A New Home
It was a bright morning in the early spring when Florence Heriton, accompanied by her father, left the dull, dirty street in Brompton to pay her first visit to the busy and pleasantly situated market town of Kirton-on-the-Thames.
Mr. Heriton, clinging to his daughter’s arm for support and guidance, was childishly gratified by the prospect of a railway journey. He began to complain of the porter for putting him into a second-class carriage, but Florence slipping a daily paper into his hand, all other grievances were forgotten in an eager inspection of the state of the money market.
When they were fairly out of sight of the tall rows of houses, amid which she had been so long immured, Florence began to breathe more freely, and her spirits to recover their natural elasticity. Work would not seem so toilsome, privations so hard to endure, when the green fields and trees were once more around her; and when they alighted at the Kirton Station, and her father began to complain of the length of the walk that followed, her smiles and merry sallies wiled him into forgetfulness of his fatigue.
Near the summit of a gentle acclivity, some two miles from the town, stood the cottage to which Susan Denham had directed them. It was close to the highroad, but no other habitation stood within some considerable distance, and a fine clump of elm trees growing in an adjacent field sheltered it from the shrill blasts of the northerly wind. It was a most unpretending building, but the ivy that had crept over the front and side, twining its tendrils even around the old brick chimney, gave it an air of comfort; and the lozenge-shaped panes of the little casements shone brightly in the morning sun.
But what most attracted the eyes of Florence were the trimly kept beds in the small forecourt or garden. Early as it was, they were gay with the gayest of spring flowers. The crocus, in its every variety of hue, from orange purple and to the palest of blue, sprang up everywhere; large clusters of snowdrops, mingled with hepaticas and early tulips; and the air was redolent with the perfume of the white and blue violets which peeped from every sheltered corner.
As Florence pressed forward to gaze upon the bright blossoms she saw that the owner of the cottage had become aware of her approach, and was standing at the gate peering at her curiously. From the description she had received, it was easy to recognize directly the good woman of whose kindness of heart Susan Denham had spoken so warmly; yet so queer was her appearance that it was scarcely possible to resist a smile.
Mrs. Bick was so tall and largely framed that she looked out of all proportion with her tiny dwelling, and her list-slippered feet, which the curtness of her narrow skirts well displayed, were positively enormous. Her only sacrifice to the Graces consisted of two bunches of bright-brown curls, which were surmounted by a net cap, surrounded by double quillings of lace. As these borders were very limp, and the curls had a tendency to slip over Mrs. Bick’s forehead whenever she stooped, they were generally awry, and the gray hairs they were intended to conceal stuck out in little fuzzy bunches above or below them.
Florence introduced herself by presenting Susan’s note. It was turned over and over dubiously, and then thrust back into her hand.
“Just read it, will ye? Dannle’s out at work, and my speckittles is indoors.”
Mrs. Bick nodded her head gravely when she had heard the contents of the missive.
“Susan Denham! Ha! that’s the quiet un. A decent young woman she was, too—very different to that highty-flighty cousin that used to pluck Dannle’s best flowers with never a ‘by your leave,’ at all. So you wants my rooms, do ye?”
“I should like to look at them and see whether they would suit me,” answered Florence, a little perplexed between the easy familiarity of Mrs. Bick’s address and the gathering frowns with which Mr. Heriton was listening to it.
“Look and welcome. My place is clean if ’tain’t nothing else. Have ye got ere a pin about ye to pin up them long skirts? For Dannle’s ginger (Virginia) stock is a-coming out in the borders, and he can’t abide to see it broken off.”
Florence humored the woman by drawing her dress carefully around her as she followed her tall form up the narrow pathway.
“It’s a silly fancy, them flowers, for poor folks like we,” said Mrs. Bick, turning round when she reached the porch and confidentially addressing her visitors, “and so I’ve told Dannle times out o’ mind. If he took to anything, he might ha’ took to a pig or fowls; or even rabbits’d been better than nothing, for there’s many a good meal to be had off of them; but there’s neither vittles nor drink in flowers, and they’re here to-day and gone to-morrow, aren’t they? Such rubbidge for poor folk like we to take up wi’, ain’t it?”
She saved them the trouble of replying by throwing open the door of a small and sparely furnished but exquisitely clean sitting room. The sun shone in pleasantly, the broad window seats were filled with luxuriant and choice plants, and the little parlor wore altogether such a snug, cheerful aspect that Mr. Heriton seated himself in a chintz-covered easy-chair in the sunniest corner, and smiled contentedly.
The chambers above were equally neat, and Mrs. Bick’s terms so unusually moderate that Florence closed with her at once. It would be easier to begin her new life in this secluded spot than in the dense atmosphere and depressing influences of town lodgings; and even Mrs. Bick’s rustic familiarity galled her far less than the vulgar sympathy of the London landlady, who never brought up her bill or receipted it without telling Florence that she had known what it was to be better off herself, and so she could feel for other people.
