WITH all the haste he could make, it was one o’clock in the afternoon before Mr. Orridge’s professional avocations allowed him to set forth in his gig for Mrs. Norbury’s house. He drove there with such good-will that he accomplished the half-hour’s journey in twenty minutes. The footman having heard the rapid approach of the gig, opened the hall door the instant the horse was pulled up before it, and confronted the doctor with a smile of malicious satisfaction.
“Well,” said Mr. Orridge, bustling into the hall, “you were all rather surprised last night when the housekeeper came back, I suppose?”
“Yes, Sir, we certainly were surprised when she came back last night,” answered the footman; “but we were still more surprised when she went away again this morning.”
“Went away! You don’t mean to say she is gone?”
“Yes, I do, Sir — she has lost her place, and gone for good.” The footman smiled again, as he made that reply; and the housemaid, who happened to be on her way downstairs while he was speaking, and to hear what he said, smiled too. Mrs. Jazeph had evidently been no favorite in the servants’ hall.
Amazement prevented Mr. Orridge from uttering another word. Hearing no more questions asked, the footman threw open the door of the breakfast-parlor, and the doctor followed him into the room. Mrs. Norbury was sitting near the window in a rigidly upright attitude, inflexibly watching the proceedings of her invalid child over a basin of beef-tea.
“I know what you are going to talk about before you open your lips,” said the outspoken lady. “But just look to the child first, and say what you have to say on that subject, if you please, before you enter on any other.”
The child was examined, was pronounced to be improving rapidly, and was carried away by the nurse to lie down and rest a little. As soon as the door of the room had closed, Mrs. Norbury abruptly addressed the doctor, interrupting him, for the second time, just as he was about to speak.
“Now, Mr. Orridge,” she said, “I want to tell you something at the outset. I am a remarkably just woman, and I have no quarrel with you. You are the cause of my having been treated with the most audacious insolence by three people — but you are the innocent cause, and, therefore, I don’t blame you.”
“I am really at a loss,” Mr. Orridge began, “quite at a loss, I assure you — ”
“To know what I mean?” said Mrs. Norbury. “I will soon tell you. Were you not the original cause of my sending my housekeeper to nurse Mrs. Frankland?”
“Yes.” Mr. Orridge could not hesitate to acknowledge that.
“Well,” pursued Mrs. Norbury, “and the consequence of my sending her is, as I said before, that I am treated with unparalleled insolence by no less than three people. Mrs. Frankland takes an insolent whim into her head, and affects to be frightened by my housekeeper. Mr. Frankland shows an insolent readiness to humor that whim, and hands me back my housekeeper as if she was a bad shilling; and last, and worst of all, my housekeeper herself insults me to my face as soon as she comes back — insults me, Mr. Orridge to that degree that I give her twelve hours’ notice to leave the place. Don’t begin to defend yourself! I know all about it; I know you had nothing to do with sending her back; I never said you had. All the mischief you have done is innocent mischief. I don’t blame you, remember that — whatever you do, Mr. Orridge, remember that!”
“I had no idea of defending myself,” said the doctor, “for I have no reason to do so. But you surprise me beyond all power of expression when you tell me that Mrs. Jazeph treated you with incivility.”
“Incivility!” exclaimed Mrs. Norbury. “Don’t talk about incivility — it’s not the word. Impudence is the word — brazen impudence. The only charitable thing to say of Mrs. Jazeph is that she is not right in her head. I never noticed anything odd about her myself; but the servants used to laugh at her for being as timid in the dark as a child, and for often running away to her candle in her own room when they declined to light the lamps before the night had fairly set in. I never troubled my head about this before; but I thought of it last night, I can tell you, when I found her looking me fiercely in the face, and contradicting me flatly the moment I spoke to her.”
“I should have thought she was the very last woman in the world to misbehave herself in that way,” answered the doctor.
“Very well. Now hear what happened when she came back last night,” said Mrs. Norbury. “She got here just as we were going upstairs to bed. Of course, I was astonished; and, of course, I called her into the drawing-room for an explanation. There was nothing very unnatural in that course of proceeding, I suppose? Well, I noticed that her eyes were swollen and red, and that her looks were remarkably wild and queer; but I said nothing, and waited for the explanation. All that she had to tell me was that something she had unintentionally said or done had frightened Mrs. Frankland, and that Mrs. Frankland’s husband had sent her away on the spot. I disbelieved this at first — and very naturally, I think — but she persisted in the story, and answered all my questions by declaring that she could tell me nothing more. ‘So then,’ I said, ‘I am to believe that, after I have inconvenienced myself by sparing you, and after you have inconvenienced yourself by undertaking the business of nurse, I am to be insulted, and you are to be insulted, by your being sent away from Mrs. Frankland on the very day when you get to her, because she chooses to take a whim into her head?’ ‘I never accused Mrs. Frankland of taking a whim into her head,’ said Mrs. Jazeph, and stares me straight in the face, with such a look as I never saw in her eyes before, after all my five years’ experience of her. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, giving her back her look, I can promise you. ‘Are you base enough to take the treatment you have received in the light of a favor?’ ‘I am just enough,’ said Mrs. Jazeph, as sharp as lightning, and still with that same stare straight at me — ‘I am just enough not to blame Mrs. Frankland.’ ‘Oh, you are, are you?’ I said. ‘Then all I can tell you is, that I feel this insult, if you don’t; and that I consider Mrs. Frankland’s conduct to be the conduct of an ill-bred, impudent, capricious, unfeeling woman.’ Mrs. Jazeph takes a step up to me — takes a step, I give you my word of honor — and says distinctly, in so many words, ‘Mrs. Frankland is neither ill-bred, impudent, capricious, nor unfeeling.’ ‘Do you mean to contradict me, Mrs. Jazeph?’ I asked. ‘I mean to defend Mrs. Frankland from unjust imputations,’ says she. Those were her words, Mr. Orridge — on my honor, as a gentlewoman, those were exactly her words.”
The doctors face expressed the blankest astonishment. Mrs. Norbury went on —
“I was in a towering passion — I don’t mind confessing that, Mr. Orridge — but I kept it down. ‘Mrs. Jazeph,’ I said, ‘this is language that I am not accustomed to, and that I certainly never expected to hear from your lips. Why you should take it on yourself to defend Mrs. Frankland for treating us both with contempt, and to contradict me for resenting it, I neither know nor care to know. But I must tell you, in plain words, that I will............