‘Oh, ma’am, don’t, don’t say that!’ pleaded Louisa, faintly.
Magdalen sorrowfully and steadily went on.
‘When you first came to me,’ she resumed, ‘I thought I should not like you. I have learnt to like you – I have learnt to be grateful to you. From first to last you have been faithful and good to me. The least I can do in return, is not to stand in the way of your future prospects.’
‘Don’t send me away, ma’am!’ said Louisa, imploringly. ‘If you can only help me with a little money now and then, I’ll wait for my wages – I will indeed.’
Magdalen took her hand, and went on, as sorrowfully and as steadily as before.
‘My future life is all darkness, all uncertainty,’ she said. ‘The next step I take may lead me to my prosperity or may lead me to my ruin. Can I ask you to share such a prospect as this? If your future was as uncertain as mine is – if you, too, were a friendless woman thrown on the world – my conscience might be easy in letting you cast your lot with mine. I might accept your attachment, for I might feel I was not wronging you. How can I feel this in your case? You have a future to look to. You are an excellent servant; you can get another place – a far better place than mine. You can refer to me; and if the character I give is not considered sufficient, you can refer to the mistress you served before me – ’
At the instant when that reference to the girl’s last employer escaped Magdalen’s lips, Louisa snatched her hand away, and started up affrightedly from her chair. There was a moment’s silence. Both mistress and maid were equally taken by surprise.
Magdalen was the first to recover herself.
‘Is it getting too dark?’ she asked, significantly. ‘Are you going to light the candles, after all?’
Louisa drew back into the dimmest corner of the room.
‘You suspect me, ma’am!’ she answered out of the darkness, in a breathless whisper. ‘Who has told you? How did you find out –?’ She stopped, and burst into tears. ‘I deserve your suspicion,’ she said, struggling to compose herself. ‘I can’t deny it to you. You have treated me so kindly; you have made me so fond of you! Forgive me, Mrs Vanstone – I am a wretch; I have deceived you.’
‘Come here, and sit down by me again,’ said Magdalen. ‘Come – or I will get up myself, and bring you back.’
Louisa slowly returned to her place. Dim as the firelight was, she seemed to fear it. She held her handkerchief over her face, and shrank from her mistress as she seated herself again in the chair.
‘You are wrong in thinking that any one has betrayed you to me,’ said Magdalen. ‘All that I know of you is, what your own looks and ways have told me. You have had some secret trouble weighing on your mind ever since you have been in my service. I confess I have spoken with the wish to find out more of you and your past life than I have found out yet – not because I am curious, but because I have my secret troubles, too. Are you an unhappy woman, like me? If you are, I will take you into my confidence. If you have nothing to tell me – if you choose to keep your secret – I don’t blame you; I only say, Let us part. I won’t ask how you have deceived me. I will only remember that you have been an honest and faithful and competent servant, while I have employed you – and I will say as much in your favour to any new mistress you like to send to me.’
She waited for the reply. For a moment, and only for a moment, Louisa hesitated. The girl’s nature was weak, but not depraved. She was honestly attached to her mistress; and she spoke with a courage which Magdalen had not expected from her.
‘If you send me away, ma’am,’ she said, ‘I won’t take my character from you till I have told you the truth; I won’t return your kindness by deceiving you a second time. Did my master ever tell you how he engaged me?’
‘No. I never asked him, and he never told me.’
‘He engaged me, ma’am, with a written character – ’
‘Yes?’
‘The character was a false one.’
Magdalen drew back in amazement. The confession she heard, was not the confession she had anticipated.
‘Did your mistress refuse to give you a character?’ she asked. ‘Why?’
Louisa dropped on her knees, and hid her face in her mistress’s lap. ‘Don’t ask me!’ she said. ‘I’m a miserable, degraded creature; I’m not fit to be in the same room with you!’
Magdalen bent over her, and whispered a question in her ear. Louisa whispered back the one sad word of reply.
