“And what about my brother?” demanded Miss Fortescue.
Without waiting to hear Bertie’s fate, which he foresaw as hopeless, Sebastian returned to the hotel, and broke the news of his impending departure to his father, who received it in grim silence.
Then he made his usual evening pilgrimage to the Haven, and laid before Stuart his impressions of the state of affairs at the Farme.
It was evident that the management of the boarding-house was proving rather too much for Aureole; and she ran it in a fashion that certainly marked a new and eccentric era in that particular line of business. The boarders were compounded of three separate strata; members from her own social and artistic circle, such as Archie Mowbray, little Verney, and Ethel Wynne, who were there by way of a lark, and to “give Aureole a leg-up”; respectable folk, like the Johnsons and the Fortescues, and others from the Midlands and the suburbs of London, who usually departed after their first day, spreading a report of “heathenish goings-on”; unless they stayed on, because secretly fascinated by the difference between this bizarre establishment and the more usual article. Finally, the Doubtfuls, with profession a trifle misty and laughter a shade too loud. Aureole would fain have rid herself of some of these, but did not quite know how to set about it. She relied on her visitors for sympathy and assistance in a manner that was wholly disarming; would send one to the town for butter, if she ran out of the commodity; beg another to lend his cherished motor-car for the common weal; would relate confidentially how the cook had just left—“so we must put up with a scratch dinner, isn’t it tiresome?” Or, taking a guest for companion on a shopping expedition, would question casually: “Do you like salmon?” and, on receiving an affirmative reply, order eighteen shillings’ worth to be sent immediately to the Farme for lunch. Nor did she think it necessary ever to rise from her slumbers till noon; with the result that breakfast, unsuperintended, resembled a steeplechase more than anything in the world; each person with a separate fad, entering at a separate time, calling for separate food—or sometimes merely grabbing; wandering to and fro from the kitchen; sounding bells,—occasional outbursts of rage, when Aureole’s foggy ideas of quantity had misled her on the near side. Nevertheless, her very helplessness aroused a dormant quality of chivalry in the boarders, so that they put up with an astonishing amount of discomfort and incapacity, flattered to find themselves treated in the spirit of an accidental society house-party. The great amusement was to watch the bewildered entry of new-comers; mark their slow emancipation from the set state of mind which expected to find a framed copy of rules, hours, and terms, on their bedroom wall; expected, indeed, to find a bedroom wall, which rarely existed till Aureole, in collaboration with the fever-chart, would discuss who could with impunity be ejected to make place. Idle to speculate how often Archie Mowbray had travelled with his polo-boots and hair-brushes.
About a week after the advent of Sebastian, chaos reached its supreme height. Aureole, deeply in debt, found the weather too warm for effort, and decided to let things rip. They ripped. A great many problems she solved by simply staying in bed; others, less adjustable, reduced her to the verge of angry tears. Ada, invaluable housemaid, bethought herself to give notice. Aureole would dearly like to have done the same.
“Que diable fais-je donc dans cette galère?” she demanded impatiently of Letty, as they undressed together in the bathing-hut.
“Je ne say pas,” replied Letty, in careful High School French.
“Sir James and Lady Merridik are due this evening. Thank goodness, I’ve got quarters for them, at least. Facing north, to be cool—or was it a south aspect they wanted, because of the cold? He’s an Indian judge, so he’s sure to feel the climate, but I forget which way they feel it. Tant pis!” Aureole slipped into a most becoming bathing-dress, tied a black silk handkerchief round her flaming curls, and lounging against a miscellaneous heap of deck-chairs, wet and dry towels, tumbled garments both masculine and feminine, shrimping-nets, spades, and greengages, she watched Letty, in the earlier stages of disrobing. This wooden bathing-shed, given exclusively for the use of the Farme, was a little separate chaos of its own, a sort of annexe to the major chaos. While some undressed in it, some waited to undress, and some, already undressed and in the water, were awaiting their opportunity to come out till those undressing were in the water, when the first set would dash in and encounter in the doorway those who were waiting to undress. The men of the party were supposed to take their dip earlier, before breakfast, when the sea was iciest, or directly after, and risk apoplexy. But the laggards usually contrived to overlap, and their drippings made the shed untenable before the turn of the ladies. Add to all this a defective latch, which allowed the door to swing open if directly leant against, the demands of the little Percival boy, who throughout the morning was in shrill need of spade or pail or buns or fishing-net; add a large earwig colony inhabiting the chinks between the boards;—and it will be understood that the Farme bathing-shed was hardly a spot to choose for confidential conversation.