Part 100 (1/2)
She dropped her head upon her folded arms, and sobbed at the thought. Then she dried her tears and rang for her maid, and presently came down to breakfast with Lady Hannah, smiling and composed, cheerful and attentive as a hostess ought to be. But her reddened eyelids told tales.
”Misses her Doctor, no doubt,” thought Lady Hannah, as she commended the country eggs and b.u.t.ter, and was enthusiastic over the thyme-scented Welsh mountain-honey, and apologetic over the absence of her Bingo from the board.
She would carry her nuisance his breakfast with her own hands, she vowed, as he had left his man behind, on hearing from the Doctor that the house was a small one.
”But why?” asked Lynette. ”There is Marie, my maid, and the red-cheeked parlourmaid, whose name I don't yet know, and Mrs. Pugh, the housekeeper ...”
”Who was Dr. Saxham's nurse when he was a little boy, and adores him. And Mrs. Pugh's husband, who is gardener, and handy-man, and coachman when required.” Lady Hannah's laugh jangled out over the capacious tray, containing the comprehensive a.s.sortment of viands representing what the invalid was wont to term his ”brekker.” ”But I'm not to be deprived of my privilege, for all that. Do you suppose you young married creatures are the only wives who enjoy cosseting their husbands? There! it's out, and I ought to be ashamed of myself, I suppose, but I'm not. Is that collared brawn on the sideboard? Bingo has a devouring pa.s.sion for collared brawn.”
She added a goodly slice to the contents of the tray. ”I warn you, if you regard the billing and cooing of a middle-aged couple as indecent,” she went on, ”to look the other way a great deal while we're here. For I was for the first time seriously smitten with my husband when he rode out to meet me, returning from ign.o.ble captivity in the tents of Brounckers, eighteen months ago. When I nursed him through enteric in the Hospital at Frostenberg--I won't disguise it--I fell in love! With a bag of bones, for he was nothing else: but genuine pa.s.sion is indifferent to the personal appearance of the beloved object, though I hadn't suspected it before. The wound completed my conquest, and since then I'm madly jealous if another woman looks at him!... I see red--green would be a better colour--because he prefers to have his valet brush his hair. I don't know that I didn't reduce the holding capacity of this house by a storey--there's a pun for you!--so as to engineer my hated rival being left at home in Wilton Place.
Is that lovely murrey-coloured stuff in the cut-gla.s.s jar quince marmalade? No! I won't pamper Bingo, if he is the idol of my soul. And please don't wait for me. He likes me to take off the tops of his eggs for him, and he usually eats three....”
Lady Hannah tripped off with her load, and deposited it before the idol, who was sitting up in a j.a.panese bed-jacket of wadded pink satin, left-handedly reading the Herion newspaper that comes out once a week, and is published at St. Tirlan's, twenty miles away.
”I've made a discovery,” she announced. ”No, don't look frightened. It's only that poor Biddy's _belle trouvaille_ has got a heart. She's not the tinted Canova-nymph, the piece of correct inanity, I honestly believed her.... She idolised Biddy--small credit, for who could help it? She submitted to be adored by that poor foolish boy who's dead.... Now she's her black-avised Doctor's humble wors.h.i.+pper and slave.”
”Can't understand a woman wors.h.i.+ppin' a chap with a chin like the bows of an armoured Destroyer, and eyebrows like another man's moustaches,” Bingo objected.
”Chin or no chin, eyebrows or not a hair, what does that count to a woman in love?” She placed the laden tray before him, and with a maternal air proceeded to tuck a napkin under his chin. He grumbled:
”There's no knowin' what will take the female fancy. But even if you haven't harked away on a wrong scent, slave's a dash too strong. Struck me they parted uncommon chilly and off-hand at Euston yesterday mornin', considerin' they've not been married much above a year! Do take this thing from round my neck! Makes me feel like Little Willie!”
Lady Hannah unpinned the napkin that framed the bulldog jowl, and said, patting the sandy-pink bullet-head:
”That's what it is to be Eyes and No Eyes in amatory affairs. No Eyes sees two people part, 'uncommon off-hand and chilly.'” She mimicked Bingo's tone. ”Eyes sees that and something more! A man's coat-b.u.t.ton dropped on the floor of a railway carriage, for instance, and a young woman who slyly picks it up--silly little _gage d'amour_--and kisses it when a considerate observer pretends not to be looking, and hides it away! Is that evidence, Major Mole?”
”By the Living Tinker!” he thundered, ”I wouldn't have believed it of her!”
”Of course you wouldn't!” She rummaged in an open suit-case. ”What necktie do you want to wear to-day?”
He mumbled ruefully, eyeing her over the coffee-cup:
”Any of 'em. It don't matter which. They're all alike when you've tied 'em!”
She beamed at what seemed to her a gallant speech.
”_Sans compliment?_ You really mean it? And you won't miss Grindlay so frightfully, after all?”
He shook his head ambiguously.
”I shan't begin really to suffer for Grindlay--not till it comes to tubbin' with one fin.”
”Mercy upon us!” She gasped in consternation. He said, controlling his features from wreathing into triumphant smiles:
”You were so cast-iron certain you could fill his place, you know!”
Her bright black eyes were hidden under abashed and drooping eyelids.
Blushes played hide-and-seek in the small cheeks that were usually pale.