little room they had made into an office when they created a sun
parlour out of the side verandah, that Delia, responsible head of three
maids now, ushered a gentleman in to her.
"The doctor, Miss Merry, that came yesterday about the rooms for his
patient in the cottage," said Delia softly. "I can't seem to get the
name, ma'am."
"Very well," said Miss Mary and rose, plumper by eight or ten pounds
than she had been, dignified in black broadcloth, only enough of
reserve and weighing of her words about her to mark her off slightly
from the most of her sex and business.
"Miss Merry? I am Dr. Stanchon, I have been recommended most
strongly----"
She swayed before him, then sank into her chair, grasping the arms. He
looked courteously alarmed, stared, stared again, then snatched her
hand.
"It's not--it can't be--why, Miss Mary!" She gasped and trembled. The
year dropped off from her like a loosened cloak.
"Oh, Dr. Stanchon, don't, _don't_ tell him!" she moaned.
"Him? him?" he repeated. "Why, Miss Mary, were you here all the time?
And your hair--you were ill?"
"It used to be coloured--you never knew," she murmured. "I mean
Dr.--Dr. Jarvyse."
"But you are the one Swartout described to me--the one he's in love
with? Miss Mary, it was wrong of you--I looked for months. It was
cruel. And when they found the emeralds and the cross----"
"Did they find them?"
"Why, certainly--the stones were all listed, you know. Didn't you read
it in the papers?"
"I never see them," she said quietly. She had gathered herself
together for what must be the struggle of her life.
"Will you tell him? I can't go back. I'd die first!" she cried.
"But why should you go back?" he asked in amazement. "Surely you'll
let them know? They gave up hope long ago. You needn't go back to
them, if you're happy here, of course, and indeed, I wouldn't, Miss
Mary----"
"I don't mean go back _there_," she interrupted gently, "I mean to
the--to--Dr.----"
He stared.
"You know, of course, what's the matter," she said quietly, "but nobody
here does. They think I'm--I'm like anybody else. I don't mind any
more, since I've been so busy. I haven't had time to worry over it.
But still, I know it.--And so I told Mr. Swartout it would be
impossible. It wouldn't be right."
Stanchon seized both of her hands.
"For heaven's sake, Miss Mary, what do you think's the matter with
you?" he cried, his voice breaking in spite of himself.
"Isn't it so?" she queried wistfully. "Do you really mean it?--But who
cured me, then?"
"If you are the wonderful person I've been hearing about all this time
from Swartout," Stanchon said, trying to speak lightly, his grey eyes
firm on her anxious brown ones, "I should say that working for your
living did it, Miss Mary!"
And it may be he was right: as a diagnostician he has been widely
commended.
THE CHILDREN
It all came over me, as you might say, when I began to tell the new
housemaid about the work. Not that I hadn't known before, of course,
what a queer sort of life was led in that house; it was hard enough the
first months, goodness knows. But then, a body can get used to
anything. And there was no harm in it--I'll swear that to my dying
day! Although a lie's a lie, any way you put it, and if all I've
told--but I'll let you judge for yourself.
As I say, it was when I began to break Margaret in, that it all came
over me, and I looked about me, in a way of speaking, for how I should
put it to her. She'd been house-parlor-maid in a big establishment in
the country and knew what was expected of her well enough, and I saw
from the first she'd fit in nicely with us; a steady, quiet girl, like
the best of the Scotch, looking to save her wages, and get to be
housekeeper herself, some day, perhaps.
But when Hodges brought the tray with the porringers on it and the
silver mug, for me to see, and said, "I suppose this young lady'll take
these up, Miss Umbleby?" and when Margaret looked surprised and said,
"I didn't know there were children in the family--am I supposed to wait
on them, too?"--then, as I say, it all came over me, and for the first
time in five years I really saw where I stood, like.
I stared at Hodges and then at the girl, and the tray nearly went down
amongst us.
"Do you mean to say you haven't told her, Sarah?" says Hodges (and that
was the first time that ever he called me by my given name).
"She's told me nothing," Margaret answers rather short, "and if it's
invalid children or feeble-minded, I take it most unkind, Miss Umbleby,
for I've never cared for that sort of thing, and could have had my
twenty-five dollars a month this long time, if I'd wanted to go out as
nurse."
