After I dismissed him, even though Id woken so late, it was still barely time for my "five oclock". The housekeeper, who, thoughtfully forewarned by my husband, had restrained herself from interrupting my musiade me a solemn visitation with a lengthy menu for a late lun. When I told her I did not , she looked at me obliquely, along her nose. I uood at ohat one of my principal funs as chatelaine was to provide work for the staff. But, all the same, I asserted myself and said I would wait until diime, although I looked forward nervously to the solitary meal. Then I found I had to tell her what I would like to have prepared for me; my imagination, still that of a schoolgirl, ran riot. A fowl in cream -- or should I anticipate Christmas with a varurkey? No; I have decided. Avocado and shrimp, lots of it, followed by ree at all. But surprise me for dessert with every ice-cream in the ice box. She noted all down but sniffed; Id shocked her. Such tastes! Child that I was, I giggled when she left me. But, now. . . what shall I do, now?
I could have spent a happy hour unpag the trunks that tained my trousseau but the maid had dohat already, the dresses, the tailor-mades hung in the wardrobe in my dressing room, the hats on wooden heads to keep their shape, the shoes on woode as if all these inanimate objects were imitating the appearance of life, to mock me. I did not like to linger in my overcrowded dressing room, nor in my lugubriously lily-sted bedroom. How shall I pass the time?
I shall take a bath in my own bathroom! And found the taps were little dolphins made of gold, with chips of turquoise for eyes. And there was a tank of goldfish, who swam in and out of moving fronds of weeds, as bored, I thought, as I was. How I wished he had not left me. How I wished it were possible to chat with, say, a maid; or the piano-tuner . . . but I knew already my new rank forbade overtures of friendship to the staff.
I had been hoping to defer the call as long as I could, so that I should have something to look forward to in the dead waste of time I foresaw before me, after my dinner was doh, but, at a quarter before seven, when darkness already surrouhe castle, I could tain myself no longer. I telephoned my mother. And astonished myself by bursting into tears when I heard her voice.
No, nothing was the matter. Mother. I have gold bath taps.
I said, gold bath taps!
No; I suppose thats nothing to cry about, Mother.
The line was bad, I could hardly make out her gratulations, her questions, her , but I was a little forted, when I put the receiver down.
Yet there still remained one whole hour to dinner and the whole, unimaginable desert of the rest of the evening.
The bunch of keys lay, where he had left them, on the rug before the library fire which had warmed their metal so that they no longer felt cold to the touch but warm, almost, as my own skin. How careless I was; a maid, tending the logs, eyed me reproachfully as if Id set a trap for her as I picked up the king bundle of keys, the keys to the interior doors of this lovely prison of which I was both the inmate and the mistress and had scarcely seen. When I remembered that, I felt the exhilaration of the explorer.
Lights! More lights!
At the touch of a switch, the dreaming library was brilliantly illuminated. I ran crazily about the castle, switg on every light I could find -- I ordered the servants to light up all their quarters,