Elders and Betters (2 page)

“It is quite a good room,” said Jenney, returning and remaining with her eyes on the staircase, as if she must reserve a degree of comment. “And there are two good lumber rooms as well. It is all very nice.”

“Well, I am glad you approve of it,” said Anna. “It took some seeking and finding.”

“It is a beautiful home,” said Jenney, overcoming her disinclination to enthusiastic phrase. “We ought to be very happy in it. It was clever of you to find it. Of course this last staircase is rather steep.”

“Done to economise space,” said Anna, throwing it a glance.

“The servants will be here this afternoon,” said Jenney, as though the disadvantage might perhaps be remedied before this stage.

“Well, no doubt they will have to arrive like the rest of us.”

“I daresay the resemblance will end there,” said Claribel.

“They will expect their room to be ready,” said Jenney, in a voice that seemed to have no inflections.

“It will be ready as soon as they make it so,” said Anna. “And I shall expect them to do the same with ours.”

“I hope they will settle down in the house.”

“If they don't, we must find others who will.”

“These have got used to our ways,” said Jenney.

“We have none that is different from other people's, except that you and Father don't expect enough from them.”

Jenney's mind had not been on the demands of herself and Mr. Donne, as her eyes, resting on the two other claimants of attention, betrayed.

“Spoiling people does not make them happier,” said Anna, voicing a theory that Jenney always thought a strange one.

“It only exalts them in their own estimation,” said Claribel, as if this were indeed a thing not to be done.

“Here are the van and the men!” said Anna. “For a wonder up to time.”

“Oh, we are fortunate!” breathed Jenney. “If they had been late, the house would not have been comfortable before to-night.”

“Well, there are only three women to be afflicted,” said Claribel. “And we do not take such things as hardly as men.”

Jenney did not say that she was thinking of a larger number of women.

“It would have been odd if they had dared to be late, after what I said,” said Anna, in a grim tone, going out to meet the men.

Jenney looked as if her own methods might not have succeeded here, but followed with an air of deprecating any others.

“Those large things straight into the dining-room,” said Anna, with a wave of her hand.

“Wouldn't they like something to drink first?” whispered Jenney.

“Work first, drink afterwards,” said Anna, in an audible undertone.

“I hope that my private and personal things have sustained
no harm,” said Claribel, looking round with a smile for her self-regard. “Our own possessions acquire such an appeal. We feel that they are owed tender treatment.”

“I hope the men feel the same,” said Anna, hurrying to and from with a preoccupied face. “Everything belongs to somebody.”

“But these things belong to
me
,” said Claribel, throwing back her head.

Later in the day two figures came up the drive, the taller stooping over the shorter in a manner of sympathetic protection. Jenney ran out to meet them in an eagerness that she checked on her way, as if there were some rashness in betraying it.

“So you are here; I knew you would be,” she said, as though some doubt might have, been felt on the matter. “You are just in time for tea. Your room is ready. We remembered that you liked one large one better than two small.”

“Cook cannot sleep alone,” said the taller woman, in a flat, deep voice. “She is of too nervous a type.”

“You will like this room,” said Jenney, in almost excited assurance. “It is very large and bright. That is the window up there.”

The housemaid raised her eyes to the window, putting back her head rather further than was necessary, and then sweeping her eyes from the window to the ground.

“There are only two real storeys to the house; that is, only three floors above the ground floor, if you count the small one you have to yourselves,” said Jenney, seeming to resort to complication to cover some truth. “You will like to go up, when you have had your tea.” Her tone drew attention to the more immediate prospect.

“There is a basement,” said Ethel, in a tone that added no more, as no more was necessary.

“Unusual in the country,” said Cook, using her voice for the first time, and then not seeming to do so completely, as it could barely be heard.

Ethel turned eyes of grave concern upon Cook.

“I never know why maids in the country are supposed to require less privacy than those in towns,” said Jenney, as if speaking by the way.

