The story is told of a mouse having been hidden under a dish-cover, and a married pair introduced into the dining-room and invited to partake of every dish except that which remained covered. When left to themselves, the woman, contrary to the advice of her husband, raised the cover, and out ran the mouse. Blue Beard forbade Fatima to open one door in his castle, and of course she tried the forbidden key. There was one tree in the midst of Paradise of which our first parents were not allowed to eat, and of course they nibbled at the fruit to discover how it tasted. All these stories point to the truth that nothing can be retained from human inquisitiveness. A secret resembles a mouse more than an apple or a dead wife of Blue Beard, for the mouse escapes when once uncovered and can no more be hidden, whereas the apple disappears when eaten, and the dead woman is locked up again. A secret when once out is all over the house, and is far too wary to be trapped again.

Who would expect to find a mouse under a dish-cover? So with secrets, they are let loose from the most unlikely places, and many of us know that so well that we devote our energies to, and spend our time in lifting china cups, opening snuff-boxes, removing lids of tea caddies, unsnapping purses, pulling out drawers, boring holes in casks, in the hopes of letting out secrets. We suspect our acquaintance and “visit” their goods, as if we were custom-house officers in search of what is contraband. We know that they have a forbidden secret somewhere, and we search and probe everywhere to discover it.

There are mice everywhere; if we hold our breath and remain still for two minutes we can hear them scratching and squeaking; and there are secrets everywhere, behind the wainscot, under the floor, in the cupboard. Once I knew of a nest of mice in a gentleman’s boot, and once in a lady’s muff; and secrets nest and breed in quite as extraordinary places—in a pocket, in a bunch of flowers, in envelopes, under pillows.

Æsop tells of a beautiful cat that was transformed into a woman, but this woman could never forget her feline instinct to run after a mouse. A great many ladies I know have the same feline instinct to spring out of bed, up from their sofas, to make a dart after a secret, if they hear but the slightest footsteps, see but a whisker. I do not blame them. Men are sportsmen, why should not women be mousers? We find pleasure in starting a hare, why should not a woman find as much in starting a couching secret?

I do not blame them for their love of sport, but for what they do with their game when it is caught. We bag ours, they let theirs run. Samson did the same. He caught foxes and tied firebrands to their tails and sent them into the standing corn of the Philistines. Our secret-hunters, when they have caught their game, tie brimstone matches to their tails and send them among the stores of their neighbours.

I do not believe in the possibility of concealing secrets, and therefore never try to keep them. As for pursuing a secret when once out, that is labour in vain, it changes form, it doubles, it dives, it has as many artifices as a chased fox. As soon recover a secret as recondense volatile essential oils that have been spilt. A secret is not safe in our own heads, for our heads are of amber, and the secret is visible to every one who looks at us, like a congealed fly therein.

In one of the Arabian Nights’ Tales a princess goes after a necromancer who has transformed himself into a scorpion, and she takes the shape of a serpent; the wizard, hard pressed, becomes a cat, and the princess attacks him in the disguise of a wolf. Then the cat becomes a seed, and the wolf a cock, thereat the seed falls into a canal and is transmuted into a trout, which is at once chased by the princess in shape of a pike. Finally both issue in flames from the water, the wizard is reduced to ashes, but so also is the princess. If we try to overtake and make an end of a secret, we shall meet with less success than did this princess. She at last succeeded in destroying her game, but we, in our efforts to catch and make an end of an unpleasant secret, get set on flames ourselves. If we have anything we do not want our neighbours to know, and it has got out, we had better let it run; we cannot recover it. Indeed I believe that the best way to conceal what we do not want to have known is to expose it for sale, to dangle it before the eyes of every one, like those men outside the Exchange who offer spiders at the end of threads of elastic for one penny. Nobody buys. No one even looks at them. But were one of these fellows to hide such a black putty spider in his hat, up his arm, in his pocket, a crowd would collect and pull him to pieces to find the spider.

It was not immediately that Arminell realised the serious consequences of Mrs. Saltren’s visit, but the young man knew at once that all chance of the secret being respected was at an end.

“I am interrupting,” said the widow, knowingly, “I am sure I hadn’t the wish. I came to see Mrs. Welsh, and never expected to find my son here, much less Miss Inglett.”

“Mrs. Welsh is upstairs with the baby,” said Arminell. “You have not seen your nephew. Shall I fetch him, Mrs. Saltren?”

