And all this while Letty was in the dining-room, learning certain
lessons from her new-found friend.
For some little time she had been alone. Steptoe finished his
conversation with Miss Walbrook on the telephone, but did not come
back. She sat at the table feeding Beppo with bread and milk, but
wondering if, after all, she hadn't better make a bolt for it. She had
had her breakfast, which was an asset to the good, and nothing worse
could happen to her out in the open world than she feared in this
great dim, gloomy house. She had once crept in to look at the
cathedral and, overwhelmed by its height, immensity, and mystery, had
crept out again. Its emotional suggestions had been more than she
could bear. She felt now as if her bed had been made and her food laid
out in that cathedral--as if, as long as she remained, she must eat
and sleep in this vast, pillared solemnity.
And that was only one thing. There were small practical considerations
even more terrible to confront. If Nettie were to appear again ...
But it was as to this that Steptoe was making his appeal. "I sye,
girls, don't you go to mykin' a fuss and spoilin' your lives, when
you've got a chanst as'll never come again."
Mrs. Courage answered for them all. To sacrifice decency to
self-interest wasn't in them, nor never would be. Some there might be,
like 'Enery Steptoe, who would sell their birthright for a mess of
pottage, but Mary Ann Courage was not of that company, nor any other
woman upon whom she could use her influence. If a hussy had been put
to reign over them, reigned over by a hussy none of them would be. All
they asked was to see her once, to deliver the ultimatum of giving
notice.
"It's a strynge thing to me," Steptoe reasoned, "that when one poor
person gets a lift, every other poor person comes down on 'em."
"And might we arsk who you means by poor persons?"
"Who should I mean, Mrs. Courage, but people like us? If we don't 'ang
by each other, who _will_ 'ang by us, I should like to know? 'Ere's
one of us plyced in a 'igh position, and instead o' bein' proud of it,
and givin' 'er a lift to carry 'er along, you're all for mykin' it as
'ard for 'er as you can. Do you call that sensible?"
"I call it sensible for everyone to stye in their proper spere."
"So that if a man's poor, you must keep 'im poor, no matter 'ow 'e
tries to better 'imself. That's what your proper speres would come
to."
But argument being of no use, Steptoe could only make up his mind to
revolution in the house. "The poor's very good to the poor when one of
'em's in trouble," was his summing up, "but let one of 'em 'ave an
extry stroke of luck, and all the rest'll jaw against 'im like so many
magpies." As a parting shot he declared on leaving the kitchen, "The
trouble with you girls is that you ain't got no class spunk, and
that's why, in sperrit, you'll never be nothink but menials."
This lack of _esprit de corps_ was something he couldn't understand,
but what he understood less was the need of the heart to touch
occasionally the high points of experience. Mrs. Courage and Jane, to
say nothing of Nettie, after thirty years of domestic routine had
reached the place where something in the way of drama had become
imperative. The range and the pantry produce inhibitions as surely as
the desk or the drawing-room. On both natures inhibitions had been
packed like feathers on a seabird, till the soul cried out to be
released from some of them. It might mean going out from the home that
had sheltered them for years, and breaking with all their traditions,
but now that the chance was there, neither could refuse it. To a
virtuous woman, starched and stiffened in her virtue, steeped in it,
dyed in it, permeated by it through and through, nothing so stirs the
dramatic, so quickens the imagination, so calls the spirit to the
purple emotional heights, as contact with the sister she knows to be a
hussy. For Jane Cakebread and Mary Ann Courage the opportunity was
unique.
"Then I'll go. I'll go straight now."
As Steptoe brought the information that the three women of the
household were coming to announce the resignation of their posts,
Letty sprang to her feet.
"May I arsk madam to sit down again and let me explyne?"
Taking this as an order, she sank back into her chair again. He stood
confronting her as before, one hand resting lightly on the table.
"Nothink so good won't 'ave 'appened in this 'ouse since old Mrs.
Allerton went to work and died."
Letty's eyes shone with their tiny fires, not in pleasure but in
wonder.
"When old servants is good, they're good, but even when they're good,
there's times when you can't 'elp wishin' as 'ow the Lord 'ud be
pleased to tyke them to 'Imself."
He allowed this to sink in before going further.
"The men's all right, for the most part. Indoor work comes natural to
'em, and they'll swing it without no complynts. But with the women
it's kick, kick, kick, and when they're worn theirselves out with
kickin', they'll begin to kick again. What's plye for a man, for them
ain't nothink but slyvery."
Letty listened as one receiving revelations from another world.
"I ain't what they call a woman-'ater. _I_ believe as God made woman
for a purpose. Only I can't bring myself to think as the human race
'as rightly found out yet what that purpose is. God's wyes is always
dark, and when it comes to women, they're darker nor they are
elsewheres. One thing I do know, and we'll be a lot more comfortable
when more of us finds it out--that God never made women for the
'ome."
