Ursula tried to reassure me by reminding me that the things were mostly very old, and antique things are invariably shabby as well as very valuable. Virginia contributed the consoling information that she had noticed, whenever people moved, they always left their good furniture behind in the empty house, for they only removed shabby-looking things.
I tried to feel duly proud of my possessions once more; but all the same I suggested that we should hurry on as fast as we could; I had a strong conviction that if any of my county neighbours called, they would probably be more impressed with the disreputable appearance of my belongings than with their priceless antiquity.
Of course, people came while we were still in chaos, as I knew they would. The first to arrive was Miss Primkins, who apologised for calling at such an hour, but she wanted to consult me on a private matter, she was so very worried. Was I busy? (with an inquiring glance at the all-pervading marine-store). Naturally I said I wasn’t.
The difficulty was to find a seat indoors to accommodate us while we talked; it wasn’t warm enough, as yet, to sit in the open. I found two chairs in the china pantry—a fair-sized apartment with a big window, even though it is called a pantry—and here we established ourselves, Miss Primkins reiterating how kind she thought it of me to receive her in this homely way, treating her just like one of the family. I tried to make her understand, however, that, as a general rule, it was not the family custom to foregather in the crockery cupboard!
She was a long while getting to the cause of her worry. I wonder why it is that so many women, when they start out to say anything, wander about and deviate into innumerable side channels and backwaters before they get to the point?—but there, I do myself, so we won’t follow up that line of thought.
Eventually, it transpired that when war was declared, and the attendant moratorium, Miss Primkins had hidden away what little gold she had in the bottom of a coffee canister, with the coffee put in again artlessly on top. Since then she had added to her store of gold, till at last she had £12 in all.
On hearing this I scented the trouble, and began to commiserate: “You don’t mean to say someone has stolen it! Who could it have been?”
“Oh, no; it hasn’t been stolen—though sometimes I almost wish—but there, I oughtn’t to say that! No, the difficulty is that now I don’t know how to get rid of it! I never thought there was any harm in putting a little by, in case anything happened, till I saw in the papers that someone said” (lowering her voice) “that those who hoard gold are traitors to their country, and” (in a still more shocked tone) “actually helping Germany! I’d never had any such idea! Why, it’s the very last thing I should wish to do!
“So I started unhoarding at once and took a sovereign when next I went out to pay my little grocery bill. Miss Jarvis wasn’t in the shop herself—she wouldn’t have been so rude!—but her assistant said, ‘Well, I never! Doesn’t it seem odd to see a sovereign again! I can’t tell you when I saw one last. I didn’t know there was a solitary one left in the village! Wherever did you get it from, Miss Primkins?’
“Do you know, I went hot and cold all over; didn’t know what to do with myself, for fear she should guess I’d been hoarding and helping the country to be a traitor—no, I mean helping Germany to be—well—you understand. I just said quietly, with all the composure I could muster, ‘I chanced to have it in my purse,’ because, after all, it wasn’t her business, was it?”