So: “Granny’s Cousin Charlotte!” she said now, with more excitement than dismay in her voice.
“What’ll we do with her, then, Miss Kate? Mrs. Lockhart could niver bear the sight of her.”
The unholy joy in Florence’s eye, her appreciation of this last-minute situation and the difficulties it involved roused Kate.
“Whatever happens, I won’t have Mrs. Barlas disturbed and worried. Mrs. Lockhart can deal with Miss Napier herself when she comes. Oh, and, Florence,” she added with a horrified glance at the wild figure facing her with arms akimbo, tousled grey hair, wrinkled stockings, and an apron held together by a lavish display of large black safety pins. “Did you have to send Nina out at this inconvenient time? And couldn’t you have sent Phemie to answer the bell?”
“Is it that young gerril? And isn’t she scared out of her wits this moment with the terror that was on her lest she’d have to go to the door? And for Nina, there’s a kindly soul for ye, now, Miss Kate! She’d be after knowing that I had the soles fair worn off me feet with the goin’ and comin’, and says she, ‘I’ll away out and seek the cream for ye.’ And the mistress not bein’ expected till later,” Florence explained with a glibness that left Kate quite dazed, “I saw no harrum in goin’ my own self, though not engaged to answer the front door. But I was never one to be disobligin’, Miss Kate.”
“I see,” said Kate. It was quite hopeless to remonstrate. Granny had been trying without success for twenty-five years to break Florence of her habit of answering the front door bell, and had given it up as a bad job long ago. The alternative of parting with her cook had never even occurred to Mis. Barlas. Florence was faithful and willing, and though she was heavy-footed, her hand with pastry was light as a fairy’s. Now she stood awaiting orders, pleased and thrilled, like a dog who has just brought back a thrown ball and is ready to rush after it again. Kate wondered whether Lucy would be so tolerant of her faults, and rather feared not. It was so entirely incorrect for the cook to open the door to visitors, especially when the cook happened to look like Florence.
“That’s all, Florence,” she said. “Tell Phemie that the yellow room will probably be required to-night. It’s all ready except for putting a hot bottle in the bed. And, of course, there will be one extra for dinner. . . . What’s that queer noise?”
A dull thumping sound which she had heard for some moments without really noticing it had suddenly become loud enough to impress itself on her consciousness. It seemed to come from downstairs.
“That? It’ll be the old one in the parlour, it’s likely,” said Florence equably. “Didn’t I lock her in nice and safe the way she wouldn’t be troubling Mrs. Barlas? Thinks I, it’ll take a key to keep that one within in it, and I’ll just be making sure she’ll stop where she’s put.”
“Good heavens, Florence! Do you mean to say you locked Miss Napier in? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” cried Kate, making for the wide stair. “Granny will be furious, and so will she. And as for what Mrs. Lockhart will say, I don’t like to think—” To herself she added: ‘There’s a sort of curse on this house. Everyone is seized with a mania for locking other people into rooms—or cupboards!’
Florence’s reassuring answer, hissed in a loud conspiratorial whisper over the banisters: “Ah, sure now, Miss Kate, the old one in there’ll be thinking the door’s stuck someway, and as for the mistress, praise be she’ll never hear of it till she’s had her rest,” fell on deaf ears.
From behind the parlour door came the determined thumps and bangs which sooner or later could not fail to waken Mrs. Barlas, if they had not already done so. Kate, flying across the stone-floored, sunny hall, called: “I’m so sorry! I’ll open the door for you at once!”
This promise, however, proved impossible to fulfil, for the simple reason that the key was not in the lock. “That idiot Florence!” muttered Kate savagely. “Fire from heaven ought to fall on her for this!”
“Who’s there? Will you open this door immediately?” said a harsh voice, old and cracked, but full of vitality. “Is the house full of lunatics besides the one who showed me in here? Either let me out or come in yourself.”
“I’m afraid the door has stuck, Cousin Charlotte,” said Kate, feeling that it would be far from politic to confess that it was locked. “Would you mind waiting just a minute? It’s the—the damp, you know,” she added, improvising wildly.
