In relating so much about her mistresses, I have lately seemed to
overlook Elizabeth Hand.
She was a person easy enough to be overlooked. She never put herself
forward, not even now, when Miss Hilary's absence caused the weight
of housekeeping and domestic management to fall chiefly upon her. She
went about her duties as soberly and silently as she had done in her
girlhood; even Miss Leaf could not draw her into much
demonstrativeness: she was one of those people who never "come out"
till they are strongly needed, and then-- But it remained to be
proved what this girl would be.
Years afterward Hilary remembered with what a curious reticence
Elizabeth used to go about in those days: how she remained as
old-fashioned as ever; acquired no London ways, no fripperies of
dress or flippancies of manner. Also, that she never complained of
anything; though the discomforts of her lodging-house life must have
been great--greater than her mistresses had any idea of at the time.
Slowly, out of her rough, unpliant girlhood, was forming that
character of self-reliance and self-control, which, in all ranks,
makes of some women the helpers rather than the helped, the laborers
rather than the pleasure-seekers; women whose constant lot it seems
to be to walk on the shadowed side of life, to endure rather than to
enjoy.
Elizabeth had very little actual enjoyment. She made no
acquaintances, and never asked for holidays. Indeed she did not seem
to care for any. Her great treat was when, on a Sunday afternoon,
Miss Hilary sometimes took her to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's;
when her pleasure and gratitude always struck her mistress--may, even
soothed her, and won her from her own many anxieties. It is such a
blessing to be able to make any other human being, even for an hour
or two, entirely happy.
Except these bright Sundays, Elizabeth's whole time was spent in
waiting upon Miss Leaf, who had seemed to grow suddenly frail and
old. It might be that living without her child six days out of the
seven was a greater trial than had at first appeared to the elder
sister, who until now had never parted with her since she was born;
or it was perhaps a more commonplace and yet natural cause, the
living in London lodgings, without even a change of air from room to
room; and the want of little comforts and luxuries, which, with all
Hilary's care, were as impossible as ever to their limited means.
For Selina's engagement, which, as a matter of decorum, she had
insisted should last six months, did not lessen expenses. Old gowns
were shabby, and omnibuses impossible to the future Mrs. Ascott of
Russell Square; and though, to do her justice, she spent as little as
to her self-pleasing nature was possible, still she spent something.
"It's the last; I shall never cost you any more," she would say,
complacently; and revert to that question of absorbing interest, her
trousseau, an extremely handsome one, provided liberally by Mr.
Ascott. Sorely had this arrangement jarred upon the pride of the Leaf
family; yet it was inevitable. But no personal favors would the other
two sisters have accepted from Mr. Ascott, even had he offered
them--which he did not--save a dress each for the marriage, and a
card for the marriage breakfast, which, he also arranged, was to take
place at a hotel.
So, in spite of the expected wedding, there was little change in the
dull life that went on at No. 15. Its only brightness was when Miss
Hilary came home from Saturday to Monday. And in those brief
glimpses, when, as was natural, she on her side, and they on theirs,
put on their best face, so to speak, each trying to hide from the
other any special care, it so fell out that Miss Hilary never
discovered a thing which, week by week, Elizabeth resolved to speak
to her about, and yet never could. For it was not her own affair; it
seemed like presumptuously middling in the affairs of the family.
Above all, it involved the necessity of something which looked like
tale-bearing and backbiting of a person she disliked, and there was
in Elizabeth--servant as she was--an instinctive chivalrous honor
which made her especially anxious to be just to her enemies.
Enemy, however, is a large word to use; and yet day by day her
feelings grew more bitter toward the person concerned--namely. Mr.
Ascott Leaf. It was not from any badness in him: he was the sort of
young man always likely to be a favorite with what would be termed
his "inferiors;" easy, good-tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a good
deal of trouble certainly, but giving it so agreeably that few
servants would have grumbled, and paying for it--as he apparently
thought every thing could be paid for--with a pleasant word and a
handful of silver.
But Elizabeth's distaste for him had deeper roots. The principal one
was his exceeding indifference to his aunts' affairs, great and
small, from the marriage, which he briefly designated as a "jolly
lark," to the sharp economies which, even with the addition of Miss
Hilary's salary, were still requisite.--None of these latter did he
ever seem to notice, except when they pressed upon himself; when he
neither scolded nor argued, but simply went out and avoided them.