‘Has he deserted you?’ asked Magdalen, after waiting a moment, and thinking first.
‘No.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘Dearly.’
The remembrance of her own loveless marriage stung Magdalen to the quick.
‘For God’s sake, don’t kneel to me!’ she cried, passionately. ‘If there is a degraded woman in this room, I am the woman – not you!’
She raised the girl by main force from her knees, and put her back in the chair. They both waited a little in silence. Keeping her hand on Louisa’s shoulder, Magdalen seated herself again, and looked with unutterable bitterness of sorrow into the dying fire. ‘Oh,’ she thought, ‘what happy women there are in the world! Wives who love their husbands! Mothers who are not ashamed to own their children! Are you quieter?’ she asked, gently addressing Louisa once more. ‘Can you answer me, if I ask you something else? Where is the child?’
‘The child is out at nurse.’
‘Does the father help to support it?’
‘He does all he can, ma’am.’
‘What is he? Is he in service? Is he in a trade?’
‘His father is a master-carpenter – he works in his father’s yard.’
‘If he has got work, why has he not married you?’
‘It is his father’s fault, ma’am not his. His father has no pity on us. He would be turned out of house and home, if he married me.’
‘Can he get no work elsewhere?’
‘It’s hard to get good work in London, ma’am. There are so many in London – they take the bread out of each other’s mouths. If we had only had the money to emigrate, he would have married me long since.’
‘Would he marry you, if you had the money now?’
‘I am sure he would, ma’am. He could get plenty of work in Australia, and double and treble the wages he gets here. He is trying hard, and I am trying hard to save a little towards it – I put by all I can spare from my child. But it is so little! If we live for years to come, there seems no hope for us. I know I have done wrong every way – I know I don’t deserve to be happy. But how could I let my child suffer? – I was obliged to go to service. My mistress was hard on me, and my health broke down in trying to live by my needle. I would never have deceived anybody by a false character, if there had been another chance for me. I was alone and helpless, ma’am; and I can only ask you to forgive me.’
‘Ask better women than I am,’ said Magdalen, sadly. ‘I am only fit to feel for you; and I do feel for you with all my heart. In your place I should have gone into service with a false character too. Say no more of the past – you don’t know how you hurt me in speaking of it. Talk of the future. I think I can help you – and do you no harm. I think you can help me, and do me the greatest of all services, in return. Wait, and you shall hear what I mean. Suppose you were married – how much would it cost for you and your husband to emigrate?’
Louisa mentioned the cost of a steerage passage to Australia for a man and his wife. She spoke in low, hopeless tones. Moderate as the sum was, it looked like unattainable wealth in her eyes.
Magdalen started in her chair, and took the girl’s hand once more.
‘Louisa!’ she said, earnestly. ‘If I gave you the money, what would you do for me in return?’
The proposal seemed to strike Louisa speechless with astonishment. She trembled violently, and said nothing. Magdalen repeated her words.
‘Oh, ma’am, do you mean it?’ said the girl. ‘Do you really mean it?’
‘Yes,’ replied Magdalen; ‘I really mean it. What would you do for me in return?’
‘Do?’ repeated Louisa. ‘Oh, what is there I would not do!’ She tried to kiss her mistress’s hand; but Magdalen would not permit it. She resolutely, almost roughly, drew her hand away.
‘I am laying you under no obligation,’ she said. ‘We are serving each other – that is all. Sit quiet, and let me think.’
For the next ten minutes there was silence in the room. At the end of that time, Magdalen took out her watch, and held it close to the grate. There was just firelight enough to show her the hour. It was close on six o’clock.
‘Are you composed enough to go downstairs, and deliver a message?’ she asked, rising from her chair as she spoke to Louisa again. ‘It is a very simple message – it is only to tell the boy that I want a cab, as soon as he can get me one. I must go out immediately. You shall know why, later in the evening. I have much more to say to you – but there is no time to say it now. When I am gone, bring your work up here, and wait for my return. I shall be back before bed-time.’
