CHAPTER XXXII
WALES FOREVER!
WELL, here we are again, as the clown says in the harlequinade.
Once more the lives of Miss Million and her maid have been set amidstscenes until now quite unfamiliar to us.
After the noise and bustle of the Strand about the hotel in July, thequiet, leafy depths of a remote Welsh valley. After the glaring Londonsunshine on the baked pavements, the soft Welsh rain that has beenweeping ever since our arrival over the wooded hills and the tiny,stone-fenced fields, and the river that prattles over its slaty bed andswirls into deep, clear pools a stone's-throw below this furnishedcountry house that Miss Million has taken for three months.
At present the house party consists of Miss Million, Miss Vi Vassity,Mrs. Flukes, the ventriloquist's wife, her baby and her monthly nurse.Mr. Jessop, who wrote all the business letters with regard to the takingof the house, is to come down later, I believe.
So is Mr. Reginald Brace.
In the meantime we have the place to ourselves, also the staff leftbehind by the people of the house, consisting of one fat cook, twohousemaids who speak soft Welsh-English, and a knives and boots boy whoappears to say nothing at all but "Ur?" meaning "I beg your pardon?"
I, the lady's-maid, have meals with the staff in the big, slate-flooredkitchen.
This I insisted upon, just as I insisted upon travelling third-classdown from Euston, while my young mistress "went first."
"We've simply got to behave more like real mistress and maid, now thatyou've taken a country house for the summer," I told her. "This isn'tthe 'Refuge'----"
"It's nowhere so lively, if you ask me," said Miss Million, lookingdisconsolately out of the dining-room window. "Look at that view!"
The "view" shows a rain-soaked lawn, stretching down to a tallrhododendron hedge, also dripping with rain. Beneath the hedge is spreada dank carpet of fallen pink blooms. Beyond the hedge is a brook thatwas once a lane, leading down to a river that was once a brook.
Beyond this come a flooded field and the highroad that is a network ofpuddles. In the distance there rises like a screen against the sky atall hill, wooded almost to the top, and set half-way up this hill wecan descry, faintly through the driving rain, a long white house, withgables and a veranda overgrown with red roses. And above all is a stripof grey sky, from which the white rain falls noiselessly, ceaselessly.
"Here's a place!" says Miss Million disgustedly. "Unless somethinghappens to make it a bit different, I shan't stay no three months, northree weeks. It fair gives me the pip, and I wish I was back in goodold London!"
"Cheer up. The rain may leave off one of these days," I say, "or some ofthe people of the neighbourhood may come to call."
This afternoon both my prognostications were fulfilled.
The rain did leave off, and the valley in which this house is set becamea green and smiling paradise, scented with the fragrance of wet pinetrees, and of sweet peas and honeysuckle, and suddenly pregnant withthat other flavour which is new to me--part scent, part sight, partsound. "The flavour of Wales"--some quality quite indescribable; somewild native atmosphere richer, sadder, sweeter, more "original" than anythat I had breathed in those flat, smiling garden plots that aredescribed as "rural England."
No wonder I've always heard that Welsh people who have left theircountry suffer at times from such poignant longings, such "hiraeth" orhome-sickness as is unknown to the colonising, conquering Saxon!
Even Miss Million and Miss Vi Vassity are more inclined to approve ofthe scenery now! And this afternoon "the neighbourhood" called on thenew tenant of this place.
"The neighbourhood" seems to comprise any other house within anafternoon's walk, or even motor-drive.
I heard the car drive up, from my attic bedroom, and I flew down to thefront door. For cook was baking, and both of what she calls "them girls"had taken their departure. It was the legitimate afternoon out ofMaggie-Mary, the first housemaid. And Blodwen, the other, had askedspecial permission to attend a funeral in the next valley.
I had said I would be housemaid in her place, so she had sallied forth,all new black and gratified grins.
I found myself opening the door to three heterogeneous parties of peopleat once, and ushering them into the faded, pretty, pot-pourri-scenteddrawing-room. It was empty. My mistress and her guests had suddenlyfled!
They--Miss Million, Vi Vassity, and Mrs. Flukes--had betaken themselvesinto the bedroom that has been given over to the baby's nursery, andwere sitting over the fire there gossiping with the young, mauve-cladmonthly nurse.
"Must I go down? Oh, what a nuisance; now I'll have to change," began mymistress, but I was firm.
