Next day, Abigail came to me, also asking for an eleven o’clock leave. It transpired that she was expecting a little orphan cousin to arrive that night from Blackpool; such a sad affair—child left without a father when it was only four years old—she was eight now. No, she hadn’t ever seen the little cousin, but she felt it was such a distressing case that it was her duty to do what she could.
I hinted that eleven o’clock at night seemed rather late for one who was so young and so orphaned to be up and about, and likewise offered her the afternoon. But she said the train didn’t arrive sooner, and the trains were often late. So I gave her till 11.0 p.m. to welcome the pitiful orphan.
She also arrived in at night looking radiant. Under her mackintosh she was wearing a pink chiffon dress, edged with swansdown; a bandeau of sparkles was on her hair, a horseshoe of the same make adorning the back of her head; she carried a fan, and some flowers that had evidently been worn on the dress.
I am glad to say that she, too, had enjoyed herself immensely, and the desolate relative had been most pleased to make her acquaintance.
After that I retired.
And then I conclude it was the bang that did it; at any rate, the whole household woke with a start, and with one accord the feminine portion precipitated itself downstairs and on to the front door mat, and peered out into the dark road in the hope of seeing something!
The masculine element, being gifted with a faculty for keeping cool, calm and collected in any emergency, stayed to gather up a few wraps and rugs and overcoats and anything else he could lay his hands on in the dark (including his disreputable old gardening jacket), which he brought down and distributed among us, as we had not stopped for much in the way of clothing.
At that moment Virginia and Ursula rushed along the road from their own house and joined us. Virginia was clad in a nightdress, with a mackintosh over it and a sumptuous pale blue kimono (covered with brown and black flying herons) on the top of the mac. Ursula was wearing her heliotrope dressing-gown, an ostrich feather boa, and an eiderdown quilt.