Philomen could not summon enough courage to tell Mrs. Rouse that she was going, but Mrs. Rouse had heard already. The first of the month was a Sunday and all the Sunday morning Philomen was moving her things over to Gomes’s house and continually wiping her eyes in her apron. Then she came in to say goodbye.
‘You must come and see me sometimes,’ said Haynes.
‘Yes, Mr. Haynes.’
The tears flowed more and more.
‘Don’t cry, you silly girl. You will have more time to see Sugdeo.’ She smiled at the mention of her lover’s name.
She went outside and he heard her tell Miss Atwell goodbye. She went to the kitchen door, apron to her eyes, and said in a faint voice: ‘Mrs. Rouse, I am goin’.’
Mrs. Rouse came to the door. And she was crying too. Then (Haynes could hardly believe his eyes) she took Philomen in her arms and Philomen fell on her shoulder, weeping loudly.
‘Oh, Mrs. Rouse, Mrs. Rouse.’
‘You going, Philomen. God will it so. You wouldn’t forget me and I wouldn’t forget you.’
Mistress and servant, and a mistress who had practically driven away the servant, they held each other tightly like mother and daughter who are about to part and do not know when, if ever, they will meet again. Philomen had entirely lost control of herself and her sobs could be heard in the street.
‘Don’t cry, Phil. Don’t cry. You must keep courage.
‘Don’t mind, don’t mind. I am going to come and see you at Gomes as soon as I get a chance.’
Philomen went at last and it was as if a pillar of the house had gone. Mrs. Rouse continually called her and spoke of her as if she were still working at No. 2. Even Maisie confessed that she missed Philomen.
For the life of him Haynes could understand neither head nor tail of this strange business.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
And with the departure of Philomen, Maisie, who had maintained some sort of relationship with the Indian girl through all her malicious dealings, almost gave up going into the kitchen, and spent every spare moment in Haynes’s room. And Haynes on his part found himself liking her more and more and spending hours talking with her where formerly he would have been reading. She called him in the mornings and gave him his tea. After tea she would fetch the bike and ride on the pedal to the street. One morning as he was turning the corner he happened to look back. Maisie was standing looking at him. When he returned at lunch she said: ‘But, Mr. Haynes, you look back and saw me and didn’t even give a little wave.’ Next morning Haynes looked back, saw Maisie and waved. Thenceforward every morning he looked back at the corner and waved. Little by little she was making a human creature out of him.
On Sundays, however, it was a different story. Haynes slept late and Maisie would sleep late also. She would not get up until nine, sometimes ten o’clock. She went into the bedroom and locked herself in – said she wanted to be private. (Mrs. Rouse raged for six hours the day Maisie said this.) Now that Philomen was gone Mrs. Rouse needed all the help that Maisie could give. But Maisie would not assume any obligation.
Mrs. Rouse undertook desperate measures. The morning Maisie did not get up in time, she got no food for the day except what she could steal. Money for shoes and clothes, little enough before, dwindled to nothing. She was sometimes in desperate straits for money. She could always depend on Haynes for money to buy food and Haynes always enquired first thing every afternoon whether she had eaten. But she was young and good-looking and she wanted pretty things. No. 2 began to suffer from a series of petty thefts, growing in size. A penny, four cents, a sixpence, a shilling, then back to sixpence again; but on the whole mounting steadily. Mrs. Rouse accused the yard boy, accused the servants, hinted even once or twice at some of the more disreputable lodgers; but Maisie covered her tracks so skilfully that Mrs. Rouse was compelled to stop short at thinly disguised innuendo. It was strange how she hesitated at accusing Maisie outright. Then one Sunday morning Mrs. Rouse lost a dollar note and accused Maisie point blank with such certainty that Haynes knew she had her at last. Maisie gave her a very cold ‘Search me,’ and took refuge in Haynes’s room. Miss Atwell was at home, one or two of the boarders joined in and the waves of dispute rolled up to his step.
‘Miss Atwell,’ said Mrs. Rouse, ‘if she don’t give it back to me this morning I go for the police.’
