(Charles Huntingdon has journeyed from London and arrived at his new home, The Priory, inherited from his aunt)
When I awoke, there was a single shaft of
light between the shutters, which had not been fully closed. For a
moment I wondered where I was, before recalling that this was now my home.
Noises from downstairs indicated that the household was already up and about. I
rang the bell beside the bed, and soon a young servant girl entered with a
candle. Despite the early hour she was neatly dressed in brown with a white cap,
and I was gratified to see that Mrs Timmis had kept her charges in such good
order.
She curtsied and appeared very shy, but I
smiled at her and requested that she should light candles and then bring me hot
water for washing. My watch told me that it was a quarter to eight, and I
reflected that people in the country rose much earlier than those in town,
where some of my friends had been known to lie abed until noon. While I waited
for her to return, I opened the shutters and looked out on my new lands. The
window was an old-fashioned casement with small diamond-shaped panes of glass.
Outside, it looked clear and cold: the wet weather had departed and with a
single star glimmered faintly in the sky. The few small clouds showed a pale
pink underneath.
My window must have faced south-east, for as
I watched the sky turned orange as the sun peeped above the horizon. I saw a
bright sparkle reflected from the snow atop Brackenridge hill. I had never seen
such a sight before, and stood there gazing at it. The serving girl must have
been surprised on her return to find me at the window in nothing but my
nightshirt. When I asked, she told me her name was Ellen. Although little more
than a child, she scarcely appeared intimidated by my presence.
Having no-one to assist me in dressing, I
asked her to undertake the task. It quickly became obvious that she knew nothing of men’s clothing, and in consequence there was much fumbling on
her part. When she buttoned my shirt wrongly for the second time I pretended to
be annoyed, and gave her a playful slap on the rump, which made her giggle, and
I could not help smiling myself. Indeed, when the task was completed and I
dismissed her, saying that she would soon learn the correct method of dressing
me, she dutifully curtsied, but the look she gave me on withdrawing could only
be described as saucy.
It occurred to me that she would undoubtedly
be recounting her experience to her fellow-servants, who would all be eager for
early reports on me. What would they think, and what would Mrs Timmis make of
it when she heard of it, as she undoubtedly would? But I did not care: here I
was in my own home, the first I had ever owned, and I felt immensely proud and
happy. The happiness increased when I passed downstairs and found the ample
breakfast of freshly baked bread, butter, bacon and tea that had been prepared
for me. In the midst of her bustling about, Mrs Timmis enquired whether
everything had met with my approval, and I replied truthfully that I was
entirely satisfied.
Afterwards I reflected that I had entirely
ignored Lord Staines’s advice on how to treat my new servants, and I wondered
what he would have done in my position. I doubted whether he would have struck
the chambermaid: more likely he would have found some fault with her costume,
or accused her of lateness or of yawning in his face, however unjustified this
might be, and coldly criticised her at length for her incompetence with the
buttons. He would have complained to Mrs Timmis about her, and demanded better
service in future, and turned up his nose at the breakfast as unbefitting
someone of his rank. And as for any concern about what Mrs Timmis might think: I
could imagine him telling me, with biting sarcasm in his voice, that it was
strange I should be concerned about what my housekeeper thought. I imagined him
shaking his head in a mixture of sorrow and disgust at my feeble behaviour and
predicting that it would not be long before my servants, not I, would be
running the household and doing whatever their fancy suggested. But on
reflection I decided that, if it was indeed Mrs Timmis, not I, who was the sole
director of my household, then so be it: I was comfortable with such an
arrangement.
Over the next few days Mrs Timmis
began treating me more like a son than a master: a son she had never had, since
by and by I discovered that she had never married but was universally known as
“Mrs Timmis” out of respect. Before long she felt bold enough to recount her memories
of my childhood visit, which had been back in 1744, when I was brought to the
Priory by my mother to meet her relatives.
“I remember that!" she exclaimed, "It was the year before the rebels came through. You were so polite and well-mannered!" she told me, "The
mistress loved you straight away!”
I replied
that I had very few memories of that visit, but I did recall that Mr Andrew was
in bed when I was introduced to him, and that when he eventually rose for
dinner, he walked with great difficulty, supported by two crutches.
Mrs Timmis nodded, and looked very sad.
“Yes, poor man; the master’s health was bad for many years, and when he died
his friends thought it came as a relief after all his sufferings. And so the
mistress was left a widow, without children, and she never remarried. But she
held your mother in great affection, that she did, and she had always resolved
that you should be her heir."
