Our House and London out of Our Windows

by Elizabeth Robins Pennell

And then? Why, then, I hadn't taken an opium pill. I wasn't sleepy. I didn't want to sleep. I wanted to find out. I did what I have always thought no self-respecting person would do. But to be mixed up in 'Enrietter's affairs was not calculated to strengthen one's self-respect. And without a scruple I went into the kitchen and opened every drawer, cupboard, and box, and read every letter, every scrap of paper, I could lay my hands on. There wasn't much all told, but it was enough. For I found out that the medical student, the gentleman, was a clerk in the Bank of England,—I should like him to read this and to know that I know his name and have his reputation in my hands. I found out that 'Enrietter was his "old woman," and a great many other things she ought not to have been. I found out that I had not dined once with my friends that he had not spent the evening with her. I found out that he had kept count of my every engagement with greater care than I had myself. I found out that he had spent so many hours in my kitchen that the question was what time he had left for the Bank of England. And I found such an assortment of flasks and bottles that I could only marvel how 'Enrietter had managed to be sober for one minute during the three weeks of her stay with me.

I sent for a charwoman the next morning. She was of the type now rapidly dying out in London, and more respectable, if possible, than the Housekeeper. Her manner went far to restore my self-respect, and this was the only service I could ask of her, her time being occupied chiefly in waiting upon 'Enrietter. In fairness, I ought to add that 'Enrietter was game to the last. She got up and downstairs somehow, she cooked the lunch, she would have waited on the table, bandaged head and all, had I let her. But the less I saw of her, the greater her chance for the repose prescribed by the night-surgeon. Besides, she and her bandaged head were due at the hospital. This time she went in charge of the charwoman, whose neat shabby shawl and bonnet, as symbols of respectability, were more than sufficient to keep all the night or day surgeons of London in their place. They returned with the cheerful intelligence that matters were much worse than was at first thought, that 'Enrietter's eye was in serious danger, and absolute quiet in a darkened room was essential, that lotions must be applied and medicines administered at regular intervals,—in a word, that our chambers, as long as she remained in them, must be turned into a nursing home, with myself as chief nurse, which was certainly not what I had engaged her for.

I went upstairs, when she was in bed again, and told her so. She must send for some one, I did not care whom, to come and take her off my hands at once. My temper was at boiling-point, but not for the world would I have shown it or done anything to destroy 'Enrietter's repose and so make matters worse, and not be able to get rid of her at all. As usual, her resources did not fail her; she was really wonderful all through. There was an old friend of her father's, she said, who was in the Bank of England—I knew that friend; he could admit her into a hospital of which he was a patron—Heaven help that hospital! But I held my peace. I even wrote her letter and sent it to the post by the charwoman. 'Enrietter's morals were beyond me, but my own comfort was not.

I do not know whether the most astonishing thing in all the astonishing episode was not the reappearance of the old friend of her father's in his other rôle of medical student. I suppose he did not realize how grave 'Enrietter's condition was. I am sure he did not expect anything less than that I should open the door for him. But this was what happened. His visit was late, the charwoman had gone for the night, and I was left to do all 'Enrietter's work myself. He did not need to tell me who he was,—his face did that for him,—but he stammered out the wretched fable of the medical student, the young lady, and the cab. She was quite alone when he left her, he added, and he was worried, and, being in the neighbourhood, he called in passing to enquire if the young lady were better, and if there were now some one to take care of her. His self-confidence came back as he talked.

"Your story is extremely interesting," I told him, "and I am especially glad to hear it, because my cook"—with a vindictive emphasis on the cook—"has told me quite a different one as to how she came by her broken head. Now—"

He was gone. He threw all pretence to the winds and ran downstairs as if the police were at his heels, as I wished they were. I could not run after him without making a second scandal in the house; and if I had caught him, if I had given him in custody for trespass, as I was told afterwards I might have done, how would I have liked figuring in the Police Courts?

Curiously, he did have influence with the hospital, which shall be nameless. He did get a bed there for 'Enrietter the next morning. It may be that he had learned by experience the convenience to himself of having a hospital, as it were, in his pocket. But the arrangements were by letter; he did not risk a second meeting, and I asked 'Enrietter no questions. For my own satisfaction, I went with her to the hospital: a long, melancholy drive in a four-wheeler, 'Enrietter with ghastly face, more dead than alive. I delivered her into the hands of the nurses. I left her there, a bandaged wreck of the pretty 'Enrietter who had been such an ornament to our chambers. And that was the last I saw of her, though not the last I heard.

A day or two later her sister came to pack up her belongings,—a young woman with a vacant smile, a roving eye, and a baby in her arms. I had only to look at her to know that she wasn't the sort of sister to force anything on anybody, much less on 'Enrietter. And yet I went to the trouble of reading her a little lecture. 'Enrietter's morals were beyond me, but I am not entirely without a conscience. The sister kept on simpering vacantly, while her eyes roved from print to print on the walls of the dining-room where the lecture was delivered, and the baby stared at me with portentous solemnity.

Then, about three weeks after the sister's visit, I heard from 'Enrietter herself. She wrote with her accustomed politeness. She begged my pardon for troubling me. She had left the hospital. She was at home in Richmond, and she had just unpacked the trunk the sister had packed for her. Only one thing was missing. She would be deeply obliged if I would look in the left-hand drawer of the kitchen dresser and send her the package of cigarettes I would find there. And she was mine, "Very respectfully."

This is the story of 'Enrietter's adventures in our chambers, and I think whoever reads it will not wonder that I fought shy afterwards of the English servant who was not well on the wrong side of forty and whose thirst could not be quenched with tea. The real wonder is that I had the courage to risk another maid of any kind. Women have been reproached with their love of gossiping about servants since time immemorial, and I do not know for how long before that. But when I remember 'Enrietter, I do not understand how we have the heart ever to gossip about anything else. What became of her, who can say? Sometimes, when I think of her pretty face and all that was good in her, I can only hope that the next orgy led to still worse things than a broken head, and that Death saved her from the London streets.