Rachel shared the general estimate of the sitting-room.  She appreciated its charm, and admitted to herself that her first vision of it, rather less than a month before, had indeed given her a new and startling ideal of cleanliness.  On that occasion it had been evident, from Mrs. Maldon’s physical exhaustion, that the housemistress had made an enormous personal effort to dazzle and inspire her new “lady companion,” which effort, though detected and perhaps scorned by Rachel, had nevertheless succeeded in its aim.  With a certain presence of mind Rachel had feigned to remark nothing miraculous in the condition of the room.  Appropriating the new ideal instantly, she had on the first morning of her service “turned out” the room before breakfast, well knowing that it must have been turned out on the previous day.  Dumbfounded for a few moments, Mrs. Maldon had at length said, in her sweet and cordial benevolence, “I’m glad to see we think alike about cleanliness.”  And Rachel had replied with an air at once deferential, sweet, and yet casual, “Oh, of course, Mrs. Maldon!” Then they measured one another in a silent exchange.  Mrs. Maldon was aware that she had by chance discovered a pearl—­yes, a treasure beyond pearls.  And Rachel, too, divined the high value of her employer, and felt within the stirrings of a passionate loyalty to her.

III

And yet, during the three weeks and a half of their joint existence, Rachel’s estimate of Mrs. Maldon had undergone certain subtle modifications.

At first, somewhat overawed, Rachel had seen in her employer the Mrs. Maldon of the town’s legend, which legend had travelled to Rachel as far as Knype, whence she sprang.  That is to say, one of the great ladies of Bursley, ranking in the popular regard with Mrs. Clayton-Vernon, the leader of society, Mrs. Sutton, the philanthropist, and Mrs. Hamps, the powerful religious bully.  She had been impressed by her height (Rachel herself being no lamp-post), her carriage, her superlative dignity, her benevolence of thought, and above all by her aristocratic Southern accent.  After eight-and-forty years of the Five Towns, Mrs. Maldon had still kept most of that Southern accent—­so intimidating to the rough, broad talkers of the district, who take revenge by mocking it among themselves, but for whom it will always possess the thrilling prestige of high life.

And then day by day Rachel had discovered that great ladies are, after all, human creatures, strangely resembling other human creatures.  And Mrs. Maldon slowly became for her an old woman of seventy-two, with unquestionably wondrous hair, but failing in strength and in faculties; and it grew merely pathetic to Rachel that Mrs. Maldon should force herself always to sit straight upright.  As for Mrs. Maldon’s charitableness, Rachel could not deny that she refused to think evil, and yet it was plain that at bottom Mrs. Maldon was not much deceived about people:  in which apparent inconsistency there hid a slight disturbing suggestion of falseness that mysteriously fretted the downright Rachel.