Blindfold (5 page)

Laburnum Vale seemed to make the most of its scandals. Bert had been dead nearly twenty years, but Ada's flaunting was unforgotten there.

“What about her?” said Miles.

“I don't suppose it's anything,” said Miss Collins.

Miles groaned inwardly. It would have been a relief to swear, or it would have been a relief to burst out laughing. If he did either, she would dry up. He achieved a weary smile, which Miss Collins fortunately admired a good deal.

“Well, suppose you tell me,” he said.

“She must have been well over forty,” said Miss Collins.

“What—Ada?” (Were you still a girl at forty in Laburnum Vale?)

“Oh no, Mr Clayton—
Mrs Smith
. She was a lot older than Flo—Mrs Palmer. Fifteen years or so, I should say. But Ada said—”

“Yes, Miss Collins?”

Miss Collins bridled.

“Well, it was nothing, Mr Clayton, but I just happened to meet her in the street—”

“Mrs Smith?” said Miles hopefully.

Miss Collins sniffed again. It was the same definitely virtuous sniff.

“Oh no, Mr Clayton, not Mrs Smith—that girl Ada I was telling you about. I just happened to meet her in the street—just after the Armistice it was. And she wasn't the kind of girl I'd stop to speak to, but she came up to me as bold as you please and asked me if I'd heard that Mrs Smith had married again. And I said I hadn't, and I walked right on. And I don't think there's anything else I can tell you, Mr Clayton, so if you don't mind—I've got a lady coming for a fitting.”

Miles thanked her very much. There was a slow and heavy foot upon the stair. He spoke quickly and without great hope.

“I suppose you can't give me Ada's address?”

Miss Collins shook her head with a decided air of offence.

“Oh no, Mr Clayton, I couldn't. I only saw her that once after she left. She wasn't a girl I'd have had in any house of mine. Of course Mrs Smith pleased herself.… Oh no, no trouble at all. Good afternoon, Mr Clayton.”

CHAPTER VI

Miss Rowland lay on the sofa in her drawing-room at 16 Varley Street. The blinds were down and the curtains were drawn—those wine-coloured velvet curtains with the fringed pelmets which Flossie Palmer had thought handsome but too sober for her taste. Both the electric wall-brackets were lighted, but they were so heavily shaded that the room seemed to be full of a greenish twilight. Miss Rowland's sofa was drawn up at right angles to the fire. About the head of it a tall, light screen which displayed golden storks upon a black ground was so arranged as to shade her still further from the light.

Kay came timidly up to the sofa and set the tea-tray down upon the small walnut table which stood ready for it. This was the first time she had seen her new mistress, and she did not quite know whether to look at her or not. She put down the tray, and then she did look up, because Miss Rowland was speaking. She had a very low, weak voice.

“You are the new maid?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Your name?”

“Kay, madam.”

“That's a very unusual name. I suppose you have a surname?”

A deep carnation colour rose in Kay's cheeks.

“I should have said Kay Moore, madam.”

All this time she had not looked directly at Miss Rowland. She had seen the pillows heaped in the shadow behind her, the crimson silk eiderdown which hid all the lower part of her body and was drawn up above her waist, the fringed edges of the shawl about her shoulders. She had seen these coverings and adjuncts, but Miss Rowland herself she had not seen. Now she looked at her. The shadow of the screen was reinforced by the shadow of an old-fashioned cap. It was made of lace and muslin and tied under the chin with a large bow of lilac ribbon. It hid all the hair and half the forehead and cheeks. There remained in the twilight a long pale nose, two half closed eyes, and a pale drawn-in mouth.

Just as Kay looked, the eyelids lifted and the eyes met hers. They were pale too, but Kay didn't think of this at the time, because when Miss Rowland looked at her she was shaken by a sudden vivid sense of recognition. It came and went in a flash and left her with shaking knees.

Miss Rowland did not speak again, and she went out of the room wondering what had startled her so. She hadn't ever seen Miss Rowland before. But she had recognized her—or been recognized. She didn't know which. Something had happened in her mind when she looked at Miss Rowland and Miss Rowland looked at her, but it had happened so quickly that she hadn't been able to get hold of it. That is the case sometimes with a word or a name that you have known and then forgotten. It hovers on the very edge of consciousness, and sometimes flashes across the conscious field, and you snatch at it, but it is gone before you can hold it. It was like that.