Maisie leant back in the armchair inhaling deeply at a cigarette.
‘Took the beef?’ Haynes whispered. She nodded an affirmative.
‘Give it back. I’ll make things right.’
‘I’ll go to gaol first.’
It was no use arguing with her in this mood and on this question.
‘I want my dollar back,’ said Mrs. Rouse, ‘and if I do not get it I am going to the police.’
She went inside and started to dress.
Haynes had a hasty conference with Miss Atwell. She told him that Mrs. Rouse needed the money badly – had borrowed it late Saturday night after being refused by two or three friends and walking many miles. There was no time for too much talk. Would Mrs. Rouse take the dollar back and let the matter end there and then? Miss A., acting as intermediary, found little difficulty in persuading her. She needed the dollar too urgently. In less than ten minutes the episode was closed.
‘I’s all right, Mr. Haynes. And Mrs. Rouse promise not to say one word again about it.’
Haynes went back into the room and not knowing what to say to Maisie quietly began to read. She sat motionless for nearly an hour, then with a faint: ‘Excuse me, Mr. Haynes,’ she left, dressed and went out.
‘I am sorry I cause you all this trouble, Mr. Haynes,’ were her last words.
‘It’s quite all right, Maisie,’ said Haynes, but meaning much more than he said. The Sunday morning was ruined. No long talk with Maisie, no gramophone playing, no jokes and gossip, nothing. She was not even there to give him his lunch, which was the meal of the week. Long after lunch she returned and came straight into his room, dusty and hot.
‘Here is your dollar, Mr. Haynes.’
She was smiling faintly, but held out the money until he took it and was very subdued for the next twenty-four hours. But soon she was her old self, and a living torment to her aunt.
On the Sunday night following the outburst Mrs. Rouse happened to be away. Maisie, as usual, was in Haynes’s room and he decided to talk to her seriously.
‘Maisie, have a cigarette … Now, Maisie, no beating about the bush. Have you ever thought of getting some work to do?’
‘If you tired of my coming in here so much, tell me, Mr. Haynes.’
But Haynes was prepared for these herrings.
‘That is not going to work today. You can’t go on as you are going. You must get some work to do.’
She suddenly became listless.
‘I don’t want to work, Mr. Haynes.’
She relaxed entirely in the chair and looked at him out of half-closed eyes.
‘No. But you and Mrs. Rouse can’t go on like this. Something is going to happen some day.’
‘Let it happen. She can’t beat me. You think I am afraid of that noisy blow-hard?’
‘Suppose the police had come last Sunday, searched and found the dollar.’
‘They couldn’t find it.’
‘You don’t know what a police search is like.’
‘Well, if they had found it they would have taken me down. I wouldn’t have been the first woman to go to gaol.’
He looked at her non-plussed. She looked back at him, and then her face broke into a smile – slow, amused almost derisive.
‘What next, teacher?’
‘You want smacking,’ said Haynes.
‘Ha … You are getting on, Mr. Haynes. When you first came here you couldn’t say boo to a goose.’
‘Come, tell me something, Maisie. Leave this going to work alone for the minute. Have you any plans for your future, any sort of plans at all?’
‘Plans for my future? I don’t know what you are ta
lking about, Mr. Haynes.’
Gradually, however, she spoke, more in jest than in earnest, but with an element of seriousness in what she said. For staying at home she had no plans. But she wanted to go to America to work for good money. In America you worked hard but you got good food and pay and had a fine time. Why the hell should she starve and slave to get a few shillings a week from some employer in the town?
Miss Atwell appeared at the door, the climax to a series of subdued mutterings and ejaculations with which she had accompanied the later stages of the conversation.
‘Mr. Haynes, excuse me. But I can’t hear this child talkin’ to you as she is doin’. Mr. Haynes, she is headin’ for perdition.’
‘Now what the—’
‘Very well, Maisie.’ Haynes put his hand up. Maisie, who had half risen, sat down again.
‘Miss Atwell is speaking for your good. Keep quiet, please. You will do as you like, of course, but just listen.’
‘All right, Mr. Haynes.’ But she turned her head away and looked out of the window.
