“And their salvation,” murmured Aunt Hester.
“If I did not think it important, do you think I would have left home, and at such a time, when I am most wanted? I always said that that big place would kill me, I never wanted to leave the Poplars; a little place like that is no trouble—my greenhouse, a few servants, and just as I had got everything to look nice—I could do it all in a few hours; but now I am never still, there is always something to be done. No one can take up my work. I am behindhand; oh, I assure you when I go back I shall be afraid to go into the greenhouse. I am worn out, I really am; it never ends. In a big house like Woborn one is always behindhand. The days aren't long enough, that's the fact of it; when one thinks one is getting through one thing one is called away to another. 'Please, mum, the cook would like to speak with you for a moment.' 'There is no tea in the house, mum.' 'What! is all the tea I gave out last week gone?' 'Yes, mum. There was, you remember, the dressmaker here three days, and we had Mrs. Jones in to help. And we shall want another piece of cheese for the servants' hall.' I don't know how it is with you, but at Woborn the cloth is never off the table in the servants' hall. They have five meals a day—breakfast at eight, and they won't eat cold bacon, they must have it hot; of course the waste is something fearful; at eleven they have beer and cheese; at one there is dinner; at five they have tea; and at nine supper. Five meals a day—it really is terrible, it is wicked, it really is! You have had none of these troubles, Hester, and you may think yourself very lucky.
“We have just got rid of our cook; the trouble she gave us, it really is beyond words. She said she was troubled with fits, hysteria, or something of that sort—at least that is the reason she gave for her conduct. I knew there was something wrong, I could see it in her eyes. I said: 'This is not right; it can't be right.' One night she left the dinner half cooked and went roaming all over the country; she came back the next afternoon, and I found her baking. Then there was Robinson. Do you remember the pretty housemaid? You saw her when you were at Woborn. I am sure she must have had gentle blood in her veins; she wasn't a bit like a servant, so elegant and graceful. Those soft blue eyes of hers. I often used to look at them and think how beautiful they were. Well, she fell madly in love with West. Notwithstanding his bandy legs, there was something fascinating about him. He had a way about him that the maid-servants used to like; Robinson wasn't the first. Well, she completely lost her head, perfectly frantic—frantic; her eyes on fire. I saw it at once; you know I am pretty sharp. I just look round, one look round; I see it all, I take it all in. I said: 'This is not right; this cannot be right. Robinson is a respectable girl.' Her people I knew to be most respectable people in Chichester; I had heard all about them through the Eastwicks. I said, 'Robinson, you must go, I will give you a month's wages, but you must go back to your people. You know why I am sending you away; it is for your own good, otherwise I am sorry to part with you; but you must go.'
“Robinson didn't say much, she was always rather haughty, a reserved sort of girl; but soon after—I always hear everything—I heard that she had not gone back to her people, but was living in lodgings in Brighton, and that West used to go and see her. I didn't say anything about it to West, but he saw there was something wrong. When I told him to put the carriage to, he said, 'Yes, mum, where to, mum?' 'Brighton.' I could see he saw there was something wrong, and when I told him not to put the carriage up, but to drive up and down the King's Road, and that I would meet him in about an hour at the bottom of West Street, he looked so frightened that I could hardly help laughing; he did look so comical, for he knew now that I was going to see Robinson. (Here the remembrance of West proved too much for Aunt Mary, and she shook with laughter.) Of course if I had let him put up the horses he would have run round to Robinson's and warned her that I was coming. Oh, I shall never forget that day! It was broiling, the sun came down on the flagstones in those narrow little back streets, and there was I toiling, toiling up that dreadful hill, inquiring out the way. I found the street, it was on the very top of the hill: such a poor, miserable place you never saw. Such a dreadful old woman opened the door to me, and I said, 'Is Miss Robinson in?' She said, 'Yes.' I could hear Robinson whispering over the banisters, saying, 'No, no, no, say I am out.' And then I said, 'It is no use, Robinson, I must see you, and I will not leave this place until I have seen you.' I went upstairs to her room. At first she was rather haughty, rather inclined to impertinence. She said, 'Mum, you have no right to come after me—you sent me away; I am looking out for a place in Brighton—I don't want to go back to my people.' I said, 'Robinson, it is no use trying to deceive me, I know very well why you are in Brighton; no good can come of this, it is nothing but wickedness. You must try to be good, Robinson. West has, as you know, a wife and children, and you must not think of him any more. You have taken this lodging so that you may see him. You must think of your future; this can't last.'”
“No, indeed, this life is but a moment,” sighed Aunt Hester. “I wish you had had one of these books to give her.”
“I did better, Hester. I told her some plain truths, and she put off her high and mighty airs and began to cry. I shall never forget it. Oh, how hot it was in that little room just under the slates, with one garret window and the sun pouring in. There was scarcely any furniture, and I was sitting on her bed. I said, 'Now, Robinson, you must give me back the presents West made you, and you must promise me to go back to Chichester.' And I didn't leave her until she promised me to go home next day.
“When I stepped into the carriage you should have seen West's face. He didn't know what had happened; I didn't speak to him till next day. As I was going into the garden I called him. I said, 'West, I want to speak to you.' 'Yes, mum.' We went into the back garden; I was planting there. Edward was out riding, so I knew we shouldn't be disturbed. I said, 'West, I saw Robinson yesterday, and I have a parcel for you; she has promised me not to see you, and you must promise me not to see her.' 'Very well, mum, since you say it.' 'This is a very sad affair, West.' 'A bad business, mum—a bad business, mum.' There was always something in West's stolid face that used to amuse me. You should have heard him. 'I don't think she could help it, mum; she never loved another man—I really don't. But I was going to tell you, mum, I once knew a servant, a married man, he was in love with a young woman, and they waited long years, and when the wife died they married, mum.' 'That was all very well long ago, West, but wives don't die nowadays.'”
So Aunt Mary talked, realising and giving expression to both the pathos and the comedy of her story. Then, feeling that she wasdigressing at too great length, she strove to generalise from the particular incident which she had related, and get back to the theme of the conversation.
“I don't know what we shall do, I don't know what we are coming to; servants are getting too strong for us. My last cook gave us no end of trouble; the butler used to have to lock himself up in the pantry; and yet I had to give her a character. Of course it was very wrong of me to enable her to thrust herself upon another family, but what was I to do? I couldn't deprive her of the means of earning her living. She'll give trouble wherever she goes. There is no remedy, there really isn't; I don't know what's to be done unless we ladies combine and refuse to give them characters.”
Here Aunt Mary's thoughts and words began to fail her, for she felt she was not getting back to the point where she had entered on her various digressions, and without further ado, and quite undisconcerted, she said, “But I forget where I was; what were we talking about?”