‘What did he say?’
‘He say: “You nice gal, you come back tomollow. Buy mo’ cone.” I tell him, “Yes, me nice gal. You nice Chinee man. I come tomollow, you give me mo’ cone”.’
‘But, Maisie!’ Haynes was horrified.
‘But, Mr. Haynes! Since the man so fresh! I going tomollow. I will eat his cone, too.’
‘But you are begging for trouble.’
‘Trouble! All he is going to get out of me he get already. And when I’m ready I’ll put him in his place so quick!’
‘Anyway, Maisie, let us forget the Chinaman for a bit. I want to talk to you.’
She looked up quickly at him.
‘Don’t raise your voice though, for Heaven’s sake. Miss Atwell is in Mrs. Rouse’s bedroom, but still you know when you get excited what happens.’
‘All right, Mr. Haynes,’ she said submissively. She seemed to be expecting some revelation.
‘Something happened here this afternoon between you and Philomen.’
‘Oh, that!’ she burst out. ‘That lousy-head coolie girl!’
‘Steady, Maisie. Remember what I told you.’
She quieted down, but she was now all resentment.
‘The girl come in here and start to use your comb and brush, and I stop her. She have no right. All coolie head have lice. And she is too nasty.’
This was an out and out slander of Philomen, who, as is customary with Indians, bathed often, more often than anybody in the house, getting up at extraordinary early hours to do so before her work began. Mrs. Rouse took her weekly all-over wash on Sunday after breakfast; Maisie sometimes three times a day when the weather was hot, but was inclined to avoid it on cold mornings. Miss Atwell went to the bath only at long intervals, but Haynes always heard. Maisie made a public affair of Miss Atwell’s bath. Miss Atwell hit upon the plan of going to the bath only when Maisie was out. Maisie countered by always enquiring as soon as she returned whether Miss Atwell had had a bath.
‘And she always using your soap and toothpaste,’ continued Maisie. ‘If you miss anything, Mr. Haynes, it’s she who take it.’ But Haynes knew even without Mrs. Rouse’s exhortations that this was not true. Philomen was as honest as the day, proud of it, too, and deservedly so. All No. 2 knew it and trusted her implicitly.
‘Now, Maisie, forget about Philomen for a while. What is wrong between yourself and Mrs. Rouse?’
‘What is wrong between Mrs. Rouse and me?’ she said slowly. And then more briskly: ‘I going to tell you, Mr. Haynes, what is causing the whole trouble. Mrs. Rouse is telling everybody that I am the cause of all this business with Mr. Benoit. But she lie—’
‘Not so loud.’
He motioned to her to come and sit nearer to him. She came obediently.
‘That Mr. Benoit! You know he bring his freshness to me, Mr. Haynes.’
‘What!’ said Haynes.
‘Not so loud,’ said Maisie, and laughed uproariously.
‘Yes. But that isn’t what Mrs. Rouse vex with me for. She vex because I know all the time this thing was going on, and I didn’t tell her.’
Maisie chuckled, and though Haynes did not know what she was going to say, he started to chuckle too. Maisie’s laugh was infectious, and of late she was always telling him things that set him chuckling.
‘Let me tell you from the beginning. On mornings, long time ago now, I used to see the nurse and Mr. Benoit, whenever Mrs. Rouse and Philomen gone to market he always talking in her room, they talking and shu-shuing and so on. Then sometimes they used to be in the front bedroom. They had lost the key to the door and as was a bedroom nobody used to worry to open it. So I unlock it early one morning and shut the door just as usual. I was preparing for them.’
Maisie’s good temper was quite returned.
