The Equations of Love (21 page)

“You all right, Madam?” she called, and, smiling, went to the kitchen, never hurrying, moving always well and quickly. What should we do without her, thought Mrs. Butler, I’ve got to be so lazy I’m almost helpless, and, looking after Lilly, she felt secure.

Lilly laid down her parcels, speeded up the fire, put in the roast, put aside the vegetables and set out Eleanor’s tea. While Eleanor ate her tea, Lilly prepared the vegetables. Everything in the kitchen was neat, clean, and in order. Everything in Lilly’s mind was neat and in order. Below the surface of her mind which was busy in routine, her new comprehension did not seethe and disturb her. It hardened. When she had served the accustomed dinner, when Eleanor was in bed, Lilly went out for a while into the summer dusk and examined this projected change of scene and life. Then she went upstairs and studied the advertisements for help wanted, from beginning to end. Downstairs Major and Mrs. Butler sat, secure, they thought; making flies for fishing, talking, reading, yawning, and then going to bed. Upstairs Lilly considered once more Mr. Meeker’s talk, seeing again plainly all that it implied, and weighing again present security and comfort against Eleanor’s future. She returned, confirmed in her decision, to the rattling news paper. And Eleanor, murmuring sometimes, lay in the innocent abandon of a child’s sleep which was the only thing that sometimes seized and tightened Lilly’s heart as she looked at her.

T
he household went its usual way, and Lilly’s purpose matured. At night in her room she pencilled tentative answers to advertisements, licking the pencil stub. She was afraid of making mistakes for she had had no occasion to write letters and did not know what to say. She expressed herself with rather more ease than she would have done seven years ago, and was able to regard her efforts more critically. She picked Mrs. Butler’s torn-up correspondence out of the wastepaper baskets and scrutinized the letter-endings. “Yours” … “Always your loving …” “Yours sincerely” … “Respectfully” … “truly” … “devotedly” … Of the contents of the letters she cared nothing, but – as in life – she took what she needed, and left the rest. One night, as Eleanor peacefully slept, and Major and Mrs. Butler sat reading downstairs, unaware that their foundations were crumbling, Lilly wrote with care

There
, said Lilly, having read it again and again.

Ten days later she went into the room where Mrs. Butler was sitting. Lilly had a duster in her hand. She took the frail limp duster as her only support, although she needed little support for what she was going to do. She knew what she was going to say to Mrs. Butler, but she did not quite know what she was going to do to her, and she gave that no thought. Performance of a duty well and constantly and with what appears to be affection over a long period of time generates a responsibility and obligation on the part of the server to the served one, and on the part of the served one to the server. Something unique has grown up, they find, between them. They do not observe it until stress or trouble comes, and then the tie is apparent; it is close and perhaps painful, and the obligation one to another is there and can seldom be denied. But Lilly was immune to this and, infused only with her passion for her child, she was able to undo the buckle that bound her to Mrs. Butler, let drop the band, and the dismayed Mrs. Butler was to be to Lilly as though she was not. I shall tell her we’re going, she said to herself. And then she found that she could not easily tell her why. If I tell her what old Meeker said and how it started me thinking, they’ll argue argue argue. “Oh Hughesy” she mimicked in her mind, “don’t pay attention to silly old Meeker … Eleanor’s as much a lady as …” no, thought Lilly, it’d be all words, and all the time Eleanor’d just
be the maid’s child and they know it, and they’d fight to keep me here for their own comfort. I’ll not argue. I’ll just say “It’s time to go.”

Gentle, placid, obstinate, Lilly stood over Mrs. Butler, and looking down at her with freshened eyes thought How coarse and grey her hair’s getting. “Madam,” she said.

Mrs. Butler looked up from her letters and smiled. “Yes?”

“We’re going, Madam,” said Lilly simply.

“Going where?” asked Mrs. Butler serenely.

“Going. Leaving. Going away,” said Lilly, holding her duster between her hands.

Mrs. Butler’s eyes widened and changed as a faint shock went through her. “Hughesy … what are you saying … you don’t mean it … why … this is your home!”

“No it isn’t, Madam. It’s yours and the Major’s home. We’re going.”

“But Hughesy … Mrs. Hughes …” said Mrs. Butler, incredulous, suddenly seeing before her a stranger in the place of the woman she thought she knew. “What has happened?”

“Nothing,” said Lilly.

“Then why are you suddenly going?”

“It’s time,” said Lilly.

“Come now, Mrs. Hughes,” and Mrs. Butler began to feel hurt, “you can … you should … at least tell me what has made you do this!”

“It’s time to go,” said Lilly stubbornly.

