“Not so high as your ladyship might think,” was the answer; “not high at all for what it is. I paid sixty pounds for the little house I used to be in, and I pay only seventy for this.”
“Only seventy!” echoed Lady Whitney, in surprise. “How is it you get it so cheaply?”
A waggonette, full of people, was passing just then; Miss Gay seemed to want to watch it by before she answered. We were sitting in the dusk with the blinds up.
“For one thing, it had been standing empty for some time, and I suppose Mr. Bone, the agent, was glad to have my offer,” replied Miss Gay, who seemed to be as fond of talking as any one else is, once set on. “It had belonged to a good old family, my lady, but they got embarrassed and put it up for sale some six or seven years ago. A Mr. Calson bought it. He had come to Pumpwater about that time from foreign lands; and he and his wife settled down in the house. A puny, weakly little woman she was, who seemed to get weaklier instead of stronger, and in a year or two she died. After her death her husband grew ill; he went away for change of air, and died in London; and the house was left to a little nephew living over in Australia.”
“And has the house been vacant ever since?” asked John.
“No, sir. At first it was let furnished, then unfurnished. But it had been vacant some little time when I applied to Mr. Bone. I concluded he thought it better to let it at a low rent than for it to stand empty.”
“It must cost you incessant care and trouble, Miss Gay, to conduct a house like this—when you are full,” remarked Lady Whitney.
“It does,” she answered. “One’s work seems never done—and I cannot, at that, give satisfaction to all. Ah, my lady, what a difference there is in people!—you would never think it. Some are so kind and considerate to me, so anxious not to give trouble unduly, and so satisfied with all I do that it is a pleasure to serve them: while others make gratuitous work and trouble from morning till night, and treat me as if I were just a dog under their feet. Of course when we are full I have another servant in, two sometimes.”
“Even that must leave a great deal for yourself to do and see to.”
“The back is always fitted to the burden,” sighed Miss Gay. “My father was a farmer in this county, as his ancestors had been before him, farming his three hundred acres of land, and looked upon as a man of substance. My mother made the butter, saw to the poultry, and superintended her household generally: and we children helped her. Farmers’ daughters then did not spend their days in playing the piano and doing fancy work, or expect to be waited upon like ladies born.”