Without another word of explanation, she hurriedly lit a candle, and withdrew into the bedroom to put on her bonnet and shawl.
Chapter Two
Between nine and ten o’clock the same evening, Louisa, waiting anxiously, heard the long-expected knock at the house-door. She ran downstairs at once, and let her mistress in.
Magdalen’s face was flushed. She showed far more agitation on returning to the house than she had shown on leaving it. ‘Keep your place at the table,’ she said to Louisa, impatiently; ‘but lay aside your work. I want you to attend carefully to what I am going to say.’
Louisa obeyed. Magdalen seated herself at the opposite side of the table, and moved the‘ candles, so as to obtain a clear and uninterrupted view of her servant’s face.
‘Have you noticed a respectable elderly woman,’ she began abruptly, ‘who has been here once or twice, in the last fortnight, to pay me a visit?’
‘Yes, ma’am: I think I let her in, the second time she came. An elderly person, named Mrs Attwood?’
‘That is the person I mean. Mrs Attwood is Mr Loscombe’s house keeper; not the housekeeper at his private residence, but the housekeeper at his offices in Lincoln’s Inn. I promised to go and drink tea with her, some evening this week – and I have been to-night. It is strange of me, is it not, to be on these familiar terms with a woman in Mrs Attwood’s situation?’
Louisa made no answer in words. Her face spoke for her: she could hardly avoid thinking it strange.
‘I had a motive for making friends with Mrs Attwood,’ Magdalen went on. ‘She is a widow, with a large family of daughters. Her daughters are all in service. One of them is an under-housemaid, in the service of Admiral Bartram, at St Crux-in-the-Marsh. I found that out from Mrs Attwood’s master: and as soon as I arrived at the discovery, I privately determined to make Mrs Attwood’s acquaintance. Stranger still, is it not?’
Louisa began to look a little uneasy. Her mistress’s manner was at variance with her mistress’s words – it was plainly suggestive of something startling to come.
‘What attraction Mrs Attwood finds in my society,’ Magdalen continued, ‘I cannot presume to say. I can only tell you, she has seen better days; she is an educated person; and she may like my society on that account. At any rate, she has readily met my advances towards her. What attraction I find in this good woman, on my side, is soon told. I have a great curiosity – an unaccountable curiosity, you will think – about the present course of household affairs at St Crux-in-the-Marsh. Mrs Attwood’s daughter is a good girl, and constantly writes to her mother. Her mother is proud of the letters and proud of the girl, and is ready enough to talk about her daughter, and her daughter’s place. That is Mrs Attwood’s attraction tome. You understand, so far?’
Yes – Louisa understood. Magdalen went on.
‘Thanks to Mrs Attwood, and Mrs Attwood’s daughter,’ she said, ‘I know some curious particulars already of the household at St Crux. Servants’ tongues and servants’ letters – as I need not tell you – are oftener occupied with their masters and mistresses, than their masters and mistresses suppose. The only mistress at St Crux is the housekeeper. But there is a master – Admiral Bartram. He appears to be a strange old man, whose whims and fancies amuse his servants as well as his friends. One of his fancies (the only one we need trouble ourselves to notice) is, that he had men enough about him, when he was living at sea, and that now he is living on shore, he will be waited on by women-servants alone. The one man in the house, is an old sailor, who has been all his life with his master – he is a kind of pensioner at St Crux, and has little or nothing to do with the house-work. The other servants, in doors, are all women; and instead of a footman to wait on him at dinner, the admiral has a parlour-maid. The parlour-maid now at St Crux, is engaged to be married; and, as soon as her master can suit himself, she is going away. These discoveries I made some days since. But when I saw Mrs Attwood to-night, she had received another letter from her daughter, in the interval; and that letter has helped me to find out something more. The housekeeper is at her wits‘ end to find a new servant. Her master insists on youth and good looks – he leaves every-thing else to the housekeeper – but he will have that. All the inquiries made in the neighbourhood have failed to produce the sort of parlourmaid whom the admiral wants. If nothing can be done in the next fortnight or three weeks, the housekeeper will advertise in The Times; and will come to London herself to see the applicants, and to make strict personal inquiry into their characters.’