Mrs. Butler reflected – and hated herself for reflecting – how much she had done for Eleanor, and how much she cared for the child who was now to be removed, and how much she resented having been simple enough to think that all was well, while something, something – what? – had not been well. Had she been stupid? Had Maurice … what had Maurice done?

She spoke slowly. “Have I done something to hurt you … or annoy you, Hughesy?”

“No, Madam.”

“Has … Major Butler done anything … that … has he … spoken sharply … perhaps … or …?”

In the pause while Lilly thought, before answering, I’ll be kinda sorry to leave the Major, he’s real good to Eleanor, Mrs. Butler thought swiftly and with pain Oh, she’s not answering directly. It’s that! Is it Maurice again – and with this girl, this common common girl! And Lilly changed as she stood there from being just Hughesy, and a woman giving notice, to being a common common girl to whom Maurice had again turned as twice before, and had caused her – his wife – to suffer pain, and humiliation, and to forgive. And these affairs of Maurice’s (so she couldn’t hold him, it was clear, she need not deceive herself) came sharply in memory to her with the old sickening pang, not to be spoken of, ever, and hardly to be borne in memory.

“Oh no, Madam,” said Lilly after the pause.

Mrs. Butler looked at her with pain and dislike. How much had happened to drive away this girl? Maurice, I can never ask you, and you will never tell me … oh perhaps nothing has happened, nothing at all, and I am cruel and unfair. And then memory sprang at her again.

“Have you nothing to tell me, Mrs. Hughes, no reason to give?” she said.

“No, Madam. Only it’s time to go,” said Lilly.

“Are your plans made, or are you just … going …?”

Lilly hesitated, and then said “I’m going to be housekeeper in a country hospital, Madam. It’s a good job and good pay.”

Mrs. Butler’s hope leapt. “Is it more wages you want, Hughesy?”

“Oh no, Madam,” said Lilly. She was so evidently sincere that Mrs. Butler was chagrined. It was something else that now raised its head and struck at her. I’m very foolish, sighed Mrs. Butler within herself, to feel as I do. What has happened? A maid who has a child of whom I am fond has given me notice and will not say why. And I am shaken and disturbed and all my old terrors are awake again. I am not wise to seek below the surface. Poor Maurice. And she tried to assume, before her own eyes, the demeanour of the mistress who is parting with dignity from a maid whose work she respects, whose character she now has reason to doubt, but for whose frailty she must, as a superior being, have compassion. She must remain unmoved if she was to respect herself.

“Very well, Hughesy,” she said, with a small smile, “we shall be sorry to see you go, and very very sorry to part with Eleanor, but you must do as you think fit. When do you want to go?”

“I think two weeks will do me, Madam,” said Lilly suddenly after seven years.

“Two … !” echoed Mrs. Butler, startled, and then recovering herself. “Will you give me my account book … no … the third drawer on the left. Thank you.” Re-established in a shaking calm and dignity by the third drawer on the left, Mrs. Butler scanned her account book with eyes that did not see, and Lilly, standing a moment, but dismissed, left the room. If there had been a battle, Mrs. Butler had won. But there had been no battle. Lilly was leaving, and had now proceeded another step on her planned way.

She went into the small yellow drawing room with the duster in her hand. Light fell in pools on the shining floor, wavering as the translucent vine leaves of that summer wavered outside the windows. The Chinese horse and the
Chinese hound still stood timelessly upon the mantelpiece, reflected in the gold-rimmed mirror, and Lilly saw the room for a moment with new eyes, the eyes that say farewell, I shall not see you again … I am leaving you behind. The hound and the horse took upon themselves a changed aspect, the aspect of goodbye. This gave Lilly no pang. She proceeded to sweep and dust.

Mrs. Butler recovered herself and went out to find her husband in the garden.

“I have had a surprise,” she said, and in order to be fair to him she did not watch him as she spoke. She looked over the hedge at the sea. “Hughesy says she’s leaving.”

“Leaving! What the devil … what’s she leaving for?”

Oh, she thought, he
is
surprised … he sounds surprised … and she looked at him.

“She won’t say. She just says ‘It’s time’ and she won’t say another thing … have
you
any idea, Maurice … what have we done? … I thought we were happy … I don’t know … there must be
some
thing … but she won’t say … she just says ‘It’s time to go.’”

Maurice Butler, injured as we are injured when we have given ourselves – the best gift we have – and the gift is disregarded, thought of the child that he had treated as his own, and of Lilly’s mild acceptance. He thought, for a moment only, of his distant folly. He thought of his wife and of himself, indulged by circumstance and by Lilly, and he grew very angry.

“
I’ll
talk to her!” he said.

“Well,” said his wife, “do as you like about that, but it won’t do any good, you won’t change her and I don’t think you’ll get anything more out of her, and if you’re angry it’ll just make the last few days unpleasant.”

