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.