“Not for the world, Miss Inglett. I will run upstairs and find my sister-in-law, who, I do say, has been negligent in calling on me. But if the mountain won’t go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. I’m sure I don’t want to intrude here. You may leave the room, Thomasine, I don’t want you to follow me up to the nursery. Go down to the kitchen. Every one ought to know her own place.”

When the girl had disappeared, Mrs. Saltren said confidentially, “We brought the young person to town, and she don’t understand how to friz the hair, and me wanting to wear a fringe. However she could have had the face to offer for my situation as lady’s-maid, passes my understanding. But, Miss, the conceit of the rising generation is surprising. I want to ask Mrs. Welsh to take the creature off my hands in any capacity she likes to name. She might do as parlour-maid, or nurse-girl, or cook, anything but lady’s-maid. I’ve tried to teach her to fold gowns, but folding is like music or painting—you must be born with the gift; it cannot be learnt; and as some have no ear for tune, and others no eye for colour, so have some no natural gift for folding. You can’t make, as they say, a fichu out of a bustle. I had once a red flannel coverlet, and a hole was burnt in it, so I turned it into a petticoat. When the hot weather came I couldn’t bear it, and as the Band of Hope wanted a banner, I did a non-alcoholic motto on it in straw letters, and converted it into a Temperance banner, and very inspiriting it was. It is the same with girls. Some you can adapt to all sorts of purposes, others you can’t.”

When Mrs. Saltren had left the room in quest of her sister-in-law and the baby, Giles said in a tone of discouragement, “I do not know what is to be done. It is inevitable that the news of your being here should reach Orleigh, either through my mother or the girl, probably through both, not perhaps at once, but eventually. Then—what a difficult position Lady Lamerton will be in!”

Arminell looked down on the carpet, and traced the pattern with her foot. Presently she looked up and said, “I see—I never did justice to the merits of humdrum. Even when I was shown my folly and acknowledged my fault, I must needs still play the heroine, and take a bold step, not altogether justifiable, because it landed me in falsehood, and involved others in untruth. But I thought then it was the simplest course for me to follow to escape having to equivocate and even lie. The straight course is always the best. Now I admit that. Short cuts do not always lead where one thinks they will. I wish I had acted with less precipitation and more modesty, had listened to your advice and acted without dissimulation. For myself now I do not care, but I do not see how my mother and other relations can extricate themselves from the dilemma in which I have placed them.”

“Nor do I.”

“I am neither dead nor alive. The situation is almost grotesque. I wish it were not distressing. Do not misunderstand me. It is painful to myself only, as every sharp lesson cuts. But I am more vexed for the sake of others than for my own. I have been a fool, an utter fool.”

She put her hands over her eyes.

“Upon my word, Mr. Saltren,” she said after an interval, “I have hardly an atom of self-confidence left. There never was a more perverse girl than myself, such a profound blunderer. I make a mistake whatever I do. What is to be done? What can I do?”

Giles Saltren was silent. The predicament was one from which there was no escape.

“Your mother’s red coverlet was better than me,” said Arminell. “That did serve some good purpose, to whatever end it was turned, but I always get from one difficulty into another, and drag my friends out of one discomfort into another still worse. Only here—here am I of any good at all; I was born into a wrong sphere, only now have I returned to that system in which I ought to have been planted when called into existence. And yet even in this I produce a disturbing effect on the system of planets I have left.”

“You cannot remain in this house, Miss Inglett, not now for the reason I gave at first, but because too much is put upon you.”

“Nothing is put on me—I take on me what I feel qualified to execute. Do you remember the answer made by the young Persian to Cyrus, when the prince reprimanded him because his actions were not in accordance with his previously expressed sentiments? ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘I perceive that I have two souls in me, one wilful and wicked, and the other modest and righteous. Sometimes one is awake and at other times the second.’ So it is with me. Now I trust the nobler soul is rubbing its eyes and stretching itself, and the sandman is scattering dust in the eyes of the baser soul. My old soul was haughty and lived in an atmosphere of extravagance, and the new one is humble, and delights in the breath of common-place. Do you remember, Mr. Saltren, telling me of the effect of the contrast to you of a return from Orleigh Park to Chillacot? You said that you were unfitted by the grandeur of the former to endure the meanness of the latter. At the time when you said this, I thought that such a translation to me would be unendurable, but the translation has been effected, and I am not miserable. On the contrary, but for my self-reproach and looking back on lost faces and scenes, I should be happier here; for the childlike spirit is waking in me, which is content with trifles.”

