Part 8 (2/2)
With that the maid departed, and the two girls sat down much dejected in front of a tiny little grate filled with dead ashes of past fires. A dim light from one gas jet turned low cast great fantastic shadows on the wall, and a deadly quiet pervaded the old house.
CHAPTER VI.-MISS FELICIA RIVERS.
They waited in gloomy silence for what seemed an age. Never in all their lives had they experienced such forlorn sensations as they felt in that shabby parlor. They listened with strained ears for sounds through the house. Down in some subterranean, cavernous place they could hear a voice, loud, shrill and scolding, and presently the maid returned bearing a gas-lighter, with which she turned the taper on to its full powers.
What a room that was, as revealed now by the light! It reminded the girls of a hospital for broken-down furniture:-rickety chairs and tables; pictures that hung crooked on the walls; a musty, dusty carpet.
They took it all in with one frightened, comprehensive glance, and they knew that if Miss Campbell were there, it would only be for one night,-perhaps only for one hour.
”My cousin, where is she?” demanded Billie abruptly, feeling that something must be done at once. ”Will you take me to her room, please?”
The maid, who, by the light of the gas, proved to be a wretched little object, down at the heel, shabby, with her cap awry and a s.m.u.t across one cheek, turned on her fiercely.
”Your cousin, the Missus as is, is a-comin' when she gits ready to come _h'and_ no sooner,” she said, giving a fair imitation of Billie's manner and voice. ”She awn't ready yet h'and I'd like to see her as would myke her come afore she is.”
”But what is she doing?” demanded Nancy.
”She is a-eaten' of her supper, Miss, h'and she says when I tells her you wuz come: 'Tell 'em to wyte. Beggars awn't choosers,' says she. 'If I've got to look awfter them while they're in Lundon,' says she, 'I'll look awfter them in me own w'y, h'and if they're lyte, I'll be lyter,'
she says, h'and no mistykes.”
Billie's face flushed a brilliant scarlet.
”My cousin said that?” she said. She walked over and looked the girl squarely in the face. ”How dare you repeat a message of that sort as coming from my cousin? Take me to her instantly or I'll find her myself, if I have to look over the whole house from cellar to garret.”
At these words of authority, the slavey wilted into a cringing, obsequious creature.
”I awsk your pardon, Miss,” she whimpered. ”An' I awsk you not to go and tell the Missus. She's that strict. I'm only a poor slyvey, Miss, an'
work is poor paid for me and the lykes of me. I thowt you wuz different, Miss. 'Onest, I did.”
”Just take us to my cousin, please, and never mind what you think,”
ordered Billie, too exasperated and anxious to feel any human pity for the miserable little slavey.
They followed her into a black pa.s.sage leading Heaven knows where,-down into the bowels of the earth, the young girls believed for a moment; for they now descended a narrow flight of stairs so dark and narrow that they could touch the wall on each side. At last in the bas.e.m.e.nt hall they perceived a glimmering light through a crack in a door which the slavey opened fearfully.
”Down't scowld, ma'am. Your relytion would come down. H'I couldn't help it. 'Onest I couldn't.”
The two girls walked boldly into the circle of light and stood blinking their eyes after the darkness outside.
Before a fairly comfortable coal fire in a grate as absurdly small as the one in the room above, sat an enormous woman eating her supper from a little table drawn up beside her arm chair. The supper was comfortable, and the fragrance of hot b.u.t.tered toast mingling with the appetizing fumes of bacon and sausage suddenly reminded the two forlorn young girls that they were ravenously hungry.
Too amazed to utter a word, they stood gaping at the strange woman, who appeared to show no surprise whatever.
”You're a nice pair of young women,” she said sharply, ”getting here at this hour when I expected you at six o'clock. I suppose you are hungry, too. Marty, make some more toast and another pot of tea. Sit down. As long as you're here, we might as well make the best of it. Draw up two chairs. I should never have recognized you, Eva. You used to look like your mother, but you have lost even those good looks. You are much too tall. The Smithsons and Rivers are all medium-sized--”
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