He was now absent from home more than ever, and apparently tried as
much as possible to keep the household in the dark as to his
movements--leaving at uncertain times, never saying what hour he
would be back, or if he said so, never keeping to his word. This was
the more annoying as there were a number of people continually
inquiring for him, hanging about the house, and waiting to see him
"on business;" and some of these occasionally commented on the young
gentleman in such unflattering terms that Elizabeth was afraid they
would reach the ear of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward tried always to
attend to the door herself.
But Mrs. Jones was a wide awake woman. She had not let lodgings for
thirty years for nothing. Ere long she discovered, and took good care
to inform Elizabeth of her discovery, that Mr. Ascott Leaf was what
is euphuistically termed "in difficulties."
And here one word, lest in telling this poor lad's story I may be
supposed to tell it harshly or uncharitably, as if there was no crime
greater than that which a large portion of society seems to count as
none; as if, at the merest mention of the ugly word debt, this rabid
author flew out, and made all the ultra virtuous persons whose
history is here told fly out, like turkeys, after a bit of red cloth
which is a very harmless scrap of red cloth after all.
Most true, some kind of debt deserves only compassion. The merchant
suddenly failing; the tenderly reared family who by some strange
blunder or unkind kindness have been kept in ignorance of their real
circumstances, and been spending pounds for which there was only
pence to pay; the individuals, men or women, who, without any laxity
of principle, are such utter children in practice, that they have to
learn the value and use of money by hard experience, much as a child
does, and are little better than children in all that concerns L. S.
D. to the end of their days.
But these are debtors by accident, not error. The deliberate debtor,
who orders what he knows he has no means of paying for; the pleasure
loving debtor, who can not renounce one single luxury for conscience'
sake; the well-meaning, lazy debtor, who might make "ends meet," but
does not, simply because he will not take the trouble; upon such as
these it is right to have no mercy--they deserve none.
To which of these classes young Ascott Leaf belonged his story will
show. I tell it, or rather let it tell itself, and point its own
moral; it is the story of hundreds and thousands.
That a young fellow should not enjoy his youth would be hard; that it
should not be pleasant to him to dress well, live well, and spend
with open hand upon himself as well as others, no one will question.
No one would ever wish it otherwise. Many a kindly spendthrift of
twenty-one makes a prudent paterfamilias at forty, while a man who in
his twenties showed a purposeless niggardliness, would at sixty grow
into the most contemptible miser alive. There is something even in
the thoughtless liberality of youth to which one's heart warms, even
while one's wisdom reproves.--But what struck Elizabeth was that
Ascott's liberalities were always toward himself, and himself only.
Sometimes when she took in a parcel of new clothes, while others yet
unpaid for were tossing in wasteful disorder about his room, or when
she cleaned indefinite pairs of handsome boots, and washed dozens of
the finest cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, her spirit grew hot within
her to remember Miss Hilary's countless wants and contrivances in the
matter of dress, and all the little domestic comforts which Miss
Leaf's frail health required--things which never once seemed to cross
the nephew's imagination. Of course not, it will be said; how could a
young man be expected to trouble himself about these things?
But they do though. Answer, many a widow's son; many a heedful
brother of orphan sisters; many a solitary clerk living and paying
his way upon the merest pittance; is it not better to think of others
than one's self? Can a man, even a young man, find his highest
happiness in mere personal enjoyment?
However, let me cease throwing these pebbles of preaching under the
wheels of my story; as it moves on it will preach enough for itself.
Elizabeth's annoyances, suspicions, and conscience-pricks as to
whether she ought or ought not to communicate both, came to an end at
last. Gradually she made up her mind that, even if it did look like
tale bearing, on the following Saturday night Miss Hilary must know
all.
It was an anxious week; for Miss Leaf had fallen ill. Not seriously;
and she never complained until her sister had left, when she returned
to her bed and did not again rise. She would not have Miss Hilary
sent for, nor Miss Selina, who was away paying a ceremonious
prenuptial visit to Mr. Ascott's partner's wife at Dulwich.
"I don't want any thing that you can not do for me. You are becoming
a first rate nurse. Elizabeth," she said, with that passive, peaceful
smile which almost frightened the girl; it seemed as if she were
slipping away from this world and all its cares into another
existence. Elizabeth felt that to tell her any thing about her
nephew's affairs was perfectly impossible. How thankful she was that
in the quiet of the sick-room her mistress was kept in ignorance of
the knocks and inquiries at the door, and especially of a certain
ominous paper which had fallen into Mrs. Jones's hands, and informed
her, as she took good care to inform Elizabeth, that any day "the
bailiffs" might be after her young master.
"And the sooner the whole set of you clear out of my house the
better; I am a decent respectable woman," said Mrs. Jones, that very
morning; and Elizabeth had had to beg her as a favor not to disturb
her sick mistress, but to wait one day, till Miss Hilary came home.
