Part 7 (1/2)

”_He's_ coming all right,” says Sally, looking at both sides of the card, and pa.s.sing it on when she has quite done with it. Sally, we may mention, as it occurs to us at this moment,--though _why_ we have no idea,--means to have a double chin when she is five years older than her mother is now. At present it--the chin--is merely so much youthful roundness and softness, very white underneath. Her mother is quite of a different type. Her daughter's father must have had black hair, for Sally can make huge s.h.i.+ning coils, or close plaits, very wide, out of her inheritance. Or it will a.s.sume the form of a bush, if indulged, till Sally is almost hidden under it, as the Bosjesman under his version of Birnam Wood, that he shoots his a.s.segai from. But the mother's is brown, with a tinge of chestnut; going well with her eyes, which have a claret tone, or what is so called; but we believe people really mean pale old port when they say so. She has had--still has, we might say--a remarkably fine figure, and we don't feel the same faith in Miss Sally's. That young la.s.sie will get described as plump some day, if she doesn't take care.

But really it is a breach of confidence to get behind the scenes and describe two ladies in this way, when they are so very much in _deshabille_--have not even washed! We will look at them again when they have got their things on. However, they may go on talking now.

The blaze has lost its splendour, and dressing cannot be indefinitely delayed. But they can and do talk from room to room, confident that cook and Jane are in the bas.e.m.e.nt out of hearing.

”We shall do nicely, kitten! Six at table. I'm glad Mr. Fenwick can come. Aren't you?”

”Rather! Fancy having Dr. and Mrs. Vereker and the dear old fossil and n.o.body to help out!”

”My dear! You say 'Dr. and Mrs. Vereker' as if he was a married man!”

”Well--him and his mammy, then! He's good--but he's professional.

Oh dear--his professional manner! You have to be forming square to receive cavalry every five minutes to prevent his writing you a prescription.”

”Ungrateful little monkey! You know the last he wrote you did you no end of good.”

”Yes, but I didn't ask him for it. He wrote it by force. I hate being hectored over and bullied. I say, mother!”

”What, kitten?”

”I hope, as Mr. Fenwick's coming, you'll wear your wedding-ring.”

”Wear _what_?”

”Wear your wedding-ring. _His_ ring, you know! You know what I mean--the rheumatic one.”

”Of course I know perfectly well what you mean,” says her mother, with a shade of impatience in her voice. ”But why?”

”Why? Because it gives him pleasure always to see it on your finger--he fancies it's doing good to the neuritis.”

”Perhaps it is.”

”Very well, then; why not wear it?”

”Because it's so big, and comes off in the soup, and is a nuisance.

And, then, he didn't give it to me, either. He was to have had a s.h.i.+lling for it.”

”But he never _did_ have it. And it wasn't a s.h.i.+lling. It was sixpence.

And he says it's the only little return he's ever been able to make for what he calls our kindness.”

”I couldn't shovel him out into the street.”

”Put his wedding-ring on, mammy, to oblige me!”

”Very well, chick--I don't mind.” And so that point is settled. But something makes the daughter repeat, as she comes into her mother's room dry-towelling herself, ”You're sure you don't mind, mammy?” to which the reply is, ”No, no! _Why_ should I mind? It's all quite right,” with a forced decision, equivalent to wavering, about it.

Sally looks at her a moment in a pause of dry-towelling, and goes back to her room not quite convinced. Persons of the same blood, living constantly together, are sometimes quite embarra.s.sed by their own brain-waves, and very often misled.

Exigencies of teeth and hair cut the talk short about Mr. Fenwick. But he gets renewed at breakfast, and, in fact, goes on more or less until brought up short by the early service at St. Satisfax, when he is extinguished by a preliminary hymn. But not before his whole story, so far as is known, has been pa.s.sed in review. So that an attentive listener might have gathered from their disjointed chat most of the particulars of his strange appearance on the scene, and of the incidents of the next few weeks, and their result in the foundation of what seemed likely to be a permanent friends.h.i.+p between himself and Krakatoa Villa, and what certainly was (all things considered) that most lucrative and lucky post in a good wine-merchant's house in the City.