THE DOGS’ HOTEL
The morning succeeding the motor’s first trip proved depressingly wet;
thick mists of cold spring rain shrouded the outlook from the Manor,
beat down upon the pleasure ground, and made pools in the hollows of
the drive.
Miss Parrett, who was, as the servants expressed it, “dodging” in and
out of the sitting-room, issuing commands and then withdrawing them,
fastened upon the chauffeur the moment he came for orders.
No, the car would not be required, and he could go some errands into
the village.
“Mind you don’t go loitering and gossiping,” she added. “I know your
sort, chattering with the maids. Remember that your time belongs to
me;” and she pointed a stumpy forefinger at her knitted jacket. “I’ve
a note for Miss Morven at the Rectory, and another for Ivy House, and
I want some things at Topham’s shop. I’ll give you a list. You can go
into the schoolroom and wait.”
Calm with excessive rage Wynyard entered the schoolroom, where he found
Miss Susan with a handkerchief tied over her head, and an apron over
her dress, unpacking dusty china from a battered case.
“Such a day!” she exclaimed cheerfully; “and they say it’s going to
last--so we shall be very busy, and make use of you.”
“All right, miss,” he assented shortly; the accusation of “chattering
with maids” still left its sting.
“We are going to get up the cases of old books and china, and unpack
them here. The carpenter is putting shelves in the library; but he is
such a lazy fellow, I don’t expect he will come out in this weather.”
“There you are as usual, Susan, talking and idling people,” said her
sister, entering with two notes and a list; and in another moment
Wynyard had been dispatched.
First of all he went to the Rectory, and here the door was opened by
Mr. Morven himself, attended by Mackenzie, who immediately stiffened
from head to tail, and growled round the chauffeur’s legs, evidently
recognising in him the ally of his mortal foe. Mr. Morven was a
squarely built elderly man with a grey beard, a benevolent expression,
and the eyes of the dreamer.
As he took the note he glanced at the messenger, and his eyes dilated
with the intentness of a surprised stare. Wynyard’s type was not common
in the parish; somehow Mrs. Hogben’s lodger did not correspond with his
surroundings.
“I see this is for my daughter,” he said, and beckoning to a
parlour-maid he handed it to her. “Just come into my study, will
you, till the answer is written,” leading the way across a wide hall
panelled in oak. Through an open door Wynyard caught a glimpse of the
drawing-room, and was conscious of a faded carpet, fresh chintz, books,
old china, a glowing fire, and a fragrant atmosphere. The general
impression of the Rectory, with its oaken staircase, family portraits,
and bowls of potpourri, was delightful but fleeting; it seemed a
peaceful, flower-scented old house, of spotless neatness.
“You’re a newcomer, I believe?” said the Rector, preceding him into
a room lined with books from floor to ceiling, and seating himself at
a writing-table. “Miss Parrett’s chauffeur?” and he smiled to himself
at some reminiscence. “I see they are making use of you. Church of
England?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you have any sort of voice--tenor, baritone, or bass--we shall be
glad to have you in the choir; our tenor is getting on; he must be
close on seventy.”
“I’m afraid I’m not much good, sir.”
“Well, if you don’t sing, you look like a cricketer, eh? I must get
something out of you, you know;” and he laughed pleasantly.
“Oh yes, I can play cricket all right.”
“If you can bowl a bit, with Miss Parrett’s leave, I’ll put you into
the village club; we rather fancy ourselves, and a young man of your
stamp will be an acquisition.” At this moment Aurea entered, carrying
an enormous cardboard box.
“Good-morning,” she said. “I see aunt sent you for the lampshade, and
here it is.”
“What a size!” exclaimed her father. “Why, you must have robbed your
best hat! I declare it’s not fair to a man to ask him to be seen with
such a thing going through the village.”
“Not half so bad as seeing people go down the street with a black
bottle in either hand!” retorted his daughter.
“I don’t mind, sir,” said Wynyard, taking up the box as he spoke.
“Please tell Aunt Bella I will be after you in two or three minutes,”
said Aurea; then to her father, “She wants to unpack grandpapa’s books
at last!”
“You mean that she wants you to unpack the books,” corrected Mr.
Morven; “you might steal a few for me, eh? I suppose you will be away
all day?” and he looked at her rather wistfully.
“No, no, dear, I’ll be back soon after tea.” To Owen: “Straight on,
it’s an easy door.”
As Wynyard turned in the hall and backed out, box in hand, he had a
vision of pretty Miss Aurea perched on the arm of his chair, with her
arm round her father’s neck. Lucky old beggar!
