NOTICE TO QUIT.
My fears lest Kitty's health might be affected by what had happened
proved unfounded. By next morning she had got herself once more in
hand, and I did not again see the expression of utter abandonment to
misery which had been visible on her face the previous night at the
moment when she entered her room, and before she was aware of my
presence there. If ever she allowed herself to look like that again,
I expect it was not until she had made quite sure first that there
was no human being within reach to see what her countenance might
betray.
_Some_ change in her, however, it was impossible that there should
not be, after the great and sudden mental commotion which she had
experienced. I observed that she was paler than her wont, and had
black marks under her eyes, which, when commented on by her aunt, she
accounted for as being the results of her violent headache. I saw,
too, that when she was not laughing or talking, and her features
were in repose, they settled into a hard stern expression which they
had not worn before; and that there was in her eyes a new look of
haughty defiance, as though they were challenging the whole world to
penetrate one hair's-breadth further than she chose into the locked
casket of her inner self. In other respects she was outwardly
unaltered, and went about and conducted herself in much the same way
as usual. The first shock of the blow had made her stagger for an
instant, but she had never broken down altogether, and was now
prepared to stand firm, and give no sign of pain. Natures like
hers, endowed with strength, pluck, and indomitable pride, are
generally more likely to be embittered than crushed when trouble and
disappointment comes upon them.
Just at this period my studies of Kitty's character were cut short
abruptly, and my own concerns forced themselves unpleasantly into the
foreground, and demanded exclusive attention.
Whilst I had been abroad my mind had been fully occupied with the
various incidents of our travels, and I had forgotten all about my
quondam-admirer Perkins, Lord Mervyn's valet. Unluckily, however,
he had not been equally oblivious of me; for, in rejecting his
attentions and causing the loss of his cherished whiskers, I had
inflicted an injury that he could neither forgive nor forget, and
for which he had vowed vengeance. When, therefore, chance unkindly
enabled him to discover an opportunity for doing me a bad turn, he
lost no time in profiting by it; and the effect which his malice had
upon my fortunes I was now to experience.
The day before we were to leave Paris and return to England, I was up
in my room, beginning to pack my box, when a housemaid came to tell
me to go to Kitty, who was in her bedroom, and wished to see me. I
obeyed the summons immediately, without a suspicion of impending
trouble ; but my tranquillity vanished as soon as I reached her room,
and caught sight of her face. She was sitting by the writing-table,
and looked up at me, on my entrance, with an air of cold dignified
displeasure, which showed me plainly there was something wrong, and
that I was in her black books for some cause or other. What the
dickens is the matter? I thought. I began hastily considering what
recent actions of mine to which she was likely to object could
have come to her ears; but I could not recollect any misdemeanour
important enough to make her look so displeased. I wished I could
guess what sort of accusation was going to be brought against me, so
that I might know whether to prepare denial, excuse, or frank
confession. For which of these three would be the best defence for
me to offer must obviously depend upon what likelihood there was that
the real truth would be ascertained.
"I have to speak to you, Jill," she said, "about a most disagreeable
matter. A letter which I have just received from my mother tells me
that she has seen Sir Bartholomew Brown, who has lately returned to
London, and that when she questioned him about you he denied all
knowledge of any one of your name, or answering to your description;
declared that no such person had ever been in his service; and that
the character, purporting to have been written by him, which you
produced in applying for our situation, was a forgery. What have you
to say to this?"
That was just what I did not know myself; for I was completely
dumbfoundered by this sudden attack from a quarter where I had
anticipated no danger. Why on earth could not Sir Bartholomew have
stayed in the East, as he had been supposed to be going to do?
In vain did I rack my brains for some way of extricating myself
from this dilemma. Not a single idea would occur to me, so I
simply remained silent--a course which had, at all events, the
recommendation of not committing me one way or other.
Kitty waited for a little while; and then, perceiving that I did not
intend to answer, she said:
"Am I to understand by your silence that you are unable to contradict
the truth of what Sir Bartholomew said?"
"Oh, if you _choose_ to understand it so, m'm, of course I can't help
that," replied I, shrugging my shoulders, and still evading a direct
admission of the charge which it was evidently useless for me to
dispute.
"I do not choose it at all," she returned quickly; "on the contrary,
I should greatly prefer to find that you are able to clear yourself.
But I wish to have a definite answer from you, either yes or no, when
I ask--Is the thing true?"
