The Black Cabinet Read Free

respectable working folk that learnt a trade and learnt it well, and weren’t too fine to touch their caps when they met you, or to drop a curtsey if it was a woman. No one’s got any manners nowadays!”
    â€œNo, they don’t seem to have,” said Chloe sweetly. She wasn’t looking at the chauffeur, but she was aware of a hurried movement on his part. It occurred to her afterwards that he had turned his head aside to hide a grin.
    â€œNo manners at all!” said the old lady severely. “Mannerless and incompetent—that’s the present generation. Where we shall all be in fifty years’ time, goodness knows.”
    â€œI know,” said Chloe. “But what about now?”
    The old lady fixed her with a pair of small, pale blue eyes.
    â€œDo you know Ranbourne?” she inquired.
    â€œI’m going there—don’t do that!” The last words were addressed to the Pekinese who had just made a vicious snap at her hand.
    â€œDarling angel Toto mustn’t bite,” said the old lady in quite a different voice. One might almost have said that she cooed the words. “Darling angel Toto shall have his tea if he’s a real angel boy, he shall.” She resumed normal speech, and once more addressed Chloe:
    â€œOwing to the chauffeur’s incompetence I have already been stranded here for at least a quarter of an hour.” She consulted a jewelled watch. “It is three o’clock, and if Toto doesn’t get his tea and biscuit at three, he screams—doesn’t ums, a darling angel? He knows the time as well as well, and once three o’clock has struck, he knows it’s time for his tea, and he screams till he gets it—a precious. And we ought to have been at Ranbourne at least ten minutes ago.”
    At this moment Toto’s snarl ran rapidly up the scale and merged into an undoubted scream. The old lady gazed at him with fond pride. Chloe had a fleeting impression of the chauffeur as a large, fair, young man who looked as if he would like to murder Toto. She hoped it was only Toto.
    â€œThere!” said the old lady as scream succeeded scream. “He does want his tea—a precious, a clever, darling angel boy.”
    Chloe caught the chauffeur’s eye. She looked away again instantly. The eye was an angry one, but behind the anger there had certainly been a twinkle.
    â€œWell, I don’t see what we can do about it,” she said. “I can take a message if you like—I’m going to Ranbourne.”
    â€œNot a message,” said the old lady. “Let Mother speak, a darling angel”—this to Toto.
    â€œNot a message, but Toto himself. Take him with you, and ask them to let him have his tea at once—China tea, half milk; and a Marie biscuit; and just one teeny lump of sugar in the tea.”
    Chloe began to shake with inward laughter. She bit the corners of her lips to keep them steady.
    â€œDo you mean bicycle with him?”
    â€œOh, no! Certainly not! How could you think of such a thing? My precious Toto! No, no, you must walk your bicycle of course, and have Toto in the basket in front with his own eiderdown—my precious, darling angel, do hush, just for a minute.”
    Chloe felt that, if she stood there any longer, she would say or do something outrageous. She therefore murmured, “All right,” and submitted to endless instructions as to the proper preparation of Toto’s tea, whilst the chauffeur lined her bicycle basket with a purple satin eiderdown. Toto, snarling and screaming, was tucked in and secured with a strap.
    â€œTell Lady Gresson that I rely on her,” said the old lady. “She’s expecting me—Mrs. Merston Howard. Tell her that I rely on her, and that the tea must be freshly made, and China, not Indian—on no account Indian.”
    Chloe had gone about half a dozen yards, when Mrs. Howard called her back.
    â€œFoster, go after her.