"There! Sit you down!" said Mrs. Chubb. "And I'll bring you the coffee."

Melisande looked round the room when she was alone, at the pictures—most of them in pastel shades depicting groups of plump young women and graceful men—and the daguerrotype showing two people looking rather self-conscious; as one of these was undoubtedly Mrs. Chubb, Melisande supposed the other to be Mr. Chubb.

But her mind was too full of what had happened to allow her to consider Mr. and Mrs. Chubb for long. She had found a haven— if only a temporary one—and she now felt that she had time to think of what she must do.

She must never see Fermor again. She could never be happy with him, for she would never forget Caroline's face as she had stood before her. If Caroline had killed herself, she, Melisande, was to blame. Murderess! Wenna's words would always be with her. She would hear them in her sleep, she fancied; they would break through into every happy moment.

She could not go back to Fenella's. She hated the house now. It seemed sinister with its rich furnishings and air of voluptuousness. She would not allow them to assess her as they had done, to set her up in the market place.

All love was drained from her; she could feel nothing but hatred and contempt; and she felt now that she hated herself most of all.

Mrs. Chubb came in with the coffee.

"There! You like the room?"

"Very much. That is a picture of you and your husband?"

"That's right. Me and the dear departed."

"I am sorry."

Mrs. Chubb wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. She looked at the picture and recited as she must have done so many times before: "A better man never lived. His only concern was to provide for me after he had gone."

There was a respectful silence. Then Mrs. Chubb released the corner of her apron and smiled brightly. "There! All right?"

"It is very good, thank you."

"You're welcome."

Mrs. Chubb's way of breaking down reserve was to talk about herself. Confidences were like gifts between nice people, she believed; they had to be exchanged.

"That was just before he died," she said nodding at the daguerrotype. "It's two years come June since I buried him."

"I ... I see."

"A good man. We was in service together. That's how we met. But Mr. Chubb, he was the go-ahead sort. He wasn't going to stay in service all his life. Saved, he did. He had a legacy—he was thought the world of by the lady and gentleman—and he put it into two houses. He was a planner, he was. That's for you, Alice, he used to say, for after I'm gone. So he put the money into two houses—this one and the one next door. I get the next door's rent—and better tenants there never was. Mr. Chubb saw to that. And here I am with a roof over my head and taking a lodger to help things out. That's what Mr. Chubb did for me."

"You were very lucky."

"My luck came when I met Mr. Chubb. I say to young ladies who haven't got to the married state ... I always say: 'May you meet another like Mr. Chubb.' I say it to you now... that's if you haven't reached that state, Miss."

"No," said Melisande, "I haven't."

Mrs. Chubb was relieved. She didn't believe in trouble between husbands and wives.

"Feeling better now? You're looking it."

"Thank you, yes."

"And you'll not be having your things sent?"

"No. I have no things."

"Well, they're very nice, what you're wearing. But you'll want some things, won't you?"

"Perhaps I can buy them."

"Oh, I see. This shock like... . You've quarrelled with your people, have you? I'm not nosy. Mr. Chubb used to say: ' Alice, Mrs. Chubb, my dear, you're one of the few women without a nose.' That was his joke. He was full of jokes. It's just to be prepared for callers ... that's all, Miss."

"I don't think there'll be any callers."

"All on your own, eh?"

"Yes. You ... er ... you have been in service, have you?"

Mrs. Chubb was smiling broadly. Here it came. Confidence for confidence. Sympathy had the same effect on reserve as hot water on a bottle stopper that wouldn't open.

"Head housemaid, and Mr. Chubb, he went from pantry boy, footman to butler. He was a man to rise in the world."

"Do you think I could be a lady's maid ... or companion?"

"No doubt about it, Miss. Being foreign ... that's what they like lady's maids to be. Can you crimp the hair and do that sort of thing? I remember there was a foreign lady's maid in our last place. Such an outlandish name she had. And she did well for herself."

"You see, I shall have to earn a living."

Mrs. Chubb nodded. As a lady's maid she wouldn't be needing the room, would she? So she had only taken the room until she found a job. Mrs. Chubb was disappointed, but only mildly, for she liked what she called experiences as well as lodgers; and thanks to the wisdom of Mr. Chubb, she could rub along all right without letting her upstairs room. Moreover instinct had told her that she was going to like this girl, and instinct would not be disobeyed.

"Any experience, Miss? That's what they all want."

"Well, I have been a companion."

"They'll want references."

The girl turned pale. Oh dear, thought Mrs. Chubb. Been up to something!

Instinct flinched but stood firm. She's all right. Mrs. Chubb dismissed her suspicions. I'd trust a girl with a face like that. Obviously it was some brute of a man who, unchivalrous and unChubblike, had forced his attentions upon her. That explained everything. That was why she had run away.

"Unless," said Mrs. Chubb, "you had a very good recommendation from someone."

"I ... I understand. How does one start looking for such a post, Mrs. Chubb?"

"So that's what you're going to start doing?" Well, said Mrs. Chubb to herself, I do like honesty. Most would have pretended they wanted the room for ever. I told you so, said instinct. She's honest.

"I ... I want to. In fact ... I must ... soon, of course."

"Well, sometimes they put notices in the papers ... and sometimes one of the other servants recommends a friend ... or perhaps one lady will speak to another for a girl. It's done all ways."

