MISS BIBBY’S HOLIDAY
Miss Bibby worked another half-hour, perhaps. She was nervous and excited; she had set herself to catch the four o’clock post, and there still were numbers of pages with which she was dissatisfied. She was essaying, indeed, an impossible task—trying to couch Hugh Kinross’s eccentricities in dignified English prose. And the shoes, at least, absolutely refused to be so treated; they seemed to stand out from the article just as prominently as they had stood out among the furniture of his room.
Miss Bibby sighed despairingly—the strain and the loss of sleep were telling upon her.
“Miss Bibby,” shouted Pauline, bursting into the room, “Miss Bibby, Miss Bibby!”
“Run away,” said Miss Bibby; “run away at once, Pauline. Surely it is not much for me to ask to have one day—just one day to myself.”
“Quick, quick!” cried Pauline, “Muffie’s stood on an ant-bed, and she’s swarming!”
[p127]
The shoes and the far shade of the laurel trees dropped instantly from Miss Bibby’s horizon and, the horrors of the situation overwhelming her, she flew after Pauline to the victim.
The child’s condition was piteous; absolutely mad with terror and pain, she was rushing about on the path, Max, yelling with sympathy, tearing after her. Lynn, at the first frantic moment when she saw her sister’s high white socks turned black with their live covering, had leapt towards her and, with hands and pinafore, had essayed to sweep the things off. But the assailants were as alarmed and angry at their position now as the attacked and, while some sought safety by running up Lynn’s sleeves, thus forcing her also to dance and scream, the remainder swarmed higher and higher up the luckless Muffie.
Miss Bibby’s presence of mind quite deserted her. The whole of her note-book seemed to zig-zag vainly across her brain—her note-book where she had carefully written down antidotes for any poisons the children might swallow, remedies for scalds, burns, cut fingers, sprains, snake-bites. There was nothing about ants! Yet something must be done and instantly—the feet were the worst.
“Quick, quick! give me your foot, Muffie,” she cried.
[p128]
The child wildly stuck out one leg.
And Miss Bibby with her slim white hands seized the shoe—the shoe all black with its fierce, prickly living mass—unlaced it and dragged it off. Her own arms were alive in a moment, but she merely bit her lip and began to pull at the sock.
“What insanity of folly!” cried Hugh Kinross, sweeping her nearly off her feet, “here, where’s the bath-room?”
Pauline dashed on to lead the way, and Hugh ran the two afflicted little girls hurriedly before him with one hand, and Miss Bibby grasped firmly by the shoulder with the other.
Once in the room, he turned on the three taps, hot, cold and shower, all at the same time, and followed this by dropping both children into the water.
“You’d better follow them,” he said, for Miss Bibby was fidgeting about as if afflicted with St. Vitus’s dance in her arms and shoulders. “Is there any ammonia in the house? Never mind, I’ll go across and get some from Kate.”
He strode away and Miss Bibby did not lose a minute in following his advice.
He gave the bottle to Anna on his return, Anna, who had only just come back from the end of the orchard where she had found it necessary to go and ask Blake—leisurely—for [p129] some parsley. She was open-mouthed at what had happened.
“Here’s the armonia, Miss Bibby,” she said, going into the bath-room, “and you’re to—to pollute it with some water and rub it on hard. Here, will I be doing, Miss Lynn?”
The children were gasping and gurgling now with laughter at the funniness of the whole affair, and even Miss Bibby was smiling a little at the drowned appearance of all of them.
She applied the ammonia to the bites, then left Anna to help the children into dry clothing, while, having carefully ascertained that Mr. Kinross had quite gone, she ran along the passages to her own bedroom, a limper lavender lady than ever.
While dressing she peeped between the laths of the blind, agitated, now the disturbance was over, to think of the sudden arrival of Hugh upon the scene. What a masterful man he was! How he had grasped her shoulder and pushed her along! But, oh! how stupid—how stupid he must have considered her for not thinking of water for the poor children herself! Yes, he had called it an insanity of folly! She peeped mournfully through the blind.
And across at “Tenby” now was a wagonette, with Mrs. Gowan and two such pretty, fashionable girls in it! And out came Hugh [p130] with a small portmanteau in his hand, and rather a better suit on than he generally wore, and certainly a better hat.
And Kate came after and kissed him good-bye!
Was his holiday, then, over? Was he going back to town? Oh, no, of course! Had not Lynn said he was going to the Jenolan Caves for a week with his other sister and her party? But Lynn had not said anything about those very pretty girls! Miss Bibby sighed, she knew not why, as the wagonette drove away.
