"Where are the efficients?" asked Mrs. Worsley.
"Bolton, the housemaid-waitress, is at Scarborough with mamma and Laura, promoted for a full month to the dignity of ladies' maid."
Mrs. Worsley looked perplexed.
"I do not understand," she said. "I thought you told me in a letter that Mrs. Clifford and your sister were staying at the principal hotel."
"They are. Mamma said that Scarborough lodgings in the only part that she could possibly elect to stay in were extremely expensive, and that, by arranging to remain the whole time at the hotel, she would be able to make favourable terms. That, in fact, the cost of staying there would not be much greater than in private rooms, to say nothing of the isolation of lodgings and housekeeping worries which would be avoided."
"Then is Bolton at the hotel too?"
"Of course, aunty. She would be useless anywhere else," said Nettie.
"But Mrs. Clifford and Laura have no maid when at home! It seems so strange to take one for a month to an expensive hotel, when—"
Mrs. Worsley paused. She was very nearly adding, "when they are always complaining of poverty and the difficulty of making ends meet." She might have further said, "and borrowing without troubling much as to how or when the money will be repaid." But she did not say this. She only stopped, and Annette took up the subject.
"When there is not much money to spare, aunty, you would say. It is quite true. There is none to spare, but mamma is rather fond of appearing en granda dame when she is from home. Here, in spite of narrow means and perpetual pinching, she is a great lady, you know. Was she not Miss Heydon, of Heydon Hill, before she became Mrs. Clifford? Everyone knows that in this neighbourhood, and knows, also, that she was a great heiress before she married a handsome, penniless captain of dragoons, who lived nearly long enough to leave his wife and children in the same condition. Does it sound wicked to say so, aunty? I never saw my father, you know, after I was three years old, and I have been more accustomed to hear him blamed than lamented."