Chapter Thirty Three.
Back to Poverty.
Trix was at the station to meet them—a greatly developed Trix, as became a young woman who not only provided for her own education but also that of her sister. The door-knocker had disappeared, and her lanky locks were screwed into a knot about as big as a good-sized walnut; she wore a discarded black skirt of Ruth’s, which reached down to her ankles, a blue blouse, white sailor-hat, and brown shoes. Ruth’s heart contracted with pain when she saw her, and even Mollie felt a pang of dismay. So shabby, so unkempt, so obviously poverty-stricken! Was it really possible that Trix had looked like this six weeks before, and that the sight had caused no consternation?
Plainly Miss Trix was rather pleased than otherwise with her appearance, and was decidedly patronising to her half-sisters, ordering them about, and treating them with the lenient forbearance which a busy worker might be expected to show to two elderly, incapable drones. She interviewed the porter as to sending home the luggage, and only consented to the hire of a cab when it was proved to her own satisfaction that the cost would be about equal. She took Ruth’s purse from her hand to tip the porter, looking at him the while with such a severe and determined air that his grumbles died upon his lips; finally, she gave the cabman instructions to stop at a certain shop, where—as she informed her sisters triumphantly—potatoes could be bought three-halfpence a peck cheaper than in more fashionable neighbourhoods.
“Good gracious, Trix, you don’t mean to take home potatoes in the cab!” gasped Ruth, fresh from the delightful luxury of the Court, where no one thought what anything cost, and every luxury of the season appeared of its own accord upon the table; but Trix smiled at her benignly, and replied—
“Certainly; two pecks! And any other vegetables I can pick up cheap. It will help to pay for the cab-fare. Not that you will get any of them to-night, for we have knocked off late dinner and afternoon-tea, and have one late tea instead. Cold tongue for you to-night, as you have had a journey. Mother wanted to have a chicken. The idea! ‘No, indeed,’ I said; ‘let them begin as they must go on. Our chicken days are over!’”
“I think yours are, any way. You seem to have grown into a very old hen,” cried Mollie disconsolately. She looked across the cab at the businesslike young woman, and wondered if a few weeks of home under the new conditions would work a similar transformation in herself and Ruth. It was a comfort to remember that Trix’s vocation kept her out of the house for the greater part of the day, for it would be distinctly trying to be “bossed” as a permanent thing.
Perhaps Trix’s thoughts had wandered to the same subject, for her welcome was the reverse of encouraging.
“Can’t think what you’ve come back for!” she declared candidly. “Mother thought of sending for you last week, but I told her it was absurd. It will make more work, and both the servants are going. We gave Mary notice, and Kate said she couldn’t abase herself to be a ‘general’ after her bringings up. Goodness knows who we shall get! I sat for two hours in a registry-office yesterday afternoon, when we had a half-holiday, and didn’t see a single creature who could be bribed to come. ‘Nine in family; one servant, cellar kitchens; washing done at home.’ Sounds so attractive, doesn’t it? And yet I suppose we ought not to afford even one. If we lived in the country we could do the work alone, but cockroaches! No really refined mind can cope with cockroaches, and they simply swarm in the back kitchen... Mother’s terribly cut up that you have left the Court. If I had been in your place I’d have stayed on, and persuaded the old man to help father out of his difficulties.”
“Oh, Trix, as if we hadn’t tried! You talk as if no one had any sense but yourself! You are very clever and important, no doubt, but even your earnings will not keep the family. There is a little work left for Mollie and myself!” cried Ruth hotly.