The Feast Read Free Page B

squeaking within, which meant that Fred was pushing his carpet-sweeper up and down the dining-room floor.
    When early tea and cans of hot water had been taken upstairs she would have to do the lounge while Fred did the hall and stairs, and Mrs. Siddal cooked the breakfast. Then there would be the washing-up and the bedrooms and landings and bathroom to do. Somehow, between them, Fred and Nancibel would get it all done before lunch-time.
    But not if there’s really ten more coming this afternoon, she thought, as she carried up the Paleys’ tea. I can’t do all those extra bedrooms. Ellis will have to do some.
    A year ago, before she was Somebody, she would not have thought this so calmly. She would have rehearsed a heated manifesto about being put upon, she would have become flustered when she mentioned the matter to Mrs. Siddal. Now she knew how to look after herself without unpleasantness.
    She knocked at the Paleys’ door and was told to come in. The early light streamed through the uncurtained window. Mr. Paley still sat there, writing in an exercise book. Mrs. Paley lay in her half of the bed, her neat grey head swathed in a pink net setting-cap. There was a petrified atmosphere about the room as though something violent had been going on there, and its occupants struck into immobility only by Nancibel’s knock. The Paleys always gave off this suggestion of a violence momentarily suspended. They would eat their breakfast every morning in a sombre, concentrated silence, as though bracing themselves for some enormous effort to be sustained during the day. Shortly afterwards they could be seen crossing the sands, carrying books, cushions and a picnic basket. They walked in single file, Mr. Paley leading. Up the cliff path they went, and out of sight over the headland. At four o’clock, having, as the flippant Duff Siddal suggested, disposed of the corpse, they returned inthe same order to take tea on the terrace. It was difficult to believe that they had done nothing all day save read and eat sandwiches.
    Nancibel put the can of water on the washing-stand and took the tea-tray to the bedside. Mrs. Paley, she perceived , was not really asleep. She lay tense and rigid, her eyes tightly shut. Neither Paley said anything, and all the violence no doubt broke out again as soon as the door was shut on them.
    Tea for Miss Ellis came next. She never said come in when you knocked. She always called out:
    ‘Who is it?’
    One day, vowed Nancibel, I’ll say it’s the Duke of Windsor.
    ‘Your tea, Miss Ellis.’
    ‘Oh? Come in.’
    The room was frowsty and full of cardboard boxes. It had been a nice little room before Miss Ellis came, with bright chintzes and good furniture. But she had managed to give it a poverty stricken look. She put nothing away; all her possessions lay strewn about that the world might see how shabby, soiled and broken they were. Her teeth grinned shamelessly on the dressing-table beside the filthy brush and comb. But the most squalid object in the room was Miss Ellis herself, in a torn, mud-coloured dressing-gown , her greasy black hair falling over her eyes.
    ‘Have you done the lounge?’
    ‘No, Miss Ellis.’
    (A nice row there’d be if she didn’t get her tea till I’d done the lounge!)
    ‘Then you’d better do it right away, Nancibel.’
    ‘Yes, Miss Ellis.’
    ‘Is Fred up yet?’
    ‘Yes, Miss Ellis.’
    ‘Has he done the dining-room?’
    ‘He’s doing it, Miss Ellis.’
    ‘Very well. When you’ve done the lounge you can go and help in the kitchen. I shall be down shortly.’
    This ritual conversation took place every morning and its offensiveness was deliberate. The implication was that Nancibel lacked both the wit to remember the usual routine and the conscience to follow it without a daily reminder. It was called Getting After The Girl, and constituted, in Miss Ellis’s opinion, the major part of her duties: a task not to be undertaken for less than four pounds a week.
    Fred was