ONLY A SERVANT
FOR the first week or so after her arrival at Barford Violet was most
careful in keeping her bedroom in good order, for she was delighted
with the pretty little room, which was a picture of daintiness and
freshness; but it was not long before she began to grow careless about
it, and there came a day when, on her return from school in the
afternoon, Mrs. Reed followed her upstairs and told her in a tone,
which, though kind, betrayed displeasure, that she really must learn
to be more tidy and not leave her bedroom in such a litter again.
"I—I am very sorry," stammered Violet, crimsoning with mortification,
as she cast one hurried look around and saw that Mrs. Reed had not
spoken without reason, "I—I was in a hurry, and I had no time to put
things straight before I left for school."
"I don't think that is an adequate excuse, my dear," Mrs. Reed said
gravely, "for it would have taken you no longer to have put that wet
towel on the towel-horse than to have flung it on the bed. Then look
at your boots and shoes strewn about the floor as though you had no
cupboard to keep them in, and your desk left open, and your mother's
letter—I see it is hers by the writing on the envelope—on the
dressing-table. I have no reason to think that there is anyone in the
house who is sufficiently prying and dishonourable to read another
person's letters, but it is always unwise to leave correspondence
about."
"Yes, I know it is," Violet admitted, taking her mother's letter from
the dressing-table and slipping it into her pocket, whilst she
remembered there was a great deal in it she would not care for a
servant to see. She then proceeded to close and lock her desk; after
which she collected her boots and shoes and put them in the cupboard;
hung up in its proper place in the wardrobe a skirt which she had
thrown over the back of a chair; took the damp towel off the bed; and
otherwise tidied the room.
"That's better," Mrs. Reed said approvingly, "you must be more careful
in future. I cannot endure disorder, and there is really no excuse for
it in this case, for there is a place for everything."
"I won't leave my room so untidy again," promised Violet, "but I—I
really was in a great hurry, and I didn't think what I was doing.
I just did as I should have done at home and left my things all
higgledy-piggledy."
Mrs. Reed could not refrain from smiling at this frank admission.
"It is a very great pity to get into the habit of doing that, Violet,"
she said; "and really it is quite as easy to be tidy as untidy.
You shared a bedroom with your elder sister, at home, did you not?"
"Yes. I am afraid our room was always in more or less of a muddle.
Sometimes Ruth used to have what I called 'a tidy fit,' but it never
lasted very long; for I was always forgetting, and she would be
disheartened."
"Poor Ruth!" said Mrs. Reed, sympathetically.
"I am afraid it was hard lines on her," Violet admitted. "I expect
if you saw what our home at Streatham is like you would be quite
shocked," she continued, shaking her head and sighing, "but you don't
know how difficult it is to be orderly in a little house with a lot of
people in it."
"Oh, yes, indeed I do," Mrs. Reed answered, smiling; "I was brought up
in a little house myself, and there were so many of us young folks
that my father used to say we reminded him of birds packed in a nest.
Tidiness is a mere matter of habit, my dear; the home where it is
practised is generally a comfortable one, be it a palace or a cottage.
Here's Ann coming to hear what I am lecturing you about. Come down to
tea now, both of you."
So saying Mrs. Reed left the room, whilst Ann stood on the threshold
regarding Violet inquiringly.
"Oh, Ann, I am ashamed of myself!" cried Violet, and her face showed
that she spoke the truth. "I left my room in such a muddle," she went
on to explain, "and your mother has been speaking to me about it—very
kindly, but I know she is vexed with me, and no wonder. I ought not
to be disorderly, for, as Mrs. Reed says, there's a place for
everything; it's not as it was at home where Ruth and I had no
wardrobe, only pegs behind the door to hang our things on."
"You'll be more careful another time," Ann said, consolingly; "mother
wasn't angry, you know, Violet," she added, as she saw her companion's
brown eyes were a trifle misty.
"Oh, I know she was not! Well, I must try not to give her cause
to complain of me in that way again."
Violet did try, but often she relapsed into her disorderly habits,
thereby bringing rebuke upon herself. She was always so genuinely
sorry and repentant afterwards that Mrs. Reed refrained from speaking
to her as sharply as she would otherwise have done, remembering, too,
the manner in which the girl had been brought up in her own home.
Truth to tell Violet's new home was very unlike what she had expected.
She had anticipated the house of a successful man, as she knew
Dr. Reed to be, would be far different from what it actually was.
She had imagined it managed regardless of expense, and she soon found,
to her secret astonishment, that it was not, and that the strictest
economy was practised by its mistress. There was enough of everything,
but there was nothing superfluous. Mrs. Reed was one of the most
careful of housewives, and, unlike poor Mrs. Wyndham, she knew to a
farthing the amount of her expenditure.
Dr. Reed and his wife noted with satisfaction that Violet was becoming
very friendly with Ann. Since Violet had read Ruth's letter to Ann
she had been more open with her, and was no longer averse to talking
of her home. The two girls now prepared their lessons together of an
evening, the younger proving herself quite the equal of the elder
in most subjects, for she was forward for her age, and, being very
quick to learn, she bade fair to make good use of the advantages which
had so unexpectedly fallen to her share, and for which she felt really
very deeply grateful.
The first week Violet received her pocket money she founds there were
so many little things she required for her own use that she put aside
the idea of sending Ruth a part of it on that occasion, as she had
fully intended doing, and spent it entirely on herself. Next week
it was the same, and so the week after, until she began to tell
herself that Ruth, not being at school, did not need money so much
as she did.
"She would only spend it on pencils and paints," she reflected,
"and she does not know what pocket money I get or anything about it."
