Chapter 16: Miss Bobinet’s

Nance’s new duties, compared with those at the bottle factory, and the sweat-shop seemed, at first, mere child’s play. She arrived at eight o’clock, helped Susan in the basement kitchen, until Miss Bobinet awoke, then went aloft to officiate at the elaborate process of that lady’s toilet. For twenty years Susan had been chief priestess at this ceremony, but her increasing deafness infuriated her mistress to such an extent that Nance was initiated into the mysteries. The temperature of the bath, the choice of underclothing, the method of procedure were matters of the utmost significance, and the slightest mistake on the part of the assistant brought about a scene. Miss Bobinet would shriek at Susan, and Susan would shriek back; then both would indulge in scathing criticism of the other in an undertone to Nance.

The final rite was the most critical of all. Miss Bobinet would sit before her dresser with a towel about her neck, and take a long breath, holding it in her puffed-out cheeks, while rice powder was dusted over the corrugated surface of her face. She held the theory that this opened the pores of the skin and allowed them to absorb the powder. The sight of the old lady puffed up like a balloon was always too much for Nance, and when she laughed, Miss Bobinet was obliged to let her breath go in a sharp reprimand, and the performance had to start all over again.

“You laugh too much anyhow,” she complained irritably.

When the toilet and breakfast were over, there followed two whole hours of pinochle. Nance came to regard the queen of spades and the jack of diamonds with personal animosity. Whatever possible interest she might have taken was destroyed by the fact that Miss Bobinet insisted upon winning two out of every three games. It soon became evident that while she would not cheat on her own behalf, she expected her opponent to cheat for her. So Nance dutifully slipped her trump cards back in the deck and forgot to declare while she idly watched the flash of diamonds on the wrinkled yellow hands, and longed for the clock to strike the next hour.

At lunch she sat in the kitchen opposite Susan and listened to a recital of that melancholy person’s woes. Susan and her mistress, being mutually dependent, had endured each other’s exclusive society for close upon twenty years. The result was that each found the other the most stimulating of all subjects of conversation. When Nance was not listening to tirades against Susan up-stairs, she was listening to bitter complaints against Miss Bobinet down-stairs.

In the afternoon she was expected to read at the top of her voice from “The Church Guide,” until Miss Bobinet got sleepy; then it was her duty to sit motionless in the stuffy, camphor-laden room, listening to an endless succession of vocal gymnastics until what time the old lady saw fit to wake up.

If Nance had been a provident young person, she might have improved those idle hours during that interminable winter by continuing her study of stenography. But, instead, she crouched on the floor by the window, holding her active young body motionless, while her thoughts like distracted imprisoned things flew round their solid walls of facts, frantically seeking some loophole of escape. Day after day she crouched there, peeping out under the lowered shade with hungry eyes. The dreary street below offered no diversion; sometimes a funeral procession dragged its way past, but for the most part there was nothing to see save an occasional delivery wagon or a staid pedestrian.