"Remember, that whatever your situation be, housemaid, or through-servant, or nursemaid, your mistress will expect you to obey her orders. The first and chief or your duties is, to do what you are desired to do."
Aunt Jaggers's suite of rooms lay in the west wing of the house. When Kate answered the summons to enter, she stepped into a dim and crowded twilight. Aunt Jaggers obviously adhered to the principle that a room was not quite furnished unless it was full. This one held no fewer than nine chairs, a Chesterfield settee and a chaise, four occasional tables, a red lacquered Japanese cabinet and a mahogany cupboard, a large burnished gong, and a tall green vase filled with dyed pampas plumes and peacock feathers. The fireplace mantel was elaborately draped in wine-colored velvet, and not another vase or bowl could have found a place on the mirrored mantelshelf. In the corner, a red-and-green parrot clacked and complained in a tall bamboo cage half-hidden behind ferny fronds.
"Mind that dog." Aunt Jaggers spoke sharply from her chair beside a fire that made the room unbearably hot. She was knitting what appeared to be a black wool muffler.
Kate lifted her skirt and looked down. At her feet stood a
small terrier, plump as a piglet. It bared yellow teeth and growled.
"Nice doggie," Kate said nervously. She had never gotten on with dogs.
The parrot gave a malicious squawk. "Step to it, men!"
"The dog bites," snapped Aunt Jaggers. Her knitting needles clicked ferociously. "Don't provoke him."
"I'll try not," Kate said, moving to the red velvet settee. The terrier flopped on the hearth, chin on paws, and regarded Kate with red-eyed suspicion. She sat, feeling very much like Alice with the Red Queen, wondering when Aunt Jaggers would cry out, "Off with her head!"
Aunt Jaggers did not look up from her knitting. On the wall behind her hung a large multisectioned picture of the Plagues of Egypt. "I have asked you here to ensure that you understand the rules of the household. If you are staying, that is," she added waspishly. "Perhaps you have reconsidered your rash decision to accept employment from my sister."
Kate pressed her lips together. "I have not."
"More's the pity," Aunt Jaggers remarked, her eyes still fixed on her knitting. "You will find, when you involve yourself with that unspeakable Temple of Doris-''
"Horus, I believe it is called," Kate said diplomatically.
Aunt Jaggers's shoulders went rigid with disapproval. "Its name is of no importance. As I have said to my sister very often, what matters is that its work is of the devil-seances, incense, astrology, cards, magic." Her voice became shrill. "Should you become an apprentice to these sorcerers, Niece Kathryn, you will endanger your immortal soul. As does my sister."
"Thank you, Aunt," Kate murmured. "I appreciate your concern. I shall strive to guard my soul."
"Don't be sarcastic, miss! It is unbecoming. You will not get on in the world that way."
' 'No, Aunt,'' Kate said humbly.
"To your post," snapped the parrot. "Attention!" These military orders were followed by a silence, broken only by the furious clicking of needles and the terrier's asthmatic wheezing.
After a moment, Aunt Jaggers dropped her knitting into her lap. "My sister has expressed her belief that your Ar-dleigh kinship raises you above the level to which your occupation consigns you. I do not concur, but my opinions clearly have no weight. You should nevertheless be aware of the conditions of service in this household. God has given the young and malleable hearts of the servants into my trust," she added with passionate intensity, "and it falls to me to see that they perform the duties for which He has fitted them."
"Damnation," the parrot remarked amiably. "Rule Britannia."
Aunt Jaggers got up and threw a velvet drape over the parrot's cage. The bird subsided with a surly cluck. Sitting down, she said, "We observe the Sabbath strictly. No hot meals, no hot water, fires only in winter. Prayers each morning of the week at six-thirty in the back parlor. No jam, butter, tea, sugar, and most especially beer are permitted to the servants. In these practices, I am supported by The Young Servant's Own Book, which warns against excessive eating and drinking." She reached for a well-worn book on the table beside her, opened it to a marked page, and began to read. " 'Eating too much is bad for the health, and drinking too much leads to misery. It is not wise for servants to accustom themselves to drink strong tea with a great deal of sugar; for, should they have to buy for themselves, they will find it very expensive to do so.' " She shut the book and turned to Kate, her eyes feverish with passionate intensity. "You see, by guarding those in our employ against their own wicked desires, we do them a service for which they will be grateful in later years." She dipped her hand into a box of candy on the table beside her and put a chocolate into her mouth.
"I see," Kate said thoughtfully. Was Aunt Jaggers's severe guardianship the reason for Amelia's fear and Mudd's warning? Somehow, she thought not. Her own earlier employer had been almost as strict, without any noticeable effect on the servants. No, if the servants' fear and bitterness were directed at Aunt Jaggers, it flowed from some other source, darker and deeper than mere resentment.
The terrier had fallen noisily asleep, and Aunt Jaggers's
voice became hoarsely sententious against the background of its snore. ' 'It is our duty to reprove and correct those in our employ and to guard them from their own natural inclinations to become apprentices of misrule. That, of course," she added, but not as an afterthought, "is why the reading of novels is prohibited."
In other circumstances, Kate might have laughed. Now, seeing Aunt Jaggers's face, her upper lip beaded with sweat, she knew this was nothing to laugh about. "You do not deem novels fit reading," she ventured cautiously.
"A sign of moral depravity," Aunt Jaggers replied firmly. "Witness this teaching from The Christian Miscellany and Family Visitor." She took a booklet from the table, adjusted her glasses, and again read aloud. " 'Novel reading tends to inflame the passions, pollute the imagination, and corrupt the heart. It frequently becomes an inveterate habit, strong and fatal as that of a drunkard. In this state of intoxication, great waywardness of conduct is always sure to follow. Even when the habit is renounced, and genuine reformation takes place, the individual always suffers the cravings of former excitement.' "
"A horrible fate," Kate murmured, thinking of Beryl Bard-well's embryonic story in the writing desk in her room upstairs, through which she fully intended to intoxicate the imaginations and inflame the passions of her readers. She would have to be more careful to conceal the evidence of her moral depravity.
Aunt Jaggers lowered the booklet and fixed glittering eyes upon Kate. "I trust that you will agree to do as I desire out of courtesy, if not out of strict requirement."
"I thank you," Kate said, "for communicating your concerns to me." She took a deep breath. A lie would finish this unpleasant business in an instant. Was it honesty or sheer stubbornness that made her so contrary? ' 'But I cannot agree to keep a rule made by another," she said, "when I would not make the same rule for myself."
Aunt Jaggers took off her glasses and stared at Kate. "Impertinence!"
Kate bowed her head. "I do not intend it so, Aunt. But I do plead guilty to candor."
Aunt Jaggers's thin lips pursed into a knot. "You will reap the wages of your transgression!"
Kate stood. "I daresay, Aunt," she said, and walked to the door. As she closed it behind her, she heard the parrot squawk again. "God save the Queen."
And as she turned to go down the gloomy hall, she glimpsed the flying ties of Amelia's lacy white apron fluttering like startled doves around the corner.