MRS. TWIGGIT'S MINT SAUCE.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume I, Issue 57, 30 January 1892, Page 2

MRS. TWIGGIT'S MINT SAUCE.

Audrey wanted to know -who wrote to her father and sealed with the top of a thimble, i "My letters, my dear, are all about Peruvians and Mexicans, and Four per Cents.; we haven't any thimbles among us." " But that was done with a thimble. Audrey picked a letter out of the heap on the corner of the breakfast table. "Ah! my dear," with a laugh at the scrawled direction, as he tors it open ; " it is your grand-aunt-in-law, or your step-grand-aunt, or whatever she is—Mrs Twiggit. Bless my life! what a commission! Ten shillings' worth of flower seeds wanted—will send what ?—half a post office order on receiving the seeds—and there, are to be no—no'what?—no 'bachelor's buttons' among them!" ' " What a ridiculous old woman she must be !" said Mrs Sfcockmore, stiffly.

" What a comfort that Hedge wick is so far from here ! What should we do if she ever came to London ?" gasped Miss Stockmore Number Two —Miss Laura.

"Oh! don't imagine such a calamity," sighed Miss Barbara — Number Three.

"We should all faint," said Num. ber Four —Miss Blanche—getting on fast with the muffins. .

"We are not so silly. We should only have to say, ' Not at home,'" said Number Five—Miss Pauline— frigidly. > " 0 mntry cousins are awkward possessions," Mr Btockmore said; " but Martha Twiggit is an excellent woman in her way ." •'lam glad that way is a long way off," one of the circle of daughters put in.

Little Audrey had said nothing till now. "If ever Mrs Twiggit comes here /shall be at home," she said now with a will of her own. " And I only wish she would come across the Bouncebys here—they would never come again, if they knew ; we had a poor relation, and that would be such a blessing !"

All the others looked quite horrified; but what did Audrey's opiuion matter ? She was only a plain little thing in a washed-out pink gown ; nobody ever thought about Audrey. The eldest Miss Stockmore looked, even more horrified that the rest. She was sitting late and lone on the banks of Society, fishing for little Phillip Bouneeby and his £15,000 a year. Laura, the second of the six sisters, was supposed to be the beauty of the family. It was also supposed that she had been the main attraction for all the visits of that handsome young German, Max Steinberg, but why Max Steinberg had disappeared so suddenly, and declined their invitation to the dinner on Laura's birthday— all that was quite another question. When thisdinner party took place when the ladies were in the drawingroom during their few minutes' chat about dress, and the parties, and the absent lords of creation —and when Miss Stockmore, with a side glince at the mirror, was regretting that £15,000 a year cannot make a man tailor than 4ft 6in.—just during that social pause in life, a terrible thing: happened. Mrs Twiggit appeared at the drawing-room door, with her plump, good-natured, blue-eyed face, her coal-scuttle bonnet, her market basket, and her bulky umbrella ti«d round the middle. Miss Stockmore sat stiff with horror. Miss Laura, the beauty, blushed red as her roses. Miss Barbara very nearly began to cry. Miss Blanche, who was a muscular young woman, said somerhing about feeling faint, and ran as fast as a rabbit into the conservatory. Miss Pauline stood up, stammering something about a " mistake" and " that person." It was bad enough to see how bright eyes were looking in wonder from ail corners of the room but what would the men say? What jokes iSir Hector Brown would make. What an insult to Mr Plantagenet Timmins! Miss Stockmore was thinking of all this, and stiffening visibly, asking herself, could Mr

Phillip Bounceby, by any possibility,' be kept out of sight of this terrible person—when all eyes were turned towards Audrey, who was crossing the' room. Audrey was in simple whito, 1 looking so fresh and girlish that "the plain little thing" outshone "the beauty." • "How do you do, Mrs Twiggit?" she said, going gaily up to the in* truaer, and leaving a hearty kiss under the coaUskuttle bonnet. " I believe you are my grand-aunt, or my step-aunt, or—it does't matter what— some sort of a relative. Papa is giving a dinner to-night, so do come up stairs and take off your bonnet." "Thank you, dearie. Carry the umbrella, and I'll carry the basket, darling." And the old lady trudeed cff with Audry. , All the guests had quietly begun talking, letting the incident pass unnoticed. But the Stockmore sisters gazed at the closing door in horror and'wonder. "Would it open again, and would Mrs Twiggit come in? Was Audrey mad ? Mrs Twiggit actually was led in again, with a cap and shoulder-kerchief of superb white lace ; they had been sweetly presented by Audrey, with the suggestion that " perhaps she didn't expect to find a party'going on, and, one does not like to be taken by surprise." On the, staircaae the old lady had begged to see as few as possible, " for I'm only an old body from the country," she said, " and I just came to know if your father got the first half of my post-office order all right, because he never wrote."

