AMELIA EXPRESSES HER OPINION OF ME
And so I have settled down to my year of inactivity, of schooling my
temper, of a constant looking for and waiting for Dimbie, and of a
perpetual wrestling with Amelia.
When I told the last-named of my misfortune she just stood and stared
at me. I thought she could not have understood, or surely there would
be a word of sympathy. She was kind at heart I knew.
"Twelve whole months on my back," I repeated plaintively.
"And never have a bath, mum?"
"Don't be silly," I said irritably. "Of course arrangements will be
made for my baths. And all the rooms are to be rearranged. The doctor
wishes me to be carried downstairs. The dining-room is to be turned
into my bedroom, then I can be wheeled across to the drawing-room each
day; and the smoke-room will be used for meals.
"The smoke-room is full of bicycles and photographic rubbish," she said
argumentatively.
"Well, they can be moved. Don't throw stumbling-blocks in the way of
every suggestion. Are you not sorry for me?" I said.
"Very, mum," she assured me with warmth. "I knows how you will take
on. No one is never satisfied with anythink in this world. Now here,
I would give my very heyes to be a grand lady reclinin' on a couch in a
beautiful tea-gown, readin' novels, and drinkin' egg and sherry twice a
day."
"You would get very tired of it," I sighed.
"Well, you'll have to have a settled hoccupation, mum--makin' wool mats
like the work'us people, though I must say as they don't like it. My
uncle says they used to be quite peaceful and happy till them Brabazon
ladies came along and taught 'em how to make wool mats and rush
baskets. They worried about the patterns of them mats till the old men
was drove fairly silly. P'r'aps you could write poetry. You has a bit
of a look sometimes of a person--I mean a lady who _could_ write
poetry. There was a poet as visited Tompkinses'--a sickly-looking gent
with hair like a door-mat and a complexion like leeks which has been
boiled without soda. Tompkinses was very proud of knowing him, and the
heldest Miss Tompkins used to wear her canary-coloured satin blouse
when he came to dinner. When the wine was offered him he always said,
'No, thanks,' in a habstracted way, but when it went round the table
again, as wine does, he'd fill a tumbler, and frown at the ceiling, and
pretend he didn't know what he was doing."
"And do I look like a leek that has been boiled without soda?" I asked
faintly.
"Oh, no, mum," Amelia replied with comforting haste, "not quite so bad
yet. You've looked more like a love-lies-bleeding just lately since
you had your accident--though the master seems satisfied. Everybody's
tastes is different. Love-lies-bleeding is not my fancy. I like
something handsome and straight up like a sunflower or pee-ony.
Writin' poetry would help to pass the time, and you has some of the
tricks this poet had. He'd stand and stare at the moon, when he was in
the garden with Miss Tompkins, and mutter to it like someone gone daft.
He fairly skeered me; and he'd take on at catchin' sight of a vi'let as
though he'd met a cockroach."
"Well?" I asked, trying to see the connection.
"Well, mum, I catched you carryin' on in just the same way in the
garden on master's birthday. You was starin' up at the sky at a
lark--I was going to the ashpit--and I heard you say softly to
yourself, 'Bird, thou never wert.' I couldn't help hearing you, and I
wondered whether you thought it was a kitten or a spider."
I laughed, though I didn't want to do so. I was hideously depressed at
the thought of that glorious spring morning and now--but Amelia was so
very ridiculous.
I watched her dusting, which was vigorous and thorough, and wished she
would put Ruth, a picture above the mantelshelf, at a more decorous
angle.
"I have been thinking that you won't be able to manage the housework
alone without my assistance, Amelia," I observed, when she had finished
brandishing the duster about and had stopped squeaking. "We shall have
to engage a charwoman to help you a couple of days a week. We can't
afford another servant, I am sorry, but a charwoman will be very
helpful. Then if I sent all the washing out I think you could manage.
Oh, and I will have a window cleaner," I added encouragingly.
