By the time the Armistice was signed, Mr. Lambe had become richer than
ever.
He entertained his friends even more often to dinner, and gave them
better wine, although it had always been so good before. He increased
Mrs. Lambe’s allowance for the housekeeping, and frequently gave her
presents of money to be spent upon herself or the little girls. He
would have given Aunt Tessie money too, but she had grown even queerer
in the course of the past year, and it was only too evident that what
had been called her “eccentricity” was now becoming something much more
serious. For the very first time, there was trouble with the maids.
They did not like waiting on Miss Lambe. It was no wonder, either, poor
Mrs. Lambe was forced to admit.
Aunt Tessie was untidy, even dirty, and as the housemaid once pertly
remarked, her bedroom only needed three gold balls over the door. She
kept things to eat upstairs, and scattered crumbs everywhere.
The parlour-maid, speaking for herself and for the housemaid, declared
that it was quite impossible to do the proper work of the house and to
clear up after Miss Lambe as well.
In another moment she would have given notice.... Mrs. Lambe could see
it coming.
Hastily she sent for Emma, the little between-maid, and informed her
that in future she would have the sole care of Miss Lambe’s bedroom and
her sitting-room, and would wait upon her, instead of the housemaid.
She at the same time raised Emma’s wages by two pounds a year, for she
always tried to be very just.
Emma was only seventeen, and a very childish little thing, and Mrs.
Lambe had not expected her to raise any objection to the new scheme;
but it was surprising, although satisfactory, to find that Emma seemed
to be actually pleased by it.
She said “Yes’m,” a good many times, and smiled at her mistress as
though joyfully accepting a form of promotion.
Mrs. Lambe was relieved, the parlour-maid and the housemaid did
not give notice, and even Aunt Tessie--very difficult to please
nowadays--appeared contented and satisfied.
But she was getting worse all the time.
It became more and more embarrassing when visitors came to Melrose.
The old lady always found out when anyone was expected, and the more
people were coming the noisier and more excited she became.
One dreadful Sunday there were guests for luncheon--two of Edgar’s
important clients, and little Ena’s godfather--a rich old bachelor
cousin--and two unmarried ladies, friends of Mrs. Lambe’s maiden days.
She was always very faithful to her friends.
Aunt Tessie actually pranced downstairs and met some of these people
in the hall as they arrived, and greeted them boisterously, and so
incoherently that really they might almost have been excused for
thinking that she had been taking too much to drink.
Mrs. Lambe, hastening downstairs from her own room, could hear it all,
although she could not see it, and it was thus that she afterwards
described it to Edgar.
“So glad--so glad to see you!” shouted Aunt Tessie. “This fine
house--always open, and my nephew is so generous and hospitable. They
take advantage, sometimes--there are bad people about, very bad people.
Sometimes they make attempts ... one’s life isn’t as safe as it looks,
I can assure you....”
She had thrown out such ridiculous and yet sinister hints once or twice
lately. But what _could_ the poor guests think of it all?
They were very polite, and soon saw that the best thing to do was
to ignore Aunt Tessie as far as possible, and pretend not to hear
when she talked, and not to see when she shuffled about the room,
upsetting ornaments here and there, and every now and then whisking
round suddenly to look behind her as though she expected someone or
something to be following her. Once she shouted very loud, “Get out, I
tell you! I can _smell_ the poison from here!...” But after the first
involuntary, startled silence, everyone began simultaneously to talk
again, and very soon after that, luncheon was announced.
Mrs. Lambe saw that her husband, talking to his principal guest and
smiling a great deal, kept on all the time turning an anxious eye
towards Aunt Tessie, and this emboldened her to do what she had never
done before.
She put her hand on the old lady’s arm, and detained her whilst the
others were all going into the dining-room.
“Dear auntie,” she said, speaking low and very gently, “I’m sure you’re
not well. You look so flushed and tired. All these people are really
too much for you. Do let Emma carry your lunch upstairs on a tray and
have it comfortably in your own room.”
But it was of no use.
