The pantry and kitchen left him rueful. Boxes of every size stood about in what seemed to him the same wild confusion that they had worn last night when they had been tossed out of the carrier’s cart. He foraged everywhere and could find no bread; in none of the tins or jars in which he peered lurked there any butter. Yet he realized that he had no one to blame but himself for this confusion. Matters had been beautifully arranged. His married sister, Mrs. Gowan, had taken “Tenby” for him, and seen to it that it was spotlessly clean; his unmarried sister, Kate, with an efficient servant, was to come up a week ahead of himself to get everything in perfect order and comfort for him, since he was supposed to be overworked and in need of a change.
And then, what must he do but upset everything! He had told Kate he would come to the station and see her comfortably off; but, indeed, she had seen all the luggage into the van, and the servant into another carriage, and bought her own magazines and ensconced herself comfortably in an empty first-class compartment before there was a sign of him. But then he came, and with a vengeance. She saw him, red-faced with hurrying, come striding along the platform, a Gladstone bag [p47] in his hand, plainly looking for her. She waved to him and he seized on a guard to unlock her door for him.
“You’ll be carried on,—quick, quick, get out!” she gasped, for the bell was ringing.
But he had dropped comfortably on to the seat opposite to her, after putting his portmanteau on the rack.
“I’m coming, too,” he said.
“You’re not,” she cried,—“you can’t,—I shan’t be ready for you; there’ll be no breakfast. Get out immediately, Hugh, and don’t be so foolish.” She actually dragged at his coat to pull him up from his seat.
But then the train gave a jerk, and she recognized the matter was out of her hands.
“Well, of all the wild doings!” she said; “you really might be twenty again, Hugh, and going off to England at two days’ notice with your very socks undarned.”
“I wish I were,” he said, and ruefully smoothed a bald patch on the top of his head.
“But—but—you don’t realize things a bit. I haven’t ordered anything,—the very beds aren’t made,—there won’t be a meal fit to eat for at least two days.” Kate looked as nearly put out as a stout, bright-faced woman of forty-five could look.