ADAH AT TERRACE HILL.
The next morning was cold and frosty, as winter mornings in New England
are wont to be, and Adah, shivered involuntarily as from her uncurtained
window she looked out upon the bare woods and the frozen fields covered
with the snow of yesterday. Oh, how cold and dreary and desolate
everything seemed on that December morning; and only Adah’s trust in Him
who she knew would not forsake her kept her heart from fainting. Even
this could not keep back her tears as she watched the coming of the
eastern train, and wished that she could take it and go back to Spring
Bank. Wistfully she watched the train which paused for a single moment
and then sped on its way, just as there came a knock at the door, and
the baggage man appeared.
“If you please, ma’am,” he began, “the Terrace Hill carriage is
here—brung over the doctor, who has took the train for New York. I told
the driver how’t you wanted to go there. Shall I give him your trunk?”
Adah answered in the affirmative, and then hastened to wrap up Willie.
She was ready in a moment and descended to the room where Jim, the
driver, stood waiting for her, eyeing her sharply, as if making up his
mind with regard to her position.
“A lady,” was his mental comment, and with as much politeness as if she
had been Madam Richards herself, he opened the carriage door and held
Willie while she entered, asking if she were comfortable, and peering a
little curiously in Willie’s face, which puzzled him somewhat. “A near
connection, I guess, and mighty pretty, too. I’m most sorry she’s come
visiting just now, when old madam and the others is so cross. Them old
maids will raise hob with the boy—nice little shaver,” thought the kind
hearted Jim, as he hurried up his horses, looking back occasionally, and
smiling at Willie, who had forgotten the ache of yesterday, and was
crowing with delight as the carriage moved swiftly on.
Once, as Adah caught his good-humored eye, she ventured to say to him,
“Has Miss Anna procured a waiting-maid yet?”
There was a comical gleam in Jim’s eye now, for Adah was not the first
applicant he had taken up to Terrace Hill, and it was the memory of
madam’s reception of them which made him laugh. He never suspected that
this was Adah’s business, she was so unlike the others, and he answered
frankly, “No, that’s about played out. They don’t come as thick as they
did. Madam turned the last one out doors.”
“Turned her out doors?” and Adah’s face was as white as the snow rifts
they were passing.
The driver felt that he had gossiped too much, and relapsed into
silence, while Adah, in a paroxysm of terror sat with clasped hands and
closed eyes, unmindful of Willie’s attempt to make her look at the huge
building, just in sight. In her dread of Mrs. Richards she scarcely knew
what she was doing, and leaning forward, at last she said, huskily,
“Driver, driver, do you think she’ll turn me off too?”
“Turn you off!” and in his surprise at the sudden suspicion which for
the first time darted across his mind, Jim brought his horses to a full
stop, while he held a parley with the pale, frightened creature, asking
so eagerly if Mrs. Richards would turn her off. “Why should she? You
ain’t going there for that, be you?”
“Not to be turned out of doors, no,” Adah answered, “but I—I—I want that
place so much. I read Miss Anna’s advertisement; but please turn back,
or let me get out and walk. I can’t go there now. Is Miss Anna like the
rest?”
Jim had recovered himself a little, and though he could not have been
more astonished had Adah proved to be a washerwoman, than he was to find
her a waiting-maid, it did not abate his respect for her one whit. She
had been a lady sure, and as such he should treat her. She had also
appealed to him for sympathy, and he would not withhold it.
“Miss Anna’s an angel,” he answered. “If you get her ear, you’re all
right; the plague is to get it with them two she cats ready to tear your
eyes out. If I’se you, I’d ask to see her. I wouldn’t tell my arrent
either, till I did. She’s sick up stairs; but I’ll see if Pamely can’t
manage it. That’s my woman—Pamely; been mine for four years, and we’ve
had two pair of twins, all dead; so I feel tender towards the little
ones,” and Jim glanced at Willie, who had succeeded in making Adah
notice the house standing out so prominently against the winter sky, and
looking to the poor girl more like a prison than a home.
Only one part of it seemed inviting—the two crimson-curtained windows
opening upon a verandah, from which a flight of steps led down into what
must be a flower-garden.
“Miss Anna’s room,” the driver said, pointing towards it; and Adah
looked out, vainly hoping for a glimpse of the sweet face she had in her
mind as Anna’s.
But Anna was sick in bed with a headache, induced by the excitement of
her brother’s visit and the harsh words which passed between him and his
sisters, he telling them, jokingly at first, that he was tired of
getting married, and half resolved to give it up; while they, in return,
abused him for fickleness, taunted him with their poverty, and sharply
reproached him for his unwillingness to lighten their burden, by taking
a rich wife when he could get one.
All this John had repeated to Anna in the dim twilight of the morning,
as he stood by her bedside to bid her good-bye; and she, as usual, had
soothed him into quiet, speaking kindly of his bride-elect, and saying
she should like her.
