rough head a whitey-brown cap, which seemed to be endowed with some volatile attribute, and was constantly flying behind or soaring above away from her; with muscular red chapped arms, and a dirty lilac print dress, the seams of which had parted in various places subjected to special tension, and (of course) black stockings, open at the heels, casing legs of substance and ankles of power rather than grace. She had always a scared wild way with her. She tacked and tumbled along a good deal, leaving in her progress the marks of black hands upon walls and doors, and banisters; and when asked questions, had a way of lowering her head menacingly, as though she were about to butt at or to toss her questioner. These qualities allowed for, she was a hard-working, industrious, good-natured and useful domestic, very valuable to No. 67, Stowe Street, and the dwellers therein. Her manner of fetching the beer from the public-house at the corner, it may be particularly noted (and she was frequently out on such a mission, for her employers had a habit of requiring refreshment at almost impossible hours, and so to say, running the Acts of Parliament very fine indeed), was one of the most gallant and intrepid, as it was unquestionably one of the most rapid feats on record.
"Was Madame Boisfleury at home?"
The servant stared at Wilford through the half-opened door, lowering her head with doubtful intentions. She seemed to regard the inquiry as an innovation for which she was totally unprepared, and a reply to it as decidedly out of her range of duties, and to conquer with difficulty a strong impulse prompting her to slam-to the door and hurry from the scene. Finally, she admitted the visitor to the door-mat—leaving him there stranded, as it were, on a desert island, "to go and see." She was sometime gone; meanwhile the visitor, quite unconsciously was the subject of considerable curiosity and contemplation on the part of several spectators resident in the house, who hung over the staircase in almost dangerous attitudes the better to view him. Finally the servant returned. Much talking and hurrying about, and banging of doors, had been heard in her absence. As in her ascent, so in her descent, she manifested an unchariness connected with the display of her hose, that, considering its want of repair, was decidedly remarkable.
"Madame was at home, on the second-floor—would he walk up?" He would—and he did. The servant thereupon left him to his own resources, and forthwith precipitated herself down the kitchen stairs with singular recklessness. But she laid stress on speed; and as she had found by experience that people often got down stairs more quickly by falling than by a more gradual and safer method, she elected as a rule the former procedure. It is true that to a bystander it looked a little like suicide; but if speed was gained, pray what did that matter?
The door of the front room on the second floor being open, Wilford entered there. He found himself alone. The room was so respectably furnished that one might have wondered, at a first glance, how it was the general effect was yet so shabby and comfortless. But a very little will give an awry look. The failing here was general untidiness; crooked blinds, tumbled curtains, draggled table-cover, littered mantelpiece, unswept hearth, dull grate, powdered with white ashes, nothing "put away," and every chair occupied by some book, or paper, or parcel, or article of dress; and one over-riding notion as to how much better it would be if the windows could be left open for ever so short a time, and a little fresh air admitted into the place.
There was the rustling of a dress; a tall woman swept into the room.
Old and wrinkled evidently, in spite of her paint (white and red), her glossy false hair, kept in its place by a jewelled fillet, her pencilled eyebrows, her thousand-and-one toilette frauds upon Nature and Time. What a strange sinister look there was in the eyes of this woman!—so restless, yet so weak and mabid, glittering out of a tangle of wrinkles with the sort of ferret-red brilliance of sham-jewels. What hard ugly lines were carven round her features—not ill-formed, but ill-combined—resulting in an expression of treachery and cunning and cruelty! The mouth especially, hard and coarse, and the teeth—greatly revealed when she spoke—large and ill-shapen, and especially bad in hue, thanks, perhaps, to the contrast with the vivid artificial bloom in their neighbourhood. She was attired in greasy black satin, with a handsome India shawl huddled upon her shoulders, probably to conceal the fact that the dress had been hastily assumed, and had not indeed been effectually fastened at the back. She made a low curtsey to her visitor as she closed the door after her, and advanced into the room. Her sly eyes passed rapidly over Wilford. She seemed to prolong her salutation for the express purpose of gaining time and thoroughly examining his looks and bearing, and satisfying herself thereupon. And she was evidently a little unnerved. Her hand shook as she stretched it forth; it was more decorated by jewellery than cleanliness; and her rings had a suspicious look about them. But this might be purely fancy. There are some hands upon which the best of gold appears like brass, and the purest diamond no better than paste.
"Oh! Mr. Hadfield, this is kind," she said, in a hollow, drawling, carnying tone of voice.
Either he did not really see or he purposely disregarded her outstretched hand. Certainly he did not take it, and she calmly withdrew it, but with no air of being offended. For some moments he was silent. He glanced at her, and then averted his eyes. He spoke at last in a low, constrained voice, with evident effort.
"Madame Pichot," he began.
"Boisfleury," she interrupted, holding up her hands with an imploring gesture, "will you oblige me so far? Boisfleury. There are reasons for the change. Not Pichot, thank you—Boisfleury. Will you bear that in mind?"
"The name matters little. Boisfleury, if you will. I have received your letter. You wished to see me. I am here."
"But why this tone?" she asked, affectedly, her head on one side, and a dreadful smile upon her lips; "why so severe—so abrupt? This is not the Wilford Hadfield I remember years back.