In Parker it is indisputable that the Sea Lady found--or at least had
found for her by Mrs. Bunting--a treasure of the richest sort. Parker
was still fallaciously young, but she had been maid to a lady from
India who had been in a "case" and had experienced and overcome
cross-examination. She had also been deceived by a young man, whom she
had fancied greatly, only to find him walking out with another--contrary
to her inflexible sense of correctness--in the presence of which all
other things are altogether vain. Life she had resolved should have no
further surprises for her. She looked out on its (largely improper)
pageant with an expression of alert impartiality in her hazel eyes,
calm, doing her specific duty, and entirely declining to participate
further. She always kept her elbows down by her side and her hands
always just in contact, and it was impossible for the most powerful
imagination to conceive her under any circumstances as being anything
but absolutely straight and clean and neat. And her voice was always
under all circumstances low and wonderfully distinct--just to an
infinitesimal degree indeed "mincing."
Mrs. Bunting had been a little nervous when it came to the point. It was
Mrs. Bunting of course who engaged her, because the Sea Lady was so
entirely without experience. But certainly Mrs. Bunting's nervousness
was thrown away.
"You understand," said Mrs. Bunting, taking a plunge at it, "that--that
she is an invalid."
"I _didn't_, Mem," replied Parker respectfully, and evidently quite
willing to understand anything as part of her duty in this world.
"In fact," said Mrs. Bunting, rubbing the edge of the tablecloth
daintily with her gloved finger and watching the operation with
interest, "as a matter of fact, she has a mermaid's tail."
"Mermaid's tail! Indeed, Mem! And is it painful at all?"
"Oh, dear, no, it involves no inconvenience--nothing. Except--you
understand, there is a need of--discretion."
"Of course, Mem," said Parker, as who should say, "there always is."
"We particularly don't want the servants----"
"The lower servants-- No, Mem."
"You understand?" and Mrs. Bunting looked up again and regarded Parker
calmly.
"Precisely, Mem!" said Parker, with a face unmoved, and so they came to
the question of terms. "It all passed off _most_ satisfactorily," said
Mrs. Bunting, taking a deep breath at the mere memory of that moment.
And it is clear that Parker was quite of her opinion.
She was not only discreet but really clever and handy. From the very
outset she grasped the situation, unostentatiously but very firmly. It
was Parker who contrived the sort of violin case for It, and who made
the tea gown extension that covered the case's arid contours. It was
Parker who suggested an invalid's chair for use indoors and in the
garden, and a carrying chair for the staircase. Hitherto Fred Bunting
had been on hand, at last even in excessive abundance, whenever the Sea
Lady lay in need of masculine arms. But Parker made it clear at once
that that was not at all in accordance with her ideas, and so earned the
lifelong gratitude of Mabel Glendower. And Parker too spoke out for
drives, and suggested with an air of rightness that left nothing else to
be done, the hire of a carriage and pair for the season--to the equal
delight of the Buntings and the Sea Lady. It was Parker who dictated the
daily drive up to the eastern end of the Leas and the Sea Lady's
transfer, and the manner of the Sea Lady's transfer, to the bath chair
in which she promenaded the Leas. There seemed to be nowhere that it was
pleasant and proper for the Sea Lady to go that Parker did not swiftly
and correctly indicate it and the way to get to it, and there seems to
have been nothing that it was really undesirable the Sea Lady should do
and anywhere that it was really undesirable that she should go, that
Parker did not at once invisibly but effectively interpose a bar. It was
Parker who released the Sea Lady from being a sort of private and
peculiar property in the Bunting household and carried her off to a
becoming position in the world, when the crisis came. In little things
as in great she failed not. It was she who made it luminous that the Sea
Lady's card plate was not yet engraved and printed ("Miss Doris
Thalassia Waters" was the pleasant and appropriate name with which the
Sea Lady came primed), and who replaced the box of the presumably dank
and drowned and dripping "Tom" by a jewel case, a dressing bag and the
first of the Sea Lady's trunks.
On a thousand little occasions this Parker showed a sense of propriety
that was penetratingly fine. For example, in the shop one day when
"things" of an intimate sort were being purchased, she suddenly
intervened.
"There are stockings, Mem," she said in a discreet undertone, behind,
but not too vulgarly behind, a fluttering straight hand.
"_Stockings!_" cried Mrs. Bunting. "But----!"
"I think, Mem, she should have stockings," said Parker, quietly but very
firmly.
And come to think of it, why _should_ an unavoidable deficiency in a
lady excuse one that can be avoided? It's there we touch the very
quintessence and central principle of the proper life.
But Mrs. Bunting, you know, would never have seen it like that.