THIS strange state of things continued for some days. Mary found herself living as in a state of siege. She was permitted to visit the children in the nursery, and nurse was quite polite. She was also supplied with what she required, her little meals sent to her, the morning-room prepared for her inhabitation, and the housemaid who attended to her civil—but otherwise she was made to understand that her position was one of sufferance, and her presence exceedingly undesirable. This was all the more strange that she had already been left alone in the house on more than one occasion with no such result, the servants, if not very anxious to please her, being always at least observant of civility, and making no stand against her. She reflected, however, that her previous experience had been only of a few days, and that a fortnight was a long time for such a community to be put under the sway of a stranger like herself, whom they had no right to obey, and whom with the spirit of their class they despised as at once better and not so good as themselves—an inferior with the appearance of a superior—far below themselves in independence, while apparently placed over them. Mary being obliged to think upon the subject by the strange circumstances in which she found herself, made all these excuses and explanations of the conduct of the conspirators, and ended by thinking that on the whole it was natural though very uncomfortable, and that she could quite understand their way of thinking. But there was no doubt that it was very unpleasant. Sounds of revelry reached her from the servants’ hall every night; the men lounged about all day and smoked where they pleased; the rooms were locked up and nothing done. Jane, the housemaid, informed her that they all thought they had a right to a rest. “There’s a deal to do in this house. Them hunting and fishing things, if it was nothing else, puts Mr. Saunders and John in a continual worrit, special when there’s gentlemen coming that don’t bring a vally—and half the gentlemen here don’t. We’ve all made up our minds as we’ll have a good rest.”
“They might have done that, Jane, without behaving as they have done, in other ways.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jane, tossing her head. “Men don’t stand being put upon.”
“You do it,” said Mary. “I know that you are not doing any work, and perhaps it is not necessary; but you are civil to me.”
“You was always civil to me, miss,” said Jane. “I don’t like to see you put upon no more than the rest. But you’ll allow as it’s hard upon the men, with their spirits, to have somebody left behind to spy upon them, and that not one of the family. Not quite a—one as isn’t no better, perhaps—oh, I’m sure I beg your pardon, miss!”
“Well,” said Mary, doing what she could to suppress her indignation, “supposing all that was true: how are they to meet Mrs. Parke when she comes home.”
“Oh, miss,” said Jane, “they say you’ll never tell her. Mr. Saunders says as you’ll never throw us all out of our places, and put the family to such inconvenience. It would be dreadful troublesome to get new servants just in the middle of winter. If we all got our month’s warning it would throw it just before Christmas as we left. Mr. Saunders says if you did do it, Mrs. Parke would just pay no attention. It would be inconvenient. And he says he’s sure you’d have more consideration than to make us all lose our places. And Mrs. Cook she says——”
“I don’t want to hear what they say. I think they have neither hearts nor consciences,” said Mary indignantly.
“Oh, as for that, miss,” said Jane, “we’re just the same as other folks, I suppose. We think what’s pleasing to ourselves first.”
And Mary had to admit that if they had neither hearts nor consciences they had heads, and judged the position fairly enough. For though she was very indignant and might have denounced the conspirators on the spur of the moment had she had the opportunity, she knew that her courage would have failed her when it came to the point, and that to deprive the servants of their living was what she never could have done. Saunders had a wife and family. John had a mother whom he was supposed to help. The saucy housemaid was a widow with a child. And it was also true that Letitia would think twice before she dismissed all her servants so near Christmas. The calculation was very close all round. And then the nurse, whose verbal impertinence vexed Mary most, was all the time exceedingly careful of the children. There was nothing to find fault with in that respect. Mary thus felt herself caught in the meshes of the conspiracy, and did not know what to do.
And all the time Lord Frogmore’s letter was locked up in her desk; and she had as yet made no reply to it. It was the thing, perhaps, on the whole which made the persecution in the house less important to her. What did it matter what Saunders and his kind might do? The humiliation which they inflicted made her smart for the moment, but it was not so bad even now as the careless civility which she had borne from their masters, or the no-account which was generally made of such a person as herself in the world. She was well used to all that. And to think that by a word at any moment she would put a stop to it all and change everything! She did not answer the letter she could scarcely tell why. Not that it did not occupy her day and night. She thought of it in all ways, turning it over and over. It was a sort of occupation to her which obliterated everything else to think what she should say. What should she say? And then the long round of questioning, of balancing one side against the other would begin.
