And in a low, narrow iron bed, pushed close against the wall in the full glare of the sunlight, Esther lay staring half-awake, her eyes open but still dim with dreams. She looked at the clock. It was not yet time to get up, and she raised her arms as if to cross them behind her head, but a sudden remembrance of yesterday arrested her movement, and a sudden shadow settled on her face. She had refused to prepare the vegetables. She hadn't answered, and the cook had turned her out of the kitchen. She had rushed from the house under the momentary sway of hope that she might succeed in walking back to London; but William had overtaken her in the avenue, he had expostulated with her, he had refused to allow her to pass. She had striven to tear herself from him, and, failing, had burst into tears. However, he had been kind, and at last she had allowed him to lead her back, and all the time he had filled her ears with assurances that he would make it all right with his mother. But Mrs. Latch had closed her kitchen against her, and she had had to go to her room. Even if they paid her fare back to London, how was she to face her mother? What would father say? He would drive her from the house. But she had done nothing wrong. Why did cook insult her?
As she pulled on her stockings she stopped and wondered if she should awake Margaret Gale. Margaret's bed stood in the shadow of the obliquely falling wall; and she lay heavily, one arm thrown forward, her short, square face raised to the light. She slept so deeply that for a moment Esther felt afraid. Suddenly the eyes opened, and Margaret looked at her vaguely, as if out of eternity. Raising her hands to her eyes she said—
"What time is it?"
"It has just gone six."
"Then there's plenty of time; we needn't be down before seven. You get on with your dressing; there's no use in my getting up till you are done—we'd be tumbling over each other. This is no room to put two girls to sleep in—one glass not much bigger than your hand. You'll have to get your box under your bed…. In my last place I had a beautiful room with a Brussels carpet, and a marble washstand. I wouldn't stay here three days if it weren't——" The girl laughed and turned lazily over.
Esther did not answer.
"Now, isn't it a grubby little room to put two girls to sleep in? What was your last place like?"
Esther answered that she had hardly been in service before. Margaret was too much engrossed in her own thoughts to notice the curtness of the answer.
"There's only one thing to be said for Woodview, and that is the eating; we have anything we want, and we'd have more than we want if it weren't for the old cook: she must have her little bit out of everything and she cuts us short in our bacon in the morning. But that reminds me! You have set the cook against you; you'll have to bring her over to your side if you want to remain here."
"Why should I be asked to wash up the moment I came in the house, before even I had time to change my dress."