Cook drew near and laid one little book after another on the small
table near her.
"That's the butcher's book," she said. "He's sent nothing in for
three days. We've been living on leavings. He's sent his last,
he says and he means it. This is the baker's. He's not been for
a week. I made up rolls because I had some flour left. It's done
now--and HE'S done. This is groceries and Mercom & Fees wrote
to Mr. Gareth-Lawless when the last month's supply came, that it
would BE the last until payment was made. This is wines--and coal
and wood--and laundry--and milk. And here is wages, ma'am, which
CAN'T go on any longer."
Feather threw up her hands and quite wildly.
"Oh, go away!--go away!" she cried. "If Mr. Lawless were here--"
"He isn't, ma'am," Cook interposed, not fiercely but in a way more
terrifying than any ferocity could have been--a way which pointed
steadily to the end of things. "As long as there's a gentleman
in a house there's generally a sort of a prospect that things MAY
be settled some way. At any rate there's someone to go and speak
your mind to even if you have to give up your place. But when
there's no gentleman and nothing--and nobody--respectable people
with their livings to make have got to protect themselves."
The woman had no intention of being insolent. Her simple statement
that her employer's death had left "Nothing" and "Nobody" was
prompted by no consciously ironic realization of the diaphanousness
of Feather.
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