“How dusty you are, my dear!” said she. “Pray go and shift your gown. Perkins will show you the way.”
She just gave a nod to the other two, and then went back to her discourse with the gentleman next her. Those are what Grandmamma calls easy manners, I know: but I think I like the other sort better. My Aunt Kezia would have given the girls a warm grasp of the hand and a kiss, and told them they were heartily welcome, and begged them to make themselves at home. Grandmamma thinks that rough and coarse and country-bred: but I am sure it makes me feel more as if people really were pleased to see me.
I felt that I must just speak first to my Aunt Dorothea; and she did shake hands with Flora and me, and courtesied to Annas. Then we courtesied to the company, and left the room, I telling the big man that Grandmamma wished Perkins to attend us. The big man looked over the banisters, and said, “Harry, call Perkins.” When Perkins came, she proved, as I expected, to be Grandmamma’s waiting-maid; and she carried us off to a little chamber on the upper floor, where was hardly room for anything but two beds.
Flora, I saw, seemed to feel strange and uncomfortable, as if she were somewhere where she had no business to be; but Annas behaved like one to the manner born, and handed her gloves to Perkins with the air of a princess—I do not mean proudly, but easily, as if she knew just what to do, and did it, without any feeling of awkwardness.
We had to wait till the trunks were carried up, and Perkins had unpacked our tea-gowns; then we shifted ourselves, and had our hair dressed, and went back to the withdrawing room. Perkins is a stranger to me, and I was sorry not to see Willet, Grandmamma’s old maid: but Grandmamma never keeps servants long, so I was not surprised. I don’t believe Willet had been with her above six years, when I left Carlisle.
Annas sat down on an empty chair in the circle, and began to talk with the lady nearest to her. Flora, apparently in much hesitation, took a chair, but did not venture to talk. I knew what I had to do, and I felt as if my old ways would come back if I called them. I sat down near my Aunt Dorothea.
“That friend of yours, Cary, is quite a distinguished-looking girl,” said my Aunt Dorothea, in a low voice. “Really presentable, for the country, you know.”
I said Annas came of a high Scots family, and was related to Sir James De Lannoy, of the Isle of Wight. I saw that Annas went up directly in my Aunt Dorothea’s thermometer.
“De Lannoy!” said she. “A fine old Norman line. Very well connected, then? I am glad to hear it.”
Flora, I saw, was getting over her shyness—indeed, I never knew her seem shy before—and beginning to talk a little with her next neighbour. I looked round, but could not see any one I knew. I took refuge in an inquiry after my Uncle Charles.