Miss Atwell had nothing particularly new to say. She wished to harp on the fact that Mrs. Rouse had intended to lock up Maisie for the dollar note, and Haynes had difficulty in restraining her from following that line of argument. But she was fluent and effective on the necessity of Maisie’s either making up her mind to behave better, ‘to turn over a new leaf,’ or getting some work to do out of the house. Maisie took little notice – only once or twice, when she displayed signs of irritation, Haynes motioned to her and made her keep still.
Miss Atwell paused for breath. But not for long.
‘And the child has a lot of good in her, Mr. Haynes; she is a child with nice ways and—’
‘I’m not going to stay here to listen to all this damned nonsense,’ said Maisie, and in one stride and a jump she was in the yard.
‘Mr. Haynes,’ continued Miss Atwell, ‘if Mrs. Rouse lose anything again she is not going to make a noise. She is going to send for a detective quietly. She says that she will have peace in her own house. You and me has to do something for that child, Mr. Haynes. She will listen to you. That girl is a mystery to me. She picks up six cents, car tickets, shillings, in your clothes or on the table. And I sit down here and hear her first thing as you come in, give you. And Mrs. Rouse can’t leave a penny lyin’ about Maisie snatch it up. As long as is Mr. Haynes she will behave, but anybody else—’
Maisie came back in.
‘Mr. Haynes is people. All of you, like you and Mrs. Rouse, what all you are? All you not people to behave for. Old lady, go out of the gentleman’s house and leave him in his privacy.’
But Maisie made a good-natured grimace at Miss Atwell which gave the words almost a friendliness.
‘I’ll see you a little later, Miss Atwell,’ Haynes told her. ‘I have something in mind. I’ll speak to you about it another time.’
Maisie sat down, took a book and read for five minutes. Then she put the book aside.
‘You want me to play some nice records for you, Mr. Haynes?’
‘No, thank you, Maisie.’
‘You see how you treating me? I just want to play for you.’
She put a record on, a piece of dance music, and started to beat time with her foot, humming. Haynes would not watch her.
She reached his pipe and tobacco pouch.
‘Here is your pipe, Mr. Haynes … and the matches, filled, and not too tight … Now, Mr. Haynes, I have been thinking it over and I want to behave well and to stop troubling Mrs. Rouse.’
‘I am glad to hear it.’
Came a pause.
‘Tell me, Mr. Haynes, you have anything in mind which you think can help me?’
‘What a little imp it is,’ said Miss Atwell.
Mrs. Rouse came back just in time to hear Maisie, Miss Atwell and Haynes laughing ‘as merry as fleas,’ to quote Miss Atwell. She didn’t seem too pleased.
But though Haynes would not yield to Maisie’s blandishments that evening he really did have an idea. He thought it over carefully and put it to Miss Atwell, who told him it was excellent, and they approached Mrs. Rouse together. Mrs. Rouse, he knew, would not consider the proposition at all if it did not come from him. But he put it to her and after some demur she agreed to try it. Maisie might tease Haynes in small things, but whatever he wanted her to do she always agreed in the end and consented to do her best.
The great arrangement was this. Maisie would be given some specified work – keeping the books, washing, starching and ironing, and a few other tasks. She would do them for Mrs. Rouse, who in turn would pay her a fixed salary and give her food. Mrs. Rouse would not be concerned with Maisie as long as the work was properly done and in time. Haynes was to pay Maisie out of the monthly sum he gave to Mrs. Rouse. This particular concession had been a delicate corner, but Haynes got round it with colours flying. The whole idea was novel, but simple, and on the whole it worked well. When Maisie wanted to be idle during the day, she used to rise early, work like mad for some hours, and then stretch about the place for the whole day, happy because Mrs. Rouse could not call her. Whenever she was inclined to be slack, Miss Atwell or Haynes gave her a reminder and did not find her refractory. Now she was able to arrange her work so that she could spend as much time as possible with Haynes. The pair grew closer and closer. Through her, Haynes knew immediately every single thing that was going on in the house – what Mrs. Rouse was praying for when her High Priest visited her, the love affairs of the boarders, the mysteries of Miss Atwell’s wardrobe, causes célèbres in the town.