Aunt Tessie, her looks and her manner stranger than ever, vociferated
an incoherent refusal, mixed up with something about Emma, to whom she
had taken a violent fancy.
“A good girl--the only one you can trust. She never _plots against
people_!” Aunt Tessie shouted, nodding her head with wild emphasis, and
rolling her eyeballs round in their sockets.
Mrs. Lambe could do nothing. She dared not let Aunt Tessie sit next to
any of the visitors, and of course she herself had to have one of the
important clients upon either side of her, but she made Ena and Evelyn,
who were lunching downstairs in honour of the godfather’s presence,
take their places one on each side of their extraordinary old relative.
Evelyn, who was very little, began to whine and protest, but Mrs. Lambe
pretended not to hear. She knew that Evelyn’s attention was always very
easily distracted. She felt much more afraid of Ena, and her heart sank
when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aunt Tessie officiously
trying to put Ena’s long curls away from her shoulders.
The little girl’s fair, pretty face turned black with scowls in an
instant, and she twitched herself away from the big, heavy, mottled
hand fumbling clumsily at her neck, and sat with her back as nearly as
possible turned to Aunt Tessie.
One couldn’t really blame the poor children for disliking her so
much, but it was very bad for them ... it made them naughty and
ill-mannered....
Poor Mrs. Lambe could only give half her attention to her guests, and
she saw that Edgar, too, underneath his geniality and his urgent and
repeated invitations that everyone should have more food and more wine,
was anxious and ill at ease.
Every now and then Aunt Tessie’s strident tones rose above all the
other sounds in the big, hot dining-room.
“Not any more--no. They put things into one’s food sometimes, and then
they think one doesn’t notice. But the one who waits on me--Emma, her
name is--she’s all right. You can trust her.”
Aunt Tessie’s words, no less than her emphasis on Emma’s
trustworthiness, would of course be noticed, and bitterly resented,
by the other two servants, waiting deftly and quietly at the table.
But neither of them moved a muscle, even when she went on to something
worse.
“Never put any confidence in upper servants,” declared Aunt Tessie,
leaning across the table and almost shouting. “They may be civil
enough, but they plot and plan behind people’s backs. There’s cases in
the newspapers very often ... it’s ... it’s murder, really, you know.
They call it accidental, but sometimes it’s poisoning. One can’t be too
auspicious--suspicious, I should say.”
She paused to laugh vacantly at her own slip of the tongue, and to let
her eyes rove all over the table as though in search of something.
Mr. Lambe clumsily wrenched at the conversation: “Talking about
newspaper reports, that was a curious case in Staffordshire....”
The visitors seconded him gamely, and Aunt Tessie’s voice was overborne
and heard again only in snatches.
Mrs. Lambe, however, was very much upset, and she ordered coffee to be
brought to the drawing-room so as to make a move as soon as possible.
Things were a little better in the drawing-room. Ena and Evelyn were
soon screaming and romping round Ena’s godfather, and one of Maude’s
humble friends, perhaps feeling that she owed her something in return
for the splendid luncheon and lavish hospitality, sat in the bow-window
with Aunt Tessie and kept her away from the rest of the room. This was
a great relief, although it led to an uncomfortable moment when the
party was breaking up, and Aunt Tessie, vehemently taking leave of her
kind companion, actually caught up a little gilt trifle from Maude’s
knick-knack shelf and tried to press it upon her acceptance.
Miss Mason was very tactful, pretending with rather an embarrassed look
to accept the impossible gift, and secretly slipping it on to a table
near the door as she went out.
Aunt Tessie did not see, but Maude did. She was nearly crying by the
time it was all over and everyone had gone away. The children had been
sent upstairs again, and Aunt Tessie’s heavy footsteps had taken her to
her own part of the house.
Curiously enough, she and Edgar hardly spoke to one another about the
disastrous subject, but Maude Lambe knew very well that he now, as well
as she, fully realised the discomfort and humiliation entailed upon the
whole household by his too-generous treatment of Aunt Tessie.