WHEREIN WE SEE BREEDING—HIGH AND LOW.
Mother and daughter parted almost the moment that the former was assured of Sally's readiness to come home, and Sally, nearly half-an-hour late, sped on her errand. It was with a glow on her face and a light in her eye that had been absent for many a day, that she ultimately reappeared in the nursery. Her bright looks seemed to add fuel to the wrath of the upper nurse, who burst out on Sally before she was well in at the door.
"I shan't stand this no longer, miss, depend on't," the soured, elderly maiden wound up. "I'm a decent woman, I ham, and don't mean to be disgraced by the likes o' you, not if I knows it. I've stood a lot too much from you a'ready, shameless gipsy that ye are. Your hongoin's is just past bearin', and I mean to tell Mrs. Morgan this very day as 'ow she must get another nurse an she means to keep you."
Nearly if not quite as much as this had been said to Sarah Wanless before now, and she had borne it silently with a bitter heart, because she found herself alone in the world. But to-day she was bolder from the consciousness within her that she was not yet wholly forsaken. Driven to bay by this woman's tongue, she turned upon her, and with flashing eyes, a voice trembling with passion, cried—
"And I have stood too much from you, Mary Crane. You have behaved to me worse than if I had been a dog, and you're a hard-hearted, selfish woman. What right have you to trample upon me, as if you was a saint and more? You've a black enough mind any way, and mebbe you've done worse nor me before now, for all your spiteful pride and down-looking on a poor, heart-stricken girl, as never did you no harm. Shame on you, Mary Crane, I would not exchange my lot for yours yet, if it was to give me a heart like yours. And you need not trouble Mrs. Morgan with your tales. I've made up my mind to stand your insolence no longer. I'll go to Mrs. Morgan myself and give up my place, and tell her how you've used me."
This unexpected outburst fairly took the nurse's breath away. She stuttered with inarticulate passion, and danced again in the agony of rage. A torrent of abuse was on her tongue, but she only managed to hiss out an opprobrious epithet at the girl, at the sound of which Sally faced her like one transformed. Drawing her form up to its full height, and holding her clenched hands close by her sides, she marched straight at nurse Crane, and fairly stood over her with her face a-flame and lips set, every feature rigid with scorn and wrath. Crane's heart died within her. She cowered and hid her face in her hands.
"Say that word again, Mary Crane," Sally demanded in a low, passion-thrilled voice, but Mary Crane uttered never a sound.
"Say it again, will you!" Sally repeated in low tones. "Dare to call me that name again, and I'll——" But Sarah had no threat big enough for her wrath. She caught her breath sharp, and came closer to her enemy, suddenly bent down and laid hold of Mary Crane's head with both her hands, forcing her to turn up her face.
But Crane would not look at her. With a half wail, half shriek, her knees gave way under her, and she sank on the floor wriggling as if about to take a fit.
Sarah looked at her for a moment contemptuously, and then turned away, while the heroic mood was upon her, to seek an interview with Mrs. Morgan.
That lady received the announcement of her under-nurse with her usual high-bred indifference, merely saying, "Oh, very well, you can go." But, as the girl turned away, something in her manner made Mrs. Morgan scrutinise her keenly. The girl seemed changed even to the eyes of the aristocratic lady, and, perhaps, she, too, began to suspect her, for Sally thought that she saw an expression of mingled contempt and annoyance on Mrs. Morgan's face, of which she caught a last glimpse on turning to shut the door behind her. It might have been only her own heated fancy, but, all the same, Sally's brief spell of courage was over from that moment. Happily Mary Crane vexed her no more openly, but she took her revenge in secret.
Mrs. Morgan's suspicions had been in reality so far excited as to cause her to make further inquiries. She called Mary Crane into her room one day and questioned her about "this girl, Sarah—What's her name?" Mary Crane for a little time would tell nothing. She now both hated and feared Sally Wanless, and until she could discover exactly where the girl stood with her mistress, she was not going to commit herself. Her remarks were therefore cautiously shaped at first, with a view to draw her mistress out. She prevaricated, dropped hints, and tried to measure the extent of Mrs. Morgan's knowledge before revealing her own. There was not only the girl to consider, but also the Captain. It might be more than her own place was worth to "blab on the Capting."