I asked her to tell me more about my aunt,
and she replied that Mrs Andrew was always reading old books and
writing letters, but was also a lady of the greatest kindness, respected
throughout the neighbourhood. I could imagine how angry Lord Staines would have
been at such familiarity from a servant.
The next few days were spent mostly in the
library: a long room in the older part of the house, with curious plasterwork
on the ceiling. The shelves were full of books and there were piles of papers
everywhere. Clifford pointed out portraits of Mr and Mrs Andrew, painted by some
unknown country artist. Mr Andrew wore a wig of the fashion of forty years ago,
and his wife a bonnet. They both looked stern and unmoving, but I was
assured that in reality this was by no means the case. I wished I could have
known them, my benefactors. Clifford was loud in their praise:
“I was born in this village, and it was only
through the great benevolence of Mr and Mrs Andrew that I was first taught my
letters, and then apprenticed to an attorney. I am eternally grateful to them,
and I hope I shall now work for you.”
This made me wonder whether Mrs Andrew had
paid for my education as well. I was sure that must have been the case, though
my parents had never told me anything about it. I had no opportunity to enquire
further, for I was now near overwhelmed in a turmoil of activity, as I
attempted to understand the full nature of my inheritance. Clifford brought me great
bundles of documents showing me the extent of my new ealth. The ancestors of
Mr Andrew, I gathered, had for several generations built up the family property
by a policy of prudent marriages, careful purchase of land, investment in government
funds and East India stock and I know not what else, and had in consequence
become a family of substance. His wife, Isobel, my aunt, had also been an heiress,
through whom came slate quarries in Wales and coalmines on the Cumbrian coast.
The total income of my inheritance amounted to the handsome sum of almost four
thousand pounds a year. Clifford trusted that I would find everything in order.
For the moment I felt I could do little but have confidence his honesty, and I put my
signature to a number of documents that he said required immediate attention.
The household expenses amounted to very
little. For the last few years my aunt had spent hardly any money except on
food and books, and I had the feeling that Clifford derived a vicarious
pleasure from this miserliness. He took on a gloomy tone when he suggested that
I would probably wish to diminish my inheritance with expenditure on clothes, on
horses and carriages, on extra servants, on sporting pursuits, on gaming ….. I
cut him short at this point, assuring him that on the last two items at least
he had nothing to fear. I concluded the discussion by asking a few trifling
questions about details of the estate, just to show that I was giving due attention to
what he placed before me; though in reality there was too much for my immediate
comprehension.
As a variation from this tiring and dull but
very necessary activity, I began to explore my new home thoroughly, and,
weather permitting, to venture out and explore the surroundings. I knew very little
about architecture, but looked to me as if few alterations had been made to the
house in the past half century or more, and some parts looked far older. All
Clifford was able to tell me was that there had once been a monastic house on
the site. He thought I might find out more from my aunt’s papers.
Outside, I was shown a kitchen garden
surrounded by a wall, where only some frostbitten cabbages stood above the
frostbitten soil, and the apple trees in the orchard were bare and stark. I was
told most were too old to bear much good fruit, but Mrs Andrew could not bear to
have them cut down. A long greenhouse stood against a south-facing wall, but as
far as I could see there was little inside it. To the south-west of the house I found a formal garden of gravel paths, low evergreen hedges and rose bushes. Mrs
Andrew, I was told, took great delight in her garden and loved to stroll here
whenever the weather permitted, and the roses were a fine sight on a summer’s
day. Now it all looked untended. Then there was a dairy, a baker’s oven and a brew-house.
I was taken to the stables, but found there no horse suitable for me to ride,
and no vehicle except the trap in which I had been brought; for my aunt in her
final years had scarcely ventured out at all. I concluded I would need a horse
to ride if I was to know the district.
On the eastern side of the house were fields with scattered trees and
clumps of bushes, leading towards the western end of Brackenridge hill. Apart
from a few miserable-looking sheep, no animals were to be seen. I imagined it might
be a fine prospect in the spring, but in winter weather it was a sad, gloomy
sight.
Bearsclough was a hamlet of a score of
cottages owned by the Priory and occupied by villagers who worked on the farms,
and a small church dedicated to St. Martin. It was to this that he now led me:
a curious old affair built of oak with lath and plaster between the timbers,
with stone only for the foundations. The roof had with several slates broken or
missing from the south-east corner. I was told that the Rector of Bereton, Mr
Bunbridge, seldom set foot in our church, instead leaving the duties to a
curate on a stipend of a mere £5 per quarter. I was introduced to this ill-used
cleric; Samuel Chamberlain by name, a young man who was tall, thin and
cadaverous in his appearance, with a look in his eye that could have indicated
either determination or hunger, or possibly both.
