CHAPTER 5Mrs. and Miss Arbuthnot were now temporarily installed with the Carters. The Vicar’s aunt, a man of her word, had already moved her furniture to the Vicarage, and Editha Cottage looked as depressing as all houses do when the walls and floors are patchworked with the shapes of departed pictures, furniture and carpets. After considerable difficulty a permit had been obtained to have ten pounds’ worth of painting and repairing done, a concession which might conceivably have got the little scullery and half the kitchen into habitable condition. At this point, when the new tenants were beginning to wish they had never taken Editha, private enterprise intervened in various forms. The odd-man at the Carters’ House, known to many generations of boys as Edward and apparently possessing no
