It wasn’t right his going out with her like this. This would be the third time he had gone out with her, and it wasn’t like Mrs. Haye to allow it; it ought to be stopped. At that age they could so easily fall in love with each other. And what would happen then? Young people always went into those things blind, they didn’t see what the consequences of their actions were. He ought to be more careful of whom he took up with. His daughter, indeed. What would everyone be saying? And that her boy should go out with that thing, him that she had brought up since he was a squalling baby, it was not right.
There had been the time when he had first been given to her—a wonderful baby strong as you could wish, full seven and a half pounds from the moment he was born, and since then she had fed him with her own hands just like as she was doing now, and getting up at nights constant when he was hollering for his pap. She had seen him grow up right from the beginning. And he had gone blind—it couldn’t have been worse!—so that now he could never have a good time with the young ladies or nothing, poor Master Johnnie! But she would see him out of this thing that had come upon them, she had seen him out of many such—there had been the time when he had been taken with whooping cough a deal of trouble they had had with him, but they had pulled him through. Mrs. Haye had been such a good mother to him better indeed than his real one Mrs. Richard Haye would ever have been. There were stories the servants that were with her told but then, what was the good of believing stories but from what was said she was too free altogether. You can never trust men not even your husband’s best friend but there it was!
And Master John had growed up and gone to college but that never had agreed with him, he was weakly ever since she could remember. It was what she said that had kept him from a preparatory school even if the doctor had said so too. Then they had had the governess who was not up to much with all her airs and graces. The way she used to carry on with that teacher in Norbury, undignifying. But he had been too weakly for college, he had never been happy there even if he had growed to the figure of a man he was. The other boys what were less well-behaved and brought up would have always been at him, she knew their ways. And there had come a time when he would hardly so much as throw a glance at her and say “Hullo, Nanny,” and Mr. William had said one day “He is growing up,” and she had seen him going away from her when the only things she could do for him was to darn his socks and sew on buttons, but he was back to her now, she could help him again, bring him up his food and take him out for walks. It wasn’t right that hussy taking hold on him and everyone would be talking you see if they didn’t.
Then the master had married again and a good thing too for the first one wasn’t such as to waste breath over. Beautiful she had been, too beautiful they was a danger them lovely ones though what he could see in this hussy she didn’t know but then he couldn’t see, poor Master John that was what it was. There had been great goings on for the marriage, a servants’ ball and the service in church had been lovely the bridesmaids being in pink and the clergyman having a lovely voice. She had been a good mistress to her Mrs. Haye had been, only a hard word now and then from that day on. And she had made a good mother to Master John, always thinking of him and looking after him just as if he was her own boy. Then the master going to India with his regiment and leaving her with Master John to live with the grandparents, what was dead now some time, and where they didn’t treat her proper they was half-starving the poor boy. They hadn’t no illusions of his mother but it wasn’t his fault poor little mite what she was. And then their coming back after she had wrote to tell them, though the regiment did come back too, and his falling downstairs dead as mutton his heart having gone sudden like. A lovely funeral it was and a fine corpse he made lying out on the bed. In the church it was the men of the estate that carried the coffin, and the church was draped in black, and there were officers from the regiment and wreaths that the officers had sent and some from the men. Everything had been done in style. And the mistress had been splendid. Quite soon after she had said to her “Well Jennings it is up to us to bring him up” and she had said back “We will’m.”
And then he had begun to crawl round the nursery, very fond of coal he had been, and always full of mischief. And they had all said then what a fine man he was going to grow up into, and so he is, but they none of them had the gift of sight so they couldn’t have foretold this. When she had been told she was sitting in this chair as like as she might be now and she said “Lord have mercy on us” she remembered it as if it was yesterday, though it did seem an age away, and that only six months really. In the next room in the old day-nursery was all the toys he used to have and her first thought was that he would never be able to play with them again. You got a bit mixed up with time when you grew older. They were all in the cupboard here the tin soldiers scarlet and blue with some cannon and the spotted horse which he used to be that fond of and the marbles with colours inside that he always wanted to swallow, they was a peril them things, and the box of bricks as he grew older so that they said he was going to be an architeck, and what would he be now? He had loved his toys, she could remember his sitting on his heels and getting excited over the soldiers as if they was real and fighting a real battle. They were all there in the cupboard waiting. Nothing had been lost and now that her time was coming perhaps when she was gone they would throw them away or give them to some poor child instead of keeping them, maybe for his children if he had any. Waste that was.
Would he marry now? And would a young lady want to marry a blind young man? Ah, but if they knew her Master John of course they would. She ought to know him, she had known him longer than anyone now, and he was so good and kind-hearted even if he was a bit rough at times, but then all young people were like that. She would like to see his son but she might go off at any minute, the doctor said so, it was her heart, she wouldn’t last on to see him. But it wasn’t doing him no good to be following around of that girl with her father. That man, and him in the church too, it was a sacrilege that’s what it was. And the shame on the village and on the house. They was the laughing-stock of the countryside. And him going and living quite near just to spite them, oh if the master was here, he would send him packing and that daughter of his parading of herself about. She would talk to Mrs. Haye she ought to know what everyone was saying.
She had been sitting in this very chair when who should come in but Mr. William and she could see something was up on account of his being out of breath and he had said “The young master ’as been ’urt” he said, and she had been turned to stone so to speak, as it says in the Book, and he had gone on about the accident on the railway and how he would be blind for ever. And she had said “Lord have mercy on us. Lord have mercy on us.”
To think that it should happen to him, him that was so good and kind. He had been good to her he knew what he had to thank her for. And he had been so brave through it all. Oh dear. Even when he was quite a mite he had been that kind-hearted. Mrs. Richard Haye was like that they had said. In another way though it must have been. And she always going about whistling, never going to church, and so happy with all her men friends hanging around and the master too simple to notice or suspect. Folks as are that happy are dangerous. And her silly whistling so that you couldn’t stir without hearing it, senseless it was. And everything in such a muddle so they said. She had only seen her once when they had taken her to be shown to the mistress as the new nurse. Too weak she had been to stir a finger but beautiful although so pale lying there on the bed propped up on cushions, the light shining on her face, blue eyes half-closed with long lashes and so thin with her last home-coming. She hadn’t said a word just looked at her, they were beautiful eyes, too beautiful. But they was all liable to die like that all women. She had been near to marrying Joe Hawkins before she went out into service. She didn’t regret it, she would do it again if she had the chance, though two Master Johnnies didn’t come but once in a lifetime.
Getting up with difficulty she made herself some fresh tea, hanging up the kettle-holder on a brass-headed nail that goggled like a golden eye from the wall. The room was thick with warmth. A lifeless pennant of steam came from the spout of the teapot.
She lifted the cup to her lips with hands which trembled rather. She sipped. A cup o’ tea did you a deal of good. Nothing like it so that the older you were the more you felt the need of it. And the cough was getting worse, it wouldn’t go till it had killed her. But Mrs. Haye would give her a fine funeral with a stone which would have an angel on it maybe. Beautiful she always thought they looked, them tombstones as had angels on ’em.