His next errand was to the shop--Topham’s--and as he lingered
irresolutely in the rain, staring up and down the street, he was
overtaken by a brisk figure in an aquascutum and motor cap.
“I see you are searching for our emporium,” she began, “and I’ll show
it to you--in fact, I’m going in myself to get some brass-headed carpet
nails.”
The shop stood sideways to the street, as if anxious for concealment,
and was the most astonishing place of its kind that Wynyard had ever
entered. A stall in an Indian bazaar was tame and tidy in comparison.
The house was old and low, the shop of narrow dimensions; it
widened out as it ran back, and lost itself in a sort of tumbledown
greenhouse. The smell was extraordinary, so varied, penetrating, and
indescribable--and small wonder, he said to himself, when he had
inspected the stock!
An oldish woman with a long nose (the Ottinge nose) stood stiffly
behind the counter; at her left the window was full of stale
confectionery, biscuit tins, sticky sweets in glass bottles, oranges
and apples in candle boxes; heaps of Rickett’s blue, and some fly-blown
advertisements.
Behind Mrs. Topham were two shelves dedicated to “the library,” which
consisted of remarkably dirty and battered sixpenny novels; these she
hired to the village at the generous price of a penny a volume for
one week. To the left of the entrance were more shelves, piled with
cheap toys, haberdashery, and china; and here ended the front of the
shop. Concealed by a low screen were tins of oil, a barrel of ginger
ale on tap, and a large frying-pan full of dripping. The remainder of
the premises was abandoned to the greengrocery business on a large
scale--onions, potatoes, and cabbages in generous profusion.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Topham,” said Miss Morven. “What a wet day! How is
your cough?”
“Oh, I’m amongst the middlings, miss. What can I do for you?”
“I want some brass-headed carpet nails, and my aunts have sent a list;”
and she motioned to Wynyard.
Mrs. Topham seized upon it with her long, yellow fingers (they
resembled talons)--the Manor were good customers.
“You can send over the things, Mrs. Topham; but I want the nails now.”
“I’m sure, miss, I’ve got ’em, but I can’t just rightly think where
they be.”
As she spoke, she turned out a drawer and rummaged through it
violently, and then another; the contents of these gave one an idea
of what is seriously understood by the word “chaos”: wool, toffee,
night-lights, dog biscuits, and pills were among the ingredients.
“Try the blue box,” suggested Aurea, who was evidently acquainted with
the resources of the establishment.
The blue box yielded nothing but a quantity of faded pink ribbon, a
few postcards of the church and Drum, a dozen tennis balls, some small
curling-pins, and several quires of black-edged paper.
“Why, if that isn’t the very thing I was looking for last week!”
exclaimed Mrs. Topham, as she pounced on the paper. “And now Miss Jakes
she’s bin and got it over at Brodfield; ’tis a cruel chance to be near
a big town--and so there’s for you!”
As the search for nails promised to be protracted, Miss Morven turned
to Wynyard and said--
“You need not wait; please take the lampshade on, and say that I’m
coming.”
But before returning to the Manor he had yet another errand to
fulfil--a note for Mrs. Ramsay at Ivy House. Here he rang repeatedly,
he even gave heavy single knocks with the bulbous brass knocker, but
received no reply beyond the distant barking of indignant dogs. At last
he went round and discovered a large paved yard, but no human being.
Then he ventured to approach one of the sitting-room windows and peered
in--a comfortable dining-room with a cheerful fire, but empty. No, just
underneath the window on a sofa lay an elderly man fast asleep. He wore
grey woollen socks on his slipperless feet, an empty tumbler stood on a
chair beside him--and this at eleven o’clock in the morning. (True, O.
Wynyard, but it had contained no stronger drink than hot water.)
He had the intention of rapping at the pane, but changed his mind
and retired to the door, and as he waited he heard a voice above him
calling out in a rich brogue--
“Bad scran to ye, Fanny, if there isn’t a young gentleman below wid
a big band-box, and he is afther pullin’ out the bell by the roots;
’tis a shame to lave him standin’ in all the pours of rain! An’ such a
lovely big man!”
At this moment the hall door was opened by a tall dark woman in a
mackintosh and motor cap, with two frantic fox-terriers on the lead,
and a self-possessed French bulldog in dignified attendance.
“I’m afraid you’ve been waiting,” she said, in a soft brogue. “I was
away at the kennels, the servants were upstairs, and the Captain is
asleep.” Then, opening the note (as well as the fox-terriers would
permit), she glanced over it, and the messenger glanced at her--a woman
of thirty-five, with a thin, well-bred face, black hair, and very long
lashes. When she lifted them, he saw that her eyes were of a blue-black
shade, both sad and searching--the whole expression of her face seemed
to be concentrated in their pupils.
