‘There’s plenty of servants if you know how to intrap them,’ she explained. ‘I did it telling them what nice young innocents you two was, not knowing a thing about housekeeping, so they’d have it all their own way. But a cook I couldn’t get. I see plenty, but they wants their weight in gold afore they’ll come, and a tidy weight it ’ud be with some of ’em. Why not advertise for cook-housekeeper; suit widow, one child not objected to? That’ll fetch someone, and the little gell’ll be handy to run errands and feed the rabbit. You ought to get some more rabbits. One rabbit don’t pay.’
‘But suppose it’s a little boy?’ suggested Jane.
‘It won’t be a boy,’ said Gladys; ‘if their letters says “boy”, don’t you answer them. That’s easy.’
It was this suggestion which led to the advent of Mrs Dadd – Adela Dadd was her full and incredible name – a thin, pale person with admirable testimonials from the superior clergy. She had been housekeeper to a rector and, before her marriage, nursery governess to a dean. Her daughter was seven – a lumpish child with an open mouth, an unconquerable stickiness of hands and face, and stockings that were always wrinkled. Mrs Dadd simpered, she bridled, and she languished. She called her employers by their names every time she spoke to them, so as to make it quite plain that she did not belong to the class which says ‘Miss’, or ‘Ma’am’. Neither Mrs nor Miss Dadd really pleased anyone, but time was getting on. The house was ready, the servants were there, eating their heads off, and it was high time that the paying guests should begin to pay. Mrs Dadd left much to be desired, but she was better than the bouncing lady with the almost grown-up daughter who had lived in the best families in garrison towns and wore more jewellery in the morning than most ladies would care to wear at night. She was also more possible than the trembling old lady of seventy who owned to forty-eight, and had dyed her poor white hair and powdered her wrinkled old cheeks, and put on a necklace of big pearl beads, all in the effort to find work that she could not do and wages that she could not earn.
‘It makes your blood run cold,’ said Jane. ‘Poor old thing! And she ought to be in the best arm chair, with a dozen children always running to Granny. That’s what I like about the Chinese. They do look after old people. But we couldn’t have taken her – now, could we, Luce?’
‘Bless your heart, no, miss,’ said Gladys, who was present; ‘and I daresay if the truth was known she’s only had a tiff with her son’s wife that she lives with and started out to get a situation just to show her independence.’
‘Let’s hope so, anyhow,’ said Jane. ‘What do you think of Mrs Dadd, Gladys? Adela Dadd! What a name!’
‘I think she’ll be an addler, if you ask me,’ said Gladys. ‘Ad’la by name and addler by nature. I lay she’ll try to do all her work with the tips of her fingers. But you can but try.’
So they tried. Mrs Dadd was not a good cook, but the food she prepared was not uneatable. A design of getting Mrs Doveton to give her a few lessons in cookery was negatived by both with unexpected firmness.
‘I couldn’t take it on me, miss,’ said Mrs Doveton.
‘I’m not a child to be taught things,’ said Mrs Dadd. ‘I’ve lived in the best families, where six was kept, besides a Buttons. No, thank you, Miss Quested. There’s enough of the boiled mutton to do cold for to-day. It’ll save cooking, Miss Quested. And the suet pudding warmed up with a nice potato, and there’s your dinner.’
And there, as she said, their dinner was.
A carefully-worded advertisement setting forth the advantages of residence at Cedar Court was inserted in three papers, and in a sort of ordered hush Cedar Court awaited applicants. There was a certain restfulness. Only the shop in the morning. In the afternoon leisure, then tea tennis.
Gladys seemed to have come as a liberator. The shop no longer claimed the whole day. And tennis is a very agreeable game. ‘If only we could go on like this!’ said Jane. ‘How nice it is to have servants and everything going by clockwork – at least, Addler Dadd certainly doesn’t, but Stanley and Forbes do. I almost wish we hadn’t advertised for the Pigs.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to go through the accounts,’ said Lucilla threateningly. But they went down to the tennis-court instead. Mr Rochester was able to play tennis almost every evening, and Mr Dix, of course, was always glad of a game after working hours.
