“Well, there’s no one in South Africa who hasn’t, at any rate,” rejoined the girl. And Dick Selmes, confound it, was half ashamed of a sneaking satisfaction that Harley Greenoak’s beard was rapidly turning grey.
“That you, Elsie?” said old Hesketh, shaking hands with the privileged retainer. “Well, and you haven’t managed to pick up a husband yet? Ho, ho!”
“Yan’s the wurrd, Mr Hesketh. They’re to be had for the pickin’ up. But it’ll end in ma havin’ to come and tak’ care o’ yeerself, A’m thinkin’. Yan dust,” designating her recent work, “must have been lyin’ aroound for a yeer at least.”
This retort, naïvely ambiguous, given with perfect equability, raised a laugh among its hearers, who chose to read but one of its two potential meanings.
“Now, Uncle Eph,” said the girl, decisively. “We are going to get the breakfast ready, and it’s nearly ready now—and we’ve got a little surprise for you. I should prefer you all to go outside and amuse yourselves for the next quarter of an hour; in fact, till I call you in.”
This was a command there was no gainsaying. Old Ephraim gave a dry chuckle, reached for his pipe, and obeyed without a word. Harley Greenoak likewise. But Dick Selmes said—
“Do let me stay and help you, Miss Brandon. Why, it’ll be like a jolly picnic.”
She hesitated a moment.
“No,” she said. “We don’t want any men.” Then he followed the others.
When they returned they found she had been as good as her word. This was a surprise indeed. Dick Selmes, the only one given to expressing that emotion outwardly, was metaphorically rubbing his eyes. Where, for instance, was the soiled, coarse-textured old cloth, covering one end of the bare table—where the camp-kettle, handed from one to the other from its usual resting-place on the floor, as more coffee was needed? Where the weather-beaten enamel ware, the tin pannikins holding the milk and sugar, the cloudy spoons? Where, too, the dark-brown bread, and the mess badly and indifferently cooked in a frying-pan? Gone—wholly gone. Instead, a snowy cloth, bright, hissing urn, patterned china, roester-koekjes steaming white within. Chops, too, hot from the gridiron, juicy and crisp, and a great honeycomb reposing in a sparkling cut-glass dish. The metamorphosis was complete indeed.