Encounter number two represented Evelyn in her best hat and coat, feeling rather spry and pleased with herself, until presently, clinketty clank, round the bend of the road came the quick, staccato beat of horses’ hoofs. Mr and Mrs Maplestone cantering past in hunting kit, which at one glimpse killed complacency and substituted disgust for the poor fripperies of town.
Encounter number three was most obnoxious of all. It represented Evelyn solus encountering Mr Maplestone solus and on foot. Approaching him on the unsheltered road, torn by the problem, “Will he bow? Shall I bow? Will he pretend? Shall I pretend?” moving nearer and nearer, and in a final moment of discomfort meeting the stare of blank, angry eyes. Poor man! It must be exhausting to have such a violent temper. I wondered what he looked like when by chance he was happy and pleased!
The West End firm got through their work in record time, and at the end of three weeks Charmion and I took possession, and set to work at the task of putting our house in order. Every woman delights in this work in prospect; in reality, every one comes full tilt against a score of irritating, aggravating contretemps which baulk her carefully-laid schemes.
Our contretemps appeared in a very usual form. The cook and gardener, who had been definitely engaged to meet us on our arrival, and whom we had, therefore, not replaced in town, sent missives instead, to “hope they didn’t inconvenience, but they had changed their minds”. The two town servants who had arrived were immediately plunged into woe, and, looking into their set, dour faces, one could hear the inward thought, “Don’t believe anyone ever was engaged! Just one of their tricks to get us down here to do the work alone.” We left them sitting like monuments of woe in the kitchen, and shut ourselves up in the drawing-room to consult.
“Uplands, I conclude,” said Charmion coldly.
“Oh, no! I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t condescend to that!”
“Why not? He stopped the work in the house.”
“That was different! After all, he is the Squire, and when it was a case of inconveniencing him, or a stranger—a local tradesman could hardly be expected to put us first. At least, you can understand his position.”
“Does the same argument apply to local domestics?”
“It might do; but I don’t believe it was used. To give a tradesman an order for now or never, and to—to stoop to bribe a servant to break an engagement—surely they are two different things! I do not believe Mr Maplestone would do it!”