In spite of her awe of him, Letty found this doctrine difficult to
accept.
"If God didn't make 'em for the home, mister, where on earth would you
put 'em?"
The wintry color came out again on the old man's cheeks. "If madam
would call me Steptoe," he said ceremoniously, "I think she'd find it
easier. I mean," he went on, reverting to the original theme, "that 'E
didn't make 'em to be cooks and 'ousemaids and parlormaids, and all
that. That's men's work. Men'll do it as easy as a bird'll sing. I
never see the woman yet as didn't fret 'erself over it, like a wild
animal'll fret itself in a circus cage. It spiles women to put 'em to
'ousework, like it always spiles people to put 'em to jobs for which
the Lord didn't give 'em no haptitude."
Letty was puzzled, but followed partially.
"I've watched 'em and watched 'em, and it's always the syme tyle.
They'll go into service young and joyous like, but it won't be two or
three years before they'll have growed cat-nasty like this 'ere Jyne
Cykebread and Mary Ann Courage. Madam 'ud never believe what sweet
young things they was when I first picked 'em out--Mrs. Courage a
young widow, and Jynie as nice a girl as madam 'ud wish to see, only
with the features what Mrs. Allerton used to call a little
hover-haccentuated. And now--!" He allowed the conditions to speak for
themselves without criticizing further.
"It's keepin' 'em in a 'ome what's done it. They knows it
theirselves--and yet they don't. Inside they've got the sperrits of
young colts that wants to kick up their 'eels in the pasture. They
don't mean no worse nor that, only when people comes to Jynie's age
and Mrs. Courage's they 'ave to kick up their 'eels in their own wye.
If madam'll remember that, and be pytient with them like------"
Letty cried in alarm, "But it's got nothin' to do with me!"
"If madam'll excuse me, it's got everything to do with 'er. She's the
missus of this 'ouse."
"Oh, no, I ain't. Mr. Allerton just brung me here----"
Once more there was the delicate emphasis with which he had corrected
other slips. "Mr. Allerton _brought_ madam, and told me to see that
she was put in 'er proper plyce. If madam'll let me steer the thing,
I'll myke it as easy for 'er as easy."
He reflected as to how to make the situation clear to her. "I've been
readin' about the time when our lyte Queen Victoria come to the throne
as quite a young girl. She didn't know nothin' about politics or
presidin' at councils or nothin'. But she had a prime minister--a kind
of hupper servant, you might sye--'er servant was what 'e always
called 'imself--and whatever 'e told 'er to do, she done. Walked
through it all, you might sye, till she got the 'ang of it, but once
she did get the 'ang of it--well, there wasn't no big-bug in the world
that our most grycious sovereign lydy couldn't put it all hover on."
Once more he allowed her time to assimilate this parable.
"Now if madam would only think of 'erself as called in youth to reign
hover this 'ouse----"
"Oh, but I couldn't!"
"And yet it's madam's duty, now that she's married to its 'ead----"
"Yes, but he didn't marry me like that. He married me--all queer like.
This was the way."
She poured out the story, while Steptoe listened quietly. There being
no elements in it of the kind he called "shydy," he found it romantic.
No one had ever suspected the longings for romance which had filled
his heart and imagination when he was a poor little scullion boy; but
the memory of them, with some of the reality, was still fresh in his
hidden inner self. Now it seemed as if remotely and vicariously
romance might be coming to him after all, through the boy he adored.
On her tale his only comment was to say: "I've been readin'--I'm a
great reader," he threw in parenthetically, "wonderful exercise for
the mind, and learns you things which you wouldn't be likely to 'ear
tell of--but I've been readin' about a king--I'll show you 'is nyme in
the book--what fell in love with a beggar myde----"
"Oh, but Mr. Allerton didn't fall in love with me."
"That remynes to be seen."
She lifted her hands in awed amazement. "Mister--I mean,
Steptoe--you--you don't think----?"
The subway dream of love at first sight was as tenacious in her soul
as the craving for romance in his.
He nodded. "I've known strynger things to 'appen."
"But--but--he couldn't--" it was beyond her power of expression,
though Steptoe knew what she meant--"not _him_!"
He answered judicially. "'E may come to it. It'll be a tough job to
bring 'im--but if madam'll be guided by me------"
Letty collapsed. Her spirit grew faint as the spirit of Christian when
he descried far off the walls of the Celestial City, with the Dark
River rolling between him and it. Letty knew the Dark River must be
there, but if beyond it there lay the slightest chance of the
Celestial City....
She came back to herself, as it were, on hearing Steptoe say that the
procession from the kitchen would presently begin to form itself.
"Now if madam'll be guided by me she'll meet this situytion fyce to
fyce."
"Oh, but I'd never know what to say."
