He came, I suppose, about two weeks afiter I got there. It was only two weeks ahe hours at Briar were such slow ones, and the days—being all quite the same—were so even and quiet and long, it might have been twice that time.
It was long enough, anyway, for me to find out all the peculiar habits of the house; long enough for me to get used to the other servants, and for them to get used to me. For a while, I didnt know why it was they did not care for me. I would go down to the kit, saying, How do you do? to whoever I met there: How do you do, Margaret? All right, Charles? (That was the knife-boy.) How are you, Mrs Cakebread? (That was the cook: that really was her wasnt a joke and no-one laughed at it.) And Charles might look at me as if he was too afraid to speak; and Mrs Cakebread would answer, in a nasty kind of way, Oh, Im sure Im very well, thank you.
I supposed they were peeved to have me about, reminding them
of all the flash London things they would never, in that quiet and out-of-the-lace, get a look at. Then one day Mrs Stiles took me aside. She said, I hope you dont mind, Miss Smith, if I have a little word? I t say how the house was run in your last place— She started everything she said to me with a line like that.—I t say how you did things in London, but here at Briar we like to keep very mindful of the footings of the house ..."
It turned out that Mrs Cakebread had fancied herself insulted, by my saying good-m to the kit-maid and the knife-boy before I said it to her; and Charles thought I meant to tease him, by wishing him good-m at all. It was all the most trifling sort of nonsense, and enough to make a cat laugh; but it was life ah to them—I suppose, it would be life ah to you, if all you had to look forward to for the forty years was carrying trays and baking pastry. Anyway, I saw that, if I was to get anywhere with them, I must watch my steps. I gave Charles a bit of chocolate, that I had carried down with me from the Bh and never eaten; I gave Margaret a piece of sted soap; and to Mrs Cakebread I gave a pair of those black stogs that Gentleman had had Phil get for me from the crooked warehouse.
I said I hoped there were no hard feelings. If I met Charles oairs in the m, then, I looked the other way. They were all muicer to me after that.
Thats like a servant. A servant says, All for my master, and means, All for myself. Its the two-faess of it that I t bear. At Briar, they were all on the dodge in one way or another, but all over sneaking little matters that would have put a real thief to the blush—such as, holding off the fat from Mr Lillys gravy to sell on the quiet to the butchers boy; which is what Mrs Cakebread did. Or, pulling the pearl buttons from Mauds chemises, and keeping them, and saying they were lost; which is what Margaret did. I had them all worked out, after three days watg. I might have been Mrs Sucksbys own daughter after all. Mr Way, now: he had a mark on the side of his nose—in the Bh we should have called it a gin-bud. And how do you thi that, in a place like his? He had the key to Mr Lillys cellar, on a . You never saw such a
shine as that key had on it! And then, when we had finished our meals in Mrs Stiless pantry, he would make a great show of loading up the tray—and Id see him, whehought no-one was looking, tipping the beer from the bottom of all the glasses into one great cup, and lushing it away.
I saw it—but, of course, I kept it al