"I shall have to start looking in the papers."

Mrs. Chubb made a decision. She said: "There's Our Ellen."

"Who is that?"

"Our Ellen. Our girl. Mr. Chubb's daughter and mine. She's in service ... in a grand house near the Park. She's got a good job, our Ellen has. She's housekeeper in one of the best houses, with a big staff under her. Now Ellen's got friends all over the place. If any lady was wanting a maid, Ellen would hear of it. Ellen's got her father's head for business. Ellen's doing well for herself."

"You think she would help me?"

"Ellen would do what her mother asked her to. Are you in any hurry?"

"Well, there will be my rent and board. I have only five or six pounds ..."

"That's a fortune!" said Mrs. Chubb.

"It's all I have and I must find something before it goes."

"Ellen will be coming to see me next Wednesday afternoon. That's her day off, and home she comes to her mother. Never fails. We'll have a talk with Ellen."

"You are very good," said Melisande.

Mrs. Chubb saw the tears in the girl's eyes.

Poor dear! thought Mrs. Chubb. Poor pretty dear!

She determined that Ellen must set the poor pretty creature on her feet, not only for the sake of the girl herself, but for the honour of the Chubbs.

Little by little Mrs. Chubb gleaned as much of the story as Melisande felt she could tell her.

She heard of Melisande's life in the Convent and the father who had eventually decided to launch her in the world. Melisande mentioned no names at all. "I was first taken to his house where I had a post as companion to his daughter, but there was gossip. I was treated too well, and the servants guessed I was his daughter."

Mrs. Chubb nodded at that; she was well aware of the sagacity of servants and their unflagging interest in the affairs of their employers.

"So he sent me to a friend of his. A husband was chosen for me, but I could not accept him."

"It's a good thing," said Mrs. Chubb, "that I know the upper classes and what's right and wrong to them. Now if I was like my next door tenant ... why, bless you, my dear, I'd be inclined to think it was something you'd made up."

Melisande did not attempt to describe the nature of Fenella's establishment; she felt it would be something Mrs. Chubb would never understand; nor did she tell of Fermor for, if there was one man in the whole world who lacked the chivalry of Mr. Chubb, that man was Fermor, and Melisande could not afford to lose the sympathy of her new friend—now her only one—by trying to explain that in spite of obvious villainies, she still hankered after him. How could Mrs. Chubb, who had been cherished by a saint, understand the fascinations of a man like Fermor? Mrs. Chubb might even withdraw her good opinion of Melisande if she tried to explain.

A few days after Melisande's arrival at the house, Ellen appeared.

Ellen was a big woman, plump and forceful. "She's got more of her father than me in her," said Mrs. Chubb admiringly.

Ellen, clearly accustomed to parental admiration, sat like a queen in state in the parlour, so that it seemed smaller and more overcrowded than usual. She talked of her own affairs for so long and in such details—speaking of the Lady and Him, and people with names like Rose, Emily, Jane and Mary, all of whom Mrs. Chubb seemed to know very well indeed, for she inquired feelingly after Mary's bad leg, Rose's flirtatiousness, Emily's headaches and Jane's slatternliness—that Melisande feared they would never begin discussing her affairs.

But Mrs. Chubb had not forgotten her.

"Now Miss St. Martin here, Ellen—she wants work, and we've been wondering what you could do for her."

Ellen paused in her flow of talk and turned her heavy body to study Melisande critically.

"She's foreign," said Mrs. Chubb, like a defending lawyer. "That ought to go some way, didn't it, Ellen ... for a lady's maid?"

"Oh ... lady's maid!" said Ellen, and grimaced.

"She's a lady, and educated in a convent."

"Most of them's governesses," said Ellen. "But she's got more the look of a lady's maid than a governess."

"It's good of you to be interested," said Melisande. "Your mother has kindly said you would be, and that you know more than anyone in London when there are such vacancies."

Ellen smiled and waved her hand as though to deny such power, but in a perfunctory way necessitated by modesty rather than the need to admit the truth.

"If you should hear of something for me," went on Melisande, "lady's maid or governess, and could say a word for me, I should be so grateful."

"If there should be something going, you can be sure I'd hear of it, and I don't mind admitting that a word from Ellen Chubb would go a long way."

"You are most kind. Your mother has told me what power and knowledge is yours."

Mrs. Chubb was beaming; she did not know who pleased her more—her lodger-protegee, with her pretty face and charming ways, or her omnipotent, omniscient daughter.

They talked for half an hour of Melisande's qualifications, of her convent education, of her few months' companionship to a lady in the country where she had helped that lady dress and do her hair, had read to her and helped her with her clothes.

"But," said Mrs. Chubb, with winks and distortions of the face, "Miss St. Martin wants no reference made to that young lady."

The winks and distortions meant that there was a good reason for this which Ellen should hear when they were alone.

Ellen looked first grave, then confident. Grave because experience and references were two of the necessities when it came to the ticklish business of getting a job. However, so great was the power of Ellen Chubb that it might be possible—with this power working for Melisande—to dispense with what, in any other circumstances, would have been sheer necessities.

Ellen left the house that day on her mettle.

And, six weeks after Melisande's arrival at Mrs. Chubb's house, she was engaged as lady's maid to Mrs. Lavender.

TWO

The Lavenders lived in a tall narrow house which overlooked Hyde Park.