Meanwhile Lottie had been disturbed in her seclusion by a sharp knock at her door. “Do you mean to stay there all night, Miss?” cried Polly’s sharp voice. “You might pay me the compliment to keep me company now and again as long as you stay in my house. If you think it is civil to stay there, shut up in your room, and me all alone in the drawing-room, I don’t. I can’t think where your hearts is, you two,” Polly went on, a whimper breaking into the tone of offence with which she spoke. “To see one as is not much older than yourself, and never did you no harm, and not a soul to keep her company. Was it for that I give up all my own folks, to come and sit dressed up in a corner because I’m Mrs. Despard, and never see a soul?”
Lottie had opened her door before this speech was half done. She said with a little alarm, “Please don’t speak so loud. We need not let the maid in the kitchen know.”
“Do you think I care for the maid in the kitchen? She’s my servant. I’ll make her know her place. Never one of them sort of folks takes any freedom with me. I have always been known for one as allowed no freedoms—no, nor no followers, nor perquisites, nor nothing of the kind. They soon find out as I ain’t one to be turned round their finger. Now you,” said Polly, leading the way into the little drawing-room, “you’re one of the soft sort. I dare say they did what they liked with you!”
“I don’t think so,” said Lottie, following. She put her music softly down upon the old piano, which Polly had swathed in a cover, and the changed aspect of the room moved her half to laughter, half to anger and dismay.
“There are few as knows themselves,” said Polly. “That girl, that Mary as you had, I couldn’t have put up with her for a day. Some folks never sees when things is huggermugger, but I’m very particular. Your Pa—dear, good, easy man—I dare say he’s put up with a deal; but to be sure no better was to be expected, for you never had no training, I suppose?”
Lottie was almost too much taken by surprise to reply—she, who had felt that if there was one thing in the world she could do it was house-keeping! The confusion that is produced in the mind by the sudden perception of another’s opinion of us which is diametrically opposed to our own seized her; otherwise she would have been roused to instant wrath. This, which was something so entirely opposite to what she could have expected, raised only a kind of ludicrous bewilderment in her mind. “I—don’t know what you mean,” said Lottie. “Papa has not very much money to give for house-keeping. Perhaps you are making a mistake.”
“Oh, it is likely that I should make a mistake! Do you think I don’t know my own husband’s income? Do you think,” said Polly with scorn, “that he has any secrets from me?”
Lottie was cold with her imprisonment in her fireless room. She drew her little chair to the blazing fire and sat down by the side. Polly had placed herself in the largest chair in the room, directly in front of it. The fire was heaped up in the little grate, and blazed, being largely supplied. It was very comfortable, but it went against the rules of the economy which Lottie had strenuously prescribed to herself. “Papa spends a great deal of money himself,” she said; “you will find that you must be very sparing at home.”
“My dear,” said Polly in a tone of condescending patronage which brought the colour to Lottie’s face, “I am not one as can be sparing at home. Pinching ain’t my way. I couldn’t do it, not if I was to be made a countess for it. Some folks can scrape and cut down and look after everything, but it ain’t my nature. What I like is a free hand. Plenty to eat and plenty to drink, and no stinting nowhere—that’s what will always be the law in my house.”
Lottie made no reply. She felt that it was almost a failure from her duty to put out her hands to the warmth of the too beautiful fire. Some one would have to suffer for it. Her mind began to run over her own budget of ways and means, to try, as had been her old habit, where she could find something to cut off to make up for the extravagance. “These coals burn very fast,” she said at last. “They are not a thrifty kind. I used to have the——”