II
Lola and Miss Breezy were not on speaking terms.
The elderly spinster considered that she had been used and flouted, treated as though she were in her dotage and had lost her authority to engage and dismiss the members of the Fallaray ménage. She had nursed, therefore, a feeling of bitter antagonism against Lola during her three weeks under the same roof. She had not treated her niece to anything in the nature of an outburst on her return from Queen’s Road to take up her duties. “Dignity, dignity,” she repeated again and again and steeled herself with two other wonderful words that have helped so many similar women in the great crisis of wounded vanity,—“my position.” She had simply cut her dead. Since then they had, of course, met frequently and had even been obliged to speak to each other. They did so as though they were totally unrelated and had never met before.
All this led to a certain amount of comedy below stairs, it being perfectly well known to every one that Lola was the housekeeper’s niece. What Lola did when Miss Breezy entered the servants’ sitting room the night of her arrival filled the maids with astonishment, resentment and admiration,—astonishment because of her extraordinary capacity of holding in her laughter, resentment because she treated Miss Breezy with the sort of respect which that good lady never got from them, and admiration because of the innate breeding which seemed to ooze from that child’s finger tips. She had risen to her feet. And ever since she had continued to do so—a thing, the possibility of which the others had never conceived—and when spoken to had replied, “Yes, Miss Breezy,” with a perfectly straight face and not one glint of humor in her eye. It was wonderful. It was like something in a book,—an old book by a man who wrote of times that were as dead as mutton. It was gorgeous. It gave the girls the stitch from laughing. It became one of their standard jokes. “Up for Miss Breezy,” the word went after that and there was a scramble out of chairs. All this made the elderly spinster angrier than ever. Not only had she been done by this girl but, my word, the child was rubbing it in.
It was curious to see the effect that Lola had upon the other servants. They were all tainted with the Bolshevism that has followed in the wake of the War. They drew their wages and grumbled, slurred their duties, ate everything that they could lay their hands on, thought nothing of destroying the utensils of the kitchen and the various things which they used in the course of work, went out as often as they could and stayed out much later than the rules of the house permitted. But under the subtle influence of this always smiling, always good-tempered girl who seemed to have come from another planet, ribaldry and coarse jokes and the rather loose larking with the footmen began gradually to disappear. Without resentment, because Lola was so companionable and fitted into her new surroundings like a key into a lock, they toned themselves down in her presence, and finding her absolutely without “side,” hurried to win her friendship, went into her room at night, singly, to confide in her,—were not in the least jealous because Albert Simpkins, the butler and the two footmen competed with one another to grovel at her feet. In a word, Lola was as great a favorite below stairs as she was above. She had realized that the ultimate success of her plan depended on her popularity in the servants’ sitting room and in winning these people to her side had used all her homogeneous sense, even, perhaps, with greater care and thoughtfulness than she had applied to her task of ingratiating herself with Lady Feo. She knew very well that if the servants didn’t get on with her she would never be able to stay. They would make it impossible.
How Madame de Brézé would have chuckled had she been able to see her little imitator sitting on the sofa at night, beneath an oleograph of Queen Victoria, going through the current Tatler in the midst of a group of maids, with a butler and two footmen hanging over her shoulders and a perfect valet dreaming of matrimony sitting astride a chair as near as he could get. How she would have laughed at her descendant’s small quips and touches of wit and irony as she discussed the people who were known to her companions by sight and by name and seemed to belong to a sort of menagerie, separated from them by the iron bars of class distinction through which they could be seen moving about,—well fed and well groomed and performing for the public.
It was no trouble to Lola to do all this. She had done it almost all her life with the gradations of children with whom she had been at school,—admired by the girls, keeping the boys at arms’ length and yet retaining their friendship. It was perfectly easy. Lady Feo had liked her instantly and so no effort was necessary. Tactfulness alone was required,—to be silent when her mistress obviously required silence, to be merry and bright when her mood was expansive and to anticipate her wishes whenever in attendance. All Lola’s period of make-believe, during which she had played the celebrated courtesan in her little back bedroom, had taught her precisely how to conduct herself in her new surroundings. Had not she herself been in the hands of just such a lady’s maid as she had now become and seen her laugh when she had laughed, remain quiet when she had demanded quietude? It merely meant that she had exchanged roles with Lady Feo for a time and was playing the servant’s part instead of that of the leading lady. She reveled in the whole thing. It gave her constant delight and pleasure. Above all, she was under the same roof as her hero, of whom she caught a momentary glimpse from time to time,—from the window as he got into his car, from the gallery above the hall as he came back from the House of Commons, or late at night when he passed along the corridor to his lonely rooms, sometimes tired and with dragging feet, sometimes scornful and impatient, and once or twice so blazing with anger that it was a wonder that the things he touched did not burst into flames.