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Lady of the Basement Flat

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<h3>Chapter Seven.</h3> <h4>Hostilities?</h4> Our removal into Pastimes—like every other removal since the time when man began to live beneath a roof—took far longer than we expected. I went back to Ireland to gather my possessions, and say good-bye, and Charmion stayed in London to hurry up tradesmen, and make uninteresting purchases of pots and pans, and dusters and door scrapers, and the other needfuls which every house must have, but which are so dull to buy. When I joined her in the hotel, I found her in a state of haughty displeasure over the extraordinary delay which was attending the work at Pastimes itself. In another person this state of mind would have found vent in “fuming,” but Charmion never fumed. She folded her hands, and drooped her white lids, and drawled in a tone of incredulous disgust:— “I can’t understand it. I told them to be quick. I expressly stipulated that they were not to potter.” “Apparently they are not even ‘pottering’! They have not begun at all!” I said grimly, as I ran my eye down the letter just received from the “man in charge”. It was the ordinary, ultra-polite, ultra-servile production of the tradesman who has not kept his word. “Dear Madam,—Owing to a press of other work, I regret that I have not been able to commence—” “Commence! Odious word. It is adding insult to injury to use it. And what can he mean? He seemed so keen about the order. Said he was so slack that he would be able to put on all his hands!” “I shall write and tell him to do so at once,” said Charmion magnificently, and I held my peace and let her do it, knowing that it would be no use to object, and hoping that at least her letter might succeed in extracting some more definite information. It did! This was it:— “Madam,—I beg to inform you that Mr Maplestone having rented the house known as ‘Uplands,’ on behalf of General Underwood, and placed urgent orders with us for its re-decoration, we are regretfully compelled to delay operations at Pastimes for some weeks. We are making all possible speed with the present contract, and beg to assure you that your work shall then be finished with all despatch. “We have the honour to remain, etcetera.” Charmion and I looked at one another, and looked, and looked, and looked. We were both thinking hard—thinking backward, thinking ahead. Exactly what we thought neither of us put into words; we just sat silently and stared, until presently Charmion rose, marched over to her writing-table, and scribbled a few words on a telegram form. Then she held it out for me to read:— “Order for decorations at Pastimes cancelled herewith.” “Do you approve?” “Er—oh, yes, of course—I suppose so. But how shall we—” “That’s easily arranged. Any town firm will be glad of the order. It will be more expensive, but will probably be better done. In any case we have no choice.” “It’s such a tiny village. Where could the men sleep?” “I haven’t the slightest idea. That is their business, not mine. We shan’t have any difficulty about that,” Charmion declared, and she was right, for the West End firm who received our instructions waved aside the question with smiling assurance. They were accustomed to sending workmen all over the country. To the loneliest places. All could be easily arranged. We were left with the impression that if it had been our pleasure to pitch our tent in the Sahara, the frock-coated manager would have executed our wishes with equal ease. So far, so good; but as we left the shop Charmion turned to me, and said darkly:— “I think, under the circumstances, it might be wise to change our minds about employing country maids, and to engage London ones instead.” “You are afraid—” “I am afraid of nothing, but I think it probable that the local girls who wrote to us about situations may now be ‘urgently’ bespoken for service at Uplands.” “Well, he will need servants,” I said feebly, and fell to thinking of Uplands itself, and of how unfortunate it seemed that General Underwood should be settling so near ourselves. We had noticed the house, indeed, we could not fail to do so, as it lay a quarter of a mile along the high road from Pastimes, on the direct route from Escott, which was Mr Maplestone’s village. It was a handsome-looking house, but painfully prosaic, built of grey stone, unsoftened by creepers, and showing a row of windows flat and narrow, and extraordinarily high. One could just imagine the rooms, like so many boxes, and the hall flag-tiled, and the house full of draughts, for the windows of the principal living-rooms faced perversely towards the north. I hoped the poor General would instal a heating system and a generous supply of rugs; but what chiefly concerned me at the moment