Volume I Part 72 (1/2)
”Well! ? what is the matter? ? can't I have them?”
”Yes, yes, but ask me for what you want. You mustn't call upon Barby in that fas.h.i.+on.”
”Why not? Is she too good to be spoken to? What is she in the kitchen for?”
”She wouldn't be in the kitchen long if we were to speak to her in that way,” said Fleda. ”I suppose she would as soon put your boots on for you as fetch and carry them. I'll see about it.”
”It seems to me Fleda rules the house,” remarked Captain Rossitur, when she had left the room.
”Well, who should rule it?” said Hugh.
”Not she!”
”I don't think she does,” said Hugh; ”but if she did, I am sure it could not be in better hands.”
”It shouldn't be in her hands at all. But I have noticed since I have been here that she takes the arrangement of almost everything. My mother seems to have nothing to do in her own family.”
”I wonder what the family or anybody in it would do without Fleda!” said Hugh, his gentle eyes quite firing with indignation. ”You had better know more before you speak, Charlton.”
”What is there for me to know?”
”Fleda does everything.”
”So I say ? and that is what I don't like.”
”How little you know what you are talking about!” said Hugh.
”I can tell you she is the life of the house, almost literally, we should have had little enough to live upon this summer if it had not been for her.”
”What do you mean?” ? impatiently enough.
”Fleda ? if it had not been for her gardening and management ?
she has taken care of the garden these two years, and sold I can't tell you how much from it. Mr. Sweet, the hotelman at the Pool, takes all we can give him.”
”How much does her 'taking care of the garden' amount to?”
”It amounts to all the planting, and nearly all the other work, after the first digging ? by far the greater part of it.”
Charlton walked up and down a few turns in most unsatisfied silence.
”How does she get the things to Montepoole?”
”I take them.”
”You! ? When?”
”I ride with them there before breakfast. Fleda is up very early to gather them.”
”You have not been there this morning?”
”Yes.”