Inside the church it was dark, with heavy oak
beams crossing the nave and only a few benches for the worshippers. The font
looked very ancient, and the oaken pulpit was, I guessed, the work of some
village carpenter. On the southern wall near the entrance door there was a
board that told, in faded paint, how a gentleman a century earlier had left
money to pay poor families of the parish a shilling each at Christmas.
There was a memorial to Mr Andrew on the
north wall, consisting of a few lines in Latin enclosed in a Doric frame. Mrs Andrew, I was told, had desired nothing
more for herself than a single line in addition to this. I promised to have
this done. I was shown where Mr Andrew was buried in the churchyard, and where his
wife had now been laid to rest beside him.
Reflecting that, but for good fortune, this
curate’s fate could have been my own, I promised to myself to do what I could
for the poor fellow. An opportunity for this came when he told me that Mrs
Andrew had once determined that all the children in the village should learn to
read, but that the project had come to nothing on account of her age and final
illness. I suggested that he should himself undertake the task, which he
appeared very pleased to accept, and not, I thought, merely for the addition to
his stipend that I offered him. I asked why the church roof was in such plain
need of repair, and was told that Mrs Andrew had indeed left money for this
purpose in her will, but that as yet none had been forthcoming. I promised to
remedy the matter.
I was informed that much of the land around
was leased to Mrs Timmis’s brother Ned, whom I now met. He came stomping into
the rear entrance of the Priory, removing his massive boots before entering the
kitchen.
He stood nervously twisting his hat in his
hands, occasionally giving me a wary glance but mostly looking at the ground.
He much resembled his sister, being stout and strong, with blue eyes. His hands
were large and rough from his work, and his face was completely round, with
cheeks red as apples. I thought he had the look of an honest man, but honest or
not, my complete ignorance of agriculture would oblige me to depend on him for
the foreseeable future.
Braving the cold weather, I requested that he should take me round the
village. My London clothes were hardly suitable for such a venture, but Mrs
Timmis found me a coat belonging to one of the gardeners, and thus equipped, I
set forth.
At first Ned Timmis addressed me as “Sir”
almost every time he drew breath, but as he grew accustomed to me this
gradually diminished, until in the end he hardly uttered the word at all. I was
sure that Lord Staines would have pulled him up very sharply on this, but I did
not bother. I asked him about his sister, saying that she appeared a very
capable woman, and he was loud in her praise.
“There’s none around here can beat her in
bargaining! And she knows everyone in Bereton, and everyone’s business; that
she does. If you want to find out what’s going on, you ask her!” He told me,
with some pride, that there had been Timmises in Bearsclough for time out of
mind, for “the mistress” (by whom he meant Mrs Andrew) was a “scholard“, who
“had read it in some old books”.
I learnt that his sister, who was a few years
older than him, had been taken on at the Priory while still a child, and had
remained there ever since. For the past couple of years, she, Mr Clifford and
he himself had had complete management of the house and estate, because the
mistress hardly ventured out of doors “on account of her feet”. I felt I would have
to continue this arrangement of business, at least for the moment. He had the
look of an honest man, but honest or not, my complete ignorance of agriculture
would oblige me to depend on him for the foreseeable future.
The road through the village of Bearsclough
looked much more suitable for riding a horse than for driving any kind of
vehicle, and would have been very muddy but for the fact that the surface was
currently frozen. The cottages were in a far better condition than the ones I
had seen in the woods on my journey, and most had small gardens attached,
though at that season only a few frostbitten stumps were to be seen. Several children
came out from their homes as we walked, and followed us at a safe distance.
When I called them over, a few ran away, but others approached me nervously. They
all knew Ned Timmis and treated him with respect. Some were well-clad and
well-shod; others less so, but at least none was barefoot. I smiled at them,
told them who I was and handed out pennies; at which most touched their
forelocks and scampered back indoors. This deference was a new experience for
me!