Also, when Ascott, ending with a cheerful and careless countenance
his ten minutes' after breakfast chat in his aunt's room, had met
Elizabeth on the staircase, he had stopped to bid her say if any body
wanted him he was gone to Birmingham, and would not be home till
Monday. And on Elizabeth's hesitating, she having determined to tell
no more of these involuntary lies, he had been very angry, and then
stooped to entreaties, begging her to do as he asked, or it would be
the ruin of him. Which she understood well enough when, all the day,
she--grown painfully wise, poor girl!--watched a Jewish-looking man
hanging about the house, and noticing every body that went in or out
of it.
Now, sitting at Miss Leaf's window, she fancied she saw this man
disappear into the gin-palace opposite, and at the same moment a
figure darted hurriedly round the street corner, and into the door of
No. 15. Elizabeth looked to see if her mistress were asleep, and then
crept quietly out of the room, shutting the door after her.
Listening, she heard the sound of the latch-key, and of some one
coming stealthily up stairs.
"Hollo!--Oh, it's only you, Elizabeth."
"Shall I light your candle, sir?"
But when she did the sight was not pleasant. Drenched with rain, his
collar pulled up, and his hat slouched, so as in some measure to act
as a disguise, breathless and trembling--hardly any body would have
recognized in this discreditable object that gentlemanly young man,
Mr. Ascott Leaf.
He staggered into his room and threw himself across the bed.
"Do you want anything, Sir?" said Elizabeth, from the door.
"No--yes--stay a minute. Elizabeth, are you to be trusted?"
"I hope I am, Sir."
"The bailiffs are after me. I've just dodged them. If they know I'm
here the game's all up--and it will kill my aunt."
Shocked as she was, Elizabeth was glad to hear him say that--glad to
see the burst of real emotion with which he flung himself down on the
pillow, muttering all sorts of hopeless self-accusations.
"Come, Sir, 'tis no use taking on so," said she, much as she would
have spoken to a child, for there was something childish rather than
man like in Ascott's distress. Nevertheless, she pitied him, with the
unreasoning pity a kind heart gives to any creature, who, blameworthy
or not, has fallen into trouble. "What do you mean to do?"
"Nothing. I'm cleaned out. And I haven't a friend in the world."
He turned his face to the wall in perfect despair.
Elizabeth tried hard not to sit in judgment upon what the catechism
would call her "betters;" and yet her own strong instinct of almost
indefinite endurance turned with something approaching contempt from
this weak, lightsome nature, broken by the first touch of calamity.
"Come, it's no use making things worse than they are. If no body
knows that you are here, lock your door and keep quiet. I'll bring
you some dinner when I bring up Missis' tea, and not even Mrs. Jones
will be any the wiser."
"You're a brick, Elizabeth--a regular brick!" cried the young fellow,
brightening up at the least relief. "That will be capital.--Get me a
good slice of beef, or ham, or something. And mind you, don't
forget!--a regular stunning bottle of pale ale."
"Very well, Sir."
The acquiescence was somewhat sullen, and had he watched Elizabeth's
face he might have seen there an expression not too flattering. But
she faithfully brought him his dinner, and kept his secret, even
though, hearing from over the staircase Mrs. Jones resolutely deny
that Mr. Leaf had been at home since morning, she felt very much as
if she were conniving at a lie. With a painful, half-guilty
consciousness she waited for her mistress's usual question. "Is my
nephew come home?" but fortunately it was not asked.--
Miss Leaf lay quiet and passive, and her faithful nurse settled her
for the night with a strangely solemn feeling, as if she were leaving
her to her last rest, safe and at peace before the overhanging storm
broke upon the family.
But all shadow of this storm seemed to have passed away from him who
was its cause. As soon as the house was still Ascott crept down and
fell to his supper with as good an appetite as possible. He even
became free and conversational.
"Don't look so glum, Elizabeth. I shall soon weather through. Old
Ascott will fork out; he couldn't help it. I'm to be his nephew you
know. Oh, that was a clever catch of Aunt Selina's. If only Aunt
Hilary would try another like it."
"If you please, Sir, I'm going to bed."
"Off with you, then, and I'll not forget the gown at Christmas.
You're a sharp young woman, and I'm much obliged to you." And for a
moment he looked as if he were about to make the usual unmannerly
acknowledgment of civility from a young gentleman to a servant maid,
viz., kissing her, but he pulled a face and drew back. He really
couldn't; she was so very plain. At this moment there came a violent
ring, and "Fire!" was shouted through the key-hole of the door.
