CHAPTER I - MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
AMABEL LEIGH woke as her daily helper, elderly and stout, entered the room with the tray.
"Mornin', dearie. Ten o'clock to the tick and here's yer brekfus'. A nice kipper, seein' as it's Wednesday. Three letters for yer; two of 'em bills by the look of it. Hope the other makes up. No news in the papers. Strike in Belfast, sudden death of a Cab'net Minister, airyplane crash in America, but no news what is news. I'll get yer bath in 'arf a hour."
"You are very good to me, Croonie."
"Good to them as is good to me. That's my motter; always has been."
Croonie put the tray on a bedside table, straightened the coverlet and pulled back the curtains. She seemed reluctant to go. She generally enjoyed a little chat, and this morning there was a special reason for one. Everybody called her Croonie. It was, not a nickname as many supposed, nor had it any reference, ironic or otherwise, to her evident lack of a singing voice. It was simpler than that. She had married a man named Croonie, who had left her when she ceased to support him in the manner to which he felt himself entitled.
"So Miss Valerie got back all right," she said.
"You have seen her?"
"Threw her arms round me the minute I got here, she did, and kissed me. 'Good to be home, Croonie,' she said. My word, she has shot up, taller 'n you now and nearly as pretty as you was at her age."
"Prettier, I hope."
"She'll never be that, if she lives to a nundred. 'Tell Mummie I'll be back soon,' she says, and out she pops. A young man, I 'spose, but her only home yesterday and early in the mornin'. She said somethin' about bathin' the Serpentine. There's the dratted bell. Bath ready in a' nour, dearie."
She bustled from the room. Amabel knew she was lucky to have such a faithful servitor and friend. Croonie had been a dresser at the theatre