IN AND OUT.--BEFORE THE FIRE.--MEDITATIONS.--SURPRISES.--HAPPY
THOUGHTS.--AWAKENINGS.--SLUMBERS.--BELL-PULLS.--BOOTS.--VALET.
DIFFICULTIES.--MRS. REGNIATI.--WHAT'S ON THE TAPIS?--MATCH-MAKING.
--CUPID.
[Illustration]
Captain Byrton is out hunting. The Signor and Milburd are out shooting.
Mrs. Frimmely is out walking with Medford and Cazell. Miss Adelaide
Cherton and her sister are in the garden with Chilvern and Boodels. Miss
Medford is trying some new music. Madame is seated by the drawing-room
fire, engaged upon some mysterious wool-work, which may eventuate in a
cigar-case, slippers, a banner fire-screen, or a pair of fancy-pattern'd
braces for the Signor. Jenkyns Soames is supposed to be in his room
writing something on "Numbers," but whether in refutation of Dr.
Colenso's later Pentateuchical views, or in support of his earlier
Arithmetical treatises, nobody has inquired, and nobody, particularly,
cares.
I am engaged very busily in thinking. It occurs to me that I will join
Miss Medford in the morning-room. There are some days when one finds it
very difficult to immediately follow thoughts with action. On such
occasions time doesn't fly, but slides noiselessly down an inclined
plane, and one is in a state of perpetual surprise.
_Surprise the first._--You wake and are surprised to find it so early.
_Happy Thought._--Go to sleep again.
You turn round, snuggle down, and snooze. A mere snooze until they call
you. It being their duty to call you, let 'em do it manfully, and you'll
do yours.
_Second Surprise._--To awake again. Later than you had expected. Must
get up.
_Happy Thought._--No use getting up, though, until you've been properly
called, and the hot water's there. Besides, you'll be the only one down.
Employ the time, until the servant comes, in _thinking_. Think what
you'll do to-day. Think what you'll do first. Put things in order in
your mind, then when you get up you'll only have to do them one after
the other, and there you are--or there you will be. Excellent plan,
this. These arrangements being satisfactorily made mentally, you
suddenly find yourself very warm, and then very wakeful, so much so that
it is a
_Third Surprise_--on looking at your watch again--to find that it's an
hour since you last consulted it. Odd. You _must_ have been to sleep
again. Very odd. And "it's too bad of them;" (of course) they've never
called you.
_Happy Thought._--Ring the bell for some one to come and call me.
If the bell is by the bed, this is simple. If it isn't, certain
arrangements are as necessary as if you were going to make a journey.
Inquiries, as it were, concerning the route from the bed to the
bell-pull have to be made. This ascertained, and the exact line you have
to travel being now clear before you, it is evident that you cannot be
so venturesome as to attempt the excursion without your slippers and
dressing-gown.
Here commence manoeuvres to obtain both articles, while incurring the
smallest possible danger of catching the slightest possible cold, or
chill.
Then after a series of gymnastic efforts, during which you have nearly
begun your day out of bed on your head, you are successful. It is then
requisite to pause and take breath. This cessation of energy affords an
opportunity for the servant to appear with your hot water, without your
inconveniencing yourself any further.
However he doesn't come, and so you get out. Here the freshening breeze
which blows over the threshold, under the door, and across the carpet,
causes you, for one second, to hesitate, and then foreseeing that the
longer you stop out, _en deshabille_, the worse it would be, you take
precautions for the future, inspired by a
_Happy Thought._--"Cover the bed up carefully, so that it will be warm
when I come back again." Aha! Then to the bell-pull.
_Fourth Surprise._--Odd. You had never noticed before, that this, which
you thought was the bell-rope, is nothing of the sort; being a cord
attached to the old-fashioned catch on the door, and originally hung
within reach of the bed, which was of course in exactly the opposite
position to where it is now. Where _is_ the bell? You cannot see the
rope anywhere. Bother.
