Some of Thorley's acquaintances credited her with at least one other motive for remaining at Northbrook. Lady Longridge was reputed wealthy, though she professed to be poor and unable to spare money for much-needed repairs and renewals within and around her home. She was always quarrelling with her relatives, and altering her will, or adding codicils to disinherit one and reinstate another.
At one time she would declare that none of her own kindred should ever possess a penny that she could bequeath to an outsider; at another she would quote the old proverb about blood being thicker than water, and rail against those who left their own families out in the cold when disposing of their wealth.
That quarter of a century of service had not been without its disturbing elements. Lady Longridge's temper often got the better of her, and Thorley usually had to bear the brunt of these outbreaks.
The woman was wonderfully patient, but this fact often had a different effect on her mistress from what might have been expected. It only made her more provoking, and on several occasions Thorley had received notice to quit. At first these breaches between mistress and maid had been patched up by mutual concessions, but by degrees Thorley became less placable. Then the old lady found that all advances for a renewal of the former relations must come from herself.
Thorley performed all her duties during the month she was under notice with the greatest exactitude, but she only spoke when spoken to and said no needless word, but packed her boxes and made ready to go to another situation. With such a character for long service, fidelity, patience, and trustworthiness, there were plenty of doors ready to open for Thorley's admission, plenty of places where her duties would be of a pleasanter character, and where, as she indignantly put it, "One might expect to have peace, a kind word sometimes, and get a bit of credit for trying with all one's heart to do right."
So Lady Longridge became convinced that Thorley could do better than stay at Northbrook, but that she would herself find it very difficult to replace Thorley.
The squabble always ended in the same way. The old lady would offer her hand to her departing maid and wish her well in a new place. Then she would break down and say that she was a miserable old woman for whom nobody cared, and that she was being left to die in her loneliness and helplessness by the one creature in whom she could trust.
The maid's tears would then accompany the mistress's; Thorley's boxes would be unpacked, and Lady Longridge promptly paid any expenses that might have been incurred in arranging for the new situation.
It was noticed that after each of these quarrels, Thorley had a day out accorded her without a murmur, and that as invariably she paid a visit to the savings bank. She would have wages to deposit there, no doubt, but it was whispered that Thorley found these little scenes very profitable, each reconciliation being sealed with a present. At any rate, she stayed at the Hall and bore a great deal of ill-temper and many hard words from Lady Longridge with more patience than any servant not inured thereto by many years of experience could have been expected to manifest.
The old lady had been more than usually provoking on that fair spring day, when the birds and her granddaughter, Margaretta, were carolling in company, and Thorley was on her way to silence the girl.