'Ross, how big is a spit?'
'Depends on how bad your cold is,' he began, but I closed the
conversation.
Alas, alas, hear the end. Half an hour later the S.P. said would I
speak to the captain in the garden? I found him in front of the kitchen
window surveying some extraordinary earth-works and excavations, the
Stench standing by looking particularly wooden.
'What on earth----' I began.
'I've dug so deep, mum, I come to a poipe; do it matter?' said the boy.
I surveyed the scene of his labours and found the little wretch had dug
down to the kitchen drain.
'Gardening is certainly your strong point, Meg. Do you think the boy has
dug this bit deep enough, or shall he take up the drains as well? By
Jove,' added my brother, doubling up suddenly with laughter, 'what an
acquisition you'd both be in the army. I never saw a better
communication trench in my life.'
At tea-time Ross gloomily surveyed the table lightly spread with thin
bread and butter and minute cakes.
'Well, there doesn't seem enough for Fitzbattleaxe, so let's go and have
tea with Sam. He's dead down on his luck, too.'
'Knee bad?' I questioned.
'Putrid, so's his temper since I rowed him this morning.'
'What did you row him for?' I asked.
'Usual thing. Found him standing up brushing my clothes to-day, so I
pitched into him for once in his life, hot and strong. It is rotten for
him, but I really had to tell him a few home truths. He simply must
stick his leg up all day.'
So we went up into Sam's little sitting-room with Fitzbattleaxe.
'Better?' said Ross, as he went in.
'Yes, thank you, sir,' said Sam, and got up hastily as I entered.
'Forgotten your orders again, Brown?' asked Ross sternly, opening the
door to go out.
'No, sir,' said Sam, still standing up. (I do love to see him
'fighting' Ross.) 'Orders were: "Bed at 11. Not to stand up when it
were you only, between the hours of 10.30 a.m. and 7 p.m.," sir.'
Quite obviously Sam was obeying the strict letter of the law, so Ross
came in again, and I remarked,--
'And I say, same hours when it's only me, Sam.'
'If you could both remember about the verb "to be,"' began my brother.
'I can't,' I said.
Sam dropped into a chair, looking as if he'd like to smash all clocks,
and remarked he was absolutely fed up.
'Well, we're not, we're half starved. That's why we've come to tea.'
'You want to count your mercies, Sam,' I said, which being a remark to
which my Aunt Amelia is much addicted, was the most aggravating thing I
could think of at the moment. When one is down on one's luck it is
fatal to be sympathetic, and Sam was down on his, right on the bed-rock
bottom of it.
'Well, I'm counting the mercies he's got and we haven't,' said Ross;
'there's quite a respectable bit of heaven spread on this table at the
moment. A whole loaf, a pound of butter, two pounds of strawberry jam
and jorams of Devonshire cream, goodies with sugar on top, and a plum
cake that you can cut. My hat, some people have all the luck. It's a
regular Hickley Wood one.'
'Make the tea, Sam,' I exclaimed, 'the kettle's boiling; mind you don't
set the woods alight.'
'Have I ever set the woods alight, miss?' Sam asked indignantly.
'Nor ever failed to lose your temper either, if I suggested you would,'
I answered.
So Sam grinned and felt better, and made a long arm for the kettle, and
brewed tea, and cut up bread and cream, and we had it in the Hickley
Woods, as we've had it millions of times together. It was just the same.
Whenever I had finished my slice, Sam put another on my plate, with
mountains of cream and jam on it. At the third I remarked,--
'Sam, there really are limits.'
'Yes, but you ain't reached them yet, miss; four's yours.'
'Do you think you ought to speak to me like that, now I am married and
have a daughter, Sam?'
'He gets you muddled up with the daughter, I expect, same as I do,'
remarked Ross, 'only the Gidger is so much more sober and serious-minded
than you're ever likely to be.'
'Four,' I called out; 'limit's reached, Sam.'
'Well, there isn't any more cream, anyway,' said Sam, which, of course,
was the one and only reason why we stopped in Hickley Woods.
'I begin to feel better,' observed my brother. 'Why don't I have enough
to eat at lunch, Meg, I do at breakfast?'
'I see to your breakfast,' said Sam, 'and I'd see you had a good lunch
if only I was allowed down.'
'Well, you aren't,' said my brother, 'so that's that, and I should think
it would be better manners if you saw we had a good tea when we're up.
Pass the cake. Here, you eat the little chaps, I'll have the plum.'
