As the hour was approaching six, Edwin, on the way downstairs, looked in
at the sitting-room for his father; but Darius was not there.
"Where's father?" he demanded.
"I don't know, I'm sure," said Maggie, at the sewing-machine. Maggie
was aged twenty; dark, rather stout, with an expression at once
benevolent and worried. She rarely seemed to belong to the same
generation as her brother and sister. She consorted on equal terms with
married women, and talked seriously of the same things as they did. Mr
Clayhanger treated her somewhat differently from the other two. Yet,
though he would often bid them accept her authority, he would now and
then impair that authority by roughly `dressing her down' at the
meal-table. She was a capable girl; she had much less firmness, and
much more good-nature, than she seemed to have. She could not assert
herself adequately. She `managed' very well; indeed she had `done
wonders' in filling the place of the mother who had died when Clara was
four and Edwin six, and she herself only ten. Responsibility,
apprehension, and strained effort had printed their marks on her
features. But the majority of acquaintances were more impressed by her
good intention than by her capacity; they would call her `a nice thing.'
The discerning minority, while saying with admiring conviction that she
was `a very fine girl,' would regret that somehow she had not the
faculty of `making the best of herself,' of `putting her best foot
foremost.' And would they not heartily stand up for her with the
superficial majority!
A thin, grey-haired, dreamy-eyed woman hurried into the room, bearing a
noisy tray and followed by Clara with a white cloth. This was Mrs
Nixon, the domestic staff of the Clayhanger household for years. Clara
and Mrs Nixon swept Maggie's sewing materials from the corner of the
table on to a chair, put Maggie's flower-glasses on to the ledge of the
bookcase, folded up the green cloth, and began rapidly to lay the tea.
Simultaneously Maggie, glancing at the clock, closed up her
sewing-machine, and deposited her work in a basket. Clara, leaving the
table, stooped to pick up the bits of cotton and white stuff that
littered the carpet. The clock struck six.
"Now, sharpy!" she exclaimed curtly to Edwin, who stood hesitatingly
with his hands in his pockets. "Can't you help Maggie to push that
sewing-machine into the corner?"
"What on earth's up?" he inquired vaguely, but starting forward to help
Maggie.
"_She'll_ be here in a minute," said Maggie, almost under her breath, as
she fitted on the cover of the sewing-machine.
"Who?" asked Edwin. "Oh! Auntie! I'd forgotten it was her night."
"As if anyone could forget!" murmured Clara, with sarcastic unbelief.
By this time the table was completely set.
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