The family kept two servants, June the "China boy," who had been with
them since the beginning of things, and Delphine the cook, a more recent
acquisition. June was, in a way, butler and second boy combined; he did
all the downstairs work and the heavy sweeping, but it was another
time-worn custom for Mrs. Ravis and Turner to spend part of every
morning in putting the bedrooms to rights, dusting and making up the
beds. Besides this, Turner exercised a sort of supervision over Howard
and Virginia, who were too old for a nurse but too young to take care of
themselves. She had them to bed at nine, mended some of their clothes,
made them take their baths regularly, reëstablished peace between them
in their hourly quarrels, and, most arduous task of all, saw that Howard
properly washed himself every morning, and on Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons that he was suitably dressed in time for dancing school.
It was Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Ravis was reading to her husband, who lay
on the sofa in the back-parlour smoking a cigar. Stanley had gone out to
make a call, while Howard and Virginia had forgathered in the bathroom
to sail their boats and cigar boxes in the tub. Toward half-past three,
as Turner was in her room writing letters, the door-bell rang. She
stopped, with her pen in the air, wondering if it might be Vandover. It
was June's afternoon out. In a few minutes the bell rang again, and
Turner ran down to answer it herself, intercepting Delphine, who took
June's place on these occasions, but who was hopelessly stupid.
Mrs. Ravis had peered out through the curtains of the parlour window to
see who it was, and Turner met her and Mr. Ravis coming upstairs,
abandoning the parlour to Turner's caller.
"Mamma and I are going upstairs to read," explained Mr. Ravis. "It's
some one of your young men. You can bring him right in the parlour."
"I think it's Mr. Haight," said Turner's mother. "Ask him to stay to
tea."
"Well," said Turner doubtfully, as she paused at the foot of the stairs,
"I will, but you know we never have anything to speak of for Sunday
evening tea. June is out, and you know how clumsy and stupid Delphine is
when she waits on the table."
It _was_ young Haight. Turner was very glad to see him, for next to
Vandover she liked him better than any of the others. She was never
bored by being obliged to entertain him, and he always had something to
say and some clever way of saying it.
About half-past five, as they were talking about amateur photography,
Mrs. Ravis came in and called them to tea.
Tea with the Ravises was the old-fashioned tea of twenty years ago. One
never saw any of the modern "delicacies" on their Sunday evening table,
no enticing cold lunch, no spices, not even catsups or pepper sauces.
The turkey or chicken they had had for dinner was served cold in slices;
there was canned fruit, preserves, tea, crackers, bread and butter, a
large dish of cold pork and beans, and a huge glass pitcher of
ice-water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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