“Do you mean, Sir Percival, that I am to dismiss the indoor servants
under my charge without the usual month’s warning?” I asked.
“Certainly I do. We may all be out of the house before another month,
and I am not going to leave the servants here in idleness, with no
master to wait on.”
“Who is to do the cooking, Sir Percival, while you are still staying
here?”
“Margaret Porcher can roast and boil—keep her. What do I want with a
cook if I don’t mean to give any dinner-parties?”
“The servant you have mentioned is the most unintelligent servant in
the house, Sir Percival.”
“Keep her, I tell you, and have a woman in from the village to do
the cleaning and go away again. My weekly expenses must and shall be
lowered immediately. I don’t send for you to make objections, Mrs.
Michelson—I send for you to carry out my plans of economy. Dismiss the
whole lazy pack of indoor servants to-morrow, except Porcher. She is as
strong as a horse—and we’ll make her work like a horse.”
“You will excuse me for reminding you, Sir Percival, that if the
servants go to-morrow they must have a month’s wages in lieu of a
month’s warning.”
“Let them! A month’s wages saves a month’s waste and gluttony in the
servants’ hall.”
This last remark conveyed an aspersion of the most offensive kind on
my management. I had too much self-respect to defend myself under so
gross an imputation. Christian consideration for the helpless position
of Miss Halcombe and Lady Glyde, and for the serious inconvenience
which my sudden absence might inflict on them, alone prevented me from
resigning my situation on the spot. I rose immediately. It would have
lowered me in my own estimation to have permitted the interview to
continue a moment longer.
“After that last remark, Sir Percival, I have nothing more to say. Your
directions shall be attended to.” Pronouncing those words, I bowed my
head with the most distant respect, and went out of the room.
The next day the servants left in a body. Sir Percival himself
dismissed the grooms and stablemen, sending them, with all the horses
but one, to London. Of the whole domestic establishment, indoors
and out, there now remained only myself, Margaret Porcher, and the
gardener—this last living in his own cottage, and being wanted to take
care of the one horse that remained in the stables.
With the house left in this strange and lonely condition—with the
mistress of it ill in her room—with Miss Halcombe still as helpless
as a child—and with the doctor’s attendance withdrawn from us in
enmity—it was surely not unnatural that my spirits should sink, and my
customary composure be very hard to maintain. My mind was ill at ease.
I wished the poor ladies both well again, and I wished myself away from
Blackwater Park.