“The chauffeur!” she repeated, with incredulous emphasis. “Oh!—If you will just step inside, I’ll let her know;” and, tripping before him down a long, resounding, flagged passage—which seemingly ran the length of the house—she ushered him into a low-pitched room, with heavy oak beams, and mullioned windows facing south, overlooking the meadows he had recently crossed—a vast, spreading stretch of flat country outlined by a horizon of woods—possibly those of some great demesne.
“I’ll tell Miss Parrett,” said the maid, as, with a lingering look at the new arrival, she closed the door.
The chauffeur awaited an interview for some time, as it took Miss Parrett at least ten minutes to recover her amazement, and invest herself with becoming dignity. That man the chauffeur! Why, she had actually mistaken him for a gentleman; but, of course, in these socialistic days, the lower orders dressed and talked like their betters; and she registered a mental vow to keep the creature firmly in his place. The fact that she had supposed her new chauffeur to be a visitor who rented the fishing, was an error she never forgave herself—and the origin of her secret animosity to Wynyard.
The room into which he had been ushered was heavily wainscoted in oak; the chimneypiece, a most beautiful specimen of carving—but some ignorant hand had painted the whole with a sickly shade of pea-green! Various tables and chairs, which had seen better days, were scattered about; it was not a show apartment, but evidently the retreat where people did all sorts of odd jobs. A coil of picture wire, curtain rings, and a pile of chintz patterns, were heaped on the round centre table, and a stack of wall-papers littered the floor. A snug, sunny, cheerful sort of den, which would make an A1 smoking-room. Precisely as the chauffeur arrived at this opinion, the door was flung open, and Miss Parrett ambled in.
“So you are my new chauffeur!” she began, in a shrill voice, as she surveyed him with an air of acrid self-assertion.
“Yes, ma’am,” and Owen, as he looked at her, was conscious of a nascent antagonism.
“Your name, I understand, is Owen. What’s your christian name?”
He coloured violently. What was his christian name?
“St. John,” he answered, after a momentary hesitation. (It was his second name.) “That is—I mean to say—John.”
“St. John, what affectation! Of course it’s John—plain John. I’ve engaged you on the recommendation of my friend, Lady Kesters. She says you are steady, efficient, and strictly sober,” looking him up and down; “she mentioned you were smart—I suppose she meant your clothes, eh?”