Chapter Twelve.
Maria is Venomous.
“Come in,” said Aunt Anne, in response to a knock, and Maria Bell entered, to stand for a moment watching while a few entries were made diligently in the housekeeping book. Then Aunt Anne raised her head and coughed, a signal which Maria knew of old as premonitor of a scolding, and, to ward it off, struck first.
“Oh, much better, ma’am, thank you,” she said hastily; “and it’s very kind of you to ask. I’m getting as strong as I was before I went to the hospital, and I think the wine you gave me has done me a deal of good. I hope master’s much better this morning, ma’am.”
“Yes; your master is much better, Maria.”
“I’m very glad, ma’am, for more reasons than one.” Aunt Anne had made up and rehearsed a speech relative to the neglect of certain duties, now that Maria was back, and that though she had been ill, and allowances would be made and she would still be well cared for, she was not to expect that she was to lead a life of idleness, especially as there was now an invalid permanently in the house. But Maria’s manner and that addition or qualifying of her joy at her master’s improvement, quite drove the admonitory remarks out of her head by exciting curiosity.
“Eh?” she exclaimed, “for more reasons than one, Maria? What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, nothing, ma’am,” said the woman, tightening her lips, and taking up the hem of her apron to arrange in plaits.
“Maria, you know, and have known for years, how I hate and detest mystery. I desire that you tell me what you mean.”
“Nothing at all, ma’am, indeed. I really—that is—I am very glad that master is better—that’s all.”
“That is not all, Maria. I despise hints, as you well know.”
“Really, ma’am, there is nothing.”
“Maria, you cannot deceive me. I can read you perfectly. You have some reason for that innuendo and after all I have done for you and that Mr Neil has done for you, I consider that you are acting very ungratefully by this reserve.”
Maria began to cry.
“It—it—it wasn’t from ungratefulness ma’am, I’m sure, for I’m bubbling over with gratitude to you and Mr Neil, and it was all on account of him that I spoke as I did.”
“Now, Maria, what do you mean?” cried Aunt Anne, for the spark ignited upon her tinder-like nature was rapidly beginning to glow.
“Please, please, don’t ask me, ma’am,” said Maria, with sobs. “I would not make mischief in a house for worlds.”
“Nobody asks you to make mischief, Maria; but if you have seen peculations, or matters connected with the housekeeping going wrong during your master’s illness, it is your duty to speak.”
“Yes, ma’am, but it wasn’t anything of that sort.”
“Then what was it?” said Aunt Anne judicially. “And I’d be the last to speak, ma’am, knowing how valuable a character is to a poor person; and well I know how easy it is to make mistakes and be deceived, especially about such matters as that.”
“Maria, I insist. Why do you wish your master to be better?”
“Oh, of course, I want to see him quite well, ma’am, for though a bit ’arsh, a better master—”
“What other reason, Maria?”
“Well, ma’am, if I must speak, it is because I shall be glad when master’s down again, and nurse is gone.”
“Nurse? Stop a moment. She attended you at the hospital?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Maria, in a peculiar tone, which suggested neglect, ill-treatment, and all kinds of unfeminine behaviour; “she attended me. I was in her ward.”
“Well?”
“Oh, that’s all, ma’am.”
“It is not all, Maria, and I desire that you speak.”
“I don’t like to see a woman like that attending master.”
“It was the doctor’s orders, Maria.”
“So I s’pose, ma’am. I heard that Sir Denton sent her down. He thinks a deal of her. You see he’s a very old gentleman, ma’am, and she flatters him, and makes believe to be very attentive, and she was always just the same to Mr Neil, ma’am. I was a-lying there in pain and suffering and affliction sore, but I couldn’t help using my eyes, and I saw a great deal.”
“Maria!”
“Oh, it’s a fact, ma’am, and if I’d gone on as she did talking to the young doctors, I should never have expected to keep no place; but of course a head nurse is different to a hupper ’ousemaid.”
“That will do, Maria,” said Aunt Anne. “I cannot listen to such scandalous tattle. I have no doubt about its being all imagination on your part.”
“I only wish it was, ma’am, I’m sure.”
“It’s only a temporary arrangement, of course; and now, I wanted to speak to you about several little pieces of neglect I have observed that must not occur again. I know you have been ill, but it is quite time that you were a little more attentive, especially as we are about to have company.”
“Company, ma’am?”
“Yes; the Miss Lydons will be here to dinner on Friday, and they will stay the night, so I desire that their rooms are properly prepared before they come, and of course, as they will not bring their maid you will wait upon them.”
“Yes, ma’am; I’ll do my very best, and I hope—”
“That will do, Maria.”
