The privy purse would
not run to a maid. Elizabeth did the cooking and Claude Nutcombe
the housework.
Several days after Claire Fenwick and Lord Dawlish, by different
routes, had sailed from England, Elizabeth Boyd sat up in bed and
shook her mane of hair from her eyes, yawning. Outside her window
the birds were singing, and a shaft of sunlight intruded itself
beneath the blind. But what definitely convinced her that it was
time to get up was the plaintive note of James, the cat,
patrolling the roof of the porch. An animal of regular habits,
James always called for breakfast at eight-thirty sharp.
Elizabeth got out of bed, wrapped her small body in a pink kimono,
thrust her small feet into a pair of blue slippers, yawned again,
and went downstairs. Having taken last night's milk from the ice-box,
she went to the back door, and, having filled James's saucer,
stood on the grass beside it, sniffing the morning air.
Elizabeth Boyd was twenty-one, but standing there with her hair
tumbling about her shoulders she might have been taken by a
not-too-close observer for a child. It was only when you saw her eyes
and the resolute tilt of the chin that you realized that she was a
young woman very well able to take care of herself in a difficult
world. Her hair was very fair, her eyes brown and very bright, and
the contrast was extraordinarily piquant.
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