“It can be put back. I will wait for you here,” returned the mistress with equal sharpness.
With a sniff and a bridling of her head Barnes departed, bidding Jessica: “This way, please, and mind the stairs. All this twaddle about old things being better’n new and risking mortals’ legs on rags, beats me. Hmm. Some folks grow queerer as they grow older, some does.”
Jessica followed in wondering silence and, although warned to “mind the stairs,” caught her toe in the frayed covering of one and fell. But she was up again as soon as down and without quite understanding why was indignant with her guide for the slighting tone in which she spoke. Certainly, the carpet had once been a very fine one. Even now, where an unbroken spot appeared, the foot sank deep into a mossy greenness that was delightful, and fully bore out the vivid description of this old home which her mother had sometimes given her.
But even in Mrs. Trent’s own girlhood days the furnishings of this ancient mansion had become worn almost to uselessness, and the years which had elapsed since then had finished the work of destruction. In truth, all the floor coverings were now but what Barnes called “man traps,” where unwary feet would be caught and falls result.
“’Twas one of them same holes the Madam caught her own high heel in and got an injury was the beginning of her lameness. The doctor calls it ‘gout,’ he does; but I, well, I calls it ‘pride,’ just plain, senseless, family pride. Whatever was, my lady thinks, is far and away better nor what is. But as for me and the rest of the servants, give us even the cheapest sort of ‘ingrain,’ providing it was new and we’d feel safer for our old bones. Well, here is your room, Miss, and if you’ll let me slip off your frock I’ll soon make you tidy.”
“Thence she held out a thin white hand toward the girl who had not yet risen
from the floor.”
(See page [41])
Had Jessica known it this was a fine concession on the part of ever-weary Barnes, who acknowledged to her advancing age with a frankness which her mistress denied, but she looked so tired from her climb up the long stairs that the girl promptly exclaimed:
“Oh! Don’t you trouble, please, Mrs. Barnes. I can wait upon myself quite well. Indeed, I never have anybody to wait upon me, except now and then my darling mother—just for love’s sake.” Then with a swift recollection of the tenderness those motherly fingers had shown, even in the matter of buttoning or unbuttoning a frock, her blue eyes grew moist and for a moment that dreadful homesickness made her turn half-faint.