‘Well, I open the door sudden and catch them fair and square on the bed. So I start to laugh. Mr. Benoit jump up and he start to curse, but the nurse (that is a woman, you hear, Mr. Haynes!) all she say is: “Well, what you laughing at? I sure you doing the same thing already.” So I laugh at them and went outside. Little bit after Mr. Benoit come out and he call me. He say, “Hey! You! You better don’t tell your aunt anything what happen this morning. She will corn your behind for you.” “I’s mine she goin’ to corn?” I tell him. He wanted to frighten me, but it take better than him to frighten me, Mr. Haynes. So I went on laughing. Then at the same time the ice cream man was passing. So I tell him, “Look here, buy an ice cream for me or you live in pickle.” He say, “I ain’t have no money, I tell you, and she ain’t have.” I tell him, “I’s nearly nine o’clock. Just now Mrs. Rouse coming. And if you don’t buy twelve cents ice cream for me, I sell you.” So he buy it. After that, Mr. Haynes, I live fat off the two of them. Whenever I wanted ice cream cone, six cents, twelve cents, anything, they used to give me. Now Mrs. Rouse find out that. She say I am the cause of the whole thing. She say if I had told her, all this wasn’t going to happen. But it was all her fault, Mr. Haynes. She knew what she knew and she should have been on the look-out. The man was her man. Was her business to watch him, not mine. I saw my chance to make my little coppers and I make them. You don’t think I was right, Mr. Haynes?’
Haynes did not reply.
‘You think I was wrong, Mr. Haynes? It wasn’t my business. Coppers or no coppers, how could I go and tell Mrs. Rouse that I see Benoit in bed with the nurse.’
‘Quite, Maisie, I agree.’
‘So I wasn’t wrong, Mr. Haynes?’
Her face was half in the shadow from which her eyes shone out, sparkling into his, appealing, and yet with a confidence, half-amused, half-satirical.
‘Say I wasn’t wrong, Mr. Haynes.’
‘No, I can’t blame you, Maisie.’
She smiled a happy, triumphant smile and looked more handsome than he had ever seen her look before.
‘I am going, Mr. Haynes. It’s half-past eight. I have a date. Let Mrs. Rouse say what she like.’
‘Mr. Boyce?’ said Haynes.
‘Yes, Boyce. He want me to prove my love. But let him wait.’
She left, but returned after a minute.
‘If you are lonely I can stay with you, Mr. Haynes.’
‘No, Maisie. I have work to do. You run away to your date.’
And long after she had gone he sat cursing himself for the fool that he was to have missed that chance of keeping her away from the dangerous Boyce, even if he were not himself ready to speak to her.
Chapter Eighteen
One Sunday morning Mrs. Rouse sent to tell Haynes by Maisie that she would be glad if he could spare a few minutes after breakfast.
‘Certainly,’ he told Maisie, and then more quietly: ‘What’s up?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Don’t know. One thing I know she going to talk about Benoit. That man always in the house. When he was living here you couldn’t turn round in the bedroom without seeing him, and now that he gone an hour of the day don’t pass you bound to hear his name.’
After breakfast, with the sun as hot as fire, Haynes waited for Mrs. Rouse, who did not come at once. When she did, she was full of apologies for having kept him. In her hand she held an oblong Japanese box. Haynes gave her a seat, she drew the chair nearer, and unlocking the box took out a bundle of papers, old receipts, a few letters and some little account books, which she placed on the table. She wanted some help in her calculations, and Haynes consenting willingly, she put her position before him.
No. 2 Minty Alley was mortgaged for six hundred dollars at twelve per cent. She was supposed to pay forty-three dollars a quarter – eighteen dollars interest and twenty-five dollars on the principal. But the interest did not lessen as the capital was paid off.
‘But why, Mrs. Rouse?’
‘Mr. Rojas said it wouldn’t pay him, Mr. Haynes, and we wanted the money, so we took it like that.’
No more than a hundred dollars had been paid on the capital. After the first year they had paid nothing but
interest. She wanted to know if she reduced the quarterly amount to twelve dollars and fifty cents, how long it would take to clear the house. About eight years, Haynes told her – if she did not miss.
‘Eight years!’ she said blankly. Eight years of this cake-making business with herself and Philomen.
‘Can’t you make him lower the interest?’
‘No, Mr. Haynes. It is on a Bill of Sale on the house. And I can’t tell him anything. We haven’t paid the principal so long that he have us in his hand. He could take it over at any minute. I tell you he safeguard himself good when he made that mortgage. I am surrounded on all sides … All this persecution, you see I suffering from Benoit and that woman, it’s the house they after, you know.’
‘I don’t quite understand you, Mrs. Rouse.’
‘The house is what they want to get. This house, No. 2, Minty Alley.’
‘I thought it was your house.’
