“No need to tell me that, Miss Verena. I’ve eyes in my head, you know.”
Verena grimaced. “Don’t scold, pray.”
Betsey looked her over, and then plonked down on the bed beside her. “What’s amiss?” she asked bluntly. “Apart from the usual, that is.”
“Isn’t the usual bad enough?”
“That will do, that will,” said Betsey. “I’ve just been giving you an account of the mistress, and you’ve confessed to having yourhead in the clouds, Miss Verena. So don’t you give me none of that. What’s happened to put you all in a pother?”
Verena sighed. “I am being foolish, that is all.”
Betsey’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t fob me off, Miss Verena, so don’t think it. He’s back, is he?”
Startled, Verena gaped at her. “Who?”
“Never you mind asking who. You know well enough who. You don’t reckon there’s anything goes on in this town as I don’t hear about, do you? Specially as it concerns you or the mistress.”
Verena’s heart sank. There could be no doubting what Betsey meant. “Mrs Quirk!”
“The same.”
“What has she said? Why didn’t you mention it before? Oh, Betsey, for the love of heaven, say nothing — not a word — to Mama, I pray you.”
“Never you fret, Miss Verena,” soothed the maid. “You don’t reckon as how I’d open me mouth to the mistress on a matter so delicate.”
But Verena was not impressed. If she had been concerned before, she was now anxious beyond measure. She knew well that the maid had her interests at heart almost as deeply as did Mama, and she had often enough lamented the self-same thing that Mama was apt to do — the lack in her life of a husband and children.
“Betsey, she must not know! Not that there is anything to know, but if Mama were to hear of this interest, there is no saying what she might not take it into her head to do. You must promise me you will say nothing.”
“I’ve said so already, Miss Verena. You don’t need to tell me. I know the sort of riot and rumpus she’ll kick up if she thinks you have a suitor. And with the way she’s been carrying on lately…”
Suddenly intent, Verena gazed at her. Yes, Betsey had been talking, and she had failed to take it in. She had not listened,because she was herself aware of some progress. Mama was like a convalescent invalid these days. She had improved in physical strength, seeming to need less time at rest. But as that strength grew, so her spirits seemed to gain, not in joy, but in anxiety. She was restless and fidgety, and much inclined to bemoan their sedentary life here, remembering too often the activities in which she had been engaged at home. It was worrying enough, but what had she missed that Betsey had said?
“What are you trying to tell me, Betsey?”
“Well, I didn’t want to worrit you, Miss Verena, so I haven’t said nothing,” said the maid bodingly. “But the truth is I don’t like it, and that’s a fact. What with the mistress getting to remembering what she calls ‘the good times’, though I’m danged — if you’ll pardon me, Miss Verena — which times she could call to mind, for I can’t. And not that alone, neither.”
“Heavens, but what more, Betsey?” asked Verena, anguished. How could she have been so selfish as to be troubling herself over Mr Hawkeridge when Mama was hovering on the brink of just what she feared?
“Well, you know as how ever since Mr Adam come the first time, the mistress has been sighing over losing her home and her friends —”
“Yes, I know — and Adam has been here again how many times? Three?”
“Four, counting the last. And the worst of it is, Miss Verena, that every time he comes, she’s at that bottle as if her life depended on it.”
“The laudanum! Dear heaven, why did you not tell me this before? That is just what I have been afraid of, that she will become dependent upon the stuff. I have heard it said that those who take it too often find themselves obliged to do so more and more. Oh, Betsey, what shall we do?”
“Do? I’ve done it,” declared the maid. “Don’t you fret, Miss Verena. There ain’t no harm going to come to the mistress, no matter if she drinks the whole bottle down in one go.” Betsey grinned at the startled question in Verena’s face. “Nothing but sugar water, Miss Verena. I always sweetened it for her when she was drinking the real thing for she complained of its bitterness, so she don’t know the difference.”
Verena found herself laughing and crying at once, seizing the maid’s hands and holding them in a clasp that spoke her gratitude more eloquently than any words. “Oh, Betsey, what should we do without you?”
“That’s more than I know, Miss Verena. But there. We’ll share our little secrets — you with yours and me with mine, and the mistress none the wiser, eh?”
A huge sigh escaped Verena. “You have lifted a load from my mind, Betsey.”
Betsey grunted. “I’m glad of that, and I wish I could do the same for meself. The truth is, Miss Verena, I’m that worrited that she’s thinking of going back.”
Verena patted her hand. “Let her think of it. I won’t let her go back, Betsey. She cannot do so without us, in any event. No, that does not concern me.”