Either Mrs. Morgan was obtuse or ignorant, for she gave no response for some time to Mary's stream of words. "You see, 'm, as Sarah's a light sort of girl, 'm, as is allus a-runnin' after the men, 'm. She mayn't be bad, 'm, but she don't beayve proper for one in her station. I'm sure, 'm, I've told her times enough as no good id come of her upsittin' ways, and her ongoin' with the gentlemens—a gentleman in particler—'as hoften shocked me, 'm."
Thus she ran on, till Mrs. Morgan, quite bewildered, exclaimed—
"But what has the girl done, then, Mary?"
"Laws, 'm, 'ow should I know, 'm. Hax herself, 'm, hax the—a gentleman as you knows, 'm, knows hintimate, 'm."
"A gentleman I know intimately—what do you mean? I know no gentleman. Surely you don't mean Captain Wiseman?"
"Well, 'm, I don't know, 'm. You see, 'm, I thought the family mightn't like it——"
"That will do, Mary, that will do. I want no more beating about the bush. Tell me, yea or nay, has Captain Wiseman been noticing this girl?"
"Yes, 'm, he 'as, 'm; but I don't think——"
"Never mind what you think, you are sure of that fact?"
"Oh, yes, 'm, quite."
"Ah, thank you; then that'll do for the present," and she motioned to Crane to leave the room.
That worthy departed not quite satisfied. She had doubts as to whether her mistress liked to know the truth, doubted also if she had done Sarah as much harm as she wished to. But she showed none of these mental clouds in the servants' hall. There, in Sally's absence, she was triumphant, and the "said she's" and "said I's" with which the tale was embellished, served to emphasise the triumph which she indicated that the interview had been to her diplomatic skill. She only confessed to one regret. Mrs. Morgan had somehow cut the interview short, "just when I was a-goin' to tell her all about it."
Mrs. Morgan, however, did not need to be told all about it. She knew the habits of her brother, and, her interest once aroused, managed to put this and that together so well as to arrive before many minutes at a tolerably shrewd conclusion. "This, then," she said to herself, "is the secret of Captain Cecil's wonderful reform." That reflection at once brought her face to face with the question—Shall I or shall I not tell my mother? It was not a question so easily answered as it seemed. Mrs. Morgan was inclined to do it from her dislike of the Captain, who had always absorbed too much of his mother's attention—ought I to have said love?—for the good feelings of the rest of the family. But, then, this very preference made it difficult to decide. She might enrage her mother, and there were family money matters yet to settle, in the disposition of which a mother's displeasure might cause permanent changes. For these and other reasons, "too numerous to mention," Mrs. Morgan hesitated. She would wait on events, on her mother's moods and her own; so avoiding a decision.
That seemed easiest, and yet it proved the hardest course to Mrs. Morgan, who had quite a vulgar woman's delight in retailing scandal. Before a week was out she found it expedient to tell all. Her mother and she held a long conference in secret on the Friday after Sally had given up her place. What they said to each other will never be known; but one decision came of it that was at once acted upon. Sarah Wanless was dismissed that night by the orders of Lady Harriet, who sent her own maid with the message. "Jane," as she was called, delivered it with curt insolence, and at the same time flung a month's wages, which Lady Harriet had likewise sent, on the table, with a significant gesture, as if to say, "You are too unclean, Sally Wanless, to be touched by a superior person like me."
When Sarah went home, which she did as soon as her small box was packed up, and told her parents that she was dismissed, her father was so indignant that he wanted to send the extra weeks' wages back. His wife, however, persuaded him that it was better to let things alone. "The money," she said, "is her right, and can do us no harm; and Sally is well out of that den anyway." And Mrs. Wanless was right.