Terrified, Elizabeth opened it, when, with a burst of laughter, a man
rushed in and laid hands upon Ascott.
It was the sheriff's officer.
When his trouble came upon him Ascott's manliness returned. He turned
very white, but he made no opposition; had even enough of his wits
about him--or something better than wits--to stop Mrs. Jones from
rushing up in alarm and indignation to arouse Miss Leaf.
"No; she'll know it quite soon enough.--Let her sleep till morning.
Elizabeth, look here." He wrote upon a card the address of the place
he was to be taken to. "Give Aunt Hilary this. Say if she can think
of a way to get me out of this horrid mess; but I don't
deserve--Never mind. Come on, you fellows."
He pulled his hat over his eyes, jumped into the cab, and was gone.
The whole thing had not occupied five minutes.
Stupefied, Elizabeth stood and considered what was best to be done.
Miss Hilary must be told; but how to get at her in the middle of the
night, thereby leaving her mistress to the mercy of Mrs. Jones. It
would never do. Suddenly she thought of Miss Balquidder.--She might
send a message. No, not a message--for the family misery and disgrace
must not be betrayed to a stranger--but a letter to Kensington. With
an effort Elizabeth composed herself sufficiently to write one--her
first--to her dear Miss Hilary.
"HONORED MADAM,--Mr. Leaf has got himself into trouble, and is taken
away somewhere; and I dare not tell missis; and I wish you was at
home, as she is not well, but better than she has been, and she shall
know nothing about it till you come.--Your obedient and affectionate
servant,
ELIZABETH HAND."
Taking Ascott's latch-key she quitted the house and slipped out into
the dark night, almost losing her way among the gloomy squares, where
she met not a creature except the solitary policeman, plashing
steadily along the wet pavement. When he turned the glimmer of his
bull's eye upon her she started like a guilty creature, till she
remembered that she really was doing nothing wrong, and so need not
be afraid of any thing. This was her simple creed, which Miss Hilary
had taught her, and it upheld her, even till she knocked at Miss
Balquidder's door. There, poor girl, her heart sank, especially when
Miss Balquidder, in an anomalous costume and a severe voice, opened
the door herself, and asked who was there, disturbing a respectable
family at this late hour?
Elizabeth answered, what she had before determined to say, as
sufficiently explaining her errand, and yet betraying nothing that
her mistress might wish concealed.
"Please, ma'am, I'm Miss Leaf's servant. My missis is ill, and I want
a letter sent at once to Miss Hilary."
"Oh! come in, then. Elizabeth, I think, your name is?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What made you leave home at this hour of the night? Did your
mistress send you?"
"No."
"Is she so very ill? It seems sudden. I saw Miss Hilary to-day, and
she knew nothing at all about it."
Elizabeth shrank a little before the keen eye that seemed to read her
through.
"There's more amiss than you have told me, young woman. Is it because
your mistress is in serious danger that you want to send for her
sister?"
"No."
"What is it then? You had better tell me at once. I hate
concealment."
It was a trial; but Elizabeth held her ground.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am; but I don't think missis would like any
body to know, and therefore I'd rather not tell you."
Now the honest Scotswoman, as she said, hated any thing underhand,
but she respected the right of every human being to maintain silence
if necessary. She looked sharply in Elizabeth's face, which
apparently re-assured her, for she said, not unkindly,
"Very well, child, keep your mistress's secrets by all means. Only
tell me what you want. Shall I take a cab and fetch Miss Hilary at
once?"
Elizabeth thanked her, but said she thought that would not do; it
would be better just to send the note the first thing to-morrow
morning, and then Miss Hilary would come home just as if nothing had
happened, and Miss Leaf would not be frighted by her sudden
appearance.
"You are a good, mindful girl," said Miss Balquidder. "How did you
learn to be so sensible?"
At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered and exhausted
with the excitement she had gone through, and agitated by the feeling
of having, for the first time in her life, to act on her own
responsibility, gave way a little. She did not exactly cry, but she
was very near it.
Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, imperative
voice--
"David, is your wife away to her bed yet?"
"No, ma'am."
"Then tell her to fetch this young woman to the kitchen and give her
some supper. And afterward, will you see her safe home, poor lassie?
She's awfully tired, you see."
"Yes, ma'am."
And following David's gray head, Elizabeth, for the first time since
she came to London, took a comfortable meal in a comfortable kitchen,
seasoned with such stories of Miss Balquidder's goodness and
generosity, that when, an hour after, she went home and to sleep, it
was with a quieter and more hopeful than she could have believed
possible under the circumstances.