I loved her for those words. They were the first that I had heard spoken in my uncle’s defense. She was uttering all the pent up anger and sense of injustice that I had been too cowardly to express. Even on my father her fierce working-class loyalty to the under-dog had its effect.
“My good girl,” he said, “you mustn’t talk to me like that. I’m Mr. Cardover, who was staying here last Christmas.”
Her manner changed audibly, literally audibly, at his tone of implied sympathy. She boo-hooed unrestrainedly as she slipped back the chain, permitting us to enter.
“I begs yer pardon, Mr. Cardover,” she sniveled, dusting her eyes with her dirty apron. “I’m kind o’ unnerved. My poor dear master’s got so many h’enemies nar; I didn’t rekernize yer as ’is friend. Yer see, the moment this ’ere ’appened all the other servants left like a pack o’ rats. They didn’t love ’im the waie I did; I come along wiv ’im from the boardin’ ’arse. This mornin’ ’e gives me notice, ’e did. ‘Car’line, I carn’t pay yer no more wyges,’ ’e says. ‘Gawd bless yer,’ says I, ‘an’ if yer carn’t, wot does that matter? I ain’t one of yer ’igh and mighty, lawdy-dah hussies that I should desert yer.’ Oh, Mr. Cardover, it’s a shime the loife they’re leadin’ the poor man. But there, if they sends ’im to prison, I’ll never agen put me nose h’insoide a church nor say no prayers. I’ll just believe there ain’t no Gawd in the world. The landlord, ’e’s in there h’at present wiv’im, a-naggin’ at ’im. I was listenin’ at the key’ole when yer rang the bell. But there, I’m keepin’ yer witin’! Won’t yer step into the drarin’ room till ’e’s by ’imself? H’excuse me dirty ’ands. I ’as to do h’everythin’ for ’im—there’s only me and the master; even the Missis ’as left.”
As she was closing the door behind her, my father called after her, “Mrs. Spreckles left! That’s astounding. Why has she done that?”
The tousled hair and red eyes re-appeared for a second. “Gorn back to start up the bo-ordin’ ’arse,” she stammered with a sob.
How different the room looked from when we were last in it! The cushions on the sofa were awry. The windows winked at you wickedly, one blind lowered and the other up. It had the bewildered, disheveled swaggerness of a last night’s reveler betrayed by the sunrise.
Since Caroline had spoken my mind out for me, I felt awkward alone with my father. I was afraid of what he might say presently.
I picked up a small, handsomely bound volume from the table while we were waiting. I began turning the pages, and found that it was a collected edition of tracts, written by my uncle and ostensibly addressed to young men. They had been a kind of stealthy advertisement of The Christian Boarding-House, calculated to make maiden aunts, into whose hands they fell, sit up and feel immediately that the author was the very person for influencing the morals of their giddy nephews. Through the persuasive saintliness expressed in these tracts Uncle Obad had procured many of his paying-guests. My eye was arrested by the title of one of them, THE DECEITFULNESS OF RICHES. I read, “One of our greatest poets has written of finding love in huts where poor men lie. Oh, that young men might be brought to ponder the truth contained in those words! What is more difficult to obtain than love in the whole world? Can riches buy love? Nay, but on the contrary love and wealth are rarely found together. Many a powerful financier and belted earl would give all that he has in exchange for love. Young men, when you come to die, which of all your possessions can you carry with you to an after-world? Then, at least, you will learn the deceitfulness of riches. You thought you had everything; too late you know that you had nothing. Even in this life some men live to learn that gold is but a phantom—a vampire phantom destroying friendship.”
I had got so far when footsteps and voices, loud in contention, sounded in the hall. “You’ve got to be out of here in a fortnight, d’yer understand? You’re letting down my property the longer you stay here. You’re giving my house a bad name. The address is in all the papers; people are already pointing it out. I won’t stand it. That’s my last word.”