CHAPTER XXVII. A HOUSE-WARMING.
It was about six weeks after Christmas when Mrs. Graham-Shute again descended upon Wyngham, not for mere invasion, but with a view to settling in the conquered country.
By the luckiest chance in the world (so she said) there was by this time a house to be let absolutely within sight of Wyngham House. It was an ugly brand-new dwelling, built of yellow brick, standing in a very small scrap of immature garden, on the west side of Wyngham House, and therefore a little way further from the town than Mr. Bradfield’s residence. It had been built by the local poet, a gentleman who turned out a large amount of verse, mostly very bad, and always very dull, some of which occasionally found its way into the dullest and heaviest of the old established magazines. Overweighted by the burden of his own celebrity (at least this was the construction put upon his action by the neighbours) he had built a high wall round his house and tiny garden, to shield himself from the public gaze; although nobody wanted to look at him. Then, suddenly tiring of his dwelling when he had finished spoiling it, he put up a board announcing that it was to let, just in time for it to be pounced upon by the fair Maude, who was charmed by the dignified seclusion offered by the high wall, and by its near neighbourhood to dear cousin John. Furthermore the house had what she described as a “magnificent entrance,” which meant that a great deal of the space which ought to have been utilised in enlarging the poor little dining-room, was wasted on a big draughty hall, in which the four winds found a charming playground from which to distribute themselves up and down and around into every corner of the house. There was also a good-sized drawing-room, which was to be the scene of certain functions which were to bring a breath of Bayswater into benighted Wyngham.
Long before the harmless, necessary plumber was out of the house, long before the carpets were down or the new papers were dry, Mrs. Graham-Shute had resolved upon most of the details of a house-warming, which was to be remembered as an epoch in the local annals. In honour of the occasion, Lilith had fortunately discovered a talent for dramatic authorship, and had fashioned a play which was to be the chief feature of the evening’s entertainment. Having got as far as this, Mrs. Graham-Shute, long before the moving was accomplished, proceeded to send out invitations to all those people whose acquaintance she had made, or had not made, as the case might be, during her week’s stay at dear cousin John’s. The next thing to be done was to call upon the editor of The Wyngham Observer (with which is incorporated The Little Wosham Times), to ask him to insert, under the heading of “A Distinguished Arrival,” an account of the proposed function which she had thoughtfully written out beforehand. But the editor had, as she afterwards expressed it, “no enterprise, no manners, no anything,” for he mildly informed the lady that if he inserted her contribution it must be paid for as an advertisement.
Then began the first of the poor lady’s difficulties. Of course she sent an invitation to dear cousin John. Equally, of course, she sent none to the housekeeper or the housekeeper’s daughter. Then she received a blunt note from Mr. Bradfield, informing her that unless Mrs. and Miss Abercarne came too, he shouldn’t come. Remonstrances followed, but were unavailing; then Mrs. Graham-Shute made a feeble stand; but the thought of what life would be at Wyngham without the countenance of the Great Man prevailed, and Mrs. and Miss Abercarne got their invitation, which Mr. Bradfield then put pressure on them to accept.
What a frantic state of excitement pervaded “The Cottage” on the day of the “function!” What skirmishes there were among the performers! What rushes into the town on the part of the younger members of the family for a pound of sweet biscuits, a packet of candles, sixpennyworth of daffodils, and two syphons of lemonade! Not to speak of a running stream of messengers to cousin John’s, with pressing requests for the loan of a dozen chairs, a bottle of whisky and a tea-tray! As Mrs. Graham-Shute feelingly said, “It was quite lucky, as it happened, those wretched Abercarnes had been invited, you know!”
And so indeed it was. But when at last the evening came, Mrs. Graham-Shute felt that her exertions had met with their reward, for there was not a space sufficient for the accommodation of one person which did not hold two. This was the very height of enjoyment to the good lady, who received each guest with a fixed, galvanic smile, and said she was “so delighted that you could come, you know,” the while she looked over the shoulder of the guest whose hand she held, too obviously occupied in counting the number of people who pressed in behind. It was indeed, as she afterwards said, a most successful function. Number of guests, eighty—seats for thirty-five. Sandwiches for five-and-twenty; tea for all those enterprising and muscular enough to make their way into the dining-room, where Rose, feeble and frightened, drifted round the tea-table rather than presided at it.
There was some delay before the entertainment of the evening began; this is inevitable when you have to wait until the last guest has passed safely in before you can set your stage. By-the-bye, there was no stage proper, a space being railed off merely from the hall-door to about half-way up the hall, so that it was exceedingly disconcerting when the two Misses Blake, elderly and slow both of movement and understanding, knocked at the door at the most thrilling moment of the drama, and had to be let in right between the villain and the lady he was trying to murder. To avoid a second contretemps of the same kind, one of the younger children was told off to stand in the cold outside, to show late comers in by the back door.