Louisa looked at her mistress, more attentively than ever. The expression of perplexity left her face, and a shade of disappointment appeared there in its stead.
‘Bear in mind what I have said,’ pursued Magdalen; ‘and wait a minute more, while I ask you some questions. Don’t think you understand me yet – I can assure you, you don’t understand me. Have you always lived in service as lady’s maid?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Have you ever lived as parlour-maid?’
‘Only in one place, ma’am – and not for long there.’
‘I suppose you lived long enough to learn your duties?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘What were your duties, besides waiting at table?’
‘I had to show visitors in.’
‘Yes – and what else?’
‘I had the plate, and the glass to look after – and the table-linen was all under my care. I had to answer all the bells, except in the bedrooms. There were other little odds and ends sometimes to do –’
‘But your regular duties were the duties you have just mentioned?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘How long ago is it, since you lived in service as parlour-maid?’
‘A little better than two years, ma’am.’
‘I suppose you have not forgotten how to wait at table, and clean plate, and the rest of it, in that time?’
At this question, Louisa’s attention, which had been wandering more and more during the progress of Magdalen’s inquiries, wandered away altogether. Her gathering anxieties got the better of her discretion, and even of her timidity. Instead of answering her mistress, she suddenly and confusedly ventured on a question of her own.
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Did you mean me to offer for the parlour-maid’s place at St Crux?’
‘You?’ replied Magdalen. ‘Certainly not! Have you forgotten what I said to you in this room, before I went out? I mean you to be married, and to go to Australia with your husband and your child. You have not waited as I told you, to hear me explain myself. You have drawn your own conclusions; and you have drawn them wrong. I asked a question just now, which you have not answered – I asked if you had forgotten your parlour-maid’s duties?’
‘Oh no, ma’am!’ Louisa had replied rather unwillingly, thus far. She answered readily and confidently, now.
‘Could you teach the d
uties to another servant?’ asked Magdalen.
‘Yes, ma’am – easily, if she was quick and attentive.’
‘Could you teach the duties to Me?’
Louisa started and changed colour. ‘You, ma’am!’ she exclaimed, half in incredulity, half in alarm.
‘Yes,’ said Magdalen. ‘Could you qualify me to take the parlourmaid’s place at St Crux?’
Plain as those words were, the bewilderment which they produced in Louisa’s mind, seemed to render her incapable of comprehending her mistress’s proposal. ‘You, ma’am!’ she repeated, vacantly.
‘I shall perhaps help you to understand this extraordinary project of mine,’ said Magdalen, ‘if I tell you plainly what the object of it is. Do you remember what I said to you about Mr Vanstone’s will, when you came here from Sco£Uuml;and to join me?’
‘Yes, ma’am. You told me you had been left out of the will altogether. I’m sure my fellow-servant would never have been one of the witnesses, if she had known –’
‘Never mind that now. I don’t blame your fellow-servant – I blame nobody but Mrs Lecount. Let me go on with what I was saying. It is not at all certain that Mrs Lecount can do me the mischief which Mrs Lecount intended. There is a chance that my lawyer, Mr Loscombe, may be able to gain me what is fairly my due, in spite of the will. The chance turns on my discovering a letter, which Mr Loscombe believes, and which I believe, to be kept privately in Admiral Bartram’s possession. I have not the least hope of getting at that letter, if I make the attempt in my own person. Mrs Lecount has poisoned the admiral’s mind against me, and Mr Vanstone has given him a secret to keep from me. If I wrote to him, he would not answer my letter. If I went to his house, the door would be closed in my face. I must find my way into St Crux as a stranger – I must be in a position to look about the house, unsuspected – I must be there with plenty of time on my hands. All the circumstances are in my favour, if I am received into the house as a servant; and as a servant I mean to go.’