"Take the tray up this time, yourself, Mr. Hodges, please," I said,
"and I'll have a little talk with Margaret," and I sat down and
smoothed my black silk skirt (I always wore black silk of an afternoon)
nervously enough, I'll be bound.
The five years rolled away like yesterday--as they do now--as they do
now----
I saw myself, in my mind's eye, new to the place, and inclined to feel
strange, as I always did when I made a change, though I was twenty-five
and no chicken, but rather more settled than most, having had my
troubles early and got over them. I'd just left my place--chambermaid
and seamstress--in a big city house, and though it was September, I was
looking out for the country, for I was mortal tired of the noise and
late hours and excitement that I saw ahead of me. It was parties and
balls every night and me sitting up to undress the young ladies, for
they kept no maid, like so many rich Americans, and yet some one must
do for them. There was no housekeeper either, and the mistress was not
very strong and we had to use our own responsibility more than I
liked--for I wasn't paid for that, do you see, and that's what they
forget in this country.
"I think I've got you suited at last, Sarah," the head of the office
had said to me, "a nice, quiet place in the country, good pay and light
work, but everything as it should be, you understand. Four in help
besides the housekeeper and only one in family. Church within a mile
and every other Sunday for yourself."
That was just what I wanted, and I packed my box thankfully and left
New York for good, I hoped, and I got my wish, for I've never seen the
inside of it since.
A middle-aged coachman in good, quiet country livery, met me at the
little station, and though he was a still-mouthed fellow and rather
reserved, I made out quite a little idea of the place on the way. The
mistress, Mrs. Childress, was a young widow, deep in her mourning, so
there was no company. The housekeeper was her old nurse, who had
brought her up. John, who drove me, was coachman-gardener, and the
cook was his wife--both Catholics. Everything went on very quiet and
regular and it was hoped that the new upstairs maid wouldn't be one for
excitement and gaiety. The inside man had been valet to Mr. Childress
and was much trusted and liked by the family. I could see that old
John was a bit jealous in that direction.
We drove in through a black iron gate with cut stone posts and old
black iron lanterns on top, and the moment we were inside the gates I
began to take a fancy to the place. It wasn't kept up like the places
at home, but it was neat enough to show that things were taken thought
for, and the beds of asters and dahlias and marigolds as we got near
the house seemed so home-like and bright to me, I could have cried for
comfort. Childerstone was the name of the place; it was carved on a
big boulder by the side of the entrance, and just as we drove up to the
door John stopped to pick some dahlias for the house (being only me in
the wagon) and I took my first good look at my home for twenty years
afterward.
There was something about it that went to my heart. It was built of
grey cut stone in good-sized blocks, square, with two windows each side
the hall door. To some it might have seemed cold-looking, but not to
me, for one side was all over ivy, and the thickness of the walls and
the deep sills looked solid and comfortable after those nasty
brown-stone things all glued to each other in the city. It looked old
and respectable and settled, like, and the sun, just at going down,
struck the windows like fire and the clean panes shone. There was that
yellow light over everything and that stillness, with now and then a
leaf or so dropping quietly down, that makes the fall of the year so
pleasant, to my mind.
The house stood in beeches and the trunks of them were grey like the
house and the leaves all light lemon-coloured, like the sky, and that's
the way I always think of Childerstone--grey and yellow and clean and
still. Just a few rooks (you call them crows here), went over the
house, and except for their cry as they flew, there wasn't a sound
about the place. I can see how others might have found it sad, but it
never seemed so to me.
John set me down at the servants' entrance and there, before ever I'd
got properly into the hall, the strangeness began. The cook in her
check apron was kneeling on the floor in front of the big French range
with the tears streaming down her face, working over her rosary beads
and gabbling to drive you crazy. Over her stood a youngish but
severe-appearing man in a white linen coat like a ship's steward,
trying to get her up.
"Come, Katey," he was saying, "come, woman, up with you and
help--she'll do no harm, the poor soul! Look after her, now, and I'll
send for the doctor and see to madam--it's only a fit, most like!"
Then he saw me and ran forward to give a hand to my box.
"You're the chambermaid, Miss, I'm sure," he said. "I'm sorry to say
you'll find us a bit upset. The housekeeper's down with a stroke of
some sort and the madam's none too strong herself. Are you much of a
hand to look after the sick?"
"I'm not so clumsy as some," I said. "Let me see her," and so we left
the cook to her prayers and he carried my box to my room.
