'By Jove, yes,' he exclaimed, pulling out his watch. 'Why, long past. I
wonder what that fool--get up, little Love--' he brushed her off his
lap--'I'll ring and find out what she means by it.'
Lucy was sorry she had said anything about tea. However, he didn't keep
his finger on the bell this time, but rang it normally. Then he stood
looking at his watch.
She put her arm through his. She longed to say, 'Please don't scold
her.'
'Take care,' he said, his eyes on his watch. 'Don't shake me----'
She asked what he was doing.
'Timing her,' he said. 'Sh--sh--don't talk. I can't keep count if you
talk.'
She became breathlessly quiet and expectant. She listened anxiously for
the sound of footsteps. She did hope Lizzie would come in time. Lizzie
was so nice,--it would be dreadful if she got a scolding. Why didn't she
come? There--what was that? A door going somewhere. Would she do it?
Would she?
Running steps came along the passage outside. Wemyss put his watch away.
'Five seconds to spare,' he said. 'That's the way to teach them to
answer bells,' he added with satisfaction.
'Did you ring, sir?' inquired Lizzie, opening the door.
'Why is tea late?'
'It's in the library, sir.'
'Kindly attend to my question. I asked why tea was late.'
'It wasn't late to begin with, sir,' said Lizzie.
'Be so good as to make yourself clear.'
Lizzie, who had felt quite clear, here became befogged. She did her
best, however. 'It's got late through waiting to be 'ad, sir,' she said.
'I'm afraid I don't follow you. Do you?' he asked, turning to Lucy.
She started. 'Yes,' she said.
'Really. Then you are cleverer than I am,' said Wemyss.
Lizzie at this--for she didn't want to make any more trouble for the
young lady--made a further effort to explain. 'It was punctual in the
library, sir, at 'alf-past four if you'd been there to 'ave it. The tea
was punctual, sir, but there wasn't no one to 'ave it.'
'And pray by whose orders was it in the library?'
'I couldn't say, sir. Chesterton----'
'Don't put it on to Chesterton.'
'I was thinking,' said Lizzie, who was more stout-hearted than the
parlourmaid and didn't take cover quite so frequently in dumbness, 'I
was thinking p'raps Chesterton knew. I don't do the tea, sir.'
'Send Chesterton,' said Wemyss.
Lizzie disappeared with the quickness of relief. Lucy, with a nervous
little movement, stooped and picked up _Wuthering Heights_, which was
still lying face downward on the floor.
'Yes,' said Wemyss. 'I like the way you treat books.'
She put it back on its shelf. 'I went to sleep, and it fell down,' she
said. 'Everard,' she went on quickly, 'I must go and get a handkerchief.
I'll join you in the library.'
'I'm not going into the library. I'm going to have tea here. Why should
I have tea in the library?'
'I only thought as it was there----'
'I suppose I can have tea where I like in my own house?'
'But of course. Well, then, I'll go and get a handkerchief and come back
here.'
'You can do that some other time. Don't be so restless.'
'But I--I _want_ a handkerchief this minute,' said Lucy.
'Nonsense; here, have mine,' said Wemyss; and anyhow it was too late to
escape, for there in the door stood Chesterton.
She was the parlourmaid. Her name has not till now been mentioned. It
was Chesterton.
'Why is tea in the library?' Wemyss asked.
'I understood, sir, tea was always to be in the library,' said
Chesterton.
'That was while I was by myself. I suppose it wouldn't have occurred to
you to inquire whether I still wished it there now that I am not by
myself.'
This floored Chesterton. Her ignorance of the right answer was complete.
She therefore said nothing, and merely stood.
But he didn't let her off. 'Would it?' he asked suddenly.
'No sir,' she said, dimly feeling that 'Yes sir' would land her in
difficulties.
'No. Quite so. It wouldn't. Well, you will now go and fetch that tea and
bring it up here. Stop a minute, stop a minute--don't be in such a
hurry, please. How long has it been made?'
'Since half-past four, sir.'