"You'll go down in your garden tweeds and your brown boots as you are,"I said, "so as not to keep the people waiting."
"What style of people are they? What do they look like, dear?" put in ViVassity eagerly. She has been strangling yawns all the morning, and I amsure she was only too delighted at the idea of seeing a fresh face. "Anynice boys with them?"
"No. No men at all----"
"Never are, in the country. Yet people wonder nobody takes any notice ofbeing told to get back to the land!" said London's Love, rising to hertiny kid-shod feet, and refastening a suspender through the slit in herskirt. "What are the women like? Country rectory?"
"Yes, one lot were," I reported. "The others that came in the motor woresort of very French hats and feather boas, and look as if they neverwalked."
"Charity matinee," commented England's Premier Comedienne, bustling tothe door. "It's a shame not to dress for 'em. I shan't be long, Nellie.You and Ag go down first."
"How can I go down to the company until I've given my little Basil hisfour o'clock feed?" protested the ventriloquist's wife. She held out herarms for the long white bundle of shawls that Olive, the young nurse,lifted from the cradle set on two chairs in the corner of the room."Nellie'll have to make her entrance alone."
And she did.
The confidence in herself that was first inspired by the Honourable Jimhas been greatly fostered by Mr. Hiram P. Jessop. So I was not afraidthat Miss Million would be really overpoweringly shy, even on entering adrawing-room full of strange callers.
I left her at the drawing-room door, and was hastening kitchenwardsagain to bring out the tea when the front-door bell rang once more. Iopened it to two very tall girls in Burberry mackintoshes.
They were both young; one had a long black plait down her back. Both ofthem wore the same expression of suppressed and gleeful, gigglingexcitement as I told them that Miss Million was at home.
"Then, now for it!" breathed the flapper with the plait, in a gale of awhisper, as I took her mackintosh. Both girls were in blue sergeunderneath, of a cut more chastened than their arrogantly young voices."I wonder what on earth she's going to be like!"
"Alice! Do shut up!" muttered the elder girl angrily. Then, turning tome: "Are there crowds of other people here already?"
"Yes, Miss," I answered demurely. But I felt a sudden warm sympathy withthe two young things in the hall. We had, I suspected, the same kind ofvoice, the same carriage of the head, we had had the same sort ofclothes.
We'd been "raised," as Mr. Jessop puts it, with much the same outlook.We had a class in common, the class of the nouveaux-pauvres! Our eyesflashed understanding as they met.
Then the younger girl exclaimed: "Wait a minute. I _must_ finishlaughing before we go in!"
And she stood for a full minute, quivering and swaying and rocking withperfectly silent mirth. Then she pulled herself together and saidgravely:
"Right. I've finished now. Say the Miss Owens, please."
I rather wanted to have a good silent laugh to myself as I solemnlyannounced the two girls.
They came, I afterwards gleaned, from the long white house that faces usacross the valley. Who the other people were who were filling thechintz-covered couch and easy-chairs in the drawing-room I didn'tgather.
I haven't "disentangled" the different hats and faces and voices andcostumes; I suppose I shall do so in due course, and shall be able togive a clear description of each one of these callers "from theneighbourhood" upon Miss Million. I knew she would be an object ofcuriosity to any neighbourhood to which she came!
And I wonder how many of these people know that she is one of theheroines of the Rattenheimer ruby case, that hangs over our heads like averitable sword of Damocles the whole time!
But to get on to the principal excitement of the afternoon--the utterlyunlooked-for surprise that awaited me in the kitchen!
The typically Welsh kitchen in this newly acquired place of MissMillion's is to me the nicest room in the house.
I love its spaciousness and its slate floor, and the ponderous oak beamsthat bisect its smoke-blackened ceiling and are hung with bunches ofdried herbs and with hams.
I love its dresser, full of willow-pattern china, and its two big chinadogs that face each other on the high mantelpiece.
The row of bright brass candlesticks appeals to me, and thegrandfather's clock, with the sun, moon, and stars on its face, and thesmooth-scrubbed white deal kitchen-table pitted with tiny worm-holes,and the plants in the window, and everything about it.
Miss Million declares she never saw such a kitchen "in all her puff."Putney was inconvenient enough, the dear knows, but the Putney kitchenwas a joke to this one, where the kitchen range you can only describe"as a fair scandal," and nothing else!
