The meeting with Madge Newcome was a subject of much interest. “Quite grown-up, you say, and very grand and fashionable! And you went to lunch with her one day. Are the boys at home? What are they like? There was Cyril, the little one in the Eton jacket, who used to play with Raymond; and Phil, the middy; and the big one who was at college—Arthur, wasn’t he? What is he like now?”
“I saw him only once, but it was quite enough. He is in business with his father—a terribly solemn, proper person, who talks about books, and says, ‘Were you not?’—‘Would you not?’ Miss Carr says he is very clever, and good, and intellectual, but all the same, I am sure she doesn’t like him. I heard her describe him to father as ‘that wooden young man.’ It will be nice to see Madge in the summer, though I haven’t forgiven her for leaving me alone that afternoon. Oh, and I must tell you—” And the conversation branched off in another direction, while the girls crouched over the fire, laughing and talking in happy reunion.
Alas! the next day the clouds gathered over the family horizon and culminated in such a storm as was happily of rare occurrence. The moment that she left her bedroom Hilary began to grumble, and she grumbled steadily the whole day long. Everything that Lettice had done during her absence was wrong; the servants were careless and inefficient; the drawing-room—Norah’s special charge—looked as if no one had touched it for a fortnight; the house was dingy and badly lighted, and each arrangement worse than the last. Lettice hated quarrelling so much that she was prepared to bear a good deal before getting angry, but quick-tempered Norah exploded into a burst of irritation before the afternoon was half over.
“The fact is you have been staying for a fortnight in a grand London house, and you are spoiled for your own home. I think it is mean to come back, after having such a lovely time, and make everyone miserable with your grumbling and fault-findings! Lettice did everything she could while you were away, and the house is the same as when you left it.”
“Perhaps it is, but I didn’t know any better then. I know now how things ought to be done, and I can’t be satisfied when they are wrong.”
“And do you expect things to be managed as well in this house with five of us at home, besides father and Miss Briggs, and three servants to do all the work, as it is at Miss Carr’s, with no one but herself, and six or seven people to wait upon her?” Lettice spoke quietly, but with a flush on her cheeks which proved that she felt more than she showed. “It’s very foolish if you do, for you will only succeed in upsetting everyone, and making the whole house miserable and uncomfortable.”
“As you have done to-day!” added Norah bluntly. “I would rather have an old-fashioned house than the finest palace in the world with a cross, bad-tempered mistress going about grumbling from morning till night.”
“Norah, you are very rude to speak to me like that! You have no right. I am the eldest.”
“You had no right to say to me that I haven’t touched the drawing-room for a fortnight.”
“I have a right to complain if the work of the house is not properly done. Father has given me the charge. If I see things that can be improved, I am certainly not going to be quiet. Suppose Mr Rayner or the Newcomes came here to see us, what would they think if they came into a half-lit hall as we did last night?”