Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett

Author:Ivy Compton-Burnett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

“Rice and a nutmeg, please, Miss Buchanan, and a letter if there is one.”

Miss Buchanan put a nutmeg on the counter.

“You need not always buy rice,” she said, pausing with her hand on the receptacle, and her eyes on Gertrude’s face.

“Not buy rice, when I have a family that eats it! It is easy to see you are not a family woman.”

Miss Buchanan’s eyes rested on Magdalen, as the representative of the household in question.

“I did not know you had letters sent here, Mother.”

“Well, now you do know. You are getting old enough to be admitted to your mother’s little secrets,” said Gertrude, tapping her glove against her daughter’s cheek. “There are some things I do not want the servants to see. You will understand that, when you have a house of your own. Does Miss Buchanan know how soon that is to be?”

“Yes,” said the latter.

“Then news travels especially fast to you, because we do not yet know the exact date ourselves.”

“The house is ready and waiting.”

“I know nothing about the house, except that it arouses my maternal misgiving on the score of damp.”

“It is not to have anything done to it.”

“Now you are a satisfying person to meet! No one else has been able to tell us so much about our own future. And as it is of great interest to us, we are most glad of the light upon it. I wish you could tell me that the house was to be replaced by another. That is what I should like to hear.”

Miss Buchanan was silent.

“Put the nutmeg into your pocket, my dear, and take this rice that Miss Buchanan grudges to you. She does not know much about satisfying young appetites, in spite of her fund of information.”

Miss Buchanan did not need to speak, as her eyes said plainly that Magdalen’s age put her beyond such allusion.

“I hope it will not be long before you have the custom of another household,” said Gertrude.

Miss Buchanan did not respond.

“Though you give me the impression that you do not care whether you do business or not.”

Miss Buchanan agreed that the balance was even, as she disliked to do business, and depended on it for her bread; and therefore allowed her silence to indicate consent.

“Mother, here is Mortimer!” said Magdalen.

“So it is,” said Gertrude, glancing behind her and continuing to talk with more consciousness. “So we are all engaged on domestic errands together, before the time when we are naturally privy to each other’s. But if we can do anything for masculine inexperience in the meantime, we will gladly anticipate our duties.”

Miss Buchanan stood with an expectant air, waiting for the first customers to go, and leave the last to his errand.

“I came to ask about a letter,” said Mortimer, who was too distraught by his own troubles to maintain a secrecy that had lost its meaning; “one that should have come here, and seems not to have done so.”

“We also came about a letter,” said Gertrude, in an open, natural tone, that seemed designed to put him at his ease.

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