The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection. W. Somerset Maugham
"You haven't been crying, Nora?"
"Yes, I couldn't help it. My dear, it's not unnatural."
Miss Pringle dropped the hand she had been stroking to clasp both her own over the handle of her umbrella. "Well, I don't like to say anything against her now she's dead, poor thing, but Miss Wickham was the most detestable old woman I ever met."
"Still," said Nora slowly, looking toward the French window which opened on the garden, at the sun streaming through the drawn blinds, "I don't suppose one can live so long with anyone and not be a little sorry to part with them forever. I was Miss Wickham's companion for ten years."
"How you stood it! Exacting, domineering, disagreeable!"
"Yes, I suppose she was. Because she paid me a salary, she thought I wasn't a human being. I certainly never knew anyone with such a bitter tongue. At first I used to cry every night when I went to bed because of the things she said to me. But I got used to them."
"I wonder you didn't leave her. I would have." Miss Pringle attempting to delude herself with the idea that she was a mettlesome, high-spirited person who would stand no nonsense, was immensely diverting to Nora. To hide an irrepressible smile, she went over to a bowl of roses which stood on one of the little tables and pretended to busy herself with their rearrangement.
"Posts as lady's companions are not so easy to find, I fancy. At least I remember that when I got this one I was thought to be extremely lucky not to have to wait twice as long. I don't imagine things have bettered much in our line, do you?"
"That they have not," rejoined Miss Pringle gloomily. "They tell me the agents' books are full of people wanting situations. Before I went to Mrs. Hubbard I was out of one for nearly two years." Her voice shook a little at the recollection. Her poor, tired, weather-beaten face quivered as if she were about to cry.
"It's not so had for you," said Nora soothingly. "You can always go and stay with your brother."
"You've a brother, too."
"Ah, yes. But he's farming in Canada. He has all he could do to keep himself. He couldn't keep me, too."
"How is he doing now?" asked Miss Pringle, to whom any new topic of conversation was of interest. She had so little opportunity for conversation at the irreproachable Mrs. Hubbard's, that lady having apparently inherited a limited set of ideas from her late husband, 'as Mr. Hubbard used to say' being her favorite introduction to any topic. Miss Pringle saw herself making quite a little success at dinner that night--there was to be a guest, she believed--by saying: "A friend of mine has just been telling me of the success her brother is having way out in Canada." "He is getting on?" she asked encouragingly.
"Oh, he's doing very well. He's got a farm of his own. He wrote over a few years ago and told me he could always give me a home if I wanted one."
"Canada's so far off," observed Miss Pringle deprecatingly. Her tone seemed to imply that there were other disadvantages which she would refrain from mentioning.
Now while Nora had always had the same vague feeling that Canada, in addition to being an immense distance off, was not quite, well, it wasn't England--that was indisputable--she found herself unreasonably irritated by her friend's tone.
"Not when yon get there," she replied sharply.
Miss Pringle evidently deemed it best to change the subject. "Why don't you draw the blinds?" she asked after a moment.
"It is horrid, isn't it? But somehow I thought I ought to wait till they came back from the funeral. But just see the sunlight; it must be beautiful out of doors. Why don't we walk about in the garden? Do you care for a wrap? I'll send Kate to fetch you something, if you do."
Miss Pringle having decided that her coat was sufficiently warm if they did not sit anywhere too long and just walked in the paths where it was sure not to be damp, they went out of the gloomy drawing-room into the bright afternoon sunshine.
"Don't you love a garden when things are just beginning to show their heads? I sometimes think that spring is the most beautiful of all the seasons. It's like watching the birth of a new world. I think the most human thing about poor Miss Wickham was her fondness for flowers. She always said she hoped she'd never die in winter."
To Miss Pringle, the note of regret which crept now and again into Nora's voice when she spoke of her late employer was a continual source of bewilderment. Here was a woman who she knew had a quick temper and a passionate nature speaking as if she actually sorrowed for the tyrant who had so frequently made her life unbearable. She was sure that she couldn't have felt more grieved if Providence had seen fit to remove the excellent Mrs. Hubbard from the scene of her earthly activities. Poor Miss Pringle! She did not realize that after thirty years of a life passed as a hired companion that she no longer possessed either sensibility or the power of affection. To her, one employer would be very like another so long as they were fairly considerate and not too unreasonable. It would be tiresome, to be sure, to have to learn the little likes and dislikes of Mrs. Hubbard's successor. But what would you? Life was filled with tiresome moments. Poor Miss Pringle!
Her next remark was partly to make conversation and partly because she might obtain further light upon this perplexing subject. She made a mental note that she must not forget to speak to Mrs. Hubbard of Nora's grief over Miss Wickham's death. Naturally, she would be gratified.
"Well, it must be a great relief to you now it's all over," she said.
"Sometimes I can't realize it," said Nora simply. "These last few weeks I hardly got to bed at all, and when the end came I was utterly exhausted. For two days I have done nothing but sleep. Poor Miss Wickham. She did hate dying."
Miss Pringle had a sort of triumph. She had proved her point. Even Mrs. Hubbard could not doubt it now! "That's the extraordinary part of it. I believe you were really fond of her."
"Do you know that for nearly a year she would eat nothing but what I gave her with my own hands. And she liked me as much as she was capable of liking anybody."
"That wasn't much," Miss Pringle permitted herself.
"And then I was so dreadfully sorry for her."
"Good heavens!"
"She'd been a hard and selfish woman all her life, and there was no one who cared for her," Nora went on passionately. "It seemed so dreadful to die like that and leave not a soul to regret one. Her nephew and his wife were just waiting for her death. It was dreadful. Each time they came down from London I could see them looking at her to see if she was any worse than when last they'd seen her."
"Well," said Miss Pringle with a sort of splendid defiance, "I thought her a horrid old woman, and I'm glad she's dead. And I only hope she's left you well provided for."
"Oh, I think she's done that," Nora smiled happily into her friend's face. "Yes, I can be quite sure of that, I fancy. Two years ago, when I--when I nearly went away, she said she'd left me enough to live on."
They walked on for a moment or two in silence until they had reached the end of the path, where there was a little arbor in which Miss Wickham had been in the habit of having her tea afternoons when the weather permitted.
"Do you think we would run any risk if we sat down here a few moments? Suppose we try it. We can walk again if you feel in the least chilled. I think the view so lovely from here. Besides, I can see the carriage the moment it enters the gate."
Miss Pringle sat down with the air of a person who was hardly conscious of what she was doing.
"You say she told you she had left you something when you nearly went away," she went on in the hesitating manner of one who has been interrupted while reading aloud and is not quite sure that she has resumed at the right place. "You mean when that assistant of Dr. Evans wanted to marry you? I'm glad you wouldn't have him."
"He