Part 30 (2/2)
The red-elbowed maiden, beginning to take offence, set the candlestick down on a narrow mantelpiece, with a slap, and removed herself from the room with the dignity of a budding Jeanne d'Arc. We all three filed in, I in the rear; and for one who won't accept the cup of life as the best champagne the prospect certainly was depressing.
The belongings of the ”two gentlemen” who were giving up their rights in a lady's favour, had not yet been transferred to the ”somewhere outside.” Those slippers under the bed could have belonged to no species of human being but a commercial traveller; and on the table and one chair were scattered various vague collars, neckties, and celluloid cuffs. There was no fire in the fireplace, nor, by the prim look of it, had there ever been one in the half century or so since necessity called for an inn to be built.
I s.n.a.t.c.hed from the chair a waistcoat tangled up in some suspenders, and Lady Turnour, flinging herself down in her furs, burst out crying like a cross child.
”If this is what you call adventure, Samuel, I hate it,” she whimpered.
”You _would_ bring me motoring! I want a fire. I want hot water. I want them now. And I want the room cleared and all these awful things taken away this instant. I don't consider them _decent_. Whatever happens, I shan't dream of getting into that bed to-night, and I don't feel now as if I should eat any dinner.”
Distracted, Sir Samuel looked piteously at me, and I sprang to the rescue. I a.s.sured her ladys.h.i.+p that everything should be made nice for her before she quite knew what had happened. If she would have patience for _five_ minutes, _only_ five, she should have everything she wanted.
I would see to it myself. With that I ran away, followed by Sir Samuel's grateful eyes. But, once downstairs, I realized what a task I had set myself.
The whole establishment had gone mad over us. There had been enough to do before, with the house full of _ces messieurs_, _les commis voyageurs_, but it was comparatively simple to do for them. For _la n.o.blesse Anglaise_ it was different.
There were no men to be seen, and the three or four women of the household were scuttling about crazily in the kitchen, like hens with their heads cut off. The patronage was so ill.u.s.trious and so large; there was so much to do and all at once, therefore n.o.body tried to do anything but cackle and plump against one another.
Enter Me, a whirlwind, demanding an immediate fire and hot water for was.h.i.+ng. Landlady and a.s.sistants were aghast. There had never been anything in any bedroom fireplace of the inn less innocent than paper flowers; bedroom fireplaces were for paper flowers; while as for was.h.i.+ng it was a _betise_ to want to do so in the evening, especially with hot water, which was a madness at any time, unless by doctor's orders.
Besides, did not mademoiselle see that everybody had more than they could do already, in preparing dinner for the great people! There was plenty of time to put the bedroom in order when it should be bedtime. If the n.o.ble lady were so fatigued that she must lie down, why, the bed had only been slept in for one night by two particularly sympathetic messieurs. It would be _presque un crime_ to change linen after so brief an episode, nevertheless for a client of such importance it should eventually be done.
For a moment I was dashed by this volume of eloquence, but not for long, for I was pledged. A wild glance round the kitchen showed me a kettle standing empty in a corner. I seized it, and though it was heavy, swung it to an open door near which I could see a ghostly pump. I flew out, and seized that ghost by its long and rigid arm.
”Let me,” said a voice.
It was the voice of Mr. Jack Dane.
CHAPTER XXII
”You dear!” I thought. But I only said, ”How sweet of you!” in a nice, ladylike tone. And while he pumped the wettest and coldest water I ever felt, he drily advised me to call him ”Adversity” if I found his ”uses sweet,” since he wasn't to be Jack for me. What if he had known that I always call him ”Jack” to myself?
He not only pumped the kettle full, but carried it into the kitchen, and bullied or flattered the G.o.ddesses there until they gave him the hottest place for it on the red-hot stove. Meanwhile, as my eyes accustomed themselves to darkness after light, I spied in the courtyard of the pump a shed piled with wood; and my uncomfortably prophetic soul said that if Lady Turnour were to have a fire, the woodpile and I must do the trick together. Souls can be mistaken though, sometimes, if consciences never can; and Brother Adversity contradicted mine by darting out again to see what I was doing, ordering me to stop, and doing it all himself.
I ran to beg for immediate bed-linen while he annexed a portion of the family woodpile, and we met outside my mistress's door. On the threshold I confidently expected her grateful ladys.h.i.+p to say: ”What _are_ you doing with that wood, Dane?” But she was too much crushed under her own load of cold and discomfort to object to his and wish it transferred to me. I'd knelt down to make a funeral pyre of paper roses, when in a voice low yet firm my brother ordered me to my feet. This wasn't work for girls when men were about, he grumbled; and perhaps it was as well, for I never made a wood fire in my life. As for him, he might have been a fire-tamer, so quickly did the flames leap up and try to lick his hands. When it was certain that they couldn't go stealthily crawling away again, he shot from the room, and in two minutes was back with the big kettle of hot water under whose weight I should have staggered and fallen, perhaps.
By this time I had made the bed, and tumbled all reminders of the two ”sympathetic messieurs” ruthlessly into no-man's land outside the door.
Things began to look more cheerful. Lady Turnour brightened visibly; and when appetizing smells of cooking stole through the wide cracks all round the door she decided that, after all, she would dine.
It was not until after I had seen her descend with her husband, and had finished unpacking, that I had a chance to think of my own affairs. Then I did wonder on what shelf I was to lie, or on what hook hang, for the night. I had no information yet as regarded my own sleeping or eating, but both began to a.s.sume importance in my eyes, and I went down to learn my fate. Where was I to dine? Why, in the kitchen, to be sure, since the _salle a manger_ was in use as a sitting-room until bedtime. As for sleeping--why, that was a difficult matter. It was true that the English milord had spoken of a room for me, but in the press of business it had been forgotten. What a pity that the chauffeur and I were not a married couple, _n'est pas?_ That would make everything quite simple. But--as it was, no doubt there was a box-room, and matters would arrange themselves when there was time to attend to them.
”Matters have already arranged themselves,” announced Mr. Jack Dane, from the door of the pump-court. ”I heard Sir Samuel speak about your accommodation, and I saw that nothing was being done, so I discovered the box-room, and it is now ready, all but bed-covering. And for fear there might be trouble about that, I've put Lady Turnour's cus.h.i.+ons and rugs on the alleged bed. Would you like to have a look at your quarters now, or are you too hungry to care?”
”I'm not too hungry to thank you,” I exclaimed. ”You are a kind of genie, who takes care of the poor who have neither lamps nor rings to rub.”
”Better not thank me till you've seen the place,” said he. ”It's a villainous den; but I didn't think any one here would be likely to do better with it than I would. Anyhow, you'll find hot water. I unearthed--literally--another kettle. And it's the first door at the top of the back stairs.”
I flew, or rather stumbled, up the ladder-like stairway, with a candle which I s.n.a.t.c.hed from the high kitchen mantelpiece, and at the top I laughed out, gaily. In the narrow pa.s.sage was a barricade of horrors which my knight had dragged from the box-room. On strange old hairy trunks of cowhide he had piled broken chairs, bandboxes covered with flowered wall-paper, battered clocks, chipped crockery, fire-irons, bundles done up in blankets, and a motley collection of unspeakable odds and ends that would have made a sensational jumble sale. I opened the low door, and peeped into the room with which such liberties had been taken for my sake. Although it was no more than a store cupboard, my wonderful brother had contrived to give it quite an air of coziness. The tiny window was open, and was doing its best to drive out mustiness. A narrow hospital cot stood against the wall, spread with a mattress quite an inch thick, and piled with the luxurious rugs and cus.h.i.+ons from the motor car. I was sure Lady Turnour would have preferred my sitting up all night or freezing coverless rather than I should degrade her possessions by making use of them; but Mr. Dane evidently hadn't thought her opinion of importance compared with her maid's comfort. Two wooden boxes, placed one upon another, formed a wash-hand stand, which not only boasted a beautiful blue tin basin, but a tumbler, a caraffe full of water, and a not-much-cracked saucer ready for duty as a soap-dish. The top box was covered with a rough, clean towel, evidently filched from the kitchen, and this piece of extra refinement struck me as actually touching. A third box standing on end and spread with another towel, proclaimed itself a dressing-table by virtue of at least half a looking gla.s.s, lurking in one corner of a battered frame, like a sinister, partially extinguished eye. Other furnis.h.i.+ngs were a kitchen chair and a small clothes-horse, to compensate for the absence of wall-hooks or wardrobe. On the bare floor--oh, height of luxury!--lay the fleecy white rug whose high mission it was to warm the toes of Lady Turnour when motoring. On the floor beside the box wash-hand stand, a small kettle was pleasantly puffing, doing its best to heat the room with its gusty breath; and the clothes-horse had a saddle of towels which I shrewdly suspected had been intended for her ladys.h.i.+p or some other guest of importance in the house.
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