Merely Mary Ann | Page 2

if he were a rat. What forced Mary Ann again upon Lancelot's
morose consciousness was a glint of winter sunshine that settled on her
light brown hair. He said: "By the way, Susan, tell your mistress--or is
it your mother?"
Mary Ann shook her head but did not speak.
"Oh: you are not Miss Leadbatter?"
"No; Mary Ann."
She spoke humbly; her eyes were shy and would not meet his. He
winced as he heard the name, though her voice was not unmusical.
"Ah, Mary Ann! and I've been calling you Jane all along. Mary Ann
what?"
She seemed confused and flushed a little.
"Mary Ann!" she murmured.

"Merely Mary Ann?"
"Yessir."
He smiled. "Seems a sort of white Topsy," he was thinking.
She stood still, holding in her hand the tablecloth she had just folded.
Her eyes were downcast, and the glint of sunshine had leapt upon the
long lashes.
"Well, Mary Ann, tell your mistress there is a piano coming. It will
stand over there--you'll have to move the sideboard somewhere else."
"A piano!" Mary Ann opened her eyes, and Lancelot saw that they
were large and pathetic. He could not see the colour for the glint of
sunshine that touched them with false fire.
"Yes; I suppose it will have to come up through the window, these
staircases are so beastly narrow. Do you never have a stout person in
the house, I wonder?"
"Oh yes, sir. We had a lodger here last year as was quite a fat man."
"And did he come up through the window by a pulley?"
He smiled at the image, and expected to see Mary Ann smile in
response. He was disappointed when she did not; it was not only that
her stolidity made his humour seem feeble--he half wanted to see how
she looked when she smiled.
"Oh dear no," said Mary Ann; "he lived on the ground floor!"
"Oh!" murmured Lancelot, feeling the last sparkle taken from his
humour. He was damped to the skin by Mary Ann's platitudinarian
style of conversation. Despite its prettiness, her face was dulness
incarnate.
"Anyhow, remember to take in the piano if I'm out," he said tartly. "I
suppose you've seen a piano--you'll know it from a kangaroo?"

"Yessir," breathed Mary Ann.
"Oh, come, that's something. There is some civilisation in Baker's
Terrace after all. But are you quite sure?" he went on, the teasing
instinct getting the better of him. "Because, you know, you've never
seen a kangaroo."
Mary Ann's face lit up a little. "Oh, yes I have, sir; it came to the
village fair when I was a girl."
"Oh, indeed!" said Lancelot, a little staggered; "what did it come there
for--to buy a new pouch?"
"No, sir; in a circus."
"Ah, in a circus. Then, perhaps, you can play the piano, too."
Mary Ann got very red. "No, sir; missus never showed me how to do
that."
Lancelot surrendered himself to a roar of laughter. "This is a real
original," he said to himself, just a touch of pity blending with his
amusement.
"I suppose, though, you'd be willing to lend a hand occasionally?" he
could not resist saying.
"Missus says I must do anything I'm asked," she said, in distress, the
tears welling to her eyes. And a merciless bell mercifully sounding
from an upper room, she hurried out.
How much Mary Ann did, Lancelot never rightly knew, any more than
he knew the number of lodgers in the house, or who cooked his chops
in the mysterious regions below stairs. Sometimes he trod on the toes
of boots outside doors and vaguely connected them with human beings,
peremptory and exacting as himself. To Mary Ann each of those pairs
of boots was a personality, with individual hours of rising and retiring,
breakfasting and supping, going out and coming in, and special

idiosyncrasies of diet and disposition. The population of 5 Baker's
Terrace was nine, mostly bell-ringers. Life was one ceaseless round of
multifarious duties; with six hours of blessed unconsciousness, if sleep
were punctual. All the week long Mary Ann was toiling up and down
the stairs or sweeping them, making beds or puddings, polishing boots
or fire-irons. Holidays were not in Mary Ann's calendar; and if Sunday
ever found her on her knees, it was only when she was scrubbing out
the kitchen. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; it had not,
apparently, made Mary Ann a bright girl.
The piano duly came in through the window like a burglar. It was a
good instrument, but hired. Under Lancelot's fingers it sang like a bird
and growled like a beast. When the piano was done growling Lancelot
usually started. He paced up and down the room, swearing audibly.
Then he would sit down at the