“Tom, dear,” said has wife one morning at breakfast, about the close of
the first year of their marriage, “What do you mean to do about this
house? I find that the rents on all this row have risen fifty dollars. I
suppose our landlord will raise on us.”
“Yes,” replied her husband, knitting his brow with an anxious
expression, “he told me so yesterday.”
“The rent is already high enough,” rejoined his wife, “for a house of
this size, with none of the new improvements, too. Had we not better
give it up?”
Coolidge looked annoyed, and said, “The moving would make up the
difference of the rent.”
“Yes, but then we might get a better house for the same money up town;
and by taking a lease—”
“You can’t take a house on lease,” answered her husband quickly, “these
landlords have one so in their power.”
“But they will lease I know,” pursued Lucy, “for Mrs. Saville told me
yesterday that they had taken their house for three years. The one next
door is to rent on the same terms, with baths on every story, and some
new contrivance by which all the coal is taken up stairs by turning some
crank, or something or other,” continued Mrs. Coolidge with all the
enthusiasm of a young housekeeper.
“Well, well,” interrupted Tom with some impatience, “we could not take
it if the whole work of the house was performed by machinery instead of
servants; for, to tell you the truth, Lucy,” he added gravely, “I am
behind hand in the rent.”
“Behind hand in the rent!” exclaimed Lucy aghast.
“Yes, but you need not look so horror struck, Lucy, it’s only the last
quarter. I should not like to leave, however, without having paid up
every thing; so we must stay where we are for this year. Cranstoun is
anxious we should, and so don’t trouble me about what is due; and upon
the whole it is more convenient to pay fifty dollars more in the course
of the year, than to move now.”
Lucy looked very serious, and then said,
“I am perfectly willing to stay here, Tom, but I really think we pay
Cranstoun enough now; it’s unconscionable to ask more. Did you tell him
about the new houses, and remind him that this has no baths?”
“No, my dear,” replied Tom, “you can’t expostulate with a man you owe.
Next year we can do better, but for the present we must put up with it
as it is.”
“But to pay fifty dollars,” pursued Lucy, in a dissatisfied tone, for
she was thinking of fifty things on which she would prefer laying out
fifty dollars.
“I must do the best I can, Lucy,” replied her husband. “And now, I am
sorry to say it, Lucy, but we must retrench in something—we don’t make
the two ends meet this year.”
“Don’t we?” said Lucy sadly, “that’s very bad.”
“Yes, so it is. But don’t look so doleful about it, Lucy, for Heaven’s
sake,” said her husband; “it is not so bad after all—for though we are
behind hand, it is not a great deal. We have only to cut off something
else next year, and then all will come right again.”
“Well,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully, “where shall we begin. We
can’t do very well with a servant less. The cook, of course, we must
have. The chambermaid does the washing. The man—we can get a
waiter-girl instead of a man, if you are willing.”
Coolidge hesitated, and said,
“That is only exchanging one servant for another; and I hate girl
waiters. I never can order a woman; and then I must hire some one to
clean my boots—and there’s the putting in coal. The difference of wages
soon makes itself up, you see, in these trifles that you want all the
time. These sort of economies only make one uncomfortable, and save in
the end little or nothing.”
“That’s true,” she replied mournfully.
“We can give up the curtains for the back parlour,” rejoined he.
“But they are ordered,” replied Lucy.
“I know that,” he continued, “but I dare say Lambert would take them off
our hands.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Lucy; “but then he will make you pay something
if he does. They are cut for our windows—and you always lose upon any
thing they take back after it is cut.”
“I presume so; but that is not much.”
“Yes it is, considerable,” said Lucy, who, woman-like, clung to her
curtains. “And it does seem a pity to pay for what one has not;
particularly, too, when money is not over plenty.”
“True enough,” said Tom. “Well, we’ll see about it. I’ll see what
Lambert says about it. If he is in no hurry to be paid, why, in the
course of six months, I can settle it all.”
“Of course,” said Lucy, “he gives six months’ credit—that is what they
all do. No one expects to be paid before six months.”
“Oh, if that’s so,” answered Tom, “the thing may as well rest as it is.”
“If that room were not so cold,” pursued Lucy, “I should not care so
much about the curtains; but we really suffered for the want of them
last winter.”
“At any rate, they are ordered,” said her husband, “and as you think
Lambert wont take them off our hands without making me pay something
down—so there let it rest. I don’t feel inclined to pay for what we
don’t have, which is, as you say, provoking enough. In fact, I find it
pretty tough to pay for what we do have, let alone what we don’t.”
In truth, Coolidge found it more convenient to have some hundreds
_charged_, than to pay a bonus down, small though it might be. So Lucy
secured her curtains.
“But we must economize in something, you say,” continued Lucy. “I wish I
knew where to begin,” she added, anxiously. “I don’t know what we can
cut off.”
“We have not many superfluities, certainly,” rejoined her husband.
