V
Evie usually had her breakfast alone. Christina was late and Mrs. Colebrook breakfasted before her family came down and was, moreover, so completely occupied in supplying the needs of her youngest daughter, that it would have been impossible to settle herself down to a meal.
Evie was generally down by a quarter to eight; the post came at eight o'clock. Until recently Evie had no interest in the movements of that official. Very few letters came to the house in any circumstances and of these Evie's share was negligible.
Teddy brought a new interest to the morning for he was a faithful correspondent, and the girl would have known long before, that he was an inmate of a superior caravanserie, had not the youth, in his modesty, written on the plainest of notepaper. Not then, nor at any other time, did the mail have any thrill for Mrs. Colebrook. She had a well-to-do sister living in the north who wrote to her regularly every six months. These letters might have been published as a supplement to the Nomenclature of Diseases, for they constituted a record of the obscure ailments which inflicted the writer's family. She had a sister-in-law living within a mile of her, whom she seldom saw and never heard from. Whatever letters came to the house were either for Christina or Evie, generally for Christina.
Ambrose Sault had once presented Christina with five hundred postal cards. It was one of the freakish things that Ambrose did, but behind it, there was a solid reason. Christina enjoyed a constant supply of old magazines and out-of-date periodicals. Evie collected them for her from her friends. And in these publications were alluring advertisements, the majority of which begged the reader, italically, to send for Illustrated Catalogue No. 74, or to write to Desk H. for a beautiful handbook describing at greater length the wonders of the articles advertised. Sometimes samples were offered, samples of baby's food, samples of fabric, samples of soap and patent medicine, and other delectable products.
Christina had expressed a wish that she could write, and Ambrose had supplied the means. Thereafter Christina's letter-bag was a considerable one. She knew more about motor-cars, their advantages over one another, their super-excellent speeds and economies, than the average dealer. If you asked her what car ran the longest distance on a can of petrol, she would not only tell you, but would specify which was the better of the gases supplied. She knew the relative nutritive qualities of every breakfast food on the market; the longest-wearing boots and the cheapest furniture.
Evie had finished her meal when the postman knocked.
"A letter from Teddy and a sample for Christina, I suppose," speculated Mrs. Colebrook, hurrying to the door. She invariably ran to meet the postman having a confused idea that it was an offence, punishable under the penal code, to keep him waiting.
There was no mail for Christina.
"Here's your letter."
Evie took the stout and expensive looking envelope, embossed redly with the name of the hotel.
"Who's writing to me?" asked Mrs. Colebrook. She turned the letter over, examined the handwriting, critically deciphered the post-mark—finally tore open the flap of the envelope.
"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Colebrook. She looked at the heading again. "Who is 'Johnson and Kennett'?" she asked.
"The house agents? There is a firm of that name in Knightsbridge. What is it, mother?"
Mrs. Colebrook read aloud.
"Dear Madam: We have been requested to approach you in regard to work which we feel you would care to undertake. A client of ours has a small house on the continent, for which he is anxious to secure a housekeeper. Knowing, through Dr. Merville, that you have a daughter who is recovering from an illness, he asks me to state that he would be glad if your daughter accompanied you. There is practically no work, three servants, all of whom speak English, are kept, and our client wishes us to state that the grounds are extensive and pretty, and hopes that you will make the freest use of them, and the small car which he will leave there. He himself does not expect to occupy the house, so that you will be practically free from any kind of supervision."
The salary was named. It was generous.
Mrs. Colebrook looked over her glasses at the wondering Evie.
"Mother! How perfectly splendid!"
But Mrs. Colebrook was not so enthusiastic. Change of any kind was anathema. She had acted as housekeeper in her younger days, so that the work had no terrors for her, but—abroad!
Foreign countries meant peril. Foreigners to her were sinister men who carried knives, and were possessed of homicidal tendencies. They spoke a language expressly designed to conceal their evil intentions, and they found their recreation in plotting in underground chambers. There was a cinema at the end of Walter Street.
"There is something written on the other side," said Evie suddenly.
Mrs. Colebrook turned the sheet.
"The invitation extends to your younger daughter, if she would care to accompany you."
"Well!" said Evie, and flew up the stairs to Christina's room.
"Christina! What do you think! Mother has had a letter from a house agent offering—"
"Don't tell me!" Christina interrupted, "let me guess! They've offered her a beautiful house in the country rent free—no? Then they've offered—let me think—a house in a nice warm climate where I can bask in the sunshine and watch the butterflies flirting with the roses!"
Evie's jaw dropped.
"Whatever made you think—?"
Christina snatched the letter and read, her eyes bright with excitement.
"Oh, golly!" she said and laughed so long that Evie grew alarmed.
"No, I'm not mad, and I'm not clairvoyant. Mother, what do you think of it?"
Mrs. Colebrook had followed her daughter upstairs.
"I don't know what to think," she said. She was one of those people who welcome an opportunity to show their indecision. Mrs. Colebrook liked to be "persuaded", though she might make up her mind irrevocably, it was necessary that argument round and about should be offered, before she yielded her tentative agreement.
Nobody knew this better than Christina. She drew a long sigh of relief, recognising the signs.
"We'll talk it over after Evie has gone to her pill-shop," she said, and for once Evie did not contest a description of her place of business, which usually provoked her to retort.
"I only want to say, mother, that you need not worry about me. I can get lodgings at one of the girl's hostels. I don't think I want to go abroad. In fact, I know that I don't. But it would be fine for Christina. It is my dream come true. I've always had that plan for her—a place where she could sit in the sunshine and watch the flowers grow."
Christina's smile was all loving-kindness; she took the girl's fingers in her hand and pinched them softly.
"Off to your workshop, woman," she ordered. "Mother and I want to talk about the sunny south."
"I'm not sure that I can take it," said Mrs. Colebrook dismally, "I don't like the idea of living in a foreign place—"
"We'll discuss that," said Christina in her businesslike way. "Did those linoleum patterns come?"