Part 8 (1/2)
”I am glad that you are glad. As I was observing, when you interrupted me, I am older than you--for which I have every cause to be thankful--and my experience of the world has taught me not to pay much heed to a girl's display of temper. I undertook the management of affairs at your own request--”
”At my request? It's not true!”
A voice came from behind me. Looking round, there, in the doorway, was cook; and, on her heels, Betsy, the remaining housemaid.
While--actually!--at the open window was Harris, the coachman, staring into the room as if what was taking place was the slightest concern of his. It was cook's voice which I heard, raised in accents of surprise, as if my point-blank denial of the Ogre's wicked falsehood had amazed her.
”Oh, Miss Molly, however can you say such a thing! When I heard you thanking Mr Miller with my own ears! And after all he has done for you. Well, I never did!”
”What did you hear?”
”I heard Mr Miller ask you in the hall if there was anything he could do for you, and you said you'd be very much obliged. Then he went on to say, I'm sure as kind as kind could be, that if you liked he'd take the whole trouble off your hands and manage everything; and you said,'
Thank you.' And now for you to stand there and declare you didn't, and to behave to him like this after all he's done for you, in one so young I shouldn't have believed that it was possible.”
In the first frenzy of my grief and bewilderment I had scarcely understood what I was saying to anybody. I remembered Mr Miller coming, as cook said, but that anything which had been said on either side had been intended to bear the construction which was being put upon it was untrue.
”I was not in a state of mind to understand much of what Mr Miller was saying, but I supposed that he was offering to a.s.sist in the arrangements for mother's funeral, and that offer I accepted.”
”You did so. And what you'd have done without him I can't think. He arranged everything--and beautifully too. He's made the family more thought of in this neighbourhood than it ever was before. If ever helpless orphans had a friend in need you've had one in him--you have that.”
Betsy had her say.
”He got us our black. There wouldn't have been a word said about it by anyone if it hadn't been for him.”
”And he bought me two suits of clothes--blacks.”
That was Harris, at the window.
”Bought you two suits of clothes!”
”Yes, miss,” said cook, ”we've all of us had full mourning, as was only decent. And I happen to know that Mr Miller paid for it. Indeed, he paid for everything. And considering the handsome way in which it has all been done, nothing stinted, nothing mean, a pretty penny it must have cost.”
I exchanged glances with d.i.c.k and perceived that we were both of opinion that we had had enough of cook. I told her so.
”I have heard what you have had to say. And now, please, will you leave the room?”
”Excuse me, miss, but that's exactly what I don't intend to do--not till I know how I stand.”
”How you stand?”
”I'll soon tell you how you stand,” declared d.i.c.k. ”You'll be paid a month's wages and you'll take yourself off.”
”Oh, shall I, sir? That's just the sort of thing I thought you would say after the way you've been trying to behave to Mr Miller. And in any case I shouldn't think of stopping in the house with a pack of rude, ungrateful children. But I should like more than one month's wages, if it's the same to you. There's three months nearly due. I've not had one penny since I've been inside this house.”
”Not since you've been inside this house?”
”Not one penny; and it's getting on for three months now.”
”But I thought mother always paid you every month regularly.”