The Precipice Part 2

If the approaching clatter gave warning that the mistress was returning to the house Mashutka quickly took off her dirty ap.r.o.n and wiped her hands on a towel or a bit of rag, as the case might be. Spitting on her hands she smoothed down her dry, rebellious hair, and covered the round table with the finest of clean tablecloths. Va.s.silissa, silent, serious, of the same age as her mistress, buxom, but faded with much confinement indoors, would bring in the silver service with the steaming coffee.

Mashutka effaced herself as far as possible in a corner. The mistress insisted on cleanliness in her servants, but Mashutka had no gift for keeping herself spotless. When her hands were clean she could do nothing, but felt as if everything would slip through her fingers. If she was told to do her hair on Sunday, to wash and to put on tidy clothes, she felt the whole day as if she had been sewn into a sack. She only seemed to be happy when, smeared and wet with was.h.i.+ng the boards, the windows, the silver, or the doors, she had become almost unrecognisable, and had, if she wanted to rub her nose or her eyebrows, to use her elbow.

Va.s.silissa, on the contrary, respected herself, and was the only tidy woman among all the servants. She had been in the service of her mistress since her earliest days as her personal maid, had never been separated from her, knew every detail of her life, and now lived with her as housekeeper and confidential servant. The two women communicated with one another in monosyllables. Tatiana Markovna hardly needed to give instructions to Va.s.silissa, who knew herself what had to be done.

If something unusual was required, her mistress did not give orders, but suggested that this or that should be done.

Va.s.silissa was the only one of her subjects whom Tatiana Markovna addressed by her full name. If she did address them by their baptismal names they were names that could not be compressed nor clipped, as for example Ferapont or Panteleimon. The village elder she did indeed address as Stepan Va.s.silich, but the others were to her Matroshka, Mashutka, Egorka and so on. The unlucky individual whom she addressed with his Christian name and patronymic knew that a storm was impending.

"Here, Egor Prokhorich! where were you all day yesterday?" Or "Simeon Va.s.silich, you smoked a pipe yesterday in the hayrick. Take care!"

She would get up in the middle of the night to convince herself that a spark from a pipe had not set fire to anything, or that there was not someone walking about the yard or the coachhouse with a lantern.

Under no consideration could the gulf between the "people" and the family be bridged. She was moderately strict and moderately considerate, kindly, but always within the limits of her ideas of government. If Irene, Matrona or another of the maids gave birth to a child, she listened to the report of the event with an air of injured dignity, but gave Va.s.silissa to understand that the necessaries should be provided; and would add, "Only don't let me see the good-for-nothing." After Matrona or Irene had recovered she would keep out of her mistress's sight for a month or so; then it was as if nothing had happened, and the child was put out in the village.

If any of her people fell sick, Tatiana got up in the night, sent him spirits and embrocation, but next day she would send him either to the infirmary or oftener to the "wise woman," but she did not send for a doctor. But if one of her own relatives, her "grandchildren" showed a bad tongue, or a swollen face, Kirusha or Vla.s.s must immediately ride post haste to the town for the doctor.

The "wise woman" was a woman in the suburbs who treated the "people"

with simple remedies, and rapidly relieved them of their maladies. It did, indeed, happen that many a man remained crippled for life after her treatment. One lost his voice and could only crow, another lost an eye, or a piece of his jawbone, but the pain was gone and he went back to work. That seemed satisfactory to the patient as well as the proprietor of the estate. And as the "wise woman" only concerned herself with humble people, with serfs and the poorer cla.s.ses, the medical profession did not interfere with her.

Tatiana Markovna fed her servants decently with cabbage soup and groats, on feast-days with rye and mutton; at Christmas geese and pigs were roasted. She allowed nothing out of the common on the servants' table or in their dress, but she gave the surplus from her own table now to one woman, now to another.

Va.s.silissa drank tea immediately after her mistress; after her came the maids in the house, and last old Yakob. On feast days, on account of the hardness of their work, a gla.s.s of brandy was handed to the coachman, the menservants and the Starost.

As soon as the tea was cleared away in the morning a stout, chubby-faced woman pushed her way into the room, always smiling. She was maid to the grandchildren, Veroshka and Marfinka. Close at her heels the twelve-year-old a.s.sistant, and together they brought the children to breakfast.

Never knowing which of the two to kiss first, Tatiana Markovna would begin: "Well, my birdies, how are you? Veroshka, darling, you have brushed your hair?"

"And me, Granny, me," Marfinka would cry.

"Why are Marfinka's eyes red? Has she been crying?" Tatiana Markovna inquired anxiously of the maid. "The sun has dazzled her. Are her curtains well drawn, you careless girl? I must see."

In the maid's room sat three or four young girls who sat all day long sewing, or making bobbin lace, without once stretching their limbs all day, because the mistress did not like to see idle hands. In the ante-room there sat idly the melancholy Yakob, Egorka, who was sixteen and always laughing, with two or three lackeys. Yakob did nothing but wait at table, where he idly flicked away the flies, and as idly changed the plates. He was almost too idle to speak, and when the visitors addressed him he answered in a tone indicating excessive boredom or a guilty conscience. Because he was quiet, never seriously drunk, and did not smoke, his master had made him butler; he was also very zealous at church.

{1} Tatiana Markovna was addressed by her grand-nieces and her grand-nephew as Grandmother.

CHAPTER III

Boris came in on his aunt during the children's breakfast. Tatiana Markovna clapped her hands and all but jumped from her chair; the plates were nearly shaken off the table.

