Miss Harriet Pyne was often congratulated upon the good fortune of
having such a helper and friend as Martha. As time went on this tall,
gaunt woman, always thin, always slow, gained a dignity of behavior and
simple affectionateness of look which suited the charm and dignity of
the ancient house. She was unconsciously beautiful like a saint, like
the picturesqueness of a lonely tree which lives to shelter unnumbered
lives and to stand quietly in its place. There was such rustic
homeliness and constancy belonging to her, such beautiful powers of
apprehension, such reticence, such gentleness for those who were
troubled or sick; all these gifts and graces Martha hid in her heart.
She never joined the church because she thought she was not good
enough, but life was such a passion and happiness of service that it
was impossible not to be devout, and she was always in her humble place
on Sundays, in the back pew next the door. She had been educated by a
remembrance; Helena's young eyes forever looked at her reassuringly
from a gay girlish face, Helena's sweet patience in teaching her own
awkwardness could never be forgotten.
"I owe everything to Miss Helena," said Martha, half aloud, as she sat
alone by the window; she had said it to herself a thousand times. When
she looked in the little keepsake mirror she always hoped to see some
faint reflection of Helena Vernon, but there was only her own brown old
New England face to look back at her wonderingly.
Miss Pyne went less and less often to pay visits to her friends in
Boston; there were very few friends left to come to Ashford and make
long visits in the summer, and life grew more and more monotonous. Now
and then there came news from across the sea and messages of
remembrance, letters that were closely written on thin sheets of paper,
and that spoke of lords and ladies, of great journeys, of the death of
little children and the proud successes of boys at school, of the
wedding of Helena Dysart's only daughter; but even that had happened
years ago. These things seemed far away and vague, as if they belonged
to a story and not to life itself; the true links with the past were
quite different. There was the unvarying flock of ground-sparrows that
Helena had begun to feed; every morning Martha scattered crumbs for
them from the side door-steps while Miss Pyne watched from the
dining-room window, and they were counted and cherished year by year.
Miss Pyne herself had many fixed habits, but little ideality or
imagination, and so at last it was Martha who took thought for her
mistress, and gave freedom to her own good taste. After a while,
without any one's observing the change, the every-day ways of doing
things in the house came to be the stately ways that had once belonged
only to the entertainment of guests. Happily both mistress and maid
seized all possible chances for hospitality, yet Miss Harriet nearly
always sat alone at her exquisitely served table with its fresh
flowers, and the beautiful old china which Martha handled so lovingly
that there was no good excuse for keeping it hidden on closet shelves.
Every year when the old cherry-trees were in fruit, Martha carried the
round white old English dish with a fretwork edge, full of pointed
green leaves and scarlet cherries, to the minister, and his wife never
quite understood why every year he blushed and looked so conscious of
the pleasure, and thanked Martha as if he had received a very
particular attention. There was no pretty suggestion toward the
pursuit of the fine art of housekeeping in Martha's limited
acquaintance with newspapers that she did not adopt; there was no
refined old custom of the Pyne housekeeping that she consented to let
go. And every day, as she had promised, she thought of Miss
Helena,--oh, many times in every day: whether this thing would please
her, or that be likely to fall in with her fancy or ideas of fitness.
As far as was possible the rare news that reached Ashford through an
occasional letter or the talk of guests was made part of Martha's own
life, the history of her own heart. A worn old geography often stood
open at the map of Europe on the light-stand in her room, and a little
old-fashioned gilt button, set with a bit of glass like a ruby, that
had broken and fallen from the trimming of one of Helena's dresses, was
used to mark the city of her dwelling-place. In the changes of a
diplomatic life Martha followed her lady all about the map. Sometimes
the button was at Paris, and sometimes at Madrid; once, to her great
anxiety, it remained long at St. Petersburg. For such a slow scholar
Martha was not unlearned at last, since everything about life in these
foreign towns was of interest to her faithful heart. She satisfied her
own mind as she threw crumbs to the tame sparrows; it was all part of
the same thing and for the same affectionate reasons.