Mrs. Bristcombe’s steely eyes narrowed, but she pulled in her horns. “What’ll you have for lunch?” she asked.
“What have you got in the house?”
“There’s cold mutton, and a long bill overdue at the grocer’s, while we’re on the subject.”
“Why has it not been paid?”
“The master’s been sick, as you might have heard,” she replied with a heavy sarcasm, to reveal her opinion of the marriage.
“Prepare your accounts and present them to me in the study this afternoon, if you please. The mutton will do for luncheon, with an omelette. You know how to prepare an omelette?” Delsie asked, to retaliate for the former insult.
The woman sniffed, and Mrs. Grayshott continued asserting her authority. “I am going to make a tour of the house. There is no need for you to accompany me. Miss Roberta will come with me.”
“You won’t find it in very good shape.”
“So I assumed,” Delsie replied, looking around her. “I understood girls were sent down from the Hall to tidy the place up.”
“They’ve changed the linen upstairs and cleaned up the yellow guest room for you.”
“Thank you, but I am not a guest in this house, Mrs. Bristcombe. I shall notify you what chamber I wish cleaned for me. Good day.” She turned and swept up the stairs, resolved not to let that Tartar get the upper hand of her, though she was weak from nervousness after the encounter.
She walked along the upstairs hall till she heard voices. Bobbie and Miss Milne were putting off their pelisses, and she requested Bobbie to show her around the house. “I’ll show you my room first,” Bobbie said proudly. “This is it.”
“I thought you would still be in the nursery,” Delsie answered. The room was not unpleasant, but it was not a child’s room. The furnishings were of dark oak, the window hangings and canopy of a somber, dusky blue. The paintings on the walls were also dark and not likely to appeal to a child.
“I wondered when I came that she was not in the nursery,” Miss Milne mentioned, “but I was told this is her room.”
“Mrs. Bristcombe told you?” Mrs. Grayshott inquired, in a voice a little taut.
“Yes, ma’am. I took my directions from her. I seldom spoke to Mr. Grayshott.”
“I had to leave the nursery last year, ‘cause I couldn’t sleep with all the noise,” Bobbie told them. Delsie thought this referred to noises made by a drunken father, and asked no more questions, but the child spoke on. “Mrs. Bristcombe said it was the pixies in the orchard,” she said, her eyes big. “Daddy said it was the pixies too, so I got this nice room, like a grown-up.”
“In the orchard?” Delsie asked, surprised that Mr. Grayshott would be allowed out of the house drunk. One would have thought his valet or Bristcombe would have kept him in. She must ask Lady Jane about this.
“I have thought I heard noises outside myself, from time to time,” Miss Milne said, rather hesitantly, as though she were unsure whether she should speak. “If you won’t be needing me right away, ma’am, I’ll go to my room and unpack.”
“Go ahead.” The girl left, with a rather shy smile. She would make a friend. It was a good feeling, to have one person of her own age and sex in the house, one not too far removed from her in breeding as well. The girl seemed polite and well behaved. Her chief interest, however, was in her new stepdaughter, and she turned to her with a determined smile. “How about showing me that walking doll you spoke of? I never heard of a doll who can walk. Do we have to hold her hands and pull her along?”
“Oh, no, she walks all by herself,” Bobbie boasted. “Daddy made her for me. Well, he didn’t ‘zactly make her. He bought a plain doll, and Mommy cut her stomach open, and Daddy put in some little wheels, and now she can walk.” As she spoke she went to a shelf where a considerable quantity of stuffed toys were set out, the only concession to the room’s being inhabited by a child. “Daddy was very smart, before Mommy died. He made a secret drawer in Mommy’s dresser that opens with a hidden button.”
She selected a doll dressed in a sailor’s uniform, reached under the jacket to wind a key, and, when the doll was set on the floor, it took half a dozen jerky steps before toppling over. “He doesn’t walk too good,” Bobbie said, setting it back up for another dozen steps.
“How ingenious! Your daddy made this?” Delsie asked, sure the child was inventing this story. But when she took the doll up, she saw that the stuffed body had indeed been slit open and sewed up.
“He made me a cat that shook her head too, but I broke her,” Bobbie said, then took the doll to throw it on the bed. “Next I’ll show you Mama’s room. It’s the nicest one. I think you should use it, only it’s quite far away from mine.”
They walked half the length of the hall, then Bobbie opened a door into a lady’s chamber of considerable elegance, though the elegance had begun to fade. It was done in rose velvet, the window and bed hangings still in good repair, but very likely full of dust. The furniture was dainty French in design, white-painted, with gilt trim. There was a makeup table with lamps, an escritoire-such a room as Delsie had only dreamed of. The late Mrs. Grayshott’s belongings were still laid out-chased-silver brushes, cut-glass perfume bottles, and a whole battery of pots and trays holding creams, powders, and the accessories to a lady’s toilette. “Let us see the yellow room Mrs. Bristcombe made up for me,” Delsie said, with a last, longing look at this room.
“It’s this way, next to mine,” Bobbie told her, and led her to a good room, square, but with none of the finery of the lady’s chamber. Like Bobbie’s, it faced the west side of the house, away from the orchard. “You won’t be bothered by the pixies either,” Bobbie told her.
“Likely that’s why she put you here. Miss Milne sleeps right next door.”
They did not disturb Miss Milne, but went along to look into other chambers, the master bedroom (which opened through an adjoining door into the late Mrs. Grayshott’s suite) being the end of the tour.
“Since you’re my mama now, I think you should sleep in here,” Bobbie said firmly.
It was all the inducement Delsie needed to make the charming chamber her own, and she said, “I think so too, but then I shall be away from you and Miss Milne. Let us look again at the room next to your mama’s.”
“It’s the primrose suite,” Bobbie said, and entered again, enjoying very much playing the guide.
“This is one of my favorites,” Delsie said involuntarily, looking at the spring-like walls, sprigged with flowers. The curtains were done in apple green with white tassels, and the furniture light and graceful. “I wonder you were not moved into this room,” Delsie mentioned.
“It’s on the wrong side. The pixies,” Bobbie answered.
“I have a feeling the pixies won’t bother us any longer,” she answered with a smile. “Stepmothers, you know, are very powerful creatures, and the pixies never bother us. Miss Milne could use the room next door to yours, and we three would all be close together for company.” This seemed important to the widow, to be not too far removed from other life in the house.
“Let’s move my stuff, then,” Bobbie suggested at once.
“We’ll speak to Miss Milne first, shall we?” This was done, with the practical suggestion coming from Miss Milne that the chambers be cleaned and aired first. When Miss Milne went for dustcloths and brooms, Delsie found herself at loose ends, and to get in the morning, she took to herself the chore of doing up her own room. It was a pleasure to restore the lovely furnishings to their proper state of gloss, to clean the mirror and polish those cut-glass bottles, to arrange her few gowns in the clothes press. She would have the hangings taken down and the carpet raised for beating before the snow began to fly. The hours till luncheon flew past happily.