Speaker 1: A Christmas fog by John's Strange Winter One, I may
as well say at once that I, Miranda Cheap, am
not a young girl. I have heard it said that
when one sits down to tell a story, one ought
to take the public completely into one's confidence, and put
the reader in the same category as one's lawyer, one's doctor,
and one's banker. Well, I have no doubt that the
advice is excellently good, and therefore I will say at
once that I am not a young girl. I belong
as yet to the noble army of spinsters. And when
my last parent died, leaving me a modest but sufficient
competence upon which to support myself, I did not do
what so many unmarried women seem to think the right thing,
and go to live with one of my married sisters.
But after leaving the large house in which my mother
had lived and died, I took my share of the
furniture and settled myself down in the smallest flat that
I could find in all London. My sister Rose said
that I was funny and independent. I agreed with her
that I was independent, but I could not see anything
particularly funny in my arrangements. My sister Maude, who had
seven children under fourteen, said she thought I was horribly
selfish because I did not happen to have got married
as my sisters had done. I had collared, yes, that
was the word she used. I had collared an extra
three hundred pounds a year, and now I went and
lived by myself and gave nobody else the benefit of it.
Then Susie had her say. Now, Susie is a rich woman.
Money is no object to her, but she is always
in trouble with her servants. And Susie wanted my mother's
useful maid to go into her household and help to
look after the next generation. Now Barbara had been my
nurse before she was my mother's maid, and it had
always been an understood thing between my mother and Barbara
and myself that I was never to turn my back
upon her. And if I had told her that she
would have to leave me and go to live with
missus Sargeant, that was Susie's married name, I think poor
Barbara would have broken her heart. But to tell you
the truth, I never thought of such a thing. Susie
had a husband who could protect her. I hadn't anybody
I was not able to afford to keep more servants
than Barbara and a young cook, and naturally Barbara was,
under these circumstances, absolutely essential to my well being. My
sister in law, missus Horace Cheap, also cast her eye
upon Barbara, and another sister of hers, who was no
earthly relation to us, even went so far as to
offer her double the wages that I was able to
give her, if only she would go in and take
charge of her nursery. However, the family discussion came to
an end at last, and Barbara and I took up
our abode in our new home on the second floor
of Rosemary Mansions. Well, dear reader, this has not very
much to do with my story, and yet it is
necessary that I should slightly sketch out the main lines
of my previous life. Somehow, it had always been an
uneventful existence. I think it is often so with the
only one of a large family who remains to the
end in the parent nest. My sisters had all pared
off and had made new nests for themselves. I stayed
behind to make my mother's last days happy, partly because
I had no wish to desert her, and partly to
be quite frank, because I had never had any temptation
to do so. And yet I was quite as good
looking as any of my sisters, and I was certainly
quite as a grief in myself, if not more so.
But from the days when I was just out of
my teens, it always seemed to be an understood thing
in the Cheap family that Miranda was an unromantic person
who would never have a love story or get married
as all the others had done. And so when the
incident happened of which I am about to tell you,
I had got to the mature age of thirty four,
and I had never had a lover in my life.
My eldest sister, Susie, had married very young and had
three daughters who seemed all likely to follow in her footsteps.
The eldest of the three, Dorian, was a tall, pretty
lively girl of nearly eighteen. She was my godchild and
my favorite among all my nieces, and right merrily did
she take advantage of her position as such. Aunt Miranda.
She would say to me, I want you to take
me in for a few days. My people are going
off to Bournemouth or some other place, and I have
several engagements in town that I don't want to miss.
She never said if you can do with me, and
I never told her to wait until I invited her.
