"And Sheila Pat's made my bed all wet!"
"Hurry up! You've only three minutes, and you were late down yesterday,
you know."
"Oh, Nell, _do_ wait for me! I simply _can't_ come into that room with
Aunt Kezia's eye on me and grim silence!"
Sheila Pat had shut the door on her.
After breakfast the fog deepened, yellowed; Nell, with her mouth set
obstinately, got out her canvas and brushes, and began to paint.
"Nell, you _can't_ see to paint!" exclaimed Molly.
"I know I can't."
"Then what are you painting for?"
Nell squeezed out cobalt blue recklessly.
"My dear child, if we're to live in a place where it's always foggy,
I've got to learn to paint in a thick yellow atmosphere, with the gas
alight one minute and out the next. D'you think I'm not going to
practise for the next hundred years? Sheila Pat, _don't_ go near K.K.!
You'll rouse her! Oh, _why_ is she black? Do go on with your copy."
"I don't wish ever to write like my copy," said the Atom, stiffening her
straight little back, "so what's the use of doin' it now?"
"Well, you've got to!" said Nell.
Sheila Pat arose.
"Sheila Pat, where are you going?"
"To fetch my snowy-breasted Pearl. I'm afraid he'll be breakin' his
heart, all alone so long."
"You're to come straight back, then."
"I don't want to, Nell!"
"Well, you are to."
"I want to take him to visit Herr Smit, Nell."
Nell eyed the little heavy black mass that on ordinary days was Kate
Kearney, and savagely harked back with, "I don't think a lodger's
landlady's belongings should worry him at all times of the day!"
She blushed and dabbed angrily at her canvas.
Sheila Pat paused, and thought.
Intolerable, biting irritation possessed Nell. The room cramped her
unbearably; painting drove her mad; everyone worried her; sick anger at
it all goaded her.
"Sheila Pat, go and fetch your Pearl at once, and bring him straight
back here!"
Sheila Pat eyed her interestedly.
"Eileen O'Brien, you got out of your bed the wrong side this morning!"
she observed, and walked from the room. Molly looked at Nell
commiseratingly.
"_I_ know," she said, "we never have these horrid yellow fogs at--"
Nell stopped the word before it left her lips, with a wildly
impatient:--
"Oh, _be_ quiet!"
"I only meant--"
"I know you did! Go on with your history."
"But--"
Nell looked at her.
"If you say another word, Molly O'Brien, I shall yell!"
Denis came in.
He looked at her with her hair pushed up and laughed.
"Golliwog, what's happened to your hair?"
She looked away from him, fighting a weak inclination to go to him and
cry.
"Nothing," she said.
"Painting in this light! Why, Nell, you must be crazy!"
"I daresay I am. I'm sick of never being able to paint--"
"But a dense fog!"
"It's always dense fog in London."
"Headache?" he queried.
"It's my temper that aches, I think."
She put down her palette, and gave a little laugh.
"Head, too?" he persisted.
"That I should have to own to such a thing! A little."
"It's boiled mutton for lunch; Sarah just told me so. I'll go and tell
Aunt Kezia you must have something else. What would you like? Chicken?
Sole?"
She laughed helplessly.
"Denis, I see her face! No--really--"
She stopped him. "I couldn't touch either. I'm not hungry. I'll have
some pudding."
"It's rice puddin'," put in Sheila Pat, her words annotated by
protesting squeaks. The Pearl objected to being taken from his cage.
Nell, feeling momentarily more sane, declared valiantly that rice
pudding would do nicely.
Aunt Kezia was sorry that boiled mutton did not meet with her approval,
so she said.
The Atom was the first to answer her.
"Approval, is it? And would you be approvalin' it with a headache, Aunt
Kezia?"
It was a Saturday. Denis had suggested Madam Tussaud's for the
afternoon. Now he declared he didn't think Nell was fit to come with
them. She did not feel fit herself, but she wouldn't own it. She was
very prickly, and somehow he rubbed her the wrong way,--"Oh, very well,
if they'd rather go without her!" Up flared one of those quick Irish
outbursts. Nell found herself alone. She sang loudly, listening
intently for the shutting of the front door.
"''Twas down at Ballina Fair,
Cailins and boys were gaily tripping it there,
And I the soul of the spree,
When I set eyes on Kitty Magee.
Her smile so sweet, her step so neat,
Hide and seek her two little feet;
Gliding just like a swan at sea,
Handsome, winsome Kitty Magee.
And now I'm dreaming all day,
Sighing from dark to dawn, and wasting away,
Like a lone bird on a tree,
Pining the long hours through for Kitty Magee,
At dance or wake no--"
Bang!
The song died abruptly.
The hopeless muddle on the easel was dabbed at, made more and more oily.
"Eileen!"
Nell went out on to the landing.
"Yes, Aunt Kezia?"
"Please clean your brushes and put away your paints and all that smells
so horribly, at once! The house reeks, and I have a friend coming to
see me this afternoon!"
Nell said, "Yes, Aunt Kezia," and a gleam lit her eye. She went back to
the Stronghold, and washed her brushes with slow care in turpentine.
There was an air of waiting about her. She lifted Jim into his cage,
and dropped it behind the lounge. Presently an irate voice rang up the
stairs:--
"Eileen! _Eileen_!"
Ah expression of grim satisfaction overspread her features. The voice
ascended with its owner.
"How dare you, Eileen? What is this horrible smell?"
"Smell, Aunt Kezia? Do you mean the turps?"
"I suppose so! It is _filthy_! I told you I expect a visitor. It is
positively disgraceful--"
"You told me to wash my brushes, Aunt Kezia."
Nell's tone was as soft as butter.
"Certainly I told you to! You are being unwarrantably impertinent!
You--"
"But I am only washing my brushes as you told me, Aunt Kezia!"
"What do you mean?"
"You have to wash them in turpentine, Aunt Kezia."
Miss Kezia had a moment of hesitation; her face reddened.
Nell dipped a brush into the tin washer.
"Then cease washing them at once! Open the window, and keep the door
shut."
She closed the door behind her with such a very decisive click that it
might almost have been designated a bang. Nell smiled wryly. She
cleared up a little, then went to the window and looked out. Kate
Kearney came to her, and begged to look, too. Nell sat down, and K.K.
jumped into her lap.
"They don't allow dogs at Madame Tussaud's, K.K. Bad taste. But they do
allow Nells--even bad-tempered ones; but she wasn't wanted, you see.
Oh, K.K., you must get off!"
She rose restlessly. She looked down at a pathetic Kate Kearney, and
exclaimed suddenly:--
"We'll go for a walk!"
The pathos of Kate Kearney vanished in a black whirl of ecstatic body
and tail.
Nell went to put on her boots.
"We'll go for a long, long walk, and we'll come back on top of an
omnibus, K.K. It's such a glorious day for a walk, isn't it? Oh,
heavenly! But we'll go."
In the hall they came upon Miss Kezia. Nell's slim body stiffened
suddenly; a feeling of desperation seized her.
"You are going to take that dog out on a day like this! I cannot allow
it! Think of its feet when it comes in!"
Nell found that she had to moisten her dry lips; she took a moment or
two to choke back unexpectedly rude words. She said then in an even
tone:--
"I'll carry her upstairs, Aunt Kezia."
"But when it gets there! The carpet! Ruining my carpet!"
"I'll put her on her rug till she's dry."
"Microbes!" Miss Kezia said.
There was a little, pregnant silence. Nell's face had grown suddenly
hot; she felt she dared not trust her tongue to speak again; she was
shaken with longing to be very rude to Miss Kezia.