Under the Country Sky Part 9

"I'm down," she announced in triumph.

"So I see. But you're not up," replied Georgiana, regarding the vision with critical eyes.

Jeannette's gaze left the trim morning garb of the young cook, her perfectly arranged hair, her whole aspect of efficiency, and dropped to her own highly inappropriate attire, and she flushed a little. But she held her ground.

"You didn't call me, and when I woke it was so near six I didn't dare wait to dress. Can't I learn unless I'm dressed like you?"

"If a French doll had come to life and offered to help me in the kitchen I couldn't feel more stunned. What will happen to all those floating ends of lace and ribbon, when they get mixed with flour and yeast? Be sensible, child, and go back to bed."

"I'll pin everything out of the way, and perhaps you'll lend me an ap.r.o.n. I really don't want to bother you, Georgiana, but I do want to learn."

Georgiana relented. "Very well. Come here, and I'll cover you up as best I can. Or I'll wait while you run up and dress--if you've anything to put on that's fit for bread-making."

"Nothing much fitter than this, I'm afraid," admitted Jeannette reluctantly.

"Poor little girl!" Georgiana's momentary irritation was gone, as it usually was, in no time at all. "Well, here go the frills under a nice big gingham all-over; and now you look like a combination of Sleeping Beauty and Mother Bunch! All right; here we go into business. Do you know how to scald that cupful of milk you see before you?"

"Scald it?" repeated Jeannette doubtfully--and so the lesson began.

Absolute ignorance on the part of the pupil, a.s.sured knowledge on that of the teacher--the lesson was a very kindergarten in methods. There were times when Georgiana had much difficulty in restraining her inward mirth, but she soon saw that this must be done, though Jeannette herself laughed at her own clumsiness, and evidently was determined to let nothing escape her.

"Kneading looks so easy when you do it," she lamented; "but I can't seem to help getting stuck."

"That will come with practice--if you ever try another batch, which I doubt. And it's the kneading that is so good for your arms."

"Yours are beautiful--and so strong, it must be fun to own them."

"There are times when a bit of muscle is of use in a hustling world,"

admitted her cousin. "There, I think that dough will do very well. Turn it over and lay it smoothly in the bowl--so. Cover it with its white blanket--so; and leave it right here, where it will have a good warm temperature to rise in. Now, run up and s.n.a.t.c.h another nap; you'll have plenty of time."

"You're not going back to bed?"

"Rather not!" Georgiana's smile strove to be tolerant. "There are just a few things to be done about the house, and they are best done before breakfast. Off with you, lady cousin!"

"Do you always get up so early?" Jeannette persisted.

"I have an extraordinary fondness for early rising," Georgiana explained. "It's foolish, of course, but it's an old habit. Good-bye, my dear; my next errand is down cellar," and she vanished from the sight of her guest, quite unable to keep herself longer in hand before the amazing point of view of this daughter of luxury.

The "next errand" was the washing of the handful of fine towels with which the painstaking hostess was keeping the guest-room supplied, unwilling to furnish the aristocratic young person upstairs with the coa.r.s.er articles used by herself and the others. Jeannette, all unaware that the snowy linen with which her room was kept plentifully supplied was constantly relaundered in secret by Georgiana's own hands, was as lavish in her use of it as she was accustomed to be at home, and the result was a quite unbelievable amount of extra work for her cousin.

Mr. Warne, coming upon his daughter by chance in this very early morning flurry of laundering, expressed himself upon the subject in the gentle but positive way which was his.

"Why do it, my dear?" he questioned. "Are the sheets and towels we use not quite good enough for others?"

"Not half good enough for Lady Jean," responded the laundress, rubbing energetically away--yet carefully, too, for the old linen was not so stout as it once had been.

"You are intentionally deceiving her, aren't you, daughter? Why do that?--since it is not necessary for her comfort."

"But it is. She would shudder at the touch of a cotton sheet. As for a common huck towel----"

Mr. Warne shook his head. "I can't agree with you. So that the sheets and towels are spotless--as your sheets and towels are--the mere degree of fineness is not essential. And if she knew how much labour it costs you, I am very certain she would infinitely prefer to be less of a spendthrift in the matter of quant.i.ty."

