“I’m sure, miss, I’ve got ’em, but I can’t just rightly think where they be.”
As she spoke, she turned out a drawer and rummaged through it violently, and then another; the contents of these gave one an idea of what is seriously understood by the word “chaos”: wool, toffee, night-lights, dog biscuits, and pills were among the ingredients.
“Try the blue box,” suggested Aurea, who was evidently acquainted with the resources of the establishment.
The blue box yielded nothing but a quantity of faded pink ribbon, a few postcards of the church and Drum, a dozen tennis balls, some small curling-pins, and several quires of black-edged paper.
“Why, if that isn’t the very thing I was looking for last week!” exclaimed Mrs. Topham, as she pounced on the paper. “And now Miss Jakes she’s bin and got it over at Brodfield; ’tis a cruel chance to be near a big town—and so there’s for you!”
As the search for nails promised to be protracted, Miss Morven turned to Wynyard and said—
“You need not wait; please take the lampshade on, and say that I’m coming.”
But before returning to the Manor he had yet another errand to fulfil—a note for Mrs. Ramsay at Ivy House. Here he rang repeatedly, he even gave heavy single knocks with the bulbous brass knocker, but received no reply beyond the distant barking of indignant dogs. At last he went round and discovered a large paved yard, but no human being. Then he ventured to approach one of the sitting-room windows and peered in—a comfortable dining-room with a cheerful fire, but empty. No, just underneath the window on a sofa lay an elderly man fast asleep. He wore grey woollen socks on his slipperless feet, an empty tumbler stood on a chair beside him—and this at eleven o’clock in the morning. (True, O. Wynyard, but it had contained no stronger drink than hot water.)
He had the intention of rapping at the pane, but changed his mind and retired to the door, and as he waited he heard a voice above him calling out in a rich brogue—
“Bad scran to ye, Fanny, if there isn’t a young gentleman below wid a big band-box, and he is afther pullin’ out the bell by the roots; ’tis a shame to lave him standin’ in all the pours of rain! An’ such a lovely big man!”