“Please tell Miss Parrett I’ll come to tea. I’ve no time to write. I
have to take the dogs out.” The fox-terriers were straining hard at
their leash. “They must have exercise; and when these come back, there
are three more.”
As she spoke, Wynyard could hear the injured yelping of their
disappointed companions.
“Now, don’t open the little dogs’ room,” she called to an elderly woman
in the background, who gave the amazing answer--
“And what would ail me?”
“And mind that the Captain has his broth at twelve.” Then she stepped
out into the beating rain, and Wynyard was surprised to find that Mrs.
Ramsay was about to accompany him.
“I’m going your way,” she explained; “it’s the safest. These two are
new dogs, and I’m rather afraid to go near the Rectory; their Aberdeen
is such a quarrelsome beast--always trailing his coat.”
“Mackenzie?”
“Ah, and so you know him?” she said, with a smile; “you weren’t long in
making his acquaintance.”
Wynyard exhibited his left hand, and a severe bite.
“I suppose he was trying to kill Joss; that’s his profession--a killer
of other dogs.”
“You seem to have a good many of them,” as an afterthought, “ma’am.”
“Yes; they are not all my own. I take in boarders--only six at a time,
and they must be small, no invalids accepted. I look after them for
people who go abroad, or from home for a few weeks. I am fond of dogs,
so I combine business and pleasure.”
“Yes, ma’am; but they must be a trouble and a responsibility--other
people’s pets.”
“I have to take my chance! Some are so nice, it just breaks my heart
to part with them. Indeed, there’s Tippy here, the bulldog, I’m
pretending he is sick--_isn’t_ it a shame of me? Some are surly, others
so sporting, that half my time is spent in scouring the country, and
looking into rabbit holes. Others are quarrelsome, or chase, snap, and
kill fowl and get me into great trouble. I never keep _them_ on an hour
after their time is up. You are the Miss Parretts’ chauffeur, aren’t
you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is this your first situation?” eyeing him keenly.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Why did she ask such a question? Did she, to use the good old
expression, “smell a rat”?
“I’m afraid you will find Ottinge terribly dull. I wonder how you
discovered a place so far from everywhere--just the back of beyond?”
and she looked at him interrogatively--her dark blue eyes were
extraordinarily piercing.
To this impertinent remark no reply was necessary, as it brought them
precisely to the Manor gate. The lady nodded, and walked on quickly--a
slim, active, resolute figure, with the straining fox-terriers
dragging at her hands, the little bulldog trotting sedately at her
heels. The group passed steadily out towards the open country, with the
light rain drifting down upon them. What queer people one came across
in Ottinge! Miss Parrett, the ill-tempered old bully, the Hon. Mrs.
Ramsay, with her soft voice and expressive eyes, eking out a living by
making herself a slave to strangers’ dogs.
“Oh, so she sent a verbal message, did she?” snorted Miss Parrett.
“Well, when _I_ was a girl,”--turning to her sister--“and people asked
me out, I always wrote them _a proper note_; but manners are not what
they were in my day. Oh, if my dear, courteous father could only know
of some of the things that are done, he would turn in his grave!”
Miss Parrett was fond of quoting the old Colonel, and insisting upon
his devotion to herself; whilst, if the truth were known, they had been
bitterly antagonistic to one another during his lifetime, and the Manor
was the frequent scene of acrimonious quarrelling, unfilial gibes, and
furious rejoinders.
It was fully a quarter of an hour later when Miss Morven arrived with
the brass-headed carpet nails.
“I _knew_ she had them!” she declared triumphantly; “for she got a lot
for us last winter, so I ransacked the shop, and, after a long search,
where do you think I found them, Susan?”
“In her pocket, to be sure!”
“No, not quite--probably I shall next time. In one of the brown teapots
she has on sale! She _was_ surprised--I wasn’t! She is getting quite
dotty, and won’t have help; and there is Dilly, her pretty, flighty
granddaughter, with nothing to do but flirt!”
All that day Wynyard worked zealously, assisting the carpenter (who had
come after all) and in unpacking and dusting books that had not seen
daylight for thirty years. On this occasion, in spite of Miss Parrett’s
condescending invitation, he dined at Holiday Cottage.
That very same evening Mrs. Ramsay came to tea at the Manor, and was
fervent in her admiration of the drawing-room, which praise Miss
Parrett absorbed with toothless complacency, saying in her quavering
bleat--
“I’m so glad you like it. Of course it was _my_ taste, and my ideas,
and they are my things; but Aurea and Susan helped me--yes, and the
chauffeur made himself useful.”
