Tommy Tregennis. Mary Elizabeth Phillips
manage it, Miss,” she said, “if the young gentleman didn’t mind, for I have this room free.”
“Oh, I do wish you could, for it’s getting late to go on, and we’re so tired.”
“It would be no better to go on, Miss, the rooms at all the places is full, I know. It’s like this, you see, Miss.” Mrs. Tregennis again smoothed her apron. “Two young gentlemen really belongs to a party at my sister-in-law’s and only sleeps here, they have one bedroom. Another young gentleman has the other bedroom and the upstairs sitting-room. If it should be as how he would have a chair-bed in his sitting-room for the night, then you could have his room.”
“Well, I do hope he will, Mrs. ——?”
“Tregennis, Miss.”
“But Mrs. Tregennis, if the young gentleman doesn’t wish to sleep on a chair-bed what shall we do?”
“There’s the Royal Standard, Miss.”
“No, we had a very unsatisfactory lunch there, badly cooked and badly served; the waitress wore a dirty apron and her hair was in curling pins. We really couldn’t go there!”
“Well, Miss, will you call again in an hour’s time; the young gentleman will be in then, and I’ll let you know for certain.”
“Tom,” she said, when they had left, “there’s two young ladies asking for rooms for the night. They’re on a cycling tour, but they’d no bikes with them, and they hadn’t a scrap of luggage. I’ve said I’ll take them if the young gentleman doesn’t mind the chair-bed.”
Tregennis slowly uncrossed his legs as he sat in front of the kitchen fire, and with his forefinger re-arranged the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. “Well, Ellen,” he said slowly, “and suppose they be just frauds?”
“All I can say is as they don’t look it, an’ after all we’m got to take our risks. A room for one night isn’t much, but all the littles add up, and the summer’s nearly gone.” After a pause she resumed. “The Royal Standard isn’t good enough for they, Thomas Tregennis, I’d have you know, when folks wants things done in real style they comes to the likes of we.”
Mrs. Tregennis cleared her throat and prepared her husband’s tea.
Two hours later the ladies had brought their bicycles and carry-alls from the hotel-stable, and were sitting down to supper in Mrs. Tregennis’s sitting-room, for the young gentleman had proved most accommodating in the matter of the chair-bed.
It was after supper that the meeting with Tommy took place. The arrival of unexpected visitors had put off his bedtime, and when these visitors passed the kitchen door on their way out, he had only just had his bath. He was standing on a chair while Mammy vigorously brushed up his stiff fair hair. Peeping out below the pink nightshirt were toes almost as pink as his flushed little face. All the time his hair was being rubbed and brushed, he went through a rhythmic motion of the body, slowly bending his knees, and rapidly straightening them again. The upright movement frequently brought his head into sharp contact with the hair-brush, but this in nowise disconcerted him.
When Mammy’s ladies appeared in the doorway, then in response to Mrs. Tregennis’s invitation actually walked into the kitchen, he was overcome with shyness and hid his eyes in his hands. To his great surprise, however, the ladies talked to Mammy, neglecting him utterly. He was accustomed to much consideration, and gradually his tight little fingers relaxed that he might peep through the gaps and see what manner of strangers these were who were so ignorant of his importance and of his claims upon them.
Still the ladies talked only to Mammy. He could bear it no longer, so, dropping his hands, he pursed up his mouth and whistled; at least he called it whistling, but it was very much the same noise that Daddy made each morning when the tea in his saucer was too hot. Its value as a whistle, however, mattered very little, as it had the desired effect. The taller lady, the one in the blue dress, looked at him in surprise; evidently until now she had had no idea that he was there.
“Hallo, Tommy,” she said, and made a dash for his toes.
“Hallo,” he half-screamed, half-gurgled. “Hallo, Blue Lady,” and flung two chubby, suffocating arms tightly around her neck. Then, peeping over her shoulder, “Hallo, Brown Lady,” he laughed. Thus their friendship began.
STILL THE LADIES TALKED ONLY TO MAMMY.
CHAPTER IV
AT breakfast the following morning the Blue Lady looked up from her pilchards. She was eating slowly for pilchard bones are many in number and very small. “Dorothea,” she asked, “what about this cycling tour? Do you want to go on to-day, or wouldn’t it be rather nice to stay here for one more night and just enjoy Draeth?”
“I should love it!” the Brown Lady replied.
Mrs. Tregennis was summoned. No, she didn’t think the young gentleman would at all mind having the chair-bed again; he’d slept very well indeed and had been quite comfortable. As for her, well, she’d be delighted for the ladies to stay.
Thus it was settled, and they stayed.
The tide was high that morning, and they pulled slowly up the beautiful West River. After lunch they took photographs of Tommy at play on the sands, and sat on the rocks reading. In the evening they bathed for the second time that day, and went to bed at night completely under the spell of Draeth.
The next morning it was arranged that they should stay yet one more night, and it ended in the young gentleman sleeping on the chair-bed in his sitting-room for a week. Then, however, the ladies were obliged to leave. By the end of the week they had planned to reach Padstowe after cycling all round the Cornish coast, and had arranged that luggage should be awaiting them there at the Salutation Inn where they had already engaged rooms.
The evening before they left the ladies went into Mrs. Tregennis’s bedroom to hear Tommy say his prayers. He was kneeling in the cot, and by judicious pressure made the mattress rise and fall in such a way that his petitions were more broken than is usually considered quite reverent.
“Please God take care of Daddy, ’n bring the fishes, ’n Mammy, ’n keep me good, ’n——”
A sudden somersault choked the rest. “I’ve got a sweet, Miss!”
The opening of the right hand disclosed a hot, melted chocolate cream, whose pink inside now filled up the lines of the small, fat palm. After much licking brown and pink disappeared, but an uncomfortable stickiness was left behind. The Brown Lady brought a sponge and towel and washed the stickiness away.
“Tommy,” said the Blue Lady, “when you waken in the morning a wooden horse called Dobbin will be downstairs under the kitchen table. That’s his new stable.”
“Who be it for?” asked Tommy all thought of sleep dispelled.
“Well, it might be for Jimmy Prynne.”
“Mammy, Mammy,” with even more than customary vigour, “is the Dobbin that’s goin’ to be under the kitchen table for Jimmy Prynne?” Then with a catch suspiciously like a sob, “Jimmy Prynne doesn’t wipe his nose with a hankycher; he sniffs does Jimmy Prynne.”
“Oh, my dear soul,” replied Mammy, in the doorway, “I haven’t got no Dobbin. ’Tis a grand thing for Jimmy Prynne if he’s goin’ to have a horse for to ride. He’ll be like the quality will Jimmy Prynne.”
“Mammy,” brokenly, “do you think as sometimes Jimmy Prynne’ll lend his wooden horse to me?”
“Tommy Tregennis,” said the Blue Lady, throwing her arms round the