I Walked in Arden Part 46

"A d.a.m.n fool," said Helen firmly.

"You shall pay dear for that, madam," I exclaimed, seizing her. It was several minutes later that we went back to our dining room for tea, our arms about one another like a Bank holiday couple at Hampstead Heath.

Chitty provided a tin of tea, black as Cimmerian darkness. The furniture had by now been removed from the pavement and piled in smaller individual pyramids in each room.

"It looks absolutely hopeless, Ted," said Helen, shuddering over a taste of Chitty's tea, as well she might. "Shall we ever get settled?"

"I am so comfortable," I replied, "that it is a matter of complete indifference to me. Let's live as we are."

At this moment a surprise arrived. The family, whether suspecting the result of our first day's housekeeping, or out of sheer good will, had sent us a large hamper of food from Fortnum and Mason's. There was a bottle of champagne to give the final glow. No need for Chitty to cook any more that day. We summoned him from his tea. I verily believe he had consumed two quarts of that brew of his--proof positive that the British army is made of stern stuff, "hearts of oak and tummies of copper,"

Helen ventured.

"Sailors, my dear--for hearts of oak--not soldiers," I corrected.

"I'm right about the tummies," Helen reb.u.t.ted stubbornly....

"Chitty," I commanded, "this room must be set right. The madam dines here tonight."

"Very good, sir." Chitty saluted, not a trace of a smile visible. In half an hour he had done wonders. Its normal appearance three quarters emerged from the confusion left behind by the van men.

We set the hamper in the centre of our gate-legged table, Helen's especial pride. Real ones were even then becoming hard to pick up. Helen lighted the candles herself, refusing to hear of gas or of a.s.sistance.

There followed a feast. Cold pheasant, boned turkey, _fonds d'artichaut_, bottled asparagus d'Argenteuil, cakes and wine jellies, with champagne to top it all off. We made our own coffee over a spirit lamp.

With the third gla.s.s of champagne I was all for bringing the younger Helen down from the nursery, as we called it, to respond to her health.

On this point her mother was immovable. The child's slumber was not disturbed.

"Madam"--I arose, addressing my wife--"once more permit me to point out to you that this is not at all like the first dinner we once planned."

"I think you have had enough champagne, Ted," was the woman's irrelevant response. "Let's give the last gla.s.s to Chitty."

"An excellent idea and a kindly thought, worthy of your woman's heart."

Once more Chitty was summoned. His eyes stared amazement when I poured him a gla.s.s of champagne.

"Thank you, sir. Thank you, madam," and he tossed it off with a neat jerk of his head. Meanwhile Helen made him up a heaping plate of food from the hamper.

"Thank you, madam."

He went out, carrying his ration carefully. We finished our coffee sitting on a rug before the fire, Helen tucked up comfortably against me.

We made heroic efforts all the week to get the house settled by Sunday.

Chitty came out by train each morning to perform prodigies of strength in placing furniture. Our eagerness to be ready by Sunday was owing to the fact that we had invited the family to spend the day with us. Helen was extremely nervous about the critical eye she knew my mother would cast over our housekeeping. Poor Helen had never kept house before, let alone in a land where many ways and customs were still strange to her.

We drew up the plan for dinner a dozen times, trying to include things that would please my mother's taste and rejecting everything we feared was doubtful.

We explored the shops in the village, choosing a butcher, a grocer, a greengrocer, and a fishmonger after minute investigation. There was also the question of the baby's milk. The milkman, who took Helen's searching inquiries rather light-heartedly, finally told her he would "earmark"

one special cow for her.

"What on earth did he mean by that, Ted?" she said, as we pursued our way up the High Street. "Will he brand the cow in the ear so he can tell her from the others?"

I leaned against a convenient lamp-post to laugh. Helen grew quite indignant.

"Ted, you are making an exhibition of yourself in the public street!"

"I'm sorry, dear," I apologized. "But you conjured up a vision in my mind of that good English yoeman swinging on to his broncho in the early dawn to ride forth and rope your cow, while the Mexican peons dash up with the branding irons--and all for a cow's ear."

