The darkness and the quiet of Vida Levering's bedroom were rudely
dispelled at a punctual eight each morning by the entrance of a gaunt
middle-aged female.
It was this person's unvarying custom to fling back the heavy curtains,
as though it gratified some strong recurrent need in her, to hear brass
rings run squealing along a bar; as if she counted that day lost which
was not well begun--by shooting the blinds up with a clatter and a bang!
The harsh ceremonial served as a sort of setting of the pace, or a
metaphorical shaking of a bony fist in the face of the day, as much as
to say, 'If I admit you here you'll have to toe the mark!'
It might be taken as proof of sound nerves that the lady in the bed
offered no remonstrance at being jarred awake in this ungentle fashion.
Fourteen years before, when Vida Levering was only eighteen, she had
tried to make something like a conventional maid out of the faithful
Northumbrian. Rachel Wark had entered Lady Levering's service just
before Vida's birth, and had helped to nurse her mistress through a
mortal illness ten years later. After Sir Hervey Levering lost his wife,
Wark became in time housekeeper and general factotum to the family. This
arrangement held without a break until, as before hinted, Miss Vida,
full of the hopeful idealism of early youth, had tried and ignominiously
failed in her attempt to teach the woman gentler manners.
For Wark's characteristic retort had been to pack her box and go to
spend sixteen months among her kinsfolk, where energy was accounted a
virtue, and smooth ways held in suspicion. At the end of that time,
seeming to judge the lesson she wished to impart had been sufficiently
digested, Wark wrote to Miss Vida proposing to come back. For some
months she waited for the answer. It came at last from Biarritz, where
it appeared the young lady was spending the winter with her father.
After an exchange of letters Wark joined them there. In the twelve
years since her return to the family, she had by degrees adapted herself
to the task of looking after her young lady. The adaptation was not all
on one side. Many of Vida's friends wondered that she could put up with
a lady's maid who could do so few of the things commonly expected of
that accomplished class.
'I don't want dressmaking going on in the house,' contentedly Vida told
off her maid's negative qualifications, 'and I hate having anybody do my
hair for me. Wark packs quite beautifully, and then I _do_ like some one
about me--that I like.'
In the early days what she had 'liked' most about the woman was that
Wark had known and been attached to Lady Levering. There was no one else
with whom Vida could talk about her mother.
By the time death overtook Sir Hervey two winters ago in Rome, Wark had
become so essential a part of Vida's little entourage, that one of the
excuses offered by that lady for not going to live with her half-sister
in London had been--'Wark doesn't always get on with other servants.'
For several years Miss Levering's friends had been speaking of her as
one fallen a victim to that passion for Italy that makes it an abiding
place dearer than home to so many English-born. But the half-sister,
Mrs. Fox-Moore, had not been misled either by that theory or by the
difficulty as to pleasing Wark with the Queen Anne's Gate servants.
'It's not that Vida loves Italy so much as that, for some reason, she
doesn't love England at all.' Nevertheless, Mrs. Fox-Moore after some
months had persuaded her to 'bring Wark and try us.'
The experiment, now over a year old, seemed to have turned out well. If
Vida really did not love her native land, she seemed to enjoy well
enough what she called smiling 'the St. Martin's Summer' of her success
in London society.
* * * * *
She turned over in her bed on this particular May morning, stretching
out her long figure, and then letting it sink luxuriously back into
relaxed quiescence with a conscious joy in prolonging those last ten
minutes when sleep is slowly, softly, one after another, withdrawing her
thousand veils.
Vaguely, as she lay there with face half buried in her pillow, vaguely
she was aware that Wark was making even more noise than common.
When the woman had bustled in and bustled out several times, and
deposited the shoes with a 'dump,' she reappeared with the delicate
porcelain tray that bore the early tea. On the little table close to
where the dark head lay half hidden, Wark set the fragile burden
down--did it with an emphasis that made cup and saucer shiver and run
for support towards the round-bellied pot.
