Suddenly, the front door bell pealed loudly down in the basement and reverberated throughout the house. A casual caller—perhaps Grandmamma’s old friend, Sir Swire, who called to see her most Sundays when he was in London.
The Braided Morning Coat winged a pious apostrophe to its private, particular gods.
Alas! the luckless garment was a trifle premature in its hymn of thanksgiving.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH MARY QUALIFIES FOR THE RÔLE
OF THE BAD GIRL OF THE FAMILY
Now who do you suppose it was, my lords and gentlemen, who pulled that blessed bell-wire? No, not the ex-lessee of the Cornmarket Theater. Miss Mary, helping Cook to peel the potatoes down in the basement, made herself acquainted with that fact when she pulled aside the window curtains and looked up through the area. Cockades and things were before the door of No. 10 Bedford Gardens; a raking pair of chestnuts; and a smart rubber-tired vehicle with armorial bearings.
The Bad Girl of the Family, peering through the kitchen curtains, with a half-peeled potato in one hand, and a bone-hafted knife in the other, saw Jeames de la Pluche, Esquire, who in that charming but absurd fur cape reminded her not a little of Harry Merino as the Cat in the moral drama of Dick Whittington, leap down from his perch with marked agility, whisk open the door, and lend assistance to something very uncommon in the way of distinction.
Uncommon Distinction was blonde and bland of countenance and very grande dame, as you could tell by her Carriage. Looked through her folders, and saw Number 10 over the fanlight; and as this she did, one of those terrible flashes of feminine intuition overtook Mary, that this must surely be Mother.
Yes, Mother undoubtedly. Had not Philip himself the same bland, blonde frontispiece; the same ample look of nourishment; the same air of deliberation as of one a little slow in the uptake; the same faint far-off suggestion of a finely grown vegetable? And to the quick eye of the feminine observer through the kitchen curtains, there were certain things pertaining to Mother which, up to the present, Son had not developed.
The clang of the front door bell reverberated through the basement.
“Drat it, Miss Mary,” said Cook. “And me not dressed yet. Would you mind letting in Sir Swire?”