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I HAD been near a week at Brympton before I saw my master. Word came
that he was arriving one afternoon, and a change passed over the
whole household. It was plain that nobody loved him below stairs.
Mrs. Blinder took uncommon care with the dinner that night, but she
snapped at the kitchen-maid in a way quite unusual with her; and Mr.
Wace, the butler, a serious, slow-spoken man, went about his duties
as if he'd been getting ready for a funeral. He was a great
Bible-reader, Mr. Wace was, and had a beautiful assortment of texts
at his command; but that day he used such dreadful language that I
was about to leave the table, when he assured me it was all out of
Isaiah; and I noticed that whenever the master came Mr. Wace took to
the prophets.
About seven, Agnes called me to my mistress's room; and there I
found Mr. Brympton. He was standing on the hearth; a big fair
bull-necked man, with a red face and little bad-tempered blue eyes:
the kind of man a young simpleton might have thought handsome, and
would have been like to pay dear for thinking it.
He swung about when I came in, and looked me over in a trice. I knew
what the look meant, from having experienced it once or twice in my
former places. Then he turned his back on me, and went on talking to
his wife; and I knew what _that_ meant, too. I was not the kind of
morsel he was after. The typhoid had served me well enough in one
way: it kept that kind of gentleman at arm's-length.
"This is my new maid, Hartley," says Mrs. Brympton in her kind
voice; and he nodded and went on with what he was saying.
In a minute or two he went off, and left my mistress to dress for
dinner, and I noticed as I waited on her that she was white, and
chill to the touch.
Mr. Brympton took himself off the next morning, and the whole house
drew a long breath when he drove away. As for my mistress, she put
on her hat and furs (for it was a fine winter morning) and went out
for a walk in the gardens, coming back quite fresh and rosy, so that
for a minute, before her color faded, I could guess what a pretty
young lady she must have been, and not so long ago, either.
She had met Mr. Ranford in the grounds, and the two came back
together, I remember, smiling and talking as they walked along the
terrace under my window. That was the first time I saw Mr. Ranford,
though I had often heard his name mentioned in the hall. He was a
neighbor, it appeared, living a mile or two beyond Brympton, at the
end of the village; and as he was in the habit of spending his
winters in the country he was almost the only company my mistress
had at that season. He was a slight tall gentleman of about thirty,
and I thought him rather melancholy-looking till I saw his smile,
which had a kind of surprise in it, like the first warm day in
spring. He was a great reader, I heard, like my mistress, and the
two were forever borrowing books of one another, and sometimes (Mr.
Wace told me) he would read aloud to Mrs. Brympton by the hour, in
the big dark library where she sat in the winter afternoons. The
servants all liked him, and perhaps that's more of a compliment than
the masters suspect. He had a friendly word for every one of us, and
we were all glad to think that Mrs. Brympton had a pleasant
companionable gentleman like that to keep her company when the
master was away. Mr. Ranford seemed on excellent terms with Mr.
Brympton too; though I couldn't but wonder that two gentlemen so
unlike each other should be so friendly. But then I knew how the
real quality can keep their feelings to themselves.
As for Mr. Brympton, he came and went, never staying more than a day
or two, cursing the dulness and the solitude, grumbling at
everything, and (as I soon found out) drinking a deal more than was
good for him. After Mrs. Brympton left the table he would sit half
the night over the old Brympton port and madeira, and once, as I was
leaving my mistress's room rather later than usual, I met him coming
up the stairs in such a state that I turned sick to think of what
some ladies have to endure and hold their tongues about.
The servants said very little about their master; but from what they
let drop I could see it had been an unhappy match from the
beginning. Mr. Brympton was coarse, loud and pleasure-loving; my
mistress quiet, retiring, and perhaps a trifle cold. Not that she
was not always pleasant-spoken to him: I thought her wonderfully
forbearing; but to a gentleman as free as Mr. Brympton I daresay she
seemed a little offish.
