“Madam Caron saw him once,” said the amateur cook, tasting a bit of the sweetened dough with apparent pleasure, 210 “but she left Orleans quick, after the Yankees came. Of course it wouldn’t be a place for a lady, then. She shut her house up and went straight to Mobile, and I just love her for it.”
“Seems to me like she jest ’bout witched yo’ all,” remarked Dilsey; “every blessed nigger in the house go fallen’ ovah theyselves when her bell rings, fo’ feah they won’t git thah fust; an’ Pluto, he like to be no use to any one till aftah her maid, Miss Louise, get away, he jest waited on her, han’ an’ foot.”
Dilsey had heretofore been the very head and front of importance in the servants’ quarters on that plantation, and it was apparent that she resented the comparative grandeur of the Marquise’s maid, and especially resented it because her fellow servants bowed down and paid enthusiastic tribute to the new divinity.
“Well, Dilsey, I’m sure she needed waiting on hand and foot while she was so crippled. I know mama was mighty well pleased he was so attentive; reckon maybe that’s why she let him go riding with Madame Caron this morning.”
“Pluto, he think plenty o’ hisself ’thout so much pamperen,” grumbled Dilsey. “Seem like he counted the whole ’pendence o’ the family since Mahs Ken gone.”
Evilena prudently refrained from expressing an opinion on the subject, though she clearly perceived that Dilsey was possessed of a fit of jealousy; so she proceeded to flatter the old soul into a more sunny humor lest dinner should go awry in some way, more particularly as regarded the special dishes to which her own little hands had added interest.
She was yet in the cookhouse when the guests arrived, and doffing the huge apron in which she was enveloped, skurried into the house, carrying with her the fragrance 211 of cinnamon and sweet spices, while a dust of flower on curls and chin gave her a novel appearance, and the confession that she had been cooking was not received with the acclamation she had expected, though there was considerable laughter about it. No one appeared to take the statement seriously except Matthew Loring, who took it seriously enough to warn Margeret he would expect her to supervise all dishes he was to partake of. His meals were affairs not to be trifled with.
Margeret and Ben had accompanied the party. Others of the more reliable house servants of Loringwood, were to commence at once work at the Pines, and Gertrude was almost enthusiastic over the change.
“You folks really live over here,” she declared to Mrs. McVeigh, “while at Loringwood––well, they tell me life used to be very gay there––but I can’t remember the time. It seems to me that since the day they carried papa in from his last hunting field the place has been under a cloud. Nothing prospers there, nobody laughs or sings; I can’t be fond of it, and I am so glad to get away from it again.”
“Still, it is a magnificent estate,” said Mrs. McVeigh, thoughtfully; “the associations of the past––the history of your family––is so intimately connected with it, I should think you would be sorry to part with it.”