“Why not?”
“Have you ever swept in your life?”
“I have not; but I can try.”
“Oh! very well,” said Dolly, suddenly folding her hands and sitting down in her low chair. “Do it: there’s the broom behind the door. Do it: I should love to see you.”
The road outside was far cleaner than the floor of Mrs. Searle’s kitchen. Lal stood, doubtfully surveying his task and the aged broom. “It really wants scrubbing,” he said, seriously.
“Sweeping will do, if you sweep properly.”
“‘Will do!’ Miss Fane, I am surprised to hear you use that sloven’s expression. However, I am afraid sweeping will have to do, as we have neither sand nor Brooke’s soap.”
Leaving Dolly amazed at his erudition, Lal made a sudden descent upon the hearth-rug, shook it, rolled it up, and carried it out. He took out the cradle as well, very gently putting it down in the shade without waking the child. The chairs he piled on the table; the curtains he tucked up. Dolly took her place outside with the rest of the furniture, and stood in the doorway, watching and laughing. Lal paused, leaning on his broom in the middle of the floor as Maud Muller might have leaned upon her hay-rake.
Suddenly he made a triumphant pounce upon Mrs. Searle’s brown teapot, which spent all its days upon the hob. He emptied away the liquid tea, shook out the leaves on a broken plate, and began to strew them with fastidious fingers about the floor: the contrast between him and his task was piquant. Bernard would never have attempted to sweep at all, Lucian might have tried, but he was not wise enough for the tea-leaf plan. Dolly’s imagination could see him happily brooming all the dust out of the open door, and gathering it up with his fingers when it lodged in the inequalities of the flooring. This amateur house-maid worked in different style. Neat, deft, precise, that was Lal; he coaxed the flue out of the corners, he lifted the fender and swept underneath, he took away cobwebs from the window and spiders’ nests from the angles of the ceiling, and swept all his gleanings into a symmetrical pile.
“A dust-pan, now,” he said, looking round enquiringly.