It was the Thursday before Good Friday, and in the Tregennis household
there was great excitement and joyous expectancy. Mrs. Tregennis had
sung softly to herself all the while she was dressing, greatly to the
annoyance of the Naval Officer's wife, who was invariably irritated
when people hummed. She was irritated, too, by Mrs. Tregennis's happy
manner when she carried in the downstairs sitting-room breakfast; and
again when breakfast was over and was being cleared away.
Then, however, curiosity got the better of hurt dignity. "What time do
the ladies come?" she asked.
"At ten minutes after six, ma'am."
"Ah, then perhaps I had better defer my call until to-morrow. They
will have many little matters to occupy them this evening."
"How do you mean 'call,' Ma'am?" asked Mrs. Tregennis anxiously,
feeling that there was probably trouble ahead.
"I mean that I shall, of course, visit them at once," replied
Annabel's mother in her most affected manner. "If I approve of them,
and find that they belong to my own social grade, I shall most
certainly take them up and show them every civility."
"I don't think the young ladies will want to trouble about visitors
and such," retorted Mrs. Tregennis hotly. "They be all for bein' out
and sittin' on the rocks, be our ladies, and they've got each other,
an' they don't want nothin' more. And they'm just of the very best,
ma'am, our ladies; truly lovely people they be."
"They did not scruple to send you an unstamped letter, these people,
who are of the very best; but perhaps you think the stamp rubbed off
in the post?"
"No'm, I _don't_ think that, there was never no stamp on at all, there
was no gummy corner, nor nothin'. 'Tis lucky that my husband had more
sense than me an' took it in. The ladies gave it to some one to post,
I guess, with a penny for a stamp, and the stamp was never put on.
Save a penny like that! Them!" Mrs. Tregennis hurried from the room
with her heavily loaded tray.
To Mrs. Tregennis the hours of that Thursday passed very slowly. The
rooms for the ladies had been cleaned and prepared the day before, but
more than once she went into the upstairs sitting-room, and tried to
improve the hang of the curtains and the arrangement of the flowers
that looked so many more than they really were because of their
reflection in the overmantel glass. Once she ran hurriedly upstairs
and again inspected her drawer of bedroom towels to make quite sure
that she had put out the biggest and the best. Once, too, she walked
into the ladies' bedroom and rather anxiously inspected the cake of
pink soap that fitted so neatly into the perforated tray of the
soap-dish, and wondered if it was just exactly what they would really
like the best of all. In the middle of the morning two trunks arrived
as luggage in advance. When these had been carried upstairs and placed
at the foot of the bed the carman's foot-marks were removed with a
duster, and nothing further remained to be done.
When Tommy burst in from school soon after four o'clock, his first
breathless words were, "Have my ladies come yet, Mammy?" and so
restless and excited was he that he could scarcely be induced to have
tea.
When he was released from the table he ran out into the alley, and,
refusing all invitations to dig on the sands, he played round his own
doorway so that he might catch the first glimpse of his ladies when
they actually did arrive. Just before half-past six, however, when he
peeped round the corner and saw them coming, he was seized with
shyness and ran hastily into the kitchen, and hid in the cupboard
among the coals.
Before they could shake hands Mrs. Tregennis must give hers a last
wipe on the oven cloth, while Tregennis rubbed both of his slowly up
and down the legs of his trousers. Then there was much talking, but as
they all talked together no one heard distinctly anything that anyone
else said.
When finally one voice arose above the rest it belonged to the Blue
Lady. "Oh, how deliciously those chops are sizzeling; we're just as
hungry as hunters." Then, "Where's Tommy?" she asked.
Mrs. Tregennis looked around puzzled, then put her head out of the
window. "He was here but a minute since, excited as could be."
Then she bethought herself of the cupboard and opened the door
revealing her handsome among the coals. In his eagerness to hide he
had fallen, and hands and face were black with coal-dust.
"Come forth, Tommy," he was commanded, and, grinning shyly, he obeyed.
"Now, stand perfectly still," and, stooping, the Blue Lady selected a
cleanish spot on his face and there she kissed him.
Tommy, completely forgetting his orders, flung his arms around her
neck, leaving impressions in coal-dust on her linen collar and on her
face.
"It isn't of the least consequence," she assured Mrs. Tregennis.
"They'll both wash."
As they walked upstairs to their own sitting-room the Blue Lady
slipped her hand into the Brown Lady's saying, "Oh, Dorothea, isn't it
good to be here? Just good, good, good!"
Before they had quite finished tea there was a muffled sound on the
door and some one walked into the room.
"We've had a beautiful tea, Mrs. Tregennis. We've each eaten a huge
chop, but, as usual, I didn't get my fair share of cream." Then the
Blue Lady stopped abruptly for she read in her friend's face that
something was wrong. Turning she saw that a stranger stood in the
room.
"I beg your pardon," she said, rising, with a touch of hauteur in her
voice, "I thought it was Mrs. Tregennis who came in when the door
opened." Then she waited.