‘Mr. Haynes, jokes,’ or ‘Mr. Haynes, news,’ was a well-known cry, and whatever Haynes was doing he put it aside to hear. Sometimes she would tell him, ‘Jokes. But not now, after supper.’ Often she pushed chairs and the table to the side of the room to give herself gesticulatory scope.
Her range was wide, but Miss Atwell, on the whole, was her chief subject. Maisie had Miss A.’s vocabulary, diction and style to perfection. To hear her say: ‘That is too-too excellent,’ was to hear the very voice of Miss A., and Maisie was not one of the dry humorists. When she came into Haynes’s room and said: ‘Mr. Haynes, you is busy, but excuse me,’ her face at the time would be all squeezed-up like Miss Atwell’s, but immediately after she would relax and laugh her brilliant whole-hearted laugh.
Weeks used to pass before she and Haynes would have any serious misunderstanding. Sometimes she rebuked him for impatience and said that since he had come to No. 2 he had changed very much for the worse. But however good the cause with which she might speak sharply to him and bounce out of the room, not ten minutes after she would return, coming in quietly and asking him if he had called her, or if he wanted matches, or if she could play the gramophone, or if he was going out and wanted his shoes cleaned, or something of that kind, always in a very quiet and penitent voice, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes to see if he was still displeased. And she did things which he remembered for days and made Haynes feel that there was nothing he could not do for her.
One morning she brought in two pieces of cloth for his opinion on them. One was red, a bright vermilion, the other pale green. That she sought his opinion was nothing unusual. All No. 2 used to do it.
‘Which to choose, Mr. Haynes?’
‘The green. Only Spaniards from South America wear red dresses.’
‘But I like the red, Mr. Haynes.’
‘Why did you ask me, then? You have to wear the dress, not I.’
‘I didn’t expect that you would wear the dress. I don’t see why you should tell me that.’
‘Don’t lose your temper. Make your red dress. Only, when you are wearing it and I meet you in the street, please don’t think anything if you see me looking the other way.’
‘It’s my dress,’ said Maisie, and swept up the two of them. ‘If you don’t want to speak to me in the street, Mr. Haynes, don’t speak to me. Don’t speak to me in here either. I’ll wear red, white and blue if I like.’
‘I could get an old Union Jack for you if you …’
She stamped out.
Saturday morning there was a commotion. The dress had come to be tried on. Formerly Haynes’s opinion would outweigh that of all the others in the house, but today—
‘Mr. Haynes.’
Maisie was outside.
‘Yes.’
‘I can come in?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want you to tell me how the dress look.’
‘I see. Well, if you think my opinion worth anything.’
‘You will tell me as long ago? You not vexed?’
‘Not at all. Come along. Let me see you.’
And when she came in, it was the green dress after all.
But this was merely the decoration to her unwearied personal attendance on him week in and week out. Her own shoes might go uncleaned for days, never were his so bright as under her skilful hands. She made and remade his bed five times a day. She spent hours looking for papers he had carelessly mislaid. Now and then his carelessness or untidiness (habits which Ella had encouraged) might cause her to say: ‘But, Mr. Haynes, you are a troublesome man. People have no peace with you.’ But she would look at him and smile while she spoke, or immediately after, to soften the sting of truth in her words.
Rarely did she ask for money. To pay a rampageous creditor, to buy medicine if she felt ill – once a month or perhaps less. Haynes gave her presents on occasion, but few things irritated her more than the suggestion that he should pay her specifically for anything she did for him. ‘God! Mr. Haynes, you have a bad mind. I didn’t do it for money.’
And yet another day when he asked her why her behaviour to him and her behaviour to the others were such miles apart, she said:
‘Them! Who will bother to behave for them.’
Her regard for him extended beyond the borders of his personal comfort and well-being. Nobody could say anything against Haynes. She was at once a flame of protest. She guarded his property jealously, keeping track of books and records borrowed overlong by careless friends. She would rush into the room.
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