And I generally found that the engagements consisted of some
arrangement with a young man, and that I had to
take her to a concert, or a theater, or a dance,
as the case might be. When the third or fourth
young man of the kind was introduced to me, I
asked Dorian seriously when she was going to be married. Oh,
I don't think, aunt Miranda, she replied promptly that I
feel like marrying any of them. But my dear, you
really ought not to encourage these young men unless you
mean to marry one of them. It's not the proper
thing to do at all. Does your mother know? Oh? Yes,
mother knows, said Dorian cheerfully. Mother says, if I marry
under two or three thousand a year, I shall be
a fool, and so I should. But one can have
little fun without thinking of marrying. I read her a
little lecturette upon the mistaken policy of frittering away one's life. Well, Auntie,
she said, quite cheerfully, by all accounts, you have not
fritted your life away, and yet here you are left
high and dry and as much alone in the world
as if you had not a single relation on all
the earth. For the first time in my life, I
felt a hideous sense of loneliness creeping over me. And
for an hour, after the child had gone gaily off
to a tea party at some house near by, I
sat wondering what I should feel like when another thirty
four years had gone by and I should still be
living in this flat or some other, quite by myself.
It was just a week before Christmas. By some freaks,
the Sergeant family had all gone out of town, excepting Dore,
who had flatly refused to be taken away from several
dances for which she had engaged herself from the first
waltz to the very last. It is all the same
to you, mother, was her argument, whether I go down
to that dull old house in the country, or whether
I stay up in town with Aunt Miranda. I hate
the country, particularly in winter, and more particularly in a
hired house in a neighborhood where you hardly know a soul.
It's a ghastly i dear mother, of which I am
sure you will all bitterly repent ere. The time is
at an end, So dear darling mother, do leave me
with Aunt Miranda, and we shall be two happy old
maids eating our Christmas dinner together. My sister Susy was
always inclined to shift her burdens on to other people's shoulders,
and although I don't mean to imply that Doreen was
a burden, still she was one of SUSY's responsibilities. So
when the family took their departure for a rambling country
house in one of the wildest parts of Yorkshire, Doreen,
accompanied by several large dress baskets, came to me. I
think it was the fact of its being Christmas, as
well as Dorian's remark, that first made me realize how lonely,
how very lonely, I had been. She was such a
good child, She was so sweet tempered and cheerful, and
so popular with other young people, that she soon turned
my quiet flat into as bright a corner of the
world as you could well find in any part of London.
Miss Dorrean makes a good deal of traffic, said Barbara
to me, when Dorian had been with us about three days. Yes, Barbara,
I replied, but it is good for us. You and
I are too old things who want stirring up and
rousing out of our selfish old maidism. Now, miss Miranda,
said Barbara, there is not much of the old maid
about you. I sighed, I don't know, Barbara, I said,
I begin to feel very old and very much of
a maiden lady. It is not a pleasant feeling. I
had then been living for several years at Rosemary Mansions.
You know the particular block of flats, of course that
I mean, But perhaps you don't know that they are
built in a very unusual form. There are four separate
sets of flats in the one great square building. Each
of the four sides has its entrance, its large hall,
its great door mats with salvae written upon them, its
liveried porter, and its convenient lift. And each hall goes
right through to the courtyard at the back, so that
from each one could communicate with any one of the
other three sets of flats. Well, it happened one day
just before Christmas, the day before Christmas Eve, to be exact,
that Dorian went to help some friends to deck a
Christmas tree, which was to form one of the attractions
at a party at which we were bidden for the
following evening, the tree was to be followed by a
dance with a cotillion, and I understood from Dorian that
the favors for the cotillion were to be something very
unusual and out of the common. As Dorian was fully
occupied that afternoon, I took the opportunity of going out
to buy a present for her. She had been with
me to buy the various presents that were necessary for
me to send to the other members of the family,
but until that moment I had not had an opportunity
of buying for Dorian a certain article of jewelry which
I knew she was most anxious to possess. It was
a horrid afternoon, stingingly cold, an inclination to fog. I
took a cab as far as Oxford Street and there
made my purchase. Then I passed Bouchards, and it occurred
to me that I should be wise if I took
home with me an extra cake or so, because although
I had weeks before ordered my usual supply of Christmas dainties,
the advent of Dorian had made it more than likely
that we should find ourselves very badly off for nice
things for afternoon tea. Not that Dorian ate so much.