There was this advance, however, that Mary had come to a perfect conviction that were she unhampered by others, she herself could be happy with Lord Frogmore. To marry at all and enter upon a mode of life so entirely new is a shock to a middle-aged woman. The old maid has hindrances in her way in this particular which do not affect the girl. She has formed all her habits often with a certain rigidity, and to be brought into relations so close as those of matrimonial life, to give up her seclusion, her privacy, to share everything with another, has a sort of horror in it. Mary too had something of the primness which in some natures accompanies that modest withdrawal from the mysteries of life. To a girl it is all romance, to a woman other reflections come in. She had moments of panic in which she asked herself how she could bear such a revolution of existence. It is, however, so deeply impressed upon the feminine mind that to be married is the better and higher state, a doctrine largely emphasized by the contempt of the foolish, that she was half ashamed of her own shrinking, and knew that everybody would consider it fantastical even if for sheer modesty she had ever breathed to anyone the confession that she felt this panic and shrinking—which was very unlikely. That was a sentiment never to be disclosed, to be got over as best she could, to be ignored altogether. But putting aside that shock to all her habits, both of mind and life, there was nothing in her which objected to Lord Frogmore. He was kind, he was old, he would need her care, her help, her services. He was the least alarming companion that could be thought of: he was sympathetic and understood her—and she thought she understood him.
But Letitia. There the struggle began. Letitia would not like it! Mary could not salve her conscience by the hasty advice given with such frankness by Mrs. Parke. To marry any old gentleman who might present himself with money enough to support her, and provide for her when he died, was one thing. To marry Lord Frogmore was another. The mere idea that Mary might be Lady Anything while Letitia was Mrs. Parke would be an offence—but Lady Frogmore! What would Letitia say? How would she like it. She would never forgive that promotion. The thought of Mary walking out of a room before her, placed at table before her, would drive her frantic. If that were all how gladly would Mary give up to her any such distinction! But that was not all. There were the children who would, as Letitia thought, be defrauded by their uncle’s marriage. That was a matter which it was not so easy to get over. She tried to represent to herself that Lord Frogmore was rich, that it was not certain he would leave all he had to the children, that in any case he would be just; and that whatever he appropriated to himself would at least go back to the children on his death. She had taken out her paper, seated herself at the table, prepared her pen (with little anxious cares that it should be a good one) to write half a dozen times at least—and had been stopped by that thought of the children. That was a thought that could not be got over. To take this away from the children, how could she do it? If she were to endeavor to make the condition that no money should be given to her (which crossed her mind for a moment), Mary had too much good sense not to see that this would be impossible, and also foolish and unjust. And then she had laid down her pen again, and put by her paper, and returned to herself to think out that problem—with equal failure. Defraud the children—take from them their inheritance—how could she do it? she who had been like their aunt, like a second mother. She retired before that thought with continued affright. It was a barrier she could not get over. And so the letter was put off day after day.
She had met the children in their walk one morning, and gone on with them, glad of the companionship, pleased that little Letty should abandon the group to cling to her hand and rub against her with a way the child had, like an affectionate dog, and that Duke in his little imperious way should place himself exactly before her, walking a step in advance, so that Mary had to restrain her own movements not to tread on him, one of these little inconveniences which, to people who love children, are pleasant, as signs of the liking of the little tyrant. She had begun in her usual way to tell them a story when the nurse who walked majestically in the rear of the party interfered.
“If you don’t mind me saying it, miss,” said nurse, who was too well bred herself not to know that this mode of address was particularly offensive to a person of Mary’s age, “I’d much rather you did not tell them stories.”
“But!” cried Mary, with astonishment, “I have always told them stories—it’s what they expect whenever they see me.”
“That may be,” said the nurse, “but I don’t myself hold with working up their little brains like that. When their mamma is here she can judge for herself; but I can’t have them put off their sleep, and excited, and not able to get their proper rest——”
“But that has never happened,” cried Mary.
“It’s quite soon enough then if it happens now.”
“Well, no doubt that is unanswerable,” said Mary, with a laugh, and she added half playfully, half vexed, “I think you want to keep me from saying anything to the children at all.”
“I don’t want to be any way disagreeable, miss,” said nurse, “but so long as my mistress is away and I’ve all the responsibility, that is just what I’d like best.”