I hesitated for a moment. Then, seeing that I could gain nothing by
denying, and that to tell a lie about it would only sink me yet lower
in her eyes without doing me the least good, I replied desperately,
"Well--yes."
For a few minutes she did not speak, and sat with her head resting
on her hand, and apparently reflecting about something. At last she
said:
"I have been considering what to do. My mother thinks that you should
at once be given in charge of the police; but that I do not feel
inclined to do, after what we went through together in Corsica the
other day, and the way in which you behaved then. Besides, I have
had no cause of complaint since you have been with me, and I think
you have served _me_ well--whatever you may have done elsewhere.
Therefore, though of course I dismiss you, yet I wish to treat you
with no needless harshness. I propose, then, that you should continue
to be my maid for a day longer, so as not to leave me till we arrive
in London. Thus you will not be turned adrift in a foreign country,
as would be the case if I discharged you here, on the spot; you will
also have been brought back to whence you came, and be left in no
worse position than you were before entering our service. As for your
wages, I shall, of course, pay them to you fully. If you like this
arrangement--which is, I think, as favourable a one as you can
expect--I am quite willing to make it. I daresay some people would
say I ought not to let you stay an hour longer in my service; and
that all the thanks I shall get is to be laughed at, and perhaps
robbed, by a person who has already shown herself to be a forger. But
I would rather take my chance of that than have to reproach myself
with having wronged you."
I did not like her to think worse of me than I deserved, and for a
moment I felt very much inclined to tell her who I was, in order
that she might see that circumstances had really _compelled_ me to
act as I had done. For if I had not forged a character to start with,
how could I ever have obtained a chance of earning one honestly? I
think I should inevitably have yielded to the inclination, and
imparted my history to her there and then, if there had been anything
in her manner to make me believe that I had won a footing, however
low down, in her affection--that she cared about me just one little
bit. But there was no such indication. She would not defraud me of
one atom that might be due for the services I had rendered, because
it would have wounded her own self-respect to do that. But I saw (or
imagined myself to see) that the consideration she showed for me was
dictated solely by a sense of justice, and not by any softer feeling;
and the rising impulse to confide in her was frozen back by the cold,
haughty severity of her demeanour towards one whom she regarded as a
mere common cheat and forger. Consequently I only replied stiffly
that I was much obliged for her offer, which I should be glad to
accept; and that she might depend upon it I would not give her cause
to repent of her kindness.
"Very well," she returned, "then we will consider the matter settled
so, and you will leave me when we get to Charing Cross. By the by, I
may as well let you know that I have not told my aunt of what I heard
to-day, and that I shall not do so till after you have left. It would
only fuss her needlessly."
Then I withdrew, feeling extremely provoked at the turn affairs had
taken, and heartily anathematising Sir Bartholomew for having come
back to England so inopportunely, instead of staying in the East, as
he had been expected to do. How unlucky, too, that Lady Mervyn should
have happened to meet him, and to have had nothing better to talk
about than _me_! The more I thought about it, the more extraordinary
did it seem that she should have ever troubled herself to mention me
to him: for, from what I knew of her ladyship, I should have thought
that a lady's-maid was far too insignificant to be honoured by being
made a topic of her conversation with a stranger--that is to say,
unless there had been some special reason for it; and I did not think
any such reason was likely to have existed in this instance. Very
likely the letter she had written to Kitty about me would contain
some enlightenment on this point. If only I could get hold of that
document, I would see; but the chances were that I should not be able
to lay hands on it, as Kitty rarely left correspondence about--a
carefulness which deprived her maids of a good deal of the amusement
they might otherwise have had. On this occasion, however, fortune
favoured my desires. When Kitty changed her dress that evening, in
taking her handkerchief, purse, and other et-ceteras out of her
pocket, she dropped a letter on the floor without noticing its fall;
I, who was standing close by and helping her, instantly covered it
with my dress, in hopes it might be the epistle I wanted to see; I
managed to keep it under my feet and dress till she was looking in
another direction, and then shoved it under the skirts of the
toilette-table, where it was safely out of sight. She finished
dressing, and went down to dinner, without having perceived the loss;
and as soon as the coast was clear, I rushed to the table, and
extracted the letter, which I had hidden there. On opening it, I
found, to my delight, that it was the one from Lady Mervyn about me;
the contents sufficiently explained why she should have condescended
to discuss so humble an individual as myself with Sir Bartholomew,
showing that it was all owing to the interference of Perkins, and
that I had only him to thank for the misfortune by which I was now
overtaken. After relating what I already had heard from Kitty, Lady
Mervyn went on to say:
"It was only by the merest accident that we came to hear anything
about the matter. Your father's valet, Perkins, is member of some
club or other (fancy one's servants having clubs, like gentlemen! I
can't think why parliament doesn't make them illegal), to which a man
who used to be with Sir Bartholomew belongs also. With this man
Perkins happened to make acquaintance, and, on hearing where he had
been in service, asked him if he knew Lady Brown's last maid, Jill,
who was now abroad with you."