I got into a print dress and apron and went to the housekeeper's room.
She was an elderly person and it looked to me as if she was in her last
sickness. She didn't know any one and so I was as good as another, and
I had her tidy and comfortable in bed by the time the doctor came. He
said she would need watching through the night and left some medicine,
but I could see he had little hope for her. I made up a bed in the
room and all that night she chattered and muttered and took me for
different ones, according as her fever went and came. Towards morning
she got quiet, and as I thought, sensible again.
"Are you a nurse?" she says to me.
"Yes, Mrs. Shipman, be still and rest," I told her, to soothe her.
"I'm glad the children are sent away," she went on, after a bit.
"'Twould break their mother's heart if they got the fever. Are the
toys packed?"
"Yes, yes," I answered, "all packed and sent."
"Be sure there's enough frocks for Master Robertson," she begged me.
"He's so hard on them and his aunties are so particular. And my baby
must have her woolly rabbit at night or her darling heart will be just
broken!"
"The rabbit is packed," I said, "and I saw to the frocks myself."
There's but one way with the sick when they're like that, and that's to
humour them, you see. So she slept and I got a little nap for myself.
I was glad the children were away by next morning, for she was worse,
the cook lost her head, and managed to break the range so that the
water-back leaked and John and Hodges were mopping and mending all day.
The madam herself had a bad turn and the doctor (a New York doctor for
madam, you may be sure!) brought out a handsome, dark woman, the
trained hospital nurse, with him. Madam wasn't allowed to know how bad
her old nurse was.
So it turned out that I'd been a week in the house without ever seeing
my mistress. The nurse and I would meet on the stairs and chat a
little, evenings, and once I took a turn in the grounds with her. She
was a sensible sort of girl, not a bit above herself, as our English
nursing-sisters are, sometimes, but very businesslike, as they say, and
a good, brisk way with her. She saw a lot more than she spoke of, Miss
Jessop did, I'll warrant!
"It's a good thing the children are sent away," I said. "They always
add to the bother when there's sickness."
"Why, are there children?" says she. "Oh, yes, a boy and a girl," I
answered, "poor old Mrs. Shipman is forever talking about them. She
thinks she's their nurse, it seems, as she was their mother's."
"I wish they were here, then," says she, "for I don't like the looks of
my patient at all. She doesn't speak seven words a day, and there's
really little or nothing the matter with her, that I can see. She's
nervous and she's low and she wants cheering, that's all. I wonder the
doctor doesn't see it."
That night, after both patients were settled, she came up to my room
and took a glance at the old lady, who was going fast.
"Mrs. Childress will soon have to know about this," she said and then,
suddenly, "Are you sure about the children, Sarah?"
"Sure about them?" I repeated after her. "In what way, Miss Jessop?"
"That there are any," says she.
"Why, of course," I answered, "Mrs. Shipman talks of nothing else.
They're with their aunty, in New Jersey, somewhere. It's a good thing
there are some, for from what she says when she's rambling, the house
and all the property would go out of the family otherwise. It's been
five generations in the Childress family, but the nearest now is a
cousin who married a Jew, and the family hate her for it. But Master
Robertson makes it all safe, Mrs. Shipman says."
"That's a queer thing," said she. "I took in a dear little picture of
the boy and girl this afternoon, to cheer her up a bit, and told her to
try to think they were the real ones, who'd soon be with her, for that
matter, and so happy to see their dear mamma, and she went white as a
sheet and fainted in my arms. Of course, I didn't refer to it again.
She's quiet now, holding the picture, but I feared they were dead and
you hadn't known."
"Oh, no," said I. "I'm sure not," and then I remembered that I'd been
told there was but one in family. However, that's often said when
there's a nurse to take care of small children (though it's not quite
fair, perhaps), and I was certain of the children, anyway, for there
were toys all about Mrs. Shipman's room and some seed-cookies and
"animal-crackers," as they call those odd little biscuits, in a tin on
her mantel.
However, we were soon to learn something that made me, at least, all
the more curious. The doctor came that morning and told Miss Jessop
that her services would be no longer required, after he had seen her
patient.
"Mrs. Childress is perfectly recovered," he said, "and she has
unfortunately conceived a grudge against you, my dear girl. I need
you, anyway, in town. Poor old Shipman can't last the night now, and I
want all that business disposed of very quietly. I have decided not to
tell Mrs. Childress until it is all over and the funeral done with.
