Lately she had begun to exhibit herself freely, mostly to shock the servants, good proper Boston servants all, very unused to having their mistress exhibit her parts in the drawing room or wherever she happened to be, and at all hours of the day, as well.
Hearing the door open, Entwistle, the butler, appeared--old Ben Mickelson had been sent to the house in Maine, to dodder and tipple through the summer. Without giving Madame Scull so much as a glance, Entwistle took the master's coat.
'So there, Inez, I hope you're satisfied,' Inish said.
'I'm very far from satisfied, the stable boy was hasty,' Inez said, turning her red face toward him as she continued to quirt the portraits.
'Entwistle, would you find a towel for Madame?' Scull said. 'I fear she's dripping. She'll soil the Aubusson if she's not careful.' 'You Bostonians are so beggarly,' Inez said. 'It's just a rug.' 'Sack the stable boy, if you don't mind, Entwistle,' Scull added. 'He's managed to anger me while not quite pleasing Madame.' Then he looked at his wife.
'I wasn't talking about the success--or lack of it--of your amours, Inez, when I said I hoped you were satisfied,' he informed her. 'The fact is, your imbecile cousins have gotten us into a war.' 'The darlings, I'm so glad,' Inez replied. 'What did they do?' 'They fired on us,' Scull said. 'The impertinent fools--they'll soon wish they hadn't.' At that point Entwistle returned with a towel, which he handed to Madame Scull, who immediately flung it back in his face. Entwistle, unsurprised, picked up the towel and draped it over the banister near where Madame Scull stood.
'Find that stable boy?' Scull asked.
'No, he didn't, and he won't,' Inez said, before Entwistle could answer.
'Why's that, my dear?' Scull asked, noting that a whitish substance was still dripping copiously down his wife's leg. Happily, though, her quirtings had done little damage to the Scull portraits, which hung in imposing ranks along the hallway.
'Because I've stowed him in a closet, where I mean to keep him until he proves his mettle,' Inez said.
'I should shoot you on the spot, you Oglethorpe slut,' Scull said. 'No Boston jury would convict me.' 'What, because I had a tumble with the stable boy, you think that's grounds for murder?' Inez asked, coming at him with menace in her eyes.
'No, of course not,' he said. 'I'd do it because you embarrassed Entwistle. You don't embarrass butlers, not here in our Boston.' 'My cousins will soon put you to rout, you damn Yankee hounds,' Inez said, starting up the stairs.
'Hickling Prescott suspects you of Oglethorpe blood--did you hear me, you dank slut?' Inish yelled after her.
Inez Scull did not reply.
Before he could say more he was taken with a fit of hopping. He was almost to the kitchen before Entwistle and the parlor maids could get him stopped.
Maggie considered it a happy turnabout that she now had a position in the store that had once been the Forsythes'. She did the very jobs that Clara had once done: unpacking, arranging goods on the shelves, helping customers, writing up bills, wrapping the purchases that required wrapping.
She thought often of Clara, and felt lucky to have, at last, a respectable job. Clara, she thought, would have understood and approved. The store's new owner, Mr. Sam Stewart, was from Ohio, and a newcomer to Austin. He knew little of Maggie's past, and what he knew he ignored.
Fetching and competent clerks were not plentiful in Austin--Mrs. Sam Stewart was glad to accept the fiction that Maggie was a widow, and Newt the son of a Mr. Dobbs, killed by Indians while on a trip. Sam Stewart had a few irregularities in his past himself and was not disposed either to look too closely or to judge too harshly when Maggie applied for the job, though he did once mention to his formidable wife, Amanda Stewart, that Maggie's boy, Newt, then four, bore a strong resemblance to Captain Call.
'I'd mind your own business, if I were you, Sam,' Amanda informed him. 'I'm sure Maggie's done the best she could. I'll nail your skin to the back door if you let Maggie go.' 'Who said anything about letting her go, Manda?' Sam asked. 'I have no intention of letting her go.' 'Scoundrels like you often get churchly once they're safe from the hang rope,' Amanda informed him. She said no more, but Sam Stewart went around for days wondering what skeleton his wife thought she had uncovered now.
It was while clerking in the store that Maggie made friends with Nellie McCrae. Nellie often came in to purchase little things for Gus, but rarely spent a penny on herself, though she was a fetching young woman whose beauty would have shone more brightly if she had allowed herself a ribbon, now and then, or a new frock.
That Nellie was not strong had always been clear --once or twice she had become faint, while doing her modest shopping; Maggie had had to insist that she rest a bit on the sofa at the back of the store before going home.
Then Nellie commenced dying, and was seen in the store no more. Maggie sorrowed for her and sat up all night rocking Newt, who had a cough, when news of the death came.
She was dressing to go to the funeral when Graciela, the Mexican woman who watched Newt while Maggie worked, came hobbling in in terror--Graciela was convinced she had been bitten by a snake.
'Was it a rattler?' Maggie asked, not without skepticism--the day seldom passed without nature striking some near-fatal blow at Graciela.
Graciela was far too upset to give an accurate description of the snake; though Maggie could find no fang marks on her leg, or anywhere else, Graciela was convinced she was dying. She began to pray to the saints, and to the Virgin.
'You might have stepped on a snake but I don't think it bit you,' Maggie said, but Graciela was sobbing so loudly she couldn't hear.
It was vexing. Maggie thought the best thing to do was take Newt to the funeral with her. He was a lively boy and might escape Graciela and be off--if there .was a rattlesnake around, Newt might be the one to find it.