“Happier—here! Miss Inglett, surely not.”

“Yes—happier. I am happier in helping others. I am become useful to Mrs. Welsh, I relieve her of the baby, I can even cook fairly, I make the glass and silver shine. The work and worry here were more than your aunt could bear. Cooks are scarce as saints. The last your aunt had—oh! I have already mentioned the circumstances. I will not repeat them. I do not feel that the house is small, indeed I am glad that it is not larger. We talk a good deal about the misdeeds of servants, and the difficulty there is in getting cooks; in my former world we talked a good deal about the unscrupulousness of politicians, and the difficulty there was in getting morality among statesmen—political morality I mean. We discuss now the humours of the baby, what his dribbling means—whether teeth or disorder; and we discussed then the humours of the public, and what the dribble meant that flowed so freely at public meetings. We think now how we may cut out and alter garments for the little creature; and then, what adjustments and changes were needed for the satisfaction of the public. Conversation on each subject is as interesting and as profitless. I thought at one time that I could not live away from rocks and trees—I hardly miss them now. I have no time to consider whether I want them or not, because I am engaged all day. I really believe that the servant girl, the slavey, as your uncle calls her, is happier than your aunt or me, because she has the fewest responsibilities and the most work.”

Arminell spoke fast, half in jest, half in tears; she spoke quickly, to conceal the emotion she felt.

“Did you see a picture at the Royal Academy a few years ago representing the Babylonian Marriage Market? In old Babylon all marriageable women were sent up to auction, and the sum paid for the pretty ones went as dower for those who were ugly. Thus was a balance preserved. I suspect it is much the same in life. There is equilibrium where we least expect it. The peacock has a gorgeous plumage and a horrible voice, the nightingale the sweetest song and the plainest feathers. Some of our most radiant flowers are without perfume, and some that smell odoriferously have little in the way of beauty to boast of. When I was in the aristocratic world, I had my luxuries, intellectual, Æsthetic, and physical, but somehow, I lacked that joyousness I am finding here. In the middle class there is a freedom from the restraints which cramped us in the class above, and I have no doubt that there is an abandon, an insouciance in the class below which makes up for the deficiency in the amenities, refinements, and glow of life in higher spheres. There is a making up of the balance, an adjustment of the equilibrium in the market-place of modern life as in that of ancient Babylon. Those with rank and wealth have to walk with muffled faces, only the plain and lowly may breathe freely and let the sun kiss their cheeks.”

“Miss Inglett, I am sure, notwithstanding your efforts to make me think the contrary, that you are not happy.”

“I tell you that I am. I say this in all sincerity. I do not deny that I feel a heartache. That is because my conscience reproaches me, and because I now love and regret what I once cast from me. If I had not been born elsewhere I should be fresh and happy now, but every plant suffers for a while when transplanted. I am throwing out my rootlets and fastening myself into the new soil, and will soon be firm fixed in it as if I had grown there from the beginning—my only trouble that I have dreams of the past. A princess was once carried off by RÜbezahl, giant spirit of the mountains, to his palace of crystal in the heart of the earth. He gave her all she could wish for, save one thing, the sound of the cattle bells on the Alpine pastures. His home was too far down for those sounds to reach. Whenever we are carried away from our home, we must always carry away with us some recollections of pleasant sounds and sights, and they linger with us as memories over which to weep. But there—we have had enough about myself—nay, too much. I want to hear what you are about, and what are your prospects.”

“I am in search of occupation, and have, so far, met only with disappointment.”

“You have been anxious. You are not looking well.”

“Naturally, I am anxious. I, like you, have the weight of the past oppressing me. Unlike you, I have not accommodated myself to my transplantation, but—in fact, I have not yet found soil in which my roots may take hold.”

“What soil do you want?”

“Any. There is a demand, I am told, for muscle; the market is glutted with brain, or what passes for brain. As there is a deficiency in the supply of cooks, I will mount a white cap and apron and apply for a kitchen. But, seriously, apart from my affairs, which can wait, yours must be attended to.”

“But nothing can be done. You propose nothing. I can suggest nothing.”

Then in came Mrs. Welsh and Mrs. Saltren. The former was carrying the baby.

“It is all settled,” said Tryphoena Welsh. “Rejoice with me, Miss Inglett. I did want a cook, one not given to climbing ladders, and now I have got one; now James will swear, for he has been spoiled by your cookery, Miss Inglett; at last I have got a cook, the girl Thomasine Kite. Come, kiss the baby and thank Heaven.”