If she means to take the landlord's offer, later on, and to take thisplace as it stands, she's going to have everything pretty different.
I should be sorry if she did; I like the place to be an utteranachronism in our utilitarian twentieth century, just as it is. I don'tmind the honeycomb of draughts. I can put up with the soft, cave-likegloom of it----
It was this gloom that prevented me from seeing, at first, that therewas anybody in the kitchen but cook, who was busily beating up batterfor light cakes in a big, yellow, white-lined bowl.
"Is the tea made?" I said.
It was not; the silver teapot, with the tea in it, was being heated onthe hob.
I moved to take up the singing kettle. It was then that a tall man'sform that had been sitting on a settle on the other side of the firerose and came towards me.
The red glow of the fire through the bars shone on the silver buttonsand on the laurel-green cloth and on the high boots of a chauffeur'slivery. Of course! This was the man who had driven over the people whohad come in the car.
But above the livery a voice spoke, a voice that I knew, a voice that Icould hardly believe was speaking to me here.
"Allow me," said this softly inflected Irish voice. And the kettle wasgently but firmly taken out of my hand by the hand of--the HonourableJames Burke.
I gave such a start of surprise that it is a mercy I did not joltagainst that kettle and send a stream of scalding hot water over thelaurel-green-cloth-clad knees of the man before me.
And I said exactly what people always say in meloramas when they aresurprised at meeting anybody--thus showing that melodrama is not alwaysso utterly unlike real life.
I cried "You!"
"Myself," announced the Honourable Jim, smiling down at me as he deftlytook the silver teapot from me and filled first that and then thehot-water jug on the tray that was already laid on the big table. "Andwhat is all this emotion at the sight of me? Is it too much to hope thatit's pleasure? Or is it just amazement?"
"I--I certainly never expected to s-see you," I spoke falteringly in mygreat surprise, "or--or like this!" I glanced at the gleam of the liverybuttons. "May I ask what in the world you are doing in those clothes?"
"Is it my livery you mean? Don't you think it's rather neat?" suggestedthe Honourable Jim ingratiatingly. "Don't you consider that it suits mealmost as well as the black gown and the apron and the doaty little capsuit Miss Million's maid?"
"But----" I gasped in amazement. "But why are you wearing a chauffeur'slivery?"
"Isn't the reason obvious? Because I've taken a chauffeur's job."
"You, Mr. Burke?"
"Yes, I, Miss Lovelace!" he laughed. "Is there any reason you have togive against that, as you have against every other mortal thing that theunfortunate Jim Burke does?"
"I----Look here, I can't wait here talking," I told him, for just atthis minute I caught the surprised glance of cook upon us both.
The spoon with which she beat up the batter was poised in mid-air as shelistened to everything that this superior-looking lady's-maid and stillmore superior-looking chauffeur had to say to each other. "I must takethe tea into the drawing-room."
He opened the kitchen door for me as I hastened away with the tray.
Gentleman-adventurer, bronco-buster, stoker, young gentleman of leisure,chauffeur! What next will be the role that the Honourable andExtraordinary Jim will take it into his head to play?
Chauffeur, of all things! Why chauffeur?
My head was still buzzing with the surprise of it all, when I heard theother buzz--the shrill, insistent, worrying buzz that is made by women'svoices when a lot of them are gathered together in a strange house, andare all talking at once; "made" talk, small talk, weather talk, the talkthat is--as Miss Vassity, for instance, would put it--"enough to driveany one to drink."
In the drawing-room where these callers were grouped I just caught ascrap here and a scrap there as I moved about with the tea-things. Thissort of thing:
"And what do you think of this part of the country, Miss Million? Areyou intending to make a long stay----"
"She seemed such a nice girl! Came to me with such a good character fromher----"
"Never touch it. It doesn't suit me. In coffee I like just a verylittle, and my daughter's the same. But my husband"--(impressively)--"myhusband is just the reverse. He won't touch it in coff----"
--"hope you intend to patronise our little Sale of Work, Miss Million,on the twenty-sixth? Oh, you must all come. And I'm still askingeverybody for contributions to my----"
"Do shut up, Alice!" (fierce whisper from the young girl in navy-blue).