‘Yes, but let me explain.’
She took off her glasses. ‘I thought you knew. The house is on his name and mine.’
‘I see.’
‘And he and me sign the deed of mortgage to Mr. Rojas. Now Mr. Rojas angry with him how he behave, but Mr. Rojas tell me to be very careful how I do anything because the house is not mine, i’s only half mine. Mr. Benoit fighting to see if I could fail and have to sell out. If Mr. Rojas have to sell me out, we can’t do anything unless Benoit’s name come in. And then he will have to get his share and will spend it on the woman. That is why you see he moving heaven and earth to see me fail in business. Gomes is my chief customer. I can make a little money out of Gomes’s business now that the man is not licking out every spare cent. But once we borrowed a hundred and fifty from Gomes. Benoit and I sign. Whenever I borrow, Mr. Haynes, I always arrange to pay back principal and interest together. Every quarter I giving Benoit the money to pay. I think the man paying. Mr. Haynes, he spend nearly every cent. And now that he leave me the man go to Gomes and tell him if he want his money he better come down on me quick. Gomes send for me and tell me. Now nearly every cent I make is going to Gomes for debt I pay already. You don’t think that is hard, Mr. Haynes?’
Haynes said nothing.
‘Tell me, Mr. Haynes,’ she insisted.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And they haven’t stopped there. The woman believe she is a doctor and know everything. I tell her that I have an uncle in the lunatic asylum, and when I had my first child seventeen years ago I lose my nerves and I talk a little wild. You know how it is at a time like that. Well, I tell her so. And she and he, she put it up to him that if they work their business well, I will go mad. She say I have it in the family. And if I go mad and go up in the asylum he will be in full control of the house and everything as they wish. But I am protected. They can’t harm me. He, the man himself, come and tell me how much they pay him to send me off my head or even kill me sudden. And Mr. Benoit himself is a man that knows things. But when he was with me he tell me one or two things that make it impossible for anybody to harm me, least of all him. The man tell me that when he do his business he see at once that I was too powerful for him. He come and tell me and ask me if I want to send it back where it come from. I tell him, “No. I am not going to do Mr. Benoit evil, I leave him and his wife in the hand of God.” That is what that devil in the shape of man is doing to me, Mr. Haynes, me, the woman who have done so much for him.’
She sat at the table with her arms resting on it, her hands holding some of her papers. Her eyes, fixed on Haynes while she spoke, she suddenly withdrew, and looked for some seconds out of the window, so that it seemed as if she had quite forgotten he was there. Then she heaved a deep sigh and saying, ‘Ha, God,’ she spoke again.
‘That nurse, Mr. Haynes! If you know what she was, the life she used to carry on in that room next door, where Miss Atwell is. I take her and make her something; and look what I get for it. Mr. Haynes, it is hard, hard, hard. I sacrifice myself for both of them, and I lose both of them at one time, my husband and my best friend.’
‘But, you know, Mrs. Rouse, I have often wondered why, as soon as you found out what was going on, you didn’t turn her out?’
She didn’t answer at once.
‘Well, Mr. Haynes, I saw them kissing one day. They swore that was all and I believed her. You see I had got to like her. She was a woman who had nice ways. You have to give the devil his due. She was a nice person to have in a house. She could do nice little things, you know, and keep the house happy. And when I saw them that day she beg so much pardon, and promise so hard not to do it again that I forgive them.’
Haynes shook his head in disapproval.
‘Yes, Mr. Haynes,’ she admitted regretfully. ‘Plenty people blame me. But look at it this way, Mr. Haynes. From the time we take the nurse in we all live like family. And I had liked her little son a lot. When the nurse went out I was in charge of him. Mr. Benoit and Maisie, and his mother, too, all used to ill-treat him, so he clung to me. Well, about May last year I saw them in the dining-room. Mr. Haynes, I didn’t know what to say. And then, you see, I had endorsed a note for her for a hundred and twenty dollars. And she was paying back, but she didn’t pay back as much as half yet. So I had to study my head or else I would have had to pay the money. I make up my mind to wait a little bit and do as if nothing happen, as if I know nothing. But I couldn’t help showing it, Mr. Haynes. She see it too. Anyway, she tell me one morning: “Mrs. Rouse, it seems as if you in distress and I am the cause.” I ask her: “You do me anything? If you do me nothing your conscience is clear.” And nothing more happen that day. But the Sunday night the three of us was eating at the table. I wasn’t saying anything. I couldn’t talk, Mr. Haynes, my heart was too full. He too was frightened ’cause he had a guilty conscience. Well, all of a sudden she burst out crying—’
‘The nurse!’