“How is our luggage to come from the station?” said Ethel, in an even but somehow ruthless manner.

“It will come to-morrow with the master's and the young gentlemen's. It has all been thought out,” said Jenney, with a touch of triumph. “You need not worry about that. Have you things for to-night?”

“I can manage for Cook and myself,” said Ethel, glancing at the bag in her hand.

“Well, come in and put that down,” said Jenney, as if offering a further benefit. “You need not take it to the kitchen. Put it here in the hall.”

Ethel glanced about the hall, as if it might be fraught with some risk, and walked on with her burden.

“It is only one more storey to carry it back,” she said, as if this could hardly be taken into account under present conditions.

“How did you come from the station?” said Jenney.

“In the fly,” said Ethel, in her deepest tones, glancing down the drive. “We could have driven up to the house, if we had known the path was so wide. Cook need not have taken a step.”

Cook was short and thin and pale, with yellowish hair and lashes, no discernible brows, prominent, pale blue eyes, a violently receding mouth and chin, and a large, bare, oval forehead. Ethel was tall and dark and upright, and had an imposing presence in her professional garb. She believed that she bore a likeness to Claribel, and in height and in asymmetry and insignificance of feature she equalled, if she did not resemble her. The two maids often exchanged a glance, a practice that does not encourage an observer, and in this case did so less than in most. It seemed that their feeling had been used up when it passed from each other, and there been a full expenditure of it. If it was hinted that
their devotion bordered on excess, Ethel would reply with quiet finality that they were first cousins. When they were asked their ages, she answered for both that they were about the same age. This was not true, as Cook was ten years the elder, and now over fifty; but Ethel resented the circumstance for her, and drew a veil over it. Cook never replied to questions; she merely looked at a questioner with a smile, which the latter could never be sure was not some other expression, as it took place so far behind the rest of her face. No one repeated the questions, and Jenney had no need to put them, as she relied on her instinct in such matters. No one knew Ethel's surname, or knew for certain that Cook had any names. The latter was sensitive on the matter, and flushed when it was broached; and Ethel would interpose with the quiet statement that Cook preferred to be called Cook. She addressed her in this way even in their personal relation, a circumstance which to Jenney was ground for the belief that their cousinship was of recent origin.

“Now you must want your tea at once. It is all ready for you in the new kitchen,” said Jenney, using the suggestion as a cover for leading the way to the basement, and putting a festive note into the last words.

“It would help Cook to keep up,” said Ethel, stretching a warning hand towards Cook, as they approached the dim staircase.

“We shall get used to the extra stairs,” said Cook, in a tone the more courageous for being faint.

“Oh, yes, you will,” said Jenney, with a confidence that was perhaps justified by her knowledge of how often they would traverse them. “You will run up and down without noticing them in a day or two.” She ran down herself, to show that she had reached this stage.

“We can't get out of the basement without them,” said Ethel, putting the same thought in another form.

Cook came in silence to the kitchen table, and gave a smile to Jenney, who was enabled by experience to recognise
it as smile. Ethel walked without comment to the kettle, and made and poured the tea, and after carefully supplying Cook, casually supplied herself and sat down at the board.

“Did you enjoy your drive?” said Jenney.

“The fly?” said Ethel, raising her eyes as she stirred her cup. “Well, the air was good, but Cook felt the jolting. She won't be able to go right upstairs just yet.”

Cook gave Jenney another smile, which this time no one could have recognised.

“Did you not bring any of your luggage?” said Jenney.

“We thought that, as we could not bring it all, we might as well leave it,” said Ethel, with the dependence on others in matters outside her own sphere, that came from her life. Cook looked up at Jenney, as if there might conceivably be a criticism implied in her words.

“It can easily come with the other luggage,” said Jenney, hastening to correct such an impression.

“Those that bring it, might as well bring it all,” said Ethel.

“It is all one trouble,” said Cook.

