Dot felt overwhelmed with the responsibilities of her position.
‘I think you had better take baby up to mother’s first, Larrie,’ she said, ‘I don’t see how I am to mind him and cook the dinner and do everything.’
‘How does Peggie manage when you’re [p 49] ]away? My dear Dot, I hope you are not going to give me the idea that you are one of those women utterly without resource,’ said my lord Larrie. ‘My sister Charlotte—’
‘Grace!’ cried Dot, ‘spare me the recapitulation of the puddings she could make and the wonders she could do at sixteen.’
‘Well, I only wanted to show you,’ said Larrie.
He brushed the dust off his shoulders, set his straw hat perfectly straight on his head—he always wore it tilted forward or stuck jauntily back in these wilds—and with a paternal kind of kiss to Dot and a grandfatherly one to the baby, he departed.
‘I’ll just show him what I can do,’ said Dot going kitchenwards. ‘Horrid boy!’
It was six or thereabouts when the ‘horrid boy’ returned. He was hungry—amazingly hungry—and apart from his experiment he really hoped that there was a very nice dinner ready. The white tablecloth was on the dining-room table and the flowers were exquisitely arranged, drooping blossoms of [p 50] ]wistaria and delicate leaves on a ground of pale yellow silk. There were also some knives and forks in a heap, two salt-cellars and the silver gong. From the bedroom came doleful baby wails that filled all the cottage. From the kitchen a strong smell of burning.
‘Gracious Lor,’ said Peggie.
But ‘Hang it all!’ was her master’s remark.