‘What a life!’ said Gladys, when they came in. ‘Not but what I daresay it’s good for your inside, all that hopping about. And Mr Dix, he deserves a bit of fun, working as he does. But that Mr Rochester! Ain’t he got nothing to do? ’As he got a ninde-penden tincome? Ain’t he got no trade?’
‘He’s an engineer, I believe,’ Jane told her.
‘Then why doesn’t he engineer? No, you mark my words: he’s got a reason of his own for hanging about here; are you sure he ain’t a detective?’
‘There wouldn’t be anything for him to detect here,’ said Lucilla.
‘I’m not so sure. There’s people with pasts. Where’s Addler’s husband?’
‘Dead,’ said Lucilla.
‘So she says,’ said Gladys. And Jane had to say, ‘That’ll do,’ very firmly and end the conversation.
You know how elastic time is, and how some days seem to have no time in them at all, and other days seem as though there was time in them for everything. These days were full of time – time to go from room to room, touching up the flowers, changing the position of a chair or a table, followed by little Addie Dadd, always flagrantly sticky but faithfully keeping her promise ‘not to touch’. The girls tried very hard to like poor little Addie, who plainly adored them, but you cannot really love a child unless you can embrace it, and Addie was always much too sticky for that, except just after her bath, and then, of course, Mrs Dadd was always there to say, ‘Thank Miss Quested and Miss Craye, Addie, for being so kind,’ and then, of course, Addie said, ‘Thank you,’ and nothing more could be said on either side.
They had to get rid of the child before settling to their sewing, of which they did an incredible amount. Aunt Lucy’s old sprigged muslins and striped barèges made the most delicious frocks and jumpers, and Jane had a sage-green, soft-satin gown for evening with little pink and white rosebuds embroidered all over it. ‘By hand, too, none of your machine-made stuff’; and Lucilla had a mignonette-coloured shot silk with a short waist and wonderful gathered trimming.
‘When we get enough P.G.’s together we’ll have a dance,’ said Jane.
‘Rather,’ said Lucilla, and their imagination peopled the big, silent rooms of Cedar Court with a little crowd of strangers, all young, all good-looking and good-tempered, ready to please and be pleased. It was a radiant prospect and kept them well amused.
Then the answers to the advertisement began to arrive, and the days become darkened with correspondence. There are no letters so dull as the letters in which you demand or supply what are called ‘references’.
Out of the cloud of ink three human figures presently emerged, clothed with testimonials almost as glowing as Mrs Dadd’s – an officer’s widow and her unmarried sisters. The terms were satisfactory, the date of the arrival was fixed, the rooms were got ready.
‘Towels and soap and fresh flowers and pincushions with real pins in them,’ said Jane. ‘The P.G. who can’t be happy here doesn’t deserve to be happy anywhere.’
‘Perhaps they aren’t,’ said Lucilla.
‘I only hope the dinner will be all right. The tinned mock turtle and tinned peas and tinned asparagus and tinned peaches. That only leaves the mutton for Mrs Dadd to cook, and potatoes. Oh, if only we had Mrs Doveton here!’
‘Perhaps Mrs Smale won’t mind what she eats. Officers’ widows following the regiment all over the world must get used to having odd sorts of meals. After puppy-dog pie and birds-nest soup I daresay even Mrs Dadd’s cooking would seem all right.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Jane, but without conviction. ‘Was that the gate? Oh, what have I done?’
What she had done was to knoc
k a vase of pinks off a table and flood the hearthrug. Lucilla flew to the bell; and they heard it clanging through the house. But they heard nothing else. No coming of footsteps. They rang again, and then Jane sped down to the kitchen.
Mrs Dadd was snatching a moment’s rest with her feet on a chair. She often snatched moments’ rest. Little Addie was trying to feed the cat with a jammy spoon.
‘Why doesn’t someone answer the bell?’
‘Forbes has gone to post with a letter, Miss Quested,’ said Mrs Dadd in leisurely explanation, while Jane almost danced with impatience. ‘It’s Stanley’s day out, and Gladys is always in the shop, I understand, of an afternoon.’
‘Well,’ said Jane, ‘I think you might have come.’
‘I couldn’t undertake to answer bells, Miss Quested,’ said Mrs Dadd; ‘that’s the servants’ place.’
‘But, good gracious me! – when there’s no one else? We might have been on fire or being murdered!’
