Here was a difficulty. And idlers, whose curiosity was not extinguishable by wind and sleet, began to press round, and people who had come by the same train stopped on their way out to listen. The farm boy patted the sack and declared that it was clean straw, the coachman stood up on his box and swore that it was a new sack, the porter assured the Fräulein that it was as comfortable as a feather bed, and nobody seemed to understand that what she was being offered was an insult.
Susie was afraid of Hilton, who had been in the service of duchesses, and who held these duchesses over her mistress's head whenever her mistress wanted to do anything that was inconvenient to herself; quoting their sayings, pointing out how they would have acted in any given case, and always, it appeared, they had done exactly what Hilton desired. Susie's admiration for duchesses was slavish, and Hilton was treated with an indulgent liberality that was absurd compared to the stinginess displayed towards everyone else. Hilton was not more horrified than her mistress when she saw the farm cart, and understood that it was for the luggage and the maid. It was impossible to take her with them in what the porter called the herrschaftliche Wagen, for it was a kind of victoria, and how to get their four selves into it was a sufficient puzzle. "What shall we do?" said Susie, in despair, to Anna.
"Do? Why, she'll have to go in it. Hilton, don't be a foolish person, and don't keep us here in the wet. This isn't England, and nobody thinks anything here of driving in farm carts. It is patriarchal simplicity, that's all. People are staring at you now because you are making such a fuss. Get in like a good soul, and let us start."
"Only as a corpse, m'm," reiterated Hilton with chattering teeth, "never as a living body."
"Nonsense," said Anna impatiently.
"What shall we do?" repeated Susie. "Poor Hilton—what barbarians they must be here."
"We must send her in a Droschky, then, if it isn't too far, and we can get one to go."
"A Droschky all that distance! It will be ruinous."
"Well, we can't stand here amusing these people for ever."
"Oh, I wish we had never come to this horrible place!" cried Susie, really made miserable by Hilton's rage.