Nora Gage was no match for the pair. She had conceived a fondness for the kitchen, for the stove, for the very pots and pans; moreover, the food that she was able to get in this house was to her liking, especially now, when secure from observation, she fried, stirred and seasoned to her heart's content. No longer driven to eat these supplementary luncheons in the privacy of her own chamber, surrounded by her mice like St. Francis by his birds, she ate when and where she chose, even under the eyes of the abstracted girl. It must not be concluded that she was ignorant of any detail of the plan that was on foot. No one knew, better than she, through listening at the cracks of doors, what was going forward. And anon she would be servile before Rachel, through sheer apprehension, and again would rage inwardly to think that the coming change in her fortunes was due to a brat of a girl. The grandfather, by the force of that will which existed in the depths of her being like a seldom-used sword in a scabbard, Nora could have managed; but Rachel was beyond the range of her power. However, when the announcement of the great news was finally made to her, her plea was ready.
"And what's to become of me, miss?" she demanded. "For more years than ye've lived I've served yer grandfather faithful, and now at a word from ye I'm turned off with no place to go."
Rachel, sitting on the arm of her grandfather's chair, regarded the housekeeper coldly. "Why can't you go back in the meat-market with your cousin?" she asked; "grandfather says you used to be there."
"Yes, but his son's growed up now and he don't need me," and Nora began to turn a corner of her apron over one stodgy finger. "It was jest as my friends warned me," she whimpered, "they said I'd be sorry if I stayed on here after yer mother died. I've sacrificed everything for ye two and ye don't seem to know it." She ended with a guttural sob.
Rachel scanned her with a swift glance from head to foot. "What have you sacrificed for us?" she asked. "Haven't you been paid?"
"Yes, but there's some things that can't be paid for," Nora muttered. "A woman can't stay in a man's house the way I have without its costing her dear."
The girl stared, then the clear colour stained her face. "Nonsense!" she cried.
"It may seem nonsense to you, miss," Nora retorted, "I can well understand that it do—actin' as you did awhile back. But it ain't nonsense to the world. I might as well be like that poor thing at the lighthouse 'stead of the decent woman I am, as far as the world knows. I've give up everything for ye two, that's what I have, and this is the way I git treated," and she began sobbing in earnest.
The old man gazed from one to the other in bewilderment. He saw his granddaughter rise and heard her draw a sharp breath, and he saw the housekeeper cower and drop her eyes.
Rachel passed to a window and stood there for some seconds; then a whiff of cookery from the kitchen stirred in her a kind of pity. Through a crack of the door was revealed that for which Nora struggled and schemed. To have food in plenty, greasy, rich food, this was the one desire of Nora's life.