"Now we've got this new chauffeur we may hope for a little peace!" Thislanguidly, from the lady in the uncountrified-looking hat. She, Isuppose, is the Honourable Jim's employer. "Quite an efficient man, asfar as one can judge, but----"
"Quite right, quite right. Far too many trees about the place. I like agood view. Plenty of space around a house.... Of course, you've only tenbedrooms here, Miss Million ah, eleven? quite right. But at home.... Ofcourse, I had a most lovely home in the----"
Wearisome gabble! I thought.
I caught an ineffable grimace on Miss Million's small, shrewd facebehind the silver teapot. I bent down to add hot water to it. Undercover of my ministrations she murmured: "You see, I don't have to bustmyself talkin' polite to this lot; nothing'll stop 'em. I say! Doesthat cook know enough to give a nice cup o' tea to the shaveer of herthat came in the car, Smith?"
"I think the chauffeur knows enough to get one!" I murmured dryly. "Oranything else he----" Here I found I was the only person in the room whowas talking.
A suddenly deathly silence had fallen upon the roomful of talking women,who all knew each other, even if they had never met their little hostessbefore. Something had "stopped 'em." The chatter and buzz of small talkleft off with a click.
And that quite definite "click" was the opening of the drawing-room doorupon an apparition such as none of them, I am certain, had ever seen ina drawing-room before.
Its brightly fair hair seemed to have "sprouted" not so much a hat as agrotesque halo of black, long, feathery wisps that surrounded a facewith black eyes and a complexion "made-up" to be dazzlingly pink.
Its transparent corsage gave glimpses of fair and sumptuous shouldersand of much lingerie ribbon.
The frock was layer upon layer of folded ninon in different yellows,shading down from bright lemon yellows through chrome yellow and mustardcolour to a kind of marigold tint at the
hem, under which appearedscarlet silk stockings and tall, gilt boots with heels so high that thewearer was practically walking on her toes, a la Genee, as she made herstartling entrance.
It was, of course, Miss Vi Vassity, in one of her most successful stageget-ups; the frock in which she sings her topical song--
"They've been there a long time now!"
with the usual verses about courting couples, and the Gorgonzola, andthe present Government.
And she beamed round upon this gathering of natives of a quiet countryneighbourhood with the same dazzling, prominent-toothed smile as sheflashes from her friends in the front row of the stalls to her equallydevoted gallery boys.
"No need for introductions, eh?" uttered London's Love, lightly, to thepetrified-looking assembly.
I felt that I would have sacrificed another quarter's salary rather thanhave missed the look on the face of the acidulated lady who came in thecar as Miss Vi Vassity perched herself lightly on the arm of the couchwhere she was sitting, and called to Nellie for the love of anything togive her a nice cup of tea.
"Does one good to see a few faces around me once again!" prattled on theartiste, while the two girls from the other side of the valley leantforward and devoured every detail of her appearance with gluttonousbrown eyes.
Pure ecstasy was painted all over the plain ironic face of the tall girlwith the thick black plait. I saw from the look of the hussy that shewas "taking in" everything to reproduce it at home, in that white houseon the hill. And presently there was plenty to reproduce.
For one of the rectoryish-looking party plucked up courage to ask MissVassity "what she thought of this place."
That opened the floodgates!
Perched on the arm of the couch, England's Premier Comedienne proceededto "hold the house" with her views on this mansion and its furniture.
"Not what I'd call a lively spot; still, there's always the pheasant andher little 'uns walking about on the lawn at three G.M., if you're fondof geology, and the rabbit on the tennis-court at eight o'clock sharp.That's about all the outdoor entertainment in this place," she rattledon.
"Indoors, of course, is a fair museum of curiosities. Continuousperformance, eh, Nellie? The oil-lamps everywhere, with the collectionof midges on all the bowls; those are very fine.
"Couldn't beat those at the Tower of London! And the back kitchen, withthe water from the stand-pipe outside overflowing into the middle of thefloor. Talk about Glimpses into the Middle Ages!
"What takes my fancy is the girls clinkin' to and from the scullery inthose pattens they wear. Makes the floor look like nothing on earth buta bar-counter where glasses have been set down, doesn't it?"--this tothe rector's wife.
"And the paint, too. And the wall-papers. Oo-er! And all thewindow-cords broken," enlarged the beaming apparition in all-yellow,whose personality invaded the room like a burst of brilliant sunshinethrough a thunder-cloud.
"Not to mention all the doors having to be propped open! No completeset of china anywhere. Wedges bitten out of every--er--blessed egg-cup!Pick up a bit of real Dresden, and the seccotined piece comes off inyour hand.