Well, things went on quietly for several weeks. My mistress was
kind, my duties were light, and I got on well with the other
servants. In short, I had nothing to complain of; yet there was
always a weight on me. I can't say why it was so, but I know it was
not the loneliness that I felt. I soon got used to that; and being
still languid from the fever, I was thankful for the quiet and the
good country air. Nevertheless, I was never quite easy in my mind.
My mistress, knowing I had been ill, insisted that I should take my
walk regular, and often invented errands for me:--a yard of ribbon
to be fetched from the village, a letter posted, or a book returned
to Mr. Ranford. As soon as I was out of doors my spirits rose, and I
looked forward to my walks through the bare moist-smelling woods;
but the moment I caught sight of the house again my heart dropped
down like a stone in a well. It was not a gloomy house exactly, yet
I never entered it but a feeling of gloom came over me.
Mrs. Brympton seldom went out in winter; only on the finest days did
she walk an hour at noon on the south terrace. Excepting Mr.
Ranford, we had no visitors but the doctor, who drove over from
D-----about once a week. He sent for me once or twice to give me
some trifling direction about my mistress, and though he never told
me what her illness was, I thought, from a waxy look she had now and
then of a morning, that it might be the heart that ailed her. The
season was soft and unwholesome, and in January we had a long spell
of rain. That was a sore trial to me, I own, for I couldn't go out,
and sitting over my sewing all day, listening to the drip, drip of
the eaves, I grew so nervous that the least sound made me jump.
Somehow, the thought of that locked room across the passage began to
weigh on me. Once or twice, in the long rainy nights, I fancied I
heard noises there; but that was nonsense, of course, and the
daylight drove such notions out of my head. Well, one morning Mrs.
Brympton gave me quite a start of pleasure by telling me she wished
me to go to town for some shopping. I hadn't known till then how low
my spirits had fallen. I set off in high glee, and my first sight of
the crowded streets and the cheerful-looking shops quite took me out
of myself. Toward afternoon, however, the noise and confusion began
to tire me, and I was actually looking forward to the quiet of
Brympton, and thinking how I should enjoy the drive home through the
dark woods, when I ran across an old acquaintance, a maid I had once
been in service with. We had lost sight of each other for a number
of years, and I had to stop and tell her what had happened to me in
the interval. When I mentioned where I was living she rolled up her
eyes and pulled a long face.
"What! The Mrs. Brympton that lives all the year at her place on the
Hudson? My dear, you won't stay there three months."
"Oh, but I don't mind the country," says I, offended somehow at her
tone. "Since the fever I'm glad to be quiet."
She shook her head. "It's not the country I'm thinking of. All I
know is she's had four maids in the last six months, and the last
one, who was a friend of mine, told me nobody could stay in the
house."
"Did she say why?" I asked.
"No--she wouldn't give me her reason. But she says to me, _Mrs.
Ansey_, she says, _if ever a young woman as you know of thinks of
going there, you tell her it's not worth while to unpack her
boxes_."
"Is she young and handsome?" said I, thinking of Mr. Brympton.
"Not her! She's the kind that mothers engage when they've gay young
gentlemen at college."
Well, though I knew the woman was an idle gossip, the words stuck in
my head, and my heart sank lower than ever as I drove up to Brympton
in the dusk. There _was_ something about the house--I was sure of it
now...
When I went in to tea I heard that Mr. Brympton had arrived, and I
saw at a glance that there had been a disturbance of some kind. Mrs.
Blinder's hand shook so that she could hardly pour the tea, and Mr.
Wace quoted the most dreadful texts full of brimstone. Nobody said a
word to me then, but when I went up to my room Mrs. Blinder followed
me.
"Oh, my dear," says she, taking my hand, "I'm so glad and thankful
you've come back to us!"
That struck me, as you may imagine. "Why," said I, "did you think I
was leaving for good?"
"No, no, to be sure," said she, a little confused, "but I can't
a-bear to have madam left alone for a day even." She pressed my hand
hard, and, "Oh, Miss Hartley," says she, "be good to your mistress,
as you're a Christian woman." And with that she hurried away, and
left me staring.