There was a snort from within. “Damp? Huh! Driest summer we’ve had for thirty-six years.”
Kate turned upon Florence, who had followed her downstairs and now stood breathing heavily behind her. “Give me that key, quickly!”
“The key, is it, Miss Kate? Glory be to God, is it not in the door, then?” Florence fumbled uselessly in the sagging pockets of her apron. “Now where would I have been after mislaying it?”
“Heaven knows,” said Kate bitterly. “But you’d better find it before Granny comes down.”
“What’s all that mumbling and clucking out there?” came Cousin Charlotte’s voice from the parlour. “Are you or are you not going to open this door?”
“I’ll come round to the window and explain,” said Kate in despair. “Find that key!” she threw over her shoulder at the now thoroughly dismayed Florence, and ran out to stand among the antirrhinums under the parlour window.
It was more than a pity, she thought now, that her great-grandfather, who had admired the picturesque, should have had this window divided into three small casements, none of which, even when opened to its largest extent, could let any person larger than a child climb through. The furious old lady who thrust her nutcracker face out so close to Kate’s anxious countenance that she staggered back a pace was very small indeed, though her voluminous garments swelled her to at least double her normal size; but somehow Kate did not see herself inviting Miss Charlotte Napier to struggle out by the window.
“Now what does all this mean? And who are you? You can’t be one of Andrew Lockhart’s children. Not young enough. What is this piece of tomfoolery? A practical joke? If so, you have played it on the wrong person, let me tell you,” said Miss Napier with appalling ferocity.
“Indeed it isn’t a joke, and please would you not make quite such a noise?” said Kate. “Granny’s resting and I don’t want her to be disturbed.”
“Granny? Hah, you mean Robina, I suppose. Then you must be one of Eleanor’s children. She married that man Heron—nothing that his family would do could surprise me. And don’t try to dictate to me, young woman. I shall make as much noise as I choose.” And she thumped on the door with the umbrella which she still clutched like a rapier in one bony hand.
Kate, with a courage which afterwards, when she had time to think of it, amazed her, glared angrily back at Granny’s Cousin Charlotte. “You will do nothing of the kind,” she said firmly. “I will not have Granny wakened. She’s tired. I’m exceedingly sorry that you can’t get out just now, but it won’t do you or anyone else any good to be noisy about it. Can’t you be bad-tempered quietly?”
“I could, no doubt, but it gives me very little satisfaction. Nobody knows when you are in a rage unless you let ’em hear it,” was the surprising answer. More surprisingly still, Miss Napier’s grim visage creased into an unwilling smile. “Now I am certain that you are a Heron,” she said. “No one else would have dared to stand up to me. Perhaps, though, you will be good enough to answer a few inquiries. What is your name?”
“Kate,” said Kate, repressing a desire to answer, ‘N or M.’ “It’s Katharine, really, but I’m always called Kate.”
“Good sensible name. I dislike those fancy ones. Now tell me where Lucy Lockhart is, and why Robina and you are here?”
“Lucy is coming some time this afternoon. I do hope,” added Kate, forgetting to whom she was speaking, “that she won’t arrive until after we’ve got you out! And Granny and I came to get the house ready for her—take the cold air off, you know.”
“She should have done it herself. No sense in shirking un
pleasantness,” said Cousin Charlotte. “Yes, I can quite believe that you are anxious to have me out before she comes. Not only out of the parlour, but out of the house. Eh?” with a glance of piercing directness.
“Not—not exactly,” stammered Kate. “But, you see, she isn’t expecting you—or anyone. Even Andrew won’t be here till next week.”
“I prefer you when you are speaking the truth. You know very well by hearsay that Lucy and I are like cat and dog. But I made up my mind to come and see how things were going, and here I am. She’s having a family party, isn’t she, to celebrate the joyful reunion?” Cousin Charlotte spoke with a sneer horrible to witness.
“Yes,” said Kate. “At least, my people are coming, and Granny will be here, of course.”
