“And I let her come in, and if her mother doesn’t want her back, why, she can stay here.”
He glanced up at the signboard.
“Clara Jarrett, proprietress,” he said deliberately, “you’re the best little woman I’ve ever come across as yet, and if you think I shall make a pretty fair sort of a husband I wish you’d just say the word.”
“It’s a pity, dear, about the motor-omnibuses,” she remarked later.
“Wrote off last night,” said Mr. Woods, with the wink of a business man, “to buy some shares in the concern!”
XIII—IRENE MERCER
The general feeling was that Jane would be more convenient, that Mary made less demand on the brain, that Ellen had the advantage of having been the title of her immediate predecessor, but she proved stern and adamant in regard to the detail, and the graceful thing to do was to give in for the moment with a secret promise to make an alteration later on. When the time came for revision, it was found that no other title but that of Irene could possibly be given. The name fitted as though she had been measured for it. An impression that it could only belong to stately and slightly offended young women on the pages of sixpenny fashion journals, vanished.
“Previous to me coming here,” Irene sometimes explained in the minute and a half given to conversation whilst clearing breakfast, “I was in a business establishment. Two year I put in there, I did, and then my ’ealth give way. Otherwise I should never have dreamt of going into domestic service. I’ve been used to ’aving my evenings to myself!”
By chance, it was ascertained that the time which elapsed after leaving school had been devoted to a mineral water manufactory: this discovery reflected no credit upon any of the boarders, being indeed the result of a chance remark made by her on seeing a two-horse cart belonging to the firm go through the square. A closer reticence was shown in regard to her family; Irene did, however, convey, at times, a hint that the members had seen better and more prosperous days, and that distinguished ancestors would betray signs of restlessness did they become aware that she occupied a position that brought in but £12 a year, giving freedom only on Thursday evening and alternate Sunday afternoons. “But we never know what’s in store for us,” she remarked, with a touch of fatalism. “It’s all ordained, I suppose. What I mean to say is, everything’s planned out, only that we don’t know it. Just as well, perhaps.”
Her appearance in the earlier days gave no signal of noble birth. She wore the corkscrew curls fashionable in her neighbourhood, and her efforts in hairdressing ceased at about half-way to the back of her head; the rest being a casual knot insecurely tied. Many things go awry in this world, but few were so unlucky as Irene’s apron, which appeared to be the sport and play of chance, going to various points of the compass, sometimes becoming fixed due west. She seemed to have a prejudice against safety pins. With her, hooks and eyes lived indiscriminately, and never as precise, well-ordered couples. On first assuming the white cap (against the use of which she made desperate opposition), she wore it rakishly over one eye, and being reproved, answered lightly that this was one of those matters which would be forgotten a hundred years hence. A girl more completely furnished with the easy platitudes that turn away wrath surely never existed. In generous mood, she gave them away by the dozen.