Part 8 (1/2)

”Dinner?” she said, as he strove to squeeze past the furniture which was piled in the hall. ”We've got no time to think of dinner, and if we had there's no place for you to eat it. You'd better go in the larder and cut yourself a crust of bread and cheese.”

Her father hesitated and glared at the servant, who, with her head bound up in a duster, pa.s.sed at the double with a broom. Then he walked slowly into the kitchen.

Miss Rose called out something after him..

”Eh?” said her father, coming back hopefully.

”How is your cold, dear?”

The farmer made no reply, and his daughter smiled contentedly as she heard him stamping about in the larder. He made but a poor meal, and then, refusing point-blank to a.s.sist Annie in moving the piano, went and smoked a very reflective pipe in the garden.

Lord Fairmount arrived the following day on foot from the station, and after acknowledging the farmer's salute with a distant nod requested him to send a cart for his luggage. He was a tall, good-looking young man, and as he stood in the hall languidly twisting his mustache Miss Rose deliberately decided upon his destruction.

”These your daughters?” he inquired, carelessly, as he followed his host into the parlor.

”One of 'em is, my lord; the other is my servant,” replied the farmer.

”She's got your eyes,” said his lords.h.i.+p, tapping the astonished Annie under the chin; ”your nose too, I think.”

”That's my servant,” said the farmer, knitting his brows at him.

”Oh, indeed!” said his lords.h.i.+p, airily.

He turned round and regarded Jane, but, although she tried to meet him half-way by elevating her chin a little, his audacity failed him and the words died away on his tongue. A long silence followed, broken only by the ill-suppressed giggles of Annie, who had retired to the kitchen.

”I trust that we shall make your lords.h.i.+p comfortable,” said Miss Rose.

”I hope so, my good girl,” was the reply. ”And now will you show me my room?”

Miss Rose led the way upstairs and threw open the door; Lord Fairmount, pausing on the threshold, gazed at it disparagingly.

”Is this the best room you have?” he inquired, stiffly.

”Oh, no,” said Miss Rose, smiling; ”father's room is much better than this. Look here.”

She threw open another door and, ignoring a gesticulating figure which stood in the hall below, regarded him anxiously. ”If you would prefer father's room he would be delighted for you to have it Delighted.”

”Yes, I will have this one,” said Lord Fairmount, entering. ”Bring me up some hot water, please, and clear these boots and leggings out.”

Miss Rose tripped downstairs and, bestowing a witching smile upon her sire, waved away his request for an explanation and hastened into the kitchen, whence Annie shortly afterwards emerged with the water.

It was with something of a shock that the farmer discovered that he had to wait for his dinner while his lords.h.i.+p had luncheon. That meal, under his daughter's management, took a long time, and the joint when it reached him was more than half cold. It was, moreover, quite clear that the aristocracy had not even mastered the rudiments of carving, but preferred instead to box the compa.s.s for t.i.t-bits.

He ate his meal in silence, and when it was over sought out his guest to administer a few much-needed stage-directions. Owing, however, to the ubiquity of Jane he wasted nearly the whole of the afternoon before he obtained an opportunity. Even then the interview was short, the farmer having to compress into ten seconds instructions for Lord Fairmount to express a desire to take his meals with the family, and his dinner at the respectable hour of 1 p.m. Instructions as to a change of bedroom were frustrated by the reappearance of Jane.

His lords.h.i.+p went for a walk after that, and coming back with a bored air stood on the hearthrug in the living-room and watched Miss Rose sewing.

”Very dull place,” he said at last, in a dissatisfied voice.

”Yes, my lord,” said Miss Rose, demurely.

”Fearfully dull,” complained his lords.h.i.+p, stifling a yawn. ”What I'm to do to amuse myself for a fortnight I'm sure I don't know.”