“Very poor taste, but Lucy never did know how to carry things off, I remember,” pronounced Cousin Charlotte. “Well, I have no intention of leaving before I have seen this family gathering. But I will at least spare your anxiety so far. I will refrain from asking why the parlour door will not open, and if you will fetch me a chair, I shall try to get out by the window. Quietly, of course. We must not disturb Robina.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” began Kate. “The window is so small—”
“My good girl, I may be old, but I am not decrepit,” said Cousin Charlotte tartly. “Do what you are told, and don’t argue. It is a most deplorable habit, in any person under forty-five.”
Kate went into the house and fetched a chair from the hall, without further protest. She was not looking forward with any enthusiasm to helping Cousin Charlotte to escape by the window, but there seemed nothing else to do.
“If you would give me your umbrella and handbag, Cousin Charlotte, and take off your cape,” she suggested, “it would be so much easier for you.”
“I shall get out as I am, or not at all,” was the reply, and one narrow foot in a black elastic-sided boot was placed firmly on the window-ledge.
‘It will be not at all, I should think,’ Kate said to herself, as, dodging the umbrella, which was waving perilously near her eye, she seized Cousin Charlotte’s heavily caped form and pulled.
Lucy Lockhart, driving her own small car up the avenue, found her feelings of faint melancholy changing to acute irritation as she saw Kate trampling on the flowering antirrhinums, and trying to drag what looked like a large black bundle out of the sitting-room window. Not for the first time she reflected with disfavour on the oddness of her husband’s relations. The Hallidays—she had been a Halliday—had never done the queer things which seemed to come naturally to these others. She drew the car up capably beside the front door and got out, only to be further offended by the sight of Florence surging through the hall towards her, and looking as if she had robbed a scarecrow. In the background hovered a young housemaid with goggling eyes and one large red hand clapped over her mouth as she rocked with soundless merriment.
“Holy-Mary-Mother-of-God, ’tis herself!” ejaculated Florence in horror, recognizing the disapproving figure on the gravel. “And the old mistress not out of her bed yet. Run, Phemie, an’ let a cry on her that the mistress is here!”
Lucy, ignoring Florence altogether, said to Kate: “I suppose you know that you’ve ruined the antirrhinums? And what are you doing with that bundle of old clothes?”
In justice to Lucy, it must be admitted that Miss Napier, whose cape had fallen over her head, temporarily extinguishing her, did look like a bundle of old clothes.
“Oh, it’s you, Lucy,” panted Kate. “You’re early, aren’t you? This is Cousin Charlotte. She’s stuck, and I wish you’d help me to get her out.”
“Cousin Charlotte! Miss Napier!” Lucy fell back, almost colliding with Florence, who had stolen up behind her to see the fun. “What is she doing here?”
“If you would have the goodness to help me out, I will then talk to you, Lucy,” snapped Cousin Charlotte, freeing herself from the cape with a violent struggle, and darting a fiery glance at her hostess. “But it is just like you to bother about inessential details at the wrong moment. You’ve done it all your life, and I suppose you will be doing it on your death-bed. Pull me out, I say!”
Before the petrified Lucy or the exhausted Kate could obey, the stout figure of Phemie mysteriously appeared in the parlour. Kate saw her without astonishment. So much had happened that it seemed perfectly possible that Phemie had got into the room by the keyhole. With one vigorous shove from behind, the housemaid propelled Cousin Charlotte forward into the arms of Kate and Florence, who, to the final destruction of the flower-bed, had plunged to the rescue in the nick of time.
“There, now. Sure ye’re grand now!” she said proudly as she righted the old lady with a deft twist which reminded Kate of pancake tossing, and set her on her feet on the gravel.
“And now perhaps someone will explain what all this is about?” Lucy asked patiently. Florence, muttering something about tea and the kettle, discreetly withdrew, and Phemie had already vanished from the parlour window.
Kate shook her head in a feeble manner. “Don’t ask me to begin. It’s all so muddled—”
“Not at all. Perfectly simple”—this was Cousin Charlotte, of course. “Some fool locked me into the parlour and presumably lost the key, and as I was tired of being in there, I decided to get out by the window.”
