Mr. Pennycomequick's apartments consisted of a study, with a bedroom opening out of it. The front of the house on the same floor was taken up with a drawing-room, rarely occupied. A third door on the same landing admitted into the spare bedroom, in which the corpse of the drowned man had laid till the burial.
On the ground-floor were two rooms, corresponding to those occupied by Mr. Pennycomequick, and these had been given up to Mrs. Cusworth, one—the outer—served as sitting-room. The dining-room and a breakfast-room—the latter under the spare bed-chamber—completed the arrangement on the ground-floor. Formerly Mrs. Cusworth and her daughters had slept on the story above the drawing-room and Mr. Pennycomequick's suite, and Salome's apartment were there still; but of late, owing to her mother's infirmity, her bed had been transferred to the inner room, which had been transformed from the housekeeper's office to a sleeping-apartment for the old lady, to whom it was injurious to ascend many steps; and as it was not advisable that Mrs. Cusworth should be alone at night, Salome had slept in the room with her. Since the arrival of Janet, however, she had returned to her apartment upstairs, as the old lady had expressed a wish to have her married daughter with her.
'My dear,' she had said, 'it is not much more that I can expect to see of Janet. She will have to return to her husband before long, and I am not likely to live to have the pleasure of many of her visits; so, if you do not mind, Salome, I should wish her to sleep in my room whilst she is here, that I may have her by me as much as I may.'
Salome had accordingly returned to her chamber upstairs. She was glad that at this time her sister was there to relieve her of attendance on her mother, whilst she went in search of lodgings and was engaged in packing.
'I am expecting a summons to return to Elboeuf every day,' said Janet, 'directly I get the news of the rout of the Prussians. Providence never intended that barbarism should prevail over culture; and the French have such accomplished manners, and such perfect taste—why, the German ladies I have seen have no idea how to dress.'
'You forget, Janet,' said the sister, 'that the barbarians did, of old, overwhelm Roman civilization.'
'Oh, yes; but only that they might assimilate the culture, and become civilized themselves. If the result of this wretched war were that German ladies learned how to put on their clothes tastefully, I almost forgive Sedan and Metz.'
Salome had as little knowledge of the arrangement arrived at between Mrs. Sidebottom and Philip as has the reader, and for the same reason. It had not been divulged. She, of course, could ask no questions. The reader does, but he must wait. He shall be told presently. Suffice it for him to know that Mrs. Sidebottom had, unopposed, sworn to her brother's death, without will, and had taken out letters of administration.
Philip did not have his meals with the Cusworth party; they were served to him apart.
On this evening, after the house was locked up, servants had retired to bed, Salome was in her own room; she had been engaged there for some hours, examining and sorting the house-bills, and destroying such as were not required to be preserved. When this was done, she began to pack her little library in a deal case, first wrapping each volume carefully in newspaper. As she did this she came on a garden manual that Mr. Pennycomequick had given her on her birthday when fifteen. The sight of this book suddenly reminded her of a score of hyacinth-bulbs she had put in a dark closet under the stairs, in which to form shoots before they were put in their glasses. The book had advised this as a corrective to the development of leaf at the expense of flower. In this cupboard, which Janet and she as children had named the Pummy closet—a name that had adhered to it ever since—she kept as well sundry garden requisites.