"I've no doubt she would. But I'd rather wash my fingers off than not give her the fresh towel for her perfect face each time she uses one.

I'd like it myself. I'd like a million towels, all fine as silk. I'd like----" She stopped abruptly, seeing the look upon her father's face.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she flashed at him repentantly. "I truly don't mind being poor in most ways. It's the lack of certain things that go with nicety of living that grinds me most. I shouldn't mind wearing gingham outside, if I could have all the fine linen I want underneath.

It's--it's--oh, well, you know! And I'm an idiot to talk about it when the thing we really need is books--books for your starving mind. If I could get you all you want of those----" Her voice broke upon the wish, always strong with her.

"My dear, my mind will never starve while it has the old books to feed upon. Listen, on what a pertinent thought did I come this morning. I was delving in good old Thomas Fuller, of those fine seventeenth-century writers whose works still glow with fire: '_Though my guest was never so high, yet, by the laws of hospitality, I was above him whilst under my roof_.'"

The girl laughed, dashing away a hot tear with the back of a soapy hand.

"Trust you to find a cla.s.sic to turn a tragedy into a comedy," she said.

"Go away now, Father Davy, and I'll soon be through. It's a poor washerwoman I am to be thinning my suds with brine!"

CHAPTER IX

A REASONABLE PROPOSITION

"You'll come, too, Georgiana dear?" Jeannette, furrily clad for a walk with James Stuart, stood in the doorway looking back. "Please do."

"Come, George;--you need a good tramp," Stuart urged at Jeannette's elbow.

He looked the picture of antic.i.p.ation. He had undertaken getting the visitor into training by increasingly long daily walks, and the result was proving eminently satisfactory. At the end of the first half of the visit Jeannette was looking wonderfully well and happy--hardly the same girl who had come to the little village to try if she could endure such life as was likely to be offered her there.

"Thank you, my dears, nothing could persuade me. Run along and leave me to diversions of my own," answered Georgiana gayly.

So they had gone, Jeannette wafting back a kiss, Stuart waving an enthusiastic arm. Georgiana had smiled at them, had closed the door softly behind them--and had immediately banged to another conveniently near at hand, one opening into a small clothespress under the stair landing.

"Diversions of my own!" she repeated with emphasis. "Happy phrase! I wonder what they think my diversions are--with this family to look after. Well, you got yourself into it, George Warne. You can stick it out if it kills you."

She deliberately thumped one door after another all the way along her progress through the empty rooms and up the stairs to the second floor.

Her father was away for the afternoon on a rare visit to a neighbour who had sent for him, an old parishioner, who, falling ill, longed for the gentle offices of his friend and long-time minister. As for Mr.

Jefferson, this was the time of day when he was always away on his usual long walk. It was a comfort to be alone in the quiet house--and to bang and thump.

In her room Georgiana arrayed herself in a heavy red sweater, then ascended to the attic and stood eying the great hand loom of antique pattern, a relic of an earlier century. It was equipped with a black warp, upon which a few rows of parti-coloured woof had been woven.

"Diversions!" she repeated, and shook her round fist at the lumbering object.

Then she sat down on the old weaver's bench and began to weave with heavy, jarring thuds which shook the floor, as with strong arms she pulled and pushed and sent her clumsy shuttle flying back and forth.

The attic was very cold; but she was soon warm with the violent exercise and presently had discarded the sweater and was working away with might and main.

"Go at it--go at it!" she was saying to herself. "Jealous idiot that you are! Jealous of Jeannette, of her clothes, her money, her beauty, her power to attract--jealous because Jimps likes her so well--because Father Davy looks at her with the eyes of an appreciative uncle--because Mr. E. C.

Jefferson talks to her as if he enjoyed it. Pound--pound--pound away at the old loom till your arms ache, and see if you can get the nonsense out of you!"

"I beg your pardon," said a deep voice at the top of the narrow stairs not far away.