Kathleen, unlike other well born young ladies of Society, had had no maid, in the old days she could not afford one. Amy, the parlour maid, had assisted her into the dresses that were so very seldom paid for, and Kathleen had long since adopted the unladylike practice of doing her own hair. So when she came to Homewood she had decided to continue without a maid, though the funds were not lacking now and the dresses were certainly paid for.
Of course little Betty Hanson would not know a tithe of those things that a good and practiced lady's maid should know. She would not be able to do her ladyship's hair in the latest and most becoming style. She would not be able to select gowns suitable for special occasions. She would not be able to massage my lady's white hands and perhaps her face. She would not be able to flatter and fawn and sponge and perhaps rob and lie. No, Betty Hanson was not likely to have any of these desirable accomplishments.
Kathleen had an honest admiration for beauty. She was one of those rare women who can see and appreciate beauty in another woman. She would have everything about her beautiful if she could. She feared that perhaps to those who were unbeautiful, she was a little unjust. To Ann, the very plain housemaid who came from the Fulham Road, for instance, Kathleen was more than unusually kind and generous, because in her heart of hearts she did not like Ann. And she believed that she did not like Ann because Ann had a sallow, greasy skin, a misshapen nose and small mean eyes, set too closely together and a loose, nondescript kind of mouth.
Ann, as a matter of fact, was a stupid, blundering creature, who forgot to do one half of what she was told and deliberately neglected to do the other half, who generally did everything badly, and had a habit of breaking the most expensive things she could put her clumsy hands on. Once Kathleen, goaded and irritated by Ann's hopeless imbecility had spoken sharply—sharply for her—to the girl and had promptly repented of it and had given Ann five shillings and begged a half day off for her from Mrs. Crozier, the housekeeper.
But that was like Kathleen and that was why the servants adored her.
But Kathleen was a little disturbed in her mind. She found herself wondering, remembering and wondering—what was this about this child haunting the old garden at the Manor House, climbing the high brick wall and entering into that place of desolation and solitude, called thither, who knows by what strange voices? What was this about her going there of nights to wander about the black solitudes of tangle and weed? Surely it was not right, it was not canny. She smiled at the word, the word that she had heard her old Scottish nurse use years and years ago. Yet it was the right word, it was not canny that a young and pretty girl should have so strange a love for solitudes and weed grown gardens.
"Could it—could it have been she?" What mad nonsense, what folly was this? Kathleen wondered at her own thoughts. How could it have been this girl whom Allan had seen there that day? He had said it was a dream, it must have been a dream—this girl was no dream, but living reality. And then Allan had told her that the girl of his dream had been dressed all in some strange, old world costume, how the garden about her had been in bloom and all so trim and neat and tidy, how the old house, a place of desolation, had been bright and gay with its open windows and blowing curtains, and how the girl herself had gone to him and had kissed him and had put her little mittened hands—mittened hands—had little Betty Hanson ever owned a pair of mittens in her life? No, no those things had gone out in Betty's great-grandmother's time, what mad nonsense it all was! So Kathleen laughed merrily and laughed the ideas and the notions all away.
She went to find Mrs. Crozier—Mrs. Crozier, the elderly, kindly autocrat of the house, Mrs. Crozier who had been housekeeper in a far finer and more magnificent mansion than this, no less a place than Dwennington Hall, the seat of the Duke of Grandon.
"Mrs. Crozier, I have engaged a young village girl, Betty Hanson, granddaughter of Mrs. Hanson, who lives in the cottage up the road towards Little Stretton, she is to be my lady's maid. She is only a child and she will feel strange here at first so——"
"I quite understand, my lady, I'll look after the little thing and make her feel quite at home!"