Part 4 (1/2)
Polly pursed her mouth into an O; but her face was turned to the fire, and Dorothea did not see it.
”I hope, Miss, you'll tell me about it later on. But Mrs. Morrish is downstairs declaring that no hen will lay an egg in this weather, to have it snowed up the next moment. 'Not that I blame mun,' she says, 'for I wouldn't do it myself,'”--here Polly giggled. ”What to find for breakfast she don't know, and never will until I go and help her.”
Polly departed, leaving her mistress cosy in bed and strangely reluctant to rise and part company with her waking thoughts.
Yes; Dorothea had danced twice again with M. Raoul since her discovery of his boldness. He had seen her draw the orange curtain over his offence, had sought her again and apologised for, it. He had done it (he had pleaded) on a sudden impulse--to be a reminder of one kind glance which had brightened his exile. 'No one but she was in the least likely to recognise the trinket; in any case he would paint it out at the first opportunity. And Dorothea had forgiven him. She herself had a great capacity for grat.i.tude, and understood the feeling far too thoroughly to believe for an instant that M. Raoul could be mightily grateful for anything she had said or done. No; whatever the feeling which impels a young gentleman to secrete some little private reminder of its object, it is not grat.i.tude; and Dorothea rejoiced inwardly that it was not. But what then was it? Some attraction of sympathy, no doubt. To find herself attractive in any way was a new experience and delightful. She had forgiven him on the spot. And afterwards they had danced twice together, and he had praised her dancing. Also, he had said something about a pretty foot--but Frenchmen must always be complimenting.
A noise in the street interrupted her thoughts, and reminded her that she must not be dawdling longer in bed. She shut her teeth, made a leap for it, and, running to the window, peered over the blind. Some score of the prisoners in a gang were clearing the pavement with shovels and brushes, laughing and chattering all the while, and breaking off to pelt each other with s...o...b..a.l.l.s. She had discussed these poor fellows with M. Raoul last night. Could she not in some way add to their comfort, or their pleasure? He had dwelt most upon their mental weariness, especially on Sundays. Of material discomfort they never complained, but they dreaded Sundays worse than they dreaded cold weather. Any small distraction now--.
The train of her recollections came to a sudden halt, before a tall cheval-gla.s.s standing at an obtuse angle to the fireplace and on the edge of its broad hearthrug. She had been moving aimlessly from the window to the wardrobe in which Polly had folded and laid away her last night's finery, and from the wardrobe back to a long sofa at the bed's foot. And now she found herself standing before the gla.s.s and holding her nightgown high enough to display a foot and ankle on which she had slipped an ash-coloured stocking and shoe. A tide of red flooded her neck and face.
Mrs. Morrish had laid the meal in the ground-floor room, once a library, but now used as a bank-parlour--yet still preserving the d ignified aspect of a private room: for banking (as the Westcote clients were reminded by several sporting prints and a bust of the Medicean Venus) was in those days of scarce money a branch of philanthropy rather than of trade. The good caretaker was in tears over the breakfast. ”And I'm sure, Miss, I don't know what's to be done unless you can eat bacon.”
”Which I can,” Dorothea a.s.sured her.
”Well, Miss, I am sure I envy you; for ever since that poor French Captain Fioupi hanged himself from Mary Odling's bacon-rack, two years ago the first of this very next month, I haven't been able to look at a bit.”
”Poor gentleman! Why did he do it?”
”The Lord knows, Miss. But they said it was home-sickness.”
From the street came the voices of Captain Fioupi's compatriots, merry at their work. Dorothea had scarcely begun breakfast before her brothers entered, and she had to pour out tea for them. Narcissus took his seat at once. Endymion stood stamping his feet and warming his hands by the fire. He bent and with his finger flicked out a crust of snow from between his breeches and the tops of his riding-boots. It fell on the hearthstone and sputtered.
”The roads,” he announced, are not very bad beyond the bridge. That is the worst spot, and I have sent down a gang to clear it. Our guests ought to be able to depart before noon, though I won't answer for the road Yeovil Way. One carrier--Allworthy--has come through to the bridge, but says he pa.s.sed Solomon's van in a drift about four miles back, this side of the Cheriton oak. He reports Bayfield Hill safe enough; but that I discovered for myself.”
”It seems quite a treat for them,” Dorothea remarked.
His eyebrows went up.
”The guests, do you mean?”
He turned to the fire and picked up the tongs.
She laughed.
”No, I mean the prisoners; I was listening to their voices. Just now they were throwing s...o...b..a.l.l.s.”
Endymion dropped the tongs with a clatter; picked them up, set them in place, and faced the room again with a flush which might have come from stooping over the fire.
”Come to breakfast, dear,” said Dorothea, busy with the tea-urn. ”I have a small plan I want your permission for, and your help. It is about the prisoners. General Rochambeau and M. Raoul--”
”Are doubtless prepared to teach me my business,” snapped Endymion, who seemed in bad humour this morning.
”No--but listen, dear! They praise you warmly. For whom but my brother would these poor men have worked as they did upon the Orange Room-- and all to show their grat.i.tude? But it appears the worst part of captivity is its tedium and the way it depresses the mind; one sees that it must be. They dread Sundays most of all. And I said I would speak to you, and if any way could be found--”
”My dear Dorothea,” Endymion slipped his hands beneath his coat-tails and stood astraddle, ”I have not often to request you, to mind your own affairs; but really when it comes to making a promise in my name--”
”Not a promise.”