There May Be Danger by Ianthe Jerrold Page A

brown hair drooping like a child’s lock down her cheek, the grand incongruousness, in these country surroundings, of the blue eye-shadow upon her upper lids— which made Kate feel quite at home with her. Nurse Maud, Kate had noticed, also indulged in much more make-up than was usual in children’s nurses, but her make-up was a simple and heavy-handed affair of lipstick, rouge and face-cream. Rosaleen’s was that of an expert in beauty.
    As if she read Kate’s thoughts—she was a good deal more reflective, Kate surmised, than most of the young actresses she resembled—Rosaleen said confidentially, leading the way out of the kitchen down a short stone-flagged passage:
    â€œDon’t tell anyone, will you, Miss Mayhew, but I am not really a country lover! I’d like to have stayed on in dear old London, bombs and all. But I’d promised my expectant aunt to give her a hand with her overdoo family when it arrived, and I couldn’t go back on her. I like little kiddies, anyway, so it won’t be too bad when the creche gets going, I’ll put up with the mud and the other romantic elements of the English countryside for their sweet sake.”
    In the high, spacious hall into which Kate followed Rosaleen, the nurse in her neat brown uniform and muslin coif was pouring out the tea from a trestle-table against the wall, and a stout elderly lady, whom Rosaleen introduced as her Aunt Ellida was sitting in an easy-chair, conversing with a stocky, red-faced man in tweeds, who was just not standing in front of the log fire.
    â€œMajor Humphries has been explaining, dear, how it is that we shouldn’t really let the gipsies camp out in our field, picturesque though they may be.” 
    â€œCan’t understand how anybody can find rags picturesque,” said the stocky man bluffly.
    â€œBut most of us weak mortals find good looks and brown skins picturesque, Major Humphries!” said Rosaleen. “And I’m afraid that we benighted Americans are also attracted by pleasant manners!”
    â€œTheir brown skins are just dirt, if you ask me. And as for their manners, that gipsy effusiveness is all put on, you know Miss Morrison. They’d rob you as soon as look at you.”
    The Major spoke in a slightly softened voice, fixing Rosaleen with a prominent, inexpressive, but somehow humble eye. It was obvious to Kate that his own preferences were for pink-and-white skins and teasing, ironic manners. Rosaleen came and stood beside him with her cup of tea. Never was a greater contrast, in intention and effect, between two trousered human figures.
    â€œOh, sooner, surely!” she said in her fresh drawling voice. “What kind of a kick would they get out of just looking at me?”
    â€œOh, but I say, Miss Morrison!” protested Major Humphries, blinking and averting his bluish, boiled-looking eyes from the inquiring gaze of her long-lashed grey ones. “Surely, if you knew what thieving rogues they are, you won’t—”
    â€œWe only knew by hearsay, not experience, up till to-day. We thought it would be interesting to see how they lived up to their reputations. And Auntie, too, fell in love with a cute baby in earrings a young woman had in a shawl. She won’t fall so easily next time, though,” said Rosaleen, removing her limpid gaze from the Major’s face to her aunt’s. “I’ve been taking a kind of inventory of what isn’t here, and I’m afraid, Auntie— prepare yourself for a blow—your new clothes-line’s gone.”
    â€œOh, not my new clothes-line!” cried Mrs. Morrison, sitting up as straight as her easy chair would let her. She was a chic dowager with a head of grey curls, a pearly-powdered skin, and a general billowiness of those parts of her dress and figure which were not strictly moulded by her excellent corsets. “Not my new, lovely clothes-line!”
    â€œYes, Auntie dear, and