The very next morning as Elizabeth was engaged in putting the finishing
touches upon the arrangements of her new home, with all the keen delight
of nest-building, so strong in some women and so utterly lacking in
others, Miss Evelyn Tripp was announced, and a moment later stepped
airily from the laborious little elevator. "Oh, here you are _at last_,
you _darling_ girl!" she exclaimed, clasping and kissing Elizabeth with
_empressement_. "I knew you were expected last night--indeed, I was here
all the morning helping, but as I told your mother and that dear, quaint
grandmamma of yours, I wouldn't have intruded upon your very first
evening _for the world_! How delightfully well and pretty you are
looking, and isn't this the _sweetest_ little place? and oh! I nearly
forgot, _did_ you find Mrs. Van Duser's note? I assure you I pounced
upon _that_, and took good care to put it where you would both see it
the _very_ first thing. I don't mind confessing that I am simply
devoured with _curiosity_. _Was_ it a cheque, dear? And _is_ she going
to do something nice for you in a social way?"
Elizabeth's cheeks burned uncomfortably. "It was only a--a friendly--at
least I think--I am sure she meant it to be a friendly letter. She said
so, anyway. Sam put it in his pocket and took it away with him," she
made haste to add, forestalling the urgent appeal in Miss Tripp's
luminous gaze.
"Well, I am sure that was _most_ sweet and gracious of Mrs. Van Duser.
Didn't you find it so, my dear? So _dear_ of her to personally welcome
you to _Boston_! You'll call, of course, as soon as she returns from her
country place. She will expect it, I am sure; such women are _most_
punctilious in their code of social requirements, and you can't be _too_
careful not to offend. You'll forgive me for saying this much, won't
you, dear?"
Elizabeth was conscious of a distinct sense of displeasure as she met
Miss Tripp's anxiously solicitous eyes. "You are very good, Evelyn,"
she said, "but Sam--Mr. Brewster--thinks it will be best for us not
to--" She paused, her candid face suffused with blushes. "I'd--prefer
not to talk about Mrs. Van Duser, if you please. We don't _ever_ expect
to go and see her."
The tactful Miss Tripp looked sadly puzzled, but she felt that it would
not be the part of wisdom to press the issue for the moment. Her face
wreathed itself anew in forgiving smiles as she flitted about the little
rooms. "_Isn't_ this the most convenient, cosy little apartment?" she
twittered. "I am _so_ glad I was able to secure it for you; I assure you
I was obliged to use all of my diplomacy with the agent. And your pretty
things _do_ light up the dark corners so nicely. And speaking of corners
somehow reminds me, I have found you a _perfect treasure_ of a maid; but
you must take her at once. She's a cousin of our Marie, and has always
been employed by the best people. She was with Mrs. Paget Smythe last, I
believe. She told Marie last night that she would be willing to come to
you for only twenty dollars a month, and that's _very_ reasonable,
considering the fact that she is willing to do part of the laundry
work,--the towels, sheets and plain things, you know. _Expensive?_
Indeed it's not, dear--for _Boston_. Why, I could tell you of plenty of
people who are _glad_ to pay twenty-five and put all their laundry out.
I'd advise you to engage Annita without delay. Really, you couldn't do
better."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I mean to do my own work," she said
decidedly. "I shall want something to do while Sam is away, and why not
this when I--like it?"
"But you won't like it after a while, my poor child, when the shine is
once worn off your new pans and things, and _think_ of your hands! It's
absolutely impossible to keep one's nails in any sort of condition, and
besides the heat from the gas-range is simply _ruinous_ for the
complexion. Didn't you _know_ that? Of course you are all milk and roses
now, but how long do you suppose that will last, if you are to be
cooped up in a hot, stuffy little kitchen from morning till night?" Miss
Tripp paused dramatically, her eyes wide with sympathy and apprehension.
"But we--I am sure we oughtn't to afford to keep a maid," demurred
Elizabeth in a small, weak voice. "So please don't----"
"Oh, of course, it is nothing to me, my dear," and Miss Tripp arose with
a justly offended air. "I _thought_ I was doing you a kindness when I
asked Annita to call and see you this morning. It will be perfectly easy
for you to tell her that you don't care to engage her. But when it comes
to _affording_, _I_ think you can scarcely afford to waste your good
looks over a cooking range. It is your duty to your husband to keep
yourself young and lovely as long as you possibly can. It is only _too_
easy to lose it all, and then--" Miss Tripp concluded her remarks with a
shrug of her shapely shoulders, which aroused the too impressionable
Elizabeth to vague alarms.
"I am sure," faltered the bride of two months, "that Sam would like me
just as well even if I----"
"Of course you _think_ so, dear, every woman does till it is _too
late_," observed Miss Tripp plaintively. "I'm sure I _hope_ it will turn
out differently in your case. But I could tell you things about some of
my married friends that would-- Well, all I have to say is that _I_
never dared try it--matrimony, I mean--and if I were in your place-- But
there! I _mustn't_ meddle. I solemnly promised myself years and years
ago that I wouldn't. The trouble with me is that I love my friends _too_
fondly, and I simply cannot endure to see them making mistakes which
might _so easily_ have been avoided. I'm coming to take you out
to-morrow, and we'll lunch down town in the nicest, most inexpensive
little place. And--_dear_, if you finally decide _not_ to engage Annita,
_would_ you mind telling her that through a _slight misunderstanding_
you had secured some one else? These high-class servants are _so easily_
offended, you know, and on account of _our Marie_--a perfect
_treasure_ Oh, _thank_ you! _Au revoir_--till to-morrow!"
