The drawing-room is such a jolly room, very light and bright, with three big windows facing north and east and south. It has only one beam going across the ceiling and none of the sombre dark beauty of the dining-room, so I feel I may be flippant there. I shall have heaps of colour in the covers and curtains. There are a few delightful things of daddy's for this room—a lovely old mahogany corner cupboard with latticed doors, and some bits of china to go in it, bowls and jugs and funny old cups without handles. There are also three beautiful chairs with rounded backs filled in with lattice work painted in black and gold; the gold is very faint and worn in places. The seats are cane and the front legs very spindly, the kind of chair one's heaviest male visitor will inevitably choose. I think they must be French, they are so elegant. No one should sit in them but an old gentleman with powdered hair, delicate lace ruffles, and a little cane, and his lady opposite must have a small patch box, there is one that I can lend her if she likes. None of my men folk will look well in them, unless perhaps my father, in his robes and full lawn sleeves. And I bought an old mahogany bureau with deep drawers and little hidy holes and secret places in it. It was really most expensive, but I asked Ross, and he said Michael's balance at the bank was so indecent that he thought I really must. I don't think we shall want much else; I like space and Michael needs plenty; he will only fall over things if I crowd the rooms too much, and complain that there is nowhere for his legs.
I forgot to say there is a great cupboard in this room with battened shelves for fruit. (I told you the domestic offices were all mixed up), and there are Cox's orange apple trees in the garden. I seem to see a man who will get up suddenly and leave the fire on a winter's night and hie him to the cupboard 'for a map,' but his pockets will bulge suspiciously on his return, and there will be a kind of 'ain't going to be no core' look in his eyes. Then he will lean back in the chair covered with the bird and basket chintz and blatantly and vulgarly eat a Cox's, skin and all, regardless of the fact that he's already had at least one properly at dinner with finger bowls and silver knives and plates. Then I shall say in righteous indignation, 'Where's the map?' and he will say, 'Why, in my pocket, can't you see it sticking out?' 'I can see something round,' I say severely. 'Well, what would you have?' he drawls, 'the world's round, isn't it? It follows that the maps should be round, too.' And he picks up his book again and reads. But I, because the flesh is weak and the man tempted me too far, and because his second apple looks so good, I shall shriek out, 'Oh, now I know how Adam felt, Michael, you old serpent, give me one.' 'You can't eat maps,' he says. 'Oh, yes, I can,' I say, and snuggle down beside the fire and lean against his knee and munch in jolly comradeship, while the tale of cores mounts steadily and sizzles with delightful splutterings in the fire. Ah, well!
CHAPTER XV
Everything now is signed, sealed, and delivered. Gidger's cottage really belongs to me.
I have engaged a most enchanting charwoman: she cleans silver and brass better than any one else in the world, and polishes furniture till it dazzles, but she can't scrub, she has an 'inside.' It is of deep and lasting interest to her, and must be such a consolation on a wet day when one wants a hobby in the house. She is never tired of talking of it. It has a way of cropping up in every conversation, like the head of Charles the First in Mr Dick's memorial. Ross calls her 'Our Lady of Ventre,' which sounds more like a Belgian cathedral than it really is! She is very emaciated and her looks are more 'delicate' than her conversation.
'You see, mum, it's my inside,' she says; 'what I've suffered no one don't know but those what 'as it; why, one hoperation alone they took out——' but I spare you. So I have a second woman to scrub, and between them they are getting the house like a new pin, and it will burst upon the staff in all its pristine and primeval cleanness. I am a little afraid of the staff. I understand that English servants in these days need 'standing up to.' I can manage a man all right, having had a vast experience, and Ross keeps my hand in, but a woman—how does one stand up to her?
To-day the saucepans and baking tins arrived. I was thrilled, so was 'Our Lady of Ventre,' she helped me to unpack them while the other lady scrubbed the shelves.
'Could you wash them, do you think?' I asked.
'Oh, yes, mum, as long as I don't do no scrubbing; you see, it's my——' but I changed the conversation quickly by asking how her husband was.
'I 'ad a field card yesterday' (I wish I had), she answered, ''e was all right then; my 'usband's in the calvery, in the calvery 'e is, always was a one for 'orses.'