Читать книгу Broken Barrier - Grace Helen Mowat - Страница 7

Table of Contents

Maggie spent the day instructing the new housekeeper in the art of keeping house for an eccentric bachelor.

“You’ll have to do all the thinking for him,” she explained. “His mother never let him think for himself, so now he can’t do it.”

“Can you tell me all the things I will have to think of? Perhaps I had better write them down.”

“No, it’s not that complicated. Now, for instance, he’d never think of things being needed for the house. If anything wants replenishing you just ask him for the money and go out and buy it. Then you have to send his suits to the cleaner. He’d never think of that.”

“How will I know when to send them?”

“Use your eyes, girl. Just notice when they begin to look kind of grimy. He has two of them grey office suits. You keep one clean and ready and just lay it on the chair by his bed, and he’ll know enough to put it on in the morning. And when he goes out you can get the other one for the cleaners. If he ever sends Tony out here for his dress suit, you find it in the suitcase in his closet. It’s just as well to run the iron over it before you send it, too. It’s bound to be wrinkled, folded up in the case the way he keeps it. Just before he gets home at half past six, you light the fire in the library.”

“I can remember to do all that. It doesn’t seem as if the work would be hard.”

“No, it’s not hard, only you just have to think of everything.”

They decided that Lydia should prepare the dinner entirely herself while Maggie looked on and advised. Lydia asked if she could make a lemon pudding during the morning so that the dessert would be ready beforehand. Maggie agreed; the master always liked lemon things.

“Another thing,” she said. “At ten o’clock I always take him in a cup of cocoa with a bit of cookie or something to go with it. I’ve done that ever since his mother died. You see she was ill a long stretch before she died. He thought an awful lot of his mother, and I must say she was a lovely lady. He would sit by her bedside sometimes half the night, and after she died he couldn’t seem to get to the habit of sleeping again. I tried giving him hot cocoa before he went to bed and he thought it helped. Now he looks for it every evening when it comes round ten o’clock.”

“I suppose he will tell me if he wants anything.”

“He is liable to, after he gets used to you, but he is a terrible silent man. Mostly he’ll just sit there all evening reading some queer old book. Sometimes he’ll talk to me about the things he’s been reading. He can talk all right if he has a mind to. I tell him it’s all a pack of nonsense and them books is good for nothing but to collect dust and make work for me. Then he’ll just laugh at me.”

“I am afraid he is going to miss you, Maggie.”

“I’m afraid he is,” Maggie admitted with a sigh. “And I tell you, I don’t like leaving, neither. I been living here so long I kind of got attached to the place, but, naturally, I couldn’t keep putting Jenkins off forever.”

“I am afraid I shall make a lot of mistakes.”

“Now don’t worry. I will keep an eye on you till you get into step with things. Just call on me any time.”

“That will be a great help,” Lydia told her gratefully. She was liking Maggie.

They went all over the house together and Lydia learned where things were kept and the routine of her work.

She cooked the dinner under Maggie’s critical eye and finally they heard the front door open. The master had arrived.

“Now,” said Maggie, with the air of a general, “we don’t put on the dinner till he comes in and sits down at the table. He’s very prompt. Comes in mostly at sharp quarter to seven. I always have everything ready by then. You do all the waiting yourself. I won’t let him see I’m here. I can just set the dishes through the slide for you.”

Lydia experienced all the excitement she had felt on her first stage entrance in the college play. In fact, the thought of facing this one, lone, eccentric gentleman was more of an ordeal than the sea of faces that had looked up at her from the college auditorium.

“There he comes now,” Maggie said.

For Lydia it was the curtain call. She glanced in the little mirror on the kitchen wall. Her dark hair, parted in the middle, was smooth and neat, her collar and cuffs nicely fitted to her black dress. Her white apron with straps over the shoulder was carefully tied in a butterfly bow at the back. She was ready for the big act.

“Now take in this platter with the chops and the gravy. Leave them right on the table. He will help himself. Then you come back for the vegetables. After that you come out here and wait till he rings for you.”