‘Oh no,’ said Mrs Dadd, ‘not that, I think, Miss Quested.’
‘Well, I’ve upset a lot of water, and I want you to come at once and mop it up. Bring a pail, please, and a cloth, and do be quick. It’s soaking into the rug and the carpet. Please make haste, Mrs Dadd.’
But Mrs Dadd was shaking her head slowly and calmly.
‘Oh no, Miss Quested,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t undertake to do anything menial.’
‘But there’s nothing menial about mopping up some water. I’d do it myself.’
‘People feel differently about things, I know,’ Mrs Dadd conceded.
‘But who cleans the kitchen floor?’ asked Jane.
‘I don’t know, Miss Quested,’ was the unforgettable reply. ‘Addie, come here and leave the cat alone.’
‘Do you mean,’ said Jane incredulously, ‘that you aren’t going to mop up that water?’
‘You’ll excuse me, Miss Quested, I’m sure. I’ve come down in the world, but not so low as that,’ she simpered. ‘Oh no!’
Jane completely and suddenly lost her temper.
‘You refuse to do it?’
‘I’m afraid I must say yes to that,’ said Mrs Dadd, with a sort of defiant archness.
‘Then you’d better go. Go now,’ said Jane.
‘Certainly,’ said Mrs Dadd, with some alacrity. ‘I should like my month’s money, Miss Quested, and I’ll leave at once. Come, Addie darling, and help Mummy to pack.’
‘Where’s the pail?’ Jane asked.
‘In the back kitchen, I believe. Come, Addie.’
Jane got the pail and the floor-cloth and, carrying them, reached the hall just as the front-door bell rang. She then perceived that if she did not open the door no one would. Besides, it might be Forbes.
So she opened it. The doorstep was occupied by three large ladies.
The captain’s widow and her sisters had chosen this fortunate moment for their début at Cedar Court.
CHAPTER XXI
‘There were three of them, but they looked as big as a crowd. They’ve got great, pale faces like potatoes, and they’re all exactly alike. I’ve taken them up to their rooms, and one of them said hers had a north aspect; and another one said her room was like an oven with the afternoon sun – and the third one just turned up her nose without a word. Pigs!’ Thus Jane to Lucilla, having shown the guests to their rooms.
‘And they want hot water and their luggage carried up. The porter brought it and he’s out there now, grumbling at what they paid him. You can hear him going on like a gramophone before it really begins. And they want someone to carry up the luggage; and both the maids are out; and Mrs Dadd was cheeky, and I’ve told her to go – and she’s going. She’s going now, this minute, while we’re chattering.’
‘I’m not chattering,’ said Lucilla.
‘No,’ said Jane, ‘you’re always right. You’re always cool and calm and collected and – and – blameless. And I’m always in the soup. And then you rub it in.’ And she burst into tears.
‘It’s not that,’ she sobbed, when Lucilla had come to her and had put her arm round her and had said, ‘Don’t, darling,’ and ‘Never mind,’ and ‘There, dear, there,’ and all the things that girls do say to each other when one of them is weeping. ‘It’s not unhappiness. It’s rage. I could kill Mrs Dadd. I could. I should like to. And Addie was rubbing the cat all over with a jammy spoon and it’ll go all over the drawing-room cushions. And Mrs Dadd! Hateful woman! No, there’s no time to tell you about her. There’ll be no dinner. And those potato-faced pigs will be grunting for their swill. I don’t care if I am coarse. Even now they’re expecting hot water. Who’s to take it up?’
‘I will,’ said Lucilla soothingly; ‘and Mr Dix will take up the luggage, and then we’ll see about the dinner.’
‘I’ll fetch him,’ said Jane. ‘No, it’s all right. I’ve finished snivelling. I feel much better. Catch the cat if you can and shut her up. I must bathe my eyes. I’ll fetch Mr Dix in a jiff. But I don’t suppose there is any hot water. Mrs Dadd was sprawling about on the furniture with her legs up. She always is.’
‘Well, she won’t any more – at least, not here,’ said Lucilla. ‘Don’t worry; we’ll pull through somehow. It’s all rather a lark though, isn’t it?’
‘Rub it in,’ said Jane, plunging her face into cold water. ‘I’m all right now,’ she went on through the towel. ‘It is rather exciting, as you say.’ And with eyelids still very pink she went in search of Mr Dix. She did not find him, because in the hall she found Mr Rochester, just leaving his labours in the library.
