Vera Part 24

'And pray by whose orders was it in the library?'

'I couldn't say, sir. Chesterton----'

'Don't put it on to Chesterton.'

'I was thinking,' said Lizzie, who was more stout-hearted than the parlourmaid and didn't take cover quite so frequently in dumbness, 'I was thinking p'raps Chesterton knew. I don't do the tea, sir.'

'Send Chesterton,' said Wemyss.

Lizzie disappeared with the quickness of relief. Lucy, with a nervous little movement, stooped and picked up _Wuthering Heights_, which was still lying face downward on the floor.

'Yes,' said Wemyss. 'I like the way you treat books.'

She put it back on its shelf. 'I went to sleep, and it fell down,' she said. 'Everard,' she went on quickly, 'I must go and get a handkerchief.

I'll join you in the library.'

'I'm not going into the library. I'm going to have tea here. Why should I have tea in the library?'

'I only thought as it was there----'

'I suppose I can have tea where I like in my own house?'

'But of course. Well, then, I'll go and get a handkerchief and come back here.'

'You can do that some other time. Don't be so restless.'

'But I--I _want_ a handkerchief this minute,' said Lucy.

'Nonsense; here, have mine,' said Wemyss; and anyhow it was too late to escape, for there in the door stood Chesterton.

She was the parlourmaid. Her name has not till now been mentioned. It was Chesterton.

'Why is tea in the library?' Wemyss asked.

'I understood, sir, tea was always to be in the library,' said Chesterton.

'That was while I was by myself. I suppose it wouldn't have occurred to you to inquire whether I still wished it there now that I am not by myself.'

This floored Chesterton. Her ignorance of the right answer was complete.

She therefore said nothing, and merely stood.

But he didn't let her off. 'Would it?' he asked suddenly.

'No sir,' she said, dimly feeling that 'Yes sir' would land her in difficulties.

'No. Quite so. It wouldn't. Well, you will now go and fetch that tea and bring it up here. Stop a minute, stop a minute--don't be in such a hurry, please. How long has it been made?'

'Since half-past four, sir.'

'Then you will make fresh tea, and you will make fresh toast, and you will cut fresh bread and b.u.t.ter.'

'Yes sir.'

'And another time you will have the goodness to ascertain my wishes before taking upon yourself to put the tea into any room you choose to think fit.'

'Yes sir.'

She waited.

He waved.

She went.

'That'll teach her,' said Wemyss, looking refreshed by the encounter.

'If she thinks she's going to get out of bringing tea up here by putting it ready somewhere else she'll find she's mistaken. Aren't they a set?

_Aren't_ they a set, little Love?'

'I--don't know,' said Lucy nervously.

'You don't know!'

'I mean, I don't know them yet. How can I know them when I've only just come?'

'You soon will, then. A lazier set of careless, lying----'

'Do tell me what that picture is, Everard,' she interrupted, quickly crossing the room and standing in front of it. 'I've been wondering and wondering.'

'You can see what it is. It's a picture.'

'Yes. But where's the place?'

'I've no idea. It's one of Vera's. She didn't condescend to explain it.'

'You mean she painted it?'

'I daresay. She was always painting.'

Wemyss, who had been filling his pipe, lit it and stood smoking in front of the fire, occasionally looking at his watch, while Lucy stared at the picture. Lovely, lovely to run through that door out into the open, into the warmth and suns.h.i.+ne, further and further away....

It was the only picture in the room; indeed, the room was oddly bare,--a thin room, with no carpet on its slippery floor, only some infrequent rugs, and no curtains. But there had been curtains, for there were the rods with rings on them, so that somebody must have taken Vera's curtains away. Lucy had been strangely perturbed when she noticed this.

It was Vera's room. Her curtains oughtn't to have been touched.

The long wall opposite the fireplace had nothing at all on its sand-coloured surface from the door to the window except a tall narrow looking-gla.s.s in a queerly-carved black frame, and the picture. But how that one picture glowed. What glorious weather they were having in it!

It wasn't anywhere in England, she was sure. It was a brilliant, sunlit place, with a lot of almond trees in full blossom,--an orchard of them, apparently, standing in gra.s.s that was full of little flowers, very gay little flowers, of kinds she didn't know. And through the open door in the wall there was an amazing stretch of hot, vivid country. It stretched on and on till it melted into an ever so far away lovely blue.

There was an effect of immense s.p.a.ciousness, of huge freedom. One could feel oneself running out into it with one's face to the sun, flinging up one's arms in an ecstasy of release, of escape....

'It's somewhere abroad,' she said, after a silence.