Part 57 (1/2)

”Yes, ma'am.”

”I should like to give your daughters and daughters-in-law a piece of my mind.... Good heavens! Give me that cooking-spoon, quick!”

She nipped the egg out of the saucepan; it was already several seconds overdone.

”It isn't as if I could keep you on as a charwoman,” said Rachel. ”I must have some one all the time, and I couldn't do with a charwoman as well.”

”No, ma'am! It's like as if what must be.”

”Well, I hope you'll think it over. I must say I didn't expect this from you, Mrs. Tams.”

Mrs. Tams put her lips together and bent obstinately over a tray.

Rachel said to herself: ”Oh, she really means to leave! I can see that. She's made up her mind.... I shall never trust any servant again--never!”

She was perhaps a little hurt (for she considered that she had much benefited Mrs. Tams), and a little perturbed for the future. But in her heart she did not care. She would not have cared if the house had fallen in, or if her native land had been invaded and enslaved by a foreign army. She was at peace with Louis. He was hers. She felt that her lien on him was strengthened.

II

The breakfast steaming and odorous on the table, and Rachel all tingling in front of her tray, awaited the descent of the master of the house. The Sunday morning post, placed in its proper position by Mrs. Tams, consisted of a letter and a post-card. Rachel stretched her arm across the table to examine them. The former had a legal aspect.

It was a foolscap envelope addressed to Mrs. Maldon. Rachel opened it.

A typewritten circular within respectfully pointed out to Mrs. Maldon that if she had only followed the writers' advice, given gratis a few weeks earlier, she would have made one hundred and twenty-five pounds net profit by spending thirty-five pounds in the purchase of an option on Canadian Pacific Railway shares. The statement was supported by the official figures of the Stock Exchange, which none could question.

”Can you afford to neglect such advice in future?” the writers asked Mrs. Maldon, and went on to suggest that she should send them forty-five pounds to buy an option on ”Sh.e.l.ls,” which were guaranteed to rise nine points in less than a month.

Mystified, half sceptical, and half credulous, Rachel reflected casually that the world was full of strange phenomena. She wondered what ”Sh.e.l.ls” were, and why the writers should keep on writing to a woman who had been dead for ages. She carefully burnt both the circular and the envelope.

And then she looked at the post-card, which was addressed to ”Louis Fores, Esq.” As it was a post-card, she was ent.i.tled to read it.

She read: ”Shall expect you at the works in the morning at ten. Jas.

Horrocleave.” She thought it rather harsh and oppressive on the part of Mr. Horrocleave to expect Louis to attend at the works on Bank Holiday--and so soon after his illness, too! How did Mr. Horrocleave know that Louis was sufficiently recovered to be able to go to the works at all?

Louis came, rubbing his hands, which for an instant he warmed at the fire. He was elegantly dressed. The mere sight of him somehow thrilled Rachel. His deportment, his politeness, his charming good-nature were as striking as ever. The one or two stripes (flesh-coloured now, not whitish) on his face were not too obvious, and, indeed, rather increased the interest of his features. The horrible week was forgotten, erased from history, though Rachel would recollect that even at the worst crisis of it Louis had scarcely once failed in politeness of speech. It was she who had been impolite--not once, but often. Louis had never raged. She was contrite, and her penitence intensified her desire to please, to solace, to obey. When she realized that it was she who had burnt that enormous sum in bank-notes, she went cold in the spine.

Not that she cared twopence for the enormous sum, really, now that concord was established! No, her little flutters of honest remorse were constantly disappearing in the immense exultant joy of being alive and of contemplating her idol. Louis sat down. She smiled at him. He smiled back. But in his exquisite demeanour there was a faint reserve of melancholy which persisted. She had not yet that morning been able to put it to flight; she counted, however, on doing so very soon, and in the meantime it did not daunt her. After all, was it not natural?

She began--

”I say, what do you think? Mrs. Tams has given me notice.”

She pretended to be aggrieved and to be worried, but essential joy shone through these absurd masks. Moreover, she found a certain nave satisfaction in being a mistress with cares, a mistress to whom ”notice” had to be given, and who would have to make serious inquiry into the character of future candidates for her employment.

Louis raised his eyebrows.

”Don't you think it's a shame?”

”Oh,” said he cautiously, ”you'll get somebody else as good, _and_ better. What's she leaving for?”

Rachel repeated Mrs. Tams's rigmarole.

”Ah!” murmured Louis.