You know, I don't mean that. But Dorian had such
a train of young men, and Dorian had so many girlfriends,
and young men and young girls do get through a
good deal of plum cake and such things when they
congregate together, and so I thought it would be a
good thing if I stepped into Bouchards and bought some
extra things which I could carry home with me. I
bought a three pound plum cake and a two pound
cherry cake and put them into the first hansom that
I saw. Rosemary Mansion's Westminster was the direction I gave
the g Hu. I saw with dismay that the fog
was thickening visibly, and as we descended towards the Houses
of Parliament it had become almost impossible to distinguish the houses.
As we passed, more than once we were blocked by
the traffic, and my gi Hu made one or two
horse remarks to me through the trap door that he
was afraid he would find Rosemary Mansions very difficult to
get at. I told him cheerfully to do his best,
that I would give him something extra. But I cannot
say that I felt very cheerful. Here was I a
lone woman sitting in a cab in a neighborhood which
I did not recognize, with a handsome piece of jewelry
in my hand, a well filled purse in my pocket,
and two heavy cakes on the seat beside me. My
driver made one or two inquiries and took some obviously
wrong turnings. But at last he drew up at the
door of Rosemary Mansions, and I got out of the
cab with a sigh of relief. I gave him double fare,
and he told me that he would walk his horse
right home and not attempt to earn another penny that night.
You say, lardie, he said, it goes down your throat
and down your horse's throat, so oh, my ghost straight.
I bade him good night and a merry Christmas. As
I went up the steps, I looked up in order
to make sure that I had arrived at my own entrance.
For as I said before, there were four entrances to
Rosemary Mansions, each one with the name plainly written above
the portals and below the name one of the first
four letters of the alphabet. I lived in Rosemary Mansions A.
The fog was, however, too thick for me to distinguish
the letters. So I passed within, knowing that it would
be perfectly easy to find my own staircase from the porter's.
Oh yes, this was my own hall. I recognized the
crimson carpets, the great door mats, the porter's bench, and
the dog lying before the fire, which blazed in a
semi open grate. But there was no porter about, which
was very unusual at that hour. I supposed that dogg It,
as our porter was called, had either gone upstairs with
a message, or else down below to his own apartment
to get his tea. I looked into the porter's lodge
to see if there were any letters for me, but
a glance told me that there was not a single
letter in the rack. As I did not choose to
disturb dogged at his tea, I quietly walked up the
staircase without troubling to wait for the lift. Oh how
horrid the fog was. It made one think kindly even
of the rambling country house in the wilds of distant Yorkshire. Indeed,
it was so heavy and so thick that it had
worked its way within doors, and the electric lights at
various points of the stairs shone with a curious yellow radiance,
and each had a sort of halo surrounding it. I
reached my own door and rang the bell. Nobody came.
I rang again and again, but there was no response.
How was it that everybody was out of the way
this afternoon? I supposed Barbara had gone off buying Christmas things.
Then where was Jane? I felt impatiently in my pocket
to see if I had my key? I had. I
opened the door with a sigh of relief. How very
extraordinary all was in darkness. I drew the key out
of the lock, shut the door behind me, and, passing
on through the inner door, which was of heavy ground glass,
closed it behind me. It shut with a little click.
How odd I had never heard the door click like
that before. I groped my hand along the wall, feeling
for the switches of the electric light. Why what had happened?
There was no switch. I went back to the door,
which now was closed quite tightly. I could find no handle.
So I went back again to feel for the switches
of the electric light, but could not discover them. How
extraordinary and how curious the effect of this yellow fog was.
It made not only the streets, but my own house
feels strange. Never mind, I should find a light in
the dining room, probably a fire. Certainly there would be
one in the kitchen. I turned towards the door of
the dining room, which was the first on the left
after the second door of entrance, but I could not
find any sign of an electric switch. Then it dawned
upon me that I had mistaken my block and my flat,
and here was I shut up in the dark in
a flat belonging to some known person. I groped my
way back to the inner door of the entrance. No,
I could find no chase of a handle upon it.
