CHAPTER XXVI
DIMBIE TAKES PETER AND AMELIA IN HAND
Peter and mother are here again, and Jane has been transferred to the bachelor's room.
Peter is gouty, irritable, chilly—for October is with us and giving us sharp little frosts—and sulphurous in his language.
Amelia wears a patient, stand-by-me-O-Lord air; and Dimbie is crossly resigned to the inevitable.
He came to me this morning.
"I am going to kick Peter."
"Yes," I agreed, drawing my blue nightingale, which mother has made me, more closely round my shoulders.
"I am going to pitch him out of the front door."
I nodded.
"You have no objection?"
"Well, choose a flower-bed for his descent."
"But I want to hurt him."
"I quite sympathise with you in your desire, which is most reasonable. But were he to alight on the gravel path he might break his leg, and then we should be obliged to have him here for weeks."
"Then I shall certainly not choose the path," said Dimbie decisively.
"That is right. What has he been doing?"
"Everything he shouldn't do. Your mother is reduced to tears, and Amelia is flinging the saucepans and kettles at the kitchen-range."
"She is certainly making a noise."
Dimbie sat down on the bed and knit his brows.
"I am sorry, dear," I said sympathetically. "I couldn't help his coming; I didn't invite him."
"I know. Naturally your mother wanted to see you."
"Yes. Poor mother! To live for three months without any respite upon the edge of a crater subject at any moment to volcanic eruptions is naturally wearing, and she must have an occasional change in order to keep her reason."
Dimbie nursed his leg, and his mouth was a little more crooked than usual. I lay and watched him. How unselfish and forbearing he was! He put up with Peter for mother's sake, he put up with mother for my sake, he put up with Jane for her own and the Doctor's sake. Here he was yearning to be alone, to be by ourselves; and the house was full up with parents, friends, and doctors. And I, to add to his worries, have been obliged to keep my room for the last week owing to a feverish cold and general poorliness.
"But they will all go soon," I said, trying to comfort him. "Peter and mother are returning home after the wedding, and Jane is to be married next month."
"November is an idiotic month for a wedding," he said irritably.
"Why?"
"She mightn't have been in such a deuce of a hurry."
"But it isn't she, it's the Doctor."
"Then he ought to have learnt patience at his age."
I smiled.
"You've grown fond of Jane?"
"Oh, I like her all right, but it's you I'm thinking of. She seems to know how to look after you and make you comfortable. I'm rough and Amelia's stupid, and it's amazing how she knows exactly what you want. And Amelia has taken to her, she's a perfect lamb in her presence."
"I wish Peter would be a lamb, too. How are they getting on at meals?"
And Dimbie gave me a most vivid description of how they were getting on at meals, which left me weak with laughter.
"And really, sweet," he concluded, "I am rather glad you are fast here, though the drawing-room without you seems like a barren wilderness. Your old corner looks lonely and empty."
"I'll soon be there to fill it," I said.
"Do you think you are better?" He furrowed his brow.
"I wonder how many times a day you ask me that, dear one. Don't I look better?" He regarded me anxiously. "When we get to our new house——"
"Ah, yes!" he said, brightening at once. "It is change you want. As soon as ever we have cleared out this rabbit warren we'll begin our plans. We'll be our own architects—master builders, eh?"
"Do you mean by the rabbit warren mother and Peter?"
"Yes," he laughed. "And when the endless discussion of frocks and Jane's wedding is over we'll set to work hard. I want the house to be ready by the summer."
A little pain settled at my heart. He was so bent upon building this new home for us—a home after our own hearts, a house with south-west windows to catch every bit of sunshine for me, with a verandah in which I could lie, with an old-world garden—we must find a plot of land with well-grown, stately trees—with extensive views, with distant, pine-clad hills, and smiling, fertile valleys. Perhaps a river might be included too, a babbling stream which would cheer me with its happy laughter. His eyes glisten as he paints his picture, develops his foreground, sketches in his distances.
"They must be blue distances," he said to-day.
"They might be grey, swept by clouds, wrapped in mist."
"Even then they would be beautiful," he argued.
"Yes," I agreed, "most distances are beautiful; look at the frog-pond."
He laughed.
"Still attached to our little home?"
"Oh, so attached! I love it more each day. It is so cosy, and we are so comfortable. Now that Amelia has permitted us to have daily help there is nothing we want, is there?"
A cloud passed over his face.
"I am sorry that you still do not wish to leave, Marg. I know it would be so much better for you, and Renton insists upon it. He says in bracing air you will be so much stronger, and—I am disappointed that you are not interested."
"He does not know——" the words broke from me. And then, "I am interested. I want to do what you want. Your picture is entrancing. Let us begin at once. I will draw a plan of the garden, and you shall draw a plan of the house, and then we'll compare notes."
I spoke rapidly. Why should we not begin, as he was so eager? It would give him occupation during the long days. It would make him happy, feeling that it was being done for me and my comfort.
He brightened at once.
"Where shall we have it?" I went on. "Shall it be on the top of Leith Hill, or at Hind Head, Farndon, Frensham, or Dorking?"
"It must be where there are pine trees and heather for you, and in the neighbourhood of shooting for me. It must be high up, and yet not too cold, and we must pitch the house southwest for the sun."
"And there must be a river," I continued gravely, "and blue distances, a wide, extensive view, grand forest trees in our own garden, and lawns that have been rolled and 'mowd' for a thousand years. And God will specially create it all for us."
"Now you are being impertinent." He smiled happily. "I will fetch paper and pencils." But he didn't, for Peter arrived at the moment and forced an entrance. His nose was a trifle blue, and his eyes glistened as a warrior's who has recently tasted blood. He pecked me on the forehead and asked me how I was. I informed him that I was only very middling, and Dimbie added that rest and quiet were most essential for my well-being.
