“No luck, my dear. All bolted, even the pantry window. We shall just have to wait.”
“Father!” exclaimed Peter, relieved from her equal fear of burglars or eccentric demigods, which latter she recollected were in the habit of occasionally week-ending with unsuspecting mortals.
“That you, Peter? Hooray, hooray! Can you let us into this infernal house? we’ve been knocking since half an hour,” Bertram Kyndersley sounded not a whit depressed by the occurrence.
“Aunt Esther is out. But cook had no right to leave the house alone.” Peter inserted the key, and opened to a square hall, blue-papered, with pleasant glimpses beyond of a gas-lit dining-room, its table spread with wine and fruit, with seed-cake and cress sandwiches.
“Aren’t you coming in, Chavvy?” the man spoke impatiently, of a sudden convinced that something was wrong with a universe that permitted to his daughter a latchkey, while himself was forced to nocturnal prowlings and pantry windows.
“May I—Pierrot?”
“Good God, yes!” he helped the bundle to its feet, and brought it into the hall. Peter, who from the high plaintive tones had expected to see a child, was astonished when Chavvy resolved itself into a girl some four or five years older than herself; though stunted in growth, and with dark hair scattered loosely about the shoulders. She wore an odd assortment of what looked like rags, but taken separately, proved a faded green jersey, a brown muffler, scanty red skirt, coloured stockings gaping with huge holes, shoes likewise ornamented, and a Neapolitan red fishing-cap that didn’t match the skirt.
Bertram too had a threadbare appearance, though his waist-line had considerably increased its girth of late, and his eye seemed to have melted more than was good for it. Nothing could detract, however, from a certain picturesqueness which clung about him like an aroma, and he met Peter’s mildly wondering gaze with his old jaunty smile.
“This is my wife, Peter!”—and waited to be cursed or blessed, as fortune decreed.
Chavvy took an impulsive step forward, both hands held out: “Please ... we are so tired and cold and hungry ... and—and I promise never to come between you and Pierrot!”