Part 33 (1/2)
”Then of course it's wonderful. And hang the knives and forks!” She threw them on the tray.
”And there's a travelling tinker in it.” With her hands at her throat, she looked into the fire and Miriam looked at her.
”I'll ask him to tell it to me,” she said, but very soon she returned to the kitchen, grumbling. ”What nonsense! It's not respectable, and it isn't even true.”
”It's as true as anything else,” Helen said.
”Oh, you're mad. And so is Rupert. Let's have supper and go to bed. Why can't we have a servant to do all this? Why don't we pay for one ourselves?”
”I don't want one.”
”But I do, and my hands are ruined.”
”Upstairs in Jane,” Helen said, ”in the small right-hand drawer of my chest of drawers, there's the lotion--”
”It's not only my hands! It's my whole life! Your lotion isn't going to cure my life!” She sat on the edge of a chair and drooped there.
”No,” Helen said. ”But what's the matter with your life?”
Miriam flapped her hands. ”I'm so tired of being good. I want--I want--”
Helen knelt beside her. ”Is it Zebedee you want?” Her voice and her body shook with self-sacrifice and love and when Miriam's head dropped to her shoulder Helen was willing to give her all she had.
”I'm not crying,” Miriam said, after an agitated pause. ”I'm not overcome. I'm only laughing so much that I can't make a sound! Zebedee!
Oh! No! That's very funny.” She straightened herself. ”Helen dear, did you think you'd discovered my little secret, my maidenly little secret?
I only want Uncle Alfred to come and take me away. This is a dreadful family to belong to, but there are humorous moments. It's almost worth while. John, here's Helen suggesting that I'm in love with Zebedee!”
”Well, why not?” he asked, but he was hardly thinking of what he said.
”I've left Lily on guard in there. Notya has gone to sleep.”
”But she can't have,” Helen said.
”She has, my child.”
”Are you sure she's not--are you sure she is asleep?”
”Like a baby.”
”Then we shall have to make a noise and wake her. She would never forgive us if she found out that we knew, so tell Lily to come out and then we must all burst in.”
CHAPTER XVII
Lily and John went down the track: Mildred Caniper climbed slowly, but with dignity, up the stairs; Miriam was heard to bang her bedroom door and Rupert and Helen were left together in the schoolroom.
”I can't get the tinker out of my head,” she told him.
”I must have done it very well.”