Peter ignored Dimbie and seated himself in front of the fire, to which he held out a gouty leg, and remarked that Amelia was a brazen minx. Dimbie and I not replying, he repeated it again. Dimbie and I admired the view from the window, and Peter for the third time repeated the same uninteresting remark, but this time with a yell. Dimbie said politely and firmly that if the yell was repeated Peter must leave the room, as my nerves were not in a state to stand cat-calls. Peter glared but didn't repeat the yell, at which I marvelled.
Mother popped her head in at the door, and seeing Peter, popped it out with extreme activity.
Jane did the same.
Amelia popped hers in, but kept it there, and then advanced. She sort of arched her back as she looked at Peter, and bristled and figuratively spat.
"What is it, Amelia?" I asked, before they got at each other.
"The butcher, mum."
"How often the butcher seems to call," I said wearily. "Does he live very near to us?"
"He lives in the village, mum, and he's killed a home-fed pig."
"Poor thing! Just when there's an abundance of acorns."
Amelia ignored my sympathy.
"A nice loin of pork with sage and onion stuffing would be a change, mum."
"I don't eat sage and onion," growled Peter.
"A nice loin of pork with sage and onion stuffing would be a change," repeated Amelia steadily. "And I've got oysters and a partridge for you, mum."
"I don't want both. General Macintosh could have the partridge," I said pacifically.
"There'll be soup, pork, Charlotte Ruce, and savoury eggs for the dining-room." When Amelia adopted that tone it was unwise to argue.
"Do you know how to make Charlotte Russe?"
Amelia creaked, and a bone snapped, the result of an extraordinary veracity.
"I have an idea how it's made, but Miss Fairbrother does the sweets now. She's gettin' her hand in before she's married. She's goin' to spoil the Doctor. Most ladies spoils their husbands." She fixed a baleful eye upon Dimbie and Peter.
Peter seized the poker and thumped the fire into a blaze. I was glad, for the room was chilly.
"Is that all, Amelia?"
"No, mum. I wants to speak about the bathroom. It's fair swimmin' with water. You could float the canoe in it."
"Dear me, has the cistern overflowed?" asked Dimbie.
"No, sir, it's General Macintosh. When he takes his bath in the mornin' he thinks he's suddenly turned into an alligator. The splashin's dreadful, and when he's tired of that he just bales the water on to the floor. It's like the Bay of Biscay when I go in, and I shall be glad if you'll kindly speak to him about it, sir."
Peter put his gouty leg carefully and firmly on to the floor, and, as golfers say, got a good stance. Then he opened his mouth, but before he could utter a word Dimbie had gently but forcibly taken him by the shoulders and put him out of the room. Amelia was triumph personified, but her victory was short lived, for when Dimbie returned he was very angry with her.
"Understand now, Amelia, that no such tales are brought to the mistress. I will not have her worried with trivial household matters. I thought you were capable and clever enough to manage for yourself; you keep telling us that you are, and the first thing that goes wrong you fly to her. Understand too that your manner of speaking to General Macintosh is little short of downright impertinence, and if it should occur again, if there are any more scenes, not only he goes out of the house, but you also. Yes, you go, understand that. You are a good girl, but there are plenty of other good girls in the world. Your mistress is poorly, weak and nervous, and she is not to be worried. Now go! Not a word. Go!"
Dimbie stopped for breath, and weeping, humiliated, and very unhappy, Amelia went. Whether she straightway fisted Peter, whether she peppered him from every point of vantage, we have not inquired; but during the last six hours there has been a marked improvement in the behaviour of both. Peter is not bearing Dimbie any grudge for his ejectment, which seems to me remarkable, but which Dimbie says isn't. "Bully a bully and he becomes an angel."
"He is hardly that yet," I objected.
"He passed the hot buttered toast to us at tea and didn't have any himself."
"Hot buttered toast doesn't agree with him," I said. "It has always lain heavily upon his stomach."
Dimbie laughed, and Peter entered in the middle of it.
"Your mother and I are going for a stroll. Do you want anything from the village?"
My stare was rude, I fear. It was certainly the first time I had ever heard Peter ask if anybody wanted anything.
"Thank you," I began, "it is very good of you." I cast round in my mind for some requirement—soap, candles, Shinio, oatmeal, pearl barley, gelatine, potatoes, all the various things Amelia spent her life in requiring—but we were not "out" of any of them. Peter was waiting; his kindly intention must not be nipped in the bud at any cost. "Chips!" I cried with illumination.
"Chips?"
"Firewood. Hudson's Dry Soap boxes."
Peter clutched at his understanding.
"Amelia chops them up," I explained.
"He can't carry soap boxes home," whispered Dimbie. "Couldn't you want darning wool?"
Of course, darning wool was one of the most useful things in the world.
"Please bring me two cards of darning wool," I said aloud. "You will get them at the candle shop."
Peter rubbed his head.
"Wool at a candle shop?"
"Yes, it keeps everything—sweets, oil, candles and haberdashery."
He went out of the room.
"Well, I'm blessed!" ejaculated Dimbie.
"So am I. He looked quite docile, and he's really wonderfully handsome for a man of his age."
Peter was back.
"What colour your mother wishes to know?"
"Colour? Oh, anything!"
"Brown," said Dimbie hastily, turning a reproachful eye upon me.
"You really are stupid, Marg," he said when Peter had gone.
"I admit it," I said ruefully, "and we haven't a brown thing in the house. Why couldn't you have said black while you were about it?"
And Dimbie didn't know why he hadn't said black. But it is sufficient for me to know that Peter is trying to be good, and that Amelia has ceased to throw saucepans about the house, as the noise was a little trying. Peter may yet go to heaven.