“I’ve nothing against the mistress—or against you, sir, for that matter.”
“Well, then, don’t you think you’re being rather silly?”
Mary sniffed.
“I was a bit upset like—after the inquest and all. And a girl has her feelings. But I wouldn’t like to cause the mistress inconvenience.”
“Then that’s all right,” I said.
I left the kitchen to find Griselda and Dennis waiting for me in the hall.
“Well?” exclaimed Griselda.
“She’s staying,” I said, and sighed.
“Len,” said my wife, “you have been clever.”
I felt rather inclined to disagree with her. I did not think I had been clever. It is my firm opinion that no servant could be a worse one than Mary. Any change, I consider, would have been a change for the better.
But I like to please Griselda. I detailed the heads of Mary’s grievance.
“How like Lettice,” said Dennis. “She couldn’t have left that yellow beret of hers here on Wednesday. She was wearing it for tennis on Thursday.”
“That seems to me highly probable,” I said.
“She never knows where she’s left anything,” said Dennis, with a kind of affectionate pride and admiration that I felt was entirely uncalled for. “She loses about a dozen things every day.”
“A remarkably attractive trait,” I observed.
Any sarcasm missed Dennis.