Wynyard, who was working close by, felt inclined to laugh out loud. It
seemed to him that he was everything but a chauffeur: window-cleaner,
carpet-layer, messenger, and assistant carpenter--a good thing he was
naturally pretty handy. And although all these extra burdens had been
laid upon him, the first impulse to throw up the situation had died
away; he did not mind what jobs the old lady set him to do, but would
take them as all in the day’s work, for he had no intention of leaving
Ottinge at present--he must have some consideration for Leila!
* * * * *
After tea, when Miss Parrett was engaged in scolding her domestics and
writing violent postcards to her tradesmen, Mrs. Ramsay drew Aurea into
the drawing-room.
“Well, me dear,” and her dark eyes danced, “I did not say a word before
your aunts, but I’ve _seen_ the remarkable chauffeur! I assure you,
when I opened the door and found him standing there with a large box,
you might have knocked me down with the traditional feather! I was
taking the new dogs out for a run, and so we walked together to this
gate.”
“What do you think of him?” asked Aurea, carelessly, as she rearranged
some daffodils in a blue bowl.
“What do I think? I think--although he scarcely opened his lips--that
there is some mystery attached to him, and that he is a gentleman.”
“Why do you say so?” inquired the girl, anxious to hear her own opinion
endorsed. “He is not a bit smarter than the Woolcocks’ men.”
“Oh, it’s not exactly smartness, me dear, it’s the ‘born so’ air which
nothing can disguise. His matter-of-course lifting his cap, walking on
the outside, opening the gate, and, above all, his _boots_.”
“Boots!”
“Yes, his expensive aristocratic shooting boots; I vow they come from
Lobbs. Jimmy got his there--before he lost his money.”
“Perhaps the chauffeur bought them second-hand?” suggested Aurea.
Mrs. Ramsay ignored the remark with a waving hand.
“I cannot think what has induced a man of his class to come and bury
himself here in this God-forsaken spot.”
“Ottinge-in-the-Marsh is obliged to you!”
“Now, you know what I mean, Aurea. You are a clever girl. I put the
question to him, and got no satisfactory answer. Is it forgery, murder,
piracy on the high seas, somebody’s wife--or what?” She rested her chin
on her hand, and nodded sagaciously at her companion. “I understand
that he has been working indoors a good deal, and helping you and Miss
Susan.” She paused significantly. “You must have seen something of him.
Tell me, darling, how did you find him?”
“Most useful, wonderfully clever with his hands, strong, obliging, and
absolutely speechless.”
“Ah! Does he have his meals here?”
“No.”
“Dear me, what a cruel blow for the maid-servants! Did he come from a
garage?”
“No; a friend of Aunt Bella’s found him.”
“A woman friend?”
“Yes; she gave him an excellent character.”
“And what of hers?”
“Oh, my dear Kathleen, she is Lady Kesters, a tremendously smart
Society lady, awfully clever, too, and absolutely _sans reproche_!”
“Is that so?” drawled Mrs. Ramsay. “Well, somehow or other, I’ve an
uneasy feeling about her protégé. There is more than meets the eye with
respect to that young man’s character, believe me. My woman’s instinct
says so. I’m sorry he has come down and taken up your aunt’s situation,
for I seem to feel in me bones that he will bring trouble to some one.”
“Oh, Kathleen! You and your Irish superstitions!” and Aurea threw up
her hands, clasping them among her masses of hair, and stared into her
friend’s face and laughed.
“Well, dear, if he does nothing worse, he will have half the girls
in love with him, and breaking their hearts. It’s too bad of him, so
good-looking, and so smart, coming and throwing the ‘comether’ over
this sleepy little village. Believe me, darlin’, he has been turned out
of his own place; and it would never surprise _me_ if he was just a
nice-looking young wolf in sheep’s clothing!”
“Oh, what it is to have the nice, lurid, Celtic imagination!” exclaimed
Aurea. “I don’t think the poor man would harm a fly. Joss has taken to
him as a brother--and----”
“Miss Morven as--a sister?”
“Now, what are you two conspiring about?” inquired Miss Susan,
entering, brisk, smiling, and inquisitive.
“I’m only discussing your chauffeur, me darlin’ Miss Susan. I notice
that several of the village girls drop in on Mrs. Hogben--you see I
live opposite--and they expose their natural admiration without scruple
or reserve.”
“Owen is a useful young man, if he is a bit ornamental--isn’t he,
Aurea? I’m going to get him to help me in the greenhouse, for I don’t
believe, at this rate, that we shall _ever_ use the car.”