"As for the furniture, well, half of it looks as if it had bin used forHarry Tate to play about with in a screaming new absurdity, entitled'Moving,' or 'Spring-cleaning,' or something like----"
Here the acidulated voice of the lady who'd come in the motor broke inwith some very rebukeful remark. Something to the effect that she hadalways considered everything so delightful that the dear Price-Vaughanshad in the house----
"Pr'aps the dear What-Price-Vaughans," retorted the comedienne, "can getalong with their delightful style of bathroom?"
"Oh, do tell us," implored the girl with the black plait, "what's thematter with that?"
"The bath, Kiddy? Absolutely imposs!" decreed London's Love. "Watercomes in at the rate of a South-Eastern Dead-Stop. Turn one tap on andyou turn the other off. Not to speak of there only being one bath, andthat five sizes too small, dear. The Not-at-Any-Price-Vaughans must begreyhound built for slimness, if you ask me. It don't seem to fit ourshrinking Violet, as you can imagine. Why, look at her!"
Quite an unnecessary request, as the fascinated, horrified eyes of thewhole party had not yet left her sumptuous and bedizened person.
"Call it a bath?" she concluded, with her largest and most unabashedlyvulgar wink. "I'd call it a----"
We weren't privileged to hear what she could call it, for at this momentthe lady with the very towny hat rose with remarkable suddenness, andasked in a concise and carrying voice that her man might be told tobring round Miss Davis's car.
I slipped out to the kitchen and to Miss Davis's man, who, as Iexpected, had finished an excellent tea and the subjugation of cook atthe same time.
"Your mistress would like the car round at once, please," I said, with afrantic effort not to smile as I caught the mischievous, black-framed,blue eyes of the Honourable Jim Burke.
He rose. "Good afternoon, ma'am, and thank you for one of the mostsplendid teas I've ever had in my life," he said in that flatteringvoice of his to cook, as she bustled out, beaming upon him as she wentinto the scullery.
"Good afternoon, Miss Smith"--to me. "You've never shaken hands with meyet. But I suppose this is scarcely the moment to remind you, when I'vetaken on a job several pegs below what I was when I saw you last----"
Of course, at that I had to give him my hand. I said: "But why are youMiss Davis's chauffeur?"
"Because I couldn't get a job with Miss Million," he told me simply."She hasn't got a car of her own yet. Not that she'd have me, in anycase--a man she'd found out deceiving her about her own relatives!"
"But why 'the job,' anyhow?"
"I must earn my living--honestly if possible," said the Honourable Jimwith his wickedest twinkle.
"Also I'd made up my mind a little change of air in Wales would do megood just now, and I'd no friends who happened to be coming to theseparts. It was these parts I'd set my heart on.
"The mountain scenery! Can you beat it? And when I saw the advertisementof that old trout upstairs there--I mean that elegant maiden lady withprivate means and a nice house and a car of her own--I jumped atanswering it. The country round about is so romantic. That drew me, MissLovelace.... Well, I suppose I must be tooting her home."
He turned to the back entrance.
Then he turned to me once more and launched his most audacious bit ofnonsense yet.
He said, softly laughing: "Ah! You know well enough why I'm here. It'sto be near you, child."
What a good thing it is that I know exactly how to take this laughing,blarneying, incorrigible Irishman! What a blessing that I am not as poorlittle Miss Million was, who was utterly taken in by any blatantlyinsincere compliment that this young--well, I can say no worse than"this young Celt" chose to toss off!
So I just said lightly, "Too flattered!" and hurried away to hand thecallers their wraps and umbrellas in the hall.
I'm glad I was in time to witness another rather priceless scene.
Namely, the entrance of Miss Vi Vassity into the hall with the otherladies, and her recognition of the big young man in the laurel-greenlivery, with the handsome face so stolidly set under the peakedchauffeur's cap.
"Jim!" exclaimed the comedienne, in a piercing treble. "Well, whatevernext? If it isn't my pal Jim Burke!"
"Just the sort of person one would expect her to have for a 'pal,' asshe calls it," came in a not-too-soft aside from the owner of the car,then, haughtily, "Home, Burke."
"Yes, Miss," said the new chauffeur, as respectfully as I could havesaid it myself, and he touched his peaked cap to his mistress with akind of side-effect of "Cheery O, Vi," to the brilliant figure standinggasping with astonishment upon the top step.