The allotment of the house-room had presented difficulties.
The great kitchen at La Closerie occupied the whole centre third of the
ground floor, the remaining thirds of the space on each side being taken
up with the rarely-used best room and three bedrooms, all pretty much of
a size, and all opening into the kitchen. Up above, under the sloping
thatch was the great solie or loft, entered from the outside through the
door-window in the gable by means of a short wooden ladder.
Grannie's dower rights, when Tom's grandfather died, had obtained for
her the two rooms constituting one-third of the house on the south side
of the kitchen, and certain rights of use of the kitchen itself. As she
needed only one room, she had bartered off the other and her kitchen
rights to her son and his wife in exchange for food and attendance, and
the arrangement had worked excellently.
But, on her first glimpse of young Tom's quick-eyed, bold-faced
Frenchwoman, she had vowed she would have none of her; and in the end,
as the result of some chaffering, it was arranged that Tom and his wife
should have the kitchen and all the rooms north of it, while Mrs.
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