Chapter Six.
“What’s ‘rejuiced’?” queried Maud, squeezing herself into the central place on the big fender, as her brothers and sisters sat roasting chestnuts by the schoolroom fire one wet afternoon a few days later, and the question being received by a blank stare of bewilderment she repeated the word with intensified emphasis. “Re-juiced! We’re rejuiced! I heard Mary say so in the schoolroom. She said to nurse that she didn’t know if the missis would be wanting to keep on two housemaids now she was re-juiced! Does it mean poor?”
“You have no business to listen to servants’ conversation; but if you do, pray spare us the repetition!” said Rowena in her most grown-up manner. Maud reflected that ever since mother had spoken of the new arrangement about lessons, Ro had talked exactly like a governess, and been just as snappy as snappy. She bounced on her seat, and wagged her head in the obstinate manner which she adopted upon provocation.
“I don’t listen, but I have ears, and if people speak I am obliged to hear. Mary came into the room to dust. Nurse was darning the tablecloth. It’s all gone into holes where Gurth spilt the chemical acid. It’s the one with the little shamrocks for a pattern. So Nurse said: ‘Drat those boys!’ and licked the cotton with her tongue, and—”
Hereward and Gurth exchanged glances of resigned boredom, but Dreda drummed her heels on the floor, and called aloud with startling emphasis:
“Go on! Go on! Who wants to hear about tablecloth patterns, and licking threads? Keep to your point, if you have a point to stick to! If Rowena’s is going to give you lessons, she’d better begin by teaching you not to be such a bore. You go prosing on and on—”
“I don’t. I’m not. Bore yourself! ’Twas most intrusting!” insisted Maud, stolidly. “They were sort of talking about us all, in a sort of way as if I couldn’t understand, and I understood all the time, and they said we were rejuiced, and I asked you a simple question what it meant. When you’re perlite to other people, other people should be perlite to you in return.”
“All right, Maud, keep calm, keep calm! You reduce a thing by taking something from it. We are reduced because something—a great deal—has been taken away from our income, and what remains is not enough to go round. I expect the second housemaid will be sent packing, and you will have to make the beds.”
Maud squealed with dismay, then with a gleam of shrewdness nodded her head, and prophesied sagely:
“It would be worse for you than me if I did! I’d make them full of crumples. I’d get hold of the ends of the clothes, and Hop them down all together like Mary does when it’s her Sunday out, and she’s in a hurry. Then you’d be in a rage when you got in and your toes stuck out!”
“I’ll make the beds!” announced Dreda, graciously. “I think all girls ought to learn to be domestic, and there’s a real art in making beds. I’ve often thought how much better I could do it than any servant we have had. It’s the trained intellect, I suppose. (I do hate you, Rowena, when you sneer like that!) F’rinstance—I like my blankets just up to my chin, and if I tell Mary ten times a day, it’s always the same—she doubles them down till you are all hunkley round the neck. Then that leaves less to tuck in at the bottom, and if you have a nightmare and kick, there you are with your feet sticking out in the cold, and have to get up and tuck them in, when you want to sleep! And I can’t endure creases. I like the under sheet stretched as tight as tight. Everyone likes a bed made in a special way, and it ought to be done. Think of the time one spends in bed! A third of one’s life. It’s a shame not to be comfortable. I should be an expert in bed-making. I’d keep a book to remind me of everyone’s special fancies—”
“And lose it the second day! Play all the experiments you like, but leave my room alone. I want no expert. The ordinary common or garden housemaid is good enough for me,” said Hereward, cruelly.
Dreda reflected sadly that a prophet was not a prophet in her own country, but she was too much fired with the new idea to relinquish it without a trial. Besides, hidden in her heart lay the reviving thought: “If I could prove that I could be of use in the house, perhaps they’d let me stay! I know quite enough lessons as it is!”
The first two nights after hearing of the changed arrangements for her own education Dreda had cried herself to sleep, and had even succeeded—with a little difficulty—in squeezing out a few tears as she dressed in the morning, or what was the use of breaking your heart if no one were the wiser, or pitied you for your pathetic looks? By the third morning, however, her facile nature had adapted itself to the inevitable. She was tired of being in the dumps, and reflected that with a little diplomacy she would be able to “manage” the school governesses as cleverly as she had done the Spider before them, while the Currant Buns looked meek, poor-spirited creatures, who would like nothing better than to be ruled. “I’ll teach them!” prophesied Dreda darkly, and the word was used in no educational sense.
The future was thus swallowed at a gulp; but all the same Dreda thought it worth while to interview her mother on the subject of her domestic ambitions, and was much disappointed to have her generous offer kindly but firmly refused.
“There is no necessity, dear. Thank you very much, all the same,” Mrs Saxon said, smilingly. “We are no longer able to keep up two houses, but we can afford all the help that is needed for one. The two housemaids can keep the bedrooms in order very easily in this fresh clean air.”
Etheldreda put her head on one side and lengthened her upper lip, after a fashion she affected when she wished to be impressive.
“Still,” she insisted, obstinately, “when a family is reduced in circumstances I think it most important that the girls should learn to be domestic. I have always understood that in reduced circumstances it was necessary for the mistress to overlook everything, and how can you learn to do that if you never begin? It seems to me that one can never begin too young, and if we could do with only one housemaid, it is our duty to do so.”
Mrs Saxon laughed. She always did laugh when Dreda waxed impressive, which was one of that young woman’s trials in life.
“Darling Dreda!” she cried, affectionately. “You shall be as domestic as ever you please—the more domestic the better; but there is a time for everything, and this is your time for study. You must wait until your education is finished, before you take up home duties. We are not going to sacrifice your interests for the sake of a servant’s wages. Work hard, and do your best, dear. One thing at a time, and that done well—”
But Dreda refused to be convinced.
“My theory,” she announced, firmly, “my theory is that it is stupid to waste time learning things which you will never need! As we are ‘rejuiced’ (the expression had stuck, until the very pronunciation was unconsciously reproduced), and I can’t go to Madame Clerc’s and be finished properly, I should consider that it would be wiser to stop as I am. I am very well grounded. We can’t afford to go into society now, so I shall probably marry a man in a humble position, and it’s foolish to educate me above my rank!”
“Oh, Dreda, Dreda! Oh! I haven’t laughed for weeks. You mustn’t be vexed with me for laughing, dear—it’s so refreshing!” And Mrs Saxon wiped her eyes and chuckled irresistibly, the while her young daughter regarded her more in pity than in anger.
“I can’t see what I have said that is so amusing. I was speaking most seriously. I’m fifteen. It’s my own future that is at stake. Really, mother!”
“I’m sorry, dear, and I don’t mean to be unsympathetic. I know you are in earnest, but for the next few years you must consent to be guided by what father and I believe to be best. Whatever may be before you, it is necessary that you have a good education, so put your heart into your work, and get on as quickly as possible.”
Dreda sucked her upper lip in eloquent disgust.
“Parents are so trying!” she told herself, mentally. “They never seem to think it possible that you know better yourself. I shall be quite different with my daughters. What a pity it is that you can never manage to be your own mother!”