'You can do that some other time. Don't be so restless.'
'But I--I _want_ a handkerchief this minute,' said Lucy.
'Nonsense; here, have mine,' said Wemyss; and anyhow it was too late to
escape, for there in the door stood Chesterton.
She was the parlourmaid. Her name has not till now been mentioned. It
was Chesterton.
'Why is tea in the library?' Wemyss asked.
'I understood, sir, tea was always to be in the library,' said
Chesterton.
'That was while I was by myself. I suppose it wouldn't have occurred to
you to inquire whether I still wished it there now that I am not by
myself.'
This floored Chesterton. Her ignorance of the right answer was complete.
She therefore said nothing, and merely stood.
But he didn't let her off. 'Would it?' he asked suddenly.
'No sir,' she said, dimly feeling that 'Yes sir' would land her in
difficulties.
'No. Quite so. It wouldn't. Well, you will now go and fetch that tea and
bring it up here. Stop a minute, stop a minute--don't be in such a
hurry, please. How long has it been made?'
'Since half-past four, sir.'
'Then you will make fresh tea, and you will make fresh toast, and you
will cut fresh bread and butter.'
'Yes sir.'
'And another time you will have the goodness to ascertain my wishes
before taking upon yourself to put the tea into any room you choose to
think fit.'
'Yes sir.'
She waited.
He waved.
She went.
'That'll teach her,' said Wemyss, looking refreshed by the encounter.
'If she thinks she's going to get out of bringing tea up here by putting
it ready somewhere else she'll find she's mistaken. Aren't they a set?
_Aren't_ they a set, little Love?'
'I--don't know,' said Lucy nervously.
'You don't know!'
'I mean, I don't know them yet. How can I know them when I've only just
come?'
'You soon will, then. A lazier set of careless, lying----'
'Do tell me what that picture is, Everard,' she interrupted, quickly
crossing the room and standing in front of it. 'I've been wondering and
wondering.'
'You can see what it is. It's a picture.'
'Yes. But where's the place?'
'I've no idea. It's one of Vera's. She didn't condescend to explain it.'
'You mean she painted it?'
'I daresay. She was always painting.'
Wemyss, who had been filling his pipe, lit it and stood smoking in front
of the fire, occasionally looking at his watch, while Lucy stared at the
picture. Lovely, lovely to run through that door out into the open, into
the warmth and sunshine, further and further away....
It was the only picture in the room; indeed, the room was oddly bare,--a
thin room, with no carpet on its slippery floor, only some infrequent
rugs, and no curtains. But there had been curtains, for there were the
rods with rings on them, so that somebody must have taken Vera's
curtains away. Lucy had been strangely perturbed when she noticed this.
It was Vera's room. Her curtains oughtn't to have been touched.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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