'Her cooking's all right,' Mr Abernethie admitted grudgingly. 'Yes, she's a decent enough cook. But keep her in the kitchen, that's all I ask. Don't let her come fussing round me.'
'No, dear, of course not. How are you feeling?'
'Not at all well. I think you'd better send for Barton to come and have a look at me. This paint affects my heart. Feel my pulse – the irregular way it's beating.'
Maude felt it without comment.
'Timothy, shall we go to an hotel until the house painting is finished?'
'It would be a great waste of money.'
'Does that matter so much now?'
'You're just like all women – hopelessly extravagant! Just because we've come into a ridiculously small part of my brother's estate, you think we can go and live indefinitely at the Ritz.'
'I didn't quite say that, dear.'
'I can tell you that the difference Richard's money will make will be hardly appreciable. This bloodsucking Government will see to that. You mark my words, the whole lot will go in taxation.'
Mrs Abernethie shook her head sadly.
'This coffee's cold,' said the invalid, looking with distaste at the cup which he had not as yet tasted. 'Why can't I ever get a cup of really hot coffee?'
'I'll take it down and warm it up.'
In the kitchen Miss Gilchrist was drinking tea and conversing affably, though with slight condescension, with Mrs Jones.
'I'm so anxious to spare Mrs Abernethie all I can,' she said. 'All this running up and down stairs is so painful for her.'
'Waits on him hand and foot, she does,' said Mrs Jones, stirring the sugar in her cup.
'It's very sad his being such an invalid.'
'Not such an invalid either,' Mrs Jones said darkly. 'Suits him very well to lie up and ring bells and have trays brought up and down. But he's well able to get up and go about. Even seen him out in the village, I have, when she's been away. Walking as hearty as you please. Anything he really needs – like his tobacco or a stamp – he can come and get. And that's why when she was off at that funeral and got held up on the way back, and he told me I'd got to come in and stay the night again, I refused. 'I'm sorry, sir,' I said, 'but I've got my husband to think of. Going out to oblige in the mornings is all very well, but I've got to be there to see to him when he comes back from work.' Nor I wouldn't budge, I wouldn't. Do him good, I thought, to get about the house and look after himself for once. Might make him see what a lot he gets done for him. So I stood firm, I did. He didn't half create.'
Mrs Jones drew a deep breath and took a long satisfying drink of sweet inky tea. 'Ar,' she said.
Though deeply suspicious of Miss Gilchrist, and considering her as a finicky thing and a 'regular fussy old maid,' Mrs Jones approved of the lavish way in which Miss Gilchrist dispensed her employer's tea and sugar ration.
She set down the cup and said affably:
'I'll give the kitchen floor a nice scrub down and then I'll be getting along. The potatoes is all ready peeled, dear, you'll find them by the sink.'
Though slightly affronted by the 'dear,' Miss Gilchrist was appreciative of the goodwill which had divested an enormous quantity of potatoes of their outer coverings.
Before she could say anything the telephone rang and she hurried out in the hall to answer it. The telephone, in the style of fifty odd years ago, was situated inconveniently in a draughty passage behind the staircase.
Maude Abernethie appeared at the top of the stairs while Miss Gilchrist was still speaking. The latter looked up and said:
'It's Mrs – Leo – is it? – Abernethie speaking.'
'Tell her I'm just coming.'
Maude descended the stairs slowly and painfully.
Miss Gilchrist murmured, 'I'm so sorry you've had to come down again, Mrs Abernethie. Has Mr Abernethie finished his elevenses? I'll just nip up and get the tray.'
She trotted up the stairs as Mrs Abernethie said into the receiver.
'Helen? This is Maude here.'
The invalid received Miss Gilchrist with a baleful glare. As she picked up the tray he asked fretfully:
'Who's that on the telephone?'
'Mrs Leo Abernethie.'
'Oh? Suppose they'll go gossiping for about an hour. Women have no sense of time when they get on the phone. Never think of the money they're wasting.'
Miss Gilchrist said brightly that it would be Mrs Leo who had to pay, and Timothy grunted.
'Just pull that curtain aside, will you? No, not that one, the other one. I don't want the light slap in my eyes. That's better. No reason because I'm an invalid that I should have to sit in the dark all day.'
He went on:
'And you might look in that bookcase over there for a green – What's the matter now? What are you rushing off for?'
'It's the front door, Mr Abernethie.'
'I didn't hear anything. You've got that woman downstairs, haven't you? Let her go and answer it.'
'Yes, Mr Abernethie. What was the book you wanted me to find?'
The invalid closed his eyes.
'I can't remember now. You've put it out of my head. You'd better go.'
Miss Gilchrist seized the tray and hurriedly departed. Putting the tray on the pantry table she hurried into the front hall, passing Mrs Abernethie who was still at the telephone.
She returned in a moment to ask in a muted voice:
'I'm so sorry to interrupt. It's a nun. Collecting. The Heart of Mary Fund, I think she said. She has a book. Half a crown or five shillings most people seem to have given.'
Maude Abernethie said:
'Just a moment, Helen,' into the telephone, and to Miss Gilchrist, 'I don't subscribe to Roman Catholics. We have our own Church charities.'
Miss Gilchrist hurried away again.
Maude terminated her conversation after a few minutes with the phrase, 'I'll talk to Timothy about it.'
She replaced the receiver and came into the front hall. Miss Gilchrist was standing quite still by the drawing- room door. She was frowning in a puzzled way and jumped when Maude Abernethie spoke to her.
'There's nothing the matter, is there, Miss Gilchrist?'
'Oh no, Mrs Abernethie, I'm afraid I was just woolgathering. So stupid of me when there's so much to be done.'
Miss Gilchrist resumed her imitation of a busy ant and Maude Abernethie climbed the stairs slowly and painfully to her husband's room.
'That was Helen on the telephone. It seems that the place is definitely sold some Institution for Foreign Refugees -'
She paused whilst Timothy expressed himself forcefully on the subject of Foreign Refugees, with side issues as to the house in which he had been born and brought up. 'No decent standards left in this country. My old home! I can hardly bear to think of it.'
Maude went on.
'Helen quite appreciates what you – we – will feel about it. She suggests that we might like to come there for a visit before it goes. She was very distressed about your health and the way the painting is affecting it. She thought you might prefer coming to Enderby to going to an hotel. The servants are there still, so you could be looked after comfortably.'
Timothy, whose mouth had been open in outraged protests half-way through this, had closed it again. His eyes had become suddenly shrewd. He now nodded his head approvingly.
'Thoughtful of Helen,' he said. 'Very thoughtful. I don't know, I'm sure, I'll have to think it over… There's no doubt that this paint is poisoning me – there's arsenic in paint, I believe. I seem to have heard something of the