"It may all be very funny," Helen snorted, "but I really think baby's milk is more important than your silly idea of humour."

It was not often that we failed to agree on a laugh.

"What _is_ the joke, Ted?"

"The milkman, my dear, has been reading the speeches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is quoting a favourite phrase--that a certain item of revenue has been earmarked for a particular purpose. Thus he thought it good to earmark his cows. It's awful, my dear, when a joke has to be explained."

"I don't think it was much of a joke, now you have explained it," said Helen.

"Probably not," I agreed. "But you put it to a very severe test. It would have to be a remarkable joke to survive an a.n.a.lytical lecture."

"You are as clumsy as an elephant this morning, Ted."

We left the joke at that.

By Sunday we had established some sort of order and routine in the house. Not all the curtains were up, an omission which gave Helen distress. Curtains up, it appeared, was one of the first tests of housekeeping ability. There was no rug for the dining room. Otherwise we felt we had done rather well, as we surveyed our preparations. From now on we should have to manage without Chitty, who was to return Monday to his work at the Willesden factory.

Taking stock of our situation, we agreed that the sitting room would pa.s.s inspection. There was not much furniture in it, because we hoped later to pick up one or two good bits for it. It had, nevertheless, curtains and comfortable chairs. The extra room downstairs was our study, with all our books--a decent lot, too--around the walls. It also contained a good mahogany desk with over-shelves--but there were no curtains here. The dining room was likewise nearly done, save for the rug. Upstairs our bedroom and the nursery were complete; only the guest room remained to be furnished. The odd bedroom was to be turned into a laboratory for me; as yet nothing had been done to it. On the top floor the cook and housemaid lived in solitary state with an extra empty room between them. Such was the result of our final look around before the family was due.

They arrived about twelve, driven up by the station fly, which worthily upheld all the conservative traditions of village cabs. Napoleon might well have driven from the field of Waterloo in it.

Frances was the first to rush forward to greet us, dashing into the house like a Newfoundland puppy that has just been let off its leash. My father and mother followed more sedately. Helen took my mother upstairs, while Frances was running all over the place on her own, poking into everything. My father sat down in the study and got out his pipe.

"Satisfied, Ted?" he asked, as he began to consume matches.

"Yes, sir," I answered. "I can't imagine what more one could want."

"End of the chapter, eh, Ted?"

"With the addition of 'and they lived happily ever afterwards.'"

My father took a wire and ran it through the stem of his pipe.

"About the future which you have just mentioned. Your mother and sister will be on the Continent probably for several years. I shall be with them a good deal of the time. I am going to make you a director in the company to look after my interests and your own. That will not, however, take much of your time. You'll be free therefore, to do whatever you wish. I am definitely putting you and Helen on your own feet. If you need advice or help, you know where to turn--otherwise, go ahead and run your own show."

Any reply I might have made was cut short by Helen's entrance with my mother. My father joined us in a solemn visit to the whole house. The nursery received the closest inspection. Nurse was holding a very pink and well scrubbed baby, dressed in her Sunday best. The crib was ordered nearer the window; that was the only flaw discovered in what Helen and I felt to be the crucial room. We breathed easier, once by that. But a difficulty developed over the proposed laboratory. My mother said it was "criminal"--that was her very word--to have chemical fumes on the same floor with a baby's nursery. The rooms actually adjoined one another, making it much worse. The laboratory, if it was necessary at all to have such a nonsensical mess in a house, would have to be in the unoccupied room above. How Helen could in any event tolerate such a thing was beyond my mother's power to see. I was liable to burn the house down at any moment. If we were incapable of thinking for ourselves, we might at least occasionally think of the baby. The whole concluded with a peroration on my lack of any sense of responsibility. That had always been the curse of the Jevons side of the family. We humbly expressed our eagerness to put the laboratory upstairs.

"Why the devil did I tell her about that blasted laboratory?" I whispered to Helen as we went down into the garden. Outside we paused before the s.p.a.cious kennel inhabited by the genial Sir Leonidas de la Patte Jaune. His welcome spread from ear to ear.