Taken by the Hand. O. Douglas
can’t. I’m dining with Susan and going on to something.”
Another talk on the telephone and then Lady Dobie emerged.
“Do forgive me, Beatrice; this is boring for you, but arrangements have got to be made. I’ve asked the Vivians here on Thursday. Is that all right, Elaine? . . . Think of some people to meet them.”
“The Prestons,” Elaine suggested.
“We don’t owe them.”
“Don’t we? What a nuisance. They’re about the only amusing people we know. What about the Cozens?”
“I might try them,” said Lady Dobie, “but they’re always about three deep.”
Elaine pondered, and said: “Joyce and Philip might come. They’re always glad of a meal—and they work for it. Joyce can talk to anyone, so can Phil when he likes; and they’re both decorative.”
“Yes,” Lady Dobie agreed, “I may have to fall back on them, but I think I’ll try the Laceys first. Oh, I know they’re dull, and Lord Lacey’s a perfect nuisance with his diet, but they’re the kind of people the Vivians like. And I might try the Stamfords, though they always seem to be engaged when I ask them.”
“It’ll be deadly,” said Elaine gloomily.
“Oh, I know, but they’ll all be dull together and not notice it.”
Lady Dobie returned to the telephone, inviting Beatrice to accompany her.
“This is my den,” she said, introducing the girl to the most littered room she had ever seen. “It’s a little crowded at present. You see Elaine turned practically everything out of the drawing-room when it was done up, and these are the things I simply couldn’t part with. We’re not allowed to be sentimentalists in these days, but I confess I cling to my old things. When I can find time I mean to get everything arranged. . . .” She waved her hand vaguely. “These pictures hung up and photographs and ornaments disposed of. . . . Just look at my bureau! Piled!”
“Have you a secretary?” Beatrice asked.
“Not a full-time one; three days a week. Such a competent creature. I can leave everything to her. She knows my style so well that I can trust her to answer all but my most intimate letters. And, really now I hardly ever write an intimate letter; there’s no time for them. The telephone is so much more convenient. And intimate friends are out of fashion, too; we call each other pet names and dear and darling each other, but it doesn’t amount to much. I sometimes wish——”
But what Lady Dobie wished Beatrice was not to know for she had again taken up the receiver.
Beatrice amused herself looking at the contents of the room, and wondering how any housemaid ever coped with the dusting of it. There were prints stacked against the wall, cabinets of china, tables crowded with silver, piles of photographs, many of them in heavy silver frames. It was amusing to find Elaine as a self-conscious schoolgirl photographed with her brother.
By eleven o’clock, Lady Dobie, exhausted but satisfied, announced that she would go to bed.
“A night in,” she said, “is such a luxury, and I feel I’ve made good use of it. Such luck getting on to so many people; everybody seemed to be having a night in! I’ve got next week practically filled up, and the next again. I expect you want to go to bed too, Beatrice, after your journey. Don’t get up to breakfast. I seldom do, and be sure and ask for anything you want. Yes, well, good-night.”
When Beatrice found herself back in the room which already seemed to her a haven of refuge, she started to undress briskly, determined to get out of the habit of breaking down and crying when she got away from people. In bed perhaps, but to the world she must keep a brave face.
A tap came to the door, a genteel tap. “Higgins!” thought Beatrice, and when she said, “Come in,” Higgins appeared, her spectacles shining benevolently, in one hand a tray with a tea-pot and a cup, and under the other arm a small white kitten.
“I wondered, Miss, if you’d care to have anything to drink—China tea, or Horlick, or Ovaltine? Some ladies sleep better after a hot drink.”
Beatrice, not liking to repulse a kind thought, decided on the tea, which was there, and exclaimed in delight at the sight of the kitten.
“Yes, Miss; I thought it’d cheer you. There’s something so homely about a kitten, especially in a strange house. Kittens are the same all the world over.”
“He’s purring,” said Beatrice. “Hear! He’s quite happy with me. What’s his name?”
“Well, Miss,” Higgins cleared her throat and blushed a little, as if not certain that she was being quite delicate, “we’re not quite certain downstairs of his sex (if you’ll excuse me mentioning it), so we’ve christened him ‘Impudence,’ which is suitable to either as you might say. He’s the kitchen kitten, quite a common little thing; but he’s got a sweet face; it’s unlucky him being white, for the coal-cellar’s his favourite playground. . . . But he’s clean to-night, is Impudence, for before I brought him up I did him all over with cloth ball.”
CHAPTER VI
“Let us now go out into London.”
H. V. Morton.
Worn out by nights of broken sleep and many emotions Beatrice slept like a tired child, and when she woke, could not for a moment imagine where she was. Her bed had got turned round, the window was in the wrong place—then she remembered. With a rush it all came over her, and she buried her face in the pillow.
Perhaps Higgins noticed the tear stains when she came in with the morning tea, for she announced with much emphasis that it looked to her like being a good day. “October’s been very fine,” she said, “and even in November I’ve seen some lovely days; and then December brings Christmas and that’s heartening. It’s wonderful the helps we get in this world—and we need ’em all, I’m sure. It’s eight o’clock, Miss. Breakfast’s at 8.30 for the Master, but the ladies don’t come down. You will have a tray up here, won’t you, Miss?”
“Oh, no, thank you,” said Beatrice. “I’ll have my bath now, if I may, and go down to breakfast. I’ve had such a good night. I think your tea was a sedative. How is Impudence this morning?”
Higgins paused, with the towel she was holding in her hand, and shook her head. “Well, if you’ll excuse the expression, he’s a regular child of Satan. He’s got at cook’s knitting and pulled it all down and dirtied it something horrid, and he went straight from the coal-cellar and walked on the clean breakfast cloth! Payne—the butler, Miss—he was in a way! Oh, he’s not popular downstairs this morning, is pussy. And he looks up into your face so innocent-like. . . . I’ll get your bath ready, Miss.”
“Cold, please, Higgins. I always have a cold bath in the morning.”
“Oh, but, Miss, should you? Not dead cold. Why, it’s enough to make your ’eart fail. I suppose it’s just as one’s accustomed, but the very thought makes me shudder—with a touch of frost in the air too!”
Whether it was the cold bath or the good night’s rest, certainly Beatrice looked a picture of freshness when she greeted her brother in the dining-room. That gentleman also wore a cheerful morning face and seemed well satisfied to begin another day. He was getting through a good breakfast, with The Times propped up before him.
“It is almost my only opportunity of seeing the papers,” he explained. “I’m hard at it all day—first in the office, and when Parliament’s sitting, at the House. Not that I’m complaining. My word, how I pity the retired men, lounging all day in their clubs. I enjoy every minute of my life, as much now at fifty-five as I did when I was