Amy filled her mouth with the nuts she had taken, returned to the coffee table, and passed the nut dish.
“Thank you, Amy,” they said, taking a peanut or two.
“How do you like your new school, Amy?” Mrs. Bearden asked.
“I like it,” Amy said. “I like private schools better than public schools. It isn’t so much like a factory.”
“What grade are you in?” Mr. Bearden asked.
“Fourth,” she said.
Her father took Mr. Parminter’s glass and his own, and got up to go into the dining room and refill them. She fell into the chair he had left vacant.
“Don’t sit in your father’s chair, Amy,” her mother said, not realizing that Amy’s legs were worn out from riding a bicycle, while her father had done nothing but sit down all day.
As she walked toward the French doors, she heard her mother beginning to talk about the new cook. It was a good example of the interesting things they found to talk about.
“You’d better put your bicycle in the garage,” her father said, returning with the fresh drinks. “It looks like rain.”
Amy went out onto the terrace and looked at the sky, but it was not very cloudy, it wouldn’t rain, and his advice, like all the advice he gave her, was superfluous. They were always at her. “Put your bicycle away. Open the door for Grandmother, Amy. Feed the cat, Do your homework.”
“Pass the nuts.”
“Help Mrs. Bearden with her parcels.”
“Amy, please try and take more pains with your appearance.”
They all stood, and her father came to the door and called her. “We’re going over to the Parminters’ for supper,” he said. “Cook’s here, so you won’t be alone. Be sure and go to bed at eight like a good girl. And come and kiss me good night.”
After their cars had driven off, Amy wandered through the kitchen to the cook’s bedroom beyond it and knocked on the door. “Come in,” a voice said, and when Amy entered, she found the cook, whose name was Rosemary, in her bathrobe, reading the Bible. Rosemary smiled at Amy. Her smile was sweet and her old eyes were blue. “Your parents have gone out again?” she asked. Amy said that they had, and the old woman invited her to sit down. “They do seem to enjoy themselves, don’t they? During the four days I’ve been here, they’ve been out every night, or had people in.” She put the Bible face down on her lap and smiled, but not at Amy. “Of course, the drinking that goes on here is all sociable, and what your parents do is none of my business, is it? I worry about drink more than most people, because of my poor sister. My poor sister drank too much. For ten years, I went to visit her on Sunday afternoons, and most of the time she was non compos mentis. Sometimes I’d find her huddled up on the floor with one or two sherry bottles empty beside her. Sometimes she’d seem sober enough to a stranger, but I could tell in a second by the way she spoke her words that she’d drunk enough not to be herself any more. Now my poor sister is gone, I don’t have anyone to visit at all.”
“What happened to your sister?” Amy asked.
“She was a lovely person, with a peaches-and-cream complexion and fair hair,” Rosemary said. “Gin makes some people gay?it makes them laugh and cry?but with my sister it only made her sullen and withdrawn. When she was drinking, she would retreat into herself. Drink made her contrary. If I’d say the weather was fine, she’d tell me I was wrong. If I’d say it was raining, she’d say it was clearing. She’d correct me about everything I said, however small it was. She died in Bellevue Hospital one summer while I was working in Maine. She was the only family I had.”
The directness with which Rosemary spoke had the effect on Amy of making her feel grown, and for once politeness came to her easily. “You must miss your sister a great deal,” she said.
“I was just sitting here now thinking about her. She was in service, like me, and it’s lonely work. You’re always surrounded by a family, and yet you’re never a part of it. Your pride is often hurt. The Madams seem condescending and inconsiderate. I’m not blaming the ladies I’ve worked for. It’s just the nature of the relationship. They order chicken salad, and you get up before dawn to get ahead of yourself, and just as you’ve finished the chicken salad, they change their minds and want crab-meat soup.”
“My mother changes her mind all the time,” Amy said.
“Sometimes you’re in a country place with nobody else in help. You’re tired, but not too tired to feel lonely. You go out onto the servants’ porch when the pots and pans are done, planning to enjoy God’s creation, and although the front of the house may have a fine view of the lake or the mountains, the view from the back is never much. But there is the sky and the trees and the stars and the birds singing and the pleasure of resting your feet. But then you hear them in the front of the house, laughing and talking with their guests and their sons and
