Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England The Lady of the Basement Flat, by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey. ________________________________________________________________________ The scene opens with the marriage of one of a pair of sisters, and her departure for North America. The other sister is left feeling very much at a loss, but she hits on the idea of renting a small London flat in a poor area, making herself look like a very elderly woman, and finding acts of kindness to do for her neighbours. She takes the name of Miss Harding. However the married sister's marriage founders, and she comes back to England. Both the sisters rent a nice place in the country and spend a lot of effort in decorating it. So Miss Harding has occasional spells of living as her original young self with her sister, before returning to her basement flat. As usual with this author, with her fascination with illness, a child of one of the neighbours, Billie, becomes very ill and needs roound-the-clock nursing. Miss Harding plays a big part in this. But one day a chance remark by another of the tenants in the block of flats makes it clear that the reason why the married sister's marriage had foundered was no more than a misunderstanding. So Miss Harding is able to fix her sister's problems, and Miss Harding herself finds a husband, in her true and original identity, and so ends her parallel existence as Miss Harding. ________________________________________________________________________ THE LADY OF THE BASEMENT FLAT, BY MRS GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY. CHAPTER ONE. WHY NOT? At three o'clock this afternoon Evelyn Wastneys died. I am Evelyn Wastneys, and I died, standing at the door of an old country home in Ireland, with my hands full of ridiculous little silver shoes and horseshoes, and a Paris hat on my head, and a trembling treble voice whispering in my ear:-- "Good-bye, Evelyn darling--darling! Thank you--thank you for all you have been to me! Oh, Evelyn, _promise_ you will not be unhappy!" Then some mysterious hidden muscle, whose existence I had never before suspected, pulled two little strings at the corners of my mouth, and my lips smiled--a marionette smile--and a marionette voice cried jauntily:-- "Unhappy? Never! Why, I am free! I am going to begin to live." Then I watched a tall bridegroom in tweeds tenderly help a little bride in mole-coloured taffeta and sable furs into the waiting car, the horn blew, the engines whirled, a big hand and a little one flourished handkerchiefs out of the window, a white satin shoe danced ridiculously after the wheels, and Aunt Emmeline cried sensibly:-- "That's over, thank goodness! The wind _is_ sharp! Let's have tea!"