“I’m not particular,” I answered; “all I want is a comfortable home.”
There were plenty more questions and answers. Mrs. Preedy must have been in a desperate plight for a domestic, or I should have stood a poor chance of being engaged; but engaged I was at £8 a year, “all found,” and I commenced my new life at once by following my mistress into the kitchen, and washing up the plates and dishes, and cleaning the candlesticks. Mrs. Preedy’s eye was on me.
“It’s easy to see,” she said, “that you’ve never been in service before. But I dare say you’ll do. Mind! I make my girls pay for all they break!”
I can’t help laughing when I think of her words. Reckoning up the things I have already let slip—(they will do it; I can’t prevent them; really I believe they are alive)—I have arrived at the conclusion that the whole of my first month’s wages will be presented to me in broken crockery. My cheerfulness over my misfortunes is a source of considerable astonishment to my mistress.
When I finished washing up the things, I was sent out to “The Green Dragon” for the supper beer, and upon my return, took possession of my very small bedroom, and, unpacking my bundle of clothes (which had already been untied and examined by Mrs. Preedy while I was fetching the supper beer—artful woman!) I went to bed. Mrs. Preedy had no need to tell me to be up early in the morning. I was awake all night, but I was not unhappy, for I thought of you and of the likelihood that I might be able to help you.
My name, my dear, is Becky.
So behold me fairly launched on my adventure. And let me entreat of you, once and for all, not to distress yourself about me. I am very comfortable, and as the house is almost empty there is not much to do. It is astonishing how easily we accustom ourselves to circumstances.
Mrs. Preedy had only one lodger when I entered her service—a bedridden old lady, Mrs. Bailey, who has not left her bed for more than three years. She lives on the first floor in a back room, and is the widow of a soldier who bequeathed to her half-a-dozen medals, and a small annuity, upon which she just manages to live. This is what the old lady herself declares; she has “barely enough—barely enough; not a penny to spare!” But Mrs. Preedy is firm in the belief—popularly shared by every householder in Great Porter Square—that the old lady is very rich, and has a hoard of gold hidden in her apartment, the exact locality being the mattress upon which she lies. As she never leaves her bed, the demonstration of this suspicion is not practicable without violence to the old lady’s bones and feelings. She pays Mrs. Preedy twelve shillings a week for her room and two meals a day, and she occasionally takes a fancy to a little delicacy, which may cost her about eighteenpence more a week, so it is not difficult to calculate the amount of the annuity.
The days of Mrs. Bailey’s existence should pass wearily enough in all conscience, but she appears to enjoy herself, her chief source of amusement being two birds, a linnet which never sings a note, and a bullfinch that looks as old as Methuselah. Their cages hang on the wall at the foot of the old lady’s bed. They never catch a glimpse of the sun, and their movements have scarcely in them the brisk movement of feathered things. Their hops are languid, and the bullfinch mopes dreadfully.