I had it on the tip of my tongue to say: “The cook doesn’t ask you to buy cheese for her, or to teach her how to keep eggs, or to improve the fit of her gown; all she wants is to have her kitchen to herself.” But here again it was necessary to remember that this odious person was my father’s guest.
“Pray don’t distress yourself,” I began; “I am sure you are not to blame, Miss Jillgall--”
“Don’t call me Miss Jillgall. I call you Helena. Call me Selina.”
I had really not supposed it possible that she could be more unendurable than ever. When she mentioned her Christian name, she succeeded nevertheless in producing that result. In the whole list of women’s names, is there any one to be found so absolutely sickening as “Selina”? I forced myself to pronounce it; I made another neatly-expressed apology; I said English servants were so very peculiar. Selina was more than satisfied; she was quite delighted.
“Is that it, indeed? An explanation was all I wanted. How good of you! And now tell me--is there no chance, in the house or out of the house, of my making myself useful? Oh, what’s that? Do I see a chance? I do! I do!”
Miss Jillgall’s eyes are more than mortal. At one time, they are microscopes. At another time, they are telescopes. She discovered (right across the room) the torn place in the window-curtain. In an instant, she snatched a dirty little leather case out of her pocket, threaded her needle and began darning the curtain. She sang over her work. “My heart is light, my will is free--” I can repeat no more of it. When I heard her singing voice, I became reckless of consequences, and ran out of the room with my hands over my ears.
When I reached the foot of the stairs, my father called me into his study.
I found him at his writing-table, with such a heap of torn-up paper in his waste-basket that it overflowed on to the floor. He explained to me that he had been destroying a large accumulation of old letters, and had ended (when his employment began to grow wearisome) in examining his correspondence rather carelessly. The result was that he had torn up a letter, and a copy of the reply, which ought to have been set aside as worthy of preservation. After collecting the fragments, he had heaped them on the table. If I could contrive to put them together again on fair sheets of paper, and fasten them in their right places with gum, I should be doing him a service, at a time when he was too busy to set his mistake right for himself.