Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
She had heard Mademoiselle D'Ormy send a servant away once. It gave a
splendid sense of superiority to think that she was going to do it
herself this time. She pulled her travel-stiff body over the edge of
the bed, and grimacing as she swung her pavement-sore feet to the
floor, she wrapped the lovely old dressing-gown about her and opened
the door into the hall. She could not think of any other way in which
to summon a servant whose name she did not know and so she whistled
clearly as she sometimes did when she wanted to call Bele from the
farther end of the orchard.
The house seemed filled with sounds, mutterings, babblings, little
cries, the heavy whirr of the sewing machines, the splintering clatter
of Tony, who was chopping his wares by the basement door--it seemed
impregnated with odors, smudgy, burning, unsavory, smoky smells. She
whistled again.
An unkempt head, a man's head, was thrust from the nursery door, in
the quick glance with which she looked at him and beyond him she
seemed to see a score of persons. There were not really so many of
them, merely a slovenly woman who was pedaling the sewing machine with
a baby tumbling at her feet, an eight-year-old who sat on the window
ledge pulling bastings while a half-grown girl cooked something on a
stove that had been propped in front of the fireplace.
Zeb's phrase--"filthy dirty heathen" trembled on Felicia's lips, her
eyes burned hotly. She grew furiously angry. Her breast was heaving,
her bare foot tapped impatiently on the chilly floor, but the man
slammed the door before she could speak.
She stepped resolutely into the hall, she whistled again, this time
imperiously.
No one answered.
She crossed to the bathroom beside the nursery. She was grimly
determined now, she would bathe herself and dress and go down to the
kitchen and speak at once to the servant. The bathroom door was
slightly open but the skylight was so dusty that she could scarcely
see. She put down her hand to turn the faucet and drew back in dismay.
Her tub was already filled--with coal!
And behind her a voice ejaculated,
"You no taka mine fires! Get out!"
Felicia did "get out," speeding so recklessly back to Mademoiselle's
old room that she was breathless as she shut the door behind her and
leaned against it laughing weakly.
"Oh! Oh! I know it is all a dream! It's too ridiculous to be true!"
She found enough water in a pitcher on the table to bathe her face.
She sat on the edge of the bed thinking hard as she brushed her hair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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