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<h2>Chapter VII</h2> And all this while Letty was in the dining-room, learning certain lessons from her new-found friend. For some little time she had been alone. Steptoe finished his conversation with Miss Walbrook on the telephone, but did not come back. She sat at the table feeding Beppo with bread and milk, but wondering if, after all, she hadn’t better make a bolt for it. She had had her breakfast, which was an asset to the good, and nothing worse could happen to her out in the open world than she feared in this great dim, gloomy house. She had once crept in to look at the cathedral and, overwhelmed by its height, immensity, and mystery, had crept out again. Its emotional suggestions had been more than she could bear. She felt now as if her bed had been made and her food laid out in that cathedral—as if, as long as she remained, she must eat and sleep in this vast, pillared solemnity. And that was only one thing. There were small practical considerations even more terrible to confront. If Nettie were to appear again ... But it was as to this that Steptoe was making his appeal. “I sye, girls, don’t you go to mykin’ a fuss and spoilin’ your lives, when you’ve got a chanst as’ll never come again.” Mrs. Courage answered for them all. To sacrifice decency to self-interest wasn’t in them, nor never would be. Some there might be, like ’Enery Steptoe, who would sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, but Mary Ann Courage was not of that company, nor any other woman upon whom she could use her influence. If a hussy had been put to reign over them, reigned over by a hussy none of them would be. All they asked was to see her once, to deliver the ultimatum of giving notice. “It’s a strynge thing to me,” Steptoe reasoned, “that when one poor person gets a lift, every other poor person comes down on ’em.” “And might we arsk who you means by poor persons?” “Who should I mean, Mrs. Courage, but people like us? If we don’t ’ang by each other, who will ’ang by us, I should like to know? ’Ere’s one of us plyced in a ’igh position, and instead o’ bein’ proud of it, and givin’ ’er a lift to carry ’er along, you’re all for mykin’ it as ’ard for ’er as you can. Do you call that sensible?” “I call it sensible for everyone to stye in their proper spere.” “So that if a man’s poor, you must keep ’im poor, no matter ’ow ’e tries to better ’imself. That’s what your proper speres would come to.” But argument being of no use, Steptoe could only make up his mind to revolution in the house. “The poor’s very good to the poor when one of ’em’s in trouble,” was his summing up, “but let one of ’em ’ave an extry stroke of luck, and all the rest’ll jaw against ’im like so many magpies.” As a parting shot he declared on leaving the kitchen, “The trouble with you girls is that you ain’t got no class spunk, and that’s why, in sperrit, you’ll never be nothink but menials.” This lack of esprit de corps was something he couldn’t understand, but what he understood less was the need of the heart to touch occasionally the high points of experience. Mrs. Courage and Jane, to say nothing of Nettie, after thirty years of domestic routine had reached the place where something in the way of drama had become imperative. The range and the pantry produce inhibitions as surely as the desk or the drawing-room. On both natures inhibitions had been packed like feathers on a seabird, till the soul cried out to be released from some of them. It might mean going out from the home that had sheltered them for years, and breaking with all their traditions, but now that the chance was there, neither could refuse it. To a virtuous woman, starched and stiffened in her virtue, steeped in it, dyed in it, permeated by it through and through, nothing so stirs the dramatic, so quickens the imagination, so calls the spirit to the purple emotional heights, as contact with the sister she knows to be a hussy. For Jane Cakebread and Mary Ann Courage the opportunity was unique. “Then I’ll go. I’ll go straight now.” As Steptoe brought the information that the three women of the household were coming to announce the resignation of their posts, Letty sprang to her feet. “May I arsk madam to sit down again and let me explyne?” Taking this as an order, she sank back into her chair again. He stood confronting her as before, one hand resting lightly on the table. “Nothink so good won’t ’ave ’appened in this ’ouse since old Mrs. Allerton went to work and died.” Letty’s eyes shone with their tiny fires, not in pleasure but in wonder. “When old servants is good, they’re good, but even when they’re good, there’s times when you can’t ’elp wishin’ as ’ow the Lord ’ud be pleased to tyke them to ’Imself.” He allowed this to sink in before going further. “The men’s all right, for the most part. Indoor work comes natural to ’em, and they’ll swing it without no complynts. But with the women it’s kick, kick, kick, and when they’re worn theirselves out with kickin’, they’ll begin to kick again. What’s plye for a man, for them ain’t nothink but slyvery.” Letty listened as one receiving revelations from another world. “I ain’t what they call a woman-’ater. I believe