I was sitting on the steps of Shreelane House, smoking a cigarette after breakfast. By the calendar, the month was November, by the map it was the South-west of Ireland, but by every token that hot sun and soft breeze could offer it was the Riviera in April.
Maria, my wife's water spaniel, elderly now, but unimpaired in figure, and in character merely fortified in guile by the castigations of seven winters, reclined on the warm limestone flags beside me. Minx, the nursery fox-terrier, sat, as was her practice, upon Maria's ribs, nodding in slumber. All was peace.
Peace, I say, but even as I expanded in it and the sunshine, there arose to me from the kitchen window in the area the voice of Mrs. Cadogan, uplifted in passionate questioning.
"Bridgie!" it wailed. "Where's me beautiful head and me lovely feet?"
The answer to this amazing inquiry travelled shrilly from the region of the scullery.
"Bilin' in the pot, ma'am."
I realised that it was merely soup in its elemental stage that was under discussion, but Peace spread her wings at the cry; it recalled the fact that Philippa was having a dinner party that same night. In a small establishment such as mine, a dinner party is an affair of many aspects, all of them serious. The aspect of the master of the house, however, is not serious, it is merely contemptible. Having got out the champagne, and reverentially decanted the port, there remains for him no further place in the proceedings, no moment in which his presence is desired. If, at such a time, I wished to have speech with my wife, she was not to be found; if I abandoned the search and stationed myself in the hall, she would pass me, on an average, twice in every three minutes, generally with flowers in her hands, always with an expression so rapt as to abash all questionings. I therefore sat upon the steps and read the paper, superfluous to all save the dogs, to whom I at least offered a harbourage in the general stress.
Suddenly, and without a word of warning, Minx and Maria were converted from a slumbrous mound into twin comets—comets that trailed a continuous shriek of rage as they flew down the avenue. The cause of the affront presently revealed itself, in the form of a tall woman, with a shawl over her head, and a basket on her arm. She advanced unfalteringly, Minx walking on her hind legs beside her, as if in a circus, attentively smelling the basket, while Maria bayed her at large in the background. She dropped me a curtsey fit for the Lord Lieutenant.
"Does your Honour want any fish this morning?" Her rippling grey hair gleamed like silver in the sunlight, her face was straight-browed and pale, her grey eyes met mine with respectful self-possession. She might have been Deborah the prophetess, or the Mother of the Gracchi; as a matter of fact I recognised her as a certain Mrs. Honora Brickley, mother of my present kitchen-maid, a lady whom, not six months before, I had fined in a matter of trespass and assault.
"They're lovely fish altogether!" she pursued, "they're leppin' fresh!"