door was opened by a stout, middle-aged woman with a rosy face and a very white apron on which she wiped her fingers before she took the card Barbara held out to her.
“Ay, come in, please, mem. Certainly, ye can see the hoose. I’ll tak’ ye through. . . . No, it’s no been empty that lang. Ma mistress dee’d last July. There’s been a gey wheen folk lookin’ at it—kinna artist folk the maist o’ them—but I dinna think it’s let yet.”
As she spoke she led them through rather a dark hall and opened a door. “The dining-room,” she said, and stood aside to let them pass.
Nicole at once went to one of the windows to look out, but Barbara studied the room, measuring spaces with her eyes.
“Not a bad room,” she said. “The sideboard along this wall . . .”
Nicole turned from the window. “Oh, Babs, do come and look. Isn’t that low wall jolly? Fishermen will sit on it in the evenings, and talk and smoke their pipes. And the harbour! I like to think of ships coming in and unloading and setting off.”
“Yes, yes,” Barbara said absently. “I wonder if that fire-place throws out any heat. I distrust that kind.”
“Let’s see the drawing-room,” said Nicole.
“Upstairs, mem. Mebbe I’d better go first.”
The stair was stone with shallow steps, the bannisters delicate wrought iron with a thin mahogany handrail. The woman with the snowy apron pattered briskly across the landing and threw open a door.
“Ye see,” she said proudly. “It’s bigger than the dinin’-room by a’ the width o’ the lobby. Ay, an’ fower windows nae less.”
“How jolly,” sighed Nicole, “oh, how jolly!”
It was a long room, rather narrow. Each of the four deep windows looked out to the sea, and was fitted with a window seat. The fire-place at the far end of the room had a perfect Adam mantelpiece: the doors were mahogany.
“Curious shape of room,” Barbara said. “I’m not sure that I——”
“Say no more,” interrupted her cousin. “This is where I’m going to live. As soon as I saw it I knew, as you might say, that it was my spiritual home. I’ll sit curled up on one of those window seats every evening and watch the sun set over the sea. What? No, perhaps I’m not looking west, but it doesn’t matter. Don’t carp . . . I’m sure mother will love this room. She’ll hang her beloved little portraits in a line above that fire-place; the bureau will stand just here, with the miniatures above it, and her very own arm-chair beside the table. . . . We’ll be able to make it exactly like home for her.”
“My dear girl, we haven’t got it yet.”
“Sensible always, Babs dear: that’s quite true, we haven’t. But I’m absolutely sure this is to be our home. I knew the house when I saw it. It seemed to give me a nod as I came over the doorstep. There’s no doubt about it we were meant to come here, and that’s why poor Mrs. Jackson was uprooted from Pollokshields. I’m going off now to wire to Mr. Haynes to take it at once. It would be too ghastly if those ‘artist folk’ got before us—come on, Babs.”
“Nonsense,” said Barbara. “Don’t be so childish. We haven’t seen the bedrooms—much the most important part of a house to my mind. And we don’t know if there is a decent kitchen range and a good supply of hot water. It’s so like you, Nicole, to look out of a window and immediately determine to take a house.”
Nicole, instead of looking crushed, smiled into the eyes of the caretaker, who, evidently liking her enthusiasm, came to her help.
“Ay, my auld mistress aye sat in this room and lookit oot on the water. When the tide’s in if ye sit ower here ye canna see onything but water, juist as if ye were on a ship. An’ it’s a warm room; grand thick walls; nane o’ yer new rubbish, wan-brick thick. I’m vex’t that ye’ve no’ seen the room wi’ the furniture in’t. The next o’ kin took it awa’ to Edinboro’ and hed it sell’t. It was auld, ye ken, terrible ancient, and brocht a heap o’ siller. . . . The bedrooms? Ay, fine rooms. There’s two on this landin’—the mistress’s room an’ the dressin’-room aff, that the ain maid sleepit in.”
They went with her to the room. “Ye see,” she pointed out, “it hesna the sea view, it looks up the brae, but it’s a nice quait room, for the gairden’s round it. . . An’ there’s a bathroom next the dressin’-room.”
“It’s all in beautiful order,” Barbara said. “The paint and paper seem quite fresh—— What rooms are upstairs?”
“I’ll show ye. There’s fower bedrooms an’ a wee ane made into a bathroom. That was dune no’ mair nor seeven year syne (an’ its never been used, so it’s as guid as new), when the mistress’s grandson, wha should ha’ heired it, was hame frae the War. We wanted to hae things rale nice for him, an’ the mistress was aye readin’ aboot the dirt in the trenches, an’ she was determined that he wud hae a grand bath o’ his ain the wee while he was hame. Ay, but he only got the use o’t the wance. He was awfu’ high aboot it, the laddie, but he never cam’ hame again; an’ the property ga’ed to a far-awa’ freend that the mistress kent naething aboot.” She opened a door.
“This is the new bathroom.”
The two girls looked at the white-tiled walls, the gleaming hot-water rails, the glass shelves, the large luxurious bath, all spotlessly kept, then Nicole turned away with a slight shiver. “Poor little boy who liked his comforts,” she said. . . . “May we see the bedrooms?”
Two of them looked to the sea, two to the brae: all good rooms.
“Now for the kitchen,” cried Nicole, “and pray heaven that’s as perfect as the rest.” She turned to her friend the caretaker. “You don’t mind, do you? It seems we’ve simply got to see the kitchen and inquire into the hot-water supply.”
“ ’Deed ye can see onything in the hoose. I’m prood o’ ma kitchen. I’ve cooked in’t for near thirty years.”
“Oh!” said Barbara. “So you were Mrs. Swinton’s cook? That explains why everything is so well kept,” and she said it again with more fervour when she saw the kitchen premises. There was little left except necessities, but the tables were scrubbed white, the stone floors in the scullery and laundry sanded in elaborate patterns, everything showing that there was some one in charge who loved to work.
“It’s awfu’ bare: ye should hae seen it wi’ a’ the braw covers and copper pans, but everything’s been sold.” She shook her head sadly. “A body’s little hert to wark—but still . . .”
“And when the house is let,” Barbara began, and stopped.
“When the hoose is let, I’ll tak a cook’s place in Edinboro’. Ye get awfu’ big wages noo-a-days, but I dinna ken hoo I’ll like the toon.” She answered Barbara, but she looked at Nicole.
“You’ll hate it,” said that young woman briskly. “Besides, think how lonely this old house would be without you. Thirty years, did you say you’d been here? Why, you must love every stone of it. I don’t believe you could sleep now away from the sound of the sea. . . . Won’t you stay on and take care of us? I want to hear all about old Mrs. Swinton and the boy who liked his comforts. You see, we’re
