Mrs. Hallam's companion; and The Spring Farm, and other tales

by Mary Jane Holmes

“You have! Where?”

“Where I always take it.”

“And where is that?”

There was something in Rex’s voice and manner which told Bertha that he was not to be trifled with, and she replied, “I take my meals in the servants’ hall, or rather with the maids and nurses and couriers. It is not bad when you are accustomed to it,” she added, as she saw the blackness on Reginald’s face and the wrath in his eyes. They had now reached the door of Mrs. Hallam’s room, and Mrs. Hallam was just leaving the elevator in company with Mrs. Haynes, who very wisely went into her own apartment and left her friend to meet the storm alone.

And a fierce storm it was. At its close Mrs. Hallam was in tears, and Rex was striding up and down the salon like an enraged lion. Mrs. Hallam had tried to apologize and explain, telling how respectful all the couriers and valets were, how much less it cost, and that Mrs. Haynes said the English sent their companions there, and governesses too, sometimes. Rex did not care a picayune for what the English did; he almost swore about Mrs. Haynes, whose handiwork he recognized; he scorned the idea of its costing less, and said that unless Bertha were at once treated as an equal in every respect he would either leave the hotel or join her in the second-class salon and see for himself whether those rascally Russians and Turks and Frenchmen looked at her as they had no business to look.

At this point Bertha, who had no suspicion of what was taking place in the salon, and who wished to speak to Mrs. Hallam, knocked at the door. Rex opened it with the intention of sending the intruder away, but when he saw Bertha he bade her come in, and, standing with his back against the door, went over the whole matter again and told her she was to join them at dinner.

“And if there is no place for you at my aunt’s end of the table there is at the other, and I shall sit there with you,” he said.

He had settled everything satisfactorily, he thought, when a fresh difficulty arose with Bertha herself. She had listened in surprise to Rex, and smiled gratefully upon him through the tears she could not repress, but she said, “I cannot tell you how much I thank you for your sympathy and kind intentions. But really I am not unhappy in the servants’ hall, nor have I received the slightest discourtesy. Browne, our courier, has stood between me and everything which might have been unpleasant, and I have quite a liking for my companions. And,”—here her face hardened and her eyes grew very dark,—“nothing can induce me to join your party as you propose while Mrs. Haynes is in it. She has worried and insulted me from the moment she saw me. She suggested and urged my going to the servants’ hall against your aunt’s wishes, and has never let an opportunity pass to make me feel my subordinate position. I like Miss Haynes very much, but her mother ——” there was a toss of Bertha’s head indicative of her opinion of the mother, an opinion which Rex fully shared, and if he could he would have turned Mrs. Haynes from the hotel bag and baggage.

But this was impossible. He could neither dislodge her nor move Bertha from her decision, which he understood and respected. But he could take her and his aunt away from Aix and commence life under different auspices in some other place. He had promised to join a party of friends at Chamonix, and he would go there at once, and then find some quiet, restful place in Switzerland, from which excursions could be made and where his aunt could join him with Bertha. This was his plan, which met with Mrs. Hallam’s approval. She was getting tired of Aix, and a little tired, too, of Mrs. Haynes, who had not helped her into society as much as she had expected. Lady Gresham, though civil, evidently shunned the party, presumably because of Grace’s flirtation with Jack, while very few desirable people were on terms of intimacy with her, and the undesirable she would not notice. In fresh fields, however, with Rex, who took precedence everywhere, she should do better, and she was quite willing to go wherever and whenever he chose. That night at dinner she told Mrs. Haynes her plans, and that Rex was to leave the next day for Chamonix.

“So soon? I am surprised, and sorry, too; Grace has anticipated your coming so much and planned so many things to do when you came. She will be so disappointed. Can’t we persuade you to stop a few days at least?” Mrs. Haynes said, leaning forward and looking at Rex with a very appealing face, while Grace stepped on her foot and whispered to her: