“One can see that. With everything she has she ought to be as happy as the day is long.”
“She ought to be.” Her voice dropped, and I saw her glance suspiciously at the door, which she had closed when she entered. “She ought to be, but she isn’t. I have never seen any one so unhappy as she has been of late—ever since last summer. I suppose I oughtn’t to talk about it, but I’ve kept it to myself so long that I feel as if it was killing me. If she was my own sister, I couldn’t be any fonder of her, and yet I have to see her suffer day after day, and not say a word—not even to her. She isn’t the sort of lady you could speak to about a thing like that.”
She broke down, and dropping on the rug at my feet, hid her face in her hands. It was plain that she was suffering acutely, and while I patted her shoulder, I thought what a wonderful mistress Mrs. Vanderbridge must be to have attached a servant to her so strongly.
“You must remember that I am a stranger in the house, that I scarcely know her, that I’ve never so much as laid eyes on her husband,” I said wamingly, for I’ve always avoided, as far as possible, the confidences of servants.
“But you look as if you could be trusted.” The maid’s nerves, as well as the mistress’s, were on edge, I could see. “And she needs somebody who can help her. She needs a real friend—somebody who will stand by her no matter what happens.” Again, as in the room downstairs, there flashed through my mind the suspicion that I had got into a place where people took drugs or drink—or were all out of their minds. I had heard of such houses.
“How can I help her? She won’t confide in me, and even if she did, what could I do for her?”
“You can stand by and watch. You can come between her and harm—if you see it.” She had risen from the floor and stood wiping her reddened eyes on the napkin. “I don’t know what it is, but I know it is there. I feel it even when I can’t see it.”
Yes, they were all out of their minds; there couldn’t be any other explanation. The whole episode was incredible. It was the kind of thing, I kept telling myself, that did not happen. Even in a book nobody could believe it.
“But her husband? He is the one who must protect her.”
She gave me a blighting look. “He would if he could. He isn’t to blame—you mustn’t think that. He is one of the best men in the world, but he can’t help her. He can’t help her because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t see it.”