“Do you want to hang that up?” asked Christopher, watching her with idle interest. “Do let me do it, Mrs. Eliot, you’ll fall off those steps if you go higher. I can’t promise to catch you, but I can promise to hang curtains much better than you can.” Mrs. Eliot, who was already panting with exertion and the fatigue of stretching up her ample figure to unaccustomed heights, looked down at him doubtfully.
“Whatever would Mr. Masters say, sir?”
“He would be quite pleased his visitor found so harmless an amusement. You come down, Mrs. Eliot. Curtain-hanging is a passion with me, but what a shame to cover up those pretty curtains with dingy Holland!”
“They wouldn’t be pretty curtains now, sir,” said Mrs. Eliot, descending with elaborate care, “if they hadn’t been covered up these twenty years and more.”
“What a waste,” ejaculated Christopher now on the steps, “isn’t the room ever used?”
“Never since Mrs. Masters went out of it. ‘Eliot,’ says the master—I was first housemaid then—‘keep Mrs. Masters’ rooms just as they are, ready for use. She will want them again some day.’ So I did.” 243
Christopher shifted the steps and hung another curtain.
“I didn’t know there had been a Mrs. Masters.”
“Most folk have forgotten it, I think, sir.”
“This was her boudoir, I suppose.”