On account of Hannah hating a new place, and considering the house an insult to the Servants, especialy only one bathroom for the lot of them, she let me unpack alone, and so far I was safe. But where was I to work? Fate settled that for me however.
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on Kings.
J. Shirley; Dirge.
Previously, however, mother and I had had a talk. She sailed into my room one evening, dressed for dinner, and found me in my robe de nuit, curled up in the window seat admiring the view of the ocean.
“Well!” she said. “Is this the way you intend going to dinner?”
“I do not care for any dinner,” I replied. Then, seeing she did not understand, I said coldly. “How can I care for food, mother, when the Sea looks like a dying ople?”
“Dying pussycat!” mother said, in a very nasty way. “I don’t know what has come over you, Barbara. You used to be a normle Child, and there was some accounting for what you were going to do. But now! Take off that nightgown, and I’ll have Tanney hold off dinner for half an hour.”
Tanney was the butler who had taken Patrick’s place.
“If you insist,” I said coldly. “But I shall not eat.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t understand, mother.”