My daughter likes working for Miss Felix, serving teas, selling cakes, washing dishes. She even managed to meet Lady Brender, the proprietress, a stately lady of eighty-two who still goes on cruises in the Mediterranean. \u201cAnd she\u2019s only just come back from Switzerland,\u201d my daughter told me, full of admiration. Aunt Maisie was mighty impressed. How did my daughter meet Lady Brender? Through somebody called Miss Felix, I explained to her. It turned out, Aunt Maisie knew Miss Felix. Having worked in a gentleman\u2019s house for over twenty years, I suppose one meets people. Lady Brender was one of them. \u201cI enjoyed serving the gentry,\u201d Aunt Maisie said, \u201ceverybody praised me for speaking well.\u201d Aunt Maisie likes her visitors to turn up in big cars. She can see mine is old and rusty, but \u201cit\u2019 s huge, isn\u2019t it\u201d she says admiringly. I used it the other day to see her. I was in a terrible rush, but wanted to let her know that I wouldn\u2019t be able to pay her the usual visit that week. She was surprized to see me at an unwonted time and I sat down for no more than a few minutes \u2013 such was my intention anyway. However, I didn\u2019t even have to stay that long, because Aunt Maisie turned on her radio to listen to the weather forecast \u2013 probably a matter of routine, it was lunchtime \u2013 and I felt justified in leaving her on the spot.<\/p>\n
She remarked to my daughter who brought her a birthday card a few days later, that I had barely stopped. My daughter laughed knowing full well why not. \u201cYour mother is sweet,\u201d Aunt Maisie then said, \u201cnot being a member of any charitable organisation and remembering my birthday, coming to see me. And she has the Orms, too\u201d. Not like the Vicar. He hasn\u2019t been once to see her! I had given him her address and reminded him twice. Keep on reminding me, he said, but I left off.<\/p>\n
When I saw her next, she told me her neighbour was a \u201cnasty old cat\u201d. She looked most indignant at the thought of the worthless person and was waiting for comment. Here is what had happened. Her neighbour had told the Warden that Aunt Maisie\u2019s drains … smelt! And not only that. She had also maintained that Aunt Maisie did her washing in the bathroom sink \u2013 hence the smell. \u201cYou know how big a bathroom sink is,\u201d Aunt Maisie said, \u201cI couldn\u2019t wash my sheets in there. In any case, all my washing is done by my nephew\u2019s wife.\u201d Aunt Maisie shook her head, not knowing how to express her anger in a dignified way. The Warden had mentioned the problem to her. They had had a good laugh about it and her nephew had put a strong dose of disinfectant down her drain. \u201cI\u2019m just waiting for the wind to come from the East,\u201d she said gleefully \u201cand all the smell from the disinfectant will be wafted to my neighbour\u2019s door! Funny old woman \u2013 she\u2019s eighty-six or eighty-seven. Irish, too!\u201d I told her these matters couldn\u2019t be taken seriously enough. She laughed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My daughter likes working for Miss Felix, serving teas, selling cakes, washing dishes. She even managed to meet Lady Brender, the proprietress, a stately lady of eighty-two who still goes on cruises in the Mediterranean. \u201cAnd she\u2019s only just come back from Switzerland,\u201d my daughter told me, full of admiration. Aunt Maisie was mighty impressed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-aloud"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/Readingaloud1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}