Ah, thought I, when I had read so far, I can quite believe that that
spiteful wretch Perkins, directly he thought he had met an old
fellow-servant of mine, lost no time in going spying and sniffing
about, and trying to rake up some ill-natured story against me! _I_
know his tricks and his manners, as the doll's dressmaker in _Our
Mutual Friend_ used to say.
"When Perkins said that, however," continued the letter, "the man
stared at him, and declared he was talking nonsense. Lady Brown's
last maid, the man asserted, had been called Smith; had married a man
named Roberts soon after her mistress's death; and had then gone with
her husband to live at Liverpool, where she had been ever since, to
his positive knowledge. This seemed very odd to Perkins, and made him
suspect there was something amiss, so he, very properly, told me of
what he had heard. As it happened that Sir Bartholomew had returned
to England, I had no difficulty in learning the truth from the
fountainhead; and now that I have just had an interview with him, I
write at once to tell you the result. _Of course_ you will not lose a
moment about handing the odious woman over to the police as a forger
and impostor. I shan't be a bit surprised to find that they want her
already, and know lots of other things against her; goodness only
knows what she is--thief, coiner, swindler, incendiary, or anything!
It is so lucky that we should have found her out in time. Mind that
you see all your things are quite right, and if they are not, have
her boxes searched. Don't pay her anything, by the by. I should not
think a person who gets a situation as she has done can claim
wages--it would be getting money under false pretences, I fancy. At
any rate, there's no need to hurry about paying until we find out
whether we are legally bound to or not."
Having perused the letter I folded it up, and replaced it where
Kitty had let it fall on the floor, so that she might find it there
whenever she missed it, and went to search for it.
One thing, at all events, the letter proved clearly, and that was
that Lady Mervyn's servants had spoken with perfect truth when they
said she was mean; for how contemptibly mean and petty was her
suggestion about withholding my wages! It seemed to me that as I had
earned them honestly I was unquestionably entitled to them, whatever
my character might be. And I might conclude that Kitty, who was not
so little-minded as her mother, and whose pride made her incapable of
an ignoble action, took the same view of the matter that I did; for I
knew that if she had intended obeying her mother's instructions about
dismissing me unpaid, she would certainly not have mentioned, as she
had done, that I was to receive the full amount due to me. Honour and
truth were integral parts of her character, and apparent in all her
dealings; and though I was not myself sensitively particular about
those things, yet I could not help admiring them in her all the same.
Well, I had not deserved badly of her, I thought; and in reviewing my
past conduct it seemed to me that, on the whole, she had not much
reason to complain of me. No doubt, my acquisition of her purse at
the railway station had been somewhat questionable; but, after all,
it had only been picked up--not stolen; and my subsequent retention
of it had been caused chiefly by pique, because my feelings had been
hurt for the moment, when I found that she had forgotten me. Since I
had been her maid I had, I considered, served her faithfully enough;
and so I would continue to do during the short remaining period of
being in her service. This resolution, be it said, was prompted by
no ulterior views of self-interest, as I was quite aware of the
impossibility of my ever referring to her for a character. But she
had declined to rob me of my wages and send me to prison, as her
mother would have had her do, and had also troubled herself to soften
the dismissal in some way, and I wished to show that I appreciated
the consideration with which she had treated me, and was not
ungrateful for it. Consequently I omitted nothing that it was in my
power to do for her comfort on the journey back to England, and
performed my duties as her maid up to the last moment of quitting her
every bit as zealously as though I had hoped to gain some advantage
by my attentions.
At Charing Cross Station we separated, to the intense astonishment of
her aunt, who as yet knew nothing of what had taken place. They went
one way and I went another; and thus I was cut off from the first
person I had ever come across who possessed the gift of arousing the
sluggish capacity for affection which lay dormant in my cold-blooded
nature. Our being parted was entirely the doing of that abominable
Perkins; and, as I looked after her with a sigh, I relegated him to
the same place as my stepmother amongst my enemies, and regarded him
with sentiments of similar detestation.