Read The Rose Garden for Free Online Page A

a minute, and, satisfied, bent over tounbutton her boots. Her house slippers were downstairs, locked up in one of her bundles, so, with the boots open and flapping, she clumped down the back stairs to the kitchen and set about making tea. When the kettle was on, she built a fire in the huge open fireplace, using paper towels and three logs from a beautifully geometrical pile that lay in a white basket against the wall. She was sitting in front of the fire having her cup of tea when the door opened and Mrs. Conroy shuffled in. Mrs. Conroy’s face was immensely lined, but whether the lines had been put there by a life of goodness or by a life of badness it would have been hard to say. She simply looked very old. Her manner would have been called obsequious in a younger person, and her hands were gathered nervously around a large white handkerchief, which from time to time she pressed against her mouth, perhaps to hide a tremor—of age, or of amusement, or of malice.
    Betty regarded the intruder bleakly. I could buy you and sell you, she thought as she got up.
    â€œI’m Mrs. Conroy,” the old woman said beseechingly, “Mrs. Frye’s mother you know. I see you have the fire going. I dearly love a fire, but Mrs. Frye won’t permit them in the house, although she won’t object to you having one, I’m sure. She doesn’t approve of open fires. She tries to keep me in my room. I dislike my room. I hate the furniture. I expect you do, too, coming from England. My room is exactly like yours, except that I have that unwholesome view of the river. I like to watch a street and see what the people are up to. I thought, being English, you might be having a cup of tea, and I thought perhaps you might permit me to join you here. Mrs. Frye won’t permit me to have tea.”
    â€œI’m sorry, m’lady, but I don’t permit ladies in my kitchen,” Betty said.
    â€œOnly for a minute, to get the heat of the fire on my legs.”
    â€œIt’s out of the question, m’lady. I must ask you to leave mykitchen at once.”
    â€œI’m not let have tea, and I’m not let have a fire,” Mrs. Conroy said. “I notice you give yourself tea and a fire, though. I notice you have a fire and a nice cup of tea there beside you.”
    â€œWhat I do for myself and what I do for other people are two entirely different things, m’lady,” Betty said.
    â€œI only wanted to get the heat of the fire on my legs a minute,” Mrs. Conroy beseeched. “Radiators aren’t the same thing at all. Don’t you think I’m right? Radiators are no good, are they? . . . Well, you might at least answer me.” In the doorway, she paused and said, without looking back, “You’re just the same sort she is! Just the same!”
    When the door closed, Betty sat down by the fire to finish her tea. As she brought the cup to her lips, she raised her eyes and saw Mrs. Conroy’s handkerchief lying crumpled on the floor. She rose, picked up the handkerchief, and, boots still loose and flapping, went up the stairs and knocked on the door next to her own. A voice answered faintly. When Betty opened the door, Mrs. Conroy was sitting in her wing chair, which she had turned so that her back was to the window. One of her account books lay open on her lap. “Oh,” she said. “I was hoping it was my daughter. She hates me to turn this chair around, but I’d rather look at a dry door than at that wet view any day of the week. She hates to have anything in the house changed, you know. You’d better remember that. She’s very set in her ways.”
    â€œI’m returning your handkerchief, m’lady,” Betty said rudely, and dropped it on the bed.
    She was about to leave when she saw the shabby books on their shelves. The word “Accounts,” inked on the back of each volume, sprang out at her. “Excuse me, m’lady,” she said.