"What?"
"Well, you taught me to pack and to mend lace, Auntie! And I can do hair—it's the only natural gift I've got," I said. "Perhaps I might get them to give me a chance in some small hairdresser's to begin with."
"You are talking nonsense, and you do not even mean what you say, child."
"I mean every word of it, and I don't see why it should be nonsense," I persisted. "It isn't, when these other girls talk of making a career for themselves somehow. They can get on——"
"They are not ladies."
"It's a deadly handicap being what our family calls a lady," said I. "I'm going to stop being one and to have something like a life of my own at last."
"I forbid you," said Aunt Anastasia, in her stoniest voice, "I forbid you to do anything that is unbefitting my niece, my brother's child, and Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter!"
"Auntie, I am past twenty-one," I said quite quietly. "No one can 'forbid' my doing anything that is within the law! And I'm going to take the rest of my life into my own hands."
I havebeen putting on all my outdoor things.
For I feel desperate.
And I must take advantage of this feeling. If I wait until to-morrow, when my rage and indignation and violent dissatisfaction with things-as-they-are have died down, and I'm normal again, well, then I shall get nothing done. I shall think: "Perhaps life here with Aunt Anastasia at No. 45 Laburnum Grove, isn't so bad after all, even if I do never have any parties or young friends or pretty frocks or anything that other happier, less-aristocratically connected girls look upon as a matter of course. Anyhow, there's nothing for it but to go on in the same humdrum fashion that I've been doing——"
Ah, no! I mustn't let myself go back to thinking like that again.
The secret of success is to get something done while you're in the mood for it!
In our hall with the unmended umbrella stand and the trophy of Afghan knives I was stopped by Aunt Anastasia.
"At least I insist upon knowing," she said, "where you are going now?"
I said, quite gently and amiably: "I am going to see Million."
"Million? The little object who was the servant here? Your taste in associates becomes more and more deplorable, Beatrice. You should not forget that even if she has happened to come into money"—my aunt spoke the very word as who should say "Dross!"—and concluded: "She is scarcely a person of whom you can make a friend."
"Million has always been a very staunch little friend of mine ever since she came here," I said, not without heat. "But I am going to this hostel of hers to ask her about something that has nothing to do with 'friendship.' You have her address. You know that it's a deadly respectable place. I expect I shall stay the night there, Aunt Anastasia. Good-bye." And off I went.
I was full of my new plan—a plan that seemed to have flashed full-blown into my brain while I was putting on my boots.
It had made me almost breathless with excitement and anticipation by the time I had rung the bell of the massive, maroon-painted door of the Kensington address and had said to the bored-looking man-servant who opened it: "May I see Miss Million, please?"
Such a plan it was as I had to unfold to her!
There was something odd and unfamiliar about the appearance of Million when she ran in to greet me in her new setting—the very Early Victorian, plushy, marble-mantelpieced, glass-cased drawing-room of the Ladies' Hostelry in Kensington.
What was the unfamiliar note? She wore her Sunday blouse of white Jap silk; her brown cloth skirt thatdipped a little at the back. But what was it that made her look so strange? Ah! I knew. It was so funny to see our late maid-of-all-work in the house without a cap on!
This incongruous thought dashed through my mind as quickly as Million herself dashed over the crimson carpet towards me.
"Miss Beatrice! Lor'! Doesn't it seem ages since I seen you, and yet it's only this very morning since I left your aunt's. Well, this is a treat," she cried, holding out both of her little work-roughened hands. "It is nice, seein' some one you know, after the lot of old cats, and sketches, and freaks, and frosty-faces that live in this establishment!"
And the new heiress gave herself a little shake as she glanced round the spacious, gloomy apartment that we had for the moment to ourselves. Evidently Million found the Kensington "haven" recommended by her lawyer no change for the better from our Putney villa. Under the circumstances, and because of my plan, I felt rather glad of this.
I said: "Don't you like the place, then, Million? What are the people like?"
"Only one word to describe 'em, Miss Beatrice. Chronic. Fair give you ther hump. None of 'em married, except one, who's a colonel's widow, and thinks she's everybody, and all of 'em about eighty-in-the-shade. And spiteful! And nosey!" enlarged Million, as we sat down together on one of the massive red-plush covered sofas, under a large steel engraving of "Lord Byron and the Maid of Athens." She went on: "Theywanted to know all about me, o' course. Watchin' me every bite I put into my mouth at table, and me so nervous that no wonder I helped myself to peas into me glass of water! Lookin' down their noses at me and mumbling to each other about me—not what I call very polite manners—and chance the ducks! I——"
Here the drawing-room door opened to admit one of the ladies, I suppose, of whom Million had been complaining. She wore a grey woolly shoulder-shawl and myrtle-green hair—I suppose something had gone wrong with the brown hair-restorer. And this lady gave one piercing glance at me and another at Million as she sidled towards a writing-table at the further end of the drawing-room and sat down with her back towards us. I'm sorry to say that Million twisted her small face into a perfectly horrible grimace and stuck out her tongue at the back. Then she, Million, lowered her voice as she chattered on about her new surroundings.
"Cry myself to sleep every night, I should, if I was to try to stay on here," she said. "Couldn't feel happy here, not if it was ever so! Oh, I'd rather go back to the Orphanage. Something of me own 'age' there, anyhow! Don't care if it is very tony and high-class and recommended. It's not my style.... I don't know where I'm going after, but, Miss Beatrice, I'm going to get out of this! I can't stay in a place that makes me feel as if I was in prison, so I'm going to hop it."
"That's just how I felt, Million. That's what I made up my mind to do," I told her. The new heiress gazed at me with all her bright grey eyes.
"What? You, Miss Beatrice? You don't mean——"
"That I'm not going on living at No. 45 Laburnum Grove!"
"What?" Million raised her voice incautiously, and the myrtle-green-haired lady glanced around. "Miss Nosey Parker," muttered Million, and then "Straight? You mean you've had a bust-up with your Aunt Nasturtium?"
"Rather," I nodded.
"About that young gentleman, I lay?" said Million. "Him from next door."
"How did you guess it was that? It was," I admitted. "He came to return this brooch of yours that you dropped on the 'bus—here it is—and my aunt chose to—to—to——"
"Oh, I know the way Miss Lovelace would 'choose'," said Million, with gusto. "So you left her, Miss Beatrice! So you done a flit at last, like I always been saying you did ought to do! You done it! Cheers! And now what are you thinking to do? Coming to me, are you?"
I smiled into the little affectionate rosy face that I was so accustomed to seeing under a white frilly cap with a black bow.
I said: "Yes, Million. I'm coming to you if you'll have me."