I shook it, I knocked upon it, but with no
result excepting that I hurt my knuckles even through my
thick winter gloves. At this point I put my two
heavy cakes, which I had still been carrying, down upon
the floor, and set myself to make a tour of
the apartments. The entrance was evidently precisely of the same
proportions as my own, and it was furnished. I came
in turn to an umbrella stand, one of those tall
porcelain pipes which held several sticks and umbrellas, and to
a carved hall bench, then to a table. I dropped
over a door mat and felt the outlines of one
or two pictures. Then I touched a brush and something
that felt in the dark like a fox head. It
was certainly the staffed head of some small animal. At
last I reached the kitchen door, hoping to find a
fire there. No, all was dark. If only I had
had a light, the situation would not have been so bad.
But although I groped about for at least ten minutes,
I could not find a single box of matches. At
last I came to what was evidently the kitchen easy chair,
and in that I sat myself down, wondering what on
earth I should do next. I might try ringing the bells.
So I started on a tour round the kitchen, shinning
myself violently several times. Ere I remembered that I should
not find any bell pool there. Then I groped my
way once more to the door which led to the corridor,
and felt with my hand along the wall for the
door of the dining room. I knocked down a chair
and I think a small table. Then I ran against
the sideboard. Crash. There was a sound of falling glass. Oh, dear,
I had smashed something belonging to someone I did not know,
and I had cut myself. At last, however, I did
find the little knob of the electric bell, and had
the satisfaction of hearing it tinkling away in the kitchen,
which I had just left. Ringing the bell was no good.
I went back to the door which led into the corridor.
But mind you, when I say I went, I mean
that I arrived there after a progress involving much need
of patience and the receipt of many hard knocks. Then
I nerved myself to speak, Is there anybody there? I said.
I have a refined and ladylike voice, which my dear
mother always used to say was one of my greatest charms.
It sounded so soft and inefficient as I sat there
in the darkness, and I to speak in a much
louder and more determined tone. Is anybody there? My voice
echoed down the corridor, but no answering voice came out
of the darkness in reply. I then determined to make
a complete tour of the apartments. I explored the drawing room,
the dining room, the little study, the large bedroom, the
spare bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the servant's bedroom
all in turn, and after the manner of the blind,
I examined with my hands each chimney shelf in case
I might come across one precious box of matches. But
although I resolutely carried this idea into effect, I did
not light upon a single one. And at this point
I sat down and wept. It was the day before
Christmas Eve. Perhaps the owner of the flat had gone
away for the holidays. I could not get out of
that front door. I had nothing to eat, and there
was nothing but water to drink. I had already touched
the tap in the kitchen, so that I knew I
should not die of thirst. But I might be locked
up in that flat for ten days or more, and
the only sustenance I knew of was tap water and
two bushard cakes. So I sat down and wept, wept piteously,
until I suddenly became aware that I was chilled to
the very marrow of my bones. I wondered what they
would do at home, What would Doren think? What would
Barbara say? Would they go to the police, would they
go the round of the hospitals. Would the cabman to
whom I had given double fare come and give evidence
that he had driven such a lady as Dorean would
describe to one of the entrances to Rosemary Mansions. I
tried to console myself with the assurance that, after all,
Rosemary Mansions was a highly respectable bill where tenants were
not accepted unless they gave the very highest of references,
that nobody who came and found me there eventually would
believe that a woman of my position and means had
come with any felonious intent. In the meantime, I must
make the best of a bad situation. I must resign
myself to sitting there in the dark and in the cold,
and be thankful that I had bought those two cakes
with a view of helping out Christmas. Little did I
think when I entered Bouchard's busy, attractive shop that they
would probably prove themselves a barrier between me and starvation.