as God made woman for a purpose. Only I can’t bring myself to think as the human race ’as rightly found out yet what that purpose is. God’s wyes is always dark, and when it comes to women, they’re darker nor they are elsewheres. One thing I do know, and we’ll be a lot more comfortable when more of us finds it out—that God never made women for the ’ome.” In spite of her awe of him, Letty found this doctrine difficult to accept. “If God didn’t make ’em for the home, mister, where on earth would you put ’em?” The wintry color came out again on the old man’s cheeks. “If madam would call me Steptoe,” he said ceremoniously, “I think she’d find it easier. I mean,” he went on, reverting to the original theme, “that ’E didn’t make ’em to be cooks and ’ousemaids and parlormaids, and all that. That’s men’s work. Men’ll do it as easy as a bird’ll sing. I never see the woman yet as didn’t fret ’erself over it, like a wild animal’ll fret itself in a circus cage. It spiles women to put ’em to ’ousework, like it always spiles people to put ’em to jobs for which the Lord didn’t give ’em no haptitude.” Letty was puzzled, but followed partially. “I’ve watched ’em and watched ’em, and it’s always the syme tyle. They’ll go into service young and joyous like, but it won’t be two or three years before they’ll have growed cat-nasty like this ’ere Jyne Cykebread and Mary Ann Courage. Madam ’ud never believe what sweet young things they was when I first picked ’em out—Mrs. Courage a young widow, and Jynie as nice a girl as madam ’ud wish to see, only with the features what Mrs. Allerton used to call a little hover-haccentuated. And now—!” He allowed the conditions to speak for themselves without criticizing further. “It’s keepin’ ’em in a ’ome what’s done it. They knows it theirselves—and yet they don’t. Inside they’ve got the sperrits of young colts that wants to kick up their ’eels in the pasture. They don’t mean no worse nor that, only when people comes to Jynie’s age and Mrs. Courage’s they ’ave to kick up their ’eels in their own wye. If madam’ll remember that, and be pytient with them like–––” Letty cried in alarm, “But it’s got nothin’ to do with me!” “If madam’ll excuse me, it’s got everything to do with ’er. She’s the missus of this ’ouse.” “Oh, no, I ain’t. Mr. Allerton just brung me here––” Once more there was the delicate emphasis with which he had corrected other slips. “Mr. Allerton brought madam, and told me to see that she was put in ’er proper plyce. If madam’ll let me steer the thing, I’ll myke it as easy for ’er as easy.” He reflected as to how to make the situation clear to her. “I’ve been readin’ about the time when our lyte Queen Victoria come to the throne as quite a young girl. She didn’t know nothin’ about politics or presidin’ at councils or nothin’. But she had a prime minister—a kind of hupper servant, you might sye—’er servant was what ’e always called ’imself—and whatever ’e told ’er to do, she done. Walked through it all, you might sye, till she got the ’ang of it, but once she did get the ’ang of it—well, there wasn’t no big-bug in the world that our most grycious sovereign lydy couldn’t put it all hover on.” Once more he allowed her time to assimilate this parable. “Now if madam would only think of ’erself as called in youth to reign hover this ’ouse––” “Oh, but I couldn’t!” “And yet it’s madam’s duty, now that she’s married to its ’ead––” “Yes, but he didn’t marry me like that. He married me—all queer like. This was the way.” She poured out the story, while Steptoe listened quietly. There being no elements in it of the kind he called “shydy,” he found it romantic. No one had ever suspected the longings for romance which had filled his heart and imagination when he was a poor little scullion boy; but the memory of them, with some of the reality, was still fresh in his hidden inner self. Now it seemed as if remotely and vicariously romance might be coming to him after all, through the boy he adored. On her tale his only comment was to say: “I’ve been readin’—I’m a great reader,” he threw in parenthetically, “wonderful exercise for the mind, and learns you things which you wouldn’t be likely to ’ear tell of—but I’ve been readin’ about a king—I’ll show you ’is nyme in the book—what fell in love with a beggar myde––” “Oh, but Mr. Allerton didn’t fall in love with me.” “That remynes to be seen.” She lifted her hands in awed amazement. “Mister—I mean, Steptoe—you—you don’t think––?” The subway dream of love at first sight was as tenacious in her soul as the craving for romance in his. He nodded. “I’ve known strynger things to ’appen.” “But—but—he couldn’t—” it was beyond her power of expression, though Steptoe knew what she meant—“not him!” He answered judicially. “’E may come to it. It’ll be a tough job to bring ’im—but if madam’ll be guided by me–––” Letty collapsed. Her spirit grew faint as the spirit of Christian when he descried far off the walls of the Celestial City, with the Dark River rolling between him and it. Letty knew the Dark River must be there, but if beyond it there lay the slightest chance of the Celestial City.... She came back to herself, as it were, on hearing Steptoe say that the procession from the kitchen would