"Will he remain with you?"
"He cannot. His business is large and increasing. He can afford but
this one fortnight vacation."
"How do you expect to get along without him?"
"I expect my dear old aunt to come often and see me," said Mabel
affectionately, parrying the catechism "Clara suggested, of her own
accord, when the extension of my visit was discussed, that you
should be invited to be with me late in April--and I don't want you
to refuse. Do you understand, and mean to be complaisant? You are
all the mother I have ever known, auntie."
"My lamb! you need not fear lest I shall not improve every
opportunity of seeing and comforting you. I shall return a civil and
grateful reply to Mrs. Aylett's invitation, for your sake! and for
the same reason try and remember, while I remain her guest, that her
right to be and to reign at Ridgeley is superior to yours or mine."
The good lady was not to be harshly censured if she now and then, in
private confabulation with her favorite, let fall a remark which was
the reverse of complimentary to her niece-in-law. Mabel's marriage
was the signal for a radical reorganization of the Ridgeley domestic
establishment, by which Mrs. Sutton was reduced from the busy,
responsible situation of housekeeper to the unenviable one of
unnoticed and unconsulted supernumerary.
"Not that I wish you to desert your old quarters, still less to feel
like a stranger with us," said Mrs. Aylett graciously, while she
affixed shining brass labels to the keys of closets, sideboards, and
store-rooms--the keys Aunt Rachel could distinguish from one
another, and all others in the world, in the darkest night, without
any labels whatever; which had grown smooth and bright by many
years' friction of her nimble fingers. "But Mr. Aylett wishes me to
assume the real, as well as nominal, government of the
establishment"--Mrs. Aylett was fond of the polysyllable as
conveying better than any other term she could employ the grandeur
of her position as Baroness of Ridgeley. "He insists that the
servants are growing worthless and refractory under the rule of so
many. Hereafter--this is his law, not mine--hereafter, those
attached to the house department are to come to me about their
orders, and the plantation workmen to him. I shall undoubtedly have
much trouble in curing the satellites appointed to me of their
irregular habits, and reducing them to something resembling system;
but Winston's extreme dissatisfaction with the anarchy that
prevailed under the ancien regime moves me to the undertaking."