Vida opened her heavy-lidded eyes. 'Really, Wark, you know, nobody on
earth would let you wake them in the morning except me.' She sat up and
pulled the pillow higher. 'Give me the tray here,' she said sleepily.
Wark obeyed. She had said nothing to Vida's reproof. She stood now by
the bedside without a trace of either contrition or resentment in the
wooden face that seemed, in recompense for never having been young, to
be able successfully to defy the 'antique pencil.' Time had made but one
or two faint ineffectual scratches there, as one who tries, and then
abandons, an unpromising surface. The lack of record in the face lent it
something almost cryptic. If there were no laughter-wrought lines about
the eyes, neither was there mark of grief or self-repression near the
mouth. She would, you felt, defy Time as successfully as she defied
lesser foes. Even the lank, straw-coloured hair hardly showed the
streaks of yellow-white that offered their unemphatic clue to Wark's
age.
The sensitive face of the woman in the bed--even now with something of
the peace of sleep still shadowing its brilliancy--gave by contrast an
impression of vividness and eager sympathies. The mistress, too, looked
younger than her years. She did not seem to wonder at the dull presence
that seemed to be held there, prisoner-like, behind the brass bars at
the foot of the bed. Wark sometimes gave herself this five minutes'
_tete-a-tete_ with her mistress before the business of the day began and
all their intercourse was swamped in clothes.
'I meant to pin a paper on the door to say I wasn't to be called till
ten,' said the lady, as though keeping up the little pretence of not
being pleased.
'Didn't you sleep well, 'm?' The maid managed wholly to denude the
question of its usual grace of solicitude.
'Yes; but it was so late when I began. We didn't get back till nearly
three.'
'I didn't get much sleep, either.' It was an unheard-of admission from
Wark.
'Oh!' said Vida, lazily sipping her tea. 'Bad conscience?'
'No,' she said slowly, 'no.'
As the woman raised her light eyes, Miss Levering saw, to her
astonishment, that the lids were red. Wark, too, seemed uncomfortably
aware of something unusual in her face, for she turned it away, and
busied herself in smoothing down the near corner of the bath blanket.
'What kept _you_ awake?' Miss Levering asked.
'Well, I suppose I'd better tell you while the other people aren't
round. I want a day or two to go into the country.'
'Into the country?' No such request had been heard for a round dozen of
years.
'I've got some business to see to.'
'At home? In Northumberland?'
'No.'
The tone seemed so little to promise anything in the nature of a
confidence that Miss Levering merely said--
'Oh, very well. When do you want to go?'
'I could go to-morrow if----' She stopped, and looked down at the hem of
her long white apron.
Something unwonted in the wooden face prompted Miss Levering to say--
'What do you want to do in the country?'
'To see about a place that's been offered me.'
'A _place_, Wark!'
'Yes; post of housekeeper. That's what I really am, you know.'
Miss Levering looked at her, and set down the half-finished cup without
opening her lips. If the speech had come from any other than Wark, it
would have been easy to believe it merely the prelude to complaint of a
fellow-servant or plea for a rise in wages. But if Wark objected to a
fellow-servant, her own view of the matter had always been that the
other one should go. Her mistress knew quite well that in the mouth of
the woman standing there with red eyes at the foot of the bed, such an
announcement as had just been made, meant more. And the consciousness
seemed to bring with it a sense of acute discomfort not unmixed with
anger. For there was a threat of something worse than an infliction of
mere inconvenience. It was a species of desertion. It was almost
treachery. They had lived together all the younger woman's life, except
for those two years that followed on the girl's attempt to make a
conventional servant out of a creature who couldn't be that, but who had
it in her to be more.
They had been too long together for Wark not to divine
something--through all the lady's self-possession--of her sense of being
abandoned.
'It's having to tell you that that kept me awake.'
The wave of dull colour that mounted up to the bushy, straw-coloured
eyebrows seemed on the way to have overflowed into her eyes. They grew
redder than before, and slowly they filled.
'You don't like living here in this house.' Vida caught at the old
complication.
