The Great House. Weyman Stanley John

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СКАЧАТЬ with a shaking hand he would bid her go-go, and leave the room!

      The first time that this happened she feared that he might follow up his words by sending her away. But nothing ensued, then or later. For a while after each outburst he would appear ill at ease. He would avoid her eyes, and look away from her in a manner almost as unpleasant as his violence; later, in a shamefaced way, he would tell her that she must not excite him, she must not excite him, it was bad for him. And the man-servant meeting her in the hall, would take the liberty of giving her the same advice.

      Toft, indeed, was the second who puzzled her. He was civil, with the civility of the trained servant, but always there was in his manner a reserve. And she fancied that he watched her. If she left the house and glanced back she was certain to see his face at a window, or his figure in a doorway. Within doors it was the same. He slept out, living with his wife in the kitchen wing, which had a separate entrance from the courtyard. But he was everywhere at all hours. Even his master appeared uneasy in his presence, and either broke off what he was saying when the man entered, or continued the talk on another note. More rarely he turned on Toft and without rhyme or reason would ask him harshly what he wanted.

      The third person to share Mary's thoughts, but after a more pleasant fashion, was Toft's daughter, Etruria. "I hope you will like her, my dear," John Audley had said. "She will give you such attendance as you require, and will share the south wing with you at night. The two bedrooms there are on a separate staircase. I sleep above the library in this wing, and Peter in the tower room-we have our own staircase. I have brought her into the house because I thought you might not like to sleep alone in that wing."

      Mary had thanked him, and had said how much she liked the girl. And she had liked her, but for a time she had not understood her. Etruria was all that was good and almost all that was beautiful. She was simple, kindly, helpful, having the wide low brow, the placid eyes, and perfect complexion of a Quaker girl-and to add to these attractions she was finely shaped, though rather plump than slender; and she was incredibly neat. Nor could any Quaker girl have been more gentle or more demure.

      But she might have had no tongue, she was so loth to use it; and a hundred times Mary wondered what was behind that reticence. Sometimes she thought that the girl was merely stupid. Sometimes she yoked her with her father in the suspicions she entertained of him. More often, moved by the girl's meek eyes, she felt only a vague irritation. She was herself calm by nature, and reserved by training, the last to gossip with a servant, even with one whose refinement appeared innate. But Etruria's dumbness was beyond her.

      One day in a research which she was making she fancied that she had hit on a discovery. It happened that Etruria came into the room at the moment, and in the fulness of her heart Mary told her of it. "Etruria," she said, "I've made a discovery all by myself."

      "Yes, Miss."

      "Something that no one has known for hundreds of years! Think of that!"

      "Indeed, Miss."

      Provoked, Mary took a new line. "Etruria," she asked, "are you happy?"

      The girl did not answer.

      "Don't you hear me? I asked if you were happy."

      "I am content, Miss."

      "I did not ask that. Are you happy?"

      And then, moved on her side, perhaps, by an impulse towards confidence, Etruria yielded. "I don't think that we can any of us be happy, Miss," she said, "with so much sorrow about us."

      "You strange girl!" Mary cried, taken aback. "What do you mean?"

      But Etruria was silent.

      "Come," Mary insisted. "You must tell me what you mean."

      "Well, Miss," the girl answered reluctantly, "I'm sad and loth to think of all the suffering in the world. It's natural that you should not think of it, but I'm of the people, and I'm sad for them."

      Balaam when the ass spoke was scarcely more surprised than Mary. "Why?" she asked.

      The girl pointed to the open window. "We've all we could ask, Miss-light and air and birds' songs and sunshine. We've all we need, and more. But I come of those who have neither light nor air, nor songs nor sunshine, who've no milk for children nor food for mothers! Who, if they've work, work every hour of the day in dust and noise and heat. Who are half clemmed from year's end to year's end, and see no close to it, no hope, no finish but the pauper's deals! It's for them I'm sad, Miss."

      "Etruria!"

      "They've no teachers and no time to care," Etruria continued in desperate earnest now that the floodgates were raised. "They're just tools to make money, and, like the tools, they wear out and are cast aside! For there are always more to do their work, to begin where they began, and to be worn out as they were worn out!"

      "Don't!" Mary cried.

      Etruria was silent, but two large tears rolled down her face. And Mary marvelled. So this mild, patient girl, going about her daily tasks, could think, could feel, could speak, and upon a plane so high that the listener was sensible of humiliation as well as surprise! For a moment this was the only effect made upon her. Then reflection did its part-and memory. She recalled that glimpse of the under-world which she had had on her journey from London. She remembered the noisome alleys, the cinder wastes, the men toiling half-naked at the furnaces, the pinched faces of the women; and she remembered also the account which Lord Audley had given her of the fierce contest between town and country, plough and forge, land-lord and cotton-lord, which had struck her so much at the time.

      In the charms of her new life, in her new interests, these things had faded from her mind. They recurred now, and she did not again ask Etruria what she meant. "Is it as bad as that?" she asked.

      "It is not as bad as it has been," Etruria answered. "Three years ago there were hundreds of thousands out of work. There are thousands, scores of thousands, still; and thousands have no food but what's given them. And charity is bitter to many," she added, "and the poorhouse is bitter to all."

      "But what has caused things to be so bad?"

      "Some say one thing and some another. But most that machines lower wages, Miss, and the bread-tax raises food."

      "Ah!" Mary said. And she looked more closely at the girl who knew so much that was at odds with her station.

      "Others," Etruria continued, a faint color in her cheeks, "think that it is selfishness, that every one is for himself and no one for one another, and-"

      "Yes?" Mary said, seeing that she hesitated.

      "And that if every one thought as much of his neighbor as of himself, or even of his neighbor as well as of himself, it would not be machines nor corn-taxes nor poorhouses would be strong enough to take the bread out of the children's mouths or the work out of men's hands!"

      Mary had an inspiration. "Etruria," she cried, "some one has been teaching you this."

      The girl blushed. "Well, Miss," she said simply, "it was at church I learned most of it."

      "At church? What church? Not Riddsley?" For it was to Riddsley, to a service as dull as it was long, that they proceeded on Sundays in a chaise as slow as the reader.

      "No, Miss, not Riddsley," Etruria answered. "It's at Brown Heath on the Chase. But it's not a real church, Miss. It's a room."

      "Oh!" Mary replied. "A meeting-house!"

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