She is in a very morbid state, and as I knew her husband well I have
taken this step on my own responsibility. Hodges seems perfectly able
to run things, and to tell the truth, it would do your mistress far
more good to attend to that herself," he said, turning to me.
"It would be a good thing for the poor woman to have some one about
her, Dr. Stanchon," the nurse put in quietly. "If there were children
in the house, now----"
"Children!" he cried, pulling himself up and staring at her. "Did you
speak to her about them? Then that accounts for it! I should have
warned you."
"Then they did die?" she asked him. "That's what I thought."
"I'm afraid not," he said, shaking his head with a queer sort of sad
little smile. "I forgot you were strange here. Why, Miss Jessop,
didn't you know that----"
"Excuse me, sir, but there's no sign of your mare about--did you tie
her?" says Hodges, coming in in a great hurry, and the doctor swore and
ran off and I never heard the end of the sentence.
Well, I'm running on too long with these little odds and ends, as I'm
sure Margaret felt when I started telling her all about it. The truth
is I dreaded then, just as I dread now, to get at the real story and
look our conduct straight in the face. But I'll get on more quickly
now.
Old Mrs. Shipman died very quiet in her sleep and madam wasn't told,
which I didn't half like. The doctor was called out of those parts to
attend on his father, very suddenly, and Hodges managed the funeral and
all. It was plain to see he was a very trusty, silent fellow, devoted
to the family. I took as much off him as I could, and I was dusting
the drawing-room the day of the funeral, when I happened to pick up a
photograph in a silver frame of the same little fellow in the picture
the nurse had shown me--a dear little boy in short kilts.
"That's Master Robertson, isn't it?" I said, very carelessly, not
looking at him--I will own I was curious. He gave a start.
"Yes--yes, certainly, that's Master Robertson--if you choose to put it
that way," he said, and I saw him put his hand up to his eyes and his
mouth twitched and he left the room.
I didn't question him again, naturally; he was a hard man to cross and
very haughty, was William Hodges, and no one in the house but respected
him.
That day I saw Mrs. Childress for the first time. She was a sweet,
pretty thing, about my own age, but younger looking, fair, with grey
eyes. She was in heavy crepe and her face all fallen and saddened
like, with grief and hopelessness--I felt for her from the moment I saw
her. And all the more that I'd made up my mind what her trouble was: I
thought that the children were idiots, maybe, or feeble-minded, anyhow,
and so the property would go to the Jew in the end and that his family
were hating her for it! Folly, of course, but women will have fancies,
and that seemed to fit in with all I'd heard.
She'd been told that Shipman was away with some light, infectious
fever, and she took it very mildly, and said there was no need to get
any one in her place, at present.
"Hodges will attend to everything," she said, in her pretty, tired way;
"not that there's much to do--for one poor woman."
"Things may mend, ma'am, and you'll feel more like having some friends
about you, most likely, later on," I said, to cheer her a bit.
She shook her head sadly.
"No, no, Sarah--if I can't have my own about me, I'll have no others,"
she said, and I thought I saw what she meant and said no more.
That night the doctor and the legal gentleman that looked after the
family affairs were with us and my mistress kept them for dinner. I
helped Hodges with the serving and was in the butler's pantry after
Mrs. Childress had left them with their coffee and cigars, and as
Hodges had left the door ajar I couldn't help catching a bit of the
talk now and then.
"The worst of it is this trouble about the children," said the doctor.
"She will grieve herself into a decline, I'm afraid."
"I suppose there's no hope?" said the other gentleman.
"No hope?" the doctor burst out. "Why, man, Robertson's been dead six
months!"
"To be sure--I'd forgotten it was so long. Well, well, it's too bad,
too bad," and Hodges came back and closed the door.
I must say I was thoroughly put out with the doctor. Why should he
have told me a lie? And it was mostly from that that I deliberately
disobeyed him that night, for I knew from the way he had spoken to the
nurse that he didn't wish the children mentioned. But I couldn't help
it, for when I came to her room to see if I could help her, she was
sitting in her black bedroom gown with her long hair in two braids,
crying over the children's picture. "Hush, hush, ma'am," I said,
kneeling by her and soothing her head, "if they were here, you may be
sure they wouldn't wish it."
"Who? Who?" she answers me, quite wild, but not angry at all. I saw
this and spoke it out boldly, for it was plain that she liked me.