'I've got used to it,' the woman said baldly. Then, after a little
pause, during which she made a barely audible rasping to clear her
throat, 'I don't like leaving you, miss. I always remember how, that
time before--the only time I was ever away from you since you was a
baby--how different I found you when I came back.'
'Different, Wark?'
'Yes, miss. It seemed like you'd turned into somebody else.'
'Most people change--develope--in those years just before twenty.'
'Not like you did, miss. You gave me a deal of trouble when you was
little, but it nearly broke my heart to come back and find you so
quieted down and wise-like.'
A flash of tears glimmered in the mistress's eyes, though her lips were
smiling.
'Of course,' the maid went on, 'though you never told me about it, I
know you had things to bear while I was away, or else you wouldn't have
gone away from your home that time--a mere child--and tried to teach for
a living.'
'It _was_ absurd of me! But whosever fault it was, it wasn't yours.'
'Yes, miss, in a way it was. I owed it to your mother not to have left
you. I've never told you how I blamed myself when I heard--and I didn't
wonder at you. It _was_ hard when your mother was hardly cold to see
your father----'
'Yes; now that's enough, Wark. You know we never speak of that.'
'No, we've never spoken about it. And, of course, you won't need me any
more like you did then. But it's looking back and remembering--it's that
that's making it so hard to leave you now. But----'
'Well?'
'My friends have been talking to me.'
'About----'
'Yes, this post.' Then, almost angrily, 'I didn't try for it. It's come
after me. My cousin knows the man.'
'The man who wants you to go to him as housekeeper?' Vida wrinkled her
brows. Wark hadn't said 'gentleman,' who alone in her employer's
experience had any need of a housekeeper. 'You mean you don't know him
yourself?'
'Not yet, 'm. I know he's a market gardener, and he wants his house
looked after.'
'What if he does? A market gardener won't be able to pay the wages
I----'
'The wages aren't much to begin with--but he's getting along--except for
the housekeeping. That's in a bad way.'
'What if it is? I never heard such nonsense. You don't want to leave me,
Wark, for a market gardener you've never so much as seen;' and Miss
Levering covered her discomfort by a little smiling.
'My cousin's seen him many a time. She likes him.'
'Let your cousin go, then, and keep his house for him.'
'My cousin has her own house to keep, and she's got a young baby.'
'Oh, the woman who brought her child here once?'
'Yes, 'm, the child you gave the coral beads to. My cousin has written
and talked about it ever since.'
'About the beads?'
'About the market gardener. And the way his house is--Ever since we came
back to England she's been going on at me about it. I told her all along
I couldn't leave you, but she's always said (since that day you walked
about with the baby and gave him the beads to play with, and wouldn't
let her make him cry by taking them away)--ever since then my cousin
has said you'd understand.'
'What would I understand?'
Wark laid her hand on the nearest of the shining bars of brass, and
slowly she polished it with her open palm. She obviously found it
difficult to go on with her defence.
'I wanted my cousin to come and explain to you.'
Here was Wark in a new light indeed! If she really wanted any creature
on the earth to speak for her. As she stood there in stolid
embarrassment polishing the shiny bar, Miss Levering clutched the tray
to steady it, and with the other hand she pulled the pillow higher. One
had to sit bolt upright, it seemed, and give this matter one's entire
attention.
'I don't want to talk to your cousin about your affairs. We are old
friends, Wark. Tell me yourself.'
She forced her eyes to meet her mistress's. 'He told my cousin: "Just
you find me a good housekeeper," he said, "and if I like her," he said,
"she won't be my housekeeper long."'
'Wark! _You!_ You aren't thinking of marrying?'
'If he's what my cousin says----'
'A man you've never seen? Oh, my _dear_ Wark! Well, I shall hope and
pray he won't think your housekeeping good enough.'
'He will! From what my cousin says, he's had a run of worthless huzzies.
I don't expect he'll find much fault with _my_ housekeeping after what
he's been through.'
Vida looked wondering at the triumphant face of the woman.
'And so you're ready to leave me after all these years?'
'No, miss, I'm not to say "ready," but I think I'll have to go.'
