Delsie (8 page)

“She was living in a very mean sort of an apartment. Remarkable she is so refined.”

“I was happily surprised with her liveliness. I had not suspected vivacity from her, for she was such a
dowdy little dresser, but she is very conversable. I like her excessively.”

The widow soon returned below with Bobbie and Miss Milne, the three of them to be taken in deVigne’s
carriage to the Cottage. Once there, he did no more
than make her acquainted with her housekeeper before
leaving, saying he would return later in the day.

“You will find plenty to keep you busy,” he said,
glancing around at the somber surroundings. “But I
shan’t volunteer any suggestions, knowing you like to
make your own decisions.” This was said in a rallying tone, but it did not rally her. She felt utterly depressed, and the large beef-faced woman standing before her in
a soiled apron did nothing to cheer her up.

“I’ll take my leave now, Mrs. Grayshott,” deVigne
bowed, and went to the door. Delsie looked helplessly to the governess and Bobbie, fast disappearing up the
stairs, then after deVigne. She took a step after him, wishing she could run right out the door and go back
to the Dower House. As she realized what she had done,
she continued after him, as though, it had been her
intention to accompany him to the front door.

“Don’t despair,” he said in a kindly tone. “This was used to be a fine and attractive home a few years ago,
when my sister was alive. You will make it so again
in a very short time, I am convinced. Be firm with the Bristcombes. They have fallen into slovenly habits with Andrew not watching them as he ought.” Mrs. Bristcombe stood with her arms crossed, staring at them
suspiciously, beyond earshot. Then deVigne was gone,
and Delsie turned back to face her future.

Be firm, he had said, and firmness was clearly
needed here. “Have you any orders, miss?” Mrs. Bristcombe asked, an insolent expression settling on her
coarse features as soon as deVigne was gone.

“Yes, the title is
ma’am,
not
miss,”
Delsie said in
her firmest teacher’s voice, “and I shall have a great many orders. The first is that you put on a clean apron, and not wear a soiled one in my house again.”

“They don’t stay clean long in the kitchen,” the
woman replied tartly, scanning her new mistress from head to toe in a very bold fashion. She had not behaved
so when deVigne was with them.

“Then you must have several, to provide yourself a change, must you not?”

“Muslin costs money.”

“All of three shillings a yard, for that quality. I shall
buy some, and you will have it made into aprons.”

Mrs. Bristcombe’s steely eyes narrowed, but she
pulled in her horns. “What’ll you have for lunch?” she
asked.

“What have you got in the house?”

“There’s cold mutton, and a long bill overdue at the grocer’s, while we’re on the subject.”

“Why has it not been paid?”

“The master’s been sick, as you might have
heard,”
she replied with a heavy sarcasm, to reveal her opinion
of the marriage.

“Prepare your accounts and present them to me in
the study this afternoon, if you please. The mutton will
do for luncheon, with an omelette. You know how to
prepare an omelette?” Delsie asked, to retaliate for the former insult.

The woman sniffed, and Mrs. Grayshott continued
asserting her authority. “I am going to make a tour of
the house. There is no need for you to accompany me. Miss Roberta will come with me.”

“You won’t find it in very good shape.”

“So I assumed,” Delsie replied, looking around her.
“I understood girls were sent down from the Hall to
tidy the place up.”

“They’ve changed the linen upstairs and cleaned up the yellow guest room for you.”

“Thank you, but I am not a
guest
in this house, Mrs.
Bristcombe. I shall notify you what chamber I wish
cleaned for me. Good day.” She turned and swept up
the stairs, resolved not to let that Tartar get the upper
hand of her, though she was weak from nervousness
after the encounter.

She walked along the upstairs hall till she heard
voices. Bobbie and Miss Milne were putting off their
pelisses, and she requested Bobbie to show her around the house. “I’ll show you
my
room first,” Bobbie said proudly. “This is it.”

“I thought you would still be in the nursery,” Delsie answered. The room was not unpleasant, but it was not
a child’s room. The furnishings were of dark oak, the
window hangings and canopy of a somber, dusky blue. The paintings on the walls were also dark and not likely to appeal to a child.

“I wondered when I came that she was not in the nursery
,
” Miss Milne mentioned, “but I was told this
is her room.”

“Mrs. Bristcombe told you?” Mrs. Grayshott in
quired, in a voice a little taut.

“Yes, ma’am. I took my directions from her. I seldom
spoke to Mr. Grayshott.”

“I had to leave the nursery last year, ‘cause I couldn’t
sleep with all the noise,” Bobbie told them. Delsie
thought this referred to noises made by a drunken
father, and asked no more questions, but the child
spoke on. “Mrs. Bristcombe said it was the pixies in the
orchard,” she said, her eyes big. “Daddy said it was the
pixies too, so I got this nice room, like a grown-up.”

“In the
orchard?”
Delsie asked, surprised that Mr. Grayshott would be allowed out of the house drunk.
One would have thought his valet or Bristcombe would
have kept him in. She must ask Lady Jane about this.

“I have thought I heard noises outside myself, from
time to time,” Miss Milne said, rather hesitantly, as
though she were unsure whether she should speak. “If
you won’t be needing me right away, ma’am, I’ll go to
my room and unpack.”

“Go ahead.” The girl left, with a rather shy smile. She would make a friend. It was a good feeling, to have one person of her own age and sex in the house, one
not too far removed from her in breeding as well. The girl seemed polite and well behaved. Her chief interest,
however, was in her new stepdaughter, and she turned
to her with a determined smile. “How about showing
me that walking doll you spoke of? I never heard of a
doll who can walk. Do we have to hold her hands and
pull her along?”

