“Were you wanting me for anything particular, ’m?” Elsie asked, rather contrite about her windows and eager to appease.
“Yes, I should think I was wanting you for something! How dare you give me this money you put on my dressing-table?” She spoke with nervous exasperation, and produced from her pocket some coins wrapped in the bit of paper in which Elsie had wrapped them an hour or two earlier—the price of the ruined double saucepan, now replaced by Violet. “Take it back. You ought to have known I should never let you pay for it.”
This after she had most positively insisted that Elsie should repair out of her resources the consequence of her unparalleled stupidity! The fact was that Violet, unsentimental and hard as she could be, and generally was, in “practical” matters, had been somewhat moved at the sight of the poor little coins in the dirty paper, deposited in the bedroom dumbly, without a word written or spoken. Also she happened that morning to be in a frame of mind favourable to emotion of certain sorts. She sniffed ominously, glancing at Elsie’s face and glancing away. She could not bear to think that the lovable, loyal, silly creature had seriously intended to settle for the saucepan out of her wages.
Elsie, astonished and intimidated, took the money back as dumbly as she had paid it out.
“I’m that sorry, ’m,” she murmured simply.
The little episode was closed. And yet Violet sniffed again, and her features slowly suffered distortion, and she began to cry. She was one who “never cried,” and this was her third crying within a week! In truth it was not about the money at all that she had wanted to speak to Elsie. She said indistinctly through her tears:
“He’s not gone out this morning, Elsie; and he’s not going out. He’s missing the sale. He says himself he’s not well enough; that just means not strong enough. And now he’s sitting in the office trying to type, and customers just have to come to him.”
The secret that was no secret was suddenly out. There was in Elsie’s ingenuous dark-blue eyes such devotion, such reliability, such an offering of soft comfort as Violet could not resist. The deep-rooted suspiciousness which separates in some degree every woman from every other woman dissolved away, and with it Violet’s pride in her superior station and Violet’s self-sufficiency. The concealed yet notorious fact that Violet lived in torment about her husband, that all was not well in the placid household, was now openly admitted. In an instant Elsie, ardently yielding herself to another’s woe, quite forgot the rasping harshness of Violet’s recent onslaught. She was profoundly flattered. And she was filled with an irrational gratitude because Violet had given her the shelter of a sure, respectable home which knew not revolutions, altercations, penury, debauchery, nor the heartrending stridency of enervated mothers and children.
“He’s not himself, master isn’t,” she said gently.
“What do you mean—he’s not himself?”
“I mean, he’s not well, ’m.”
“He’d be all right if he’d eat more—you know that as well as I do.”
“Perhaps he hasn’t got no appetite, ’m.”
“Why shouldn’t he have an appetite? He’s never suffered from indigestion in all his life; he says so himself.”
“Yes, ’m. Not till lately.”
“All this talk about saving … !” said Violet, shrugging her shoulders and wiping her eyes.
It was a curious thing to say, because there had never been any talk about saving, and, even if there had been, clearly Elsie ought not to have heard it. Nevertheless, she received the remark as of course, nodding her head.
“What’s the use of saving if you’re killing yourself to do it?” Violet proceeded impatiently.
Violet was referring, and Elsie knew that she was referring, to the master’s outburst on communism, with all its unspoken implications. They had both been impressed at the time; Mr. Earlforward had convicted them of sin. But now they were both femininely scornful of the silent argument of the illogical male. What, indeed, was the use of fatally depriving yourself now in order not to have to deprive yourself later on? There was something wrong in the master’s mysterious head.
“If you could get somebody to talk to him, ’m, somebody from outside.”
Elsie stressed these last three words, thereby proving that her simplicity had led her straight to the heart of the matter. The atmosphere of the sealed house was infected by the strangeness of the master, who himself, in turn, was influenced by it. Fresh air, new breath, a great wind, was needed to dispel the corruption. The house was suffocating its owners. An immense deterioration had occurred, unperceived till now. Violet was afraid; she was aghast; she realized the change, not fully, but sufficiently to frighten her. The gravity of the danger dried up her tears.
“Yes,” she assented.
“The doctor—Dr. Raste.”
“But do you think he’d let me send for the doctor—for one moment! And if I did send, do you think he’d see him! It’s out of the question!”
“You might have the doctor for yourself, ’m. You might send me for him, and then he could see master by accident like.”
“But I’m not ill, my girl,” Violet protested, though she was impressed by the kind creature’s resourcefulness.
“Oh, mum! Why, you’ve been ill for weeks!”
Violet blushed like a culprit.
“What in the name of goodness are you talking about?” she demanded. “Of course, I’m not ill!” They were all the same, servants. They never understood that familiarity from an employer should not be answered by familiarity.
“Sorry, ’m,” said Elsie meekly, but still with a very slight benevolent obstinacy, as one who would withdraw and wouldn’t withdraw.
Violet stared half a moment at her, and then abruptly walked out of the room. The interview was getting to be too much
