Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/55



did not wear her damaged heart upon her sleeve. What tears she shed were shed in the shelter of Delight's strong young arms when they were safe in bed. It was a comfort to her to be in their embrace and pour into sympathetic ears all her recollections of her short married life with Albert in England. She told her, too, of her meetings with him in the little dark street behind The Duke of York, for he dared not refuse to meet her. She had him in her power. Among the other servants her glib cockney tongue, her quick wit, and her brisk ways made her a favourite. She mended old Davy's socks for him, and watered the sickly geraniums he kept on the window-sill in his bedroom. She went with Mrs. Bye to buy clothes for Queenie, and taught the child to do a clog dance, and stamp and snap her fingers. She persuaded Annie and Pearl to cut their hair in fringes and curl them. She soon knew all the gossip about Bill Bastien and the housekeeper, and even learned the ins and outs of things in the rival house next door.

Delight was not such a favourite. Her tongue was slow, she took little interest in the things which did not directly concern herself, and she was always ready to neglect her work to lean over a window-sill in the spring sunshine or squat before the pack of a pedlar, or listen