The Man with the Double Heart Part 18

"_Or_ Mr. Somerfield, I s'pose..."

The barbed shaft stung the girl as she ran down the stairs, leaving Lizzie, quivering, in possession of the field.

Jill reached the bas.e.m.e.nt, breathless and angry.

"Cook!" she called at the kitchen door. A stout and slovenly woman turned slowly round from before the range.

"Yes, miss?" She wiped her greasy hands on a torn ap.r.o.n, and stood there, expectant.

"What's all this about the chicken? Lizzie tells me it hasn't come?"

"No, miss." She leaned against the table, ma.s.sive, inert, with an over-red face. Her person exhaled a faint smell of brandy and the glazed eyes completed the story.

"Then what are we going to have for dinner?"

"I'm sure I don't know, miss."

Jill gave her one look and pa.s.sed with a quick stride into the larder.

Thrown anyhow on the dingy shelves were sc.r.a.ps of fish, b.u.t.ter and suet, jars of dripping, some shrivelled apples and the scraggy remains of a leg of mutton. The closed-in place smelled of cheese and mice.

Jill explored with hopeless disgust. Too well she knew the domestic chaos that balanced her mother's political activity.

For Mrs. Uniacke had no time for "home." She scorned the narrow "sheltered life" and wore out her strength in that daily fight to prove that Woman was fitted to rule.

"This mutton now..." Jill tipped the bone onto a clean plate from its close companions.h.i.+p with a raw herring, and came back, still frowning, into the kitchen.

"You could grill it, couldn't you?" she asked sharply.

The cook, stupidly, turned it over.

"I _could_..." she debated with tipsy solemnity. "But there's only, then, enough for two."

"Well, we _are_ two!" Jill was impatient.

The cook sniffed. "More often three! ... I'm sure it's enough to drive one crazy, never knowing what's wanted. An' the tradesmen clamouring for their money ... There's the butcher to-day--'e told me straight: 'That's the last j'int you'll get from _us_!'--I've never lived in such a place...." Her voice rose. She stuck her hands on her hips and faced her young mistress.

"And I won't stay--what's more! I've always been a respectable woman ... and 'ard-working ... an' treated as such..." (The quick anger induced by spirits brought the tears to her bleary eyes.) "I'm sure if my pore 'usband was 'ere, 'e'd say: 'Martha--you clear, my girl.' 'E'd be ashamed--that's wot 'e'd be ... a butler 'e were in good service.

So you can tell yer mother, miss, I've made my mind up--an' I goes!"

With a sob of injured pride she seized the bone in a shaky hand.

"Look at that!" She brandished it under Jill's disgusted nose.

"That's been our dinner since Sunday--and _Canterb'ry_--that's what it is!"

Poor Jill swallowed hard, struggling to keep her temper in check.

Diplomacy she knew full well was the only weapon she dared use.

"Now, look here, Cook. I'm awfully sorry. But I don't want to bother Mother. She's not well--and she's worried to death ... You know what it is to feel bad."

"That I do, Miss Jill!" The cook, mollified, wiped her eyes. "I'm sure with my 'eart as is always flutt'ring--an' the 'ot kitchen--an'

pore food ... I didn't ought to do scrubbing--it's a crool shame at my age ... But there..." the facile sentiment born of alcohol was bubbling up and drowning anger. "I don't want to upset yer, miss. Yer don't 'ave too gay a life, you an' Master Roddy--bless 'im!--as always 'as a kind word for Cook..."

She maundered on as Jill retreated, aware that the crisis was postponed.

"That's right, Cookie--you'll see to it? You always make a ripping grill."

"And may Heaven forgive me for the fib," she added as she ran upstairs.

"I wonder why it's such a muddle? Always changing servants like this?"

But in her heart she knew the fault lay in the lack of proper management. The justice of her clear young brain told her that never could they expect a good cla.s.s of maid to stay in this disorganized "f.e.c.kless" house! The discomfort of the servants' quarters, the wretched food and poor pay forced Mrs. Uniacke to take the riff-raff whose characters held obvious flaws--like the unsober creature below or Lizzie, lazy and insolent.

And it struck the girl with sudden force that her Mother was giving up her life to secure the Vote with the main object of ameliorating the condition of women.

Yet here in her own small kingdom were servants badly housed and fed, expected to work for a barren wage sixteen hours without complaint.

And there was Roddy--her own brother--with riddled socks and worn-out clothes at a cheap school, while his mother spent their meagre surplus in outside expenses involved by this omnivorous Cause!

A memory of old times when her father lived rose in her mind. For Colonel Uniacke had held a firm rule over the house. In common with many retired officers, he supervised the daily menage, with the result that when he died his wife missed his wise authority.

And if they couldn't govern their houses--Jill's active mind ran on--with the skill of the "old-fas.h.i.+oned woman," how were they going to govern the Empire?

It came to her with a sudden flash of childish insight that, in the new, inexorable cry of her s.e.x, the Usefulness of the Individual was being carelessly swept aside for the dangerous Power of the Ma.s.s.

She had reached by now the second floor, immersed in her sombre thoughts, when she heard the front door open and paused to lean over the rail.

"That you, darling?" she called down--"it's so late--I was getting anxious."

She checked the impulse to retrace her steps as she saw below the shadow of Stephen.

Slowly toiling up the stairs, Mrs. Uniacke appeared, with a worn face where dark circles heightened the brilliance of her eyes.

"Oh, Mother--how tired you look!--and wet through..." Jill's hands ran with anxious fondness over the coat that shrouded the fragile form.

The older woman smiled feebly.

"I've had a hard day, Jill." She kissed her daughter's fresh cheek and moved on shakily into the bedroom.

"What luxury!"--her thin hands went out to the cheerful blaze--"did you tell Lizzie to light it, dear?"

"Yes. I washed my head, you see," Jill explained, "and I thought--it's _so_ cold to-night--I could dry it here by your fire and then it would warm your room for you."

"It's very nice." Her mother sank down in the armchair as she spoke.

Jill, with quick fingers, undid her veil and removed the soaking hat.

"Now, your boots..." She began to unlace them. "I put your slippers to toast--there, isn't that nice? Look here, darling, just to please me, won't you go straight to bed?"

"I can't." Mrs. Uniacke sighed. "I've brought Stephen back to dinner.