Plantagenet Timmins, who professed to know something about art, told . Miss Stockrnore that the old lady with all the -white about her shoulders was " every bit like a Rembrandt. What, cheeks and eyes, my word!—no worse for time and wrinkles. Never saw such a thing in all my life!" Sir Hector Brown found her an easy chair and a footstool, and picked, up her handkerchief twice, and found her spectacles on the floor four times, because poor Mrs Twiggit dropped things when she felt nervous. She iavited all the Stockmore girls separately to " come down to my little place in the summer—it,, is Orookley Cottage, Hedgewick, my dear." But they all declined!, thinking a visit to Hedgewick would be as bad as being walled up in a haystack. Audrey thought it too hard of everybody to refuse, so she said, "I'll come. You'll get enough of me at Orookley Cottage. Thank you so much ! And when can you have me ?"

"If ever my mint sauce comes up, I may ask those young ladies to dinner ; but not before !" No; Mrs Twiggit would nevor ask the Stockmores ag^in; but she had Audrey now at Orookley Cottage all to herself. "Your mint sauce?" Yes dearie ; I'm fond of mint sauce. You know that big flower pot in my bed-room window.?" "The big pot whore nothing comes up? Yes." "Well, 'tisn't much wonder, my d«ar. that it don't come up." said Mrs Twisgit placidly, cutting roses in her garden. •'Did you sow it long ago?" i " Fourteen years ago come Michael--1 mas." " Not much chance for that mint to grow," thought Audrey. Yet this queer little ,old lady kept all sorts of old pots, boxes, and stumps of plants that had long given up all | thought of growing green again. Audrey had never seen such a tumbledown village as Hedgewick—so embowered among wood, so brilliant with gardens of scarlet-runners and marigolds—so picturesque with little whitewashed walls and big thatch eel roofs. Orookley Cottage stood alone, behind a sweetbriar hedge, up a grassy lane. It was a cottage smothered in honey, suckle and Virginia creepers; from under its green laticed porch the white step led straightan by glass doors to " the best parlour ;" and there was no worst parlour—no other, in fact. It * was a room full of flowered chintz : and old china, and the ecent of xosea.

Audrey was happier in that best parlour than ever she had been in their own. London drawing-room. She could sit contentedly in that diamondpaned window that was set open to the garden, and dream dreams while the sunset shone aslant over the fiweetbriar hedges. She was perfectly happy there, trying to be useful to old Mrs Twiggit, with a plate of currants on her lap, to be picked for to-morrow's tart; for on one of the hands (they were busy with the cur rants) a new ring was sparkling, bringing a sparkle of romance to the most homely work. .It had been the happiest week of her life. There had been lawn tennis every evening—not among the gooseberry bushes in Mrs Twiggit's back garden, but at Hedge•wick Manor, where Max Steinberg had been discovered staying among his cousins. This was a lucky surprise ; but it was a still better surprise to find that Max Steinberg was •devoted to her "plain little self," though not one of her fritters had imagined that anyone would ever think of Audrey while the heaufcy of the family was by. "I always thought it was Laura," she honeatly confessed. " Perhaps I oughtn't to say yes, when—when— Laura- "

" I never thought of Laura," Max had exclaimed, with a somewhat injured tone. "But if any man went near the house the girls were all down upon him, setting him aside for this one or that one, as if you were not in the world. lam exceedingly florry a mistake had arisen ; and when it dawned upon me I fled." So Max Steinberg had cared for her ■all the time. No wonder that Audrey looked fresh as a rose even in the faded pink gown ; and no wonder that Crookley Cottage, Hedgewick, was so 'dear to her for evermore. For she had left for the future a secret to be told to Max—that she had suffered so 'flamy -heartaches, from that gossip 'about Laura, that she too had fled from town and from her untold trouble. And here they had drifted ■together.

'One morning when Martha Twiggit •looked out of her white-curtained upper window she saw Audrey out already in her pink gown and straw •hat, near the sweetbriar hedge. There was another straw hat outside the sweetbriar hedge—a masculine straw 'hat, worn by. a bluff, brown-mous-itached young fellow, who seemed to be in good humour with all the ■world. This was the dialogue across 'the hedge :—

" Sophronia, and Laura, and Barbara, and Blanche, and Pauline wouldn't like it; but it is real fun to k«ep house with Mrs Twiggit, and it ds the sweetest.little cottage——" "It has been—for the last week !"

