“Now if madam wouldn’t think me steppin’ out of my plyce I’d suggest that me and ’er ’as a little tea of our own like—right now—in the drorin’ room—and I’ll be Miss Walbrook—and William’ll be William—and madam’ll be madam—and we’ll get it letter-perfect before ’and, just as with Mary Ann Courage and Jyne.”
No sooner said than done. Letty was already wearing the white filmy thing with the copper-sash, buried with solemn rites on the previous night, but disinterred that morning, which did very well as a tea-gown. Steptoe placed her in the corner of the sofa 192 which the lyte Mrs. Allerton had generally occupied when “receivin’ company”, and William brought in the tea-equipage on a gorgeous silver tray.
Before he did this it had been necessary to school William to his part, which, to do him justice, he carried out with becoming gravity. Any reserves he might have felt were expressed to Golightly by a wink behind Steptoe’s back before he left the kitchen. The wink was the more expressive owing to the fact that Golightly and William had already summed up the old fellow as “balmy on the bean,” while their part was to humor him. Plain as a bursting shell seemed to William Miss Gravely’s position in the household, and Steptoe’s chivalry toward her an eccentricity which a sense of humor could enjoy. Otherwise they justified his reading of the fundamental non-morality of men, in bringing no condemnation to bear on anyone concerned. Being themselves two almost incapacitated heroes, with jobs likely to prove “soft,” it was wise, they felt, to enter into Steptoe’s comedy. At half past ten in the morning, therefore, Golightly prepared tea and buttered toast, while William arranged the tea-tray with those over-magnificent appointments which had been “the lyte Mrs. Allerton’s tyste.”
From her corner of the sofa Letty heard the butler announce, in a voice stately but not stentorian: “Miss Barbara Walbrook.”
He was so near the door that to step out and step in again was the work of a second. In stepping in again he trod daintily, wriggling the back part of his person, better to simulate the feminine. In order that Letty should nowhere be caught unaware he put 193 out his hand languidly, back upward, as princesses do when they expect it to be kissed.
“So delighted to find you at ’ome, Mrs. Allerton. It’s such a very fine dye I was sure as you’d be out.”
Rising from her corner Letty shook the relaxed hand as she might have shaken a dog’s tail. “Very pleased to meet you.”
From the histrionic Steptoe lapsed at once into the critical. “I think if madam was to sye, ‘So glad to be at ’ome, Miss Walbrook; do let me ring for tea,’ it’d be more like the lyte Mrs. Allerton.”
Obediently Letty repeated this formula, had the bell pointed out to her, and rang. The ladies having seated themselves, Miss Walbrook continued to improvise on the subject of the weather.
“Some o’ these October dyes’ll be just like summer time! and then agyne there’ll be a nip in the wind as’ll fairly freeze you. A good time o’ year to get out your furs, and I’m sure I ’ope as ’ow the moths ’aven’t gone and got at ’em. Horfly nasty things them moths. They sye as everything in the world ’as a use; but I’m sure I don’t see what use there is for moths, eatin’ ’oles in the seats of gentlemen’s trousers, no matter what you do to keep the coat-closet aired—and everything like that. What do you sye, Mrs. Allerton?”