A few inquiries began: but one of the earliest—“How did sister Bertram manage about her servants?” “Was she as much plagued as herself to get tolerable servants?”—soon led Mrs. Price’s mind away from Northamptonshire, and fixed it on her own domestic grievances. The shocking character, not to mention the peeling skin and poor attitude of all the Portsmouth servants, of whom she believed her own two were the very worst, engrossed her completely. There were just too many louts out and about, according to Mrs. Price. Strange, oddly lumbering stiff fellows, so stiff, one could almost say deceased—she could have sworn she saw a dog lift its leg and pee on one!

Fanny listened, with dawning suspicion and alarm.

The Bertrams were thus all forgotten in detailing the faults of the neighborhood in general—and Rebecca in particular, against whom Susan had also much to depose, and little Betsey a great deal more, and who did seem so thoroughly without a single recommendation, that Fanny could not help modestly presuming that her mother meant to part with her when her year was up.

“Her year!” cried Mrs. Price; “I am sure I hope I shall be rid of her before she has staid a year, for that will not be up till November. And now, I dare say, she has a sailor following her around! Grim silent foreign fellow, stiff as a board, shedding bits of rag—not someone I want entering my kitchen! Servants are come to such a pass, my dear, in Portsmouth, that it is quite a miracle if one keeps them more than half a year. Whence do they all come, anyway, such horrid unkempt things? I have no hope of ever being settled; and if I was to part with Rebecca, I should only get something worse. Mrs. Garvey from next door got a pair of fool servants who, between the two of them, broke down her back wall completely by bumping into it so much! Have you ever heard of such a thing? And yet I do not think I am a very difficult mistress to please; and with Rebecca, I am sure the place is easy enough, for there is always a girl under her, and I often do half the work myself.”

Fanny was silent; but not from being convinced that there might not be a remedy found for some of these evils.

She was thinking of mummies. Could they be here? All the way down here, at Portsmouth? And what of their ancient lord?

Fanny’s heart began to ache again with a profusion of mixed emotions.