‘Yes, Mr. Haynes, that nurse. You wouldn’t think she is a woman like that, eh? But she is a funny woman. You never know where you are with her. He ask her what she crying for. And then the whole thing come out. Mr. Haynes, she cry, she cry, she beg my pardon, she say after all I do for her is so she recompense me. She went to the nuns, to Mother Superior, to ask Mother to beg my pardon. Mother send to call me and beg me to forgive her. Mr. Haynes, she spend all Monday afternoon and Monday night in her room crying. She was doubled up under the bed. Yes, she, that same nurse you see always as if nothing trouble her. People tell me was to fool me for me not to put her out. But I don’t think it was that, Mr. Haynes. Still you can never tell – and look what happen now. Anyway, she cry so much I feel sorry for her and I make her get up from where she was on the floor. She fall on me begging pardon, and I comfort her and I tell her I forgive her. I tell her I see that her repentance was sincere and I wouldn’t bear anything in mind against her. This is my words to her, “Nurse, I been living long in the world and I know. Men ask the questions and women have to say ‘No,’ but sometimes the women is weak and they try to refuse and they can’t.” I call Mr. Benoit by himself in the kitchen and I tell him what I had to tell him. Well, everything quiet down. He come to me after and he promise nothing wouldn’t happen again. He said it wasn’t the nurse fault. It was he who held her and kiss her. And that stop for a long time. I am sure it stop, Mr. Haynes. I used to keep an eye on them and I had a servant used to watch them for me.’
‘Wilhelmina?’
‘No, not Wilhelmina. Another one. It really had stopped. We all live good. Until about October so, somebody tell me they were meeting outside. And the man leave me and get married so quick, Mr. Haynes, that I can’t realize it. I sit down sometimes and wonder if it is true.’
‘The temptation was too great to have them living in the house together.’
‘So everybody say,’ agreed Mrs. Rouse, sadly. ‘But the man, Mr. Haynes, the man should have remembered all that I do for him, all I have been to him. All my youth and strength I devote to Mr. Benoit and look how he recompense me. Mr. Haynes, I have been an unhappy w
oman in my life. Twice I make a venture with a man and twice I fail. I married, as a young woman of nineteen, to Mr. Rouse. I grew up as a young lady in my mother’s house, Mr. Haynes. I used to sing in the choir. I didn’t used to work. I used to make cakes and I was a good hand at it. But that was for my home, Mr. Haynes, and for my friends. It was not to sell.
‘After I was married eighteen months, my husband start to be unfaithful to me. He used to be living with a woman before he marry me, and the woman went away when he got married. But she came right back to Trafalgar, where I come from, and she wasn’t there a month before he go back to her. And then was constant quarrelling. He come home night after night one, two, three o’clock. Ah! Mr. Haynes, women have to suffer too much from men. And my temper was always hot. Sometimes he didn’t used to come at all. Then the woman start to throw remarks at me when I was walking in the street and my mother tell me to leave him. I leave him and went home. I didn’t ask him for no support, Mr. Haynes, and he and the woman leave and go to America. I stay home for two or three years and then I started to make cakes and bread and send out. Once you married you know, Mr. Haynes, you can’t go back as a young lady doing nothing. And I wanted something to do. Well, I was getting on very well when Mr. Benoit propose to me. At first I didn’t want to take him, but afterwards I tell him, yes. I had some money, and he had some, too, not much, and we open together. Mr. Haynes, the man write for me, yes! and write my mother too. He promise to do all in his power to make me happy, and to be true and kind and faithful all the days of his life. A little before he went I show him the letter and tell him: “You didn’t only tell me. You write it. And words pass away. But black and white remain forever.” He say: “Oh, that’s old talk!” You see at men, Mr. Haynes!
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