The Hireling by L. P. Hartley

were in a car. ‘How did you discover it?’
    ‘Somebody told me - a chap called Fullerton. You know him, don’t you?’ he added, addressing the back of Leadbitter’s head.
    ‘Yes, sir, I do his driving sometimes,’
    ‘Well, he put me on to it,’
    ‘Well, I’m grateful to him, and grateful to you, darling, and grateful to Ernestine. What a lot of gratitude! We must drink her health when we get to Richmond,’
    To all this Leadbitter listened with half an ear, as he generally listened to the conversation of his customers when it was not addressed directly to him. He didn’t listen all the time, nor did he connect the Ernestine that they were talking about with anyone he knew.

Chapter 11
    The telephone bell rang, and a woman’s voice which he recognized yet couldn’t quite place, said:
    ‘Is that Mr Leadbitter?
    ‘Leadbitter speaking,’ he answered.
    ‘Oh, Mr Leadbitter, this is Lady Franklin,’
    Of course it was and he should have known. Yet never before had she rung him up herself; and her voice sounded different from the voice he used to know, the dull, tired voice; it was happy and excited.
    ‘Oh good morning, my lady,’ Leadbitter said, and was surprised by the warmth in his own voice. And then he allowed himself a phrase he rarely used to customers. ‘Nice to hear you,’ he said.
    ‘And very nice to hear you,’ said Lady Franklin, with a slight emphasis, he thought, upon the ‘you’. ‘I was afraid you’d think I had forgotten you - not’ (she hastily took herself up) ‘that I flattered myself that you would regard that as a great disaster, because I know your customers are falling over each other, but all the same I shouldn’t like you to think I’d forgotten all the pleasant times we’d had together - besides, they did me so much good. Frankly, I owe you more than I can ever say. It may sound exaggerated, but you brought me back to life. I’m a different creature now,’
    ‘Very glad to hear it, my lady,’ Leadbitter said. ‘Not that there was much wrong with you before, that I could see,’
    ‘Ah, but there was. Now there were two things I wanted to ask you. First, how is the family? It seems so long since I had news of them,’
    Leadbitter looked helplessly round his bachelor apartment, where dearth of domesticity amounted to a famine.
    Lacking Lady Franklin’s physical presence, he could think of nothing new to say about his family. Their shapes refused to take material form: his mind’s eye could not see them.
    ‘They’re fine, my lady,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t help being, after what you did for them.’
    ‘Oh, that was nothing. I want to hear all about them, but that must be for another time, which brings me to my second question. Can you take me out again tomorrow week? Thursday, that is? I want to go to Winchester - it’s the only cathedral within reach that we haven’t seen. I know you don’t care about them very much, but.. ,’
    ‘Just let me look, my lady,’ Leadbitter said, ignoring the question of cathedrals. He knew that Thursday was free; but it was never wise to seem too eager or give a customer the impression that he was disengaged; so he consulted the sheet on the photograph frame before he answered.
    ‘Thursday will be all right, my lady,’
    ‘I’m so glad,’ said Lady Franklin, and by her voice she did indeed sound glad. ‘Could you come at ten o’clock? I get up earlier now - that’s another thing you’ve done for me. I owe you my virtues, you see, as well as my happiness. And don’t forget to bring me the latest, stop-press news about your family,’
    ‘I won’t forget, my lady,’ Leadbitter promised her.
    Lady Franklin was rich, Lady Franklin was lonely - did she feel herself neglected as regards male attachments? Was she in love with him? During his career as a driver two or three women customers had fallen for Leadbitter, and declared their passion; but they had not paid him in advance for his services, and in any case he would