“Why,” cried Mary, inadvertently. “I stayed here on purpose.”
“To spy upon us and watch all we did,” said the woman red and angry. “We all know that; and that is just what I will never put up with if there wasn’t another situation in the world.”
Mary had for the moment forgotten the humiliation of her present position which made this sudden assault almost more than she could bear. She disengaged herself with a little difficulty from the children and hurried in, feeling that she must take some immediate resolution and free herself from these insults. Saunders and the footman were playing a game of billiards in the hall when she entered hastily, the great door being open. In the extreme freedom of this new regime, Saunders, so proper and correct in the presence of his master, had fallen into habits of self-indulgence, and was, indeed, most generally under an exhilarating influence, which made him very ready to exhibit his wit at the expense of any butt that might present itself, secure of the admiration and applause of his subordinates in the house. Mary had become rather afraid of an encounter with the butler in these circumstances, and started a little as she came suddenly upon him in her hurried passage indoors. He came forward to meet her with his cue in his hand.
“Well, Miss ’Ill,” he said, “I hope I see you well this fine mornin’. Been to the post to send off your report, eh; and tell how the servants is going on?”
“Let me pass,” Mary said.
“We hope you’ve given us a good report, miss. We’re nothing but poor servants astrivin’ to do our dooties,” said Saunders, with an air of mock humility, which sent the footman into such screams of obsequious laughter that he had to throw down his cue and hold his sides with exclamations of “Oh, Lord, don’t, Mr. Saunders! You’ll kill me with laughing afore you’ve done.”
“And if you was to give us a bad report what ’ud become of us?” said Saunders. “But we hopes you won’t say nothing more than you can prove, Miss ’Ill. And what are you?” he added, changing his tone, “but a servant yourself, and worse off than any of us—currying favor with bringing other folks into trouble, or tryin’ to bring folks into trouble; but you’ll not succeed this time, miss, I’ll promise you. We knows what to expect, and we’re on our guard. Hi, old man! what are you wanting? The bosses ain’t at home; can’t you see that with half an eye? Stop a bit, miss, I ain’t done with you yet.”
“Oh, good Lord, Mr. Saunders!” cried the footman, in a tone of alarm.
“Let me pass, please,” said Mary, trembling, and quite unaware what strong succours had arrived behind.
The next sound was a firm foot upon the floor coming in—the next a voice which made Mary’s heart jump up to her throat.
“Where is my brother, sir—where is your master? and how dare you speak to a lady like that?” said Lord Frogmore.
Lord Frogmore! Saunders himself—whose countenance was a wonder to behold as he dropped the cue and backed against the table limp and helpless, his mouth open, his eyes bursting from their sockets with wonder and fright—was scarcely more discomposed than Mary, who felt herself in a moment vindicated, restored to her proper place, protected and avenged—yet at the same time more agitated and shaken than she had ever been in her life. She turned round and saw him before her, his eyes sparkling with anger, his neat small person towering, as it seemed, over the discomfited servants driven back by the first glance of him into servile humiliation. Lord Frogmore’s voice, which generally was a mild and rather small voice, thundered through the hall. “You disrespectful rascal! How dare you speak to a lady in that tone?”
“My lord!” Saunders cried, faltering. At first he could not even think of a word to say for himself. The footman discreetly stole away.
“My brother is absent, I suppose, and Mrs. Parke; and you cowardly scamp, you wretched snob, you take this opportunity——”
“Oh, Lord Frogmore, don’t be severe upon the man. He thought I had written about him to his mistress. Please don’t say any more.”
“I shall write about him to his mistress,” said Lord Frogmore, “or to his master, which will be more effectual. John Parke is no brother of mine if he does not turn such a fellow neck and crop out of the house. Get out of my sight, you brute, if you don’t want to be kicked out.” Saunders was twice Lord Frogmore’s size and half his age, but the old gentleman made him cower like a whipped dog. He made a faint effort to bluster.
“I’m responsible to my own master, my lord: I’ll answer to him.”
“By Jove,” said the old lord. “You shall answer to a sound thrashing if you stay here a moment longer. Out of my sight! Miss Hill,” he said, turning round and offering Mary his arm, “I suppose there is some room where I can say a word to you. It is clear that you cannot remain an hour longer in this house.”