"Ow! That's the style, Miss——"
"If I come, you won't have to call me 'Miss' any more," I said firmly. "That'll be part of it."
"Part of what?" asked Million, bewildered.
"Part of the arrangement I want to make with you,"I said. And then, looking up, I beheld curiosity written in every line of the back of that woman at the writing-table. I said: "Million, I can't talk to you here. Get your hat on and come out. We'll discuss this in the Park."
And in the Park, sitting side by side on two green wooden chairs, I unfolded to Million my suddenly conceived plan.
"Now, listen," I began. "You're a rich girl—a young woman with a big fortune of her own——"
"Oh, Miss, I don't seem to realise it one bit, yet——"
"You'll have to realise it. You'll have to begin and adapt yourself to it all, quite soon. And the sooner you begin the sooner you'll feel at home in it all."
"I don't feel as if I'd got a home, now," said Million, with the forlorn look coming over her face. "I don't feel as if I should ever make anything out of it—of this here being an heiress, I mean."
"Million, you'll have to 'make something of it'. Other people do. People who haven't been brought up to riches. It may not 'come natural' to them, at first. But they learn. They learn to live as if they'd always been accustomed to beautiful clothes, and to having houses, and cars, and all that sort of thing, galore. Million, these are the things you've got to acquire now you're rich," I said quite threateningly. "Even your dear old lawyer knew that this Kensington place was only 'pro tem'. You'll have to have an establishment, to settle where you'll live, and what you want to do with yourself."
"I don't want to do nothing, Miss Beatrice," said little Million helplessly.
"Don't talk nonsense. You know you told me yourself quite lately," I reminded her, "that you had one great wish."
Million's troubled little face lifted for a moment into a smile, but she shook her head (in that awful crimsony straw hat that she will wear "for best").
"You do remember that wish," I said. "You told me that you would so like to marry a gentleman. Well, now, here you will have every chance of meeting and marrying one!"
"Oh, Miss! But I'm reely—reely not the kind of girl that——"
"So you'll have to set to and make yourself into the kind of girl that the kind of 'gentleman' you'd like would be wild to marry. You'll have to——Well, to begin with," I said impressively, "you'll have to get a very good maid."
"Do you mean a girl to do the work about the house, Miss?"
"No, I don't. You'll have a whole staff of people to do that for you," I explained patiently. "I mean a personal maid, a lady's-maid. A person to do your hair and to marcel-wave, and to manicure, and to massage you! A person to take care of your beautiful clo——"
"Haven't got any beautiful clothes, Miss."
"You will have. Your maid will take care of that," I assured her. "She'll go with you to all the best shops and tell you what to buy. She'll see that you choosethe right colours," I said, with a baleful glance at the crimson floppy hat disfiguring Million's little dark head. "She'll tell you how your things are to be made. She'll take care that you look like any other young lady with a good deal of money to spend, and some taste to spend it with. You don't want to look odd, Million, do you, or to make ridiculous mistakes when you go about to places where you'd meet——"
"Oh, Miss," said Million, blenching, "you know that if there is one thing I can't stick it's havin' to think people may be making game of me!"
"Well, the good maid would save you from that."
"I'd be afraid of her, then," protested Million.
I said: "No, you wouldn't. You've never been afraid of me."
"Ah," said Million, "but that's different. You aren't a lady's-maid——"
I said firmly a thing that made Million's jaw drop and her eyes nearly pop out of her head. I said: "I want to be a lady's-maid. I want to come to you as your maid—Miss Million's maid."
"Miss Bee—atrice! You're laughing."
"I'm perfectly serious," I said. "Here I am; I've left home, and I want to earn my own living. This is the only way I can do it. I can pack. I can mend. I can do hair. I have got 'The Sense of Clothes'—that is, I should have," I amended, glancing down at my own perfectly awful serge skirt, "if I had the chance of associating with anything worthy of the name of 'clothes.' And I know enough about people to help you in other ways. Million, I should be well worth thefifty or sixty pounds a year you'd pay me as wages."
"Me pay you wages?" little Million almost shrieked. "D'you mean it, Miss Beatrice?"
"I do."
"You mean for you, a young lady that's belonged to the highest gentry, with titles and what not, to come and work as lady's-maid to me, what's been maid-of-all-work at twenty-two pounds a year in your aunt's house?"
"Why not?"
"But, Miss—— It's so—so—Skew-wiff; too topsy-turvy, somehow, I mean," protested Million, the soldier's orphan, in tones of outrage.
I said: "Life's topsy-turvy. One class goes up in the world (that's your millionaire uncle and you, my dear), while another goes down (that's me and my aunts and uncles who used to have Lovelace Court). Won't you even give me a helping hand, Million? Won't you let me take this 'situation' that would be such a good way out of things for both of us? Aren't you going to engage me as your maid, Miss Million?"
And I waited really anxiously for her decision.
Theimpossible has happened.
I am "Miss Million's maid."
I was taken on—or engaged, or whatever the right term is—a week ago yesterday.
I've surmounted all objections; the chief being Million—I mean "Miss Million"—herself. Her I have practically bullied into letting her ex-mistress come and work for her. After much talk and many protests, I said, finally, "Million, you've got to."
And Million finally said: "Very well, Miss Beatrice, if you will 'ave it so, 'ave it so you will. It don't seem right to me, but——"
Then there was my Aunt Anastasia, the controller of my destiny up to now. Her I wrote to from that hostelry in Kensington, which was Million's first "move" from No. 45, the Putney villa. And from Aunt Anastasia I received a letter of many sheets in length.
Here are a few of the more plum-like extracts:
"When I received the communication of your insane plan, Beatrice, I was forced to retire to the privacy of my own apartment"—
(Not so very "private," when the walls are so thin that she can hear the girls in the adjoining room atNo. 46 rustling the tissue-paper of the box under the bed that they keep their nicest hats in!)
"and to take no fewer than five aspirins before I was able to review the situation with any measure of calm."
Then—
"It is well that my poor brother, your father, is not here to see to what depths his only child has descended, and to what a milieu!"
(The "descent" being from that potty little row of packing-cases in Putney to the Hotel Cecil, where I am engaging a suite of rooms for Miss Million and her maid to-morrow!)
"Your dear great-grandmother, Lady Anastasia, would turn in her grave, did she ever dream that a Miss Lovelace, a descendant of the Lovelaces of Lovelace Court," etc., etc.
(But I am not a Lovelace now. I have told Million—I mean, I have requested my new employer—to call me "Smith." Nice, good, old, useful-sounding sort of name. And more appropriate to my present station!)
