Such things as these did not move Lady Louvaine. But there were two things which did move her, even to tears. The first was when Hans brought her a little box in which lay five silver pieces, entreating her to accept them, such as they were—and she found after close cross-examination that part of the money was the boy’s savings to buy cherished books, and part the result of the sale of his solitary valuable possession, a pair of silver buckles. The other took place when notice was given to all the servants. Each received his or her wages, and a little token of remembrance, with bow or courtesy, and an expression of regret on leaving so kind a mistress, mingled with good wishes for her future welfare: all but one. That one was Charity, the under-housemaid from Pendle. Charity rolled up her arms in her apron, and said curtly—“Nay!”
“But, Charity, I owe you this,” responded her mistress in some surprise.
“If you’re bound to reckon up, my Lady, betwixt you and me, there mun be somewhat set down o’ tother side o’ th’ book,” announced Charity sturdily. “Yo’ mun mind you ’at yo’ took me ba’at (without) a commendation, because nob’ry (nobody) ’d have me at after Mistress Watson charged me wi’ stealing her lace fall, ’at she found at after amongst her kerchiefs; that’s a hundred pound to th’ good. And yo’ nursed me through th’ fever—that’s another. And yo’ held me back fro’ wedding wi’ yon wastrel (scoundrel) Nym Thistlethwaite, till I’d seen a bit better what manner of lad he were, and so saved me fro’ being a poor, bruised, heart-broke thing like their Margery is now, ’at he did wed wi’—and that counts for five hundred at least. That’s seven hundred pound, Madam, and I’ve nobut twelve i’ th’ world—I’m bankrupt. So, if you please, we’ll have no reckonings, or I shall come off warst. And would you please to tell me when you look to be i’ London town, and where you’ll ’light first?”
“My good Charity! they named thee not ill,” answered Lady Louvaine. “I trust to be in London the end of March—nigh on Lady Day; and I light at the White Bear, in the King’s Street, Westminster.”
“Pray you, Madam, how many miles is it hence?”
“’Tis about two hundred miles, Charity.”
For a moment Charity was silent. Then she said, “An’t like you, Madam, I’d fain go the first o’ March.”
Lady Louvaine was a little surprised, for she had given her servants a month’s notice, which would expire on the fifteenth of March. However, if Charity preferred to be paid in time instead of money, that was her own affair. She assented, and Charity, dropping another courtesy, left the room.
Lady Louvaine’s house in London had been obtained through the Earl of Oxford, a distant cousin of her husband, in whose household her son Walter had long before taken unwholesome lessons in fashion and extravagance. The Earl, now in his grand climacteric, had outlived his youthful frivolity, and though he had become a hard and austere man, was yet willing to do a kindness to his kinsman’s widow by engaging a house for her, and offering for her grandson a squire’s place which happened to be vacant in his household. She would have preferred some less showy and more solid means of livelihood for Aubrey, whose character was yet unfixed, and whose disposition was lighter than she liked to see it: but no other offered, and she accepted this.
A few days before the time for departure, up trudged Temperance Murthwaite again.