Anne Hereford: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"I had been tempted to put it off for a cool dress yesterday evening," she said to me. "What with the dinner, and the fire they will have, though I am sure it is not weather for it, I feel melted in black. The fire is kept large to please Philip King. So Miss Delves informed me when I remonstrated against it the other day. He must be of a chilly nature."

Remembering what I had heard said the previous night, I thought he might be. But the words had afforded the opportunity for a question that I was longing, in my curiosity, to put.

"Selina, who is Miss Delves? Is she a lady or a servant?"

"You had better not call her a servant, Anne; she would never forgive it," answered Selina, with a laugh. "She is a relative of Mr. Edwin Barley's."

"Then, why does she not sit with you, and dine at table?"

"Because I do not choose that she shall sit with me, and dine at table," was the resentful, haughty retort; and I could see that there had been some past unpleasantness in regard to Miss Delves. "When Mr. Edwin Barley's mother died, who used to live with him, Charlotte Delves came here as mistress of the house. That was all very well so long as there was no legitimate mistress, but ages went on, and I came to it. She assumed a great deal; I found she was planted down at table with us, and made herself my companion in the drawing-room at will. I did not like it; and one day I told my husband so in her presence. I said that I must be the sole mistress in my own house, and quitted the room, leaving them to settle it. Since then she has taken the parlour for her sitting-room, and looks to the household, as she did before. In short, Miss Delves is housekeeper. I have no objection to that; it saves me trouble, and I know nothing of domestic management. Now and then I invite her to take tea with us, or to a drive with me in the pony carriage, and we are vastly polite to each other always."

"But if you do not like her——"

"Like her!" interrupted Selina. "My dear child, we hate each other like poison. It was not in human nature, you know, for her not to feel my entrance to the house as a wrong, displacing her from her high post, and from the influence she had contrived to acquire over Mr. Edwin Barley. They were as intimate as brother and sister; and I believe he is the only living being she cares for in the whole world. When I took a high tone with her, it exasperated her all the more against me, there's no doubt of it; and she repays it by carrying petty tales of me to Mr. Edwin Barley."

"And whose part did he take, Selina!"

"MINE, of course—always?" she returned, with a forcible emphasis on the first word. "But it has never been open warfare between me and Miss Delves, Anne; you must understand that. Should anything of the sort supervene, she would have to quit the house. A bitter pill that would be, for she has no money, and would have to go out as housekeeper in reality, or something of the kind. My occupation would be gone then."