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In the doorway he collided with the little maid-of-all-work, a red-elbowed girl of singularly plain appearance, who having deposited the beef upon the table, was rushing back for the duck, accompanied by two of the young Walronds who were assisting with the vegetables.
He was playing a double game too, for whenever the red-elbowed serving-wench came into the room, he roared his dissent from our lawlessness, and drank to the King with his glass over the water-bottle as soon as she went out.
"The sergeant, madam," I went on, "and he has been plucked like a brand from the burning." She took in the scene, judged what had happened, and then gathered up the child, who had ceased crying out of curiosity, and mothered the little one so sweetly that the red-elbowed woman cried out hearty thanks.
This was enough, and I burst in on a spectacle, strange, serious, on the point of becoming terrible, and yet almost laughable. In the middle of the room, a stout, shock-headed, red-elbowed woman stood, a pikel in her strong outstretched hands.
The echoes of their iron heels have hardly died away, when there is a sudden and almost simultaneous eruption from every garden-gate on the terrace of clean-faced, neat-aproned, red-elbowed servant-girls, each and all armed with a jug or a brace of jugs, with a sprinkling of black bottles among them, and all bound to one or other of the public-houses which guard the terrace at either end.
The red-elbowed maiden, beginning to take offence, set the candlestick down on a narrow mantelpiece, with a slap, and removed herself from the room with the dignity of a budding Jeanne d'Arc. We all three filed in, I in the rear; and for one who won't accept the cup of life as the best champagne the prospect certainly was depressing.
Then there came a ring at the door, and a moment later Toinon, the red-elbowed maid-of-all-work, appeared, very much alarmed, carrying a card, which she gave to Brigit. "Oh, dear it is poor Ponty!" ejaculated the girl, involuntarily turning to Joyselle. "Poor " "Lord Pontefract, Théo. Oh, how tiresome of mother!" Joyselle frowned. "Do not call your mother tiresome," he said shortly.
With immediate realization of the situation, the nurse pushed her red-elbowed way through the tightening congestion, her voice strident above the dreaded hum of panic. "Get back to your room. It is nothing. The child fell off the bed and bumped its head. Get back, every one of you. I painted the bruise with iodine. It's nothing but a bumped head. Back, I say!"
"Mary Jane," said she to the good-tempered, red-elbowed help in the kitchen, "you take up this plate o' gingerbread to the children. Pretty dears, they must be nigh starving!" And a goodly heap of gingerbread chunks travelled upstairs to the play-room, the door of which was unlocked. It was over this welcome interruption that a wonderful new game was hatched.
"What a hole!" snapped Lady Turnour; but when the door of a bedroom was opened for her by the red-elbowed one, she cried out in despair. "Is this where you expect me to sleep, Samuel? I'm surprised at you! I'm not sure it isn't an insult!" "My darling, what can I do?" implored the unfortunate bridegroom.
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