“She may have done so,” said Lucy quietly; “I do not claim notability as a housewife. But I have my household lists, and when I went over them before she left, everything was right.”
“We hear that it is true she did dismiss herself,” Mrs. Marvel went on. “Did you really feel enough dissatisfaction and distrust to have dismissed her if she had not done so?”
“Certainly,” Lucy answered, “unless she could have given a full and satisfactory explanation—which I cannot imagine—of how, when I had given her permission to receive her sweetheart, I was left to find out that another man had suddenly appeared in his stead.”
“I doubt if it’s wise to let these girls’ sweethearts come near one’s house,” remarked Mrs. Marvel. “I never allow it. I never permit any visits but from relations.”
“I saw Jane Smith’s second lover go down your area steps many times,” said Lucy.
“I know he did. She told us he was her uncle, lately widowed, and that he came every week to bring and take away the mending she did for him.”
Lucy could not wholly restrain a smile as she thought of the shouts of laughter which announced this bereaved “relative’s” earliest appearances in her own kitchen.
“Now, my dear Mrs. Challoner,” said Mrs. Marvel, in her most unctuous manner, “don’t think I want to reproach you in the least; but when you felt this girl to be so untrustworthy, and when you saw her in a neighbour’s service, don’t you think you would have shown a neighbourly and Christian spirit if you had dropped us a word of warning about her?”
This was a little too much! Lucy rose and towered over her seated visitor.
“No, Mrs. Marvel,” she said, “certainly not. Any such interference of mine would have been most gratuitous and uncharitable. I should have deserved the soundest snub you could have given me. I had been the girl’s employer, and you had not chosen to use the proper method of communicating with me about her. That meant either that you did not value my opinion in the least, or that you had some other reason for your action. You might, for all I knew, have received a full confession from Jane Smith, and so have determined to give her another chance. Even then, of course, it would have been right and best for you to communicate with me. If I had retained her in my service after I distrusted her, and had sent her to your house on messages, and then she had robbed you, you might have good reason to complain. But certainty not now. You knew she had left my service and you never cared to inquire why or how!”