'Then you will make fresh tea, and you will make fresh toast, and you
will cut fresh bread and butter.'
'Yes sir.'
'And another time you will have the goodness to ascertain my wishes
before taking upon yourself to put the tea into any room you choose to
think fit.'
'Yes sir.'
She waited.
He waved.
She went.
'That'll teach her,' said Wemyss, looking refreshed by the encounter.
'If she thinks she's going to get out of bringing tea up here by putting
it ready somewhere else she'll find she's mistaken. Aren't they a set?
_Aren't_ they a set, little Love?'
'I--don't know,' said Lucy nervously.
'You don't know!'
'I mean, I don't know them yet. How can I know them when I've only just
come?'
'You soon will, then. A lazier set of careless, lying----'
'Do tell me what that picture is, Everard,' she interrupted, quickly
crossing the room and standing in front of it. 'I've been wondering and
wondering.'
'You can see what it is. It's a picture.'
'Yes. But where's the place?'
'I've no idea. It's one of Vera's. She didn't condescend to explain it.'
'You mean she painted it?'
'I daresay. She was always painting.'
Wemyss, who had been filling his pipe, lit it and stood smoking in front
of the fire, occasionally looking at his watch, while Lucy stared at the
picture. Lovely, lovely to run through that door out into the open, into
the warmth and sunshine, further and further away....
It was the only picture in the room; indeed, the room was oddly bare,--a
thin room, with no carpet on its slippery floor, only some infrequent
rugs, and no curtains. But there had been curtains, for there were the
rods with rings on them, so that somebody must have taken Vera's
curtains away. Lucy had been strangely perturbed when she noticed this.
It was Vera's room. Her curtains oughtn't to have been touched.
The long wall opposite the fireplace had nothing at all on its
sand-coloured surface from the door to the window except a tall narrow
looking-glass in a queerly-carved black frame, and the picture. But how
that one picture glowed. What glorious weather they were having in it!
It wasn't anywhere in England, she was sure. It was a brilliant, sunlit
place, with a lot of almond trees in full blossom,--an orchard of them,
apparently, standing in grass that was full of little flowers, very gay
little flowers, of kinds she didn't know. And through the open door in
the wall there was an amazing stretch of hot, vivid country. It
stretched on and on till it melted into an ever so far away lovely blue.
There was an effect of immense spaciousness, of huge freedom. One could
feel oneself running out into it with one's face to the sun, flinging up
one's arms in an ecstasy of release, of escape....
'It's somewhere abroad,' she said, after a silence.
'I daresay,' said Wemyss.
'Used you to travel much?' she asked, still examining the picture,
fascinated.
'She refused to.'
'She refused to?' echoed Lucy, turning round.
She looked at him wonderingly. That seemed not only unkind of Vera, but
extraordinarily--yes, energetic. The exertion required for refusing
Everard something he wanted was surely enormous, was surely greater than
any but the most robust-minded wife could embark upon. She had had one
small experience of what disappointing him meant in that question of
Christmas, and she hadn't been living with him then, and she had had all
the nights to recover in; yet the effect of that one experience had been
to make her give in at once when next he wanted something, and it was
because of last Christmas that she was standing married in that room
instead of being still, as both she and her Aunt Dot had intended, six
months off it.
'Why did she refuse?' she asked, wondering.
Wemyss didn't answer for a moment. Then he said, 'I was going to say you
had better ask her, but you can't very well do that, can you.'
Lucy stood looking at him. 'Yes,' she said, 'she does seem
extraordinarily near, doesn't she. This room is full----'
'Now Lucy I'll have none of that. Come here.'
He held out his hand. She crossed over obediently and took it.
He pulled her close and ruffled her hair. He was in high spirits again.
His encounters with the servants had exhilarated him.
'Who's my duddely-umpty little girl?' he asked. 'Tell me who's my
duddely-umpty little girl. Quick. Tell me----' And he caught her round
the waist and jumped her up and down.
Chesterton, bringing in the tea, arrived in the middle of a jump.