“Why, the folks are coming-back to-morrow, that’s what!” Theresa snapped. “And a horrid shame it is too. Upsetting a body’s arrangements and disappointing ’em of two weeks’ holiday at least. James is the lucky one! can go off where he chooses and take it easy.”
“Oh, my!” exclaimed the cook good-naturedly, “is that all? Goodness! I thought you’d lost your best friend, you acted so cut up. Why under the sun shouldn’t the folks come home if they want to? It’s their house. They ain’t running it altogether for our convenience, and as to disappointing us of two extra weeks’ holiday as you call it—why, that’s just nonsense, Theresa. We had no right to expect, so we oughtn’t to be disappointed.”
“Oh, you’re too good to be true!” Theresa retorted angrily, as she flounced out of the kitchen.
The cook looked after her with a broad smile of amusement on her fat, good-natured face. “Well, well,” she murmured, comfortably, “Theresa is a caution, and no mistake. Such a temper as she has got! And the idea of her being in a fury because the folks is coming home! Plans! Now, I wonder what the great plans are that she’s made and that their coming’ll interfere with.”
But it was not Theresa’s way to confide her plans to others and least of all to one who would be pretty certain to disapprove of them. She knew very well that the good-hearted cook would never stand by and see her carry out a cruel plot of revenge against a helpless child if she were aware of it. And that was what, to her shame, Theresa had meant to do. She had by no means forgotten her grudge against Polly and had intended to take this opportunity to prove it. But now the elaborate scheme that it had taken her weeks to contrive was upset, for, with James and Hannah about again the little girl would be well protected and she would have no chance to wreak her spite upon her. She bit her lips savagely as she went up-stairs with the unwelcome telegram crushed tightly in her palm.
Polly, happening to come out of the library just at the moment that Theresa was crossing the hall, noticed the maid’s white lips quiver and, thinking she was sick or unhappy, broke out at once with an impulsive: “Oh, Theresa, what’s the matter? Has anything happened?”
Theresa looked down at her for an instant with an ugly gleam in her eyes. “Only a telegram,” she muttered curtly.
Polly’s cheeks whitened. “A telegram!” she echoed. “They send telegrams when people are sick or hurt or dead, don’t they?”