“There is Miss Anna,” said Ethel, without changing her tone, but lifting her cup to her lips to make the most of a fleeting opportunity.

“It is strange how you know a footstep on different stairs,” said Cook.

“You would always recognise some,” said Ethel.

“Their steps are themselves,” said Cook.

Ethel rose and stood with her back to her companions, as if this secured both her and them some privacy, produced a cap and apron from her bag, and without any sign of haste turned to face her employer in conventional garb.

“Well, Cook and Ethel, so you have arrived in time for tea,” said Anna, in a brisk tone that seemed to suggest that other objects had been lost sight of.

“Good afternoon, Miss Anna,” said Ethel.

Cook framed the words with her lips, as she rose from her seat.

“You look tired, Cook,” said Anna, speaking as if fatigue were a light matter.

Cook smiled and almost glanced at her chair.

“Oh, pray sit down, Cook,” said Anna, with a touch of impatience. “You won't have much to do to-day. Miss Jennings brought some cold food with her. There will not be any real cooking to-night.”

Cook rested her eyes on the stove, as if such process would have to be postponed for investigation and adjustment. Her sparing use of words made less difference than might be thought.

“Well, do you think you will like this house?” said Anna, who did not subdue impulse to diplomacy.

“Well, we did not really want a change,” said Ethel.

“You often complained of the other one.”

“There are disadvantages everywhere, Miss Anna.”

“And they strike you at first,” murmured Cook.

“So complaint is inevitable, I suppose,” said Anna, taking a seat on the table and swinging her legs.

Cook glanced from Anna to the tea-things, in silent recognition of their juxtaposition.

“I am sitting on your tea-table, am I?” said Anna, getting off and speaking as if this were a new idea.

Ethel quietly placed a chair.

“You have more room both upstairs and downstairs in this house.”

“The other was an easy kitchen, Miss Anna,” said Ethel, with a note of reproach.

“Homelike,” uttered Cook.

“You often said it was crowded and stuffy.”

Ethel and Cook sent their eyes round this one, as if they would not call attention to its attributes.

“A place is always ten times as nice as it seems on the first day,” said Jenney, allowing for an only partial acceptance of her words. “And now they would like to see their
room. People cannot feel at home until they are comfortable upstairs.” She made the last two words sound in natural conjunction.

“We shall not be able to unpack,” said Ethel, in a tone without feeling.

“Did you not bring your luggage?” said Anna. “Is that all you brought in the cab? You might as well have walked.”

“Cook could not have walked, Miss Anna. A quarter of a mile is her limit.”

“But the man could have put your luggage on the cab. That would not have imposed much strain upon her.”

“The fly could not take our large trunks, Miss Anna. So we thought we might as well bring what we needed for the night.” said Ethel, her tone not disguising the ominous touch in her words.

“Well, I would not waste a cab like that.”

“Oh, Cook has often hailed a fly to save her a hundred yards, Miss Anna,” said Ethel, sufficiently exhilarated by this difference for her face to clear.

“Well, it is your own fault that you can't get properly established.”

Jenney's eyes wavered at the light use of such words.

Ethel laid hold of her portmanteau and Cook's handbag, and Cook rose and stood emptyhanded, ready to give all her strength to the coming ordeal.

“I have the valises,” said Ethel.

“I will lead the way and show you the lie of the land,” said Anna, springing from her seat and running from the room, by way of an object lesson upon the situation.

Cook and Ethel met each other's eyes with a slight, simultaneous smile, and followed without hastening their steps.

Jenney moved about with a dubious air, putting things in place, or rather disposing them so as to give the best impression. In a moment Ethel re-entered, still bearing her bags, and walked up to her.

“I think Cook will be able to stand it, Miss Jennings,” she said without a change on her face.

Jenney's features showed no sign of emulating this control, and Ethel gave her a stiff smile and walked from the room. Anna came breathlessly into the kitchen, flung herself into a chair and stretched out her limbs.