“But there was one thing I should like to tell you, ma’am.”
Aunt Anne was burning with curiosity, but she raised her hand.
“Not another word, Maria. You know I never listen to the servants’ tattle. Now go about your work.”
“I ’ate her,” muttered Maria, as soon as she was in the hall, which she crossed so as to get to the back stairs; “and if I haven’t put a spoke in her wheel this time my name isn’t what it is.”
Maria tightened her lips as if to condense her spleen against the patient, long-suffering woman who had had the misfortune to incur her dislike.
“A thing like her!” she continued muttering. “A beggarly nurse, with not so much as a box of her own to bring down when she comes into a gentleman’s house, and giving herself airs as if she was a lady. Oh, dear me, and indeed! Couldn’t stoop to talk to a poor girl as if she was a fellow-creature, at the hospital; and down here, lor’ bless us! anyone would think she was a duchess up in the skies instead of a common hospital nurse. Oh, I do ’ate pride, and if it wasn’t that it do have a fall there’d be no living with such people.”
Maria was not very strong yet, and she stopped short—as she expressed it to herself, with her heart in her mouth—and turned red and then pale on hearing a faint rustle behind her, and the nurse’s low sympathetic voice accosting her.
“Ah, Maria, are you better this morning?”
“Oh, yes, thank you, ma’am, much better.”
There was a tremendous emphasis on the “ma’am,” suggestive of keen and subtle sarcasm, and the revolt of honest humility against assumption.
“I am very glad,” said the nurse gently. “Mrs Barnett said that there were several little things you might do now in Mr Elthorne’s room.”
Maria’s face turned scarlet, and she faced round viciously.
“Then it was you, was it, who complained to her that I didn’t do my work properly?”
“I, my good girl?” said Nurse Elisia, smiling. “Oh, no.”
“It must have been. Nobody else wouldn’t have been so mean as to go telling tales.”
“You are making a great mistake, Maria,” said the nurse, with quiet dignity. “I certainly asked Mrs Barnett about a few things being done in your master’s room, and she referred me to you.”
“I don’t want you to come here teaching me my work.”
“Oh, no, I will not interfere, Maria,” said the nurse coldly; “but it is necessary that the room should be seen to.”
“Thank you, ma’am; as if I didn’t know what a ’ousemaid’s work is. Oh, I haven’t patience with such mean, tale-bearing, stuck-up ways.”
The nurse looked at her in a pained way, and for a few moments there was a slight flash of resentment in her face; but it died out directly, and she spoke very gently:
“You are making a mistake, Maria.”
“Don’t ‘Maria’ me, please—ma’am,” cried the housemaid; and that “ma’am” was tremendous.
“Stop,” said the nurse, gently and firmly, and her eyes seemed to fascinate the woman, as a hand was laid upon her arm. “You have passed through a very trying ordeal lately, and it has affected your nervous system. You must not give way to an angry, hysterical fit like this. It is dangerous in your state.”
“Oh, don’t you begin to ‘my lady’ it over me.” Nurse Elisia changed colour a little, and darted a penetrating look at the speaker, but her countenance resumed its old calm directly, and she went on firmly.
“Take my advice, Maria; now do as I tell you. Never mind about the work—I will do what is necessary myself. Go up to your bedroom and lie down for an hour, till you have grown calm and cool.”
“I shan’t,” cried Maria, with the passionate utterance of an angry child; “and I won’t stop in a house where—where,”—there was a hysterical outburst of sobbing here—“such goings on—and I’ll take my month.”
“Let me take you up to your room.”
“No, no! I won’t go. I—oh, oh, oh!”
But the strong will prevailed over the weak, and Maria suffered herself to be led along the corridor till, a figure approaching at the end, she cried spitefully through her sobs: “Of course, I know. To get me out of the way. Oh, I’m not blind.”
Nurse Elisia’s hand fell from the woman’s arm as if it had been a gymnotus, and there was an indignant look in her eyes as they met Neil Elthorne’s searchingly, in fear lest he had heard the malignant utterance.
“What is the matter?” he said. “Why, Maria, I thought you were so much better.”
“It is a little hysterical attack,” said the nurse quietly. “I was advising her to go and lie down, sir.”
“Yes, of course,” said Neil quickly, as he caught the woman’s wrist. “Go and lie down at once. You must not give way to that sort of thing, Maria. You are not quite yourself yet.”
“I—I’m better, now, sir,” she said, as she struggled for the mastery over herself. “No, thank you! I can go by myself.”
“Oh, yes,” she muttered, as she glanced back on reaching the swing-door at the end of the corridor. “I’m not blind. A nice creature!—and him to go on like that. But I’ve not done yet.”