"I wonder!"
"The Countess of Bermondsey! That's a mouthful, ain't it?"
"The Countess of Bermondsey!"
As Miss Polly Steele echoed her companion's words she was still standing against the table, her little slender figure drawn as upright as a dart. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were sparkling, her lips were parted; one could see how her bosom rose and fell as her breath came in quick, eager respirations. Something had filled her with a strange excitement which each moment was mastering her more completely.
It was Lizzie who first heard the ascending footsteps.
"Hullo!" she cried. "Here's Mr Duffield."
A sudden peculiar change had taken place in the expression on Polly's countenance; it had become hard, even angry, her gleaming teeth had closed upon her lower lip. Lizzie admitted the returning lover.
"Morning, Mr Duffield." She looked at him with what was intended to be archness. "Polly has been telling me all about it. I wish you joy."
He laughed, as though she had perpetrated a capital joke.
"Thank you, Miss Emmett. We mean to have a bit if we can get it, don't we, Polly?" He was laden with paper parcels. He advanced with them towards the little silent figure which was standing at the table, his good-humoured face one mighty smile. "I've brought the whole shop full. Here you are, old girl. You'll want a cart to carry them."
She struck out at him with her clenched hands, dashing the parcels he was holding out to her in confusion on to the floor. She was in a flame of passion.
"I don't want your rubbish! And how dare you call me old girl? Who do you think you are, and what do you think I am? Keeping me waiting here, dancing attendance on your pleasure, and then insulting me; if you ever try to speak to me again I'll slap your face."
She pushed past him towards the door.
"Polly!" cried Lizzie, staring at her in a maze of wonder.
Miss Steele shook her fist so close to Lizzie's face it grazed her skin. Rage transfigured her. Her voice was shrill with fury.
"You great, ugly, stupid idiot! You've done more harm this morning than you'll ever do good in all your life! Let me pass!"
At the door she turned to shake her fist at Mr Duffield.
"Don't you dare to follow me!"
She vanished, flying down the stairs three or four steps at a time, in a whirlwind of haste, leaving her lover and her friend in speechless amazement, as if the heavens had fallen.
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE
"Bank holidays are admittedly common nuisances; they are neither Sundays nor week-days; they disorganise everything, both public and private life; and what is Christmas Day but a bank holiday, I should like to know! Here am I actually having to make my own bed and prepare my own breakfast; goodness only knows what I shall do about my lunch and dinner. And this in the twentieth century."
It was a monstrous fact. Granted that to a certain extent I had to thank my own weakness, still, Christmas Day was to blame. When, about a month before, Mr and Mrs Baines had begun to drop hints that they would like to spend Christmas Day with relatives at some out-of-the-way hole in Kent-it was three years since they had spent Christmas Day together, Mrs Baines told me with her own lips-I was gradually brought to consent. Of course I could not remain alone with Eliza-who is a remarkably pretty girl, mind you, though she is a housemaid-so I let her spend Christmas Day with her mother. They all three went off the day before-Eliza's home is in Devonshire-so that there was I left without a soul to look after me.
I allow that to some small extent the fault was mine. My bag was packed-Baines had packed it with his own hands, assisted by his wife and Eliza, and to my certain knowledge each had inserted a Christmas present, which it was intended should burst upon me with the force of a surprise. I had meant to spend Christmas with Popham. It seemed to me that since I had to spend it under somebody else's roof it might as well be under his. But on the morning of the twenty-fourth-Tuesday-I had had a letter-a most cheerful letter-in which Popham informed me that since one of his children had the measles, and another the mumps, and his wife was not well, and his own constitution was slightly unbalanced owing to a little trouble he had had with his motor-he had nearly broken his neck, from what I could gather-it had occurred to him that Christmas under his roof might not be such a festive season as he had hoped, and so he gave me warning. Obviously I did not want to force myself into a hospital, so I wired to Popham that I thought, on the whole, that I preferred my own fireside.
But I said nothing about my change of plans to Mr and Mrs Baines or Eliza, for it seemed to me that since they had made their arrangements they might as well carry them out, and I had intended to go to one of those innumerable establishments where, nowadays, homeless and friendless creatures are guaranteed-for a consideration-a "social season."
Eliza started after breakfast, Mr and Mrs Baines after lunch. I told them that I was going by the four o'clock and could get my bag taken to the cab without their assistance. When the time came I could not make up my mind to go anywhere. So I dined at the club and had a dullish evening. And on Christmas Day I had to make my own bed and light my own fire.
A really disreputable state of affairs!
I never had such a time in my life. I was bitterly cold when I first got up-it had been freezing all night-but I was hot enough long before I had a fire. The thing would not burn. There was a gas stove in the kitchen, I could manage that all right, to a certain extent-though it made an abominable smell, which I had not noticed when Mrs Baines had been on the premises-but I could not spend all Christmas Day crouching over half a dozen gas jets. Not to speak of the danger of asphyxiation, which, judging from the horrible odour, appeared to me to be a pretty real one. I wanted coal fires in my own rooms, or, at least, in one of them. But the thing would not behave in a reasonable manner. I grew hot with rage, but the grate remained as cold as charity.
I live in a flat-Badminton Mansions-endless staircases, I don't know how many floors, and not a Christian within miles. I had a dim notion, I don't know how I got it, but I had a dim notion that a person of the charwoman species ascended each morning to a flat somewhere overhead to do-I had not the faintest idea what, but the sort of things charwomen do do. Driven to the verge of desperation-consider the state I was in, no fire, no breakfast, no nothing, except that wretched gas stove, which I was convinced that I should shortly have to put out if I did not wish to be suffocated-it occurred to me, more or less vaguely, that if I could only intercept that female I might induce her, by the offer of a substantial sum, to put my establishment into something like order. So, with a view of ascertaining if she was anywhere about, I went out on to the landing to look for her.
"Now," I told myself, "I suppose I shall have to stand in this condition" – I had as nearly as possible blacked myself all over-"for a couple of hours outside my own door and then she won't come."
No sooner had I shown my unwashed face outside than I became conscious that a child-a girl-was standing at the open door of the flat on the opposite side of the landing. I was not going to retreat from a mere infant; I declined even to notice her presence, though I became instantly aware that she was taking the liveliest interest in mine. I looked up and down, saw there were no signs of any charwoman, and feeling that it would be more dignified to return anon-when that child had vanished-was about to retire within my own precincts, when-the child addressed me.
"I wish you a merry Christmas."
I was really startled. The child was a perfect stranger to me. I just glanced across at her, wishing that I was certain if what I felt upon my nose actually was soot, and replied-with sufficient frigidity, -
"Thank you. Your wish is obliging. But there is not the slightest chance of my having a merry Christmas, I give you my word of honour."
My intention was to-metaphorically-crush the child, but she was not to be crushed. I already had my back to her, when she observed, -
"I am so sorry. Are you in any trouble?"
I turned to her again.
"I