“Don’t go away,” I said pleasantly, and gathering up my blotting-pad and papers I returned to the drawing-room to write. I was in the full swing of inspiration when the door was burst open by a third skirmisher in the hated uniform. She made her offence far worse by pretending that her visit was only one of wanton light-heartedness.
“It’s all right, Miss,” she said, “I can come back by and by; it was only to do the grate.”
I swallowed the word that rose to my lips—Elizabeth says it doesn’t do for the servants to know we say these things—and took my papers to the garden; but my letter was no longer witty. It was full of short disjointed sentences and tedious information. In a few minutes I was startled by a terrific rumbling on the gravel. The odd man was approaching to mow the lawn.
“Sorry to disturb you, Miss; I shan’t be above ’alf an hour,” was the way he put it. There are many possible variations of the same crime.
“Elizabeth,” I said as politely as I could when she came out on her way to the shops, “have you a wine-cellar?”
“Yes, a beauty. Why?”
“Do you mind telling me—is this the day for cleaning it out?”
“What nonsense; we don’t clean it out.”
“Then may I sit in it?”
Elizabeth was busy with the fish, but she told me where the key was, and I went down with a candle. It was cool and quiet and cobwebby, and I got on nicely. I was just getting my second wind and had refilled my fountain pen when I heard a voice—that of my enemy with the cloth—outside the door.