Mrs. Bradley agreed, and then said, changing the subject, it seemed :
"I wonder whether you'd care to come to tea with me at your house this afternoon? I shall be quite alone now that my grandson has gone back with his parents."
"That would be ever so nice, madam," said Eliza immediately. "Mrs. Bell is going over to Hariford, so I shall be all on my own, too."
"Good," said Mrs. Bradley. "I shall expect you early, then."
Eliza arrived at half-past three and found her hostess in the garden. Together they walked up the path and talked about the plants and flowers. The rockery particularly attracted attention. It had been one of Aunt Flora's hobbies, and Mrs. Bradley encouraged a subject of conversation of which she had some knowledge in order to keep the memory of Aunt Flora well in the foreground of her companion's mind.
These artless tactics were successful, and by the end of her visit she had a clear picture of the household just before the old lady's death. Eliza was not garrulous, nor did she make too many tiresome repetitions. She seemed to welcome questions, and was obviously so much interested herself in what she was talking about that Mrs. Bradley's curiosity did not strike her as excessive. It seemed perfectly natural to her that other people should be fascinated by stories about the tragic household in which she had had a place.
They had tea in the garden. It was brought out by the young maidservant who had come down with Mrs. Bradley because it was thought that a fortnight by the sea might do her good. It was doing her good, Mrs. Bradley had been glad to notice. She had taken Derek for some of his walks while Mrs. Bradley, who enjoyed what she called 'pottering about the house,' had done the dusting and had cooked most of the meals.
During tea Eliza's anecdotes were chiefly based upon the small and harmless eccentricities of her late mistress, but, later (for the evenings were not very warm), when they went into the house to a small but cheerful fire, the trickle of reminiscence gradually rose to flood height, and by the time the visitor left at half-past eight Mrs. Bradley's curiosity was satisfied to the extreme limit of whatever satisfaction Eliza was able to provide. In fact, Mrs. Bradley felt that if there was anything she had not been told, it was because it was something which the old servant herself did not know.
The fire had been lighted in the drawing-room, a room which had been furnished too heavily for its size. Heavy mahogany chairs, a sideboard (in the same kind of wood) which occupied almost the whole of a wall so that there was scarcely enough room to open the door, a dark red carpet with a thick pile, a mahogany bureau, an overladen mantelpiece and dark red velvet curtains which hung from the ceiling to the ground, created an impression of stifling and strangely hellish gloom which was not discounted, but, on the contrary, enhanced, by portraits of a gentleman with side whiskers and a lady wearing a bustle; by a couple of large fish labelled respectively Uncle Percy and Uncle George; and, finally, by a repellent arrangement of Wedgwood dinner plates affixed to the walls by wire brackets.
"The mistress loved this room," said Eliza, looking round it with affectionate pride. "It was here that she died, madam. Had her bed brought down here and the dining-table and chairs moved out to get it in. What a job it was to get her downstairs and into it, too. She was a big, heavy woman, you know, madam, and had had her hair dyed dark red, which nobody really cared for, not even herself when it was done. 'I've made a fool of myself, Eliza,' she said to me when she came home— went up to London, she did, to have it tinted—'and I wish now I'd never had it done. But you can take it that nobody but myself is ever going to know that. I shall keep it touched up now I've taken the plunge.' And so she did, to the last. Ah, she was a wonderful old lady; eighty-one when she died, and all her faculties, as you might say. Nobody thought of her going like that at the end. It was on the Wednesday that she tumbled over. She wouldn't have me help her dress, and so, of course, it happened! The very first time I hadn't tied her strings for her—for she wore the old-fashioned petticoats to the end, two flannel ones and one white one in winter, and just the two white ones in summer—and down she went. I'd helped her ever since her rheumatism began to make her what she called fumble-fisted.
"I was down in the kitchen when she fell, but of course, I heard the crash, and her calling out as she tumbled.
"Doctor was very grave at first; a young doctor he was then, although we've got quite used to him in these parts by now. He said she'd never work off the effects like younger people can, so, when he put it like that, I said, 'Oh, doctor, you don't mean she won't get over it! Because if you mean that,' I said, 'I really ought to send for her relations.'
"He looked at me very sober at that, and said, 'You'd better send for them, then.' That was on the following Saturday morning.
"With that, he went, and I went straight to the bureau for the address of the Institution where Miss Bella was gone to be housekeeper. The mistress saw me, of course, and she called out from the bed, 'Don't you go writing to that addle-headed niece Tessa of mine! I'm not that far gone, Eliza, that I don't know how you favour her above Bella.'
"'I thought you'd like Miss Bella to know you weren't quite yourself, mum,' I said; and at that she tried to raise herself a bit on the pillow and said, speaking sharp-like, as she always did when she wanted a bit of an argument,
"'What do you mean—quite myself? I'm not in my dotage yet, thank goodness! Don't be a fool, Eliza!'
"'No, mum,' I said, quite meek, for I'd found Miss Bella's address by that time, so I wanted to humour her a bit. But she saw I'd got it. Her eyes were very quick. Still, she said no more, except to tell me to put Care of the Warden on the envelope. It was that, I think, her wanting Miss Bella to come, that made me sure how very bad she was, and made me turn the letter into a telegram, to fetch her as soon as might be."
"And I suppose you sent, also, to the other relatives who came?" said Mrs. Bradley.
"No, that I didn't, madam. I wouldn't have taken the liberty. Not that Mr. Tom wasn't very fond of the mistress, although he wouldn't go in and see her, and as for his wife, well, she was more like an angel of mercy, because she hardly knew the mistress at all, and yet, when it came to the come to, she was far more help in the sickroom than ever poor Miss Bella was. But there! The married women are the handiest (although I'm not married myself), when it comes to looking after things in the house."
"I don't quite understand, then," said Mrs. Bradley, "how Cousin Tom and his wife Muriel happened to be there at that very crucial time."
"You may call it that," said Eliza. "The mistress rallied nicely, and the doctor, you could tell (although, of course, he wouldn't say so, taking to himself all the credit, as young men do), was wonderfully surprised at how she was getting over it. He said she must have had, for her age, a fine constitution, but, myself, I call it more the will-power. She could be very determined, the mistress, when she liked. I say it was her will-power pulled her round. But as for Mr. Tom knowing he ought to be present if it meant the poor mistrees's deathbed, I said to Miss Bella to send a telegram if she thought he ought to be present, and so I suppose she sent it, which I wouldn't venture to do."
"Where exactly in the house did your mistress have her fall?" Mrs. Bradley enquired.
"Why, in the bathroom passage, to be sure."