Her conscience told her she was acting selfishly, but she did not
listen to it, and she took care not to tell Ann that she had not
fulfilled her intention of sending money to Ruth, so that Ann
concluded she had done so.
In a very short while Violet had won the good opinions of those
teachers with whom she came in contact at Helmsford College, for she
was always attentive and eager to learn. She grew popular, too, with
her class-mates, and, though they soon found that she was cleverer
than most of them, that indisputable fact did not evoke jealousy as it
might have done if she had not been unfailingly good-tempered and
obliging. It was supposed by those who thought upon the matter at all
that Dr. Reed was Violet's guardian, as, of course he was, only no one
guessed that he was paying for her education out of his own pocket and
giving her a home besides.
Finding Violet made herself popular at school, Agnes Hosking thought
it worth her while to cultivate her acquaintance, and made much of the
fact that they had been school-fellows previously; and she refrained
from telling anyone of the shabby little home at Streatham where
Violet had lived all her life till now, or that Mr. Wyndham was a not
very successful journalist.
"It must be very pleasant for you living with the Reeds," she remarked
to Violet on one occasion; "much pleasanter than being a boarder here.
I suppose the Reeds are very old friends of yours?"
"Dr. Reed is a very old friend of my father's," Violet replied;
"he came to see us at Streatham last November, but I never saw
Mrs. Reed or Ann before I came to Barford."
"And you like them?" questioned Agnes curiously.
"Oh, yes! Ann and I have become great friends already, and Mrs. Reed
is exceedingly kind to me. Of course I missed all my own people
dreadfully at first, but now I'm very happy with the Reeds."
"It must be a great change for you," Agnes observed meaningly.
Then, as her companion coloured with annoyance, she continued: "I hear
Dr. Reed has the best paying practices in the place, he attends all
the rich families, and yet they say he was a mere nobody to commence
with—I mean, he has made his position himself."
"Yes," assented Violet, curtly.
"I heard one of the girls say that his relations—they live in
Devonshire, I believe—are all working people, and that his mother
was only a servant."
"Nonsense!" cried Violet, sceptical about the latter statement.
"I know his father was a farmer in Devonshire, and his mother is still
living—I have seen her likeness. She looks a dear old soul;
she couldn't have been a servant."
"Well, of course you would know as the Reeds are such friends
of yours," said Agnes, "but I was certainly told it as a fact."
"I don't think it can be true, but I'll ask Ann," Violet replied,
eager to be in the position to contradict what she considered an idle
report.
And ask Ann Violet did that same day, after they had prepared their
lessons in the evening, in the upstairs room which had formerly been
Ann's nursery. They were gathering together their books when Violet,
with some hesitation, commenced:—
"Oh, Ann, I want to ask you something; but, before I tell you what
it is, you must promise you will not be offended with me."
"I promise," Ann replied, smiling; "what is it?"
"Well, I was talking to Agnes Hosking to-day—she is a very inquisitive
sort of girl, you know—and she said that someone had told her that—
that your grandmother, your father's mother—"
"Yes?" Ann said interrogatively, as her companion appeared embarrassed
and hesitated; "what had someone told her about Granny?"
"That she was a servant," Violet answered; "of course I didn't
believe it, but I said I'd ask you," she added hastily.
"Agnes Hosking is quite right," Ann said, and her voice sounded cold
and proud to Violet's ears, whilst her grey eyes glowed brightly,
"Granny was a servant in her young days. What of that?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing," Violet replied, much taken aback; "only I did
not know, and—and—"
"I never thought of mentioning the fact to you—"
"No, no," Violet interposed, "of course not. I would not have spoken
of it if I had thought it was true, but I never, for a moment,
believed that it was."
"Do you think I mind your mentioning it?" Ann asked, with a touch
of irritation in her tone, and an unwonted expression of displeasure
on her face. "You surely cannot imagine that I am ashamed for it to be
known that my grandmother was 'only a servant' as people say? Why, I
am as fond and proud of Granny as though she was a duchess, aye,
prouder, and no duchess could be a better or a sweeter woman—I have
often heard mother say that."
She paused for a minute, and her voice softened as she proceeded:—
"My father says he is proud of his ancestry; his people were working
folks, it is true, folks of the class Jesus chose His disciples from,
but they were honest and always did their duty in life; and father
says to serve others is the highest privilege, we all ought to be
servants in one way or another in this world; don't you remember that
our Lord told His disciples that the greatest amongst them must be
servant of all? You can tell Agnes Hosking her statement that my
grandmother was a servant is quite correct. Never think I wish to keep
that a secret."
"I hope you are not angry with me," Violet said, looking, as she felt,
deeply distressed, "you promised you would not be offended. Oh, Ann!
I have not said anything to distress you, have? You must not be
annoyed because I am surprised—"
"Oh, I am not!" Ann broke in. "Of course it is natural that you should
be surprised, I realise that. But I thought you spoke as though
I might be ashamed of Granny's having been a servant."
This had actually been the case, and Violet looked abashed. She knew
if her grandmother had been a servant she would not have people aware
of it for the world; nevertheless she could not but admire Ann
for being above what she recognised to be a despicable feeling.
"I am so very sorry if I have hurt you in any way," she murmured;
"but—but I didn't understand. I have no grandmother myself, and I
didn't know you loved yours so much."
The next day Violet informed Agnes Hosking that she had been right,
and that Dr. Reed's mother had been a servant.
"How sly of Ann Reed not to have told you before!" exclaimed Agnes,
secretly delighted that she had been the one to enlighten Violet.
There was a malicious gleam in her eyes as she spoke.
"Not at all," Violet returned; "she did not think of telling me, and
you are mistaken if you imagine she wishes to keep it a secret.
She loves her grandmother dearly." And with that she brought the
conversation to an abrupt close.