“Thank you, Norah; it’s awfully good of you, but I shall have something else to do besides draping pianos for the next few weeks, I’m afraid,” said Hilary dismally. “Mary has given notice!” And the poor little housekeeper heaved a sigh, for Mary had been a model housemaid, and it would be a difficult matter to replace her in this quiet country place.
“Mary given notice! Oh, how horrid! I hate strange servants, and she has been with us so long. Why ever is she—” Norah checked herself with a quick recollection of the events of the last week, but Hilary did not shirk the unfinished question.
“She was vexed because I found fault. I felt cross and worried, and vented it on her. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I see now that I was unreasonable.” And to hear Hilary confess a fault was an experience so extraordinary, that Norah sat dumbfounded, unable to account for the phenomenon.
The threatened loss of Mary was too important a family event to pass unnoticed in the general conversation. Lettice was full of lamentations, and even Rex had a tribute to pay to her excellence. “The big, strapping girl, who waited on me when I was laid up? Oh, I say, what a nuisance! I wish she would come to us; she has such a jolly good-natured face.”
“If she came to you, I would never stay at your house again. I’d be too jealous,” said Norah dolefully. “We shall never get anyone like Mary.”
“We may be thankful if we get anyone at all. Girls don’t like living so far from the village,” groaned Lettice in concert; and the virtues of Mary, and the difficulties of supplanting her, were discussed at length throughout the afternoon. Hilary’s sense of guilt in the matter made her even more energetic than usual in her efforts to find a new maid. She visited the local registry offices, inserted advertisements in the papers, and wrote reams of letters; and, on the third day, to her delight, a young woman arrived to apply for the situation. It was the first time that the duty of interviewing a new servant had devolved upon Hilary’s shoulders, for all three maids had been in the family for years, and, in her new doubtfulness of self, she would have been glad to ask the help of Miss Briggs, but that good lady had taken Geraldine for a walk, and there was no help at hand.
“I don’t know if she is afraid of me, but I am certainly terrified of her!” said poor Hilary, smoothing her hair before the glass, and trying to make herself look as staid and grown-up as possible. “I don’t know what on earth to say. Lettice, come and sit in the room, there’s a dear, and see what you think of her. I shouldn’t like to engage anyone on my own responsibility.” So the two girls went downstairs together, and Lettice looked on from a quiet corner, while Hilary sat bolt upright, cross-questioning the new servant. She was a tall, awkward girl, untidily dressed, with a fly-away hat perched on the top of her head, a spotted veil drawn over her face, and the shabbiest of boas wound round her neck. “What a contrast to our nice, trim Mary!” groaned Lettice to herself, while Hilary cudgelled her brain to think of appropriate questions.
“And—er—have you been accustomed to housemaid’s work?”
“Oh, yes, miss. I’m very handy about a house, miss. I’m sure I could give you satisfaction, miss.”
(“I don’t like her voice. She has not nearly such nice manners as Mary,” sighed Hilary to herself. “Oh dear me!”)