“But if they are all so delightful,” I said, “why have none of them a good word to say for one another? At every turn one is brought up by the word ‘impossible.’ It starts up like a policeman with a gloved hand.”
“My dear,” she remonstrated, “you ought not to complain, you seem to do whatever you like.”
“Then look here,” I persisted, “excuse me, Mrs. Fortescue is waiting, I must fly—why cannot the others do as they like—all your delightful people?”
“Oh, that is different,” Mrs. Van Dieman answered loftily. “They are quite impossible; it would never do.”
CHAPTER XVII: THE BUTLER
We had at last struggled up to such heights above the sorrows of the Palmerston Road that we were able to buy a butler. The main reason for this important social advance was that Clara had married a traveller in sewing machines and, like a lady with a pet canary, I could never, never care for another; a bullfinch perhaps, but not a canary. With a butler I should have a new and therefore possibly interesting set of vices to contend with, but to bring out again my old quack remedies for morning blindness and ubiquity would be beyond my strength. I could not face the explanations about table-napkins, and “ladies first,” and unpunctual tea-kettles, nor, above all, the black cloud of displeasure which would be sure to billow from under the pantry door and pervade the house after my ruthless destruction of lifelong habits. A good manservant never mentions what he has been accustomed to. If you differ from him he puts up with you if he can, and if not, he says that he finds the air is not so healthy as that of Herefordshire and, sorry though he is to leave you, he prefers to make a change and try gravel soil.
Perrin liked me, I am glad to say. He thought that I was inexperienced, but shaped well to become a good mistress if I would be a little more particular in some things; he relied on himself to teach me his ways in time. He told me rather pointedly, within the first days of our acquaintance, that he had been obliged to leave his last place because there was too much freedom. The master had been on a ranch all his life and come suddenly into the property and, as was to be expected, hardly understood his position. “It was very awkward for me,” he added, “as you will understand, being obliged to mention what was expected.”
“And what was expected?” I asked.
“Well, of course, ma’am, it is difficult to say exactly, but there were many little things. His late lordship was always very particular that at least three of us should sit up for him when he came home late.” I blushed nervously as I remembered how James and I had always let ourselves in with a latch-key and had eaten our sandwiches and heated our soup on the gas-ring. It was just possible this had reached Perrin’s ears through Ruth and he was deliberately warning me not to go too far.
“That is what one would expect, of course,” I said. “Mr. Molyneux gives a great deal of trouble and is most fanciful and inconsiderate. You will have to be very careful.”