"Deacon Richards asked me to come," I answered.
"I don't know him," she commented, evidently confused. "Is he Overseer?"
I hushed her, and went on with my work, for I wanted to think what I had
better tell her. Of course Marm Bagley was of no use, but when Hannah
came things went better. Hannah was scandalized at my being there at
all, and of course would not hear of my doing the rough work. She took
possession of Mrs. Bagley, and ordered her about with a vigor which
completely dazed that unsatisfactory person, and amused me so much that
my disturbed spirits rose once more. This was all very well as long as
it lasted, but Hannah had to go home for dinner, and when the restraint
of her presence was removed Marm Bagley reasserted herself. She tied a
frowzy bonnet over a still more frowzy head, lighted her pipe, and
departed for the woods behind the house.
"When that impudent old hired girl o' yours's got all through and got
out," she remarked, "you can hang a towel out the shed winder, and I'll
come back. I ain't got no occasion to stay here and git ordered round by
no hired girl of anybody's."
My remonstrances were of no avail, since I would not promise not to let
Hannah come into the house, and the fat old woman waddled away into the
seclusion of the woods. I suppose she slept somewhere, though the woods
must be so damp that the indulgence seems rather a dangerous one; but at
nightfall she returned more odorous, and more like Sairey Gamp than
ever.
Hannah came back, and we did what we could. When Dr. Wentworth came in
the afternoon he allowed us to get Julia into clean linen, and she did
seem grateful for the comfort of fresh sheets and pillow-slips. It
amused me that Hannah had not only taken the servants' bedding, but had
picked out the oldest.
"I took the wornest ones," she explained. "Of course we wouldn't any of
us ever want to sleep in them again."
She was really shocked at my proposing to remain for the night.
"It ain't for you, Miss Ruth, to be taking care of such folks," she
declared; "and as for that Bagley woman, I'd as soon have a bushel
basket of cockroaches in the house as her, any time."
Even this lively image did not do away with the necessity of my
remaining. I could not propose to Hannah to take my place. The mere fact
of being mistress often forces one to do things which servants would
feel insulted if asked to undertake. Father used to say, "Remember that
_noblesse oblige_ does not exist in the kitchen;" though of course this
is true only in a sense. Servants have their own ideas of what is due to
position, I am sure; only that their ideas are so different, and often
so funnily different, from ours. I could not leave the sick girl to the
mercies of Mrs. Bagley, and so I had no choice but to stay.
All day long Julia watched me with a closeness most strangely
disconcerting. She evidently could not make out why I was there. In the
evening, as I sat by her, she said suddenly,--
"I dunno what you think yer'll get by it."
"Get by what?"
"Bein' here."
I smiled at her manner, and told her that at least I had already got the
satisfaction of seeing her more comfortable. She made no reply for a
time, but evidently was considering the matter. I did not think it well
for her to talk, so I sat knitting quietly, while Mrs. Bagley loomed in
the background, rocking creakingly.
"'Twon't please him none," she said at last. "He don't care a damn for
me."