The stranger responded with what was meant to be a winning smile. "My
little girl and I are in the downstairs sitting-room," she began to
explain, "and I came in now----"
"Ah, I understand," interrupted the Blue Lady, more warmth in her
tone. "You have moved down there for us, and came in here now
absentmindedly?"
"Not at all," exclaimed the Naval Officer's wife, as she sat down
unasked. "I came to welcome you to Draeth."
Meeting with no answer she continued. "There is no society at all
here, no intellectual companionship, nothing but the commonplace life
of an insignificant fishing-town. Lest you should be dull, Annabel, my
babe, and I will place all our spare hours at your disposal."
"I am sure you mean very kindly." The Brown Lady, who still dabbed at
jam and cream with her knife, grew hot when she heard the calm even
tones proceeding. "But we have come down here purposely to avoid the
rush of the S----; that is, to be quiet and alone. I am sure you will
understand when I say that we wish for no companionship but that of
each other, during the short time we are here."
As the Blue Lady spoke she opened the door, and with a slight
inclination bowed the visitor from the room.
"Oh, Margaret!" The Blue Lady flicked crumbs across the table with
unerring aim.
"No, Margaret, it's no good being flippant and playing like that, I
_will_ speak. You were very rude to her, and you know you were."
"Yes, I think I was, but courteously rude. How else _could_ you treat
a woman like that. Let's have Mrs. Tregennis up and find out who in
the name of fortune she is, and after that we'll run down to the sea."
The Blue Lady rang the bell, then singing, she whirled the little
Brown Lady round and round the room:
"Oh, for the smell of the salt and the weed,
Oh, for the rush of the waves,
Oh, for the cliffs where the white sea-gulls breed,
And oh, for the murmuring caves!
Here when the beacon light flashes at night,
Here when the winter winds roar,
Here when----"
"I'm out of breath," panted the Brown Lady.
"Do stop this jigging round, and this ridiculous impromptu rhyming.
You were just like this when we were here before, but being nearly a
year older now you ought to know better. Here's Mrs. Tregennis, so you
_must_ stop."
"Mrs. Tregennis," the Blue Lady burst forth. "Who is she? Where did
she come from? Why is she here? And how long does she mean to stay?"
"Oh, Miss, 'tis brave an' sorry I be. I told her this morning as how
you wouldn't want to be taken up, but she would come. There she be now
ringin' and ringin' her bell. Always in a fanteague about somethin',
she be."
"Well, go and see what she wants; all this can wait, for we're going
out."
Hatless the two friends ran downstairs and out, in the fading light,
to the sea.
From the very way in which the bell was ringing Mrs. Tregennis knew
that no pleasant moments awaited her in the downstairs sitting-room.
First of all there was a complaint about supper. It had been ordered
for a quarter past seven; it was now ten minutes past seven, and the
cloth was not even laid. "You must remember that I am most particular
about punctuality, Mrs. Tregennis, nothing displeases me more than to
have meals late. I hope that because two strangers have come here for
a few weeks you will not neglect me and my child."
Mrs. Tregennis stood, silent, and outwardly patient. "Do you know at
all who they are?" continued her exasperating lodger. "The taller one
said they had come down from London to avoid the rush of the s----.
Then she stopped. What could there be beginning with 's' that they
should wish to escape?"
"Supper begins with 's,' and it'll be fine an' late ma'am, if I don't
go and see about it." And Mrs. Tregennis escaped from the room.
When she returned the naval officer's wife spoke with excitement.
"I've found out," she cried. "They're shop girls!" and paused, to give
dramatic emphasis to her words.
As Mrs. Tregennis appeared quite unmoved she continued. "To escape
from the rush of the s----! Of course there must be sales on in the
London shops now, and they've managed to save up money enough to come
down here to rest until the sales are over, then they will go back
again to work. You had better see that they pay beforehand for all
they have, or you may find yourself in Queer Street when they go
away."
"Mrs. Radford!" Mrs. Tregennis had never before addressed her lodger
by name, so it was all the more impressive. "Mrs. Radford, I'll not
hear one word against our ladies. They haven't thought fit to tell me
who they be, and 'tis no business of mine. Shop girls or no, I cannot
say, but they'm real ladies, whatever they be, and I'll not hear a
word against them, so there's where 'tis to."
"You need not become angry, my good woman. Their appearance is
certainly not in their favour, for they are almost shabbily dressed;
plain blue and brown Norfolk suits that are by no means new. When they
arrived I looked through the window most particularly to see their
style of dress, and I may say I was by no means favourably impressed."
"If you'd like to know, ma'am, they're the very clothes they wore down
here last year, an' they weren't new then. Very sootable to Draeth
they be to my way of thinkin'. But I don't want to talk about them to
you at all, if you don't mind, ma'am. It seems sort of an insult to
our ladies to be discussin' their clothes an' such. And if you'll ring
when you've finished, ma'am, I'll come in again to clear away."