Kate really felt sorry for Lucy, but wished ardently that she would laugh, which was what she longed to do herself, but dared not alone.
“I see.” Lucy’s tone and expression said clearly that she considered this a joke in exceedingly bad taste. “Don’t you think it a little odd that the sitting-room door should be wide open now?”
“I am talking about the parlour,” said Cousin Charlotte.
“And I call it the sitting-room, Cousin Charlotte. It was very good of you to call, though a little unexpected. Are you staying in the neighbourhood?”
Kate stole away, feeling too dazed to enjoy this meeting of Greeks. She heard Cousin Charlotte’s incisive reply: “I am proposing to stay here, Lucy, if you have no objection. I understand there is to be a house-party of his relations to welcome Andrew home, and as he has always been a favourite of mine, I decided to join you.”
There was a sting in the tail of that, thought Kate, as she went thankfully into the cool hall, a gentle reminder that Andrew or his children might be Cousin Charlotte’s heirs. “Lucy will ask her to stay, loathing the necessity, and probably thinking that if I’d been really clever I could have got rid of her.”
Phemie was coming heavily downstairs, and on seeing Kate instantly burst into wild giggles, and then stuffed what looked like half of her apron into her mouth to stifle them.
“What’s the matter, Phemie?” asked Kate.
Phemie removed the apron just in time, from her appearance, to prevent suffocation, and gasped: “Eh, it wis the auld leddy, an’ the key! I’ve lauched till I wis fit tae burrst wi’ it!”
“Well?” said Kate, whose patience had been worn threadbare, and whose tone of disapproval sounded quite like Lucy’s.
“Well, Florence gied me a key tae unlock the dairy, an’ it wadna fit, an’ syne I cam’ an’ pit it tae the parlour door, an’ megsty! if it wasna the parlour key a’ the time! An’ the auld leddy sclimmin’ oot by the windy!”
“Really, Phemie, I never heard anything so stupid,” exclaimed Kate angrily. “I think you must all be out of your senses this afternoon.”
“Eh, but ye havena heard the best o’t yet!” cried Phemie, swelling with triumph. “D’ye ken whit it wis I was tae fetch frae the dairy? The cream, nae less. An’ there’s Nina awa’ tae the ferm seekin’ it. She’ll be black angered, I doot, gin she wins back wi’oot it. A’ that walk for naethin’!”
“I hope,” said Kate sincerely, “that she will do something dreadful to you and Florence.”
But Phemie only giggled again, and retired to the kitchen to report to Florence that “the leddies wis a’ ragin’ thegither fit tae be tied, except Mistress Barlas. She juist sai
d never tae heed, an’ it didna maitter ava’.”
To Lucy’s obvious regret, Kate’s astonishment, and Cousin Charlotte’s grim amusement, this was Granny’s view. Fortified by tea, Kate told the whole story, sparing Florence as much as she could, though Lucy’s impatient “Tchah!” did not sound too promising.
Mrs. Barlas sipped her tea and smiled placidly. “What a pity Andrew wasn’t here,” she said, beaming at them. “Dear Andrew, he would have enjoyed it so much!”
3
When Lucy said after dinner, “Then I shall expect you here after breakfast, Kate, and we can go through those lists together,” even the most limited intelligence would have understood that Kate was intended to return to The Anchorage to sleep; and though Granny was inclined to be indignant, Kate left with a sense of escape, was received by Mrs. Anstruther with pleasure, given elderberry wine and sponge-cake, and described in detail the harrowing circumstances of Lucy’s homecoming. “And I hope,” she concluded, “that there won’t be any more adventures for a long, long time. I’ve had my fill of them lately.”
“Now that Lucy is here, things will be very cut and dried,” said Mrs. Anstruther.
“I really hope so,” Kate answered, fervently. “Nothing would please me better.”
She awoke in the same frame of mind, and walking down the road towards Soonhope, saw a familiar figure approaching, whose every angle spoke of a horror of adventure in any form. Perversely enough, Kate groaned aloud.
Yoked with a Lamb Page 10