I inspected our sheep and cattle, and
endeavoured to ask intelligent questions. A shepherd told me that the season
for lambing was approaching, and they were all praying there would be no more
snow. I saw barns of hay, of wheat and
barley and turnips. I learned that Mrs Andrew had read about new methods of
husbandry and had ordered them to carried out. Timmis admitted that the
villagers, including he himself (who, I found out later, could read well
enough, but preferred not to write anything beyond the signing of his name
unless absolutely necessary) had initially been mistrustful of all this “book-learning”,
but he had followed Mrs Andrew’s instructions, and he now conceded that many
had proved successful. For several years now they had grown turnips to feed the
cattle and sheep over winter. By way of contrast, he told me that Sir James
Wilbrahim was invincibly hostile to any innovations in the cultivation of his
lands.
I then asked Timmis if I might see his home,
which was leased from the estate. He was reluctant to allow this, pleading that
it was but a poor place, but when I persuaded him to admit me, I thought it a most
comfortable dwelling. It was clean and in good repair. There was a large
kitchen, with rag rugs on the stone floor and a good-sized fireplace, with a
spinning wheel in the corner. An old oak dresser held an array of pewter plates
and vessels, all spotless. His wife, Ann, a short woman with dark hair and
eyes, rose and curtsied to me, but uttered not a word. Their two children, I
was told, were both out at work. I asked whether I could make any improvements
to the building, but Timmis hastened to assure me that none were needed.
We resumed our walk, crossing enormous
fields divided into long strips, which Timmis designated as “This one for wheat
…. This one for barley …. This one for hay” and so forth. Eventually we came to
the edge of a mere, two or three acres in extent, where we halted. The water
was frozen, and a few geese and ducks were slithering around on it or pecking
disconsolately at the frost-withered reeds and grass. There was an old
rotten-looking punt drawn up out of the water in a ramshackle boathouse. Brackenridge
hill loomed above the far bank.
I felt it a sad scene, but Timmis told me,
with a degree of pride, “Once all this here was marshland, but Squire Andrew’s
father, he spiled the banks and drained the land. It’s good earth here now. Mrs
Andrew, she once said”, he added, in an unexpectedly poetic note, “that the
soil was like chocolate!” I had to take Timmis’s word for it, since for the
moment I could see only frost and snow.
“The village boys go swimming here in the
summer”, he continued, “and such as have skates use it in winter. Squire
Andrew, he used to shoot the wildfowl, and he loved fishing too, catching pike
and tench, but since he died there’s been nowt but poachers come here”.
We continued onwards. Further to the north,
much of the land was waste: too poor to be farmed. On the drier patches there
were a few miserable hovels belonging to squatters, who were tolerated because
their labour might be needed at haymaking or harvest. It occurred to me how
much the villagers wholly depended upon my benevolence for their mere survival.
On the next Sunday I attended our
little church. Timmis and his wife were there, and presented to me their two
children, Jack and Sarah. The girl looked about eighteen and the boy two or
three years younger, and both as strong and honest as their father. If Samuel
Chamberlain was nervous at my presence, he did not show it, but preached a
strong sermon on the Resurrection. The church was full, perhaps because the
local people wished to inspect me, and the benches were insufficient for
everyone, so many folk were obliged to stand throughout the service. Another of
my duties would be to supply more benches. More expenses!
One day I drove with Clifford to see the
town of Bereton. We first visited the church, dedicated to Saint Luke; an old
building in the Gothic style, with a square tower. Near the elaborate pulpit
was a large oaken private pew with high sides, belonging to the Wilbrahim
family. The floor of the nave was covered with old tiles and ancient tombstones
whose inscriptions were worn illegible by the passage of feet. There were ornate
memorials on the wall of the nave to Sir James Wilbrahim’s father and
grandfather. On the south side of the chancel was a small side-chapel, somewhat
out of repair, containing a large chest tomb on which reposed an effigy of a
knight in full armour. His feet rested on a small lion of comical aspect, its
head turned to snarl at whoever dared approach. His lady lay at his side. Both
had been much defaced over the centuries; noses and fingers had been broken off
and initials cut into the soft stone. Who were they? Clifford was only able to
tell me that he believed the knight’s name was Curtis, or something like that,
and that they were said to be ancestors of the Wilbrahims. He thought Mrs
Andrew might have written something on the subject. I reflected on the nature
of mortality: this man and his lady, surviving only as pieces of stone to be
defaced by idle hands, with Clifford not even certain of their names.
At the centre of the town was the market
place, in which stood the town hall; a curious old building with pointed arches
around an open area supporting a rectangular superstructure. Clifford led me up
a staircase in the corner to introduce me to the Mayor: a prosperous innkeeper
and churchwarden by the name of Jabez Stout, whose bulk reflected his name.
