion, smiling.
"Well, you are the most astonishing people I ever came in contact with. I hope you don't mind my saying it," Miss Sarah spoke confidentially. "I don't mean in respect to tea."
"Not at all," laughed Norah. "We, too, have our impressions of the neighborhood."
"I shouldn't be surprised if you had." Miss Sarah joined in the laugh. "Of course it is no secret to you that the neighborhood did not very much want you, and the way in which you are winning us over is a miracle. Miss Wilbur, Charlotte, Alex, and now you have captured Mr. Goodman. Charlotte told me about the party. How do you do it?"
"It has all come about through the merest accident," Marion explained.
"Such accidents don't happen to everybody. I think you practise witchcraft."
"James Mandeville and the birthday cake captured Giant Despair," said Norah, the name slipping out before she thought.
"So that is what you call him! Have you named us all? It suits him, too; but poor man, he has had his troubles, as have some of the rest of us." Miss Sarah looked meditatively into the fire. "Soon after he built his house in the Terrace," she continued, "his daughter, an only child, was burned to death. It was a sad thing,—she was just eighteen. Then a nephew whom he adopted turned out a scamp, and now he has lost faith in everything."
While she was speaking the shop door opened to admit Alexina and Charlotte, rosy and wet from a walk in the rain.
"I want a spool of twist," Charlotte announced merrily.
"Won't a cup of tea do? We are serving that at present," Norah asked.
"How pleasant!" Alex exclaimed as they slipped off their wet waterproofs. "Are you always cheerful over here?"
Charlotte sought Miss Carpenter's side. "I like tea," she said, the blue eyes showing, however, a fondness for something more than that innocent beverage. Just now this young lady had a profound fascination for her. Miss Alex and Aunt Virginia might prefer Miss Pennington, Miss Carpenter had her admiration.
"If you need anything more in the way of cheer, I will bring forth the grab-bag," said Norah, as she handed Alex some tea.
"That sounds interesting; do let us have it," begged Miss Sarah.
"You will be disappointed," Marion put in, mischievously, while Norah went for the rainbow bag. "You expect amusement and get a sermon. Its variegated hues give symbolic expression to the truth that 'behind the clouds the sun is still shining.'"
"You might add that its existence destroys the pleasing idea that we are always cheerful," Miss Pennington added, holding out the bag to Alex.
"Am I to take something?" Alex asked; and putting her hand in, she drew out a card. "'If we live truly, we shall see truly,'" she read. "But it seems to me it ought to be the other way. If we could see truly, we could live truly. It is such a puzzle. Do you think this is true? And what does it mean to live truly?"
"You are an animated problem, Alex," Miss Sarah remarked.
"It is a little like something Uncle Landor said to me, that if we try to do right and keep our hearts pure, we will hear a voice telling us which way to go." Charlotte spoke shyly.
Marion took her hand in a soft clasp, and Norah gave her a friendly smile. "Yes," she said, "that is it. I will tell you what it means to me. It means that if I go straight on, doing each day the thing that comes to me, not allowing myself to become entangled in fears for to-morrow, that little by little the path will be made plain to me."
"I am afraid I want to know where I am going. It might be such a waste of time," said Alex.
"Its very simplicity makes it hard, but I believe it is the best way," Norah answered.
"Are we allowed to have only one helpful sentiment at a time?" asked Miss Sarah.
"Certainly; one is as much as anybody can live up to at a time."
"It is not for lack of moral sentiments, however," Marion added. "The supply is constantly renewed. They naturally gravitate to Norah."
"I wish," remarked Norah, "that a seamstress capable of making stocks and collars would gravitate to me."
"Here is one at your side." Miss Sarah leaned over to examine her work. "I think I could do it."
"She can do anything," said Alex, waking up from a brown study. "But how would you find time, Miss Sarah?"
"If you could do only a few, it would be a help," the shopkeepers cried in the same breath, and Norah began at once to explain what was wanted, and unfold patterns.
Susanna carried away the tea things, and Alex joined Charlotte and Marion, who were talking about James Mandeville and Mr. Goodman.
"He has won the old man's heart," Marion was saying. "They have been walking together several times, and James Mandeville always returns with a bag of what he calls finger ladies."
Miss Sarah's voice interrupted presently. "I don't know when I have spent such an eventful hour. I must take my knitting cotton and go. I know now where to come when I have the blues."
"It is worth while to give Miss Sarah a little pleasure," Alex said as the door closed behind her. "She is the bravest, brightest person, and her life is anything but easy." Then she returned to the consideration of the card she had drawn. "I am dreadfully puzzled over what I ought to do. I want to make my own living, and yet it is hard to go against the wishes of everybody at home. Do you really think if I just go on doing what comes to me that the way will open? It sounds lazy."
"No, it sounds serene. If I were you, I'd try it," said Norah.