"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 toward 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 pa.s.sage 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 II.
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. Los...o...b.."s housekeeper; 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 toward 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 to _me._ 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 housework. The other servants, indoors, are all women; and instead of a footman to wait on him at dinner, the admiral has a parlor-maid. The parlor-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 everything else to the housekeeper--but he will have that. All the inquiries made in the neighborhood have failed to produce the sort of parlor-maid 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 a.s.sure you, you don"t understand me. Have you always lived in service as lady"s maid?"
"No, ma"am."
"Have you ever lived as parlor-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?"