The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen [8]
It was five to four. The cook, whose night out it was, lay in her afternoon bath: in front of the pantry mirror the parlourmaid, Phyllis, was trying on a new cap. These two girls in their twenties had been engaged by Anna, and formed, as it were, Anna's party below stairs. Matchett, on the other hand, had been not a matter of choice: she had been years in service in Dorset with Thomas Quayne's motherland after Mrs. Quayne's death had come on to 2 Windsor Terrace with the furniture that had always been her charge. A charwoman, Mrs. Wayes, now came in to clean and polish, ostensibly leaving Matchett freer to maid Anna and Portia and valet Thomas. But Mrs. Wayes' area was, in fact, jealously limited by Matchett—accordingly, Matchett kept longer hours than anyone in the house. She slept alone, next the boxroom: across the same top landing the cook and Phyllis shared an airy attic with a view of Park Road.
By day, she exacted an equal privacy. The front of the basement had been divided into Phyllis's pantry and a slit of a sittingroom, which, by an arrangement Anna did not question, Matchett occupied in her spare time. Boiling her own kettles on her gas ring, she joined the kitchen party only for dinner: if the basement door happened to be left open, you could hear the fun break out when she had withdrawn again. Her superior status was further underlined by the fact of her not wearing a cap: the two girls took orders from Anna, Matchett suggestions only. The two young servants did not resent Matchett—she might be repressive, but kept herself to herself—they had learnt that no situation is ever perfect, and Anna was as a mistress amiable, even lax. No one knew where Matchett went on her afternoons off: she was a countrywoman, with few friends here. She never showed fatigue, except fatigue of the eyes: in her sittingroom, she would sometimes take off the glasses she wore for reading or sewing, and sit with one hand shading her forehead stiffly, like someone looking into the distance—but with her eyes shut. Also, as though wishing to remain conscious of nothing, she would at the same time often unbutton the tight shoe-straps that cut into the arches of her feet. But mostly she sat bolt upright, sewing, under the pulled-down electric light.
On the middle floors of the house, where she worked and the Quaynes lived, her step on the parquet or on the staircase was at the same time ominous and discreet.
It was five to four, not quite tea-time yet. Portia, turning away inconsequently and seriously, faced round once more to the radiator and spread her fingers a few inches above it, so that the hot vibration travelled up between. Her hands were still mottled from the out-door cold; her fingers had bloodless tips. Matchett looked on in silence, then said: "That's the way to give yourself chilblains. Those want rubbing—here, give me!" She came over, took Portia's hands and chafed them, her big bones grinding on Portia's painfully. "Quiet," she said. "Don't keep pulling away like that. I never saw a girl so tender to cold."
Portia stopped wincing and said: "Where's Anna?"
"That Mr. Miller called, and they went out."
"Then can I have tea with you?"
"She left word they'd be in at half-past four."
"O-oh," said Portia. "That's no good, then. Do you think she'll ever be out?"
Matchett, impassively not replying, stooped to pick up one of Portia's woolly gloves. "Mind and take these up," she said. "And those books too. Mrs. Thomas spoke about those exercise books. Nothing does down here that isn't here for the look."
"Has anything else been wrong?"
"She's been on about your bedroom."
"Oh golly! Has she been in there?"
"Yes, she seemed quite put out," said Matchett monotonously. "She said to me this morning, did I not find dusting difficult with all that mess about. Your bears' party, she meant, and one and another thing. 'Difficult, madam?' I said. 'If I made difficulties, I should not be where I am.' Then I asked if she had any complaint. She was putting her hat on—up in her room, it was. 'Oh dear no,' she said, 'I was thinking of you, Matchett. If Miss Portia would put some of those things away