Capital! said The Bittern man. All good grist for the interview! And now, will you show me the famous metal stairs of which I have heard so much? There are no penalties attached to that, I trust?
Except that we are not allowed to go up themAriadne and mewithout taking our boots off first, for fear of scratching the polish. We have to strip our feet in the housemaids pantry, and carry them up in our hands. Thats rather a bore, you will admit!
And your father? Does he bow to his own decrees?
Oh, no! I said. Papa is the exception that proves the rule.
Capital! again remarked The Bittern man. I am getting to know all about the great Mr. Vero-Taylor in the fierce light that beats upon the domestic hearth! But, by the way, he said, with a little crooked look at me, it is usualshall I say something about Mrs. Vero-Taylor? People generally like an allusionjust a hint of feminine presencesay the mistress of the house flitting about, tending her ferns, or what not?
You must put her in the kitchen, then, I said, tending her servants. Would you like to see her?
I should not like to disturb her, he said politely. Will you describe her for me?
Oh, mothers nice and thina good figureI should hate to have one of those feather-beddy mothers, dont you know? But I dont really think you need describe her. I dont think she cares about being in the interview, thank you, but you may say that my sister Ariadne is ravishingly beautiful, if you like?
And what about you, Miss? he asked, looking at me.
Tempe Vero-Taylor, I said. But whatever you do, dont put me in! George would have a fit! He wont much like your mentioning Ariadne, but I dont see why she shouldnt have a show, if I can give her one.
Very well, he said. Your ladyship shall be obeyed. Now I really think I have got enough, unless I saw his eyes straying up-stairs.
Theres nothing much to see up those stairs, except Georges bedroom, and I darent take you in there. It is quite commonplace, too; not like the rest of the house, but very, very comfortable.
Oho! Your father reminds me of the man who plays Othello, and doesnt trouble to black more than his face and arms, said The Bittern man. And your rooms?
Oh, our rooms are cupboards. Bowers, George calls them, and says we have more room to keep our clothes in than the lady of a mediæval castle would have. Now thats all, and
The truth was, I wanted him to go before George came home, for I thought it might be awkward for me if I were found entertaining a newspaper man. George might have preferred to do his own interview, who knows? This reflection only just occurred to me, as all reflections do, too late. The Bittern man was very quick, however, and understood me. He thanked me very much, far more than he need, for on reflection I did not see how he was going to make an interview out of all the scrappy things I had told him, and I said so. He assured me I need be under no uneasiness on that score, that this particular interview would be unique of its kind, and would gain him great credit with his editor, and increase the circulation of the paper. If it had nothing else, he said, it would at least have a succès de scandale, at least I think that is what he said, for I dont understand French very well. While he was making all those pretty speeches we stood in the hall, and I heard the little grating noise in the lock that meant that George was fitting his key in, and oh, how I just longed to run away! But I didnt. George opened the door, and came in and shook off his big fur coat. Then he saw The Bittern man and came forward, and The Bittern man came forward too, with his funny little smile on his face that somehow reminds me of the Pied Piper we used to read of when we were little.
I came from The Bittern, he said, and George nodded, to show he knew what for. To ask you to grant me the favour of an interview
I am sorry I happened to be out! began George, and then I knew, by the sound of his voice, that The Bittern was a good paper. But if it is not too late, I shall be happy
No need, no need to trouble you now, my dear sir, the interviewer said, waving his hand a little. I came, and I go not empty away, but with the material of a dozen articles of sovereign interest in my pocket. You left an admirable locum tenens in the person of your daughter here, who kindly consented to be my cicerone and relieved me of the necessity of troubling you. You will doubtless be relieved also. I shall have the pleasure of sending you a proof to-morrow. Good-day!
And before George could say what he wanted to say, Mr. Cook had opened the door for himself and had gone. I said he had plenty of cheek. George said so, too, and a great deal worse. I was black and blue for a week, and The Bittern man never sent a proof after all, so when the article came outInterviewing, New Style. A Talk with Miss Tempe Vero-Taylor,I got some more. That is the first and last time I was ever interviewed. George has peculiar theories about interviewing, I see, and I shall not interfere with them in future. I should think Mr. Frederick Cook would get on, making tools of honest children to serve his ambition like that. George didnt punish him, of course, he is a power on a paper; while I am but a child in the nursery.
CHAPTER VII
I WONDER if other families have got tame countesses, who come bothering and interfering in their affairs? I dont mind our having a house-warming party at all, but I do hate that it should be to please Lady Scilly.
A party! A party! she said to George, clasping her hands in her silly way. My party on the table! like the woman in the play of Ibsen. Ask all the dear, amusing literary people that I adore. And Ill bring a large contingent of smart people, if I may, to meet them. Please, please!
I dont know what a contingent is, but I fancy its something disagreeable. Lady Scilly is Georges friend, not Mothers. She has only called on Mother once, and that was in the old house, and then Mother was not receiving as they call it, so she has never even seen the mistress of the house where she is going to give the party. Christina Mander, Georges secretary, says that is quite the new way of doing things, and she has been about a great deal, and ought to know.
Miss Mander is a lady. She is very thin, one of those lath-and-plaster women, you know, that seem to live to support a small waist that is their greatest beauty, but when we first knew her, she was plump and jolly-looking. We practically got her for George. Years ago, when we were quite little and had had measles, we were sent down to a sort of boarding-house at Ramsgate to an old lady, an ex-dresser in some theatre Aunt Gerty knew, and who could neither see to mend or to keep us in order, though she got thirty shillings a week for doing it. They never got us up till nine; I suppose the slavey thought sufficient for the day was the evil thereof, and tried to make the evils day as short as possible. One morning when it was quite nine, and the sun was shining in, Ariadne and I were feeling frightfully bored, so we got up in our night-gowns, moved a wardrobe, and found a door behind it into another house. It was quite a smart house, with soft plush carpets and nicely-varnished yellow doors. We went all over it. Only the cat was awake, licking herself in the window-seat. The bedroom doors were all shut except one, and we went in and found a nice girl in bed with her gold hair all spread over the pillow. She didnt seem shocked at us, but laughed, and when we had explained, she wished us to get into the bed beside her. It had sheets trimmed with lace, and her initials, C. M., on the pillow. We did this every morning till we went away. She kept us up, afterwards sending us Christmas cards and so on, and when George advertised for a secretary to help him to sub-edit Wild Oats, she answered it, among the thousand others, and we remembered her name and made George engage her.
She had been to Girton, and to a journalistic school, and Mr. DAubans dancing academy, and to Klondikewhere all her hair got cut off, so that she hasnt enough to spread over the pillow nowand behind the scenes at a music-hall, and a month on the stage, and edited a paper once and wrote a novel. All before she was thirty! At every new arrangement for amusement she made her people opposed her, and prayed for her in church. But she always got her own way in the end. Her mother, Mrs. Stephen Cadwallis Mander, came here to sniff about when George first took Christina on. She is a woman of the world, tortoise-shell pince-nez