“We have quantities of fruit in our garden, and have been preserving it all the week. It is not very firm yet, but you must have some to take back with you.”
“I am afraid we shall hardly be able to carry it,” Florence began timidly, feeling convinced that if she were made to carry jam to London it would be fatal to the rest of her luggage.
“I will pack it for you myself,” Aunt Anne said firmly. She was watching the driver too intently to say more. She did not speak again till they had driven down the one street of Rottingdean, past the newly built cottages and the church, and appeared to be getting into another main road. Then suddenly she rose triumphantly from her seat. “There it is, coachman, that little cottage to the left. Dear Walter—how pleased your uncle will be! Here it is, dears,” and all her kindly face lighted up with satisfaction as they stopped before a small whitewashed cottage with a long garden in front and a bed of lupins at the side. Florence noticed that the garden, stretching far behind, was full of fruit-trees, and that a pear-tree rubbed against the sides of the house.
The old lady got out of the fly slowly, she handed out her niece and nephew; the latter was going to pay the driver, but she pushed away his hand, then stood for a moment feeling absently in her pocket. After a moment she looked up and said in an abstracted voice, “Walter dear, you must settle with the flyman when you go back to Brighton; he is paid by the hour and will wait for you, my darlings;” and she turned towards the gate. “Come,” she said, “I must present you to your uncle.—Robert,” she called, “are you there?” She walked along the pathway with a quick determined step a little in advance of her visitors: when she reached the house she stood still, looking in, but hesitating to enter. Florence and Walter overtaking her saw that the front door opened into a room simply, almost poorly, furnished, with many photographs dotted about the walls, and a curious arrangement of quartz and ferns in one corner. While Mrs. Baines stood irresolute, there came round the house from the right a little shabby-looking maid-servant. Her dress was dirty, and she wore a large cap on her untidy head.
“Emma,” said Aunt Anne in the condescending voice of one who struggled, but unsuccessfully, to forget her own superior condition in life, “where is your master?”
“I don’t know, mum, but I think he’s tying up the beans.”
“Have you prepared luncheon?”
The girl looked up in surprise she evidently did not dare express, and answered in the negative.
“Then go and do so immediately.”
“But please, mum, what am I to put on the table?” asked the girl, bewildered.