The verdict on the eldest daughter was that she was "not much to look at, and a bit of a screw, but better tempered than Lady M."
The most popular member of the family was evidently Kitty, who was pronounced to be "'andsome, merry, spirity, and pleasant-spoken to both 'igh and low. For all that, though, you can see that she'll never be satisfied without being first fiddle, or pretty near it, wherever she is, and that in 'er 'art she likes 'igh folk and swells better than them as isn't. She don't show 'er pride on the outside, p'raps, so much as some do; but it's there all the same, and you won't often find an 'ortier young lady, go where you will. She's 'er ma's favourite, she is, and bound to marry a top-sawyer some day—she'd never be 'appy with any one as wasn't."
I took the opportunity of enquiring whether there was supposed to be any particular individual in the wind, and I half expected that in the answer I should hear something about Captain Norroy. This, however, was not the case, nor was his name ever once mentioned during the whole conversation. I evolved that she had plenty of admirers, and was very gracious to them all, just as she was to every one else; but that whenever any of them had been cheated by her amiable manner into the belief that he had a chance of becoming her husband, he had speedily been undeceived, and learnt, to his cost, that her readiness to be great friends with him was no indication of a disposition to be anything more. The most desirable of her many admirers was, in the opinion of my informants, a certain Lord Clement, who was clearly at her disposal if she chose to have him, but whose affection she showed no signs of reciprocating.
Her obduracy in this matter was quite inexplicable, I was told, he being a rich young earl not more than eight years her senior, of good family and irreproachable character, an excellent match in every respect, and whose wife's rank and position would be high enough to content any reasonable woman. There was no doubt that her family approved cordially of his suit, and that his relations, also, had no objection to it. One would have thought that any girl would have been glad to get such a husband, and more particularly a girl like her who set store on being a nob. Yet, for some reason or other, she seemed not to know he had any attractions at all to offer, and turned up her nose at him as if she didn't care a straw about such things. Not that she was what you could call uncivil to him,—oh no, it was not her nature to be that to any one,—but she certainly contrived to give him more cold shoulder than encouragement. Whether or not he had ever ventured to declare himself to her, in spite of this, was a matter as to which opinions varied. The housekeeper did not believe he had proposed; whereas the butler took a contrary view in consequence of what he had heard from a waiter friend of his who had had opportunities of observing his lordship and Miss Kitty together at several parties. But it was mere conjecture, and every one agreed that there was no certainty about the matter either one way or other.
It can easily be imagined that gossip of this kind was extremely interesting to a person in my position, anxious to learn all I could regarding the lay of the land which I had come to inhabit. The communicativeness of my new associates, and the facility with which I was getting on with them at starting, reassured me greatly. I began to wonder at my former qualms, lest in descending to a lower social grade I should find things to put up with that were distasteful and unpleasant. Entering service was, after all, no such formidable ordeal as I had imagined; there was nothing that I should not quickly grow accustomed to in my unfamiliar surroundings; nothing to shock the prejudices or fastidiousness of any reasonable person; no reason whatever why I should not be able to fraternise, and make myself at home, just as well in that class of life as in any other. Alas for these couleur de rose anticipations of mine! They were destined to be of but very brief duration, and were soon ruthlessly destroyed by the following most vexatious occurrence.
As there is no accounting for tastes, and as even the ugliest of women need not despair of meeting with some man in whose eyes she will appear beautiful, or nice-looking at the very least, therefore I might obviously have foreseen the possibility of my encountering some male fellow-servant or other who would consider me sufficiently attractive to flirt with. Of course, I ought to have taken this into my calculations when I was contemplating the various chances and events to which I should be liable on entering service. But it was a contingency which, somehow or other, never once occurred to me; I suppose I was too destitute of vanity about my own charms to think of it.
Now amongst my new companions was Lord Mervyn's valet, Perkins, a pale-faced, sandy-haired, thick-lipped, abominably-scented man, who wore flowing whiskers of inordinate length which he greatly cherished; who believed himself to be universally acceptable to the weaker sex, and who was conceited, cowardly, and revengeful. As bad luck would have it, I happened to take his fancy at first sight; and it all of a sudden dawned upon me, to my amazement and dismay, that he was actually making me the object of very marked and unmistakable attentions.
Scandalised at the notion of a man-servant taking the liberty to raise his eyes to a lady, I could hardly trust to the evidence of my own senses at first. But then the matter seemed less unlikely when I remembered that he had not a suspicion of there being any inequality of rank between him and me, and that, as far as that went, I was in his eyes just the same as any other maid in the house.
What he should find to admire in me, who had certainly done nothing to attract him, was beyond my power to imagine; but that did not alter the very unpleasant fact that he did regard me with favour, for he made it too plain for there to be a doubt about the matter. I shuddered to think that I must endure being made love to by a valet: it was an odious and degrading idea. Had I realised the possibility of it beforehand, I hardly knew whether I should ever have placed myself where I should be exposed to the risk of anything so disagreeable. Disgusted and angry at the admiration which I deemed an insult, and was yet powerless to resent, I endeavoured to nip it in the bud by energetic snubbing. Alas! he only thought that I was affecting coyness in order to draw him on, and persisted in his objectionable attentions all the more.
To add to my annoyance, I perceived that I was meanwhile incurring the bitter enmity of Lady Mervyn's maid, Robinson, to whom Perkins had, before my coming, devoted himself chiefly, and who strongly objected to any transfer of his affections. Too much blinded by jealousy to see how unwelcome his vulgar compliments were to me, she attributed the fickle conduct of her swain entirely to my wiles, and thought that I alone was to blame for his deserting her.