By this time, I was yearning for my tea. If
only I had been able to find a match, if
I had been able to find a gas ring or
even some coals, I might have made myself a cup
of tea French leave tea in this house in which
I had unwittingly invited myself. However, that was evidently out
of the question, so I at last groped my way
back to where I had left my Bouchard cakes. And
then I groped my way back to the kitchen again,
and there I groped about until I found a knife,
for they always keep such things in the kitchen drawer.
Having smelt it to make sure that it had not
been used for onions or soap, I wiped it carefully
on the inside of my skirt, and then ventured to
cut myself a large piece of cake. I had not
much difficulty in finding a cup, and after making sure
that it was clean, I filled it from the tap.
And there I sat in the dark, eating my rich
cake and drinking my ice cold water, which seemed to
go down my pour inside like a frozen waterfall. All
the same, I felt better when I had disposed of
my wedge of cake, and I felt very grateful to
Bouchard for occupying the precise city in Oxford Street which
had attracted my attention. Ours went by, at all events,
they seemed like ours to me, for I had sat
myself down to wait patiently till morning light should shed
some ray of hope upon my desperate situation. When morning came,
I would write a note and throw it down in
the courtyard, or I would pick up a few inexpensive
articles of crockery and send them down smash, and so
attract attention that way. I felt that it would be
useless to shout into this fog. It would be like
calling down a coal mine. And to tell you the truth,
I did not like, in the darkness to open any
of the windows. At last, I began to get desperately sleepy,
is he. I was not accustomed to sitting in out
of darkness, and as there is nothing so fatiguing to
the eyes as staring into the night, I closed them
in order to prevent myself from getting a bad attack
of neuralgia. It was very uncomfortable in that hard, straight
up chair, which was evidently one of the windsor persuasion
with a not very soft cushion tied onto the seat.
Then an idea occurred to me. The flat was empty,
I mean that its occupants were evidently away. So I
came to the conclusion that I might as well go
and lie down upon one of the beds I knew,
which was the best bedroom. It was the same as
my own, and I had good occasion to know that
there was a big bed in it, for I had
run against it with such force that I bruised myself severely.
I therefore, after a last drink of cold water, got
up and with care, found my way to the best bedroom.
The bed was a large and luxurious one, spread with
a satin covered Ida dwann. I happened to be wearing
a sealskin coat which came down to my knee. It
was a coat with a storm collar. On my head.
I had a toque of mink fur garnished with pink
roses and some violets. I threw back the idodan quilt
and got on to the bed, tucking myself well round
with the soft satin cover. It was a glorious bed,
a delicious bed, a bed that must have been made
purposely for some poor wanderer like myself. The pillows were soft,
but not too soft, not pappy, you know. And they
were nice pillows, as I could tell by the linen
slips which covered them. There was embroidery at the corners
and a small frill with a lace edge or round.
There were much nicer pillows than my own, so I
drew up my storm collar yet a little higher, snuggled
down under the coverlet, and in five minutes I was
sound asleep. Two I do not know how long I
had slept. You see, I had no means of knowing
how the time had passed since I was entrapped, I
might almost say entombed in the strange dwelling of some
person unknown to me. I seemed to have been asleep
for many hours when I suddenly awoke. I came to
myself with a start, on realizing that I was not
in my own bed. Just at first I thought I
had been awakened from my ordinary sleep, and that my
bed was on fire. But no, it was an electric
light just over my head. I was not dreaming. Another
light was shedding its brilliant rays over the dressing table,
just where my own light hung, and an asbestos fire
was burning cheerily in the grate. I had barely time
to take all these things in and to locate the
circumstances of my incarceration when I heard a voice which said,
good Heavens. It was a man's voice, and my first
instinct was to hold the satin covered idodown still more
closely round me. Oh, the dickens. Are you, went on
the voice, Sir, said I in quavering accents. Madam, what
are you doing in my bed? Said the voice indignantly.