"Your children, ma'am," I said, softly but very firm, "and you should
control yourself and be cheerful and act as if they _were_ here--as if
it had pleased God to let you have them and not _Himself_!"
Such a look as she gave me! But soon she seemed to melt, like, and put
out her arm over my shoulders.
"What a beautiful way to put it, Sarah!" says she, in a dreamy kind of
way. "Do you really think God has them--somewhere?"
"Why, of course, ma'am," said I, shocked in good earnest. "Who else?"
"Then you think I might love them, just as if--just as if----" here she
began to sob.
"Why, Mrs. Childress," I said, "where is your belief? That's all
that's left to mothers. I know, for I've lost two, and their father to
blame for it, which you need never say," I told her.
She patted my shoulder very kindly. "But oh, Sarah, if only they
_were_ here!" she cried, "really, really here!"
"I know, I know," I said, "it's very hard. But try to think it,
ma'am--it helped me for weeks. Think they're in the room next you,
here, and you'll sleep better for it."
"Shall I?" she whispered, gripping my hand hard. "I believe I
would--how well you understand me, Sarah! And will you help me to
believe it?"
I saw she was feverish and I knew what it means to get one good
refreshing night without crying, and so I said, "Of course I will,
ma'am; see, I'll open the door into the next room and you can fancy
them in their cribs, and I'll sleep in there as if it was to look after
them, like."
Well, she was naught but a child herself, the poor dear, and she let me
get her into bed like a lamb and put her cheek into her hand and went
off like a baby. It almost scared me, to see how easy she was to
manage, if one did but get hold of the right way. She looked brighter
in the morning and as Hodges had told me that Shipman used to do for
her, I went in and dressed her--not that I was ever a lady's maid, mind
you, but I've always been one to turn my hand easily to anything I had
a mind to, and I was growing very fond of my poor lady--and then, I was
a little proud, I'll own, of being able to do more for her than her own
medical man, who couldn't trust a sensible woman with the truth!
She clung to me all the morning, and after my work was done, I
persuaded her to come out for the air. The doctor had ordered it long
ago, but she was obstinate, and would scarcely go at all. That day,
however, she took a good stroll with me and it brought a bit of colour
into her cheeks. Just as we turned toward the house she sat down on a
big rock to rest herself, and I saw her lip quiver and her eyes begin
to fill. I followed her look and there was a child's swing, hung from
two ropes to a low bough. It must have been rotted with the rains, for
it looked very old and the board seat was cracked and worn. All
around--it hung in a sort of little glade--were small piles of stones
and bits of oddments that only children get together, like the little
magpies they are.
There's no use to expect any one but a mother or one who's had the
constant care of little ones to understand the tears that come to your
eyes at a sight like that. What they leave behind is worse than what
they take with them; their curls and their fat legs and the kisses they
gave you are all shut into the grave, but what they used to play with
stays there and mourns them with you.
I saw a wild look come into her eyes, and I determined to quiet her at
any cost.
"There, there, ma'am," I said quickly, "'tis only their playthings.
Supposing they were there, now, and enjoying them! You go in and take
your nap, as the doctor ordered, and leave me behind..."
She saw what I meant in a twinkling and the colour jumped into her face
again. She turned and hurried in and just as she went out of sight she
looked over her shoulder, timid like, and waved her hand--only a bit of
a wave, but I saw it.
Under a big stone in front of me, for that part of the grounds was left
wild, like a little grove, I saw a rusty tin biscuit box, and as I
opened it, curiously, to pass the time, I found it full of little tin
platters and cups. Hardly thinking what I did, I arranged them as if
laid out for tea, on a flat stone, and left them there. When I went to
awaken her for lunch, I started, for some more of those platters were
on the table by her bed and a white woolly rabbit and a picture book!
She blushed, but I took no notice, and after her luncheon I spied her
going quickly back to the little grove.
"Madam's taking a turn for the better, surely," Hodges said to me that
afternoon. "She's eating like a Christian now. What have you done to
her, Miss Umbleby?" (I went as "Miss" for it's much easier to get a
place so.)
"Mr. Hodges," I said, facing him squarely, "the doctors don't know
everything. You know as well as I that it's out of nature not to
mention children, where they're missed every hour of the day and every
day of the month. It's easing the heart that's wanted--not smothering
it."
"What d'you mean?" he says, staring at me.