Kay went down into the kitchen and found Mrs Green stirring the teapot.

“Well, did you see her?” she asked.

Kay said, “Yes.”

“Nurse there?”

Kay said, “No.”

“Nice and chatty you are, I don't think!” said Mrs Green. “I suppose you got a tongue, 'aven't you? What did you think of her?”

“Is she very ill?” said Kay in a shrinking voice.

Mrs Green began to pour out the tea.

“Five years I been here, and she's never been out. Doctor comes every week reg'lar—and not a nordinary doctor neither, but one of those high up specialists. But there—she's got plenty of money and nothing to spend it on, pore thing. Once in a way she'll be down like she is to-day, but mostly she's in 'er room and 'as to be kep' that quiet—not a sound in the 'ouse. And that's a thing you'll 'ave to remember, my girl—you don't go up on Miss Rowland's landing, not for nothing, you don't, except when you're rung for and when you takes 'er Benger's up at night like I told you. I don't mind it myself, but it makes a dull 'ouse for a girl. Now how many girls d'you suppose we've 'ad 'ere since I come? Eight or nine a year, I reckon, and you can do the sum yourself. Most of them goes at the month, and if they don't go of themselves they get the sack. Two month's the limit. So now you know. Why d'you leave your last place?”

“I didn't like it.”

“You're not a London girl?”

“No.”

Mrs Green pushed the jam across.

“Oh, find your tongue—
come!
The last girl we 'ad wasn't 'ere only a couple of hours and she'd told me all about 'er boy friend before she run away. And it's no use your asking me why she run, for I don't know, nor no one else. But anyhow open your mouth a bit and let's 'ave the story of your life, as they say.”

Kay's lips parted. The dimple showed. Some pretty white teeth showed.

“I haven't got a story—yet,” she said.

Mrs Green put a fourth lump of sugar in her tea. She was a fat woman with a pale, moist skin and a great many rolling curves. Her cheeks rolled into her chin, and her chin by way of two or three subsidiary chins rolled into her neck, and so to a vast bosom, a waist which still attempted to be a waist, and monumental hips. She stirred her sweet, strong tea with a vigorous spoon.

“Well, I suppose you were born like the rest of us, and I suppose you were brought up somehow by someone or other? You're not going to tell me you were found under a gooseberry bush, are you?”

The bright carnation colour came again.

“No,” said Kay—“it wasn't a gooseberry bush.” Then, quickly, “I don't really know anything about my father and mother. I don't remember them.”

Mrs Green finished her first cup of tea and poured herself out another, horribly black. This time she put in five lumps.

“Then 'ow were you brought up? Relations? You don't look like a norphanage girl.”

“An aunt brought me up. I haven't any other relations.”

“Oh, come on!” said Mrs Green. “This isn't a police court, for me to be asking you questions and you to be saying just as little as you can for fear of what might come out.
Unless such was the case,”
she added darkly and stirred her tea again.

Kay looked down at her piece of bread and jam and began to cut it into strips.

“There isn't anything to tell,” she said. “My aunt wasn't well off. We moved about a good deal. She taught me, and I helped in the house. I didn't go to school. She died two years ago, and there wasn't any money, so I went as mother's help to the Vicar's wife—we were in a village then.”

“Mother's 'elp!” said Mrs Green, in a tone of scorn. “'Eaven 'elp them is what I say! All 'elp and no wages—work from six in the morning till eleven at night in return for a kind 'ome! That's about the size of it as a rule!”

“Oh no!” said Kay warmly. “They were most awfully kind to me, and they paid me ten pounds a year. They had six children and
very
little money, so they couldn't pay me any more. I only left because they couldn't afford to go on having me.”

Mrs Green scooped up the remains of her sugar lumps and ate them out of her spoon.

“Did you go for another 'elp?”

“Yes. I only stayed a few months. They were rather like you said.”

Mrs Green nodded.

“They mostly is.”

“So then I thought I'd try being a house-parlour-maid. I thought I could do the work, and I should get a proper day out and get much more money. But I didn't like the place I got, and now I've come here.”

