But in the meantime Celia was traveling farther than she ever had in her life, and she was aware that her fellow passengers would have been surprised to learn that she was a maid inspecting a new job on her day off. The knowledge gave her a feeling of standing on the edge of some enormous discovery; it was like a vast extension of Hugh Stevenson’s blundering kiss.
. . . And here was 4 Stedman Circle, resembling a house from which the other half had been lopped away. Railed steps going up, primly potted shrubs on either side of the door—and then, in response to her finger on the bell, Mrs. Cannon.
“Celia. I’m glad you could come.” Voice a little crisper, a little less cordial than in the bedroom at the Strykers’: Celia had been expecting this, and the swift up-and-down inspection, and was not taken aback. “Come in, won’t you, and meet my uncle, Mr. Tomlinson.”
It was a very old-fashioned house, conveying an instant impression of camphor-scented velvet; there was even a bay window with ferns and rubber plants. The man who sat in a wing chair with its back to the light, and who rose courteously to greet Celia, was equally old-fashioned: pink and silver-haired and fragile-looking, complete with vest and starched collar.
Mrs. Cannon said in the elaborately clear pitch which points out deafness, “Uncle Robert, this is Miss——” and came to a surprised stop; she had never inquired Celia’s last name. With a flash of insight, Celia telescoped the difficult syllables. “Brett,” she said.
The interview that followed was actually her first, as she had been recommended to Mrs. Stevenson by a second cousin and hired sight unseen, but it seemed to Celia that it was hardly an interview at all: Mrs. Cannon was briskly making up her uncle’s mind for him. He certainly didn’t appear insane, but was he slightly simple? Apart from a plaintive remark that she looked very young he could hardly have been said to participate in the proceedings at all; from his air of merely polite interest as his niece outlined Celia’s duties to her, he might have been listening to domestic arrangements being made for some absent stranger.
His meals, said Mrs. Cannon, were simple and bland on his doctor’s orders; there was a diet list tacked up in the kitchen. Celia would do the marketing as well as the cooking, and she would see to it that visitors were not allowed to tire Mr. Tomlinson. Laundry was sent out. A cleaning woman came twice a week, but Celia was to consult Mrs. Cannon about any major services: “Mr. Tomlinson finds it hard to say no.” It seemed to Celia that Mr. Tomlinson found it hard to say anything, but perhaps the situation altered when his niece was not around.
All this information was produced at considerable volume, as the old man evidently refused to wear a much-needed hearing aid. Was this a factor in her astonishing selection by Mrs. Cannon; had other, better-qualified housekeepers—because that was what the job amounted to—balked at having to communicate in something just short of a shout? Celia’s own enunciation, thanks to her original difficulties with grammatical English, was unusually clear.
She had made up her mind to take the position even before her tour of the house with Mrs. Cannon and the discussion of salary and days off; in fact, barring some insuperable difficulty, that decision had already been taken on the train. She wangled one weekend a month for the supposed purpose of visiting the family to whom she was so deeply attached, and said firmly that she would have to give Mrs. Stryker a month’s notice—not out of consideration for the woman, whom she despised, but for the effect of reliability which this would create.
The effect was quite otherwise. Mr. Tomlinson’s old pink face fit up almost to radiance, and Mrs. Cannon’s yellowy eyes grew sharply annoyed. “That won’t be necessary,” she said with crispness. “The circumstances are unusual, and I’ll explain to Mrs. Stryker. You needn’t worry about that at all. Can my uncle expect you by nine o’clock on— let me see, this is Thursday—on Monday morning?”
A train schedule was produced. There would be a taxi waiting, as Celia would have her bags. At this point Mrs. Cannon rose brusquely to her feet with a glance at her watch; there was a suggestion that, having won some obscure battle, she was no longer interested in being civil. The old man extended his hand unexpectedly to Celia— it was chilly and dry and the gesture had the air of a secret pact between them—and she descended the railed steps to the street feeling fight and unencumbered.
Just as when, a month after going to work at the Stevensons’, she had discarded the lumpy brown coat forever, she had cast off another troublesome layer of herself. Brett, she told herself repeatedly on the way home (and she would find out the necessary steps to make this legal). I am Celia Brett.
Three
CELIA settled into 4 Stedman Circle with the caution of a cat who suspects an unseen dog somewhere on the premises.
The cleaning woman would undoubtedly be a mine of information about the situation here, but Celia expected, and got, a certain amount of hostility from that quarter in the beginning. Mrs. Meggs, a surprisingly small fortyish woman with hair dyed varnish brown, simply wished her a cold good-morning on the first day and attacked her own work like a giantess on the rampage.
When she came again later in the week and found that Celia had made no attempt to interfere in her domain, she grudgingly accepted a midmorning cup of coffee and asked, “The niece
