“I must have some nourishment at once. I’ve had nothing—nothing—since my breakfast at nine and now it’s nearly eleven. And for my breakfast I only had a few eggs. Go and make me some cocoa at once ... at once.”
William went downstairs again and looked for some cocoa. He found a cupboard with various tins and in one tin he found a brown powder which might quite well be cocoa, though there was no label on it. Ever hopeful, he mixed some with water in a cup and took it up to the lady. Again she assumed her suffering expression, closed her eyes and sipped it daintily. Again her suffering expression changed to one of fury, again she flung the cup at William and again she missed him. This time the cup hit a bust of William Shakespeare. Though the impact broke the cup the bottom of it rested hat-wise at a rakish angle upon the immortal bard’s head, giving him a rather debauched appearance while the dark liquid streamed down his smug countenance.
“It’s knife powder,” screamed the lady hysterically. “Oh, you murderous little brute. It’s knife powder! This will be the death of me. I’ll never get over this as long as I live—never, never, NEVER!”
William stood expectant awaiting the inevitable attack of hysterics. But it did not come. The lady’s eyes had wandered to the window and there they stayed, growing wider and wider and rounder and rounder and wider, while her mouth slowly opened to its fullest extent. She pointed with a trembling hand.
“Look!” she said. “The river’s flooding.”
William looked. The part of the garden which could be seen from the window was completely under water. Then—and not till then—did William remember the hose pipe which he had left playing at full force in the back yard. He gazed in silent horror.
“I always said so,” panted the lady hysterically, “I said so. I said so to Dr. Morlan. I said ‘I couldn’t live in a house in a valley. There’d be floods and my nerves couldn’t stand them,’ and he said that the river couldn’t possibly flood this house and it can and I might have known he was lying and oh my poor nerves, what shall I do, what shall I do?”
William gazed around the room as if in search of inspiration. He met the gaze of Venus de Milo soaked in starch and leering through her enclosing glass; he met the gaze of William Shakespeare soaked in water and knife powder and wearing his broken cup jauntily. Neither afforded him inspiration.
“It rises as I watch it—inch by inch,” shrilled the lady, “inch by inch! It’s terrible ... we’re marooned.... Oh, it’s horrible. There isn’t even a life belt in the house.”
William was conscious of a great relief at her explanation of the spreading sheet of water. It would for the present at any rate divert guilt from him.