“However, we must retrench as much as we can. I don’t know exactly in
what—but as a general thing, Lucy. You must have an eye to saving all
you can this winter; and next year I hope it wont be necessary. So good
morning, love—it is time I was off.” And Tom took his hat and left his
wife, who sat ruminating with a very doleful face, just where he left
her, until the cook came for her orders for dinner.
The Coolidges kept a good table, usually—for Tom was fond of bringing
in a friend or two occasionally to dinner; but, full of her new
economies, Lucy, instead of ordering as usual, asked the cook “if there
was not cold lamb enough left of yesterday to make a stew;” and that,
with some mashed potatoes, was all she ordered.
“And wont I cook the pheasants that have just come in?” inquired the
woman.
“No,” replied Lucy, who felt too poor to eat pheasants, “put them in the
larder—it is so cold they will keep.”
“Will I fricassee or roast the chickens?” pursued the cook; “there are
two pair in the larder.”
“No, the stew will be enough,” answered Mrs. Coolidge, and the cook left
the room with a toss, wondering “what was in the wind now,” quite
puzzled by her mistress’ sad manner of ordering dinner, and sudden
notion “of having nothing worth the cooking.” “I guess Mr. Coolidge wont
like stew,” thought the offended _chef de cuisine_, as she set to work
chopping meat and vegetables.
She was right this time, at any rate—for Coolidge came home to dinner,
bringing a friend with him.
As he took his seat at table, his consternation could not be concealed
at the sight of the stew alone.
“Why Lucy, what’s the meaning of this?” said he, looking at his wife.
“Did not the man bring home the marketing? I’ll speak to him to-morrow.
It’s too bad.”
Lucy colored very much, and said,
“Yes, he came at the usual hour.”
“Well,” he said, looking as if he expected her to say something more.
She colored still more painfully as she said,
“I did not think you would be home to dinner—and—”
“Oh, I understand,” said her husband laughing, though embarrassed, “you
did not happen to feel hungry when the cook came for orders, and so
thought you did not want any dinner, and that I should stay down town.
Well, Hastings,” turning to his friend, “as Mrs. Coolidge wont give us
any thing to eat, I’ll see we have something fit to drink. Here Joe,”
turning to the man, “take this key and go into the wine cellar, and
bring me one of those bottles with a card label—and see that you don’t
shake it coming up stairs. There,” he said, “Hastings, try that.”
“It’s exquisite,” returned his friend, “wine for an emperor.”
And so, what with the wine and the stew, Mr. Hastings seemed to make a
very good dinner, though Lucy felt as if she would be glad to get under
the table, and Tom did not feel much better.
“Now, Lucy, dearest,” said he, as the door closed upon their guest,
“what did you mean by ordering such a dinner?”
Tears started in her eyes as she said,
“Oh, Tom, I did not know you meant to bring home any one with you; and
as we were talking of economizing this morning, and as there was plenty
of cold lamb left of yesterday—”
“I never was so mortified in my life,” rejoined her husband. “There’s no
use, Lucy, in going to extremes. We may economize without going to such
pitiful lengths as that. However, there’s no use in talking about it
now. It’s over, and I gave Hastings wine that more than compensated for
your dinner. It was some of my father’s best old Madeira. I’ve only a
couple of dozen of it, but I felt I must give the poor devil something
to make it up, or he would feel as if I had insulted him in bringing him
home to a stew and potatoes! So, Lucy, even on the score of economy,
your dinner did not answer its end. There’s no use in saving a pair of
chickens, if one must give a bottle of five dollar wine to make up for
their absence. This, I think,” he added laughing, “is what Emily would
call one of your ‘economical failures.’”
Coolidge was certainly as good-tempered a man as ever lived; but a bad
dinner, when one has a friend, will try the best of husbands—and he was
vexed, in spite of himself. However, he said no more; and Lucy resolved
she never would put him to the test again, in that way at least.
“Feast or famine! hey Lucy?” he said the next day, as he took his place
at table. “Roast chickens, stewed chickens, pheasants! Any removes,” he
continued, laughing as he looked at his wife.
“I did not mean to have all this cooked to day,” said Lucy,
apologizingly, “but a thaw has come on, and cook said the poultry would
not keep any longer, as it had already been two days in the larder.”
“Oh, I understand,” replied her husband, “we must eat yesterday’s dinner
and today’s too. That’s it, is it? I wish Hastings dined with us to-day
instead of yesterday, and then I might have kept my old wine that I
grudge him.”
“Ah Tom,” said Lucy beseechingly.
He laughed, and said,
“Why, Lucy, we need not economise in the matter of mirth, need we?”
“Yes, when it is at my expense, Tom,” she replied.
“Then you think me extravagant in that respect,” he said. “Well, no
matter, Lucy; if you are a young housekeeper, you are the dearest,
sweetest-tempered little wife a man ever had. Only, love, when you order
dinner, particularly a stew, just think of Mr. Hastings, will you? Let
us economise in any thing but hospitality. There, now, I’ll say no more
about it, I promise. Moreover, I wont tell Emily—now am I not good?”