Then my aunt writes:
"Your fondness for associating with young men of the bounder class over garden walls and on doorsteps was already a sufficiently severe shock to me. As that particular young man appears to be still about here, poisoning the air of the garden with his tobacco smoke and obviously gazing through the trellis in search ofyou each evening, I suppose I must acquit him of any complicity in your actions."
(I suppose that nice-looking young man at No. 44 has been wondering when I was going to finish giving him Million's address to return that brooch.)
There's miles more of Auntie's letter. It ends up with a majestically tearful supplication to me to return to my own kith and kin (meaning herself and the Gainsborough portrait!) and to remember who I am.
Nothing will induce me to do so! I've felt another creature since I left No. 45, with the bamboo furniture and the heirlooms. And, oh, what fun I'm going to have over forgetting who I was. Hurray for the new life of liberty and fresh experiences as Miss Million's maid!
The first thing to do, of course, is to provide ourselves with means to go about, to shop, to arrange the preliminaries of our adventure! That five pounds which Mr. Chesterton advanced to his new client (smiling as he did so) will not do more than pay our bill at the Home for Independent Cats, as Million calls this Kensington place.
Mr. Chesterton not only smiled, he laughed outright when we presented ourselves at the Chancery Lane office together once more. I was again spokeswoman and I came to the point at once.
"We want some more money, please."
"Not an uncommon complaint," said the old lawyer. "But, pardon me, I have no money of yours! You mean Miss Million wants some more money?"
I hope he doesn't think I'm a parasite of a girl who clings on to little Million because she's happened to inherit a fortune. Rather angrily I said: "We both want it; because until Miss Million has some more she cannot pay me my salary!"
He looked a little amazed at this, but he did not say anything about his surprise that I was in a salaried capacity to my little friend. He only said: "Well! How much do you—and Miss Million—want? Five pounds again? Five hundred——"
"Oh, not five hundred all at once," gasped the awe-struck Million; "I'd never feel I could go to sleep with it——"
While I cut in abruptly: "Yes, five hundred will do for us to arrange ourselves on."
Thereupon the old lawyer made the suggestion that was to be fraught with such odd consequences.
"Wouldn't it be more convenient," he said, "if an account could be opened in Miss Million's name at a bank?"
"That will do," said Miss Million's maid (myself), while Miss Million gazed round upon the black dispatch-boxes of the office.
Ten minutes later, with a cheque for £500 clutched tightly in Miss Million's hand, also a letter from Mr. Chesterton to Mr. Reginald Brace, the manager, we found ourselves at the bank near Ludgate Circus that Mr. Chesterton had recommended.
Million was once more doddering with nervousness. Once more Miss Million's new maid had to take it all upon herself.
"Mr. Brace," I demanded boldly over the shoulder of an errand-lad who was handing in slips of paper with small red stamps upon them.
One moment later and we were ushered into the manager's private room.
Yet another second, and that room seemed echoing with Million's gleeful shriek of "Why! Miss Beatrice! See who it is? If it isn't the gent from next door!"
She meant the manager.
I looked up and faced the astonished blue eyes in his nice sunburnt face.
Yes! It was the young man from No. 44 Laburnum Grove; "the insufferable young bounder" on whose account I had got into those "rows" with Aunt Anastasia. So this was Mr. Reginald Brace, the bank manager! This was where he took the silk hat I'd seen disappearing down the grove each morning at 9.30.
He recognised us. All three of us laughed! He was the first to be grave. Indeed, he was suddenly alarmingly formal and ceremonious as he asked us to sit down and opened Mr. Chesterton's letter.
I couldn't help watching his face as he read it, to enjoy the look of blank amazement that I thought would appear there when he found that the little maid-servant he had noticed at the kitchen window of the next-door villa to his own should be the young lady about whom he had received this lawyer's letter.
No look of amazement appeared. You might just as well have expected a marble mantelpiece to look surprised that the chimney was smoking.
He said presently: "I shall be delighted to do as Mr. Chesterton asks."
Then came a lot of business with the introduction of the chief cashier, with a pass-book, a paying-in-book, a cheque-book, and a big book for Million's name and address (which she gave care of Josiah Chesterton, Esq.). Then, when the cashier man had gone out again, Mr. Brace's marble-mantelpiece manner vanished also. He smiled in a way that seemed to admit that he did remember there were such things as garden-hoses and infuriated aunts in the world. But he didn't seem to remember that it was not my business, but Million's, that had brought us there. For it was to me that he turned as he said in that pleasant voice of his: "Well! This does seem rather a long way round to a short way home, doesn't it?"
At that there came into my mind again the plan I had for Million's benefit. Million should have her wish. She should marry "the sort of young gentleman she'd always thought of." I would bring these two together—the good-looking, young, pleasant-voiced bank manager and the little shy heiress, who would be extremely pretty and attractive by the time I'd been her maid for a month.
So I said: "You know, Miss Million's 'home' is no longer at No. 45 in your road."
He said: "She seems to have some very good friends there, though."
Here the artless Million broke in: "Not me, sir! I never could bear that aunt of hers," with a nod at me, "and no more couldn't Miss Beatrice, after I left!"
I tried to nudge Million, but could scarcely do so just under that young man's interested blue eye. He looked up quickly to me. "Then you have left?"
I smiled and nodded vaguely, and we sat for a moment in silence, the tall, morning-coated young manager, and the two girls still so shabbily dressed, that you wouldn't have dreamt of connecting either of us with millions. I wasn't going to let him into the situation of mistress and maid just then. But I condescended to inform him: "Miss Million will be at the Hotel Cecil after to-morrow."
He flashed me one brief, blue glance. I wondered if he guessed I'd a plan in my mind. Anyhow, he fell in with it. For, as he shook hands for good-bye with both of us, he said to Million: "Will you allow me to call on you there?"
Million, looking overjoyed but flustered, turned to me. Evidently I was to answer again.
I said sedately: "I am sure Miss Million will be glad to let you call."
"When?" said the young bank manager rather peremptorily.
I made a rapid mental calculation. I ought to be able to get Million suitably clad for receiving admirers-to-be in about—yes, four days.
I said: "On Thursday afternoon, at about five, if that suits you."
"Admirably," said the young man whom I have selected to marry Million. "Au revoir!"
The Hotel Cecil, June, 1914.
I'vetaken the first step towards setting up my new employer, Miss Million, as a young lady of fortune.
That first step was—new luggage!
New clothes we could do without for a little longer (though not for much longer. I'm quite firm about that).
But new, expensive-looking trunks Miss Million must have. It would be absolutely impossible for "Miss Million and Maid" to make their appearance at a big London hotel with the baggage which had witnessed their exit from the Putney villa. My brown canvas hold-all and her tin trunk with the rope about it—what did they make us look like? Irish emigrants!