Perhaps it is not altogether to be wondered at that immediately after
Miss Tripp's departure Elizabeth found occasion to glance into her
mirror. Yes, she was undoubtedly prettier than ever, she decided, but
suppose it should be true about the withering heat of the gas-range; and
then there were the rose-tinted, polished nails, to which Elizabeth had
only lately begun to pay particular attention. The day's work had
already left perceptible blemishes upon their dainty perfection.
Elizabeth recalled her mother's hands, marred with constant household
labour, with a kind of terror. Her own would look the same before many
years had passed, and would Sam--_could_ he love her just the same when
the delicate beauty of which he was so fond and proud had faded? And
what, after all, was twenty dollars a month when one looked upon it as
the price of one's happiness?
Elizabeth sat down soberly with pencil and paper to contemplate the
matter arithmetically. Thirty-eight dollars for rent, and twenty
dollars for a maid, subtracted from one hundred and twenty--the latter
sum representing the young engineer's monthly salary--left an undeniable
balance of sixty-two dollars to be expended in food, clothing and other
expenses. After half an hour of careful calculation, based on what she
could remember of Innisfield prices, Elizabeth had reached very
satisfactory conclusions. Clothing would cost next to nothing--for the
first year, at least, and food for two came to a ridiculously small sum.
There appeared, in short, to be a very handsome remainder left over for
what Sam called "contingencies." This would include, of course, the
fixed amount which they had prudently resolved to lay by on the arrival
of every cheque. This much had already been settled between them. Sam
had a promising nest-egg in a Boston bank, and both had dreams of its
ultimate hatching into a house and lot, or into some comfortable
interest-bearing bonds. Elizabeth was firmly resolved to be prudent and
helpful to her husband in every possible way; but was it not her duty
to keep herself young and lovely as long as possible? The idea so
cogently presented to her attention by Miss Tripp not an hour since
appeared to have become so much her own that she did not recognise it as
borrowed property.
It was at this psychological instant that a second summons announced the
presence of a certain Annita McMurtry in the entrance hall below. "Did
Mrs. Brewster wish to see this person?"
Elizabeth hesitated for the fraction of a minute. "You may tell her to
come up," was the message that finally found its way to the hall-boy's
attentive ear.
Annita McMurtry was a neatly attired young woman, with a penetrating
black eye, a ready smile and a well-poised, not to say supercilious
bearing. In response to Elizabeth's timid questions she vouchsafed the
explanation that she could "do everything" and was prepared "to take
full charge."
"And by that you mean?"
"I mean that the lady where I work doesn't have to worry herself about
anything. I take full charge of everything--ordering, cooking, laundry
and waiting on table, and I don't mind wiping up the floors in a small
apartment like this. Window-cleaning and rugs the janitor attends to, of
course."
"When--could you come, if I--decide to engage you?" asked Elizabeth,
finding herself vaguely uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the alert
black eyes.
"If you please, madam, I'd rather speak first about wages and days out.
I'd like my alternate Thursdays and three evenings a week; and will you
be going to theatres often with supper parties after? I don't care for
that, unless I get paid extra. I left my last place on account of it; I
can't stand it to be up all hours of the night and do my work next day."
"I should think not!" returned Elizabeth, with ready sympathy. "We
should not require anything of the sort. As to wages, Miss Tripp said
you would be willing to come for twenty dollars. It seemed very high to
me for only two in the family." Elizabeth spoke in a very dignified way;
she felt that she appeared quite the experienced housekeeper in the eyes
of the maid, who was surveying her with a faint, inscrutable smile.
"I never work for a family where there is more than two," said Miss
McMurtry pointedly. "I could make my thirty-five a month easy if I
would. But Miss Tripp must have misunderstood me; twenty-two was what I
said, but you'll find I earn it. I'll come to-morrow morning about this
time, and thank you kindly, madam." The young woman arose with a proud
composure of manner, which put the finishing touch upon the interview,
and accomplished her exit with the practised ease of a society woman.
"I wonder if I ought to have done it? And what will Sam say?" Elizabeth
asked herself, ready to run undignifiedly after the girl, whose retiring
footsteps were already dying away down the corridor. But Sam was found
to be of the opinion that his Elizabeth had done exactly right. He
hadn't thought of hiring a servant, to be sure, but he ought,
manifestly, to have been reminded of his omission. It was surely not to
be expected that a man's wife should spend her time and strength toiling
over his food in a dark little den of a kitchen. No decent fellow would
stand for that sort of thing. He wanted his wife to have time to go out,
he said; to enjoy herself; to see pictures and hear music. As for the
expense, he guessed they could swing it; he was sure to get another rise
in salary before long. And much more of the same sort, all of which
proved pleasantly soothing to Elizabeth's somewhat disturbed conscience.
"I suppose Grandma Carroll would say I was a lazy girl," she sighed.
"You didn't marry Grandma Carroll, dear," Sam told her, with a humorous
twinkle in his eyes which Elizabeth thought delightfully witty.