"What a story, Max! As if you 'knew anything about it, except the parlour-I If you lean any moro over •that hedge, sir, you will have the thorns sticking in you." " Not a bit of it, Audrey. There -are no thorns in the world any more," *' Then I wish the sweetbriar would prick you for talking such nonsence." But she looked pleased all the same. "" I could bear all the scratches in >the world for the pleasure of leaning •on this hedge and talking to you, Audrey. Go on and - tell me about -the cottage. We got as far as the staircase."

" Oh, yes—the staircase. It is so steep,.and there's only room for one's 'heels on the steps coming down, co one can't walk down—one has either to tumble or to run, and that sends me lull tilt into the kitchen."

'" I wish I was in that kitchen to stop you." . "Be quiet, sir, or I shall not tell you any more. Then there's a wonderful clock $ it gains three-quarters of an hour every, day, and I have to calculate the time on a slate, because Mrs Twiggit won't believe my watch. And there's such a lot of old china and old chintz."' , "What's chintz?" . ' " Never mind. Men are so ignorant. Ah ! here is the postman with a letter —from papa—-to me." ,

So Max and Audrey said good-bye —only for half a day- Aud Mrs Twiggit came down to breakfast.

Poor Audrey! What could this mean? She was sitting in the bright tiled kitchen, leaning on the table, crying as if her heart would break. Old Martha Twiggit stood looking at her-—a white-capped little countrywoman, with a black bodice of buxom breadth, and a flowered gown of ancient pattern.

"My dearie," she said at last, bending her grey hair and wrinkied face over poor sobbing Audrey, "I know it all. I saw it out o' the winder as plain as print. Now let me talk; I know the ins and outs, though it's nigh fifty year ago since my John was courting me. You did right, my sweet; you kept up bonny and proud at the hedge—one couldn't tell you were going to cry the minute his back was turned!"

"Oh, dear Mrs Twiggit, you have got it upside down; that isn't it at all," Audrey was laughing" and crying at the same. "It was all settled between us days ago, and " " And you have had a tiff already. That's always the way, and a very good sign, my dear."

" No, no; we are as happy as possible. But my poor father—quite ruined!"

With the last sobbing word she gave the letter to Mrs Twiggit to read. This took a long time ; spectacles had to be rubbed clear; the letter had to be read at the window.

" Poor little thing!" said thn old woman, coming back and stroking Audrey's hair. " And poor George Stockmore, that was so good to me long ago, can't he get this £500 nohow in time to-day ?"

v I'm afraid not," said Audrey. "My father has been * staving ofi' the worst for a long time. He has not a friend to turn to"—with a sob—" he says that. And if this £500 is not paid to-day it will bring all the other creditors down on him, and that will be bankruptcy. He says 1 ought to' let Max know at once, for I shall have nothing now."

Mrs Twiggit dropped her spectacles three times, and dropped the "letter, and then dropped an iron spoon thit she was taking off the dresser. "My hand shakes so. Gome upstairs, dearie, and do a bit of gardening before breakfast."

Audrey followed her upstairs to the white-curtained window, and absent minded with tears still falling, began at her desire to lossen and dig out the earth from the big flower-pot. " I sowed something very parMkler in that pot just after my poor John died, fourteen years ago come Michaelmas," said the old woman, watching. " Mint ?" "Not azackly, dearie ; a kind o' mint sauce."

And the mint sauce that they dug up was a tin canister, containing 500 sovereigns.

"It's the best stuff that comes from the Mint;," said Mrs T viggit, " and it was safer in the old flower-pot than anywhere else. The money I get ou with is in the little old teapot on the dresser. I was always afraid I'd live to be old enough to huve to come to the flower pot. And now, my dear, my mil)d would be easy if you would just put on your bonnet and take that to your father; and if it is of some use now he won't let me want, no matter if I live to be as old as "

Audrey had caught her round the neck. "You shall never want for anything, you dear, generous, good woman !"■ "Ah ! what a hot little heart it is I" said the poor old soul with glistening blue eyes. In after days the canister was restored full to the brim, and " the poor relation" went to Audrey's wedding but not to Miss or the Beauty's, or any of the others, because their weddings are dreams of the future still. '