When I praised the picturesque appearance of the building, he said that was all
very well, but Bereton had long wanted a more commodious town hall, and hinted
that a substantial contribution from me would not go amiss. I promised to do
what I could. I said that the church would also benefit from restoration, to
which he agreed.
The main street of the town ran east-west,
following the line of the ridge above the town. Some of the buildings on the
main street were of local stone, others of wood and plaster, but few looked
younger than a century in age. There were to be found the principal inns and
shops: victuallers, shoemakers, drapers, purveyors of earthenware and others.
There were not very many in total, and the goods on offer were meagre, but when
Clifford introduced me, I made myself agreeable by purchasing a few small items
I did not really need. I commissioned from a carpenter some benches for my
church. There were a few beggars seated or sprawled by the roadside, displaying
placards signifying they were blind or crippled, and I distributed a few
coppers.
In one side street I noticed a small place of
worship, and asked Clifford about it.
“It is a Dissenters’ chapel,” he said, “It
was torn down by rioters in the troubles of 1715, and Sir Charles Wilbrahim,
Sir James’s father, who was the magistrate, refused to prosecute those
responsible for the outrage. Then the new King, George I, and his Whig
ministers dismissed Sir Charles from his magistery and ordered it rebuilt at
the public expense. Inside you will find the royal arms of King George displayed
on the wall in gratitude. Sir James and the Rector, Mr Bunbridge, both hate it,
and would love to see it closed; and this was the cause of another dispute with
Mr and Mrs Andrew, who supported the Dissenters.”
Some side alleys were very mean; the crowded
and tumbledown residences of landless labourers, quarrymen and suchlike poor
folk. The largest butcher’s premises was most ill-situated on a slope so that
in times of heavy rain all the offal and filth would be washed down into the
main street. I asked Clifford why no drain had been constructed, and he replied
that both the will and the cash were lacking. I suspected that I would be
expected to make a contribution to both these, and probably to repairs to the
church as well. Becoming a citizen of prominence would clearly not be without
its costs!
On one day of cold and rain, I decided to make
a full investigation of the library. I discovered there a lady I had not seen
before; as thin as a lath and grey in every way: grey dress, grey hair and grey
face. Her attention was wholly given to a mass of old papers that covered a
table, to such an extent that she did not observe my entry, and I was obliged
to ask her to introduce herself and explain why she was there. Only then did
she look up, and addressed me politely but without any obsequiousness.
Her name, she informed me, was Mrs Waring;
she had been for many years a friend and companion to Mrs Andrew, and on
hearing that I had taken possession of the house she had taken the liberty of
returning to the library to put Mrs Andrew’s papers in order. She apologised
for not having first sought my permission, for she had been ill during my
earlier visit. I replied that I was not in the least offended, and begged her
to show me the library and its contents.
Mrs Waring undertook the task with alacrity.
She hurried from shelf to shelf on eager feet and pulled out book after book
for me to inspect. It was a very extensive library and she was proud to be its
custodian. I was shown that all the great works of antiquity were present, both
in the original tongues and in translation; there were books in French and
Italian, the works of the English poets and playwrights, histories of many
countries, books on the improvement of farming and folios with engravings of
birds and plants, but no novels. “Mrs Andrew considered reading novels a waste
of time”, I was told.
I asked her how she came to know my aunt.
She said had been rescued from servitude as a children’s governess ten years
ago and brought to the Priory to assist Mrs Andrew in the library. Mrs Andrew,
she said, was a most learned lady, fluent in French and Latin and able to read
Italian. She had always been a friend of my mother and had followed my
education closely; and, being pleased with the reports she had received, had
instructed Mr Clifford to draw up a will leaving her entire property to me.
Mention of Clifford reminded me of the
effigy of the knight I had seen in the church at Bereton, whom Clifford thought
might be called Curtis, and whom my aunt might have known about. Mrs Waring was
scornful at Clifford’s ignorance. “Curtis, indeed!” she exclaimed, “No, his
name was Sir Everard de Courtoise, and his wife was the Lady Alice. They lived
in the fourteenth century. Their descendants lived at Stanegate and bought the
Priory here when Henry VIII dissolved all the monasteries in England. But the
family died out in the direct male line long ago, the lands were divided
between cousins as heiresses, and the Wilbrahim family obtained most of the
land in this county”.
