'Put it in the window,' said Wemyss, jerking his head towards the writing-table.
'Oh——' began Lucy quickly; and stopped.
'What's the matter?' asked Wemyss.
'Won't it—be draughty?'
'Nonsense. Draughty. Do you suppose I'd tolerate windows in my house that let in draughts?'
Chesterton, resting a corner of the tray on the table, was sweeping a clear space for it with her hand. Not that much sweeping was needed, for the table was big and all that was on it was the notepaper which earlier in the afternoon had been scattered on the floor, a rusty pen or two, some pencils whose ends had been gnawed as the pencils of a child at its lessons are gnawed, a neglected-looking inkpot, and a grey book with Household Accounts in dark lettering on its cover.
Wemyss watched her while she arranged the tea-things.
'Take care, now—take care,' he said, when a cup rattled in its saucer.
Chesterton, who had been taking care, took more of it; and le trop being l'ennemi du bien she was so unfortunate as to catch her cuff in the edge of the plate of bread and butter.
The plate tilted up; the bread and butter slid off; and only by a practised quick movement did she stop the plate from following the bread and butter and smashing itself on the floor.
'There now,' said Wemyss. 'See what you've done. Didn't I tell you to be careful? It isn't,' he said, turning to Lucy, 'as if I hadn't told her to be careful.'
Chesterton, on her knees, was picking up the bread and butter which lay—a habit she had observed in bread and butter under circumstances of this kind—butter downwards.
'You will fetch a cloth,' said Wemyss.
'Yes sir.'
'And you will cut more bread and butter.'
'Yes sir.'
'That makes two plates of bread and butter wasted to-day entirely owing to your carelessness. They shall be stopped out of your——Lucy, where are you going?'
'To fetch a handkerchief. I must have a handkerchief, Everard. I can't for ever use yours.'
'You'll do nothing of the kind. Lizzie will bring you one. Come back at once. I won't have you running in and out of the room the whole time. I never knew any one so restless. Ring the bell and tell Lizzie to get you one. What is she for, I should like to know?'
He then resumed and concluded his observations to Chesterton. 'They shall be stopped out of your wages. That,' he said, 'will teach you.'
And Chesterton, who was used to this, and had long ago arranged with the cook that such stoppages should be added on to the butcher's book, said, 'Yes sir.'
When she had gone—or rather withdrawn, for a plain word like gone doesn't justly describe the noiseless decorum with which Chesterton managed the doors of her entrances and exits—and when Lizzie, too, had gone after bringing a handkerchief, Lucy supposed they would now have tea; she supposed the moment had at last arrived for her to go and sit in that window.
The table was at right angles to it, so that sitting at it you had nothing between one side of you and the great pane of glass that reached nearly to the floor. You could look sheer down on to the flags below. She thought it horrible, gruesome to have tea there, and the very first day, before she had had a moment's time to get used to things. Such detachment on the part of Everard was either just stark wonderful—she had already found noble explanations for it—or it was so callous that she had no explanation for it at all; none, that is, that she dared think of. Once more she decided that his way was really the best and simplest way to meet the situation. You took the bull by the horns. You seized the nettle. You cleared the air. And though her images, she felt, were not what they might be, neither was anything else that day what it might be. Everything appeared to reflect the confusion produced by Wemyss's excessive lucidity of speech.
'Shall I pour out the tea?' she asked presently, preparing, then, to take the bull by the horns; for he remained standing in front of the fire smoking in silence. 'Just think,' she went on, making an effort to be gay, 'this is the first time I shall pour out tea in my——'
She was going to say 'My own home,' but the words wouldn't come off her tongue. Wemyss had repeatedly during the day spoken of his home, but not once had he said 'our' or 'your'; and if ever a house didn't feel as if it in the very least belonged, too, to her, it was this one.
'Not yet,' he said briefly.
She wondered. 'Not yet?' she repeated.
'I'm waiting for the bread and butter.'
'But won't the tea get cold?'
'No doubt. And it'll be entirely that fool's fault.'
'But——' began Lucy, after a silence.
'Buts again?'
'I was only thinking that if we had it now it wouldn't be cold.'
'She must be taught her lesson.'
Again she wondered. 'Won't it rather be a lesson to us?' she asked.
'For God's sake, Lucy, don't argue. Things have to be done properly in my house. You've had no experience of a properly managed household. All that set you were brought up in—why, one only had to look at them to see what a hugger-mugger way they probably lived. It's entirely the careless fool's own fault that the tea will be cold. I didn't ask her to throw the bread and butter on the floor, did I?'
And as she said nothing, he asked again. 'Did I?' he asked.
'No,' said Lucy.
'Well then,' said Wemyss.
They waited in silence.
Chesterton arrived. She put the fresh bread and butter on the table, and then wiped the floor with a cloth she had brought.
Wemyss watched her closely. When she had done—and Chesterton being good at her work, scrutinise as he might he could see no sign on the floor of overlooked butter—he said, 'You will now take the teapot down and bring some hot tea.'
'Yes sir,' said Chesterton, removing the teapot.
A line of a hymn her nurse used to sing came into Lucy's head when she saw the teapot going. It was:
What various hindrances we meet—
and she thought the next line, which she didn't remember, must have been:
Before at tea ourselves we seat.