I don't understand this. You must go away, please. I
could not get out, I cried piteously. No poor woman
on earth could be less anxious to inflict herself upon
you than I am. But I'm afraid I mistook your
flat for my own. I dare say I look very funny,
for I still had my satin toke with the pink
roses and violets on my head, and my storm collar
was pulled well up above my ears. I live in
one of these flats, I went on. I took a
cab home from Bouchard's. Oh that's where the Bouchard cakes
came from, is it? He said? I went into the
kin to make myself a cup of coffee, as I
always do, and found cakes there which I knew I
had never supplied. Sir, what is the time, I asked?
It is about three o'clock in the morning, Rather more,
he replied, at least it was three when I left
the offices of the Daily Trumpeter. Is there a fog?
I demanded, Oh, nothing to speak of? Now, did you
say you lived in these flats? I do, Indeed I do.
I live on the second floor of Block AD. When
I came home, the fog was so bad that I
could not see the letter. Oh, three o'clock in the morning.
What shall I do? What can I do? Well? The
best thing you can do is to go home, he said. Sensibly,
you must really forgive me, madam, for speaking as I did,
But you must recognize that it was rather a standing
for a hard work journalist to come home and find
pink roses and violets rolled up in his idol down.
I am sure. I offer you ten thousand apologies for
making so free with your belongings, I said, apologetically. But
it was so dark. Why didn't you turn up the lights?
I would have done so, but I could not find
the switches. I could not find any matches, and as
I am not a new woman and do not smoke,
I hadn't any with me. And I was so cold
and so miserable, sitting in the darkness, wondering if my
people had given orders to drag the river for me. Oh, yes,
of course, there are your people to consider, he remarked.
Will you excuse my asking you a plain question. Are
you a married lady? No, I am not, I replied.
I live in these mansions, as I told you, in
number eight block, on the second floor. My name is Cheap.
Oh didn't Herbert Sergeant marry a miss Cheap. Yes, yes,
she's my sister, I said eager and Dorian, her eldest
child is staying with me. Now she must be frightened
out of her wits. Well between you and me, mischief,
I think it would take a good deal to frighten
miss Dorean. But that is neither here nor there. You
must be got home, and you must be got out
of this little affair with as little noise as possible.
Look here, I'll leave you for a few minutes to
put your hat straight and so on, while I go
down and reconnoiter. Why didn't you think of the tradesman's entrance?
I did. It was locked. Everything's locked, I said, in
a tragic voice. That's because the old woman who looks
after me and gets my breakfast takes the keita let
herself in with, and the handle is off the inner door.
That's why you could not get out there. I expect
it rolled down when you let it slip too you
had better leave your cakes behind you. You'll have to
tell your people that you got lost in the fog,
and nobody will believe that you hung on to those
two heavy cakes all the time. Now look here, mischief,
I'm Barkley of the Daily Trumpeter, Raymond Barkley. We've got
to tell the same story. You got lost in the fog,
and I picked you up and convoyed you home safe.
Now I sat clear. Oh, yes, thank you, quite quite clear.
I won't be two minutes. Putting my hair straight, all right,
he said, and picking up his fur lined coat, he
went out, shutting the door noiselessly after him. I put
my hair straight with trembling fingers and pinned on my
smart flower decked toke. I made myself look as decent
as I could. My handkerchief I had left on the bed.
But what did I do with my gloves? I went
to the door and opened it. Mister Barkley, I must
have my gloves. What did I do with them? Can
I have left them in the kitchen? Yes? I did
see a pair of ladies gloves in there, he said,
with a laugh. I thought my old woman had bloomed
out that way. Now keep close behind me. When you
go downstairs, I have been down once. All is as
quiet as the grave. And if we can get out
of this building and round your own entrance without anyone
seeing us, no one will know that you have been
here at all. If we should chance to meet anyone,
shrink back, get out of sight. Don't let them see you.
We must dissemble. There was no more light on the
staircase than the gleam from the electric lamp which burned
all night in the central hall. We descended the stairs
like a couple of thieves, he going first and I
following at a respectful distance. My heart beat furiously as
I reached the lower flight. A few more steps and
I should be safe. I should be out in the
protective night, and nobody but Raymond Berkeley would be any
the wiser as to the exact locality in which I
had lost myself. Fortune favored me. Not a soul came
on the scene, and we gained the outer door in safety.
