Читать книгу When the Sea Gives Up Its Dead. A Thrilling Detective Story онлайн

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“Still smarting under the peculiar treatment of the servant, it was with some trepidation that I approached the mistress. She was sitting in an easy chair, and did not rise to greet me, as I naturally expected she would do. From this trifling circumstance I instantly deduced the opinion that Mrs. Stavanger was totally devoid of those finer instincts which go to make up the being described by the term ‘lady.’ Subsequent observations have confirmed me in this opinion. Personal beauty of a strong, showy type, must at one time have been Mrs. Stavanger’s to a great degree. She would be handsome yet, but for the expression of mingled ill-temper and arrogance which perpetually disfigures her features. She is, I think, a woman who has, by means of her good looks, secured a husband whose position in life is much higher than hers had been, and she is one of those people of whom it is expressively said that ‘they cannot carry corn’—in other words she is a ‘beggar on horseback.’

“She treated me with scant courtesy, even as her waiting maid had led me to expect. She apparently imagines that a woman who is compelled to earn her living in any shape or form is no longer deserving of respect or civility. Hers is a belief which, unfortunately, has many followers, but which troubles me very little, and would trouble me just as little were I really the poor governess I seem to be, for I do not hold the opinion of unreasonable people to be important enough to worry about. By the time this interview was over, I had been given to understand that my duties would be slightly more onerous than I had anticipated when being engaged by Mr. Stavanger, who had spoken of his wife being too nervous to interview strangers, and of his twelve-year-old daughter as a child who required very little discipline.