'My poor old Wark'--the lady leaned over the tray--'I could almost think
you are in love with this man you've only heard about!'
'No, miss, I'm not to say in love.'
'I believe you are! For what other reason would you have for leaving
me?'
The woman looked as if she could show cause had she a mind. But she said
nothing.
'You know,' Vida pursued--'you know quite well you don't need to marry
for a home.'
'No, 'm; I'm quite comfortable, of course, with you. But time goes on. I
don't get younger.'
'None of us do that, Wark.'
'That's just the trouble, miss. It ain't only _me_.'
Vida looked at her, more perplexed than ever by the curious regard in
the hard-featured countenance. For there was something very like dumb
reproach in Wark's face.
'Still,' said Miss Levering, 'you know, even if none of us do get
younger, we are not any of us (to judge by appearances) on the brink of
the grave. Even if I should be smashed up in a motor accident--I know
you're always expecting that--even if I were killed to-morrow, still
you'd find I hadn't forgotten you, Wark.'
'It isn't that, miss. It isn't death I'm afraid of.'
There was a pause--the longest that yet had come.
'What _are_ you afraid of?' Miss Levering asked.
'It's--you see, I've been looking these twelve years to see you
married.'
'Me? What's that got to do with----'
'Yes, miss. You see, I've counted a good while on looking after children
again some day. But if you won't get married----'
Vida flung her hair back with a burst of not very merry laughter.
'If I won't, you must! But _why_ in the world? I'd no idea you were so
romantic. Why must there be a wedding in the family, Wark?'
'So there can be children, miss,' said the woman, stolidly.
'Well, there is a child. There's Doris.'
'Poor Miss Doris!' The woman shook her head. 'But she's got a good
nurse. I say it, though she calls advice interfering. And Miss Doris has
got a mother' (plain that Wark was again in the market garden). 'Yes,
_she's_ got a mother! and a sort of a father, and she's got a governess,
and a servant to carry her about. I sometimes think what Miss Doris
needs most is a little letting alone. Leastways, she don't need _me_.
No, nor _you_, miss.'
'And you've given me up?' the mistress probed.
Wark raised her red eyes. 'Of course, miss, if I'm wrong----' Her
knuckly hand slid down from the brass bar, and she came round to the
side of the bed with an unmistakable eagerness in her face. 'If you're
going to get married, I don't see as I _could_ leave ye.'
The lady's lips twitched with an instant's silent laughter, but there
was something else than laughter in her eyes.
'Oh, I _can_ buy you off, can I? If I give you my word--if to save you
from need to try the great experiment, I'll sacrifice _my_self----'
'I wouldn't like to see you make a sacrifice, miss,' Wark said, with
perfect gravity. 'But'--as though reconsidering--'you wouldn't feel it
so much, I dare say, after the child was there.'
They looked at one another.
'If it's children you yearn for, my poor Wark, you've waited too long,
I'm afraid.'
'Oh, no, miss.' She spoke with a fatuous confidence.
'Why, you must be fifty.'
'Fifty-three, miss. But'--she met her mistress's eye
unflinching--'Bunting--he's the market gardener--he's been married
before. He's got three girls and two boys.'
'Heavens!' Vida fell back against the pillow. 'What a handful!'
'Oh, no, 'm. My cousin says they're nice children.' It would have been
funny if it hadn't somehow been pathetic to see how instantly she was on
the defensive. '"Healthy and hearty," my cousin says, all but the little
one. She hardly thinks they'll raise _him_.'
'Well, I wish your market gardener had confined himself to raising
onions and cabbages. If he hadn't those children I don't believe you'd
dream of----'
'Well, of course not, miss. But it seems like those children need some
one to look after them more than--more than----'
'Than I do? That ought to be true.'
'One of 'em is little more than a baby.' The wooden woman offered it as
an apology.
'Take the tray,' said Vida.
From the look on her face you would say she knew she had lost the
faithfullest of servants, and that five little children somewhere in a
market garden had won, if not a mother, at least a doughty champion.