It's all right, he said, why you are trembling like
a leaf? Here, take my arm. Remember your story, and
I'll see you through it. I was hideously frightened. So
frightened was I that I quite forgot to thank him,
but clung to his arm like grim death, and he
piloted me, without further loss of time, to my own entrance.
Have you got your key, he asked? Oh, I have
left it in your flat, I replied, where, said he? Oh,
how stupid of me. I don't know. I let myself
in with it. I don't know what I did with
it after that. It doesn't matter. I'll go back for it.
Even then, that angelic man didn't call me a fool,
and I think he really would have been perfectly justified
if he had. You had better stand here in the shade,
he said, and wait for me. I won't be two minutes,
all right, I returned. You are sure you'll not be frightened? No, no,
I'm not a bit frightened. As a matter of fact,
my teeth were chattering, but not with that kind of fear,
as you can very well understand. In less than two
minutes he returned. Found it the very first thing, he said, triumphantly.
I trod on it just inside the front door. The
rule of our flats was that each occupant had a
ring given to him on taking possession of his apartment.
Upon this ring were two keys. The past key of
the outer entrance and the latch key of the flat.
I don't know, said mister Berklay in an undertone, as
we stole towards the stairs. How it comes that your
key unlocks my door? There is something wrong about that.
I shall make a fuss about it to morrow. Oh don't,
it'll give me away if you do, I cried, Oh sir,
it would. Then I must be mum. Remember your story.
I picked you up on my way home from the
Daily Trumpeter. Yes, yes, I replied, I will not forget.
I knocked lightly at my own door. There was a
sound of voices within, and Dorring came rushing out. Oh, Auntie,
she cried. We've been nearly frantic about you, and you're
with mister Berkley. How funny. I don't know about its
being funny, said mister Berkeley. It might have been funny
if she had not been with me. Owing to the
terrible fog, I found your aunt hopelessly lost. She put
herself in my care, and I have convoyed her safely here.
She is very cold and very tired, so don't ask
her any questions, but give her something hot to drink
and put her to bed. But you will come in,
won't you, I said faintly. I wanted to have a
good cry, a real good cry. Not to night, Not
to night, he said cheerily. Bed is the best place
for wandering ladies and tired out journalists. I will come
in to morrow, fancy, if you're any the worse. He
did call the next day, and on Christmas Day he
sent me the loveliest poesy that I ever saw in
my life, France roses and double violets, done up in
a basket, lined with pink satin, edged with a border
of mink fur. Why, Auntie, said Doren, It's just like
your toke. It's the quaintest fancy I've ever seen. I
felt myself blushing and found it very convenient to hide
my face in the flowers. But I didn't tell Dorin
the meaning of that quaint conceit. It was a little
secret which I kept to myself. I cannot think, said
Dorry that afternoon, when mister Berkeley had come in again,
just to see if I was any the worse. You know,
I cannot think how Auntie managed to lose herself for
so long, because there was not much fog after about
eight o'clock. Mister Berkeley avoided the question. I suppose you
were dreadfully frightened and upset and thought there had been
an accident, said he. Oh, yes, we thought of all
sorts of things. We thought of an accident first, so
we took a cab and went to ether so many hospitals,
Barbara and I. Then the fog began to lift, and
we wonted if we ought to go to the police,
And yet seemed so funny to mix Aunty up with
the police station. I put up my hand and laid
it on hers. I am so glad you did not
go to the police, dear child, I said, because although
I got lost, I got home safe after all, thanks
to mister Berkeley. And I would rather you did not
tell any one about it, Dorin, because it sounds so
odd for a woman of my age to own that
she got lost in London, poor Auntie, said Dorin. Well,
it might have been worse, said mister Berkeley. And as
I am going to be married to Raymond Berkeley in
about six weeks time, I quite agree with him. End
of a Christmas Fog by John's Strange Winter