He had not told her Lily’s story, as he meant to do. There was no
necessity for that, for the matter was fixed. ’Lina should be his wife,
and he need not trouble Anna further; so he had bidden her adieu, and
was gone again, the carriage which bore him away bringing back Adah and
her boy.
Jim opened the wide door for her, and ushered her into a little
reception room, where the Misses Richards received their morning calls.
Drawing a deep arm chair to the fire, Adah sat down before the cheerful
blaze, and looked around her with that strange feeling one experiences
where everything is new.
Willie seemed perfectly at home, seating himself upon a little stool,
covered with some of Miss Eudora’s choicest worsted embroidery, a piece
of work of which she was very proud, never allowing anything to touch it
lest the roses should be jammed, or the raised leaves defaced. But
Willie cared neither for leaves not roses, nor yet for Miss Eudora, and
drawing the stool to his mother’s side, he sat kicking his little heels
into a worn place of the carpet, which no child had kicked since the
doctor’s days of babyhood. The tender threads were fast giving way to
the vigorous strokes, when two doors opposite each other opened
simultaneously, and both Mrs. Richards and Eudora appeared.
They had heard from Jim that a stranger was there, and as all the cross
questionings concerning Adah elicited only the assertion, that “she
_was_ a lady,” both had made a slight change in their toilet ere
starting for the room which they reached together, Mrs. Richards taking
in at once the fit and material of Adah’s traveling dress, deciding that
the collar, unbuttoned and shoved back from the throat, was real mink,
as were the wristlets on which a pair of small white hands were folded
together. She noticed, too, the tiny linen cuffs, with the neat gold
buttons which Alice had made Adah wear. Everything was in keeping, and
their visitor was a lady. This was her decision, while Eudora noticed
only Willie on the bouquet which had cost her so much labor, and the
alarming size of that worn spot in the carpet where the little high
heeled slipper still was busy. Her first impulse was to seize him by the
arm and transfer him to some other locality, but the beauty of his face
diverted her attention, and she involuntarily drew a step nearer to the
child, fascinated by him, just as her mother was attracted towards Adah.
“Are you—ah, yes—you are the lady who Jim said wished to see me,” the
latter began, bowing politely to Adah, who had not yet dared to look up,
and who when at last she did raise her eyes, withdrew them at once, more
abashed, more frightened, more bewildered than ever, for the face she
saw fully warranted her ideas of a woman who could turn a waiting-maid
from her door just because she was a waiting-maid.
Something seemed choking Adah and preventing her utterance, for she did
not speak until Mrs. Richards said again, this time with a little less
suavity and a little more hauteur of manner, “Have I had the honor of
meeting you before?”—then with a low gasp, a mental petition for help,
Adah rose up and lifting to Mrs. Richards’ cold, haughty face, her soft,
brown eyes, where tears were almost visible, answered faintly, “We have
not met before. Excuse me, madam, but my business is with Miss Anna, can
I see her please?”
There was something supplicating in the tone with which Adah made this
request, and it struck Mrs. Richards unpleasantly, making her answer
haughtily, “My daughter is sick. She does not see visitors, but I will
take your name and your errand.”
Too much confused to remember anything distinctly Adah forgot Jim’s
injunction; forgot that Pamelia was to arrange it somehow; forgot
everything, except that Mrs. Richards was waiting for her to speak. An
ominous cough from Eudora decided her, and then her reason for being
there came out. She had seen Miss Anna’s advertisement, she wanted a
place, and she had come so far to get it; had left a happy home that she
might not be dependent but earn her bread for herself and her little
boy. Would they take her message to Anna? Would they let her stay? and
Adah’s voice took a tone of wild entreaty as she marked the lowering of
madam’s brow, and the perceptible change in her manner when she
ascertained that, according to her creed, not a lady but a menial stood
before her.
“You say you left a happy home,” and the thin, sneering lips of Eudora
were pressed so tightly together that the words could scarcely find
egress. “May I ask, if it was so happy, why you left it?”
There was a flush on Adah’s cheek as she replied, “Because it was a home
granted at first from charity. It was not mine. The people were poor,
and I would not longer be a burden to them.”
“And your husband—where is he?”
This was the hardest question of all, and Adah’s distress was visible as
she replied. “Willie’s father left me, and I don’t know where he is.”
An incredulous, provoking smile flitted over Eudora’s face as she
returned, “We hardly care to have a deserted wife in our family—it might
be unpleasant.”
“Yes,” and the old lady took up the argument, “Anna is well enough
without a maid. I don’t know why she put that foolish advertisement in
the paper, in answer, I believe, to one equally foolish which she saw
about an unfortunate woman with a child.”
“I am that woman. I wrote that advertisement when my heart was heavier
than it is now, and God took care of it. He pointed it out to Miss Anna.
