“You have a perfect eye for colouring, Evelyn. I always know that your choice will be exactly my own.”
Sometimes we saw the humour of these self-satisfied compliments, sometimes we were so busy and engrossed that we accepted them open-mouthed. I suppose in every mind personal preference is magnified into the standard of perfection, and all the arguing in the world will fail to convince A that he is—artistically speaking—colour-blind, or B that her drawing-room is a bazaar of trumpery odds and ends! All the more reason to be thankful that we agreed. We were convinced that our taste was unique; but supposing for one moment that it was bad, we should at least share a comfortable delusion!
The oak entrance hall was to be ornamented with old delft. The curtains and chair coverings were to be of the same shade of blue. The parquet floor was to be supplied with rugs of warm Eastern colours. Exactly the right shade of violet-purple had been found for the drawing-room, and I should be ashamed to say how many shops we ransacked for the chair coverings, until at last we found the identical pattern to satisfy our demands. Certainly I should be ashamed to confess what we paid for the piece. Charmion was appallingly extravagant! That was another discovery which I had made in the last days. It seemed as if she found a positive satisfaction in paying abnormal prices, not with the purse-proud bombast of the nouveau riche, but rather with the almost savage relief of a slave who shakes off a few links of a hated chain. I was a little alarmed at the total to which our purchases amounted; but I comforted myself with the thought, nothing new would be required for a long, long time, and that, if I found my income running short, I could always retire to my flat, and live on a figurative twopence under Bridget’s clever management.
Charmion had heard all about the flat by this time, and had hurt my feelings by treating the whole proposal as a ridiculous joke. She made no attempt to dissuade me—had we not agreed never to interfere in each other’s doings?—but she laughed, and said, “Dear goose,” and arched her fine brows expressively as she asked how long a lease I proposed to take, “Or, rather, I should say, how short?”
Now I had myself inclined to a short lease with the option of staying on, but opposition stiffened my back, and I there and then decided to go and look at several possibilities which I had hitherto put aside as impracticable because they had to be taken for a term of three to five years. Bridget would go with me—dear, lawless, laughter-loving Bridget, who entered into the play with refreshing zest. Bridget had the real characteristic Irish faculty of looking upon life as an amusing game, and the more novel and unorthodox the game was, the better she was pleased. “Sure it’s your own face! It’s for you to do what you please with it!” was the easy comment with which she accepted my proposed disguise. She undertook to do most of the work of the flat without a qualm, and shed an easy tear of emotion over the sorrows and difficulties which it was to be my mission to reduce. “Oh, the poor creatures! Will they be starving around us, Miss Evelyn, and the little children crying out for bread?”
“N–not exactly that,” I explained. “I want to work among gentlefolk, Bridget—poor gentlefolk, who suffer most of all, because they are too proud to ask for help. But they will probably be short of time, and service, and probably of strength, too, and when I get to know them, they will let me help them in these ways, though they would not accept my money—”
Bridget looked sceptical.
“I wouldn’t put it past them!”
I laughed, and dropped the subject.
“Oh, well, time will show. Meantime you understand, don’t you, Bridget, that they are not cheerful places that we are going to see? Cheerful positions in London mean big rents, and I mean to live among people who have to count every penny several times over, and try hard to make it into a sixpenny bit. You and I will have sunshine and light at Pastimes—you won’t mind putting up with dullness for part of the year?”