Part 9 (1/2)
”I never seen no one like her,” muttered the delighted Sepoy, returning to her vigorous cleaning of kettles and pans. ”I never seen no one like none on 'em, they 're that there good-natured an' easy on folk.”
It was a busy day for Dolly, as well as for the rest of them, and there was a by no means unpleasant excitement in the atmosphere of business.
The cookery, too, was a success, the game pates being a triumph, the tarts beautiful to behold, and the rest of the culinary experiments so marvellous, that Griffith, arriving early in the morning, and being led down into the pantry to look at them as a preliminary ceremony, professed to be struck dumb with admiration.
”There,” said Dolly, backing up against the wall in her excitement, and thrusting her hands very far into her ap.r.o.n pockets indeed,--”there!
what do you think of _that_, sir?” And she stood before him in a perfect glow of triumph, her cheeks like roses, her sleeves rolled above her dimpled elbows, her hair pushed on her forehead, and her general appearance so deliciously business-like and agreeably professional that the dusts of flour that were so prominent a feature in her costume seemed only an additional charm.
”Think of it?” said Griffith. ”It is the most imposing display I ever saw in my life. The tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs upon those tarts are positively artistic.
You don't mean to say you did it all yourself?”
”Yes,” regarding them critically,--”ev-er-y bit,” with a little nod for every syllable.
”Won-der-ful!” with an air of complimentary incredulity. ”May I ask if there is anything you can _not_ do?”
”There is absolutely nothing,” sententiously. And then somehow or other they were standing close together, as usual, his arm around her waist, her hands clasped upon his sleeve. ”When we get the house in Putney, or Bayswater, or Peckham Eise, or whatever it is to be,” she said, laughing in her most coaxing way, ”this sort of thing will be convenient. And it _is_ to come, you know,--the house, I mean.”
”Yes,” admitted Griffith, with dubious cheerfulness, ”it _is_ to come,--some time or other.”
But her cheerfulness was not of a dubious kind at all. She only laughed again, and patted his arm with a charming air of proprietors.h.i.+p.
”I have got something else to show you,” she said; ”something up-stairs.
Can you guess what it is? Something for Mollie,--something she wanted which is dreadfully extravagant.”
”What!” exclaimed Griffith. ”Not the maroon silk affair!”
”Yes,” her doubt as to the wisdom of her course expressing itself in a whimsical little grimace. ”I could n't help it. It will make her so happy; and I should so have liked it myself if I had been in her place.”
She had been going to lead him up-stairs to show it to him as it lay in state, locked up in the parlor, but all at once she changed her mind.
”No,” she said; ”I think you had better not see it until Mollie comes down in state. It will look best then; so I won't spoil the effect by letting you see it now.”
Griffith had brought his offering, too,--not much of an offering, perhaps, but worth a good deal when valued according to the affectionate good-will it represented. ”The girls” had a very warm corner in the young man's tender heart, and the half-dozen pairs of gloves he produced from the shades of an inconvenient pocket of his great-coat, held their own modest significance.
”Gloves,” he said, half apologetically, ”always come in; and I believe I heard Mollie complaining of hers the other day.”
Certainly they were appreciated by the young lady in question, their timely appearance disposing of a slight difficulty of addition to her toilet.
The maroon silk was to be a surprise; and surely, if ever surprise was a success, this was. Taking into consideration the fact that she had spent the earlier part of the day in plaintive efforts to remodel a dubious garment into a form fitting to grace the occasion, it is not to be wondered at that the sudden realization of one of her most hopelessly vivid imaginings rather destroyed the perfect balance of her equilibrium.
She had almost completed her toilet when Dolly produced her treasure; nothing, in fact, remained to be done but to don the dubious garment, when Dolly, slipping out of the room, returned almost immediately with something on her arm.
”Never mind your old alpaca, Mollie,” she said. ”I have something better for you here.”
Mollie turned round in some wonder to see what she meant, and the next minute she turned red and pale with admiring amazement.
”Dolly,” she said, rather unnecessarily, ”it's a maroon silk.” And she sat down with her hands clasped, and stared at it in the intensity of her wonder.