Miss Remington cocked a small birdlike head and looked brightly sideways at her sister. She was a little creature with closely waved grey hair, bright blue eyes, and a complexion of which she was still very proud. If she assisted it a little, it was no one’s business but her own, and very discreetly done. It being breakfast time and a chilly morning, she wore an old tweed skirt and a faded lilac jumper and cardigan which she had knitted herself. One bar of an electric fire burned on a hearth which had been built for better things. In front of it, with that air of despising his surroundings which is peculiar to his race, sat the cat Mactavish. He had just completed a meticulous toilet. His orange coat recalled the best Dundee marmalade. He looked down at the electric fire which he despised and waited for Felix or Penny to come and bone a herring for him. He had a passion for herrings, but he did not consider that either of the two older ladies was to be trusted in the matter of bones. A saucer of fish prepared for him by Miss Cassy had already been rejected. He sat with his back to it and waited for Felix to come down.
Behind the tea-things Mrs. Alfred Brand was mountainous in one of those horrible garments to which stout women, unless very determined, find themselves condemned-black, with a pattern suggestive of mud spots and red ink. Florence Brand could be determined, but clothes did not interest her, and she had never had any taste. She bought what fitted her and wore it one year for best, two years for secondary occasions, and as long as it would hold together for housework and gardening. She had a large, smooth, pale face, brown hair with very little grey in it, and those rather prominent brown eyes which give the impression that the eyelids have had to be stretched to make them fit. All her movements were measured and deliberate. She opened a tin of powdered coffee, poured a measured teaspoon into two of the four Minton [1] cups on the tray in front of her, and added boiling water and a modicum of milk. The cups had a blue latticework pattern and were about eighty years old. Miss Remington took the one nearest to her, put in two tablets of saccharin, stirred them well, and repeated her remark.
“I can’t think what Felix will say.”
Florence Brand did not trouble to reply. She sipped her coffee, which she took unsweetened. Since Felix would be down at any moment, it seemed unnecessary to speculate as to what he would say. The two letters lay open in front of his plate at the table, one from Mr. Ashton, and one from Marian Brand. He would probably express himself violently, which would alter nothing. As she thought about what Martin had done to them, the insurmountable barrier set between the living and the dead filled her with resentment. Martin had got away behind it. They couldn’t reach him, and that was that. There was nothing to be gained by talking about it.
She took a slice of toast and spread it with home-made marmalade before she put her thought into words.
“It doesn’t do any good to talk about it. They will be coming here next week.”
Cassy Remington looked up from a tiny sip.
“Rather amusing, don’t you think? Perhaps we shall like them very much. Young people make a place lively. We shan’t be living together. They needn’t interfere with us.”
Mrs. Brand said heavily,
“Very simple, I suppose, Cassy. Mr. Ashton seems to think so, and so do you. We keep to this side of the house, lock the connecting doors, and settle down as neighbours. And all the furniture has been left to her. I have a few things of my own, but you have nothing. She can take the bed you sleep on and all the other things. She can take the carpet from the floor and leave you with the bare boards.”
Cassy darted one of those sideways glances.
“But she wouldn’t.”
“Probably not. What matters is that Martin should have left it in her power to do so. Then there is Eliza Cotton. Is she to continue to cook for us or for them? Mr. Ashton informs me that she is actually now in the service of Marian Brand. If she wishes to remain with us, she will have to give her notice.”
“She won’t like the old kitchen,” said Cassy brightly. “You see-she’ll stay with us. An electric stove is what she’s always said she didn’t hold with. She won’t go and leave all the things she’s accustomed to.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“And there’s Mactavish-she’d never leave Mactavish.”
Florence Brand allowed her eyes to rest for a moment upon his magnificent orange back.
“Like everything else, he now belongs to Marian.”
“He won’t stay on her side of the house if he doesn’t want to.”
“He’ll stay whichever side Eliza stays.”
“He won’t like not being the same side as Felix and Penny.”
Florence Brand said in a gloomy voice,
“Probably not. Thanks to Martin, there will be a great many things which none of us will like.”
Cassy Remington had the place by the fire. She turned in her chair and bent to stroke the orange head.
“Mactavish will do just what he chooses-he always does.”
What he chose to do at this moment was to give her a look of dignified reproof, lick a paw, and remove the undesired caress. But by this time she had turned back again, her air brightly expectant.
“Here comes Felix.”
There was a clatter of feet on the stair, the door was jerked open and Felix Brand came in. A haggard young man in an orange sweater with a good deal of untidy black hair brushed carelessly from his brow. Within five minutes of leaving his room it would be falling into his eyes and being pushed back with the thrust of long nervous fingers, only to fall again and cut the line of a perpetual frown.
Miss Cassy twittered.
“My dear Felix, I’m afraid you won’t be pleased. There’s a letter from Mr. Ashton, and one from Marian Brand. She’s coming down, and the sister too-what’s her name-Ina Felton. What a pity she’s married. Someone told me she was pretty-I can’t think who it could have been. You might have fallen in love with her, and then the whole thing would have been settled.”
She might have been talking in an empty room for all the notice anyone took.
Felix came up to the table, bent his dark frowning gaze upon the letters, and read them-Mr. Ashton’s first, and then the few lines which had cost Marian Brand a couple of sleepless nights and a good deal of distressed thought, all to no purpose at all, because, whatever she had written, it would have encountered the same implacable resentment.
Cassy Remington had stopped talking. She made little fidgeting movements with her hands. She and her sister both watched Felix, Florence Brand sitting quite still. They might not have been there for all the notice he took of them, until he suddenly looked up and said in a quiet, deadly voice,
“She can’t come next week. You must write and say so. Helen is coming.”
Cassy twisted her fingers.
“Oh, Felix-I don’t think we can. Mr. Ashton-it’s her house, you know. Everything belongs to her now. She could turn us right out. It isn’t as if we had our own furniture or anything-it’s all hers.”
He said, “I wasn’t speaking to you.” He met his mother’s stare. “You’d better wire and say the house is full.”
Florence Brand’s face did not change at all. It was heavy, without any look of youth, but there were no lines on the pale, smooth skin.
“Do you think that would be wise?”
“I don’t care whether it’s wise or not.”
Mrs. Brand appeared to consider this. When she spoke it was with great deliberation.
“Eliza Cotton will not want to leave her room. I understand that she is, legally, in Marian’s service. There can therefore be no objection to her remaining on that side of the house. That leaves us four bedrooms and the attic on this side.”
“Do you propose to put Helen in the attic?”
Her answer was as bland as oil.