FullReads

Very sincerely yours,
ROSAMUNDJEWELL

This she posted as early as possible. The agonies she endured in waiting for a reply served to make her heedless of boarding-house spite, and by the last post that same evening came Geoffrey’s letter. He wrote that her suggestion was startling.”Your motive seems to me very praiseworthy, but whether the thing would be possible is another question. I dare not take upon myself the responsibil
ity of counselling you to such a step. Pray, take time, and think. I am most grieved to hear of your difficulties, but is there not some better way out of them?”

Yes, there it was! Geoffrey Hunt could not believe in her power to doanything praiseworthy. So had it been six years ago, when she would have gone through flood and flame to win his admiration. But in those days she was a girlish simpleton; she had behaved idiotically. It should be different now; were it at the end of her life, she would prove to him that he had slighted her unjustly!

Brave words, but Rosamund attached some meaning to them. The woman in her–the ever-prevailing woman–was wrought by fears and vanities, urgencies and desires, to a strange point of exaltation. Forthwith, she wrote again: “Send me, I entreat you, Mrs. Halliday’s address. I will go and see her. No, I can’t do anything but work with my hands. I am no good for anything else. If Mrs. Halliday refuses me, I shall go as a servant into some other house. Don’t mock at me; I don’t deserve it. Write at once.”

Till midnight she wept and prayed.

Geoffrey sent her the address, adding a few dry words: “If you are willing and able to carry out this project, your ambition ought to be satisfied. You will have done your part towards solving one of the gravest problems of the time.” Rosamund did not at once understand; when the writer’s meaning grew clear, she kept repeating the words, as though they were a new gospel. Yes! she would be working nobly, helping to show a way out of the great servant difficulty. It would be an example to poor ladies, like herself, who were ashamed of honest work. And Geoffrey Hunt was looking on. He must needs marvel; perhaps he would admire greatly; perhaps–oh, oh!

Of course, she found a difficulty in wording her letter to the lady who had never heard of her, and of whom she knew practically nothing. But zeal surmounted obstacles. She began by saying that she was in search of domestic employment, and that, through her friends at Teddington, she had heard of Mrs. Halliday as a lady who might perhaps consider her application. Then followed an account of herself, tolerably ingenuous, and an amplification of the phrases she had addressed to Geoffrey Hunt. On an afterthought, she enclosed a stamped envelope.

Whilst the outcome remained dubious, Rosamund’s behaviour to her fellow-boarders was a pattern of offensiveness. She no longer shunned them–seemed, indeed, to challenge their observation for the sake of meeting it with arrogant defiance. She rudely interrupted conversations, met sneers with virulent retorts, made herself the common enemy. Mrs. Banting was appealed to; ladies declared that they could not live in a house where they were exposed to vulgar insult. When nearly a week had passed Mrs. Banting found it necessary to speak in private with Miss Jewell, and to make a plaintive remonstrance. Rosamund’s flashing eye and contemptuous smile foretold the upshot.

“Spare yourself, Mrs. Banting. I leave the house to-morrow.”

“Oh, but–“

“There is no need for another word. Of course, I shall pay the week in lieu of notice. I am busy, and have no time to waste.”