So Sam ate all the small cakes with sugar on top, and Fitzbattleaxe got
the cream tin to lick out. He went right inside and stuck, and had to
be lugged out by the tail. Then we shoved the table back and sat round
the fire, and talked about the old days. At seven o'clock Nannie looked
round the door. She was promptly hauled in and sat on Ross's knee.
'Sam,' she scolded, 'why do you keep them out so late? I really shall
have to tell your father to wallop you. I've often threatened to, I
really will to-night.'
'Let's run her down the passage, Sam, for cheek,' said Ross, and they
were just about to do it when Brown suddenly got up and said,--
'Want a bath, sir?' and Nannie said, 'Will you wear your black again,
ma'am?' and, of course, it was that wretched S.P. come to clear away the
tea. The smell under her nose was rather worse than usual, and the
picnic broke up hurriedly. I felt as if I had been having tea with my
brother's man-servant, and Ross had been nursing one of the maids. Oh,
I do loathe that woman!
It was a most unfortunate dinner to-night, like one of those you get at
Aunt Amelia's. There didn't seem to be anything solid to eat. At the
end Sam handed Ross sardines on toast. 'What a thundering lot of hors
d'oeuvres we seem to be having to-night, when's the dinner coming?'
'Savoury, sir,' said Sam.
'You don't mean to tell me,' said Ross, pushing back his chair and
glaring at Sam, 'that I've _had_ my dinner?'
'You've had what there was of it, sir.'
'Well, I'm jiggered. Why on earth, Meg, don't you make them cook more
food. Really----'
''Tisn't her fault,' said Sam, still in the Hickley Woods, sticking up
for me as he always did; 'she's told them times without number; it's no
good blaming her. Shall I cut some sandwiches?'
'Sam, I suppose I can reprove my sister without your interfering, and I
never blame, I always rule by love.'
'Same as you did this morning, sir,' grinned Sam, 'will you have large
cups of coffee with your sandwiches?'
'Do you think that's a respectful remark to make to your superior
officer, Brown?'
'No, sir, sorry.'
'I shall judge the measure of your repentance by the number of
sandwiches you cut,' said Ross, 'and if the cups of coffee are very
large, I might be inclined to overlook your cheek, otherwise----'
But Sam had vanished into the kitchen, and we went into the hall to wait
for supper. A few minutes afterwards, Sam dumped a tray of food on the
table.
We settled down comfortably for a good long evening. At 10.15, just as
we were beginning to enjoy ourselves, Sam came in, he looked like milk
and butter, and his voice was a caress.
'Turned your bath on, sir.'
'Are you dotty, Brown?' asked my brother.
'Certainly not, sir.'
'Well, what are you gassing about baths for at this hour of the
afternoon, you gloomy ox, you're worse than a keeper.'
'Orders is orders, sir. If I've got to go to bed at 11 you'll have to
go at 10.15, if I'm to see to your arm.'
'My hat,' ejaculated Ross, looking across at me in hopeless
consternation, '_what_ a fool I am.'
'First of April, sir,' said Sam, and fled upstairs.
*CHAPTER XIX*
I can't manage my 'staff,' I wish I were an Eastern Queen, then I should
sort of call the eunuchs when I wanted anything, instead of which the
maids do exactly what they like. Ross says if I won't let Sam 'do
something' I must put my own foot down.
The S.P. brings my early tea in a silver teapot instead of the little
brown chap I told her I preferred. So I hid the beastly thing under my
bed, hoping she would take the hint and see I really meant it. She came
and asked me if that was where I wished the silver kept in future!
Then when I ordered the dinner to-day I said to Dulcie, 'Send in the
junket in the old blue china bowl, please.' It came in that silver dish
we use for cutlets. So I wouldn't eat the junket--said it would taste
of mutton cutlets, and after lunch the S.P. rowed me for saying the
silver wasn't clean, which I hadn't even thought of, for she keeps it
beautifully.
Putting my foot down made my face so hot that I retired to my bedroom to
recover, but alas! Fitzbattleaxe was making the day hideous with his
howls. He was lodged on a ledge in my chimney, just out of reach, and
was apparently afraid to jump the precipice into my bedroom.
So I tied my hair up in a handkerchief, put on a nightgown to protect my
dress, and laid down comfortably on the hearthrug with my head up the
chimney. At intervals I waved a bit of liver at the kitten and said in
my most persuasive manner, 'Littlekittycatpoorpussycometomissusdidums.'
