Read Online After Alice by Gregory Maguire - Free Book Online

strategy, when a knock sounded on the door from the passage.
    â€œGoodness, could they not ring when they need attention?” hissed Mrs. Brummidge. “And me not done up proper to conduct a tour through the operations.” She adjusted her apron. She wiped some apple peels from where they’d clung to the cloth. She added, “The master is bringing Darwin through to examine lower life-­forms, Rhoda. Straighten your spine or you’ll be mistook for a mollusk.”
    â€œMaybe it’s Alice’s nurse, back early,” said Lydia.
    â€œMiss Groader has gone to Banbury to deal with her ailing mother. She won’t return until the morrow. That’s why you were to be looking after Alice.” Arriving at the door to the passage, Mrs. Brummidge opened it with a brusque gesture, part genuflection and part defensive crouch.
    It was neither beardy Darwin nor the master, after all, but a younger gentleman in fine enough clothes to make both Rhoda and Lydia sit up. “Ah, I’ve come to the right place,” he said. “Always an exercise in temptations, which closed door to approach.” He spoke in one of the American accents; Lydia couldn’t distinguish among them. To her they all sounded dry and tinny. Almost quack-­like.
    â€œWhat can I do for you sir.” Mrs. Brummidge was immune to the charms of a well-­fitting waistcoat upon a trim male form if the form was a foreigner. The visitor had removed his coat, as the parlor took the morning sun punishingly. In his shirt-­sleeves and buttoned vest he seemed the very grocer.
    â€œI wondered if you might have some milk.”
    Lydia stood and folded her hands together so the full impact of her juliette sleeves might register. “I’m Lydia. The mistress of the house, more or less.”
    â€œI beg your pardon.” He bowed and blushed. “I’d been told you would not be at home today, and I assumed—­how foolish of—­” He all but swallowed his collar. “Mr. Winter, at your ser­vice.”
    So now, an impasse. No further conversation was possible. Lydia despite her status in the household was no more than a hostage standing in the center of this flour-­strewn flagstone floor. This was Mrs. Brummidge’s domain.
    The cook sniffed. “We don’t hold with milk drinking in this house unless there is a sick child. Too many vile particules. I could supply you with a glass of nut ale. Or a barley water. Take your choice. Unless the child is sick?”
    â€œChild?” said Lydia. Affecting too maternal a tone would be a strain, and unconvincing; she tried merely for the investigative.
    â€œBarley water would do nicely. Miss Lydia,” said Mr. Winter, and bowed. “Cook.” He glanced over at Rhoda and gave up, and disappeared.
    â€œ Child ?” said Lydia, turning to Mrs. Brummidge with lifted nostrils, suggesting outrage at not having been informed. But of course: Hadn’t Miss Armstrong mentioned another young scalawag on the premises today?
    â€œYou do such a job keeping track of Alice,” retorted Mrs. Brummidge. “How mortifying, was you to lose a visiting child in the bargain. And one traveling with His Noxiousness Mr. Darwin, no less.” (Mrs. Brummidge did not care to imagine chimpanzees swinging from the branches of her family tree.)
    â€œI’ll take the lemon barley through when it is ready,” said Lydia.
    â€œI wouldn’t hear of it. A scandal. Rhoda, off your rump and look smart.” Though the Mrs. was an honorific, Mrs. Brummidge maintained a matron’s sense of decorum. She enjoyed wielding it as a weapon. It was more effective than irony.

 
    CHAPTER 14
    A da sat and leaned against the pedestal of the table. To judge by the solitary piece of furniture, she seemed to be in a hall for giants. Yet she could spy no entrance for them. The KEEP OUT door in the baseboard looked like one from a writing-­desk