_Happy Thought._--To trace the wire running round the room at the top.
You _do_ trace it. It goes out at a hole and disappears. Trace it back
again. It goes all round, and as there is no sign of a bell-rope, this
article must be behind the bed.
It is. Struggle with heavy bedstead. Dust. There at last is the
bell-rope. You pull it. You pull it again. You hear it ring. This is
satisfactory.
_Happy Thought._--Get into bed again. Do so. Warm. Arrange mentally for
reprimanding the servant severely. Such a waste of time. Here you have
been awake since, goodness knows when, and no hot water, no clothes,
nothing! And you may add, you put 'em outside the door so carefully last
night, _on purpose_ that they shouldn't be forgotten.
Knock at door. "Come in." Door shaken.
_Fifth Surprise._--Why doesn't he come in?----Door shaken again.
Angrily, "Come in!"
Answer from outside, like the voice in a ventriloquist's entertainment,
"I can't come in, sir; the door's locked."
_Yourself_ (in bed).--"No, it isn't. Push it."
Answer from without, as before, "No, sir, you've let down the latch. If
you pull the string, I can come in."
Nuisance. Out of bed again. Pull up latch-string. Into bed again. Less
warm now.
_Yourself_ (_or myself, severely, from bed_).--"You didn't call me this
morning. And where are my things?"
_Valet._--"They've been standing houtside, sir, this 'our and a 'arf. I
knocked twice, sir, but the latch was down, and so I couldn't get in.
'Ot water, sir, 's cold as hice. Better bring you some fresh."
[_Exit._
There's still an entr'acte between his bringing the hot water and my
getting up.
_Happy Thought._--Well, I dare say it's all the better for me that I've
overslept myself a little this morning. If Nature sleeps, depend upon it
Nature knows what she's about.
* * * * *
This is in fact how it has happened that all the others, except the
three mentioned, are out of doors. They've breakfasted hours ago. I
haven't.
* * * * *
Madame Regniati puts down her work, looks towards the window, through
which we can see the garden-party, and then refers to me inquisitively.
Presently she asks mysteriously,
"Do you see anything going on here?"
I can't help returning with, "Here, Madame Regniati! where?"
"Oh," she replies, in her short way, "_you_ see it, I know you do. Even
Mr. Regniati has noticed it to me. For my part," she adds, rubbing her
nose with the tip of a long knitting-pin, "I think it's a case."
I begin to understand.
"Miss Adelaide----" I venture.
[Illustration]
"Yes. And with whom, eh?" she asks, with her head a little on one side,
and her thin lips compressed, as if she had got the information on the
tip of her tongue, and was preventing its escape by sheer force.
"Well," I begin, thinking to myself it's very odd I haven't noticed it,
"well, I should say"--really, I shouldn't say anything.
Madame nods at me. "Come," she says; "I know you've got penetration.
You're an observer of character. You're a thinker. My nephew has told me
you're writing a philosophical work. Now, I want you to lend me your
sagacity, and confirm my suspicions."
_Happy Thought._--Look sagacious. Smile in deprecation of too much
sagacity. I feel that, being right as far as mentioning Miss Adelaide
goes, my next guess will probably be wrong. Risk it.
I say, "Miss Adelaide and Cazell, eh?" (They are walking together.)
Madame shakes her head. I have gone down in her estimation, evidently.
_Happy Thought._--To assume my own penetration. Say to Madame, "Ah,
well, you'll see"--meaning, you'll find I'm right and you're wrong.
"No, no," she replies. "Mr. Cazell and Miss Bella, Mr. Chilvern and Miss
Adelaide."
"H'm," I say, dubiously. Madame Regniati, classical, lover of high art
as she is, is, when occasion offers, is simply a match-maker. I believe
it's a feminine instinct.
"They've both got money," she adds. She has summed it all up, and
arranged it.
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