Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/275

 Mr. Cordal was negative in a big ulster with a hem of nightshirt beneath, leaving about eight inches of fleshless shin before his carpet slippers with the fur-tops were reached. He sat gazing with unseeing eyes at the cook huddled up opposite, moaning as she held her heart with a fat, dirty hand.

Mrs. Barnes, the victim of indecision, had leapt straight out of bed, gathered her clothes in her arms and had flown to safety. She walked about the kitchen aimlessly, dropping and retrieving various garments, which she stuffed back again into the bundle she carried under her arm.

Mrs. Craske-Morton was practical and courageous. Her one thought was to prepare the promised refreshments. Her staff, with the exception of Gustave, was useless, and she was grateful to Patricia for her assistance.

Outside pandemonium was raging, the noise of the barrage was diabolical, the "bouncing" of the heavy guns, the screams of the "whiz-bangs," the cackle of machine-guns from aeroplanes overhead; all seemed to tell of death and chaos.

Suddenly the puny sound of guns was drowned in one gigantic uproar. For a moment the place was plunged in darkness, then the electric light shuddered into being again. The glass flew from the windows, the house rocked as if uncertain whether or no it should collapse. Miss Wangle slipped on to her knees, her wig slipped on to her left ear.