Now the furnishing was complete. The kitchen and one bedroom held the old things, but in the other four rooms Mrs. Tregennis arranged with pride the bargains collected at the sales, and the new things sent out from a Plymouth shop.
It was all so grand and wonderful that she could scarcely realize that the rooms were her very own. Morning after morning, for many weeks, as soon as she was dressed, she opened the door of the tiny sitting-room on the first floor and looked round almost with awe on its beauty and newness. On tiptoe she then advanced into the room, picked a piece of cotton off the gay Brussels carpet, dusted an imaginary fleck from the green art-serge tablecloth, and stroked out the fringe of the plush mantel-border. Then, having slightly altered the position of one of the velvet upholstered chairs, she passed out with a sigh of contentment, and gently closed the door behind her.
The final act of preparation in the new house was to hang up, in the lower sitting-room window, a long narrow card bearing in gold letters the word “Apartments.” After this the Tregennis family settled down and waited.
June was a blank month for Draeth that year. It was unusually wet and cold, and very few visitors came to the little fishing-town, and none at all to the double-fronted house. Whenever a stranger walked up the alley Mrs. Tregennis’s hopes rose high, but not until July did anyone knock at her door and ask about the price of rooms. Outwardly Mrs. Tregennis was very calm but her inward agitation was great. She displayed her rooms with pride, they were taken, and after that with one party and another she was busy until the end of August.
Early in September, towards the end of the afternoon, she was interrupted in her dressing by the rapping of knuckles on the door. She buttoned her bodice as she came downstairs, shook out her skirts and hurriedly put on an apron before she opened it. “We wondered if you could take us in just for the night,” said the taller of two ladies who stood on the step. “We are on a cycling tour and are going on further to-morrow.”
“Please come in,” said Mrs. Tregennis, and they passed into the downstairs sitting-room, which was just on the left-hand side of the door.
“We’ve tried so many places,” said the lady who had already spoken, “and no one can take us.”
Mrs. Tregennis pulled forward two Windsor chairs for the ladies and stood before them smoothing a non-existent crease from her white apron.
“Well, I might manage it, Miss,” she said, “if the young gentleman didn’t mind, for I have this room free.”