LITMIR.BIZ

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women who are more Irish than they need be—“there’s a Boy here!”

§ 3

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      There was indeed an almost obsequiously industrious and obliging Boy. An hour later he was no longer a Boy but the Boy, and three friendly women were regarding him with a merited approval.

      He had done the frying, renewed a waning fire with remarkable skill and dispatch, reboiled a neglected kettle in the shortest possible time, laid almost without direction a simple meal, very exactly set out campstools and cleaned the frying pan marvellously. Hardly had they taken their portions of that appetizing savouriness, than he had whipped off with that implement, gone behind the caravan, busied himself there, and returned with the pan—glittering bright. Himself if possible brighter. One cheek indeed shone with an animated glow.

      “But wasn’t there some of the bacon and stuff left?” asked the lady in the deerstalker.

      “I didn’t think it was wanted, Miss,” said Bealby. “So I cleared it up.”

      He met understanding in her eye. He questioned her expression.

      “Mayn’t I wash up for you, miss?” he asked to relieve the tension.

      He washed up, swiftly and cleanly. He had never been able to wash up to Mr. Mergleson’s satisfaction before, but now he did everything Mr. Mergleson had ever told him. He asked where to put the things away and he put them away. Then he asked politely if there was anything else he could do for them. Questioned, he said he liked doing things. “You haven’t,” said the lady in the deerstalker, “a taste for cleaning boots?”

      Bealby declared he had.

      “Surely,” said a voice that Bealby adored, “ ’tis an angel from heaven.”

      He had a taste for cleaning boots! This was an extraordinary thing for Bealby to say. But a great change had come to him in the last half-hour. He was violently anxious to do things, any sort of things, servile things, for a particular person. He was in love.

      The owner of the beautiful voice had come out of the caravan, she had stood for a moment in the doorway before descending the steps to the ground and the soul of Bealby had bowed down before her in instant submission. Never had he seen anything so lovely. Her straight slender body was sheathed in blue; fair hair, a little tinged with red, poured gloriously back from her broad forehead, and she had the sweetest eyes in the world. One hand lifted her dress from her feet; the other rested on the lintel of the caravan door. She looked at him and smiled.

      So for two years she had looked and smiled across the footlights to the Bealby in mankind. She had smiled now on her entrance out of habit. She took the effect upon Bealby as a foregone conclusion.

      Then she had looked to make sure that everything was ready before she descended.

      “How good it smells, Judy!” she had said.

      “I’ve had a helper,” said the woman who wore spats.

      That time the blue-eyed lady had smiled at him quite definitely. …

      The third member of the party had appeared unobserved; the irradiations of the beautiful lady had obscured her. Bealby discovered her about. She was bareheaded; she wore a simple grey dress with a Norfolk jacket, and she had a pretty clear white profile under black hair. She answered to the name of “Winnie.” The beautiful lady was Madeleine. They made little obscure jokes with each other and praised the morning ardently. “This is the best place of all,” said Madeleine.

      “All night,” said Winnie, “not a single mosquito.”

      None of these three ladies made any attempt to conceal the sincerity of their hunger or their appreciation of Bealby’s assistance. How good a thing is appreciation! Here he was doing, with joy and pride and an eager excellence, the very services he had done so badly under the cuffings of Mergleson and Thomas. …

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      And now Bealby, having been regarded with approval for some moments and discussed in tantalizing undertones, was called upon to explain himself.

      “Boy,” said the lady in the deerstalker, who was evidently the leader and still more evidently the spokeswoman of the party, “come here.”

      “Yes, miss.” He put down the boot he was cleaning on the caravan step.

      “In the first place, know by these presents, I am a married woman.”

      “Yes, miss.”

      “And miss is not a seemly mode of address for me.”

      “No, miss. I mean—” Bealby hung for a moment and by the happiest of accidents, a scrap of his instruction at Shonts came up in his mind. “No,” he said, “your—ladyship.”

      A great light shone on the spokeswoman’s face. “Not yet, my child,” she said, “not yet. He hasn’t done his duty by me. I am—a simple Mum.”

      Bealby was intelligently silent.

      “Say—Yes, Mum.”

      “Yes, Mum,” said Bealby and everybody laughed very agreeably.

      “And now,” said the lady, taking pleasure in her words, “know by these presents—By the bye, what is your name?”

      Bealby scarcely hesitated. “Dick Mal-travers, Mum,” he said and almost added, “The Dauntless Daredevil of the Diamond-fields Horse,” which was the second title.

      “Dick will do,” said the lady who was called Judy, and added suddenly and very amusingly: “You may keep the rest.”

      (These were the sort of people Bealby liked. The right sort.)

      “Well, Dick, we want to know, have you ever been in service?”

      It was sudden. But Bealby was equal to it. “Only for a day or two, miss—I mean, Mum—just to be useful.”

      “Were you useful?”

      Bealby tried to think whether he had been, and could recall nothing but the face of Thomas with the fork hanging from it. “I did my best, Mum,” he said impartially.

      “And all that is over?”

      “Yes, Mum.”

      “And you’re at home again and out of employment?”

      “Yes, Mum.”

      “Do you live near here?”

      “No—leastways, not very far.”

      “With your father.”

      “Stepfather, Mum. I’m a Norfan.”

      “Well, how would you like to come with us for a few days and help with things? Seven-and-sixpence a week.”

      Bealby’s face was eloquent.

      “Would your stepfather object?”

      Bealby considered. “I don’t think he would,” he said.

      “You’d better go round and ask him.”

      “I—suppose—yes,” he said.

      “And get a few things.”

      “Things, Mum?”

      “Collars and things. You needn’t bring a great box for such a little while.”

      “Yes, Mum. …”

      He hovered rather undecidedly.

      “Better run along now. Our man and horse will be

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