Love and Freindship and Other Delusions by Beth Andrews Page A

flat upon the table before the candles. Holding one in each palm, she displayed them for my delectation.
    â€˜These are my parents, and here on the table is also a silhouette of Augustus.’
    â€˜A fitting tribute,’ I said conventionally, ‘to those who are gone.’
    â€˜It is the least that I can do.’
    As she spoke, she turned away to replace the two portraits and I heard her gasp. Puzzled, I looked at the table where her own gaze was fixed, and noticed that one of the candles on it had burnt out.
    To my astonishment, she turned back toward me with a face so contorted with rage that it scarcely seemed human.
    â€˜Gladys!’ she screeched at the top of her lungs. ‘Gladys, come here this instant!’
    â€˜What is the matter, ma’am?’ I enquired, quite concerned at the purple hue of her countenance.
    She ignored me completely, moving swiftly to the door. As she reached it, a maid (whom I correctly assumed to be the missing Gladys) passed through into the room, a look of terror on her face. She was a thin, timid-looking girl, who was clasping her hands together and looking everywhere but at the face of her mistress.
    â€˜Gladys,’ Laura almost growled at her like a half-crazed feline, ‘did I not tell you never—under any circumstances—to let one of these candles burn out?’
    â€˜Yes madam.’ Gladys shook like a tower in the Lisbon earthquake.
    I watched in fascinated disgust as Laura proceeded to grab the maid’s left ear and use it to drag her over to her shrine, where she pointed an accusing finger at the extinguished candle.
    â€˜Look at that!’ she demanded. ‘Look at it, you miserable creature!’
    Gladys, her head twisted sideways as she squirmed in obvious pain, managed to stammer out, ‘Yes, ma’am.’
    â€˜Does that look as if it is still lit?’ She paused, more for effect, I thought, than in expectation of an answer. ‘Well, does it?’
    â€˜No, ma’am. I’m ever so sorry, ma’am.’
    Laura twisted the ear yet harder, and Gladys buckled at the knees.
    â€˜Have you no sensibility, girl?’ Laura asked.
    â€˜Can’t afford it, ma’am,’ Gladys objected.
    â€˜Have you no compassion?’ her tormentor continued. ‘No empathy?’
    â€˜Don’t know what that is.’
    At this point, I could no longer refrain from interrupting this absurd mixture of farce and sadism.
    â€˜Really, Mrs Lindsay,’ I said with some asperity, ‘I do not know what else you can expect from the poor child. It is no great matter, after all.’
    The veins in her neck stood out so prominently that I would not have been surprised had her head shot up through the ceiling like a rocket.
    â€˜No great matter!’ she echoed, her whole body clenched and taut. ‘After having read my story, I do not know how you can say something so heartless.’
    â€˜No real harm has been done,’ I insisted, wearied by her self-aggrandizing romanticism.
    â€˜This space is sacred, my dear Marianne.’ She held herself perfectly erect and confronted me like an ancient Christian martyr facing the lions in the arena. ‘What this girl has done is a desecration, I tell you: a sheer desecration.’
    â€˜I hardly think that either Sophia or Edward will offer any objection.’
    She released Gladys, who promptly put a hand up to her poor ear—which was now an angry red after such strenuous abuse.
    â€˜That you can treat this as a jest,’ Laura said, ‘is a testimony to your insensibility. I see that you are unworthy of the confidence I have placed in you. Once more I am betrayed!’
    â€˜Can I go now, ma’am?’ Gladys enquired, preventing me from answering this ringing philippic.
    â€˜Yes,’ her mistress agreed, not bothering to look at her, but continuing to stare at her much-vaunted shrine. ‘Go and see that the candle is replaced.