‘Hullo,’ he said softly, ‘the Pigs have come then? I heard their loud voices announcing themselves and asking for Miss Quested. I expect they thought she was forty – and an experienced letter of lodgings.’
‘Yes,’ said Jane, and sniffed. ‘They were hateful. When I said I was Miss Quested they said they meant the elder Miss Quested, and when I said there wasn’t one they snorted. They did really.’ She sniffed again.
He caught her hand and pulled her quickly and gently and quite irresistibly into the room he had just left.
‘Half a moment,’ he said; ‘they may come down. I want to ask you, but I never get a word with you – your Lucilla’s always there. I want to know … Great heavens, what’s the matter!’ he ended on a complete changed note, for now he had suddenly seen Jane’s face.
‘Oh, nothing – silliness. Mrs Dadd was hateful and I’ve sacked her. And then those Pigs. I suppose I’m tired. That’s what makes me so silly.’
‘Sit down a minute,’ he said, still holding her hand. ‘It’s infamous that you should be worried by these old women. It’s all my uncle’s fault for saddling you with this house. Do sit down and tell me all about it.’
‘I can’t,’ said Jane. ‘They are gibbering now for their hateful luggage to be carried up – it’s all in the hall’; and then belatedly she pulled her hand away. But this did not improve the situation, for Mr Rochester’s arm went round her, and for one moment she let her head lean against his arm, with the most extraordinary feeling of being comforted and protected. Thus they stood, almost in the position which a couple assume when the dance begins.
‘Jane,’ he whispered. ‘Jane dear.’
But that broke the spell, and Jane shook herself free.
‘Dearest,’ said Mr Rochester, not at once perceiving that the spell was broken, and he reached his hands out to her. But Jane backed towards the door.
‘I don’t blame you,’ said she, standing very upright and looking him straight in the eyes. ‘I brought it on myself by going about howling like a silly kid. I don’t blame you, and I’ll forget it if you will. But I want you to understand that I’m not at all that sort of girl. No, don’t say anything,’ she said fiercely. ‘I don’t blame you – this once; but I want you to understand that I’m not going to have that sort of nonsense. Not ever. Do you understand?’
‘Jane,’ said he, ‘don’t you believe in omens – in Fate?’
?
??Never mind what I believe in,’ said Jane, instinctively putting her hands up to her hair to ascertain whether its momentary contact with Mr Rochester’s jacket had disarranged it. ‘At least I’ll tell you what I do believe in. I believe in attending to business and being good friends, and not being silly and sloppy. And you’re not to call me Jane.’
Mr Rochester experienced all the emotions familiar to those who have been stroking a kitten and have suddenly found claws where a moment ago only soft fur was. This and a good deal more, he felt in the brief moment before he said:
‘Very well. And now forgive me – in earnest, like a good comrade, and let’s be friends again.’
‘That’s what I want to be to you,’ said Jane, charmed by the old camouflage that love has worn so threadbare.
‘Then shake hands on it.’
They did – a good, strong, manly shake.
‘And now we’re real friends, tell me just one thing. You do like me better than that wretched Dix, don’t you? Say you do – just a little better?’
‘I like you both very much,’ said Jane sedately; and then with a spark of malice she added: ‘Just now perhaps I like him a little the best, because he hasn’t seen me make a fool of myself.’
A bell pealed violently.
‘It’s those Pigs – their luggage – Mr Dix …’
‘Oh, I’ll carry it up,’ said Mr Rochester. ‘Come and show me which rooms.’
They met Lucilla on the stairs.
‘They want tea,’ she whispered, ‘and it’s six. Forbes is getting it, but she says it’s not her place. She’s going to take it up to their rooms. And the mutton’s not in yet, and the potatoes aren’t peeled. And Forbes says, she’ll either cook the dinner or wait at table, whichever we like, but she can’t do both – and she won’t.’
‘Can’t Gladys wait?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Lucilla. ‘And I’m sure she can’t cook. It’s rather unfortunate, isn’t it? Because it’s quite important to make a good impression on your Pigs the first day. I wish they sold roast legs of mutton in enormous tins. Why don’t they?’