'I have just come for your tray, mi— Oh! Miss Smith! Is it you, there? I should never 65
have known you from the mistress, I'm sure!'
She blushed, and Maud— who was standing in the shadow of the bed-curtain— looked girlish, putting her hand before her mouth. She shivered with laughter, and her dark eyes shone.
'Suppose,' she said, when Margaret had gone, 'suppose Mr Rivers were to do what Margaret did, and mistake you for me? What would we do, then?'
Again she laughed and shivered. I gazed at the glass, and smiled.
For it was something, wasn't it, to be taken for a lady?
It's what my mother would have wanted.
And anyway, I was to get the pick of all her dresses and her jewels, in the end. I was only starting early. I kept the orange gown and, while she went to her uncle, sat turning the hem down and letting out the bodice. I wasn't about to do myself an injury, for the sake of a sixteen- inch waist.
'Now, do we look handsome?' said Maud, when I fetched her back. She stood and looked me over, then brushed at her own skirts. 'But here is dust,' she cried, 'from my uncle's shelves! Oh! The books, the terrible books!'
She was almost weeping, and wringing her hands.
I took the dust away, and wished I could tell her she was fretting for nothing. She might be dressed in a sack. She might have a face like a coal- heaver's. So long as there was fifteen thousand in the bank marked Miss Maud Lilly, then Gentleman would want her.
It was almost awful to see her, knowing what I knew, pretending I knew nothing; and with another kind of girl, it might have been comical. I would say, 'Are you poorly, miss? Shall I fetch you something? Shall I bring you the little glass, to look at your face in?'— and she would answer, 'Poorly? I am only rather cold, and walking to keep my blood warm.' And, 'A glass, Sue? Why should I need a glass?'
'I thought you were looking at your own face, miss, more than was usual.'
'My own face! And why should I be interested in doing that?'
'I can't say, miss, I'm sure.'
I knew his train was due at Marlow at four o'clock, and that William Inker had been sent to meet it, as he had been sent for me. At three, Maud said she would sit at the window and work at her sewing there, where the light was good. Of course, it was nearly dark then; but I said nothing. There was a little padded seat beside the rattling panes and mouldy sand-bags, it was the coldest place in the room; but she kept there for an hour and a half, with a shawl about her, shivering, squinting at her stitches, and sneaking sly little glances at the road to the house.
I thought, if that wasn't love, then I was a Dutchman; and if it was love, then lovers were pigeons and geese, and I was glad I was not one of them.
At last she put her fingers to her heart and gave a stifled sort of cry. She had seen the light coming, on William Inker's trap. That made her get up and come away from the window, and stand at the fire and press her hands together. Then came the sound of the horse on the gravel. I said, 'Will that be Mr Rivers, miss?' and she answered, 'Mr Rivers? Is the day so late as that? Well, I suppose it is. How pleased my uncle will be!'
Her uncle saw him first. She said, 'Perhaps he will send for me, to bid Mr Rivers 66
welcome.— How does my skirt sit now? Had I not rather wear the grey?'
But Mr Lilly did not send for her. We heard voices and closing doors in the rooms below, but it was another hour again before a parlourmaid came, to pass on the message that Mr Rivers was arrived.
'And is Mr Rivers made comfortable, in his old room?' said Maud.
'Yes, miss.'
And Mr Rivers will be rather tired, I suppose, after his journey?'
Mr Rivers sent to say that he was tolerable tired, and looked forward to seeing Miss Lilly with her uncle, at supper. He would not think of disturbing Miss Lilly before then.
'I see,' she said when she heard that. Then she bit her lip. 'Please to tell Mr Rivers that she would not think it any sort of disturbance, to be visited by him, in her parlour, before the supper-hour came . . .'
She went on like this for a minute and a half, falling over her words, and blushing; and finally the parlourmaid got the message and went off. She was gone a quarter of an hour. When she came back, she had Gentleman with her.
He stepped into the room, and did not look at me at first. His eyes were all for Maud.
He said,
'Miss Lilly, you are kind to receive me here, all travel-stained and tumbled as I am.
That is like you!'
His voice was gentle. As for the stains— well, there wasn't a mark upon him, I guessed he had gone quickly to his room and changed his coat. His hair was sleek and his whiskers tidy; he wore one modest little ring on his smallest finger, but apart from that his hands were bare and very clean.
He looked what he was meant to be— a handsome, nice- minded gentleman. When he turned to me at last, I found myself making him a curtsey and was almost shy.
And here is Susan Smith!' he said, looking me over in my velvet, his lip twitching towards a smile. 'But I should have supposed her a lady, I am sure!' He stepped towards me and took my hand, and Maud also came to me. He said, 'I hope you are liking your place at Briar, Sue. I hope you are proving a good girl for your new mistress.'
I said, 'I hope I am too, sir.'
'She is a very good girl,' said Maud. 'She is a very good girl, indeed.'
She said it in a nervous, grateful kind of way— like you would say it to a stranger, feeling pushed for conversation, about your dog.
Gentleman pressed my hand once, then let it fall. He said, 'Of course, she could not help but be good— I should say, no girl could help but be good, Miss Lilly— with you as her example.'
Her colour had gone down. Now it rose again. 'You are too kind,' she said.
He shook his head and bit at his lip. 'No gentleman could but be,' he murmured, 'with you to be kind to,'
Now his cheeks were pink as hers. I should say he must have had a way of holding his breath to make the blood come. He kept his eyes upon her, and at last she gazed at him and smiled; and then she laughed.
67
And I thought then, for the first time, that he had been right. She was handsome, she was very fair and slight— I knew it, seeing her stand beside him with her eyes on his.
Pigeons and geese. The great clock sounded, and they started and looked away.
Gentleman said he had kept her too long. 'I shall see you at supper, I hope, with your uncle?'
'With my uncle, yes,' she said quietly.
He made her a bow, and went to the door; then, when he was almost out of it he seemed to remember me, and went through a kind of pantomime, of patting at his pockets, looking for coins. He came up with a shilling, and beckoned me close to take it.
'Here you are, Sue,' he said. He lifted my hand and pressed the shilling in it. It was a bad one. 'All well?' he added softly, so that Maud should not overhear.
I said, 'Oh, thank you, sir!' And I made another curtsey, and winked.— Two curious things to do together, as it happened, and I would not recommend you try it: for I fear the wink unbalanced the curtsey; and I'm certain the curtsey threw off the wink.