A small pantry separated the kitchen from the dining-room, with a swing door and slide opening into the dining-room.

Lydia took the dish of chops from the stove, paused for a moment in front of the swing door, to collect her courage, then boldly entered and placed the platter before the master. The drama was on.

He gave her one penetrating look and inclined his head with a gesture that seemed more like an acceptance of the inevitable than the greeting of a new member of his household. Slowly and indifferently he unfolded a large white napkin and placed a chop upon his plate.

Lydia returned with the vegetables, which he accepted, still seemingly unaware of her presence, after which she thankfully retired to the kitchen to wait for the bell that was her next cue.

“He is quite an old man, isn’t he?” she said in a low tone to Maggie.

“Well, he is and he isn’t,” she replied. “There’s times when I think he never was young and there’s times when I think he is nothing but a child. His hair turned white before it ought to, and that makes him look older than he really is.”

“Does he entertain at all?”

“Not much. Sometimes he will ask an old friend for dinner and sometimes he’ll be asked out. Business men he disposes of at his club in the city. What he likes best is just staying at home reading them old books, and that’s what’s making him queer. He ought to get out more and see people. When I tell him so, he says he is seeing people all day. But that’s just business people and it ain’t the same.”

“He should get married,” suggested Lydia, hoping that some romantic tale of unrequited love might be forthcoming.

“Certainly he should,” Maggie agreed, “but I’ve given up all hopes of that. He thinks marriage is the cause of half the troubles in the world and can quote examples to prove it. His mother picked out a nice young lady for him, but he never took much stock in her. Now he has just got used to living alone and doing what he likes. I could never picture him tolerating married life. With Jenkins, now, it’s different. He was married before and is kind of acclimatized to the state. A woman don’t take near as many chances, marrying a widow man. They get so used to being bossed around, they can’t live without it.”

Just then the bell sounded and Lydia sprang to her feet.

“Take your time,” cautioned Maggie. “Just go in and clear off the dirty dishes and put them through the slide. I’ll get them, and hand you in the dessert.”

Trancher seemed lost in thought during Lydia’s second appearance. This gave her confidence as she deftly removed the remains of the first course and set down the dessert and coffee.

“Do you think I shall be able to carry on?” she asked Maggie, when she finally returned to the kitchen.

“Sure you will,” said Maggie.

“It must have been a blow to Mr. Trancher when you told him you were going to get married.”

“Blow! Yes, I only administered the blow day before yesterday and he hasn’t come to yet. But don’t you pay no attention to him. He’ll come round after a while. He’ll likely get so as he depends on you, same as he does on me now. He’s just like all the men, hates changes and kind of enjoys a grievance. But on top of all that, he is always a gentleman, one of the old school, and that variety is getting scarcer every day.”

Lydia, smiling to herself, thought of the stunned bird she once found lying in the road and how she had subsequently tamed it by providing it morsels of inviting food. The strange situation she now faced seemed somewhat similar.

“What do I do about breakfast?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you just what’s to be done and leave everything out handy for you. Now don’t you worry,” Maggie reassured her. “You can’t go very far wrong, and if you do make a mistake sometimes, what’s the odds? You can get me on the telephone any time. All you have to see to after breakfast is the marketing and cleaning up the house and getting things in line for dinner. The master leaves the house at half past eight and he won’t come home till dinner time.”

“The work seems easy,” Lydia said. “I’m not worrying about that. Only I’m afraid I can never fill your place”—a remark which gratified Maggie, who felt that it showed intelligence and a becoming humility. Lydia, she thought, would do.

She departed, leaving Lydia feeling lonely and weary after all the strange experiences of the day, wondering just what she had got in for, and how long she would be able to stick it out. Anyway, she thought, it was better than giving up and going home like a failure. She had a roof over her head and no further anxiety about money. Thus consoled, she prepared the cocoa and carried it in to the library at ten o’clock.

Trancher was absorbed in a book and did not notice her. She set the tray on the table and noiselessly left the room, then went upstairs to her bedroom and unpacked. With a few familiar objects about her, she felt more at home and ready for her new adventure.