The evening passed in a whirl, such as Katherine, altogether unused to the strange mingled life of family occupations and self-indulgence, could not understand. There was not a tranquil moment for the talk and the explanations. Stella ran from room to room, approving and objecting. She liked the state apartment with its smart furniture in which she had herself been placed, but she did not like the choice of the rooms for the babies, and had them transferred to others, and the furniture altered and pulled about to suit their needs. The house had put on a gala air for the new guests; there were fires blazing everywhere, flowers everywhere, such as could be got at that advanced season. Stella sent the chrysanthemums away, which were the chief point in the decorations. “They have such a horrid smell. They make my head ache—they remind me,” she said, “of everything that’s dreadful.” And she stood over the worried maid while she opened the boxes, dragging out the dresses by a corner and flinging them about on the floors. “I shall not want any of those old things. Isn’t there a rag of a black that I can wear now? Kate, you were dreadfully remiss not to order me some things. How can I go downstairs and show myself in all my blues and greens? Oh, yes, of course I require to be fitted on, but I’d rather have an ill-fitting gown than none at all. I could wear one of yours, it is true, but my figure is different from yours. I’m not all one straight line from head to foot, as you are; and you’re covered over with crape, which is quite unnecessary—nobody thinks of such a thing now. I’ll wear that,” she added, giving a little kick to a white dress, which was one of those she had dragged out by a flounce and flung on the floor. “You can put some black ribbons to it, Pearson. Oh, how glad I shall be to get rid of all those old things, and get something fit to wear, even if it’s black. I shall telegraph at once to London to send someone down about my things to-morrow, but I warn you I’m not going to wear mourning for a whole year, Kate. No one thinks of such a thing now.”
“You always look well in black, my lady, with your complexion,” said Pearson, the maid.
“Well, perhaps I do,” said Stella mollified. “Please run down and send off the telegram, Kate; there is such a crowd of things to do.”
And thus the day went on. At dinner there was perforce a little time during which the trio were together; but then the servants were present, making any intimate conversation impossible, and the talk that was was entirely about the dishes, which did not please either Sir Charles or his wife. Poor Mrs. Simmons, anxious to please, had with great care compounded what she called and thought to be a curry, upon which both of them looked with disgust. “Take it away,” they both said, after a contemptuous examination of the dish, turning over its contents with the end of a fork, one after the other. “Kate, why do you let that woman try things she knows nothing about?” said Stella severely. “But you never care what you eat, and you think that’s fine, I know. Old Simmons never could do much but what English people call roast and boil—what any savage could do! and you’ve kept her on all these years! I suppose you have eaten meekly whatever she chose to set before you ever since I went away.”
“I think,” said Sir Charles in his moustache, “if I am to be here much there will certainly have to be a change in the cook.”
“You can do what you please, Stella—as soon as everything is settled,” Katherine said. Her sister had taken her place without any question at the head of the table; and Somers, perhaps unconsciously, had placed himself opposite. Katherine had taken with some surprise and a momentary hesitation a seat at the side, as if she were their guest—which indeed she was, she said to herself. But she had never occupied that place before; even in the time of Stella’s undoubted ascendancy, Katherine had always sat at the head of the table. She felt this as one feels the minor pricks of one’s great troubles. After dinner, when she had calculated upon having time for her explanation, Sir Charles took out his cigar case before the servants had left the room. Stella interrupted him with a little scream. “Oh, Charles, Kate isn’t used to smoke! She will be thinking of her curtains and all sorts of things.”
“If Kate objects, of course,” he said, cutting the end off his cigar and looking up from the operation.
Katherine objected, as many women do, not to the cigar but to the disrespect. She said, “Stella is mistress. I take no authority upon me,” with as easy an air as she could assume.
“Come along and see the children,” Stella cried, jumping up, “you’ll like that, or else you’ll pretend to like it,” she said as they went out of the room together, “to please me. Now, you needn’t trouble to please me in that way. I’m not silly about the children. There they are, and one has to make the best of them, but it’s rather hard to have the boy a teeny weeny thing like Job. The girl’s strong enough, but it don’t matter so much for a girl. And Charlie is an idiot about Job. Ten to one he will be upstairs as soon as we are, snatching the little wretch out of his bed and carrying him off. They sit and croon for hours together when there’s no one else to amuse Charlie. And I’m sure I don’t know what is to become of him, for there will be nobody to amuse him here.”
“But it must be so bad for the child, Stella. How can he be well if you allow that to go on?”