“I dessay you’ve done wi’ me now, ma’am?” said Mildred. “Lugged out o’ my bed, ma’am, at these hours—my achin’ old bones—’taint what I’m used to, asking your pardon for making so free.”
“I’m really very sorry—you won’t be vexed with me. Good night, Mildred.”
“Your servant, ma’am.”
And Mrs. Tarnley withdrew from the door where Alice stood before her with her dressing-gown about her shoulders, looking so pale and deprecatory and anxious, that I wonder even Mildred Tarnley did not pity her.
“I’m tellin’ lies enough to break a bridge, and me that’s vowed against lying so stiff and strong over again only Monday last.”
She shook her head slowly, and with a sudden qualm of conscience.
“Well, in for a penny in for a pound. It’s only for to-night; mayhap, and I can’t help it, and if that old witch was once over the door-stone I’d speak truth the rest o’ my days, as I ha’ done, by the grace o’ God, for more than a month, and here’s a nice merry-go-round for my poor old head. Who’s to keep all straight and smooth wi’ them that’s in the house, and, mayhap comin’? And that ghost upstairs—she’ll be gropin’ and screechin’ through the house, and then there’ll be the devil to pay wi’ her and the poor lass up there—if I don’t gi’e her her supper quick. Come, bustle, bustle, be alive,” she muttered, as this thought struck her with new force; and so to the little “safe” which served that miniature household for larder she repaired. Plates clattered, and knives and forks, and the dishes in the safe slid forth, and how near she was forgetting the salt! and “the bread, all right,” so here was a tray very comfortably furnished, and setting the candlestick upon it also, she contemplated the supper, with a fierce sneer, and a wag of her head.
“How sick and weak we be! Tea and toast and eggs down here, and this little bit in her bed-room—heaven bless her—la’ love it, poor little darling, don’t I hope it may do her good?—I wish the first mouthful may choke her—keeping me on the trot to these hours, old beast.”
Passing the stairs, Mrs. Tarnley crept softly, and took pains to prevent her burden from rattling on the tray, while there rose in her brain the furious reflection—
“Pretty rubbish that I should be this way among ’em!”