even bigger Sibyl. The appalled squawk. The grimly disapproving “Gracious!” The reticule and fan brought into action as defensive weapons.)
Annie flourished the knife.
“I’ll wash it before Cook uses it to cut the meat. I almost always wash the sausage scissors after I’ve cut my toenails with them, though I may have forgotten last night.”
“The sausages were particularly delicious yestere’en,” Alice retorted loftily.
“E’en so. Verily, the sausages were suspect. They were — I am afeared to report it — from Comstock’s Bargain Counter.”
“Oh, horror, horror!”
Annie began to sing.
“Oh where, Oh where ish mine little dog gone;
Oh where, Oh where can he be?”
Alice ignored this, adding, “You should refer to me as ‘your ladyship,’ menial one. I am the young mistress of the house and thou a mere varlet.”
This was a game they often played when there was no one else around to hear them. Alice wasn’t too sure about “varlet.” She had an obscure feeling that it was used only in reference to males. She liked to get things right.
Annie performed one of her spectacularly servile curtsies, arms reaching far out on either side of her, head bowed.
“Forgive this humble underling, your ladyship,” she begged.
“I am minded to be merciful on this occasion.”
“Your ladyship is all too gracious to one as insignificant as my groveling self.”
“And there are few as insignificant as thou art.”
“As thou hast often commented.”
Annie wobbled from side to side. She was almost doing the splits. Alice had seen a woman acrobat like this, high up on a tightrope, her parasol quivering in her right hand as she tried to keep her balance.
“Your groveling is to be particularly recommended this morn.”
“Your ladyship — as ever — is all too kind.”
Annie disappeared, clutching the knife, into the dining room, hurrying like someone remembering something urgent. She was in the middle of blackleading the grate. The shutters had all been opened, the doors unlocked, and the dining room would have been swept, and the grate emptied. Annie kept to a meticulous routine. A moment later, the door opened again, and Annie’s head reappeared, leaning out at an angle, time only for a few hurried words.
“I didn’t waste any time looking at my tooth when I should have been working,” she said. “I woke up early this morning, and started work straightaway.”
Her usual time to begin work in the summer was six o’clock. The door closed again. It was as if she needed to explain herself. Papa must have said something again. Her hands and the lower parts of her arms had been dusted pale with ashes. Alice imagined her right hand inside her mouth holding the knife, cinders dropping down into her throat, a victim of Vesuvius, lying still in some inner room in Pompeii, curled up amidst her buried possessions, choked with ashes. She would be kneeling down on the cloth she had laid over the carpet, her housemaid’s box on one side of her, and the cinder pail on the other side, leaning over into the grate to brush on the blacklead. Sometimes, after she had done this, her hair and forehead were marked with soot. Alice thought of her as Cinderella, and herself and Allegra and Edith as the Ugly Sisters, one more than usual for added ugliness. When did Cinderella’s stepsisters become ugly? In her version of the story they were described as “fair in face, but foul at heart,” like something out of
Macbeth
, which was rather more interesting, and — she had thought, with considerable venom (Allegra had been annoying her again) — rather more accurate where Allegra was concerned. Allegra (no hesitation whatsoever in her case) and Edith could both be described as pretty. Alice — how appropriate an expression could be — was undoubtedly the cuckoo in this particular nest.
Cuckoo!
Cuckoo!
Allegra and Edith shook two dishes of peas into the ashes. “Pick them all out in one hour’s time and
Annie flourished the knife.
“I’ll wash it before Cook uses it to cut the meat. I almost always wash the sausage scissors after I’ve cut my toenails with them, though I may have forgotten last night.”
“The sausages were particularly delicious yestere’en,” Alice retorted loftily.
“E’en so. Verily, the sausages were suspect. They were — I am afeared to report it — from Comstock’s Bargain Counter.”
“Oh, horror, horror!”
Annie began to sing.
“Oh where, Oh where ish mine little dog gone;
Oh where, Oh where can he be?”
Alice ignored this, adding, “You should refer to me as ‘your ladyship,’ menial one. I am the young mistress of the house and thou a mere varlet.”
This was a game they often played when there was no one else around to hear them. Alice wasn’t too sure about “varlet.” She had an obscure feeling that it was used only in reference to males. She liked to get things right.
Annie performed one of her spectacularly servile curtsies, arms reaching far out on either side of her, head bowed.
“Forgive this humble underling, your ladyship,” she begged.
“I am minded to be merciful on this occasion.”
“Your ladyship is all too gracious to one as insignificant as my groveling self.”
“And there are few as insignificant as thou art.”
“As thou hast often commented.”
Annie wobbled from side to side. She was almost doing the splits. Alice had seen a woman acrobat like this, high up on a tightrope, her parasol quivering in her right hand as she tried to keep her balance.
“Your groveling is to be particularly recommended this morn.”
“Your ladyship — as ever — is all too kind.”
Annie disappeared, clutching the knife, into the dining room, hurrying like someone remembering something urgent. She was in the middle of blackleading the grate. The shutters had all been opened, the doors unlocked, and the dining room would have been swept, and the grate emptied. Annie kept to a meticulous routine. A moment later, the door opened again, and Annie’s head reappeared, leaning out at an angle, time only for a few hurried words.
“I didn’t waste any time looking at my tooth when I should have been working,” she said. “I woke up early this morning, and started work straightaway.”
Her usual time to begin work in the summer was six o’clock. The door closed again. It was as if she needed to explain herself. Papa must have said something again. Her hands and the lower parts of her arms had been dusted pale with ashes. Alice imagined her right hand inside her mouth holding the knife, cinders dropping down into her throat, a victim of Vesuvius, lying still in some inner room in Pompeii, curled up amidst her buried possessions, choked with ashes. She would be kneeling down on the cloth she had laid over the carpet, her housemaid’s box on one side of her, and the cinder pail on the other side, leaning over into the grate to brush on the blacklead. Sometimes, after she had done this, her hair and forehead were marked with soot. Alice thought of her as Cinderella, and herself and Allegra and Edith as the Ugly Sisters, one more than usual for added ugliness. When did Cinderella’s stepsisters become ugly? In her version of the story they were described as “fair in face, but foul at heart,” like something out of
Macbeth
, which was rather more interesting, and — she had thought, with considerable venom (Allegra had been annoying her again) — rather more accurate where Allegra was concerned. Allegra (no hesitation whatsoever in her case) and Edith could both be described as pretty. Alice — how appropriate an expression could be — was undoubtedly the cuckoo in this particular nest.
Cuckoo!
Cuckoo!
Allegra and Edith shook two dishes of peas into the ashes. “Pick them all out in one hour’s time and
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