Each morning, at nine o’clock, Flora watched Mrs Beetle stagger upstairs with tray laden with sausages, marmalade, porridge, a kipper, a fat black pot of strong tea and what Flora caustically thought of as half the loaf; but when once Mrs Beetle had entered Aunt Ada’s bedroom, the door was shut for good. And when Mrs Beetle came out she was not communicative. Once she observed to Flora, seeing the latter regarding the empty tray which had come out of Mrs Starkadder’s bedroom: ‘Yes … we’re a bit off our feed this morning, as you might say. We’ve only ’ad two goes of porridge, two soft-boiled eggs, a kipper just on the turn and ’alf that pot o’ jam Adam stole from the Vicarage bazaar lars summer. Still, there’s room for it where it goes, ’eaven knows, and we keep ’ealthy enough on it.’ ‘I have not met my aunt yet,’ said Flora. Mrs Beetle replied sombrely that Flora ’adn’t missed much, and they said no more on the matter. For Flora was not the type of person who questions servants.