This seemed to entertain the kitten very much as it responded by rubbing
its back violently against the chimney and incidentally dislodging a
good deal of soot over me, while it sniffed ecstatically at the liver.
'Goodness,' said Ross, bursting like a cyclone into the room, 'what a
sight you look; is that kitten still there? Mr Williams is downstairs.
Are you giving that little beast meat, Meg; how many times have I warned
you that it's illegal to give rations to rodents.'
'It isn't a rodent,' I said, sitting up in the fireplace, 'and it's not
rations either, it's offal.'
A frozen look of horror slowly overspread my brother's open countenance.
'Offal,' he queried, 'could it _possibly_ have been offal you said?'
'Yes,' and I began to get little creeps down my spine as I did as a
child when I'd been naughty, 'it's offal, edible offal.'
'The word "edible" does not excuse the word offal.'
'They call it that in the _Times_,' I said meekly.
'There are many things in the _Times_ which it is better not to repeat
in polite society, Margaret.'
'I don't call your society polite, far from it,' I rejoined. 'What does
Mr Williams want?'
'Oh, my angel, he wants a lot of things: a shave, for instance, and a
bath and a clean collar, and his clothes brushed, and his nails cut, and
snow-white flowers against his hair, and a heap of things like that.'
'I expect he's very poor,' I said, waving the liver at Fitzbattleaxe.
'Unless he's behind with his water rate, he could have most of his
present needs supplied by turning on the tap. He's asked to see you.'
'Well, I can't see him like this, can I?'
'You certainly can't. You look like the back of a cab, Meg!'
'Do tell me sensibly what he says,' I implored.
Ross pulled his mouth down at the corners, closed his eyes and put his
hands together as if in prayer. '"My dear wife is laid aside with an
internal chill, she is, therefore, unable to be present at the class for
female confirmation candidates this afternoon, and as the vicar is away,
I ventured to think that Mrs Ellsley might be good enough to speak a few
words of exhortation in her place, hymn 547, let us pray."'
'How can you be so absurd?' I said.
'Oh, why do curates talk like that? Why can't this man wash? Why can't
he be modern and human? Why can't he say, "Hallo, old bean, my wife
ain't in the pink, got a pain in her breadbasket or something.
Priceless washout, too, as it's her turn to spout to the gals. Just
blew in to see if your sister would help me out of a hole and come and
do a pi-jaw stunt, what!"'
Here my disgusting twin retched realistically into the soap dish,
murmuring 'He makes me sick.'
'Your vulgarity is simply awful, Ross, do stop, you make me feel quite
ill.'
'I venture to think, my misguided young friend----' began Ross again.
'You know what happened to the children in the Bible,' I interrupted,
'who mocked at their betters: a frightful animal jumped out at them
and----'
Here I gave a piercing scream as the kitten suddenly decided to risk it,
and landed unexpectedly in the middle of my stomach.
'Just so,' said Ross with a howl of laughter, 'I never saw a better
illustration of it in my life.'
And now I want to ask the General Public something.
_Could_ you tell me why, because a person's mother once fell off the top
of a step-ladder, a person should never be allowed to go on the top step
herself? It seems such a ridiculous thing to hand on from father to
son.
'Gracious,' I said, when I was rowed for it to-day, after Mr Williams
had departed, 'because mother did it, it's a thousand to one I won't. I
don't know the actuary figures, but it practically insures me against
it, Ross.'
'I don't care,' said that gentleman, 'I won't have it, and that's all
there is about it.'
'How can you be so ridiculous. You don't mind if I go up a tree, and
I've done everything that you've done always. If you don't think it's
dangerous for me to climb and hunt and ski, why on earth should you kick
at the top of a step-ladder?'
'Well, we won't argue about it, Margaret.'
'I loathe twins,' I grumbled.
And he said he did, too, the sort that spat fire when a chap tried to
take care of them.
Suddenly the bottom dropped out of the world, and everything that I had
thought solid, stable, and immovable came crashing about me, and my
brother, for the first and last time in all his life was 'meek' to me
and said,--
'Please, darling, because I found mother after she smashed herself up so
badly.'
It was that tide in the affairs of men which had I taken at the flood
would have tamed the lion to eat out of my hand. Oh, wasn't I a fool to
say,--
'Oh, all right, Ross.'
But there it is, and I know now what that poor darling felt when he
wrote _Paradise Lost_.
*CHAPTER XX*