"Miss Gray will have her meals in the servants' hall, or in her own room if she prefers it, till after the funeral. We shall make other arrangements then, of course."
Saunders flounced out of the room. Although she was elderly and had lived in Lady Anne Hamilton's house since she was fourteen, when she had come as a between-maid, she had not forgotten how to flounce.
"Mark my words," she said in the kitchen, "she'll make a clean sweep of us, same as Miss Mary, as soon as ever the funeral is over. Supposing as how we gives the notice!"
And they did, to Lady Iniscrone's discomfiture, for she had intended to stay on at the Mall and to keep the staff as it stood till she had supplied its place. However, she showed her dismay only by her bad temper.
"I suppose you've all pretty well feathered your nests," she said acridly, "and can afford to retire."
Nor was her bitterness lessened by the fact that Lady Anne had left handsome legacies to each of the servants, annuities to the elder ones, sums of money to the younger. But the will, dated some years back, made no mention at all of Mary Gray.
"It seems clear to me," said Mr. Buckton, talking the matter over with Lord Iniscrone, her Ladyship being present, "that Lady Anne intended to make some provision for her protégée. In fact, the letter which she had begun writing to me, which was found in her blotter after her death, plainly indicates that. She was, apparently, on her way to my house when the lamentable accident happened. Dr. Carruthers had seen her that afternoon, and had told her that her heart was in a bad way. I believe she grew alarmed about the unprovided state in which she would leave Miss Gray if she had a sudden seizure, and hurried off to me. In the circumstances——"
"Of course, we could not think of doing anything more for Miss Gray," Lady Iniscrone put in, anticipating her lord. "She has already been dealt with very handsomely out of the estate. She has had a most unsuitable education for a person in her rank of life. She has lived like a lady; been clothed like one. When I saw her she was wearing ornaments—a brooch of amethysts, with pearls around it, I remember, which, I am sure, ought to belong to the estate. I can't see that Lord Iniscrone is called upon to do anything more for the young person. What with those absurd legacies to the servants and the way Lady Anne lived—a big house and a staff of servants and carriages and horses for one old lady!—the estate has been impoverished."
"Lady Anne had a great sense of her own dignity," the lawyer put in. "And this house had been her home for more than fifty years."
"Everything needs replacing," Lady Iniscrone grumbled, with a disparaging look around. "Those curtains and carpets——"