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Miss Petterick said to Beth. "I wish it were to-night." "I am indifferent," Beth answered blandly, "because I am not going." "Not going!" Dan exclaimed. "Then who's to chaperon me?" "I should scarcely suppose," Beth answered, looking at him meditatively, "that you are in the stage of innocence which makes a chaperon necessary. Bertha, how you are loving that new bracelet!
Nothing moves me to self-satisfaction like a nice dress. I have not enjoyed the pleasure much since I married. But I am going to begin now, and have a good time." She turned as she spoke and led the way to the dining-room alone. Dr. Maclure absently offered his arm to Miss Petterick.
At first she had supposed that this effusiveness was the outcome of affection for her; but when she began to know him, she perceived that it was only the expression of some personal gratification. He had been quite demonstrative in his attentions to her during the time that Bertha Petterick stayed in the house. "By the way, there is a letter for you," he said, when they were at lunch. "Is there?"
Beth's eye followed his to the mantelpiece, where she saw a large square envelope propped up against an ornament in a conspicuous position, and recognised the unmistakable, big, clear, firm hand of Bertha Petterick, and the thick kind of paper she always used. Beth had been thinking about Bertha on the way home.
She met the promptings of her disordered fancy with answers from her other self. "He and Bertha Petterick are together, that is why he is so late," the fiend would asseverate. "Very likely," her temperate self would reply. "But they may have been together any day this two years, and I knew it, and pitied and despised them, but felt no pain; why should I suffer now? Because my mind is disordered.
The house seemed unusually quiet. A green baize door separated the kitchen and offices from the hall. She opened it, and saw Minna in the butler's pantry, cleaning the plate. Minna was parlour-maid now, a housemaid having been added to the establishment when Miss Petterick came, so that that young lady might be well waited on.
I'm sure she would have blacked your boots for you when she was here, she was so devoted." "She was pretty servile, I grant that," Beth answered dispassionately. "But that is enough of Bertha Petterick, please. Here is the butcher's bill for the last month, and the baker's, the milk, the wine, the groceries, all nearly doubled on Bertha's account.
"We must get them into an Orphanage; Petterick has interest. I shall speak to him. Lottie?" "Yes, dear." "Beat up that fresh egg I saw you putting into the cupboard when I came in; beat it up, and add a little milk and a teaspoonful of brandy. I want to take it round with me to little Alice.
Bertha had been in the house three months, when one day her mother called, and found Beth alone, Dan and Bertha having gone for a drive together. Mrs. Petterick had just returned from abroad, where the whole family had been living most of the time that Bertha had been with the Maclures. "Really," Mrs. Petterick said, "I don't know how to thank you for your kindness to my girl.
Bertha Petterick was not the kind of person that Beth would have chosen for a companion, and she dreaded her coming; but before Bertha had been in the house a week she had so enlivened it that Beth wondered she had ever objected to her. Bertha fawned upon Beth from the first, and was by way of looking up to her, and admiring her intellect.
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