She went on like that for a quarter of an hour—all the time, as I have mentioned, never quite catching my eye. She told me where I might walk in the house, and where I must take my meals, and how much sugar I should be allowed for my own use, and how much beer, and when I could expect my underclothes laundered. The tea that was boiled in Miss Maud''s teapot, she said, it had been the habit of the last lady''s maid to pass on to the girls in the kitchen. Likewise the wax-ends from Miss Maud''s candle-sticks: they were to be given to Mr Way. And Mr Way would know how many wax-ends to expect, since it was him who doled out the candles. Corks went to Charles, the knife-boy. Bones and skins went to Cook.
''The pieces of soap that Miss Maud leaves in her wash-stand, however,'' she said, ''as being too dry to raise a lather from: those you may keep.''
Well, that''s servants for you—always grubbing over their own little patch. As if I cared, about candle-ends and soap! If I had never quite felt it before, I knew then what it was, to be in expectations of three thousand pounds.
Then she said that if I had finished my supper she would be pleased to show me to my room. But she would have to ask me to be very quiet as we went, for Mr Lilly liked a silent house and couldn''t bear upset, and Miss Maud had a set of nerves that were just like his, that wouldn''t allow of her being kept from her rest or made fretful.