“A few minutes later she returned with Hubert. ‘Signor Hubert, here is Signorina Rachel.’ Rachel apologized for seeming impudent: she summed up her observations in the park and her curiosity to learn what was going on. Hubert: ‘We can talk in the servants’ sitting-room. Please excuse us, Rosina.’ ‘Naturally. Ought I to make tea?’ ‘Coffee, perhaps — and for you, Miss Rachel?’ ‘Oh yes, coffee for me, too.’
“When they were settled, Rachel asked, ‘Are you really a servant?’ ‘Very much so: valet to the master of the house, a distinguished gentleman, Sir Bellamy Boyens. A very kind man, too, and his wife, Constance, an equally kind woman. Not perhaps kind enough, either of them, to appreciate my fit this afternoon.’ ‘It didn’t look like a fit.’ ‘I’m very glad you’ve come. Did you notice anything peculiar about the place?’ ‘I did notice the stillness. Unfortunately it didn’t affect me like it did you. I didn’t guess it was what had stirred you.’ ‘But you’ve guessed it now!’
“Rachel began to feel that they were concocting a very Jamesian situation. Since he was still ‘off’ that evening, Hubert suggested they dine together. She accepted. Afterwards he in turn accepted her invitation to take her home, where he stayed till break of day.
“So their love affair began, and their alliance. She was thirty-three, he fifty-one; he was a bearer of new truth revealed, she his disciple and scholiast; but differences of years and roles became no more than complements to their unpredicted, passionate love.
“His employers couldn’t help noticing a change in Hubert: his nightlong absences whenever he was excused from his duties were accompanied by his evolution from pleasant and conscientious helper into a confident, virile individual, his somewhat drawn features and pale complexion filling out with almost ruddy healthfulness.
“One day Constance asked Hubert to join her for a private talk in the living room. She had him sit next to her on the sofa by the window overlooking the garden. She began by emphasizing how sincerely she and Bellamy were fond of him: there had been so many years of steadfast loyalty on his part, during which he had revealed his generous, thoughtful character in a multitude of small but eloquent contributions to their lives. Of late they had recognized a shift in his comportment: a shift towards happiness, or so they felt, which they could only welcome. Constance confessed they were also itching with wonder. What had happened? She begged him to confide in her. She promised not to object to anything he told her — no, she wanted to back him to the hilt.
“Perhaps Hubert’s sense of decorum may have been troubled by Constance’s words; he could not help being moved by them. He consented to her request, relating how one Sunday afternoon he had undergone a strong, strange interior experience that had somehow been observed by a person unknown to him — a younger woman who was curious enough to follow him here: she was intelligent and charming. They had quickly fallen in love. He hoped his infatuation had not affected the quality of his service, which was as ever the cornerstone of his life.
“Constance exclaimed, ‘Not any more it isn’t! I shall tell Bellamy what you just told me. I now tenderly implore you to let us meet your young lady. Tea tomorrow afternoon, perhaps?’
“So Rachel was invited into the household, first to tea, soon after to dinner; at which Bellamy asked if she had secretarial talents. Rachel answered that she typed well enough and she could learn shorthand if that should be necessary. ‘It won’t be. I just need help getting out from underneath the paperwork that’s cluttering my life. I can pay you more than what you earn selling books. What do you say?’ Constance then added, ‘And we can cede you and Hubert the second guest room. He will thus be relieved of having to scurry away nights to wherever it is you live.’ Until then Rachel had been a model of courtesy and demureness; she now cried a little. ‘Yes, yes — you do agree, darling Hubert?’ He replied with a laugh of astonishment — his old life and new life were suddenly one.”
Margot asked if Hubert hadn’t taken the place of the son the Boeyens never had. “Oh, they had a son, but he’d gone off on his own while still a young man. He wanted to start a publishing house. Bellamy did not approve.” Andreas held his tongue.
“A colleague at the bookshop agreed to take over the lease on Rachel’s apartment, so that within days she brought her clothes and a capacious trunkload of books to her new home. She began her work with Sir Bellamy immediately, determined to quickly learn how she could best save him time and bother. This soon led to her accepting responsibility for nearly all his activities insofar as they involved writing: editing much private and most professional correspondence, paying bills, drafting proposals, speeches, and articles — she loved it all, exploring a world that she had heretofore regarded as foreign and vaguely threatening. Occasionally she found time to help Constance in the cutting
