Minnie at once instituted a new régime, under which her grandmother
received the best possible care. She waited on her devotedly, spent all
her scant leisure with her; was, as usual, faultless.
At least, that was how she appeared to her sister. Frankie honestly
could not see a fault in her. Except that she was sometimes a bit too
diplomatic, too anxious to keep things pleasant. That is, she didn’t
always tell the truth--exactly.... She was not at all abashed if she
were found out; she had always the same reply.
“I thought it was for the best.”
The long, long days went by, all alike. At five o’clock the alarm clock
rang. Minnie jumped up and closed the window, and lighted the lamp on
the bureau while Frances, pretending to be asleep, lay watching her. The
lamp-light made a little bright spot in the big shadowy room, showing
Minnie like an actress in the spotlight, only quite without
self-consciousness, dressing herself quickly, wishing only to be neat.
“I wish I weren’t a bit vain,” she would reflect. “Minnie’s so
wonderful!”
Then Minnie would go groping her way along the black corridor, stopping
always outside the old lady’s door to listen to her breathing, and,
after that, there was always a long interval of silence, before she
could be heard, coming up the stairs, slowly and carefully, with the
tray.
She always opened the door of the darkened room quietly, so that she
shouldn’t startle her grandmother, in spite of the fact that she
invariably found the old lady wide awake. Then she went at once about
the hated business of admitting a little light into the room with as
little fresh air as possible. She had first to pull up the shade, which
never would roll properly but had to be jerked up and down a number of
times, then to unlock the window and prop it up with a stick while she
struggled with the rusty catches and flung open the shutters. She set
the tray by the bedside with the unvarying question:
“How are you this morning, Grandma?” with a sort of professional
cheerfulness. “Did you have a good night?”
“Very poor, my dear,” the old lady would usually reply.
Minnie would say that she was _very_ sorry, and after asking if there
were anything else needed, would go on her way, not really at all sorry
or disturbed. She had no idea what a “poor night” meant; she had never
experienced one, never tried to imagine one. All her grandmother’s
ailments were remote, vague and without interest for her. Her sole
concern was to do her duty.
This done, she proceeded to wake Frances, and while she was dressing,
got ready their own breakfast in the kitchen. Frances usually found her
preparing an economical mixture of condensed milk and water for the
cats, with old Michael standing at her side, looking up into her face,
his pink mouth opening in a silent cry. The milk properly warmed, each
animal bent its sleek little head over its familiar saucer, lapping
steadily; now and then Michael looked up, licked his chops and seemed
about to speak, then thought better of it and went on drinking.
Minnie was not good company at breakfast time; she was too much
preoccupied with plans for the day. She had the obnoxious air of a very
busy person trying to be polite. Immediately she had finished she
hurried off to the stable, or to the cottage of Thomas Washington across
the road, or about some other of her varied undertakings.
Thomas Washington was a highly respectable Negro who had begun life as
“hired man” for their grandfather, but who had got on very well and was
now a small farmer on his own account. He was always willing to assist
Minnie with expert advice, but nothing further, unless it were to be
suitably recompensed. Thrift had made him independent and comfortable;
thrift he worshipped and practised, and it forbade him to do anything
for nothing. The gratitude of a penniless Defoe was of no value to him,
he didn’t care for it. Nevertheless he was of the greatest use to
Minnie, because he knew how to do everything and she being so very
“handy” was able to learn from his explanations. From the bedroom window
Frances used to see her talking to him over his gate, or watching him as
he illustrated some point of carpentry with grave gestures, and come
tramping home again, in her shapeless old hat and a big apron, to work
with noble cheerfulness.
Not for anything on earth would she have admitted that this cheerfulness
was genuine, that it sprang from her satisfaction at finding work within
her power, for the first time. At school, at home with Frances, she had,
in spite of her naïve conceit, always been more or less conscious of
inferiority, of being surpassed. Resolutely she covered this new
satisfaction with a veil of martyrdom, made it a sort of reproach. She
would never, never admit enjoying anything. Perhaps at the bottom of her
queer little soul she was aware that the things she truly enjoyed were
not altogether admirable--perhaps her spirit was appalled before her
mind. Provided, of course, that she possessed a spirit.
Mysteries forever unsolvable, these greedy, hypocritical, obtuse little
beings. Stupid, without sympathy, they none the less leave their impress
on the whole world. They force us to believe that their blind and
ruinous maternal passion--a perverted instinct--is a sacred and mystic
thing; they hold up to us their animal jealousy of one man as “love”;
complacently they reveal this little beast, which one loves with rage
and disgust, and cannot resist, and they call it Woman. And perhaps it
is. Perhaps those others, with hearts, with brains, with souls, are not
true women, only the freaks of nature....