"Madam won't need to say nothink. She won't 'ave to speak. 'Ere
they'll troop in--" a gesture described Mrs. Courage leading the
advance through the doorway--"and 'ere they'll stand. Madam'll sit
just where she's sittin'--a little further back from the
tyble--lookin' over the mornin' pyper like--" he placed the paper in
her hand--"and as heach gives notice, madam'll just bow 'er 'ead.
See?"
Madam saw, but not exactly.
"Now if she'll just move 'er chair----"
The chair was moved in such a way as to make it seem that the
occupant, having finished her breakfast, was giving herself a little
more space.
"And if madam would remove 'er 'at and jacket, she'd--she'd seem more
like the lydy of the 'ouse at 'ome."
Letty took off these articles of apparel, which Steptoe whisked out of
sight.
"Now I'll be Mrs. Courage comin' to sye, 'Madam, I wish to give
notice.' Madam'll lower the pyper just enough to show 'er inclinin' of
'er 'ead, assentin' to Mrs. Courage leavin' 'er. Mrs. Courage will be
all for 'avin' words--she's a great 'and for words, Mrs. Courage
is--but if madam won't sye nothin' at all, the wind'll be out o' Mrs.
Courage's syles like. Now, will madam be so good----?"
Having passed out into the hall, he entered with Mrs. Courage's
majestic gait, pausing some three feet from the table to say:
"Madam, things bein' as they are, and me not wishin' to stye no longer
in the 'ouse where I've served so many years, I beg to give notice
that I'm a givin' of notice and mean to quit right off."
Letty lowered the paper from before her eyes, jerking her head
briskly.
"Ye-es," Steptoe commended doubtfully, "a lettle too--well, too
habrupt, as you might sye. Most lydies--real 'igh lydies, like the
lyte Mrs. Allerton--inclines their 'ead slow and gryceful like. First,
they throws it back a bit, so as to get a purchase on it, and then
they brings it forward calm like, lowerin' it stytely--Perhaps if
madam'ud be me for a bit--that 'ud be Mrs. Courage--and let me sit
there and be 'er, I could show 'er----"
The places were reversed. It was Letty who came in as Mrs. Courage,
while Steptoe, seated in the chair, lowered the paper to the degree
which he thought dignified. Letty mumbled something like the words the
hypothetical Mrs. Courage was presumed to use, while Steptoe slowly
threw back his head for the purchase, bringing it forward in
condescending grace. Language could not have given Mrs. Courage so
effective a retort courteous.
Letty was enchanted. "Oh, Steptoe, let me have another try. I believe
I could swing the cat."
Again the places were reversed. Steptoe having repeated the role of
Mrs. Courage, Letty imitated him as best she could in getting the
purchase for her bow and catching his air of high-bred condescension.
"Better," he approved, "if madam wouldn't lower 'er 'ead _quite_ so
far back'ard. You see, madam, a lydy don't _know_ she's throwin' back
'er 'ead so as to get a grip on it. She does it unconscious like,
because bein' of a 'aughty sperrit she 'olds it 'igh natural. If
madam'll only stiffen 'er neck like, as if sperrit 'ad made 'er about
two inches taller than she is----"
Having seized this idea, Letty tried again, with such success that
Mrs. Courage was disposed of. Jane Cakebread followed next, with
Nettie last of all. Unaware of his possession of histrionic ability,
Steptoe gave to each character its outstanding traits, fluttering like
Jane, and giggling like Nettie, not in zeal for a newly discovered
interpretative art, but in order that Letty might be nowhere caught at
a disadvantage. He was delighted with her quickness in imitation.
"Couldn't 'ave done that better myself," he declared after Nettie had
been dismissed for the third or fourth time. "When it comes to the
inclinin' of the 'ead I should sye as madam was about letter-perfect,
as they sye on the styge. If Mr. Rash was to see it, 'e'd swear as 'is
ma 'ad come back again."
A muffled sound proceeded from the back part of the hallway, with
some whispering and once or twice Nettie's stifled cackle of a laugh.
"'Ere they are," he warned her. "Madam must be firm and control
'erself. There's nothink for 'er to be afryde of. Just let 'er think
of the lyte Queen Victoria, called to the throne when younger even
than madam is----"
A shuffling developed into one lone step, heavy, stately, and
funereal. Doing her best to emulate the historic example held up to
her, Letty lengthened her neck and stiffened it. A haughty spirit
seemed to rise in her by the mere process of the elongation. She was
so nervous that the paper shook in her hand, but she knew that if the
Celestial City was to be won, she could shrink from no tests which
might lead her on to victory.
Steptoe had relapsed into the major-domo's office, announcing from the
doorway, "Mrs. Courage to see madam, if madam will be pleased to
receive 'er."
Madam indicated that she was so pleased, scrambling after the standard
of the maiden sovereign of Windsor Castle giving audience to princes
and ambassadors.