But though one portion of her mind was repeating this with nervous levity, the other was full of concern for the number of journeys up and down all those stairs the parlourmaid was being obliged to make. It was—well, thoughtless of Everard to make her go up and down so often. Probably he didn't realise—of course he didn't—how very many stairs there were. When and how could she talk to him about things like this? When would he be in such a mood that she would be able to do so without making them worse? And how, in what words sufficiently tactful, sufficiently gentle, would she be able to avoid his being offended? She must manage somehow. But tact—management—prudence—all these she had not yet in her life needed. Had she the smallest natural gift for them? Besides, each of them applied to love seemed to her an insult. She had supposed that love, real love, needed none of these protections. She had thought it was a simple, sturdy growth that could stand anything.... Why, here was the parlourmaid already, teapot and all. How very quick she had been!
Chesterton, however, hadn't so much been quick as tactful, managing, and prudent. She had been practising these qualities on the other side of the door, whither she had taken the teapot and quietly waited with it a few minutes, and whence she now brought it back. She placed it on the table with admirable composure; and when Wemyss, on her politely asking whether there were anything else he required, said, 'Yes. You will now take away that toast and bring fresh,' she took the toast also only as far as the other side of the door, and waited with it there a little.
Lucy now hoped they would have tea. 'Shall I pour it out?' she asked after a moment a little anxiously, for he still didn't move and she began to be afraid the toast might be going to be the next hindrance; in which case they would go round and round for the rest of the day, never catching up the tea at all.
But he did go over and sit down at the table, followed by her who hardly now noticed its position, so much surprised and absorbed was she by his methods of housekeeping.
'Isn't it monstrous,' he said, sitting down heavily, 'how we've been kept waiting for such a simple thing as tea. I tell you they're the most slovenly——'
There was Chesterton again, bearing the toast-rack balanced on the tip of a respectful ringer.
This time even Lucy realised that it must be the same toast, and her hand, lifted in the act of pouring out tea, trembled, for she feared the explosion that was bound to come.
How extraordinary. There was no explosion. Everard hadn't—it seemed incredible—noticed. His attention was so much fixed on what she was doing with his cup, he was watching her so carefully lest she should fill it a hair's-breadth fuller than he liked, that all he said to Chesterton as she put the toast on the table was, 'Let this be a lesson to you.' But there was no gusto in it; it was quite mechanical.
'Yes sir,' said Chesterton.
She waited.
He waved.
She went.
The door hadn't been shut an instant before Wemyss exclaimed, 'Why, if that slovenly hussy hasn't forgotten——' And too much incensed to continue he stared at the tea-tray.
'What? What?' asked Lucy startled, also staring at the tea-tray.
'Why, the sugar.'
'Oh, I'll call her back—she's only just gone——'
'Sit down, Lucy.'
'But she's just outside——'
'Sit down, I tell you.'
Lucy sat.
Then she remembered that neither she nor Everard ever had sugar in their tea, so naturally there was no point in calling Chesterton back.
'Oh, of course,' she said, smiling nervously, for what with one thing and another she was feeling shattered, 'how stupid of me. We don't want sugar.'
Wemyss said nothing. He was studying his watch, timing Chesterton. Then when the number of seconds needed to reach the kitchen had run out, he got up and rang the bell.
In due course Lizzie appeared. It seemed that the rule was that this particular bell should be answered by Lizzie.
'Chesterton,' said Wemyss.
In due course Chesterton appeared. She was less composed than when she brought back the teapot, than when she brought back the toast. She tried to hide it, but she was out of breath.
'Yes sir?' she said.
Wemyss took no notice, and went on drinking his tea.
Chesterton stood.
After a period of silence Lucy thought that perhaps it was expected of her as mistress of the house to tell her about the sugar; but then as they neither of them wanted any....
After a further period of silence, during which she anxiously debated whether it was this that they were all waiting for, she thought that perhaps Everard hadn't heard the parlourmaid come in; so she said—she was ashamed to hear how timidly it came out—'Chesterton is here, Everard.'
He took no notice, and went on eating bread and butter.
After a further period of anxious inward debate she concluded that it must after all be expected of her, as mistress of the house, to talk of the sugar; and the sugar was to be talked of not because they needed it but on principle. But what a roundabout way; how fatiguing and difficult. Why didn't Everard say what he wanted, instead of leaving her to guess?
'I think——' she stammered, flushing, for she was now very timid indeed, 'you've forgotten the sugar, Chesterton.'
'Will you not interfere!' exclaimed Wemyss very loud, putting down his cup with a bang.
The flush on Lucy's face vanished as if it had been knocked out. She sat quite still. If she moved, or looked anywhere but at her plate, she knew she would begin to cry. The scenes she had dreaded had not included any with herself in the presence of servants. It hadn't entered her head that these, too, were possible. She must hold on to herself; not move; not look. She sat absorbed in that one necessity, fiercely concentrated. Chesterton must have gone away and come back again, for presently she was aware that sugar was being put on the tea-tray; and then she was aware that Everard was holding out his cup.
'Give me some more tea, please,' he said, 'and for God's sake don't sulk. If the servants forget their duties it's neither your nor my business to tell them what they've forgotten,—they've just got to look and see, and if they don't see they've just got to stand there looking till they do. It's the only way to teach them. But for you to get sulking on the top of it——'
She lifted the teapot with both hands, because one hand by itself too obviously shook. She succeeded in pouring out the tea without spilling it, and in stopping almost at the very moment when he said, 'Take care, take care—you're filling it too full.' She even succeeded after a minute or two in saying, holding carefully on to her voice to keep it steady, 'I'm not—sulking. I've—got a headache.'
And she thought desperately, 'The only thing to be done with marriage is to let it wash over one.'