“All right!” Miss Mell answered, soothingly.
She made tea and brought it in on the lid of a box for a tray. But it was very poor, cheap tea and it smelt like straw.
“I don’t think it’s a very good brand,” said Rosaleen. “Why don’t you try Noxey’s?”
Miss Bainbridge looked up from her third cup.
“Look here!” she said. “My idea is that you should do all that sort of thing. We can’t and won’t. Mell, give her the money and let her buy everything.... And you’ll see we always have everything we need, won’t you? Things for breakfast, and so on? Dinner I suppose we’ll take outside. I will, anyway. You’d better go out now, I think. First look and see what we need, coffee, rolls, all the proper things. And wood: it would be nice to start a fire here this evening. We didn’t know where to get any.”
Rosaleen went, but she was not too well pleased with the tone of her new companion. And still less did she like her contemptuous indifference to Miss Waters, when she popped in later on to see if she could help. She was by nature resigned and patient, and her training had accentuated this; on her own behalf she would have endured a great deal from Miss Bainbridge. But she had a loyalty for her friends that was fanatical. Her heart had ached for her poor old friend, with her well-meaning sprightliness quashed. When she had gone, when she had called a quavering and gay “Au revoir!” from the foot of the stairs, Rosaleen had turned and resolutely faced the arrogant Miss Bainbridge.
“I——” she began. “I’ll ask you please—not to talk like that to Miss Waters.”
Her mouth was set grimly; she looked at that moment rather like her mother.
“Why?” asked Miss Bainbridge, coolly.
“She’s—she’s old, for one thing.”