[CHAPTER VI]
ELIZABETH ENTERS
Elizabeth was sitting with her cousin in the garden-house at the end of the croquet-lawn, waiting for the sound of the gong which should announce to her that the motor was round to take her for a drive with Aunt Julia. She had arrived the evening before, after spending a week at Paris with some relations of her mother, and had, at Mrs. Hancock's special desire, breakfasted in her room that morning, this being the correct after-cure for any journey that implied a night in the train or a crossing of the Channel, for had Mrs. Hancock started at midday from Calais and come to her journey's end at Dover she would certainly have had breakfast in her room next day. Elizabeth, as a matter of fact, feeling extremely vigorous when she woke this morning at six, had let herself discreetly out of the house, and much enjoyed a two hours' ramble, returning in time to steal back unobserved to her room, where she ate her breakfast with remarkable heartiness at nine. Soon after, she had come out with Edith, while her aunt read small paragraphs in the paper and saw the cook. The usual schedule for the day had been altered so that Elizabeth might have a good long drive that morning, and the motor had been ordered for half-past eleven, instead of twelve; she could then get a good long rest in the afternoon, which should complete the journey-cure inaugurated by breakfasting in bed. But this dislocation of hours had proved too serious to face, and Lind had come out half an hour ago to say that if it suited Miss Elizabeth equally well, the car would come round at twelve—or a few minutes before—as usual.
Elizabeth, as has previously been mentioned, had not looked forward to this summer in England with her aunt, nor had she considered that the well-remembered comfort of the house was an advantage. But on this glittering summer morning, after the dust of trains and the roar of towns, she found herself in a singularly contented, amused and eager frame of mind. There was, for the present, a charm for her in the warm airy house, the exquisitely kept garden, the cheerful serenity of her aunt. As is the way of youth, she delighted in new impressions, and she found that in her two years' absence from England, for she had spent the last summer in the Hills, she had forgotten the aroma of home life. She was recording those new impressions to Edith with remarkable volubility.
"But the most beautiful bath!" she said. "All white tiles, and roses at the window, and silver handles for everything. You should see our Indian bathroom, Edith! There is a horrible little brown shed opening from your bedroom, and a large tin pan in a corner, and if you are lucky a tap for the water. Usually you are unlucky, and there are only tin jugs of water. In the hot weather the first thing you have to do is to look carefully about to see that a cobra hasn't come to share it with you. Then there are no bells; nobody knows why, but there aren't; and if you want your ayah you shout. If she doesn't want to come she doesn't appear for a quarter of an hour or so, and explains that she didn't hear you shout."
"Then how did she know you shouted?" said Edith brightly.
"That is what you ask her, and she explains at such length that you wish you were dead. Oh, look at the grass—real grass, and there's still dew on it in the shadow. I long to take off my shoes and stockings and walk about on it. May I?"
"Oh, Elizabeth, I think not!" said Edith, slightly alarmed. "Ellis would think it so odd."
"Ellis? Oh, the gardener! He looks like a clergyman, with his side-whiskers. But does it matter much what he thinks? Servants must think such a lot of awful things about us. However, I don't mind. I wanted my bath tremendously this morning, if you'll promise not to tell, because it wasn't exactly what Aunt Julia meant. You see, she thought I was tired, and really I wasn't, so I got up at six and had a delicious ramble. I went on to a quiet common covered with heath, and there was nobody there but a sort of lunatic with a butterfly net, running madly about. He caught his foot in a root of heather and fell flat down at my feet. Of course I howled with laughter."