I thought she would be pleased. I imagined servants loved charwomen.
I know I should were I a servant--so nice to have someone to talk to,
and into whose willing ear to pour tales about the mistress. But
Amelia snorted so violently she made me jump.
"Charwoman!" It would be difficult to convey the scorn in her voice.
"Charwoman helpful?"
"Aren't they?" I inquired.
Amelia flung herself towards the door.
"You'd never seen a flue-brush, mum, and now you asks if a charwoman is
helpful."
I remained silent, overwhelmed by my own ignorance.
Amelia fetched a piece of wet, soapy flannel, and applied it to some of
her own finger-marks on the white door. I felt glad she was working
off her feelings in this way.
"What do they go out for?" I said at length.
"Just to rob the silly folks who engages 'em," she replied laconically.
"Are they all like that?"
"Everyone as I met. It took me best part of a day to clean up after
her as came to Tompkinses'. She swilled herself in beer and tea, had
meat three times a day, and hung tea and butter round her waist under
her skirt just like a bustle when she went away in the evening."
"But surely she was an exception?" I commented.
"No, mum, they're all like that, every one of 'em," she replied firmly.
"But how are you going to manage now I am laid up?"
She hesitated for a moment, perhaps out of consideration for my
feelings, but her own got the better of her.
"I shall manage all right," said she briskly. "In fact, I shall get
along much better. Your helping hindered me terribly, mum. I hope as
I'm not hurtin' your feelin's. You see," she added kindly, "you 'adn't
been used to work, not with four servants; and when you did anythink I
always had to be runnin' after you to wipe up the mess. You said you'd
fill the lamps; well, you did when you wasn't putting the paraffin on
the table--there was that to scrub, and your gloves and scissors to put
away. And the day as you said you'd make a puddin', well--the sultanas
was lying about like blackbeetles, mum, and flour all over the place
just like a snowstorm. And it was, 'Amelia, put the pan on, please,'
and 'Amelia, take it off,' and 'Amelia, put some coal on the fire, the
puddin' water's stopped boilin',' and 'Amelia, the puddin's boiled
dry.'"
She stopped for breath, and I looked drearily through the window.
"Hope you're not offended, mum, but I wanted you to hunderstand as how
I could manage all right."
"I quite understand," I replied. "No, I am not offended. I am afraid
I am not of much use in the world, Amelia," and I sighed.
"But the master doesn't seem to want you any different, mum," she said
comfortingly. "He sits and looks at you as though you had won a prize
at a show. Mr. Tompkins used to stare at his black prize Minorca just
in the same hidentical way."
"His black Minorca?" I repeated vaguely.
"Yes, mum. One of his hens as got a first prize, and was a rare layer."
"Oh!" I murmured.
"I must go now," she said, "and put the potatoes on for your lunch.
And don't you fret about the work, mum. As soon as ever nurse has
gone, who makes a power of mess, I shall have plenty of time and to
spare, and can put a patch on my pink body."
"What, another?" I almost shouted. "That will make the seventh."
She regarded me with uplifted brows.
"You don't want the bones of my stays to come through, mum?"
"Oh, no," I assured her quickly. "But is it necessary to have quite so
many bones? I have only about six altogether."
She looked me up and down with an eye devoid of any admiration.
"Of course, I don't wear corsets at all now," I hastened to explain.
"My figger has always been my strong point, mum, and I'm not goin' to
let myself go. Of course, you're thin, mum, so it doesn't matter so
much. But people who lets themselves go always has big waists, like
the statues in picture galleries. I once went to a show in
Whitechapel, and I says to the girl who went along with me 'I'd be
downright ashamed if I couldn't show a smaller waist than that Venus.'
I expect yours will be pretty big when you gets about again," with
which comforting prediction she retired to the lower regions and left
me with this pleasing prospect and my own thoughts, which were not of
the most cheerful description. It is hard to be told that one is of no
use in the world, and to be compared with a black prize Minorca,
however good a layer!