“Oh, no, she walks all by herself,” Bobbie boasted. “Daddy made her for me. Well, he didn’t ‘zactly
make
her. He bought a plain doll, and Mommy cut her stomach open, and Daddy put in some little wheels, and now
she can walk.” As she spoke she went to a shelf where
a considerable quantity of stuffed toys were set out, the
only concession to the room’s being inhabited by a child.
“Daddy was very smart, before Mommy died. He made
a secret drawer in Mommy’s dresser that opens with
a hidden button.”

She selected a doll dressed in a sailor’s uniform,
reached under the jacket to wind a key, and, when the
doll was set on the floor, it took half a dozen jerky steps
before toppling over. “He doesn’t walk too good,” Bobbie
said, setting it back up for another dozen steps.

“How ingenious! Your daddy
made
this?” Delsie
asked, sure the child was inventing this story. But
when she took the doll up, she saw that the stuffed
body had indeed been slit open and sewed up.

“He made me a cat that shook her head too, but I broke her,” Bobbie said, then took the doll to throw it
on the bed. “Next I’ll show you Mama’s room. It’s the
nicest one. I think you should use it, only it’s quite far away from mine.”

They walked half the length of the hall, then Bobbie opened a door into a lady’s chamber of considerable
elegance, though the elegance had begun to fade. It
was done in rose velvet, the window and bed hangings
still in good repair, but very likely full of dust. The
furniture was dainty French in design, white-painted,
with gilt trim. There was a makeup table with lamps,
an escritoire—such a room as Delsie had only dreamed of. The late Mrs. Grayshott’s belongings were still laid
out—chased-silver brushes, cut-glass perfume bottles,
and a whole battery of pots and trays holding creams,
powders, and the accessories to a lady’s toilette. “Let
us see the yellow room Mrs. Bristcombe made up for me,” Delsie said, with a last, longing look at this room.

“It’s this way, next to mine,” Bobbie told her, and
led her to a good room, square, but with none of the
finery of the lady’s chamber. Like Bobbie’s, it faced the
west side of the house, away from the orchard. “You
won’t be bothered by the pixies either,” Bobbie told her.

“Likely that’s why she put you here. Miss Milne sleeps right next door.”

They did not disturb Miss Milne, but went along to look into other chambers, the master bedroom (which
opened through an adjoining door into the late Mrs.
Grayshott’s suite) being the end of the tour.

“Since you’re my mama now, I think you should sleep
in here,” Bobbie said firmly.

It was all the inducement Delsie needed to make the
charming chamber her own, and she said, “I think so too, but then I shall be away from you and Miss Milne.
Let us look again at the room next to your mama’s.”

“It’s the primrose suite,” Bobbie said, and entered again, enjoying very much playing the guide.

“This is one of my favorites,” Delsie said involun
tarily, looking at the spring
-
like walls, sprigged with
flowers. The curtains were done in apple green with
white tassels, and the furniture light and graceful. “I
wonder you were not moved into this room,” Delsie mentioned.

“It’s on the wrong side. The pixies,” Bobbie an
swered.

“I have a feeling the pixies won’t bother us any
longer,” she answered with a smile. “Stepmothers, you
know, are very powerful creatures, and the pixies never bother us. Miss Milne could use the room next door to
yours, and we three would all be close together for company.” This seemed important to the widow, to be
not too far removed from other life in the house.

“Let’s move my stuff, then,” Bobbie suggested at
once.

“We’ll speak
to
Miss Milne first, shall we?” This was done, with the practical suggestion coming from Miss
Milne that the chambers be cleaned and aired first.
When Miss Milne went for dustcloths and brooms, Delsie found herself at loose ends, and to get in the morning, she took to herself the chore of doing up her own room. It was a pleasure to restore the lovely furnishings to their proper state of gloss, to clean the mirror and polish those cut-glass bottles, to arrange her few gowns
in the clothes press. She would have the hangings taken
down and the carpet raised for beating before the snow began to fly. The hours till luncheon flew past happily.

“Can I eat with you, Mama?” Bobbie asked when the
job was done.

“I hope you don’t plan to make me eat alone!” Delsie
exclaimed. No other course had occurred to her. “Miss
Milne, you will join us as well, I hope?”

Miss Milne seemed pleased at the invitation, and the three went down together to wash up. When Bobbie
twice addressed her new stepmother as Mama, Delsie
smiled in contentment and said nothing. To put the
matter on a settled basis, Bobbie herself brought up
the point. “Since you’re in Mama’s room now, I must call you Mama.” So she explained her action,

“Of course you must, my dear,” Delsie replied mat
ter-of-factly.

Mrs. Bristcombe had not actually said she knew how
to make an omelette, which perhaps accounted for the
greasy mess served up at that meal. While taking the
housekeeper to task on that account, the widow forgot
to ask the woman to please make up her bed, but really,
the poor woman did seem to be overworked. There did
not appear to be another female servant in the house,
except for the governess, who obviously could not be expected to do it. She would find clean linen and do it
herself.

After luncheon, it was time to turn Bobbie over to Miss Milne for lessons, but before doing so, she discov
ered of them the location of the linen closet. It was a
large walk-in cupboard, with several rows of shelves,
nine tenths of them empty. When she took her own
linen, there remained in the place exactly two towels,
and no bed sheets. Must ask Mrs. Bristcombe about
this.

When the bed was finished, she went to the study
to meet the housekeeper on the matter of the accounts, and they had an unpleasant conversation over unpaid bills of such staggering sums that Delsie was surprised the grocer had not set up a public clamor. When queried
about the lack of linens, the woman said firmly there
was not another bit or piece of material in the house.
Nothing had been replaced since Mrs. Grayshott’s
death, and the old ones were so full of holes, with no
one to mend them, that she’d torn them up to use for
rags.