15. AN INNER ROOM AT THE LODGE
At the Lodge at this time a discussion of some importance was in
progress. The scene was Mrs. Chickerel's bedroom, to which,
unfortunately, she was confined by some spinal complaint; and here
she now appeared as an interesting woman of five-and-forty, properly
dressed as far as visible, and propped up in a bed covered with a
quilt which presented a field of little squares in many tints,
looking altogether like a bird's-eye view of a market garden.
Mrs. Chickerel had been nurse in a nobleman's family until her
marriage, and after that she played the part of wife and mother,
upon the whole, affectionately and well. Among her minor
differences with her husband had been one about the naming of the
children; a matter that was at last compromised by an agreement
under which the choice of the girls' names became her prerogative,
and that of the boys' her husband's, who limited his field of
selection to strict historical precedent as a set-off to Mrs.
Chickerel's tendency to stray into the regions of romance.
The only grown-up daughters at home, Ethelberta and Picotee, with
their brother Joey, were sitting near her; the two youngest
children, Georgina and Myrtle, who had been strutting in and out of
the room, and otherwise endeavouring to walk, talk, and speak like
the gentleman just gone away, were packed off to bed. Emmeline, of
that transitional age which causes its exponent to look wistfully at
the sitters when romping and at the rompers when sitting, uncertain
whether her position in the household is that of child or woman, was
idling in a corner. The two absent brothers and two absent sisters-
-eldest members of the family--completed the round ten whom Mrs.
Chickerel with thoughtless readiness had presented to a crowded
world, to cost Ethelberta many wakeful hours at night while she
revolved schemes how they might be decently maintained.
'I still think,' Ethelberta was saying, 'that the plan I first
proposed is the best. I am convinced that it will not do to attempt
to keep on the Lodge. If we are all together in town, I can look
after you much better than when you are far away from me down here.'
'Shall we not interfere with you--your plans for keeping up your
connections?' inquired her mother, glancing up towards Ethelberta by
lifting the flesh of her forehead, instead of troubling to raise her
face altogether.
'Not nearly so much as by staying here.'
'But,' said Picotee, 'if you let lodgings, won't the gentlemen and
ladies know it?'
'I have thought of that,' said Ethelberta, 'and this is how I shall
manage. In the first place, if mother is there, the lodgings can be
let in her name, all bills will be receipted by her, and all
tradesmen's orders will be given as from herself. Then, we will
take no English lodgers at all; we will advertise the rooms only in
Continental newspapers, as suitable for a French or German gentleman
or two, and by this means there will be little danger of my
acquaintance discovering that my house is not entirely a private
one, or of any lodger being a friend of my acquaintance. I have
thought over every possible way of combining the dignified social
position I must maintain to make my story-telling attractive, with
my absolute lack of money, and I can see no better one.'
'Then if Gwendoline is to be your cook, she must soon give notice at
her present place?'
'Yes. Everything depends upon Gwendoline and Cornelia. But there
is time enough for them to give notice--Christmas will be soon
enough. If they cannot or will not come as cook and housemaid, I am
afraid the plan will break down. A vital condition is that I do not
have a soul in the house (beyond the lodgers) who is not one of my
own relations. When we have put Joey into buttons, he will do very
well to attend to the door.'
'But s'pose,' said Joey, after a glassy look at his future
appearance in the position alluded to, 'that any of your gentle-
people come to see ye, and when I opens the door and lets 'em in a
swinging big lodger stalks downstairs. What will 'em think? Up
will go their eye-glasses at one another till they glares each other
into holes. My gracious!'
'The one who calls will only think that another visitor is leaving,
Joey. But I shall have no visitors, or very few. I shall let it be
well known among my late friends that my mother is an invalid, and
that on this account we receive none but the most intimate friends.
These intimate friends not existing, we receive nobody at all.'
'Except Sol and Dan, if they get a job in London? They'll have to
call upon us at the back door, won't they, Berta?' said Joey.
'They must go down the area steps. But they will not mind that;
they like the idea.'
'And father, too, must he go down the steps?'
'He may come whichever way he likes. He will be glad enough to have
us near at any price. I know that he is not at all happy at leaving
you down here, and he away in London. You remember that he has only
taken the situation at Mr. Doncastle's on the supposition that you
all come to town as soon as he can see an opening for getting you
there; and as nothing of the sort has offered itself to him, this
will be the very thing. Of course, if I succeed wonderfully well in
my schemes for story-tellings, readings of my ballads and poems,
lectures on the art of versification, and what not, we need have no
lodgers; and then we shall all be living a happy family--all taking
our share in keeping the establishment going.'
'Except poor me!' sighed the mother.
'My dear mother, you will be necessary as a steadying power--a
flywheel, in short, to the concern. I wish that father could live
there, too.'
'He'll never give up his present way of life--it has grown to be a
part of his nature. Poor man, he never feels at home except in
somebody else's house, and is nervous and quite a stranger in his
own. Sich is the fatal effects of service!'
'O mother, don't!' said Ethelberta tenderly, but with her teeth on
edge; and Picotee curled up her toes, fearing that her mother was
going to moralize.
'Well, what I mean is, that your father would not like to live upon
your earnings, and so forth. But in town we shall be near him--
that's one comfort, certainly.'
'And I shall not be wanted at all,' said Picotee, in a melancholy
tone.
'It is much better to stay where you are,' her mother said. 'You
will come and spend the holidays with us, of course, as you do now.'
'I should like to live in London best,' murmured Picotee, her head
sinking mournfully to one side. 'I HATE being in Sandbourne now!'
'Nonsense!' said Ethelberta severely. 'We are all contriving how to
live most comfortably, and it is by far the best thing for you to
stay at the school. You used to be happy enough there.'
Picotee sighed, and said no more.
