Captain Jim Part 11

Moroney's letter was hailed with acclamation. "Two maids she can recommend, bless her heart!" said Mr. Linton. "She doesn't label their particular activities, but says they'll be willing to do anything at all."

"That's the kind I like," said Norah thankfully.

"And their names are Bride Kelly and Katty O'Gorman; doesn't that bring Killard and brown bogs back to you? And--oh, by Jove!"

"What is it?" demanded his family, in unison.

"This is what it is. 'I don't know would your honour remember Con Hegarty, that was shofer to Sir John at Rathcullen, and a decent boy with one leg and he after coming back from the war. He have no job since Sir John died, and he bid me tell you he'd be proud to drive a car for you, and to be with ye all. And if he have only one leg itself he's as handy as any one with two or more. Sir John had him with him at Homewood, and he knows the car that's there, and 'tis the way if you had a job for him he could take the two girls over when he went, and he used to travelling the world.' That's all, I think," Mr.

Linton ended.

"What luck!" Jim e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "We couldn't have a better chauffeur."

"I wonder we never thought of Con," said his father. "A nice boy; I'd like to have him."

"So would I," added Norah. "When will you get them, Dad?"

"I'll write at once and send a cheque for their fares," said her father. "I'll tell them to send me a telegram when they start." He rose to leave the room. "What are you going to do this morning, children?"

"We're all turning out the cottage," Norah answered promptly. "I haven't told Sarah; she disapproves of me so painfully if I do any work, and hurts my feelings by always doing it over again, if possible. At the same time, she looks so unhappy about working at all, and sighs so often, that I don't feel equal to telling her that the cottage has to be done. So Jim and Wally have n.o.bly volunteered to help me."

"Don't knock yourself up," said her father. "Will you want me?"

"No--unless you like to come as a guest and sit still and do nothing.

My two housemaids and I can easily finish off that little job.

There's not really a great deal to do," Norah added; "the place is very clean. Only one likes to have everything extra nice when Tired People come."

"Well, I'm not coming to sit still and do nothing," said her father firmly, "so I'll stay at home and write letters." He watched them from the terrace a little later, racing across the lawn, and smiled a little. It was so unlikely that this long-legged family of his would ever really grow up.

The house was very quiet that morning. Mrs. Atkins and Miss de Lisle having quarrelled over the question of dinner, had retreated, the one to the housekeeper's room, the other to the kitchen. Sarah went about her duties sourly. Allenby was Sarah's uncle, and, as such, felt some duty to her, which he considered he had discharged in getting her a good place; beyond that, Sarah frankly bored him, and he saw no reason to let her regard him as anything else than a butler. "Bad for discipline, too!" he reflected. Therefore Allenby was lonely. He read the _Daily Mail_ in the seclusion of his pantry, and then, strolling through the hall, with a watchful eye alert lest a speck of dust should have escaped Sarah, he saw his master cross the garden and strike across the park in the direction of Hawkins' farm. Every one else was out, Allenby knew not where. An impulse for fresh air fell upon him, and he sauntered towards the shrubbery.

Voices and laughter came to him from the cottage. He pushed through the shrubs and found himself near a window; and, peeping through, received a severe shock to his well-trained nerves. Norah, enveloped in a huge ap.r.o.n, was energetically polishing the kitchen tins; the boys, in their shirt-sleeves, were equally busy, Wally scrubbing the sink with Monkey soap, and Jim blackleading the stove. It was very clear that work was no new thing to any of the trio. Allenby gasped with horror.

"Officers, too!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "What's the world coming to, I wonder!" He hesitated a moment, and then walked round to the back door.

"May I come in, please, miss?"

"Oh, come in, Allenby," Norah said, a little confused. "We're busy, you see. Did you want anything?"

"No, miss, thank you. But really, miss--I could 'ave got a woman from the village for you, to do all this. Or Sarah."

"Sarah has quite enough to do," said Norah.

"Indeed, Sarah's not killed with work," said that damsel's uncle. "I don't like to see you soilin' your 'ands, miss. Nor the gentlemen."

"The gentlemen are all right," said Wally cheerfully. "Look at this sink, now, Allenby; did you ever see anything better?"

"It's--it's not right," murmured Allenby unhappily. He threw off his black coat suddenly, and advanced upon Jim. "If you please, sir, I'll finish that stove."

"That you won't," said Jim. "Thanks all the same, Allenby, but I'm getting used to it now." He laughed. "Besides, don't you forget that you're a butler?"

"I can't forget that you're an officer, sir," said Allenby, wretchedly. "It's not right: think of the regiment. And Miss Norah.

Won't you let me 'elp sir?"

"You can clean the paint, Allenby," said Norah, taking pity on his distressed face. "But there's really no need to keep you."

"If you'd only not mind telling any of them at the 'ouse what I was doing," said the butler anxiously. "It 'ud undermine me position.

There's that Miss de Lisle, now--she looks down on everybody enough without knowin' I was doin' any job like this."

"She shall never know," said Jim tragically, waving a blacklead brush.

"Now I'm off to do the dining-room grate. If you're deadly anxious to work, Allenby, you could wash this floor--couldn't he, Norah?"

"Thanks very much, sir," said Allenby gratefully, "I'll leave this place all right--just shut the door, sir, and don't you bother about it any more."

"However did you dare, Jim?" breathed Norah, as the cleaning party moved towards the dining-room. "Do you think a butler ever washed a floor before?"

"Can't say," said Jim easily. "I'm regarding him more as a sergeant than a butler, for the moment--not that I can remember seeing a sergeant wash a floor, either. But he seemed anxious to help, so why not let him? It won't hurt him; he's getting disgracefully fat. And there's plenty to do."

"Heaps," said Wally cheerily. "Where's that floor-polish, Nor? These boards want a rub. What are you going to do?"

"Polish bra.s.s," said Norah, beginning on a window-catch. "When I grow up I think I'll be an architect, and then I'll make the sort of house that women will care to live in."

"What sort's that?" asked Jim.

"I don't know what the outside will be like. But it won't have any bra.s.s to keep clean, or any skirting-boards with pretty tops to catch dust, or any corners in the rooms. Brownie and I used to talk about it. All the cupboards will be built in, so's no dust can get under them, and the windows will have some patent dodge to open inwards when they want cleaning. And there'll be built-in washstands in every room, with taps and plugs----"

"Bra.s.s taps?" queried Wally.

"Certainly not."

"What then?"

"Oh--something. Something that doesn't need to be kept pretty. And then there will be heaps of cupboard-room and heaps of shelf-room--only all the shelves will be narrow, so that nothing can be put behind anything else."

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Jim.

"She means dead mice--you know they get behind bottles of jam," said Wally kindly. "Go on, Nor, you talk like a book."

"Well, dead mice are as good as anything," said Norah lucidly. "There won't be any room for their corpses on _my_ shelves. And I'll have some arrangement for supplying hot water through the house that doesn't depend on keeping a huge kitchen fire alight."

"That's a good notion," said Jim, sitting back on his heels, blacklead brush in hand. "I think I'll go architecting with you, Nor. We'll go in for all sorts of electric dodges; plugs in all the rooms to fix to vacuum cleaners you can work with one hand--most of 'em want two men and a boy; and electric washing-machines, and cookers, and fans and all kinds of things. And everybody will be using them, so electricity will have to be cheap."

"I really couldn't help listening to you," said a deep voice in the doorway.

Every one jumped. It was Miss de Lisle, in her skimpy red overall--rather more flushed than usual, and a little embarra.s.sed.

"I hope you don't mind," she said. "I heard voices--and I didn't think any one lived here. I knocked, but you were all so busy you didn't hear me."