“Yes. Well, we’ve only one bedroom to see now, and the maid’s room and kitchen. Oh, this is grim; Brown paint, and purple and red striped wall-paper. What a guest-room! Truly a ‘field to bury strangers in’! I’ll tell you what, when you come to stay you’ll have my room, and I’ll come in here.”
“Indeed I shan’t,” said Isobel. “You’d be wishing me away all the time, in order to regain possession.”
“I’m sure I would,” Kitty agreed. “But I promise to make this so nice for you that you won’t know it again. This isn’t a bad kitchen, quite light and cheerful. That, I suppose, is the stove they put in for the Countess; we shall have a gas-cooker as well. With such a good scullery this kitchen would be quite comfortable to sit in.”
“Quite. The scullery is as large as most kitchens nowadays. And a nice little bedroom. Any woman might be happy here and not at all overworked.”
“And,” said Kitty, “I’d give her—my not impossible she—a gas-fire in her bedroom. Only the bathroom to see now. Well! This betrays the age of the building. Isobel, I simply must have a new bath. How could Mr. Johnson think it would do, squalid old man; and the wash-hand basin’s cracked, and brown paint in a bathroom is revolting. I don’t believe the place has been touched since the year 1877, when, I understand, it was built.” Kitty sat down on the edge of the bath, looking very determined. “D’you know what I’ve made up my mind to do? Get hot and cold water put into the bedrooms, and gut this bathroom.”
“Heil Hitler!” cried Isobel. “Keep that expression for Mr. Johnson. But I think myself you’re wise to have everything done at once, and then you’ll have satisfaction in your new house. This will make a really superior bathroom when you’ve finished with it; it’s biggish and it’s got a window.”
“I’d like to have it tiled,” said Kitty, “but that’s beyond me.”
“You can get all sorts of varnished papers now,” Isobel reminded her, “that really look very well. And it isn’t as if it would have hard usage. Now then, what d’you want measured?”
After an hour’s work Isobel straightened herself and remarked that she was hungry.
“Go out and buy some biscuits,” said Kitty, still absorbed in planning her new home.
Isobel, naturally indignant, said, “I’ll do nothing of the kind. You say you want to go on later and see about your stored furniture, that’ll take us most of the afternoon, and if you think I’m going about all day, hungry, and with filthy hands, you’re mistaken. We’d better go to some shop, and wash, and have lunch. Look at my hands! and yours are worse.”
“But I want to wait till the painter comes,” Kitty protested. “Gordon said he’d send him at once.”
“Your faith, my dear, is touching. As we go out we’ll get hold of Gordon and see if he’s done anything about it at all.”
Most unwillingly Kitty put on her coat and accompanied her friend downstairs.
When, after some difficulty, Gordon was discovered in the area. “The painters?” Kitty accosted him eagerly.
“Eh? O aye, the penters. I’m just awa’ to him the now. I had to tak’ ma denner early, for the wife’s gaun out in the afternoon. Here she is. Jessie! Come ’ere. This is the new lady.”
The wife, a comely little woman, very neat and tidy, with a Glasgow accent, said, “Pleased to meet you,” and grasped Kitty’s hand warmly. “We don’t like any of our flats to be empty, and I must say, it doesn’t often happen. Gordon tells me you’re getting the place done up, and you’d like to get someone to clean up after the painters, and that. If you like, I’ll clean up for you. Me being on the premises, I could do it in ma own time like.”
“If you would,” said Kitty gratefully. “I only wish I saw it ready for cleaning. There’s a lot to be done, and plumbers and painters take such a long time. However—Mrs. Gordon, you don’t happen to know of anyone, a middle-aged woman would be best, who would take full charge? I mean, cook, clean, wait, do everything? There’s only me, so it wouldn’t be a heavy place.”
“Uch, no!” said Mrs. Gordon, “these flats are that easy worked. You wouldn’t like a nice young girl? It would be cheerier like. The older ones are apt to be cranky a bit.”
“And the young ones are never in,” said Kitty. “On the whole I think I’d be better with an older one. Not elderly, you understand, just a sensible woman who would be glad to be settled and comfortable, and who wouldn’t want to leave me alone too much in the evenings.”
Mrs. Gordon put her head on one side. “What about a companion?” she asked.
“She’d have to eat with me and sit with me, and I’d hate that. Besides, I’d need to keep another woman to do the work. Do try to think of someone, Mrs. Gordon.”
“Oh, I will. I will that.” Mrs. Gordon’s tone was most hearty, and turning to her husband, she said, “Jock, what about Jeanie?” She explained: “It’s Gordon’s step-brother’s widow. She lives out Clapham way with a sister, and she was saying to me just yesterday, when she looked in for a cup of tea, that she whiles feels herself in the way. You see, there’s a husband in the house and three girls, and, uch, you know how it is, when girls grow up. They’ll not take a word, and mebbe Jeanie’s too free with her advice. I’ll be seeing Mrs. Auchinvole (that’s her name; isn’t it a queer one?) this very day, for we’ve planned to go to the pictures to see Little Lord Fauntleroy; they say Freddie Bartholomew’s lovely, and if you like I’ll sound her about it and let you know.”
“That would be very kind,” Kitty said, and then rather hesitatingly added, “She can cook, I suppose, your friend?”
“Well, she cooked for her husband for twenty years.”
“Ye-es,” said Kitty, feeling that this was hardly a convincing testimonial. After all, the husband was dead.
Isobel, who by this time was starving, clinched matters by saying, “If Mrs. Auchinvole considers it, she could come and meet you here some day, and you’d find out all you want to know.”
Mrs. Gordon, who was also anxious to be about her own business, chimed in, “That’s it. Any time you were coming to see how things were gettin’ on you could let me know and I’d have her here. I’ll tell her about it, of course, and she can be turning it over in her mind. You’ll not want anybody till the flat’s ready, and the dear knows when that’ll be.”
“We’ll hurry them up,” said Gordon. “Would two-thirty be a good time for you to see the painter, always supposin’ I can get him?”
So it was arranged, and Isobel thankfully dragged her friend luncheon-wards.
“Where shall we go? The nearest? Come on then, for measuring in an empty house is the hungriest work I’ve ever tried. It’s the feeling of bareness, like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. I’ve been planning what I’d eat for the last hour.”
Kitty objected. “We’re not fit to go into a decent place.”
“We won’t look so bad when we’ve washed, and, anyway, nobody’ll look at us.”
It was
