The women all declined to believe her. She appealed to Joseph. “What did I tell you, when the mistress first sent me out in the carriage with poor Miss Carmina? Didn’t I say that I was no spy, and that I wouldn’t submit to be made one? I would have left the house—I would!—but for Miss Carmina’s kindness. Any other young lady would have made me feel my mean position. She treated me like a friend—and I don’t forget it. I’ll go straight from this place, and help to nurse her!”
With that declaration, Marceline left the kitchen.
Arrived at the library door, she paused. Not as the cook had suggested, to “change her mind;” but to consider beforehand how much she should confess to her mistress, and how much she should hold in reserve.
Zo’s narrative of what had happened, on the evening of Teresa’s arrival, had produced its inevitable effect on the maid’s mind. Strengthening, by the sympathy which it excited, her grateful attachment to Carmina, it had necessarily intensified her dislike of Mrs. Gallilee—and Mrs. Gallilee’s innocent husband had profited by that circumstance!
Unexpectedly tried by time, Mr. Gallilee’s resolution to assert his paternal authority, in spite of his wife, had failed him. The same timidity which invents a lie in a hurry, can construct a stratagem at leisure. Marceline had discovered her master putting a plan of escape, devised by himself, to its first practical trial before the open wardrobe of his daughters—and had asked slyly if she could be of any use. Never remarkable for presence of mind in emergencies, Mr. Gallilee had helplessly admitted to his confidence the last person in the house, whom anyone else (in his position) would have trusted. “My good soul, I want to take the girls away quietly for change of air—you have got little secrets of your own, like me, haven’t you?—and the fact is, I don’t quite know how many petticoats—.” There, he checked himself; conscious, when it was too late, that he was asking his wife’s maid to help him in deceiving his wife. The ready Marceline helped him through the difficulty. “I understand, sir: my mistress’s mind is much occupied—and you don’t want to trouble her about this little journey.” Mr. Gallilee, at a loss for any other answer, pulled out his purse. Marceline modestly drew back at the sight of it. “My mistress pays me, sir; I serve you for nothing.” In those words, she would have informed any other man of the place which Mrs. Gallilee held in her estimation. Her master simply considered her to be the most disinterested woman he had ever met with. If she lost her situation through helping him, he engaged to pay her wages until she found another place. The maid set his mind at rest on that subject. “A woman who understands hairdressing as I do, sir, can refer to other ladies besides Mrs. Gallilee, and can get a place whenever she wants one.”
Having decided on what she should confess, and on what she should conceal, Marceline knocked at the library door. Receiving no answer, she went in.
Mrs. Gallilee was leaning back in her chair: her hands hung down on either side of her; her eyes looked up drowsily at the ceiling. Prepared to see a person with an overburdened mind, the maid (without sympathy, to quicken her perceptions) saw nothing but a person on the point of taking a nap.
“Can I speak a word, ma’am?”
Mrs. Gallilee’s eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. “Is that my maid?” she asked.
Treated—to all appearance—with marked contempt, Marceline no longer cared to assume the forms of respect either in language or manner. “I wish to give you notice to leave,” she said abruptly; “I find I can’t get on with my fellow-servants.”