Love at Paddington Part 10

"Myra," retorted the other, "I walk ten times as much as you do."

"Pray take care of yourself, for my sake."

"I hope to find some better incentive than that," said the old lady.

Lady Dougla.s.s approached the task of pouring out tea with the hopeless air of one who scarcely hoped to escape error, and when she had asked for and obtained particulars concerning tastes, Clarence Mills came, and his presence seemed to upset all the table plans; Mrs. Dougla.s.s arrested her action as she started to pour tea into the sugar basin.

The arrival of Miss Loriner enabled her to resign the position. Going across to sit beside Gertie, she gave a highly interesting account of the way in which she had by sheer force of will conquered the cigarette habit; at present she consumed but twenty a day, unless, of course, special circ.u.mstances provided an excuse.

"Not for me, thanks," said Gertie, shaking her head. "I can't smoke; and if I could, I shouldn't."

"Tell me!" begged Lady Dougla.s.s; "how is that eccentric old gentleman we met at the Zoological Gardens?--Crew, or Brew, or some astonis.h.i.+ng name of the kind?"

"I don't suppose," answered the girl defensively, "that you really want to know how he is, but Mr. Trew is quite well, and he isn't in the least eccentric, and he doesn't profess to be a gentleman."

Henry touched her shoulder with a gesture of appeal; she gave an impatient movement.

"But how extremely interesting," cried Lady Dougla.s.s, with something like rapture. "And do most of your friends work for a living?"

"All of 'em. I don't care for loafers."

"I myself have been up to my eyebrows in industry this week," said the other, self-commiseratingly. "I sometimes wish charity could be abolished altogether. It does entail such an enormous amount of hard labour. One might as well be in Wormwood Scrubbs."

She paused and looked at the girl intently.

"By the bye, where is Wormwood Scrubbs? One often hears of it."

"Over beyond Shepherd's Bush."

"Have you ever been there?"

"No," answered Gertie; "and I've never been to Portland, and I'm not acquainted with Dartmoor, and I don't know much about Newgate. Why do you ask?"

"I am hugely interested in prison life," declared the other.

"You mustn't be surprised," interposed Henry, addressing Gertie, "at any new subject that my sister-in-law mentions. I haven't heard her speak of this before; and it's only fair to her to say that when she takes up anything fresh, she drops it long before it has the chance of becoming stale. Another cup?"

He went to the table.

"A strange lad," said Lady Dougla.s.s musingly. "His heart is in the right place, but sometimes I wonder whether it is the right kind of heart. Do you mind dining at seven for once in your life. Miss Higham? It's a ridiculous hour, I know, but we must be at the hall sharp by eight. Miss Loriner will show you your room when you are ready. I have a thousand and one things to do," she added exhaustedly.

When Jim Langham joined the party and sat on the gra.s.s beside Miss Higham's chair, the girl rose, and Miss Loriner conducted her into the house; Henry regarded them with a cheerful smile as they left. The doors gave entrance to a square hall, with a broad staircase going up and turning suddenly to an open corridor that went around three sides.

Gertie looked about her astonishedly.

"I've never been in a house like this before," she explained.

They went up the highly-polished staircase, Gertie holding at the banisters for safety.

"So Mr. Henry explained to me; and because he was so very good as to ask your cousin Clarence down, we have made a bargain between each other. I am to look after you, if you don't mind, and see that you get through all right."

"In a general way," confessed Gertie Higham, "I can look after myself, but just now it's likely I may be glad of a wrinkle or two." The other nodded.

"I have some on my forehead to spare, thanks to Lady Dougla.s.s. This is your room"--throwing open a door--"and mine is here, next door. Come along in, and let us have a talk."

Miss Loriner had a good deal to say, mainly in describing her present happiness. Clarence was a dear; Clarence was a clever dear, Clarence had brought a joy into her life that had previously been absent.

Hitherto Miss Loriner, living in houses as a companion to some testy and difficult woman, found herself only annoyed by the attentions of men of the Jim Langham type; it was new and enchanting to be approached courteously. Gertie, when the other stopped to regain breath, managed to ask how Henry Dougla.s.s filled his time, and was surprised, and partially hurt, to discover that he still went up to Old Quebec Street on five days of the week.

"He might have called at the shop," she argued.

Miss Loriner, for the defence, commended him for his industry. Henry would, later, have to face the alternative of either giving up his office in London, or relinquis.h.i.+ng duties in the country, but at present he was engaged in a double task; and if Gertie appreciated how difficult it proved to deal with Lady Dougla.s.s, she would not utter a word of blame in regard to Henry. One of Lady Dougla.s.s's inconvenient tricks was to s.h.i.+ft responsibility. As a case in point, take the entertainment to which they were going that evening. Lady Dougla.s.s, having promised to organize it, had done not a single thing in the way of--

"Is the place on fire?" asked Gertie, startled.

"That's the first warning for dinner. You have twenty minutes to dress. Be sure to let me know if there is anything you want."

Gertie left, to return immediately with a concerned expression and the announcement that her portmanteau had been robbed of every blessed thing it contained. Miss Loriner accompanied her to make investigations, and, switching on the electric light, pointed out that the maid had unpacked the bag--the articles were on the dressing-table, and hanging up in the wardrobe. Gertie had only to ring, and the maid would come at once to help her to dress. Gertie said she had done this without a.s.sistance since the age of three.

Apologies were made later for the brevity of the evening meal, but it seemed to her a dinner that could only be eaten by folk who had starved for weeks. Her cousin sat opposite, and she watched his methods as each course arrived; envied the composure with which Clarence dealt with such trying dishes as _vol au vent_ and artichokes. Her serviette was of a larkish disposition, declining to remain on her lap, and distress increased each time that Henry recovered it; generally, at these moments of confusion, Lady Dougla.s.s took the opportunity to send down some perplexing inquiry, and the girl felt grateful to Henry for replying on her behalf. Henry, it appeared, was to contribute to the programme at the hall, but he declined to give particulars; the disaster would, he said, be serious enough when it came. Jim Langham excused himself after dinner from joining the party on the grounds that he had to play billiards with the groom; and this reminded him of one of the groom's stories which (taking her aside) he thought Miss Higham as a Londoner would relish. The anecdote was but half told when Miss Higham turned abruptly.

"That's the right way," said old Mrs. Dougla.s.s to her approvingly.

At the door of the town hall carriages and motor cars were setting folk down, and Gertie, who had hoped the new blouse would enable her to smile at country costumes, felt depressed by their magnificence. In the front row Lady Dougla.s.s stood up, nodded, gave brief ingratiating smiles, and told people how remarkably well they were looking. Gertie, comforted by the near presence of her cousin, glanced over her shoulder, and wished she were with the s.h.i.+lling folk.

"Care to see the programme, Gertie?"

"I'll do the same as I do at a music hall," she said, "and take it as it comes. How did you think I managed at dinner, Clarence?"

"Capitally!"

"I had a knife and two forks left at the end," she said regretfully.

"A recitation," Clarence read from his programme. "Our friend ought to be here."

"Who do you mean?"

"Bulpert. You remember Bulpert, don't you?"

"I'd nearly forgotten him," she admitted.

There was an interval after men had sung and ladies had played, and a nervous youth had given imitations of popular actors who, it seemed, possessed the same tone of voice, and practised identical gestures.

The curtain went up on an outdoor scene. A lady was reclining in a hammock.

"Why, it's Miss Loriner," whispered Gertie.

A man in tweeds came on backwards and collided with the hammock.

"Who's this supposed to be, Clarence?"

"Young Dougla.s.s. Made up with a beard."