What did all that confused, broken talk portend? She tried to piece the sentences together to make sense of them, but the whole formed a hopeless jumble in her weary brain, and when she reached her comfortless bedchamber she poured a small dose of sleeping draught into a medicine glass, and, lying down, soon fell into a troubled sleep.
At six o’clock her alarm rang out. She jumped out of bed and went over to the bathtub. Oh, how cold the water was and how cold she felt with this sorry substitute for the comfortable bathroom at Bonnie Doon! But a good rub with a rough towel made her feel a good deal warmer. She dressed quickly and went downstairs, feeling her way till she reached the hall. There was a thin line of light under the invalid lodger’s door, and as she passed it Jean heard his stifled, painful cough.
Going into the kitchen, she laid and lit the fire. Then, acting on impulse, at seven she boiled a little water and took Mrs. Lightfoot a cup of nice hot tea.
“Well, child, this is very kindly of you, and no mistake! You’re the first of my ’elps that ’as hever done such a thing as bring me a cup o’ tea afore I got up in the morning. But there—you’ll not suffer from being kind. You shall ’ave two eggs instead of the one I meant you to ’ave for your breakfast. No Chinese eggs for me! Good English new-laid, that’s all I has any use for. Now, you start getting ready the breakfasts. Hall ’ave to be early stirrers and early risers in this ’ouse—hall but Miss Cheale, that is. She’s not expected to be down at ’er place till near eleven.”
For the next hour Jean was kept very busy, doing the kitchen and helping with the breakfast. At last she took up Mr. Robins’s breakfast tray, while Mrs. Lightfoot took up Mr. Goodbody’s.
As for the mysterious gentleman who occupied the back room on the ground floor, he had a specially big breakfast—a quarter of a pound of the best butter all to himself. Jean remembered the words: “’E’s paid for separately because ’e’s an hinvalid. You’ll ’ave nothing to do with ’im,” and sure enough in that one case Mrs. Lightfoot did not ask her to help in any way, save to carry the heavy tray to the top of the kitchen staircase.
Then, at last, the two sat down together to their breakfast, and after a few moments Mrs. Lightfoot suddenly observed: “Did Miss Cheale gabble a bit in ’er sleep last night?”
“Yes,” said Jean in a low voice, “she did.”
“There now! But you’ll soon get used to it. The minute she drops off, she is in the witness-box, poor soul! That’s what’s unsettling of ’er, though she do believe she’ll get that villain, Garlett, off.”
Jean started so violently that the other noticed it.