“If I’d been following hounds I’d be away on Bodmin moor,” I said,
“Don’t be an ass, Wellington.
I’ve been over to see Mr. Kendall on business, and then went into town.
I’m sorry about Gypsy, but it can’t be helped.
I don’t think she’ll come to harm.”
“I hope not, sir,” said Wellington, and he began running his hands over poor Gypsy’s flanks as though I had put her to a steeplechase.
I walked back to the house, and went into the library.
The fire was burning brightly, but there was no sign of my cousin Rachel.
I rang the bell for Seecombe. “Where is Mrs. Ashley?” I asked, as he entered the room.
“Madam came in a little after three, sir,” he said.
“She and the gardeners have been working in the grounds ever since you left.
Tamlyn is in the steward’s room with me now.
He says he has never seen anything like it, the manner in which the mistress sets about it.
He says she’s a wonder.”
“She must be exhausted,” I said.
“I was afraid of that, sir.
I suggested she should go to bed, but she would not hear of it.
‘Tell the boys to bring me up cans of hot water.
I’ll take a bath, Seecombe,’ she said to me, ‘and I’ll wash my hair as well.’
I was about to send for my niece, it seems hardly right for a lady to wash her own hair, but she would not hear of that either.”
“The boys had better do the same for me,” I told him;
“I’ve had a hard day too.
And I’m devilish hungry. I want my dinner early.” “Very well, sir. At a quarter to five?” “Please, Seecombe, if you can manage it.”
I went upstairs, whistling, to throw my clothes off and sit in the steaming tub before my bedroom fire.
The dogs came along the corridor from my cousin Rachel’s room.
They had become quite accustomed to the visitor, and followed her everywhere.
Old Don thumped his tail at me from the top of the stairs.
“Hullo, old fellow,” I said; “you’re faithless, you know.
You’ve left me for a lady.”
He licked my hand with his long furry tongue, and made big eyes at me.
The boy came with the can and filled the bath, and it was pleasant to sit there in the tub, cross-legged, and scrub myself, whistling a tuneless song above the steam.
As I rubbed myself dry with the towel I noticed that on the table beside my bed was a bowl of flowers.
Sprigs from the woods, orchis and cyclamen among them.
No one had ever put flowers in my room before.
Seecombe would not have thought of it, or the boys either.
It must have been my cousin Rachel.
The sight of the flowers added to my mood of high good humor.
She may have been messing with the plants and shrubs all day, but she had found the time to fill the bowl with flowers as well.
I tied my cravat and put on my dinner coat, still humming my tuneless song.
Then I went along the corridor, and knocked upon the door of the boudoir.
“Who is it?” she called from within.
“It is me, Philip,” I answered.
“I have come to tell you that dinner will be early tonight.
I’m starving, and so I should think are you, after the tales I’ve heard.
What in the world have you and Tamlyn been up to, that you have to take a bath and wash your hair?”
That bubble of laughter, so infectious, was her answer.
“We’ve been burrowing underground, like moles,” she called.
“Have you earth up to your eyebrows?”
“Earth everywhere,” she answered.
“I’ve had my bath, and now I am drying my hair.