She was a pretty little woman of about forty years of age, with a keen, very keen eye to the main chance. Her own means were small. She was always glad to have the Heathcotes to help her to pay her Christmas bills and to enable her to take her summer holidays free. She looked upon them now as her property, and she always spoke of her house as their home.
The girls went up to their room. There Bridget, the one servant, who had served Mrs Fortescue for so long, was waiting for them. The room looked very pretty. There were two little beds side by side, ornamented with pink draperies at the back of the brass bedsteads, pink draperies at the foot, pretty pink eiderdowns covering the beds themselves, a nice green felt carpet on the floor, and green art serge window curtains, which were drawn now to keep out the wintry blast. The fire crackled and roared merrily. The room was sweet and fresh and clean. It had the fragrant smell of lavender. Mrs Fortescue grew a lot of lavender in her garden, and kept bags of it profusely sprinkled through her linen. The girls always associated the smell of lavender with Mrs Fortescue.
Bridget welcomed them back as she had done three times a year for so long now. They seemed never to remember anything else.
“How are you, Bridget?” said Florence, in her bright voice. “As well as ever, I hope?”
“Oh, yes, miss; what should ail me?” said Bridget.
She showed her teeth as she laughed, and looked gleesome and good tempered and pleasant. She felt as though she would like to kiss her two young ladies, as she invariably called the Misses Heathcote.
“Here is your hot water, miss,” she said, turning to Brenda; “and I think the fire is all right, and dinner will be ready in ten minutes. If you want anything else, you can ring for me.”
She knew all about their trunks. There were invariably three trunks, two of which were kept in the storeroom downstairs, one of which came upstairs and was for immediate use. This trunk contained the girls’ pretty blouses and ribbons, their sponge-bags, their night-cases, their brushes and combs, their slippers for use in the bedroom, and their pretty embroidered shoes to wear at dinnertime. Bridget had already unfastened this trunk. She glanced round the room just as she had done three times a year for the last four or five years, and then went away, leaving the young ladies to themselves. They were her young ladies; of course they would always come to Sunny Side. As far as she was concerned, this was only one more home coming, just like all the rest.
The girls hastily changed and made themselves smart, as was their wont, for dinner. Mrs Fortescue wanted them to look smart. She hated dowdy people. She always dressed extremely well herself, following the fashion as far as lay within her means, powdering her face, and arranging her dyed hair to the best possible advantage. She imagined that she did not look more than thirty years of age, but the girls knew quite well that her hair was dyed and her face powdered. They did not like her any the less for that, however. If she chose to be so silly, it was no affair of theirs. She was a good old thing. That is what they said to each other when they spoke of her at all—quite good-natured, and kind to them.
But Florence brushed out her radiant hair now with a kind of viciousness which she had never exhibited before, and as she coiled it round her stately young head, she turned and spoke to her sister.