Then, in a mood from which all buoyancy had fled, drowned probably with the ants in the unexpected bath, she began to work at the interview again.
A mile along the way Hugh gave an exclamation of annoyance; not so strong certainly as the one Miss Bibby had overheard, but still indicative of much vexation.
“I went expressly to ‘Greenways’,” he said, “to deliver a communication, and that ant business drove it out of my head. I’m really afraid I shall have to turn back.”
The ladies protested a little. Was it very important? As it was they would barely make the first twenty-five miles of the journey, and reach the first hotel of their route before dark.
“Yes,” said Hugh, really perturbed, “it is important—rather. I’m afraid I’ll have to go back.”
[p131]
The coachman sulkily brought his horses round; the “ant business” had kept him waiting at “Tenby” gate nearly half an hour, and he had a strong objection to arriving at hotels when the dinner hour was long past and the cook, pettish at having to set to work again, quite callous about what she set before him.
But at the critical moment Larkin appeared—Larkin who had a perfect genius for appearing on the spot when he was wanted.
“Hello! here’s Middlecut to the rescue,” Hugh cried, hailing him with a shout. “Hi, young man, can you go off on a message for me?”
Larkin grinned and nodded assent. He had no notion why the book gentleman always gave him this name of Middlecut, but he had also no objection. Any gentleman who made his commission advance by leaps and bounds, as this one had done, was at liberty to call him any name that came handy.
Hugh had his fountain-pen, but no further vehicle for his message; none of the ladies could help him with as much as a visiting card—what help in emergencies can be expected from pocketless persons?
Larkin came to the rescue with the eternal card of Octavius Smith and his bacon at elevenpence.
[p132] “Dear Madam” (wrote Hugh upon the back of this choice stationery), “kindly burn any nonsense I may have said to you yesterday. On my return in a week I will see what I can do to give you better information. I was on my way to tell you this when Muffie’s engaging adventure drove it out of my head. Pray excuse this card—necessity knows no etiquette.
“Yours,
“Hugh Kinross.”
A minute later the wagonette was gaily upon its way again, Hugh in excellent spirits now he had laid the little demon of compunction that had been troubling his kind heart since breakfast.
And Larkin was cantering happily down to “Greenways,” his own pocket (he kept his right-hand pocket for the money due to Octavius, and his left-hand for his own tips) the heavier by a shilling.
“Miss Bibby, Miss Bibby!” cried Pauline.
“And now what is it?” said Miss Bibby, whose nerves by this time were in a condition that made the reiteration of her own name a positive offence to her. She was dressed for going to the post, and had a long official envelope directed “To the Editor of the Evening Mail” tucked under her arm. But she had paused by the kitchen fire on her way [p133] out to superintend the blancmange which Anna was making for the children’s tea, and which, they complained bitterly, she always made lumpy.
“Larkin is at the door,” said Pauline, “and he’s got something for you from Mr. Kinross.”
“Where, where?” said Miss Bibby, fluttering forward. Larkin passed the card to Pauline. Pauline passed it to Miss Bibby—and on such small things does our destiny hang—the wrong side up.
That is to say the nauseating statement about the prime middle cut at elevenpence a pound was what met the eye of the eager Miss Bibby.
An ebullition of anger such as rarely visited the gentle lady rose within her now.
She flung the card angrily into the fire.
“You are a very rude little girl, Pauline,” she said; “it is excessively ill-bred to play jokes upon people older than yourself. And as for Larkin——”
But Larkin had disappeared, his shilling being earned, and some business urgently needing his attendance.
Pauline slipped away to the garden, a resigned look upon her face. She had not meant to be ill-bred; she had no idea she was playing a joke. But she remembered now that Miss Bibby had several times swept [p134] down the cards of Octavius that they had placed on the drawing-room mantelpiece as a means of attracting any visitors’ custom to Larkin. Still she need not have spoken in that angry tone, and called her “ill-bred.” “Ill-bred” was a very uncomfortable word to have suddenly thrust upon one. Pauline leapt up at the gymnastic bar, and swung and wriggled there to shake it off.
Hot and perspiring after several brilliant efforts, that included hanging by the feet, and swinging upwards again, and resuming the perpendicular, Pauline climbed up and sat on the bar, holding to a post and dangling her legs.
From here through a break in the trees she could see the hill, and climbing up it steadily, steadily, Miss Bibby with her long precious envelope for the post tucked beneath her arm.
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