“But how did you pick up all this information?”
“Oh, one hears things, ma’am,” said Lucy, who was an inveterate gossip, but who did not care to own that butcher, grocer, old woman at the village shop, nay, even the small boy who brought the afternoon ha’porth of milk from Mrs. Briggs’, who kept a cow at the other end of the village, all were laid under contribution to keep her well informed. “And they do say, Miss Olivia, that the difference between St. Cuthbert’s Church and this is something which must be seen to be believed,” she added.
Miss Denison said nothing to this. She herself was longing to see St. Cuthbert’s, and would have found out the place and gone to service there that very afternoon if a feeling of shyness had not restrained her. Church once a day had always been enough for her at Streatham; therefore it could only be curiosity which was urging her to break through her custom now, she said to herself. So she stayed at home that afternoon and wrote reluctantly enough to her father to tell him that everything was ready for the arrival of the rest of the family. If only Mrs. Denison would take it into her head that the air of Yorkshire was too keen for her sensitive frame, and would allow papa to come without her, what a happy life they two might lead together, thought Olivia. She loved her easy-going father passionately, and as passionately resented the subjection in which he was kept by his second wife; but her utopian dream was not to be fulfilled. On the Wednesday following she received a long letter from her step-mother, announcing that they would all arrive next day, and giving rambling but minute directions as to the preparation for their coming.
Olivia put down the letter with a sigh, called Lucy, and in a doleful voice informed her that the reign of peace and freedom was nearly over. The little maid’s face fell.
“Lor, Miss Olivia, how she will fuss and worrit, to make up for not having been able to get at us for a week!” was her first comment.
“Well, we must try to give her no cause,” said Olivia, trying to keep grave.
“She’d find cause to grumble, Miss, if she was in heaven, and we was all angels a flying about of her errands. I’ll warrant before she’s been in the house ten minutes she’ll take a fancy to the scullery for her bedroom, and say that we ought to have made this room the coal cellar,” said Lucy with ill-humor that was not all affected.
There was enough truth in the girl’s comic sketch for Olivia to give a sigh at the prospect, though she stifled it instantly, and started briskly on a tour of the house to see whether she had left any loophole for complaints on the part of her step-mother. She could find none. She had prepared the largest and best room for her father and Mrs. Denison; the next best for the two children; the third in order of merit she had fitted up as a spare room, leaving only two little rooms scarcely larger than cupboards, the one for herself, and the other for her brother Ernest, on his rare visits. The two rooms in the wing she left unappropriated and untouched, not from any superstitious scruples, for she would have liked the larger one for herself; but she knew if she were to take possession of it, her step-mother would certainly never cease “nagging” at her for helping herself to so spacious a room.
Thursday morning came, and Olivia rose with a doleful sense that the fun and the freedom of the week were nearly over. Her energies had found delightful vent in the unaccustomed work and responsibility; she began to feel that even if she had been still in the old home at Streatham, a contented return to lawn tennis and crewel work would have been impossible. Would Mrs. Denison, who was lazy as well as fretful, and who would now have to do without a housekeeper, be inclined to trust her with the reins of management? As Olivia had always until now been known to have the utmost horror of any household duties, she was not without a hope that, if she kept secret the change in her own feelings, Mrs. Denison might herself make some such proposal, being amiably anxious to make those around her feel as acutely as she did herself the alteration in the family fortunes.
They were to arrive about six o’clock. Olivia, who was only anxious to see her father, would not go to meet them. She would get old papa all to himself in the evening, and have a long talk, and tell him all her adventures. He was not himself while within range of the querulous voice and cold eyes of his second wife. Olivia thought she would have a very early dinner and a long walk to brace herself for her fall from autocracy. So at two o’clock she was on the Sheffield Road, walking fast against a keen wind, under a leaden sky that promised snow within a few hours. She did not care for that. Protected by a hooded waterproof and a thick pair of boots, the healthy girl was quite ready to do battle with rain, snow, or wind; and the object of her walk was quite interesting enough for her to think little of the cold.