She had no means of telling the time, but when she could no longer endure the imprisonment she decided to make a bolt for it. She hadn’t been thieving, and so they couldn’t do anything to her—and there was a chance at least that she might get away. Opening the door cautiously, she stole out on the landing, and there was, not a woman, but a man!
Joy! A man would listen to her appeal. He would see that she was poor, common, unequal to a dump so swell, and would be human and tender. He was a nice looking old man too—she was able to notice that—with a long, kindly face on which there were two spots of bloom as if he had been rouged. So she capitulated to his plea, making only the condition that if she took the hegg—she pronounced the word as he did, not being sure as to what it meant—she should be free to go.
“Certainly, if madam wishes it. I’m sure the last thing Mr. Allerton would desire would be to detain madam against ’er will.”
She allowed herself to be ushered down the monumental stairs and into the dining-room, which awed her with the solemnity of a church. She knew at once 58 that she wouldn’t be able to eat amid this stateliness any more than in the glitter of last evening’s restaurant. She had yielded, however, and there was nothing for it but to sit down at the head of the table in the chair which Steptoe drew out for her. Guessing at her most immediate embarrassment, he showed her what to do by unfolding the napkin and laying it in her lap.
“Now, if madam will excuse me, I’ll slip awye and tell Jyne.”
But telling Jyne was not so simple a matter as it looked. The council in the kitchen, which at first had been a council and no more, was now a council of war. As Steptoe entered, Mrs. Courage was saying:
“I shall go to Mr. Rashleigh ’imself and tell ’im that hunder the syme roof with a baggage none of us will stye.”
“You can syve yourself the trouble, Mrs. Courage,” Steptoe informed her. “Mr. Rash ’as just gone out. Besides, I’ve good news for all of you.” He waited for each to take an appropriate expression, Mrs. Courage determined, Jane with face eager and alight, Nettie tittering behind her hand. “Miss Walbrook, which all of us ’as dreaded, is not a-comin’ to our midst. The young lydy Nettie see in the back spare-room is Mr. Rashleigh’s wife.”
“Wife!” Mrs. Courage threw up her hands and staggered backward. “’Im that ’is mother left to me! ‘Courage,’ says she, ‘when I’m gone––’”
Jane crept forward, horrified, stunned. “Them things can’t be, Steptoe.”