He caused her to answer it. He sent me here, and you will let me see
her. Think if it were your own daughter, pleading thus with some one.”
“That is impossible. Neither my daughter, nor my daughter-in-law, if I
had one, could ever come to a servant’s position,” Mrs. Richards
replied, not harshly, for there was something in Adah’s manner which
rode down her resentful pride; and she might have yielded, but for
Eudora, whose hands had so ached to shake the little child, now
innocently picking at a bud.
How she did long to box his ears, and while her mother talked, she had
taken a step forward more than once, but stopped as often, held in check
by the little face and soft blue eyes turned so trustingly upon her, the
pretty lips once actually putting themselves toward her, as if expecting
a kiss. Eudora could not harm that child sitting on her embroidery as
coolly as if he had a right: but she could prevent her mother from
granting the stranger’s request; so when she saw signs of yielding, she
said, decidedly, “She cannot see Anna, mother. You know how foolish she
is, and there’s no telling what fancy she might take.”
“Eudora,” said Mrs. Richards in a low tone, “it might be well for Anna
to have a maid, and this one is certainly different from the others who
have applied.”
“But we can’t be bothered with a child. It would drive us crazy.”
“Yes, certainly, I did not think of that. A child would be very
troublesome,” Mrs. Richards rejoined.
“So madam, you see how impossible it is for us to keep you, but you can
of course stay till car-time, when Jim will carry you back to the
depot.”
She said this so decidedly that all hope died out of Adah’s heart and
she felt as if she were going to faint with the crushing disappointment.
Just then the door bell rang. It was the doctor, come to visit Anna, and
both Mrs. Richards and Eudora left the room.
“Oh, why did I come here, and where shall I go?” Adah moaned, as a sense
of her lonely condition came over her.
She knew she would be welcome in Kentucky, but Hugh could not afford to
have her back, and she had so counted on helping him with her first
wages.
“Will my Father in Heaven direct me? will he tell me what to do?” she
murmured brokenly, praying softly to herself that a way might be opened
for her, a path which she could tread. She could not help herself. All
her dependence now was in her God, and in trusting him she found rest at
last.
She could not tell how it was, but a quiet peace stole over her, a
feeling which had no thought or care for the future, and it had been
many nights since she had slept as sweetly or soundly as she did for
one-half hour with her head upon the table in that little room at
Terrace Hill, Dr. Richard’s home and Anna’s. She did not see the
good-humored face which looked in at her a moment, nor hear the
whispering in the hall; neither did she know when Willie was coaxed from
the room and carried up the stairs into the upper hall, where he was
purposely left to himself, while Pamelia went to Anna’s room, where she
was to sit for an hour or so, while the ladies had their lunch. Anna’s
head was better; the paroxysms of pain were less frequent than in the
morning, and she lay upon her pillow, so nearly asleep that she did not
hear that unusual sound for Terrace Hill, the patter of little feet in
the hall without. Tired of staying by himself and spying the open door,
Willie hastened toward it, pausing a moment on the threshold as if to
reconnoiter. Something in Anna’s attitude, as she lay with her long fair
hair falling over the pillow, must have reminded him of Alice, for with
a cry of delight, he ran forward, and patting the white cheek with his
soft baby hand, lisped out the word “Arn-tee, Arn-tee,” making Anna
start suddenly and gaze at him in wondering surprise.
“Who is he?” she said, drawing him to her at once and pressing a kiss
upon his rosy face.
Pamelia told her what she knew of the stranger waiting in the reception
room, adding in conclusion, “I believe they said you did not want her,
and Jim is to take her to the depot when it’s time. She’s very young and
pretty, and looks so sorry, Jim told me.”
“Said I did not want her! How did they know?” and something of the
Richards’ spirit flashed from Anna’s eyes. “The child is so beautiful,
and he called me, _Auntie_, too! He must have an auntie somewhere.
Little dear! how she must love him! Lift him up, Pamelia!”
The woman obeyed, and Willie was soon nestled close to Anna, who kissed
him again, smoothed his curls, pinched his cheek, squeezed his soft
hands, and then asked whom he so much resembled.
Pamelia could not tell. The likeness had puzzled her, but she never
thought of finding it in her young mistress’ face.
“I must see his mother,” Anna said, as she continued to caress and
fondle him. “Perhaps I should like her. At any events I will hear what
she has to say. Show her up, Pamelia; but first smooth my hair a little
and arrange my pillows,” she added, feeling intuitively that the
stranger was not like the others who had come to her on similar errands.
Pamelia complied with her request, brushing back the long, loose locks,
and making the bed more smooth and tidy in its appearance; then leaving
Willie with Anna, she repaired to the reception room, and rousing the
sleeping Adah, said to her hurriedly,
“Please, miss, come quick; Miss Anna wants to see you. The little boy is
up there with her.”