“And 'ow did you come 'ere?” said Mrs Green. “That's what I want to know, my girl. That there Ivy Hodge, she come yesterday, and so far as anyone knew we were all fixed up. Well, she takes and runs away—banged the area door and off like a mad thing. And lunch-time to-day Nurse comes in in 'er outdoor things and she says as cool as a cucumber, ‘There's a new 'ouse-parlour-maid coming in, Green, and I 'ope you'll find 'er satisfactory.' Now that's what I call a quick bit of work.”

Kay hesitated. Her colour rose. Then she said,

“I wanted a place, and you wanted a house-parlour-maid. That's how it happened, Mrs Green.”

CHAPTER VII

Whilst Mrs Green was sugaring her strong tea, Flossie Palmer was entertaining Mr Ernest Bowden. It was the first time he had been officially received in the family circle—Aunt being so pertickler. Flossie's return after a mere twelve hours absence had not been at all well received. In sheer self-defence she had secured another situation, and the tea-party had been conceded by Mrs Palmer as a send-off. Not to anyone except that chance-met stranger in the fog had Flossie spoken of her headlong flight from No. 16 Varley Street. Her ordinarily voluble tongue became dry and silent under Aunt's questioning. She hadn't liked the place and she had come away, and that was all. For one thing, if Aunt knew she had been out all night, the fat
would
be in the fire. She bought herself another brush and comb, and said nothing about the hat, the night-dress, and the change of underclothes which she had left behind in the basement bedroom. Not for anything in the world would she go back and fetch them away. She came all over goose flesh at the mere idea, and by exhibiting an unusual amount of energy and securing a place as housemaid at Mrs Freddy Gilmore's she stopped Aunt's mouth, and was graciously permitted to ask Ernie to tea.

Ernie was finding the occasion rather formidable. He was wearing a high stiff collar which hurt his neck, and his best suit, which had not kept pace with his vigorous development. He was a large young man—a motor-mechanic by trade. He had advanced political opinions and a good deal of bony wrist and thick dark hair. Flossie's aunt made him come over hot about the ears and moist about the hands. She kept a steely eye upon him, as if she expected at any moment to find him out in something he shouldn't be doing, and she called him Mr Bowden at least once in every sentence. It was quite horribly daunting. During tea she talked about all the promising girls she had known who had married drunkards and declined prematurely into their graves. Even Flossie was subdued.

It was a little better after tea when the table had been cleared. He and Flossie were allowed to sit up to it side by side whilst she showed him the photographs in the family album, an immensely thick and heavy book with an embossed leather binding, gilt edges, and a portentous clasp. It was possible to hold Flossie's hand when she was not turning a leaf. Mrs Palmer, knitting by the hearth, could only see the table-cloth and the heavy album tilted on an aged copy of
Stepping Heavenward
. She had stopped talking, and he gathered, to his immense relief, that it was now Flossie's business to entertain him.

They lingered over the faded pictures of whiskered young men and chignoned young women, hairy old gentlemen with beards flowing down over their waistcoats, and old ladies, all shawl and cap and skirt.

“That's Auntie's grandfather,” said Flossie. “A builder in a very good way of business he was—wasn't he, Aunt?”

Mrs Palmer's needles clicked.

“And
a life-long teetotaller,” she said.

Flossie trod on Ernie's foot.

“Had a lovely house up in Hampstead—hadn't he, Aunt?” she said.

“Took the pledge at five years old and never broke it,” said Mrs Palmer. She drew out a needle and stabbed it into the sock she was knitting. “And a pity there are not more like him, Mr Bowden.”

Flossie tossed her head.

“You needn't think Ernie drinks, Aunt, because he doesn't!”

“So he
says,”
said Mrs Palmer. She sat bolt upright in a chair with a leather seat and a curly walnut back, her firm, high-busted figure tightly cased in a black stuff dress with a high-collared front of cream net over white silk. A gold locket with raised initials hung down upon the front, and an agate brooch which was exactly like a bull's eye fastened the collar. Her thick wiry grey hair was brushed tightly back from her forehead and temples and fastened in a plaited coil about half way up the back of her head. She had a high, fixed colour, sharp grey eyes, and practically no lashes. A formidable person.