Part 7 (1/2)
”Everything is beautiful,” she gasps, clasping her hands. ”There's a room to be frivolous and lazy in, a study for book learning (I'm going to read no end) and, oh! if you want to sing----”
She draws a deep breath at the remembrance of the grand piano in the drawing-room. ”It is ever so much bigger than the one at the vicarage, which was always out of tune. I'll get my cousin Joe to send me a list of songs, and we will buy a harmonium, too, Philip. I can play the harmonium splendidly.”
”I am glad you are pleased, Eleanor,” ha replies, kissing her upturned face.
”And now, I am going to dress, for I feel horrible after my journey.
May I ring for Sarah?”
”Of course. What a question! Do exactly as you like with your own servants.”
She finds Sarah in her room busily unpacking.
”Oh! there you are,” cries Eleanor. ”I forgot I had given you my keys.
It is such a blessing to be able to talk in English, that foreign stuff was awful, I could not speak a word! Yes, I will wear my lovely pink tea-gown--did you ever see anything so pretty, Sarah? I must make you put it on some day, just to see how it looks on another person. You are a bit stouter than I am though, but perhaps you could pull in----”
And so Eleanor rattles on, just as if Sarah were one of the farm-servants at home, and she the same unaffected light-hearted Miss Grebby.
”Do you come from the country, Sarah?” she asks at last.
”Yes, ma'am. My father's a grocer, and mother keeps house for the doctor's children in our next village.”
”Then they don't live together?”
”No, ma'am, it's father's temper. We none of us can't live at home, he is that hasty! It ain't safe, ma'am, it ain't really!”
”How dreadful,” sighs Eleanor. ”Doesn't it frighten you?”
”Lor! yes, ma'am. I have seen him grow purple round the eyes, and crimson in the cheeks, and throve a whole sack of flour through the window.”
Eleanor receives the information with an expressive ”Oh!” as she shakes down her hair, and tells Sarah to brush it.
”How many servants have I got?” gazing at her face in the mirror contentedly.
”Three, ma'am. There's me, and Judith, and cook.”
”Do you like Richmond?”
”Well enough, ma'am, thank you, but Judith would have rather been in London, and cook has always set her face against the suburbs.”
”Then why did they come?”
”Well, you see, ma'am, the gentleman engaged them, and he seemed that put about they hadn't the heart to refuse.”
”Good gracious! whatever is that noise?”
”The dinner gong. Judith is very strong in the arms, and she do make it sound, ma'am!”
”Light a few more candles; I want to have a good look at myself.”