A moment later Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. Hearing Mr.
Brympton's voice in her room, I went round by the dressing-room,
thinking I would lay out her dinner-gown before going in. The
dressing-room is a large room with a window over the portico that
looks toward the gardens. Mr. Brympton's apartments are beyond. When
I went in, the door into the bedroom was ajar, and I heard Mr.
Brympton saying angrily:--"One would suppose he was the only person
fit for you to talk to."
"I don't have many visitors in winter," Mrs. Brympton answered
quietly.
"You have _me!_" he flung at her, sneering.
"You are here so seldom," said she.
"Well--whose fault is that? You make the place about as lively as a
family vault--"
With that I rattled the toilet-things, to give my mistress warning
and she rose and called me in.
The two dined alone, as usual, and I knew by Mr. Wace's manner at
supper that things must be going badly. He quoted the prophets
something terrible, and worked on the kitchen-maid so that she
declared she wouldn't go down alone to put the cold meat in the
ice-box. I felt nervous myself, and after I had put my mistress to
bed I was half-tempted to go down again and persuade Mrs. Blinder to
sit up awhile over a game of cards. But I heard her door closing for
the night, and so I went on to my own room. The rain had begun
again, and the drip, drip, drip seemed to be dropping into my brain.
I lay awake listening to it, and turning over what my friend in town
had said. What puzzled me was that it was always the maids who left...
After a while I slept; but suddenly a loud noise wakened me. My bell
had rung. I sat up, terrified by the unusual sound, which seemed to
go on jangling through the darkness. My hands shook so that I
couldn't find the matches. At length I struck a light and jumped out
of bed. I began to think I must have been dreaming; but I looked at
the bell against the wall, and there was the little hammer still
quivering.
I was just beginning to huddle on my clothes when I heard another
sound. This time it was the door of the locked room opposite mine
softly opening and closing. I heard the sound distinctly, and it
frightened me so that I stood stock still. Then I heard a footstep
hurrying down the passage toward the main house. The floor being
carpeted, the sound was very faint, but I was quite sure it was a
woman's step. I turned cold with the thought of it, and for a minute
or two I dursn't breathe or move. Then I came to my senses.
"Alice Hartley," says I to myself, "someone left that room just now
and ran down the passage ahead of you. The idea isn't pleasant, but
you may as well face it. Your mistress has rung for you, and to
answer her bell you've got to go the way that other woman has gone."
Well--I did it. I never walked faster in my life, yet I thought I
should never get to the end of the passage or reach Mrs. Brympton's
room. On the way I heard nothing and saw nothing: all was dark and
quiet as the grave. When I reached my mistress's door the silence
was so deep that I began to think I must be dreaming, and was
half-minded to turn back. Then a panic seized me, and I knocked.
There was no answer, and I knocked again, loudly. To my astonishment
the door was opened by Mr. Brympton. He started back when he saw me,
and in the light of my candle his face looked red and savage.
_ "You!"_ he said, in a queer voice. _"How many of you are there, in
God's name?"_
At that I felt the ground give under me; but I said to myself that
he had been drinking, and answered as steadily as I could: "May I go
in, sir? Mrs. Brympton has rung for me."
"You may all go in, for what I care," says he, and, pushing by me,
walked down the hall to his own bedroom. I looked after him as he
went, and to my surprise I saw that he walked as straight as a sober
man.
I found my mistress lying very weak and still, but she forced a
smile when she saw me, and signed to me to pour out some drops for
her. After that she lay without speaking, her breath coming quick,
and her eyes closed. Suddenly she groped out with her hand, and "_
Emma_," says she, faintly.
"It's Hartley, madam," I said. "Do you want anything?"
She opened her eyes wide and gave me a startled look.
"I was dreaming," she said. "You may go, now, Hartley, and thank you
kindly. I'm quite well again, you see." And she turned her face away
from me.
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