was the thought that every time—every single time—that cross, red-headed man came over to visit his relative, he must pass our door! My imagination immediately conjured up half a dozen irritating encounters. Evelyn returning home on a wet day, bedraggled, not at her best, toiling along the wet lane, and being splashed with mud by the wheels of a giant car, from the cushioned seat of which the Squire and his wife regarded her with lofty disdain. There was a Mrs Maplestone, and I had drawn a mental picture of her, which I felt sure was true to life. Small, meek, rather pretty, with big brown eyes which held a chronic expression of being rather frightened by what had just gone before, and exceedingly anxious as to what should come next. She would probably wear handsome furs, and a hat three seasons old. Encounter number two represented Evelyn in her best hat and coat, feeling rather spry and pleased with herself, until presently, clinketty clank, round the bend of the road came the quick, staccato beat of horses’ hoofs. Mr and Mrs Maplestone cantering past in hunting kit, which at one glimpse killed complacency and substituted disgust for the poor fripperies of town. Encounter number three was most obnoxious of all. It represented Evelyn solus encountering Mr Maplestone solus and on foot. Approaching him on the unsheltered road, torn by the problem, “Will he bow? Shall I bow? Will he pretend? Shall I pretend?” moving nearer and nearer, and in a final moment of discomfort meeting the stare of blank, angry eyes. Poor man! It must be exhausting to have such a violent temper. I wondered what he looked like when by chance he was happy and pleased! The West End firm got through their work in record time, and at the end of three weeks Charmion and I took possession, and set to work at the task of putting our house in order. Every woman delights in this work in prospect; in reality, every one comes full tilt against a score of irritating, aggravating contretemps which baulk her carefully-laid schemes. Our contretemps appeared in a very usual form. The cook and gardener, who had been definitely engaged to meet us on our arrival, and whom we had, therefore, not replaced in town, sent missives instead, to “hope they didn’t inconvenience, but they had changed their minds”. The two town servants who had arrived were immediately plunged into woe, and, looking into their set, dour faces, one could hear the inward thought, “Don’t believe anyone ever was engaged! Just one of their tricks to get us down here to do the work alone.” We left them sitting like monuments of woe in the kitchen, and shut ourselves up in the drawing-room to consult. “Uplands, I conclude,” said Charmion coldly. “Oh, no! I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t condescend to that!” “Why not? He stopped the work in the house.” “That was different! After all, he is the Squire, and when it was a case of inconveniencing him, or a stranger—a local tradesman could hardly be expected to put us first. At least, you can understand his position.” “Does the same argument apply to local domestics?” “It might do; but I don’t believe it was used. To give a tradesman an order for now or never, and to—to stoop to bribe a servant to break an engagement—surely they are two different things! I do not believe Mr Maplestone would do it!” “Well!—we shall see. In the meantime, what about dinner?” I went back to the kitchen and talked to the Londoners, smiling radiantly the while. I said it was upsetting, but we must expect upsets. No one ever settled into a new house without one. I said there would be no difficulty in getting another cook—we would telegraph for one to-morrow; in the meantime we would just picnic, and do the best we could. I looked from one sulky face to another, and asked confidently:— “Now, which of you is the better cook?” The parlour-maid said she was a parlour-maid. She had never been asked to cook. She could make tea. I said, “Thank you!” and turned to the housemaid. The housemaid said she was a housemaid, and didn’t understand stoves. She had always lived where kitchen-maids were kept. I said calmly, “Oh, well, it’s fortunate that I am a woman, and can cook for the lot of you until help comes. Perhaps you will kindly bring tea into the hall, and then get your own as quickly as possible. I shall require the kitchen by six o’clock.” They were horribly discomposed, and I left them murmuring vaguely in protest, very pleased with myself and my fine womanly attitude, though at the bottom of my heart I knew quite well that Bridget would come to the rescue, and never a saucepan should I be allowed to touch. As a matter of fact the good soul descended on the slackers like a whirlwind, and the while she drove them before her, treated them to an eloquent lecture upon the future sufferings, privations, rebellions, and retaliations of the prospective husbands of females who had grown to woman’s estate, and yet could not cook a meal. Through the green baize door I could hear the continuous torrent of invective, broken at first by protest, later on by soft exclamations of surprise, and finally—oh, the relief of that moment!