"Nice luggage is the mark of a lady," was one of my Aunt Anastasia's many maxims.
So we spent the morning in Bond Street, buying recklessly and wildly at Vuitton's and at that place where you get the "Innovation" trunks that look like a glorified wardrobe—all hangers and drawers. I did all the ordering. Million stood by and looked like a scared kitten. When the time came she signed the cheques and gasped, "Lor', Miss!"
"Million, you're not to say 'Lor''," I ordered her in a stage whisper.
I turned away from the polished shop assistants who, I should think, must have had the morning of their lives. I wonder what they made of their customers, the two young women (one with a strong Cockney accent) who dressed as if from a country rectory jumble sale and who purchased trunks as if for a duchess's trousseau?
"And you are not to say 'Miss.' Do remember, Million," I urged her. "Now we'll have a taxi. Two taxis, I mean."
One taxi was piled high with the new and princely pile of "leather goods." Hat-boxes, dress-baskets, two Innovation trunks, a week-end bag, and a dressing-case with crystal and ivory fittings. The other taxi bore off the small, "my-Sunday-out"-looking figure of Miss Million and the equally small, almost equally badly dressed figure of Miss Million's maid.
We drove first to the Kensington Hostelry and picked up the old luggage. By the side of the new it looked not even as respectable as an Irish emigrant's; it looked like some Kentish hop-picker's! We made the driver unstrap and open one of the large new dress-baskets. And into this we dumped the hold-all and the tin trunk that seemed to be labelled "My First Place." Then I ordered him to drive to the Hotel Cecil, and off we whirled again.
Our arrival at the Cecil was marked by quite a dramatic little picture; like something on the stage, I thought.
For as our taxi swept around the big circle of the courtyard of the hotel, as it glided up exactly oppositethe middle door and a couple of gorgeously uniformed commissionaires stepped forward, the air was rent by the long, piercingly shrill notes of a posthorn. There was the staccato clatter of horses' hoofs, and there rattled and jingled up to the entrance a coach of lemon-yellow-and-black, with four magnificent white horses, driven by a very big and strongly built, ruddy-faced, white-toothed young man, wearing a tall white hat, a black-and-white check suit, yellow gloves, a hunting tie with a black pearl pin in it, and one large red rose.
This gay and startling apparition took our eyes and our attention off everything else for a moment. Million's grey eyes were indeed popping out of her head like hat-pegs as the young man leapt lightly down from the coach. She was staring undisguisedly at him. And I saw him turn and give one very hard, straight glance—not at Million—not at me. His eyes, which were very blue and bright, were all for that taxi full of very imposing-looking new luggage just behind us. Then he turned to his friends on the coach; several other young men, also dressed like Solomon in all his glory, and a couple of ladies, very powdery, with cobalt-blue eyelashes, and smothers of golden hair, and pretty frocks that looked as if they'd got into them with the shoehorn. (I don't think skirts can possibly get any tighter than they are at this present moment of June, 1914, unless we take to wearing one on each leg.)
All these people were laughing and talking together very loudly and calling out Christian names. "Jim!" and "Sunny Jim!" seemed to be the big young manwho had driven them up. Then they all trooped off towards the Palm Court, calling out something about "Rattlesnake cocktails"—and Million and I came back with a start to our own business.
A huge porter came along to take our luggage off the cab. He put a tremendous amount of force into hoisting one of the dress-baskets. It went up like a feather. The empty one! I do wonder what he thought....
We went into the Central Hall, crowded with people. (Note.—I must teach Million to learn to walk in front of me; she will sidle after me everywhere like a worm that doesn't know how to turn.) We marched up to the bureau. The man on the other side of the counter pushed the big book towards me.
"Will you sign the register, please."
"Yes—no. I mean it isn't me." I drew back and pinched my employer's arm. "You sign here, please, Miss Million," I said very distinctly.
And Million, breathing hard and flushing crimson, came forward, leant over the book, and slowly wrote in her Soldiers' Orphanage copybook hand, with downstrokes heavy and upstrokes light:
"Nellie Mary Million" (just as it had been written on her insurance-card).
"Miss," I dictated in a whisper, "Miss Nellie Mary Million and maid."
"'Ow, Miss, don't you write your name?" breathed Million gustily. "Miss——"
I trod on her foot. I saw several American visitors staring at us.
The man said: "Your rooms are forty-five, forty-six, and forty-seven, Miss."
"Forty-five. Ow! Same number as at home," murmured Million. "Will you please tell me how we get?"
It was one of the chocolate-liveried page-boys who showed us to our rooms—the two large, luxuriously furnished bedrooms and the sitting-room that seemed so extraordinarily palatial to eyes still accustomed to the proportions of No. 45 Laburnum Grove.
What a change! What other extraordinary changes and contrasts lie before us, I wonder?
We were closely followed by the newly bought trunks; one filled with ancient baggage, like a large and beautiful nut showing a shrivelled kernel; the others an empty magnificence. Million and I gazed upon them as they stood among the white-painted hotel furniture, filling the big room with the fragrance of costly leather.
Million said: "Well! I shall never get enough things to fill all them, I don't s'pose."
"Won't you!" I said. "We go shopping again this very afternoon; shopping clothes! And the question is whether we've got enough boxes to hold them!"
"Miss!" breathed Million.
I turned from the tray, full of attractively arranged little boxes and shelves, of the dress-basket. Quite sharply I said: "How often am I to tell you not to call me that?"
"Very sorry, Miss Beatrice. I mean—S—Smith!" faltered Million. Her pretty grey eyes were full of tears. Her small, bonnie face looked suddenly pinched and pale. She sat down with a dump on the edge of thebig brass bedstead. Very forlorn, she looked, the little heiress.
"Sorry I was cross," I said penitently, patting my employer's hand.
"It's not that, Miss," said Million, relapsing again, "it's only—oh, haven't you got a sinkin'? I feel fair famished, I do; indeed, what with all the going about, and——"
"I'm awfully hungry, too," I admitted. "We'll go down to the dining-room at once. Come along. You go first. You are to!"
"Not to the dining-room here," objected Million, terrified. "Not in this grand place, with all these people. Oh, Miss, did you notice that young gentleman, him with the red rose, and all the ladies in their lovely dresses? I'd far rather just nip out and get a portion of steak-and-kidney pie and a nice cupper tea at an A.B.C. There is bound to be one close by here——"
"Well, we aren't going to it," I decreed firmly. "Ladies with private incomes of a hundred and fifty pounds a week don't lunch at marble-topped tables. Anyhow, their maids won't. But if you don't want to have luncheon here the first day, perhaps——"
"I don't; oh, not me. I couldn't get anything down, I know I couldn't, and all these people dressed up so grand, looking at me! (Did you see her with the cerise feather in her hat that the young gentleman called 'facie'?) Oh, lor'!" The grey eyes filled again.