"Borushka, tiresome boy! You have not even written, but descend like a thunderclap. How you frightened me!"

She took his head in her hands, looked for a full minute into his face, and would have wept, but she glanced away at his mother's portrait, and sighed.

"Well, well!" she seemed to say, but in fact said nothing, but smiled and wiped away her tears with her handkerchief. "Your mother's boy," she cried, "her very image! See how lovely she was, look, Va.s.silissa! Do you remember? Isn't he like her?"

With youthful appet.i.te Boris devoured coffee, tea, cakes and bread, his aunt watching all the while.

"Call the people, tell the Starost and everybody that the Master is here, the real Master, the owner. Welcome, little father, welcome home!" she said, with an ironic air of humility, laughing and mimicking the pleasant speech. "Forsake us not with your favour. Tatiana Markovna insults us, ruins us, take us over into your charge.... Ha! Ha! Here are the keys, the accounts, at your service, demand a reckoning from the old lady. Ask her what she has done with the estate money, why the peasants'

huts are in ruins. See how the Malinovka peasants beg in the streets of the town. Ha! Ha! Under your guardian and uncle in the new estate, I believe, the peasants wear polished boots and red s.h.i.+rts, and live in two-storied houses. Well, Sir, why this silence? Why do you not ask for the accounts? Have your breakfast, and then I will show you everything."

After breakfast Tatiana Markovna took her sunshade, put on her thick-soled shoes, covered her head with a light hood, and went to show Boris the garden.

"Now, Sir, keep your eyes wide open, and if there is anything wrong, don't spare your Grandmother. You will see I have just planted out the beds in front of the house. Veroshka and Marfinka play here under my eyes, in the sand. One cannot trust any nurse."

They reached the yard.

"Kirusha, Eromka, Matroshka, where have you all hidden yourselves? One of you come here."

Matroshka appeared, and announced that Kirusha and Eromka had gone into the village to fetch the peasants.

"Here is Matroshka. Do you remember her? What are you staring there for, fool. Kiss your Master's hand."

Matroshka came nearer. "I dare not," she said.

Boris shyly embraced the girl.

"You have built a new wing to the buildings, Grandmother," he said.

"You noticed that. Do you remember the old one? It was quite rotten, had holes in the floors as broad as my hand, and the dirt and the soot! And now look!"

They went into the new wing. His aunt showed Boris the alterations in the stables, the horses and the separate s.p.a.ce for fowls, the laundry and byres.

"Here is the new kitchen which I built detached so that the kitchen range is outside the house, and the servants have more room. Now each has his own corner. Here is the pantry, there the new ice-cellar. What are you standing there for?" she said, turning to Matrona. "Go and tell Egorka to run into the village and say to the Starost that we are going over there."

In the garden his aunt showed him every tree and every bush, led him through the alleys, looked down from the top of the precipice into the brushwood, and went with him into the village. It was a warm day, and the winter corn waved gently in the pleasant breeze.

"Here is my nephew, Boris Pavlovich," she said to the Starost. "Are you getting in the hay while the warm weather lasts? We are sure to have rain before long after this heat. Here is the Master, the real Master, my nephew," she said, turning to the peasants. "Have you seen him before, Garashka? Take a good look at him. Is that your calf in the rye, Iliusha?" she said in pa.s.sing to a peasant, while her attention already wandered to the pond.

"There they are again, hanging out the clothes on the trees," she remarked angrily to the village elder. "I have given orders for a line to be fixed. Tell blind Agasha so. It is she that likes to hang her things out on the willows. The branches will break...."

"We haven't a line long enough," answered the Starost sleepily. "We shall have to buy one in the town."

"Why did you not tell Va.s.silissa? She would have let me know. I go into the town every week, and would have brought a line long ago."

"I have told her, but she forgets, or says it is not worth while to bother the Mistress about it."

Tatiana Markovna made a knot in her handkerchief. She liked it to be said that nothing could be done without her; a clothes-line, for instance, could be bought by anybody, but G.o.d forbid that she should trust anybody with money. Although by no means avaricious, she was sparing with money. Before she brought herself to part with it she was thoughtful, sometimes angry, but the money once spent, she forgot all about it and did not like keeping account of it.

Besides the more important arrangements, her life was full of small matters of business. The maids had to be put to cutting out and sewing, or to cooking and cleaning. She arranged so that everything was carried out before her own eyes. She herself did not touch the actual work, but with the dignity of age she stood with one hand on her hip and the other pointing out exactly where and how everything was to be done. The clattering keys opened cupboards, chests, strong boxes, which contained a profusion of household linen, costly lace yellow with age, diamonds, destined for the dowry of her nieces, and money. The cupboards where tea, sugar, coffee and other provisions were kept were in Va.s.silissa's charge.

In the morning, after coffee, when she had given her orders for the farm, Tatiana Markovna sat down at her bureau to her accounts, then sat by the window and looked out into the field, watched the labourers, saw what was going on in the yard, and sent Yakob or Va.s.silissa when there was anything of which she disapproved.

When necessary she drove into the town to the market hall, or to make visits, but never was long away, returning always in time for the midday meal. She herself received many guests; she liked to be dispensing hospitality from morning to night.

When in winter afternoons she sat by the stove, she was silent and thoughtful, and liked everything around her quiet. Summer afternoons she spent in the garden, when she put on her gardening gloves and took a spade, a rake, or a watering can, by way of obtaining a little exercise.

Then she spent the evening at the tea-table in the company of Tiet Nikonich Vatutin, her oldest and best friend and adviser.