She
turned to scrabble through the shelves again, muttering to herself as she searched,
and eventually located a volume of the “Gentleman’s Magazine” from ten years
ago. “Here you are!” she exclaimed triumphantly, showing me an essay describing
the ancient family of Courtoise, tracing their origins back to the time of
Edward the First. It was signed “I.A.”
“Mrs Andrew always signed this way. She
thought it best not to mention that she was a lady. Of course, I helped her
with her work.”
I formed the distinct impression that she expected
me to read the piece there and then. To avoid this, I imprudently asked, “And
did Mrs Andrew write anything else?”
“Indeed she did!” exclaimed Mrs Waring, and
gleefully produced another volume for
my inspection. “Here”, she explained, “is a description of an ancient Druidic
stone circle to be found on the summit of Brackenridge hill. We walked up there
together one summer’s day. These are engravings of the pictures I drew of the
stones. We think it must also have been used by the Romans as a lookout
station.”
I felt I had little option but to examine
these, and next she opened an old wooden chest. “Mrs Andrew intended to have
these displayed in a proper cabinet.” she told me, in a meaningful tone. There
was a bundle of old parchment manuscripts in a script that I could not read,
and below them a jumble of rusted bits of metal, shells embedded in rock,
ancient coins and other rubbish. All of these I was told, had been collected on
or near Brackenridge hill.
“Mrs Andrew would ask the village children
to bring her anything odd they found. She never failed to give pennies to
children who brought in scraps of old broken pottery or whatever”.
“Much of this must date from before Noah’s
flood”, I commented, in an attempt to show an intelligent interest.
“Mrs Andrew had doubts about the dating of
the flood!” Mrs Waring replied in a shocked whisper, as if not wanting this
blasphemy to be more widely known.
We then passed to the papers, which were
spread out over the table, with other piles on shelves. My guide excused the
muddle by explaining that the maids had swept them up hugger-mugger into heaps
in the cupboards for ease of dusting, and she had yet to sort them out fully. I
was shown notes on the antiquities of Bereton and a plan of the Priory in the
days of the monks. I was impressed to find letters from Mr Horace Walpole, the son of the late Prime Minister, and
other eminent persons. Mr Andrew remained a shadowy figure, but my estimation
of my aunt continued to increase.
Finally my attention was drawn to the
ceiling of the library, which was plastered in a riot of peculiar shapes. Mrs Waring
informed me that it dated from the age of Queen Elizabeth, and pointed out how
dirty it was; which, being a man, I had not noticed. “Mrs Andrew was very
short-sighted towards the end of her life, and could not see the cobwebs”, she
complained, “I tell the maids to dust it, but they never take any notice of
what I say”.
“Then you should tell Mrs Timmis”, I
suggested. But the only answer to this was a snort.
What should I do with this peculiar specimen
of femininity? I felt certain that her title of “Mrs” must have been
self-awarded, since I could not imagine her as being anything other than purely
virginal. I would have been justified in ordering her out of my house forthwith,
before she caused me to expire with tedium. Or should I just make an excuse and
flee her presence? But I did neither of these things: instead I told her that I
greatly desired that she should continue her work of putting my aunt’s papers
in order. Would she now accept a payment of £20 a year (a figure that I
snatched from the air, remembering what the curate had been paid), plus all
meals, to act as my librarian?
Looking back on this scene, I cannot
precisely account for why I made her the offer. Did I feel pity for the absurd
woman? Or was I secretly hoping that she might reject the sum as an insult
and flounce out in disgust? If the latter was the case, I was to be
disappointed. Mrs Waring at pains to tell me that she had never been a servant:
she had been a companion to Mrs Andrew and had assisted her in her researches,
but had neither asked for nor accepted any payment: certainly not! Mrs Andrew
had left her a small legacy, she added, placing an emphasis on the word
“small”. Then, having unburdened herself after this fashion, she put up only
the most taken resistance before accepting my offer. I then departed with
feelings of relief, leaving her to continue her sorting of the papers. Occasionally, when the
weather was bad, I would visit the library and asked Mrs Waring to
find me some particular book, but was always careful to stress that I could
only spare a very few minutes there.
I interrupted Mrs Timmis’s spring cleaning
to inform her of these new arrangements. She accepted it without demur or
comment, but I gained the impression that she did not greatly care for Mrs Waring.
Quite likely, I reflected, Mrs Timmis viewed the librarian as useless for
anything but endless talk, and Mrs Waring in her turn looked down on the
housekeeper as uneducated, and hence inferior. But I had made my choice, and I
would now have to try to maintain the peace in my household.
