A Humble Enterprise

by Ada Cambridge

They wrapped her up and left her; and while they perambulated the pleasant platform, talking of their commercial successes, and how dear Joey would come round when he heard of them, she sat quite still and stared at the sea. It murmured musically in the cold, clear night, full of sympathy for her.

All at once she seemed to catch an inkling of the truth. She turned hot and cold, sat bolt upright and shook herself, and inwardly exclaimed, with a gust of rage, "Oh, what a fool I am!" then walked home briskly to give renewed attention to business.

Business prospered as well as heart could wish. The little push given by the powerful Churchill family to her humble enterprise, without which it might have struggled and languished like so many worthy enterprises, floated it into fashion within a week; and, though she had plenty of hard work, insomuch that the basket-maker's wife's niece had to be hired to wash cups and saucers and hand the teapots round the screen, all anxiety as to income was set at rest. Nothing remained to make the tea-room a sound concern but to "keep it up" as it had begun; and she and her mother were resolute to do that. Not a pot of ill-made tea nor a defective scone was ever placed before a customer by those conscientious tradeswomen. Mrs. Liddon, who was happily of a tough and active constitution, laboured to sift her fine flour and test the temperature of her oven, as if each batch of scones was to compete for a prize in an agricultural show. They were not large, substantial scones, like those of the common restaurant, but no bigger than the top of a wineglass, and of a marvellous puffy lightness. She never made more than an ovenful at a time, mixing and cutting one batch while the previous one was baking; and this rapid treatment of the dough, with her previous elaborate siftings, and a leavening of her own composition, produced the perfect article for which she became justly famous. Two scones were put before each customer, and if only one was eaten the other was not wasted. Churchill & Son soon began to provide the tea, which was of the best quality, at a price no storekeeper could buy it for; and the very boiling of the water was watched and regulated, that the freshness should not boil out of it before it was used. The principle on which this establishment was conducted was to do little, and to do that little well—an admirable system, too rarely observed in the commercial world; but, as Jenny had not unjustly boasted, she had the instincts of a good woman of business in her. She resisted all her mother's pleadings for coffee and cakes, when the number of customers seemed to call for larger transactions. Coffee and tea, she said, would be too much upon their minds (since coffee as well as tea must be absolutely perfect), and cakes could be bought anywhere. Let them be content to know, and have it known, that for tea and scones that were always good they were to be invariably depended on. So Mrs. Liddon sifted and baked till eleven in the morning, while Sarah prepared the trays and Jenny washed the tea-room floor; and then the latter, having tidied her dainty person, trotted about with hardly a pause till seven at night, while the bent-backed sister received the little stream of coin that steadily poured in, and dreamed all day of growing rich enough to go to Europe and do things.

Jenny had no fears about the success of her undertaking; it seemed almost too successful sometimes, when her back was aching and her legs too tired to carry her; but she had one constant and ever-increasing anxiety, which beset her every morning, after keeping her more or less awake through the night. This was lest Mr. Anthony Churchill should not come to the tea-room during the day.

His stepmother never took him again, after the first visit; and she herself lost interest in the place, which had been but the fad of an hour or two. She could get a cup of tea whenever she wanted, without paying for it, or putting herself out of the way; and the Little Collins Street premises were very stuffy as the summer came on. They were too crowded for comfort—i.e., for a sentimental tête-à-tête; and the girl was too good-looking to expose Tony to, with his absurd ideas of her being a lady. So Mrs. Churchill gave the tea-room up.

Tony, however, did not give it up. Several days elapsed between his first visit and the second, because it was so difficult to go and sit down there and ask Miss Liddon to wait on him. He quite agreed with Mary that men should not be admitted. A girl like that, brought up as she had been, ought not to be at the beck and call of those coarse creatures. Nevertheless, as men did go, he wanted to be one of them. As representing the firm with which her father had been so closely and for so long connected, it was only right that he should keep an eye on her, and lend her a helping hand if she seemed to need it.

He said nothing of his purpose to Mrs. Oxenham, who continued to refresh herself with the admirable tea and scones at hours that could be fairly calculated upon and avoided. The first she heard of his having gone to the tea-room on his own account was from her little half-sisters, who did not happen to mention it to their mother. These children were much attached to him, and he to them, and one day he took them to the Royal Park, and treated them to tea and scones on their way home. He thought scones were better for them than sweets, he said, and he was able to get them milk instead of tea. Mary commended him for his fatherly care of their digestions, and thought no more of the matter.

The fact was that he had given the small creatures an outing on purpose that they might introduce him to the tea-room. It seemed so much easier to appear before Miss Liddon on their behalf than on his own, and their presence was calculated to attract that notice and interest which he did not imagine he would receive for his own sake. He was not desperately anxious to see Miss Liddon, but he was curious. What he had seen of her, and what Mary and his father had told him (particularly about the hundred pounds that had been offered and refused), had struck his fancy; that was all—at present.

When he appeared at the door of the yellow chamber, with a Liberty-sashed, granny-bonneted mite clinging to either hand, Jenny saw him at once, and experienced that strange shock of leaping blood which makes heart shake and eyes dim for an ecstatic moment—such as we all understand much better than we can describe it. For days she had been aching for a sight of him, despite her savage mortification that it should be so; and here he was at last in the charming guise of a man loving and caring for little children, which, as every woman knows, is a guarantee of goodness that never proves false.

It was after six o'clock, when people were thinking of dinner rather than tea—when little Grace and Geraldine should have been on their way to Toorak, where their nursery meal awaited them—and the tea-room crowd had thinned to half a dozen, all of whom had their plates and brown pots beside them. This also he had in a measure anticipated. Jenny was free, and came forward a step or two to meet him, glancing at the children with a soft, maternal look, as it seemed to him.