So I made a compromise and said we would lunch out somewhere else; a good restaurant was near, where you do at least get a table-cloth. In the hall we sawagain the young man who had driven up in the four-in-hand. He was talking to one of the porters, and his broad, black-and-white check back was towards us. I heard what he was saying, in a deep voice with a soft burr of Irish brogue in it—
"—with all those lashins of new trunks?... Million?... Will she have anything to do with the Chicago Million, the Sausage King, as they call him?"
"I don't know, sir," said the porter.
"Find out for me, will you?" said the four-in-hand young man.
Then he turned round and saw me (again followed by my sidling employer) making my way towards the entrance.
He raised his hat in a rather empresse manner as he allowed us to pass.
"Oh, Miss—I mean, oh, Smith! Isn't he handsome?" breathed Million as we got out into the Strand. "Did you notice what a lovely smile he'd got?"
I said rather chillingly: "I didn't very much like the look of him."
And I'm going to try and stop Million from liking the look of that sort of young man. Fortune-hunters, beware!
Oh, what an afternoon we've had!
Talk about "one crowded hour of glorious life." Well, Million and I have had from two to six; that is, four crowded glorious hours of shopping! I scarcely know where we've been, except that they were all the most expensive places. Any woman who reads this story will understand me when I say I made a bee-line for those shops that don't put very much in the show-window.
Just one perfect gown on a stand, perhaps, one filmy dream of a lingerie blouse, a pair of silk stockings that looked as if they'd been fashioned by the fairies out of spun sunset, and a French girl's name splashed in bold white letters across the pane—that was the sort of decoration of the establishments patronised by Miss Million and her maid.
As before, the maid (myself) had to do all the ordering, while the heiress shrank and slunk and cowered in the background. For poor little Million was really too overawed for words by those supercilious and slim young duchesses in black satin, the shop assistants who glided towards us with a haughty "What may I show you, Moddom?" From "undies" (all silk) to corsets (supple perfection!), through ready-made costumes to afternoon frocks and blouses and hats and evening-gowns I made my relentless way.
After the first few gasps from Million of "Oh, far too expensive.... Oh, Miss!... Haven't they any cheaper than.... Twenty? Lor'! Does she mean twenty shillings, Miss Beatrice? What! Twenty pounds? Oh, we can't——" I left off asking the prices of things. I simply selected the garments or the hats that looked the sweetest and harmonised the best with my new employer's black hair and bright grey frightened eyes. I heard myself saying with a new note of authority in my voice: "Yes! That'll do. And the little shoes to match. And two dozen of these. And put that with the others. I will have them all sent together." What did money matter, when it came to ordering an outfit for a millionairess?
I grew positively intoxicated with the mad joy of choosing clothes under these conditions. Isn't it the day-dream of every human being who wears a skirt? Isn't it "what every woman wants?" A free hand for a trousseau of all new things! To choose the most desirable, to materialise every vision she's ever had of the Perfect Hat, the Blouse of Blouses, and to think "never mind what it costs!"
And this, at last, had fallen to my lot. I quite forgot that I was not the millionairess for whom all this many-coloured and soft perfection was to be sent "home"—"to the Hotel Cecil, I'll trouble you." I only remembered that I was the millionairess's maid when one of the black-satin duchesses, in the smartest hat shop, informed me that I "could perfectly wear" the little Viennese hat with the flight of jewelled humming-birds,and I had had to inform her that the hat was intended for "the other lady."
"We'll do a little shopping for me, now," I decided, when we left that hat-shop divinity with three new creations to pack up for Miss Million at the Cecil. I said: "I'm tired of people not knowing exactly what I am. I'm going to choose a really 'finished' kit for a superior lady's-maid, so that everybody shall recognise my 'walk in life' at the first glance!"
"Miss! Oh, Miss Beatrice, you can't," protested Million, in shocked tones. "You're never going to wear—livery, like?"
"I am," I declared. "A plain black gown, very perfectly cut, an exquisite muslin apron with a little bib, and a cap like——"
"Miss! You can't wear a cap," declared little Million, standing stock still at the top of Bond Street and gazing at me as if I had planned the subversion of all law and order and fitness. "All very well for you to come and help me, as you might say, just to oblige, and to be a sort of companion to me and to call yourself my maid. But I never, never bargained for you, Miss Beatrice, to go about wearing no caps! Why, there's plenty of young girls in my own walk of life—I mean in what used to be my own walk! Plenty of young girls who wouldn't dream of being found drowned in such a thing as a cap! Looks so menial, they said. Several of the girls at the Orphanage said they'd never put such a thing on their heads once they got away. And a lady's-maid, well, 'tisn't even the same as a parlour-maid! And you with such a nice head of hair of your own, MissBeatrice!" Million expostulated with almost tearful incoherence. "A reel lady's-maid isn't required to wear a cap, even if she does slip on an apron!"
"You shut up," I gaily commanded the employer upon whom I now depend for my daily bread. "I am going to wear a cap. And to look rather sweet in it."
And I did.
For when I'd spent the two quarters' salary that I'd ordered Million to advance to me, I looked at myself in a long glass at the establishment where they seem particularly great on "small stock sizes"—my size. I beheld myself a completely different shape from the lumpy little bunch of a girl that I'd been in blue serge that seemed specially designed to hide every decent line of her figure. I was really quite as graceful as the portrait of Lady Anastasia herself! This was thanks to the beautifully built, severely simple gown, fitted on over a pair of low-cut, glove-like, elastic French stays. The dead-black of it showed up my long, slim throat (my one inheritance from my great-grandmother!), which seemed as white as the small, impertinently befrilled apron that I tied about my waist. The cap was just a white butterfly perched upon the bright chestnut waves of my hair.
And the general effect of Miss Million's maid at that moment was of something rather pretty and fetching in the stage-lady's maid line, from behind the footlights at Daly's. I'm sorry to have to blow my own trumpet like this, but after all it was the first time I'd ever seen myself look so really nice. I thought it was quite a pity that there was no one but Million and the girlin the "maids' caps department" to admire me! Then, for some funny, unexplained reason, I thought of somebody else who might possibly catch a glimpse of me looking like this. I thought of the blue-eyed, tall, blonde manager of the bank where Million has opened her account; Mr. Reginald Brace, who lives next door to where we used to live; the honest, pleasant-voiced person whom I look upon as such a good match for Million; the young man who's arranged to come and have tea with her at her hotel next Thursday.
