“If you mean by that the most perplexing part of it, I was just going to tell it you when you interrupted. Duke says I must take a maid. He says his cousins would never get over it—be too scandalised for words, if I arrived without one. Such a state of things could never occur to them, even though they knew how poor we are!”
“Naturally enough,” said Philippa, “even if Duke hadn’t spoken of it, I am sure we should have thought of it ourselves. And I don’t see any such tremendous difficulty about it.”
“I might have managed it in another way,” said Mrs Headfort, “if they had invited Bonny, for then I could have taken nurse, and—well, without saying what wasn’t true—let it be supposed that I didn’t want to bring two servants. And nurse would really have done all I need fairly well.”
“But they haven’t asked Bonny? And I suppose you can’t volunteer to take him?”
“Oh, dear, no,” Evelyn replied, gazing vaguely around her again, as if by some magic her husband’s letter could have found its way down to the table beside her. “That’s just what Duke says. Bonny, you see, Philippa, is the crux. Bonny must not be obtruded. Duke lays great stress upon that, and, of course, my own sense would have told me so if he hadn’t. Oh, no, of course I can’t take nurse and Bonny, even if you and mamma could have accepted the responsibility of Vanda without nurse.”
“Of course that would have been all right with Dorcas,” said Mrs Raynsworth. “I have suggested Evelyn’s taking Dorcas, Philippa, but—”
“It would never do,” said Evelyn, hastily. “I’m sure you’ll say so, too, Philippa. That’s one reason I’m so glad you’ve come back. Do tell mamma it would never do.”
“Honestly, I don’t think it would,” said Philippa. “To begin with, one’s never sure of her rheumatism not getting bad—and then, though she’s the dearest old thing in the world, the wildest flight of imagination couldn’t transform her into a maid.”
“I was sure you would say so,” said Mrs Headfort. “You see, mamma dear, everything is so different from all those years ago when she was your maid.”
“Dorcas herself is different, certainly,” Mrs Raynsworth agreed, “and no wonder when you think of all she has done for us, and made herself into for our sakes,” and she sighed a little. “But otherwise, maids when I was young, I assure you, had to be quite as competent as nowadays.”