“Well, if she’s going to be unpleasant she can go at once,” said her husband unreasonably, and, unreasonably, Mrs. Butler’s spirits lifted. No, it’s not Maurice … it’s something secret of her own, the queer girl, she thought.

So Major and Mrs. Butler left for a visit to Victoria, where they had charming friends. They needed a change, one gets tired of the country they said, and in Victoria, also, one can more easily engage good domestic help than in the country. And Lilly, unperturbed, cleaned the house punctiliously, and then left Comox, and took Eleanor, and went to work in a small hospital in the Fraser Valley, where Mrs. Walter Hughes, the efficient and experienced housekeeper, had a cottage adjoining the hospital for herself and her well mannered and nicely spoken child Eleanor. In this way all the unpleasantness of parting was cleverly avoided. In Lilly’s mind was no regret; in the minds of Major and Mrs. Butler was the resentment of those who have been betrayed ever so little; and in Eleanor was the baffling loss of her gods, with passing tears, and a memory that faded, until only the legends remained fixed in her mind of a lady who was kind and not pretty and of a big man whose voice and shadow Eleanor loved above everything and of the big dog and the small dog and the cat and the kittens – and wasn’t there a china dog and a horse, yellow, that mustn’t be touched, on the mantelpiece? Yes, there was.

Soon after arriving in the Valley Lilly gave Eleanor a kitten of her own and the kitten established Eleanor as an owner. An acuteness on Lilly’s part distinguished between Eleanor receiving generosity, even if it were given freely and without any smirch of patronage, and Eleanor enjoying the simplest of possessions in her own right. The days of accepting were over for Mrs. Hughes and her little daughter.

Lilly spoke sharply to Eleanor when the child forgot her accustomed manners or when her voice (soft like Mrs. Butler’s voice and admired by Lilly) rose to the pitch of the schoolroom voices. She was intuitive, a little shy, but merry; she liked games and loved the new experience of playing with other children. She mingled, but did not excel. People noticed that little Eleanor Hughes with her shy yet responsive smile was a lovely child and not, somehow, like her mother’s daughter. But – it was generally understood – her father, the late Mr. Walter Hughes, had been a man of very good family, from – vaguely – the Maritimes. He was superior in education to his wife who had been, as she said, only a country girl. But she was a nice-looking young woman of ability who became respected in the Valley and was soon appreciated for her trained quick efficiency by the Matron of the Hospital.

No doubt the child resembled her father and his family. Comments and queries soon died away, and Mrs. Walter Hughes and her little daughter gradually became Valley people.

P
icture then Lilly and the child in the small cottage situated behind the little two-storeyed Valley Hospital. The cottage was of one room with a shabby fireplace, a bedroom, a washroom and a small kitchen. The place was clean but worn. It was furnished with leftover and handed-down furniture. The chairs sagged, the table and chest of drawers were scratched and scuffed, the carpet was an ancient drab. But when Lilly and Eleanor and their small baggage were within, and the door was closed, and Lilly, looking out of the window, saw the retreating form of the hospital Matron and knew that she and her child were in this home of their own, she experienced a joy that she had never known before. This most precious thing of four walls, roof, windows and one outer door was hers. She who had been homeless, had now a home, and in Lilly’s eyes, this conferred a dignity upon her. Here was a door which Mrs. Hughes could close when the day’s work was done, and behind which she could be at home. She looked into the bedroom where there was a large shabby double bed for herself and Eleanor. There was nothing to commend the room except that it was hers. Her room at Mrs. Butler’s had been a better
room, yet it was not Lilly’s room in the sense that this small square uncompromising place was hers. A warmth of affection rushed from Lilly as she looked about her shabby house. It humanized her. She had learned enough from Mrs. Butler (whom she had now so easily discarded) to know what she could do to this little place with pots of paint and some bright cotton. The Matron, returning to the hospital, reflected with a quizzical smile that the new housekeeper was a young woman of few words, that she seemed to know what would be required of her but it was impossible to tell what she thought of her living accommodation. The Matron had shown Lilly into the cottage with misgiving. There were no funds available for refurnishing and she was afraid that Mrs. Hughes might show dissatisfaction. Mrs. Hughes showed nothing, and the Matron could not have guessed what unaccustomed and melting joy overflowed Lilly as she entered for the first time her own home. That joy became as time went on a placid satisfaction and the mark of her freedom and her dignity. She was not “Butlers’ maid.” She was Mrs. Hughes, housekeeper at the Valley Hospital, who had her own house, with a front door that could be opened – or shut. And this little girl who ran about and pulled out the drawers that stuck so badly, and jumped on the bouncing big bed, was not “the maid’s child at Butlers’ place” any more. She was Eleanor Hughes, daughter of Mrs. Walter Hughes who lived in this little house.