He will be the very first caller she's had since she ceased to be little Nellie Million, the maid-of-all-work.
I waswrong.
She will have another caller first.
In fact, she has had another caller. When we got back to our—I really must remember to say her—rooms at the Cecil we were met, even as I unlocked the door, by a whiff of wonderful perfume, heady, intoxicating. The scent of carnations. A great sheaf of the flowers was laid on the table near the window. Red carnations, Carmen's carnations, the flowers that always seem to me to stand for something thrilling.... In the language of flowers it is "a red rose" that spells the eternal phrase, "I love you." But how much more appropriate would be one handful of the jagged petals of my favourite blood-red carnations!
"Lor'! Ain't these beauties!" cried Million, sniffing rapturously. "Talk about doin' things in style! Well, it's a pretty classy kind of hotel where they gives you cut flowers like this for your table decorations."
"My dear Million, you don't suppose the hotel provided these carnations," I laughed, "as it provided the palms downstairs?"
"Lor'! Do I pay more money for 'em, then, Miss—Smith, I mean?"
"Pay? Nonsense. The flowers have been sent in by some one," I said.
"Sent? Who'd ever send flowers to me?"
I thought I could guess. I considered it a very pretty attention of Mr. Reginald Brace, Million's only new friend so far, the young bank manager.
I said: "Look and see; isn't there a note with the flowers?"
Million took up the fragrant sheaf. Something white was tucked in among the deep red blooms.
"There is a card," she said. She took it out, and glanced at it. I heard her exclaim in a startled voice: "Lor'! Who may he be when he's at home?"
I looked up quickly.
"What?" I said. "Don't you remember who Mr. Brace is?"
"I remember Mr. Brace all right, Miss—Smith, I mean. But these here ain't from no Mr. Brace," said Million, in a voice of amazement. "Look at the card!"
I took the card and read it.
On one side was:
"To Miss Million, with kindest greetings from an old friend of the family!"
On the other side was the name:
"The Honourable James Burke, Ballyneck, Ireland."
"The Honourable!" echoed Million, breathing heavily on the H in "honourable." "Now who in the wide world is the gentleman called all that, who thinks he's a friend of my family (and one that hasn't any family), whoever's he?"
"It's very mysterious," I agreed, staring from the flowers to the card.
"Must be some mistake!" said Million.
An idea occurred to me.
"Ring the bell, Million," I said. Then, remembering my place, I crossed the room and rung the bell myself.
"For the chamber-maid. She may be able to tell us something about this," I explained. "We'll ask her."
More surprises!
The rather prim-faced and middle-aged chamber-maid who appeared in answer to our summons had a startling announcement to make in answer to my query as to who was responsible for that sheaf of glorious carnations that we had found waiting.
"The flowers, Madam, yes. Mr. Burke gave them to me himself with orders that they were to be placed in Miss Million's room."
"Yes," I answered for Miss Million; "but who is this Mr. Burke? That is what we—I mean that is what Miss Million wants to know."
The sandy eyebrows of the chamber-maid rose to the top of her forehead as she replied: "Mr. Burke? I understood, Madam, that——" Then she stopped and began again: "Mr. Burke is staying in the hotel just now, Madam."
A sudden presentiment chilled me. I glanced from the small, ill-clad figure of the new heiress sitting at the table with her carnations, through the open door into her bedroom with the pyramidal new trunks which had attracted their full share of glances this morning!
Then I looked back to the chamber-maid standing there so deferentially in front of the two worst-dressed people at the Cecil. And I said quickly: "Is he—is Mr. Burke the man who drove up in the four-in-hand this morning?"
"Yes, Madam. A black-and-yellow coach with four white horses; that would be Mr. Burke's party."
"Lor'!" broke for the fiftieth time this day from the lips of Million. "That young gentleman with all those grand people, and the trumpet" (this was the posthorn), "and what not? Him with the red rose in his buttonhole?" Million was as red as that rose in her flattered excitement, as she spoke. "Well, I never! Did you ever, Miss—er—Smith! Did you ever? Sending me in these beautiful flowers and all. Whatever made him think he knew me?"
"I can't say, Madam," took up the chamber-maid, "but I certainly understood from Mr. Burke that he knew your family—in the States, I think he said."
"Would that be me uncle that I got my money from?" murmured the artless Million to me.
I thought of the confab that I'd overheard in the central hall between the hotel porter and that loudly dressed young man who had raised his hat as we passed. It had been ascertained for him, then, that Miss Million and "The Sausage King" had something to do with each other! Awful young man! Million, looking visibly overcome, murmured: "Fancy dad's own brother having such classy friends out there! A Honourable! Doesn't that mean being relations with some duke or earl?"
"Mr. Burke is the second son of Lord Ballyneck, an Irish peer, I believe, Madam," the chamber-maid informed us—or rather me. I wish all these people wouldn't turn to me always, ignoring the real head of affairs, Million. Never mind. Wait until I've got her into her new gowns, and myself into the cap and apron! There'll be a difference then!
The chamber-maid added: "Mr. Burke left a message for Miss Million."
"A message——"
"Yes, Madam; he said he would give himself the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow afternoon here at about four o'clock, to have a talk about mutual friends. I said that I would let Miss Million know."
"Glory!" ejaculated Million, as the chamber-maid withdrew. "Jer hear that, Miss Beatrice?"
"I hear you calling me by my wrong name again," I said severely.
"Smith, I mean! D'you take it in that we're going to have that young gentleman coming calling here to-morrow to see us? Oh, lor'! I shall be too nervous to open my mouth, I know.... Which of me new dresses d'you think I'd better put on, M—Smith? Better be the very grandest I got, didn't it? Oh! I shall go trembly all over when I see him again close to, I know I shall," babbled Million, starry-eyed with excitement. "Didn't I ought to drop him a line to thank him for them lovely flowers and to say I shall be so pleased to see him?"
"Certainly not!" I said firmly. "In the first place,I don't think you ought to see him at all." Million gaped at me.
"Not see——But he's coming here to call!"
My voice sounded as severe as Aunt Anastasia's own as I returned: "I don't think he seemed a very desirable sort of visitor."
"Not——But, Miss, dear, you heard what the maid said. He's a Honourable!"
"I don't care if he's a Serene Highness. I didn't like the look of him."
"I thought he looked lovely!" protested the little heiress, gazing half-timidly, half-reproachfully upon me. "Look at the beautiful kind smile he'd got, and so good-lookin'! And even if he wasn't a lord's son, you could see at a glance that he was a perfect gentleman, used to every luxury!"
