CHAPTER XXXIII. — A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE.
Lady Hilda Tregellis rang the bell resolutely. ‘I shall have no more nonsense about it,’ she said to herself in her most decisive and determined manner. ‘Whether mamma wishes it or not, I shall go and see them this very day without another word upon the subject.’
The servant answered the bell and stood waiting for his orders by the doorway.
‘Harris, will you tell Jenkins at once that I shall want the carriage at half-past eleven?’
‘Yes, my lady.’
‘All right then. That’ll do. Don’t stand staring at me there like an image, but go this minute and do as I tell you.’
‘Beg pardon, my lady, but her ladyship said she wanted the carriage herself at twelve puncshual.’
‘She can’t have it, then, Harris. That’s all. Go and give my message to Jenkins at once, and I’ll settle about the carriage with my lady myself.’
‘She’s the rummest young lady ever I come across,’ the man murmured to himself in a dissatisfied fashion, as he went down the stairs again: ‘but there, it’s none of my business, thank goodness. The places and the people she does go and hunt up when she’s got the fit on are truly ridic’lous: blest if she didn’t acshally make Mr. Jenkins drive her down into Camberwell the other mornin’, to see ‘ow the poor lived, she said; as if it mattered tuppence to us in our circles of society ‘ow the poor live. I wonder what little game she’s up to now? Well, well, what the aristocracy is coming to in these days is more’n I can fathom, as sure as my name’s William ‘Arris.’
The little game that Lady Hilda was up to that morning was one that a gentleman in Mr. Harris’s position was certainly hardly like to appreciate or sympathise with.