The bell stopped ringing as suddenly as it had begun, and with a feeling of relief I continued dressing, but only to start nervously as I heard Mr Blakeford’s voice at the foot of the stairs shouting my name.
“Do you hear that bell, sir?” he cried.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then make haste down; don’t be all the morning dressing.”
Then there was the loud banging of a door, and I hastily finished, and went down cautiously, found the office door at the end of the dim passage, and was just going in when the sharp voice of the servant arrested me.
“Here, you—what’s your name?” she said harshly.
“Antony, ma’am.”
“Ho! Then, Mister Antony, missus says you’re to make yourself useful. They’ve pretty well worked the flesh off my bones since I’ve been here, so you must just help to put a little on.”
I looked at her in amazement, and she certainly was not at all prepossessing, being a tall raw-boned woman of some three or four and twenty, in a hastily-put-on cotton dress, her hair rough and untidy, and displaying a general aspect of having spent as little time as possible upon her toilet.
“Now, then, don’t stand staring like that!” she said. “Come along here, and fill this scuttle.”