Whatever she was about to add was interrupted by the sound of a muffled kick on the door. D’Arcy sprang to open it, and admitted Bridget looking rather flushed, and carrying the tea-things on a battered black tray.
“Oh, such a job to make the kettle boil!” she announced, setting it down. “What have you two been plotting?” and she looked from one to the other.
“Your Granny’s plans,” replied the young man mendaciously. “If she is turned out from here, there are two rooms to let in my diggings in Lower Gardiner Street—cheap, too, and a fine old wreck of a house, next a pawnbroker’s—if you won’t mind that?”
“Not at all—it would be mighty convenient,” rejoined the old lady, with a shrill laugh. “But rooms cost money. Here I’ve been rent free; so have my tenants upstairs; they tell me they cannot pay anything, and are just keeping soul and body together like ourselves—and I have not the heart to evict them.”
“Who are they? They seem a pretty big crowd.”
“Well, there’s a car-driver in the drawing-rooms; he has six children; above that, there’s a charwoman and her paralysed daughter. In the back rooms there’s an old sweep.—Eale will make a grand clearance.”
“I’m not sure that he can move either you or them,” said D’Arcy; “the mortgage must be looked into. I have a friend, a clever young solicitor, and he will examine the whole business; if the worst happens, you come to my diggings. The old woman is a good sort, and will make you comfortable; we will scrape along somehow.”
“Oh, Denis, my dear boy, do you think I’d live on you?”
“If only I was not so suspiciously shabby,” broke in Bridget, “I’d get a situation as governess. Where I am is all right, as my poor old man is stone-blind. If I had even three or four pounds I’d invest it in a sort of personal advertisement, but Granny and I are owed what, to us, is quite a lot of money, and we dare not dun for fear of losing our customers. There’s a shop in London that owes me money since last June—I suppose they imagine we work for pleasure?”
“Pleasure!” repeated D’Arcy, and he rose, and, with gentle decision, took the piece of linen out of the old lady’s hand.