There was a hesitating movement on the unseen stairs above, and then Hilda could see Sarah Gailey's felt slippers and the valance of her skirt. And she could hear Sarah's emotional breathing.
"Very well, Louisa, I've done!" Sarah's voice was quieter now. She was trying to control it, and to a limited extent was controlling its volume. It shook in spite of her. She spoke true. She had indeed done. She was at the end of her resources.
"I've been in houses," Louisa conqueringly sneered, "that I have! But I never been in a house afore where one as ought to have been scullery-girl went off with a boarder, and nothing said, and him the friend of the master! And it isn't as if that was all!... Sheets, indeed!"
"I've nothing further to say," Sarah returned unnecessarily, and descended the stair. "I shall simply report to Mr. Cannon. We shall see."
"And what's this about Mrs. Cannon?" Louisa shouted, beside herself.
The peculiarity of her tone arrested Sarah Gailey. Hilda flushed. The Watchetts were listening. The Watchetts had not yet been told of the marriage. The announcement was to be made to them formally, a little later. And now it was Louisa who was making the announcement, brutally, coarsely. The outrage of the episode was a hundredfold intensified; it grew into an inconceivable ghastly horror. Hilda's self-respect seemed to have a physical body and Louisa to be hacking at it with a jagged knife.
"Mr. Cannon has brought his wife home," said Sarah Gailey shortly, with a dignity and courage that increased as her distance from the appalling, the incredible Louisa. Hilda could see her pale face now. The eyebrows and chin were lifted in scorn of the vile menial, but the poor head was trembling.
"And what about his other wife?"
"Louisa!"--Sarah Gailey looked again up the stairs--"I know you're in a temper and not responsible for what you say. But you'd better be careful." She spoke with elaborate haughty negligence.
"Had I?" Louisa shrilled. "What I say is, what about his other wife? What about the old woman he married in Devonshire? Why, God bless me, Florrie was full of it--couldn't talk about anything else in bed of a night! Didn't you know the old woman'd been inquiring for her beautiful 'usband down your way?" She laughed loudly. "Turnhill--what's-its-name?... And all of you lying low, and then making out all of a sudden as he's brought his wife home! A nice house! And I've been in a few, too!"