—by an uncontrollable explosion of laughter. The Cockney mind is keenly alive to humour, and when a racy Irishwoman gets fairly started on a favourite subject, the delicious contradictions of her denunciations are hard to beat! That laughter saved the situation, and the domestic wheels began to move. Charmion wrote to an emergency lady in town. I didn’t see the letter, but I diagnosed its tone. Peremptory and—lavish! Wages no object, but speed essential, or words to that effect. Anyway, in two days’ time a married couple arrived, were pleased to approve of us, and settled down with the air of coming to stay. She was an excellent cook, and he seemed a rather indifferent gardener, which just suited our views. If gardeners are experts they want their own way, insist on bedding-out, carpet-beds, and similar atrocities. We meant to run our garden on different lines! Hurrah! I am so relieved. The truants have not gone to Uplands. I met the cook in the village to-day, recognised her, and tackled her to her face. She flushed and wriggled, looked uncomfortable, but not as penitent as I should have liked to have seen. “Was it necessary to wait until we had actually arrived, before letting us know that you had changed your mind?” She stood on one foot, and drew circles on the road with the other. “Didn’t decide myself till just the last minute.” “You hadn’t taken another place then? I understood from your note—” “I’m staying on with my mother. I may go to a lady at Guildford.” Silence. One department of my brain felt an immense relief, the other an immense exasperation. “Then you were free all the time! Doesn’t it strike you as wrong and dishonourable to show such a want of concern for other people’s convenience?” She muttered. I caught the sound of a few words—“I’m not the Only One!” and put on my most dignified air. “However, it is all for the best. You certainly would not have suited us. I hope for your own sake you will learn to keep your word.” I walked on, nose in the air, aggressively complacent in appearance, but those words rankled! “Not the only one!” Now what did she mean by that? Obviously the insinuation was meant to go home, but how and where had we been to blame? Not in our treatment of the woman herself. We had offered good wages, and to pay for the time she had been kept waiting; yet something had happened which had made her willing to lose money and time, and that something was not another place! I felt puzzled, and, at the bottom of my heart, worried about it all! Later on I paid my first visit to the little draper’s shop, and ran the fire of a universal scrutiny from the staff. The “young ladies” knew who I was, and were devoured by curiosity, but it was not a friendly curiosity! Instead of the eager smiles which usually greet a new customer, there was a pursed-up gravity, a stolid attention to business, which was decidedly blighting. At home in Ireland every tradesman was more or less a friend, and what they did not know of Kathie’s affairs and mine was not worth hearing. “Pastimes, I believe!” said the sales-woman with the pasty face, when I directed the parcel to be sent home. Was it fancy which read a note of reproach in her intonation? Coming home, I met General Underwood in a bath-chair, being pushed along by a man in livery. He has white hair and a yellow face. He looks tired and ill, and lonely and sad. I’m sure he hates the bath-chair, and fights horribly with his doctor, who insists on fresh air. He rolled his tired eyes at me as I passed, and said something in a low voice to his attendant. I was misguided enough to turn my head, and behold! the Bath-chair was tilted round so that he might look after me. The man knew me by sight, and was laying bare the whole horrible truth. “That’s her, sir! The lady from Pastimes!” I felt ruffled, and went straight into my “sulky,” where I stayed till lunch-time. We had a delicious soufflé, and Charmion asked no questions, and went out of the way to be particularly sweet. I felt better every moment, and by the time coffee arrived had quite recovered my spirits. If the General had lived in Pastimes, he would have had to use the bath-chair just the same, and his hair would have been quite as white! Pastimes could not have made him young! Charmion is right. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I must learn to be more callous and matter-of-fact! <hr /></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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