A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

Mary had grown, from force of being well served, to like Miss Percival, whom she identified moreover with her own impulse towards a more interesting life. She had gone so far as to say, in Miss Percival's presence, that she thought some plan might be found for giving the waitresses higher wages. And now that James's attitude forced her to switch her activities into another direction she felt that she owed her secretary some explanation of the change. It couldn't of course be a perfectly truthful explanation—one is not expected to be truthful about one's husband. But it would prevent Miss Percival from feeling that her employer regarded her as a mere hireling who obeys orders she is not expected to understand. The explanation, skirting the edge of the truth with a nervous deference, had stated that Mary had asked Mr. Heyham if it would be possible to raise the girls' wages, and had been convinced after going into the matter with him that it would not be possible. But in order to show that the firm did not grudge the money Mr. Heyham had himself suggested that they should spend it on the girls in another way—he did not bind them, but the way he thought the best would be—Mary had drawn for Miss Percival as glowing a picture of the poor convalescents recovering their rosy cheeks as her imagination and her command over words could supply.

Miss Percival, who was seated at her desk, had not answered at once. Instead she had drawn a beautiful lady with curling hair on her pad of blotting-paper. Then, in a startled tone, as if she had just awaked, she said, "Very well, Mrs. Heyham, just as you wish of course. Have you decided yet where the home is to be?"

Mary had not decided, but she thought it must be somewhere bracing with a pier and a band, and plenty of nigger minstrels. "It won't do to choose a place where they would feel lonely," she conceded.

Miss Percival pushed her chair back from the desk and sighed, then, swinging round sharply, she stared straight at Mrs. Heyham.

"She is very much disappointed," Mary thought, as Miss Percival did not speak. "It's natural of course, she is young, probably she hasn't learned how seldom one can do what one wants in this life." She started, for Miss Percival was speaking. "Just as you think right, Mrs. Heyham," she was saying slowly.

Mary, who knew that she was doing what she thought right, nevertheless felt uneasy. Miss Percival obviously considered her wrong, and Miss Percival was a clever young woman, entitled to respect. One of the suspicions to which she was prone crept into Mary's mind. Suppose the thing she wanted most was not to help the girls, but to keep on affectionate terms with James? Suppose, after all, that she were only following her inclinations—Miss Percival's voice, severe and scornful, interrupted these accusations.

"After all, the great thing is to decide on something and do it," she said.

Mary acquiesced. That was as good a way of putting the matter as any other.

"I don't suppose we shall be able to do very much for a week or two," she told her assistant, "because Mrs. Moorhouse—my married daughter, you know—will be needing me. But you might find out what you can about places not too far from London, and you might get information about other homes, and see whether it would be best to build for ourselves, or buy some houses and alter them. And we must find out, too, what accommodation we are likely to need."

She did not speak with her usual brightness, and Miss Percival did not reply with her usual alacrity. For a moment the two women looked at one another. Then Mary, rising hastily from her chair, said that she did not think she need keep Miss Percival any later that day.