"Yes, I daresay," I began. "But—well! I don't know how to explain why I don't think we—you ought to get to know him, Million. But I don't. For one thing, I heard him making inquiries about you as we went through this afternoon. I heard him tell the hall porter to find out if you had anything to do with Mr. Million, of Chicago!"
"Very natural kind of remark to pass," said little Million. "Seeing new people come in, and knowing uncle's name. It's because of uncle, you see, that he wants to make friends."
"Because of uncle's money!" I blurted out rather brutally.
"Oh, Miss—oh, Smith!" protested Million, all reproachful eyes. "What would he want with moremoney, a young gentleman like that? He's got no end of his own."
"How do you know?"
"But—w'y! Look at him!" cried Million. "Look at his clothes! Look at that lovely coach an' those horses——"
"Very likely not his own," I said, shaking my head at her. "My dear Million—for goodness' sake remind me to practise calling you 'Miss'; I'm always reminding you to practise not calling me it! My dear Miss Million, I feel in all my bones one sad presentiment. That young man is a fortune-hunter. I saw it in his bold and sea-blue eye. As it says in the advertisement, 'It's your money he wants.' I believe he's the sort of person who makes up to any one with money. (I expect all those other men he was with were rich enough.) And I don't think you ought to make friends with this Mr. Burke until we've heard a little more about him. Certainly I don't think you ought to let him come and see you here without further preliminaries to-morrow afternoon!"
"What am I goin' to do about it, then?" asked Million in a small voice.
Her mouth drooped. Her grey eyes gazed anxiously at me, to whom she now turns as her only guide, philosopher, and friend. She was evidently amazed that I didn't share her impressions of this "lovely" young "Honourable." She had wanted to see him "close to"—a fearful joy! She had meant to dress up in her grandest new finery for the occasion. And now she was woefully disappointed.
Poor little soul!
Yes; evidently her eyes had already been dazzled by that vision this morning outside the Cecil; that gay picture that had looked like some brightly coloured smoking-room print. The brilliant, lemon-yellow-and-black coach, the postilion behind, the spanking white horses, the handsome, big, ruddy-faced young sportsman who was driving....
But it was my duty to see that only her eyes were caught. Not her heart—as it probably would be if she saw much more of that very showy young rake! And not her fortune.
I said, feeling suddenly more grown-up and sensible than I've ever been in my life: "You will have to leave word that you are not at home to-morrow afternoon."
"Very well, Miss Smith," said my employer blankly. She sat for a minute silent in the hotel easy-chair, holding the carnations. Then her small, disappointed face lighted up a little.
"But I shall be at home," she reminded me, with a note of hope in her tone. "Got to be. It's Thursday to-morrow."
"What about that?" I said, wondering if Million were again harking back to the rules of her previous existence. Thursday is my Aunt Anastasia's "day" for the stair-rods and the fenders, and the whole of No. 45 is wont to reek with Brasso. Could Million have meant——
No.
She took up: "Don't you remember? Thursday afternoon was when that other young gentleman wasgoing to drop in. Him from the bank. That Mr. Brace. He'll be coming. You said he might."
"So he is," I said. "But that won't make any difference. You'll be 'at home' to him. Not to Mr. Burke. That's all."
"I can't be in two places at once, and they're both coming at four," argued the artless Million. "How can I say I'm not at home, when——"
"Oh, Million! It just shows you never could have been in service in very exalted situations," I laughed. "Don't you know that 'not at home' simply means you don't wish to see that particular visitor?"
Little Million's whole face was eloquent of the retort. "But I do wish to see him!" She did not say it. She gave a very hard sniff at the carnations in her hand, and suggested diffidently and rather shakily: "P'raps Mr. Brace might have liked to see another gentleman here? More company for him."
I paused before I answered.
A sudden thought had struck me.
Men are supposed to be so much better at summing up other men's characters at a glance than women are.
In spite of what Aunt Anastasia has said about "insufferable young bounders," I believe that this Mr. Reginald Brace is a thoroughly nice, clear-sighted sort of young man. I feel that one could rely upon his judgment of people. I'm sure that one could trust him to be sincere and fair.
Why not consult him about this new, would-be friend of Million's?
Why not be guided by him? He was the only available man I could be guided by, after all.
So I said: "Well, Million, on second thoughts, of course, if you have another man here, it isn't quite the same thing as receiving this Mr. Burke by himself. It puts him on a different footing. And——"
"D'you mean I may have him here after all, Miss?" cried Million, lighting up again at once. "Mr. Burke, I mean."
"Oh, yes, have him," I said resignedly. "Have both of them. We'll see what happens when they meet."
To-day'sthe day!
At four o'clock those two young men are coming to the Hotel Cecil, where for the first time it will be a case of "Miss Million at home."
And to begin with Miss Million and her maid have had quite a fierce argument.
I knew it was coming. I scented it afar off as soon as Million had sent off her formal little note (dictated by me) to the Hon. James Burke at this hotel.
As soon as we had settled which of all her new gowns the little hostess was going to wear for this event she turned to me. Obviously suppressing the "Miss Beatrice," which still lingers on the tip of her tongue, Million asked: "And what are you goin' to put on?"
"Put on?" I echoed with well-simulated surprise, for I knew perfectly what she meant. I braced myself to be firm, and took the bull by the horns.
"I shan't have to 'put on' anything, you see," I explained. "I shall always be just as I am in this black frock and this darling little frilly apron, and the cap that I really love myself in. You can't say it doesn't suit me, Mill——, Miss Million."
The scandalised Million stared at me as we stood there in her hotel bedroom; a sturdy, trim little dark-haired figure in her new princesse petticoat that showedher firmly developed, short arms, helping me to put away the drifts of superfluous tissue-paper that had enwrapped her trousseau. I myself had never been so well dressed as in this dainty black-and-white livery.
She exclaimed in tones of horror: "But you can't sit down to afternoon tea with two young gentlemen in your cap and apron!"
"Of course not. I shan't be sitting down with them at all."
"What?"
"I shan't be having tea with you in the drawing-room," I explained. "Naturally I shall not appear this afternoon."
"Wha—what'll you do, then?"
"What does a good lady's-maid do? Sit in her bedroom, sorting her mistress's new lingerie and sewing name-tapes on to her mistress's silk stockings——"
"What! And leave me alone, here?" remonstrated my mistress shrilly. "Me sit here by myself with those two young gentlemen, one of them a Honourable and a perfect stranger to me, and me too nervous to so much as ask them if they like one lump or two in their cups of tea? Oh, no! I couldn't do it——"
"You'll have to," I said. "Ladies'-maids do not entertain visitors with their employers."
"But——'Tisn't as if I was an ordinary employer! 'Tisn't as if you was an ordinary lady's-maid!"