presently begin to form itself. “Now if madam’ll be guided by me she’ll meet this situytion fyce to fyce.” “Oh, but I’d never know what to say.” “Madam won’t need to say nothink. She won’t ’ave to speak. ’Ere they’ll troop in—” a gesture described Mrs. Courage leading the advance through the doorway—“and ’ere they’ll stand. Madam’ll sit just where she’s sittin’—a little further back from the tyble—lookin’ over the mornin’ pyper like—” he placed the paper in her hand—“and as heach gives notice, madam’ll just bow ’er ’ead. See?” Madam saw, but not exactly. “Now if she’ll just move ’er chair––” The chair was moved in such a way as to make it seem that the occupant, having finished her breakfast, was giving herself a little more space. “And if madam would remove ’er ’at and jacket, she’d—she’d seem more like the lydy of the ’ouse at ’ome.” Letty took off these articles of apparel, which Steptoe whisked out of sight. “Now I’ll be Mrs. Courage comin’ to sye, ‘Madam, I wish to give notice.’ Madam’ll lower the pyper just enough to show ’er inclinin’ of ’er ’ead, assentin’ to Mrs. Courage leavin’ ’er. Mrs. Courage will be all for ’avin’ words—she’s a great ’and for words, Mrs. Courage is—but if madam won’t sye nothin’ at all, the wind’ll be out o’ Mrs. Courage’s syles like. Now, will madam be so good––?” Having passed out into the hall, he entered with Mrs. Courage’s majestic gait, pausing some three feet from the table to say: “Madam, things bein’ as they are, and me not wishin’ to stye no longer in the ’ouse where I’ve served so many years, I beg to give notice that I’m a givin’ of notice and mean to quit right off.” Letty lowered the paper from before her eyes, jerking her head briskly. “Ye-es,” Steptoe commended doubtfully, “a lettle too—well, too habrupt, as you might sye. Most lydies—real ’igh lydies, like the lyte Mrs. Allerton—inclines their ’ead slow and gryceful like. First, they throws it back a bit, so as to get a purchase on it, and then they brings it forward calm like, lowerin’ it stytely—Perhaps if madam’ud be me for a bit—that ’ud be Mrs. Courage—and let me sit there and be ’er, I could show ’er––” The places were reversed. It was Letty who came in as Mrs. Courage, while Steptoe, seated in the chair, lowered the paper to the degree which he thought dignified. Letty mumbled something like the words the hypothetical Mrs. Courage was presumed to use, while Steptoe slowly threw back his head for the purchase, bringing it forward in condescending grace. Language could not have given Mrs. Courage so effective a retort courteous. Letty was enchanted. “Oh, Steptoe, let me have another try. I believe I could swing the cat.” Again the places were reversed. Steptoe having repeated the rôle of Mrs. Courage, Letty imitated him as best she could in getting the purchase for her bow and catching his air of high-bred condescension. “Better,” he approved, “if madam wouldn’t lower ’er ’ead quite so far back’ard. You see, madam, a lydy don’t know she’s throwin’ back ’er ’ead so as to get a grip on it. She does it unconscious like, because bein’ of a ’aughty sperrit she ’olds it ’igh natural. If madam’ll only stiffen ’er neck like, as if sperrit ’ad made ’er about two inches taller than she is––” Having seized this idea, Letty tried again, with such success that Mrs. Courage was disposed of. Jane Cakebread followed next, with Nettie last of all. Unaware of his possession of histrionic ability, Steptoe gave to each character its outstanding traits, fluttering like Jane, and giggling like Nettie, not in zeal for a newly discovered interpretative art, but in order that Letty might be nowhere caught at a disadvantage. He was delighted with her quickness in imitation. “Couldn’t ’ave done that better myself,” he declared after Nettie had been dismissed for the third or fourth time. “When it comes to the inclinin’ of the ’ead I should sye as madam was about letter-perfect, as they sye on the styge. If Mr. Rash was to see it, ’e’d swear as ’is ma ’ad come back again.” A muffled sound proceeded from the back part of the hallway, with some whispering and once or twice Nettie’s stifled cackle of a laugh. “’Ere they are,” he warned her. “Madam must be firm and control ’erself. There’s nothink for ’er to be afryde of. Just let ’er think of the lyte Queen Victoria, called to the throne when younger even than madam is––” A shuffling developed into one lone step, heavy, stately, and funereal. Doing her best to emulate the historic example held up to her, Letty lengthened her neck and stiffened it. A haughty spirit seemed to rise in her by the mere process of the elongation. She was so nervous that the paper shook in her hand, but she knew that if the Celestial City was to be won, she could shrink from no tests which might lead her on to victory. Steptoe had relapsed into the major-domo’s office, announcing from the doorway, “Mrs. Courage to see madam, if madam will be pleased to receive ’er.” Madam indicated that she was so pleased, scrambling after the standard of the maiden sovereign of Windsor Castle giving audience to princes and ambassadors. <hr class='major' /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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