in prospect, and the problem perpetually suggesting itself how she and Nanny should manage when there was another baby, as there would be before very many months were past.
When time glided on, and the Countess’s visit did not end, Milly was not blind to any phase of their position. She knew of the slander; she was aware of the keeping aloof of old friends; but these she felt almost entirely on her husband’s account. A loving woman’s world lies within the four walls of her own home; and it is only through her husband that she is in any electric communication with the world beyond. Mrs. Simpkins may have looked scornfully at her, but baby crows and holds out his little arms none the less blithely; Mrs. Tomkins may have left off calling on her, but her husband comes home none the less to receive her care and caresses; it has been wet and gloomy out of doors today, but she has looked well after the shirt buttons, has cut out baby’s pinafores, and half finished Willy’s blouse.
So it was with Milly. She was only vexed that her husband should be vexed—only wounded because he was misconceived. But the difficulty about ways and means she felt in quite a different manner. Her rectitude was alarmed lest they should have to make tradesmen wait for their money; her motherly love dreaded the diminution of comforts for the children; and the sense of her own failing health gave exaggerated force to these fears.
Milly could no longer shut her eyes to the fact, that the Countess was inconsiderate, if she did not allow herself to entertain severer thoughts; and she began to feel that it would soon be a duty to tell her frankly that they really could not afford to have her visit farther prolonged. But a process was going forward in two other minds, which ultimately saved Milly from having to perform this painful task.
In the first place, the Countess was getting weary of Shepperton—weary of waiting for her brother’s overtures which never came; so, one fine morning, she reflected that forgiveness was a Christian duty, that a sister should be placable, that Mr. Bridmain must feel the need of her advice, to which he had been accustomed for three years, and that very likely ‘that woman’ didn’t make the poor man happy. In this amiable frame of mind she wrote a very affectionate appeal, and addressed it to Mr. Bridmain, through his banker.
Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny’s, the maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper. Nanny adored her mistress: she had been heard to say, that she was ‘ready to kiss the ground as the missis trod on’; and Walter, she considered, was her baby, of whom she was as jealous as a lover. But she had, from the first, very slight admiration for the Countess Czerlaski. That lady, from Nanny’s point of view, was a personage always ‘drawed out i’ fine clothes’, the chief result of whose existence was to cause additional bed-making, carrying of hot water, laying of table-cloths, and cooking of dinners. It was a perpetually heightening ‘aggravation’ to Nanny that she and her mistress had to ‘slave’ more than ever, because there was this fine lady in the house.
‘An, she pays nothin’ for’t neither,’ observed Nanny to Mr. Jacob Tomms, a young gentleman in the tailoring line, who occasionally—simply out of a taste for dialogue—looked into the vicarage kitchen of an evening. ‘I know the master’s shorter o’ money than iver, an’ it meks no end o’ difference i’ th’ housekeepin’—her bein’ here, besides bein’ obliged to have a charwoman constant.’
‘There’s fine stories i’ the village about her,’ said Mr. Tomms. ‘They say as Muster Barton’s great wi’ her, or else she’d niver stop here.’
‘Then they say a passill o’ lies, an’ you ought to be ashamed to go an’ tell ’em o’er again. Do you think as the master, as has got a wife like the missis, ’ud go running arter a stuck-up piece o’ goods like that Countess, as isn’t fit to black the missis’s shoes? I’m none so fond o’ the master, but I know better on him nor that.’
‘Well, I didn’t b’lieve it,’ said Mr. Tomms, humbly.
‘B’lieve it? you’d ha’ been a ninny if yer did. An’ she’s a nasty, stingy thing, that Countess. She’s niver giv me a sixpence nor an old rag neither, sin’ here’s she’s been. A-lyin’ a bed an a-comin’ down to breakfast when other folks wants their dinner!’
If such was the state of Nanny’s mind as early as the end of August, when this dialogue with Mr. Tomms occurred, you may imagine what it must have been by the beginning of November, and that at that time a very slight spark might any day cause the long-smouldering anger to flame forth in open indignation.
That spark happened to fall the very morning that Mrs. Hackit paid the visit to Mrs. Patten, recorded in the last chapter. Nanny’s dislike of the Countess extended to the innocent dog Jet, whom she ‘couldn’t a-bear to see made a fuss wi’ like a Christian. An’ the little ouzle must be washed, too, ivery Saturday, as if there wasn’t children enoo to wash, wi’out washin’ dogs.’
Now this particular morning it happened that Milly was quite too poorly to get up, and Mr. Barton observed to Nanny, on going out, that he would call and tell Mr. Brand to come. These circumstances were already enough to make Nanny anxious and susceptible. But the Countess, comfortably ignorant of them, came down as usual about eleven o’clock to her separate breakfast, which stood ready for her at that hour in the parlour; the kettle singing on the hob that she might make her own tea. There was a little jug of cream, taken according to custom from last night’s milk, and specially saved for the Countess’s breakfast. Jet always awaited his mistress at her bedroom door, and it was her habit to carry him down stairs.
‘Now, my little Jet,’ she said, putting him down gently on the hearth-rug, ‘you shall have a nice, nice breakfast.’
Jet indicated that he thought that observation extremely pertinent and well-timed, by immediately raising himself on his hind-legs, and the Countess emptied the cream-jug into the saucer. Now there was usually a small jug of milk standing on the tray by the side of the cream, and destined for Jet’s breakfast, but this morning Nanny, being ‘moithered’, had forgotten that part of the arrangements, so that when the Countess had made her tea, she perceived there was no second jug, and rang the bell. Nanny appeared, looking very red and heated—the fact was, she had been ‘doing up’ the kitchen fire, and that is a sort of work which by no means conduces to blandness of temper. ‘Nanny, you have forgotten Jet’s milk; will you bring me some more cream, please?’
This was just a little too much for Nanny’s forbearance. ‘Yes, I dare say. Here am I wi’ my hands full o’ the children an’ the dinner, and missis ill a-bed, and Mr. Brand a-comin’; and I must run o’er the village to get more cream, ’cause you’ve give it to that nasty little blackamoor.’
‘Is Mrs. Barton ill?’
‘Ill—yes—I should think she is ill, an’ much you care. She’s likely to be ill, moithered as she is from mornin’ to night, wi’ folks as had better be elsewhere.’
‘What do you mean by behaving in this way?’
‘Mean? Why I mean as the missis is a slavin’ her life out an’ a-sittin’ up o’nights, for folks as are better able to wait of her, i’stid o’ lyin’ a-bed an’ doin’ nothin’ all the blessed day, but mek work.’
‘Leave the room and don’t be insolent.’
‘Insolent! I’d better be insolent than like what some folks is,—a-livin’ on other folks, an’ bringin’ a bad name on ’em into the bargain.’
Here Nanny flung out of the room, leaving the lady to digest this unexpected breakfast at her leisure.
The Countess was stunned for a few minutes, but when she began to recall Nanny’s words, there was no possibility of avoiding very unpleasant conclusions from them, or of failing to see her position at the Vicarage in an entirely new light. The interpretation too of Nanny’s allusion to a ‘bad name’ did not lie out of the reach of the Countess’s imagination, and she saw the necessity of quitting Shepperton without delay. Still, she would like to wait for her brother’s letter—no—she would ask Milly to forward it to her—still better, she would go at once to London,