"Yes, it is, exactly."
"But—they'll know you aren't. Why, that young Mr. Reginald Brace, him from the bank, he knows as well as you do who you are at home!"
"That has nothing to do with him, or with your tea-party."
"I don't want no tea-party if I'm goin' to be left all on me own, and nobody to help me talk to that Honourable," Million protested almost tearfully. "Lor'! If I'd a known, I'd never have said the gentlemen could come!"
"Nonsense," I laughed. "You'll enjoy it."
"'Enjoy!' Oh, Miss—Smith! Enjoyment and me looks as if we was going to be strangers," declared Million bitterly. "I don't see why you couldn't oblige a friend, and come in to keep the ball a-rollin', you that know the go of Society, and that!"
"I'm sure it's not the go of Society to have in the lady's-maid to help amuse the visitors. Not in the drawing-room, at all events."
"But if I ask you——"
"If you ask me to do things that are 'not my place,' Miss Million," I said firmly, "I shall give you notice. I mean it."
This awful threat had its effect.
Million heaved one more gusty sigh, cast one more reproachful glance at her rebellious maid, and dropped the subject.
Thank goodness!
I shall miss this weird and unparalleled party, but I shall hear all about it at second-hand after that amazingly contrasted couple of young men has departed.
It's ten minutes to four now.
I have "set the scene" perfectly for this afternoon'sfestivity. A hotel sitting-room can never look like a home room. But I've done my best with flowers, and new cushions, and a few pretty fashion journals littered about; also several new novels that I made Million buy, because I simply must read them. Yes, I've arranged the room. I've arranged the carnations. (I hope Mr. Burke will think they look nice.) I've arranged the tea; dainty Nile-green cakes from Gunter's, and chocolates and cigarettes. I've arranged the trembling little hostess.
"Good-bye, Miss Million," I said firmly, as I prepared to depart. "You needn't be nervous; you look very nice in the white French muslin with the broad grey-blue ribbon to match your best feature, your eyes. Very successful."
"Looks so plain, to me," objected little Million unhappily. "You might have let me put on something more elabyrinth. Nobody'd ever believe I'd been and gone and given as much as fifteen guineas for this thing."
"Anybody would know, who knew anything," I consoled her. "And I'll tell you one thing. A man like Mr. Burke knows everything. Give him my love—no. Mind you don't!"
"I shall be too scared to say a word to him," began Million, whimpering. "You might——" I shut the door.
I went into my room across the corridor and prepared to spend a quiet, useful, self-effacing afternoon with my work-basket and my employer's new "pretties."
Later.
What a different afternoon it has turned out to be!
I suppose it was about twenty minutes later, but scarcely had I embroidered the first white silken "M" on Million's new crêpe-de-chine "nightie" than there was a light tap at my door. I thought it was my own tea.
"Come in," I called.
Enter the sandy-haired, middle-aged chamber-maid. She stood, looking mightily perplexed.
Well, I suppose we are rather a perplexing proposition! Two girls of twenty-three, turning up at the Hotel Cecil with highly luxurious-looking but empty baggage, and clad as it were off a stall at some country rectory jumble sale! Blossoming forth the next day into attire of the most chic and costly! One girl, with a voice and accent of what Aunt Anastasia still calls "the governing class," acting as maid to the other, whose accent is—well, different. I wonder what the chamber-maid thinks?
She said: "Oh, if you please—"
(No "madam" this time, though she was obviously on the verge of putting it in!)
"—if you please, Miss Million sent me to tell you that she wished her maid to come to her at once."
Good gracious! This was an unexpected move.
An "S O S" signal, I supposed, from Million in distress! My employer, utterly unable to cope with the situation and the "strange young gentlemen alone," had ordered up reinforcements! An order! Yes, it was an order from mistress to maid!
My first impulse was frankly to refuse. I wonder how many maids have felt it in their time over an unbargained-for order?
"Tell her I'm not coming." This was what I nearly said to the chamber-maid.
Then I remembered that one couldn't possibly say things like that.
I sat for another second in disconcerted silence, my needle, threaded with white silk, poised above the nightie.
Then I said: "Tell Miss Million, please, that I will be with her in a moment."
At the time I didn't mean to go. I meant to sit on, quietly sewing, where I was until the visitors had gone. Then I could "have it out" with Million herself afterwards....
But before I put in three more stitches my heart misgave me again.
Poor little Million! In agonies of nervousness! What a shame to let her down! And supposing that she, in her desperation, came out to fetch me in!
I put aside my work and hastened across the corridor to my employer's sitting-room. As I opened the door I heard an unexpected sound. That sound seemed to take me right back to our tiny kitchen in Putney, when Aunt Anastasia was out, and Million and I were gossiping together.
Million's laugh!
Surely she couldn't be laughing now, in the middle of her nervousness!
I went in.
A charming picture met me; a picture that might have hung at the Academy under the title of "Two Strings to Her Bow" or "The Eternal Trio," or something else appropriate to the grouping of two young men and a pretty girl.
The girl (Million), black-haired, white-frocked, and smiling, was sitting on a pink-covered couch, close to one of the young men—the bigger, more gorgeously dressed one. This was, of course, Mr. James Burke. He looked quite as effective as he had done in his coaching get-up. For now he wore a faultless morning-coat and the most George-Alexandrian of perfectly creased trousers. His head was as smoothily and glossily black as his own patent-leather boots. "Seen close to," as Million puts it, he was showily good-looking, especially about the eyes, with which he was gazing into the little heiress's flushed face. They were of that death-dealing compound, deep blue, with thick, black lashes. What a pity that those eyes shouldn't have been bestowed by Providence upon some deserving woman, like myself, instead of being wasted upon a mere man. But possibly the Honourable James didn't consider them waste. He'd made good use of them and of his persuasive voice, and of his time generally, with Miss Million, the Sausage King's niece!
They were sitting there, leaving the other poor young man looking quite out of it, talking as if they were the greatest friends. As to Million's nervous terror, I can only say, in her own phrase, that "nervousness and she were strangers!" That Irishman had worked a miracle; he'd put Million at ease in his presence!I came right in and stood looking as indescribably meek as I knew how.
My employer looked up at me with an odd expression on her small face.
For the first time there was in it a dash of "I-don't-care-what-you-think-I-shall-do-what-I-like!" And for the first time she addressed me without any hesitation by the name that I, Beatrice Lovelace, have taken as mynom de guerre.
"Oh, Smith," said Million—Miss Million, "I sent for you because I want you to pour out the tea for us. Pourin' out is a thing I always did 'ate—hate."
"Yes, Miss," I said.
And I turned to obey orders at the tea-table.