The Rexford family was without a servant. Eliza, the girl they had
brought with them from Quebec, had gone to a situation at the Chellaston
hotel. The proprietor and manager of that large building, having become
lame with rheumatism, had been sorely in need of a lieutenant, or
housekeeper, and had chosen one with that shrewdness which had ever been
his business capital. His choice had fallen on Eliza and she had
accepted the place.
When Robert Trenholme heard of this arrangement he was concerned,
knowing how difficult servants were to procure. He took occasion to
speak to Miss Rexford on the subject, expressing sympathy with her and
strong censure of Eliza.
"Indeed I am not sure but that she has done right," said Sophia.
"You surprise me very much. I thought you made somewhat of a companion
of her."
"I do; and that is why, after hearing what she has to say about it, I
think she has done right. She has abilities, and this is the only
opening in sight in which she can exercise them."
"I should think"--sternly--"that these abilities were better
unexercised."
"That is probably because you haven't the least idea what it is to have
energies and faculties for which you have no scope"--this archly.
"But I should think the risk of learning pert manners--"
"That is the way men always argue about women. I tell you there is no
such risk for an energetic, clever girl as to place her where the rust
of unexercised faculties will eat into her soul. It is just because so
many girls have to undergo this risk, and cannot do it safely, that the
world is so full of women that are captious or morbid or silly. Boys
treated in the same way would turn out as badly."
"But there is scope for all the highest faculties of a woman's nature in
such a household as yours," cried he.
"Since you say so"--politely--"I am bound to believe it."
"No, but really--do you mean to say you don't think so?"
"You have just expressed yourself so positively that I am curious to
know how you came by your knowledge, first, as to Eliza's faculties, and
secondly, as to the scope for them in our house."
"It is unkind of you to laugh at me when I am only a humble enquirer
after truth."
"Having expressed yourself thus modestly--"
"Nay, but I only said what I would have said about any girl in any such
family."
"And you only said it with that simplicity of certainty which every man
would have felt on the same subject."
"I cry a truce; I plead for mercy. Let us have out the traits of Eliza's
character separately, and examine the scope in detail."
"To begin with, she has wonderful foresight; her power to plan the work
of the house so as to get it done as easily as possible often surprises
me. Now, of what use is this faculty in the kingdom of my step-mother,
who always acts on the last impulse, and upsets every one's plans
without even observing them? She has great executive ability, too; but
what use is it when, as soon as she gets interested in the
accomplishment of something, my mother cries, 'Come, Eliza, all work
and no play makes Jack a dull boy; go and romp with the children!' Then,
too, she has plenty of resource; but of what use is that, when the thing
she sees to be best in an emergency is seldom the thing that is done?
The hotel-keeper is more observing than you; he has noticed that Eliza
is no ordinary manager, and offered her high wages."
"You know, of course, what you are talking about," said Trenholme,
feelingly, for he had no doubt that her sympathy with Eliza had arisen
out of the pains of her own experience; "but in your house there is
surely boundless room for humble, loving service; and how much better
this girl would be if she could set aside her cleverness to perform such
service." He did not add, "as you have done," but there was that in his
voice which implied it. He went on: "I do not yet allow that you have
disproved my statement, for I said that where she was she had scope for
her _highest_ faculties."
"I suppose it is admitted that the highest faculty of man is worship,"
remarked Sophia, suggesting that he was not speaking to the point; "but
that is no reason why a boy with a head for figures should be made a
farmer, or that a young woman with special ability should remain a
maid-of-all-work."
"And what of the affections--love for children, and for other women
better than herself? A girl who has such privileges as this girl had
with you has a far better chance of doing well than in a public hotel,
even if that were a safe place for her."
Possibly Sophia thought her companion showed too great sensibility
concerning Eliza's privileges, for she did not take notice of any but
the last part of his sentence.
"It is a safe place for her; for she is able to take care of herself
anywhere, if she chooses; and if she doesn't choose, no place is safe.
Besides, you know, the place is a boarding-house really, rather than an
hotel."
"I am not so surprised at the view _you_ take of it, for you will do
more than any one else to supply her place."
This, Trenholme's feeling prophecy, was quite true. Sophia did do more
of Eliza's work than any one. She spared her younger sisters because she
wanted them to be happy.
In spite of this, however, Sophia was not so much in need of some one's
sympathy as were those younger girls, who had less work to do. A large
element in happiness is the satisfaction of one's craving for romance.
Now, there are three eras of romance in human life. The first is
childhood, when, even if the mind is not filled with fictitious fairy
tales which clothe nature, life is itself a fairy tale, a journey
through an unexplored region, an enterprise full of effort and wonder,
big with hope, an endless expectation, to which trivial realisations
seem large. It was in this era that the younger Rexford children, up to
Winifred, still lived; they built snow-men, half-expecting, when they
finished them in the gloaming, that the thing of their creation would
turn and pursue them; they learned to guide toboggans with a trailing
toe, and half dreamed that their steeds were alive when they felt them
bound and strain, so perfectly did they respond to the rider's will.
Sophia, again, had reached the third epoch of romance, when, at a
certain age, people make the discovery of the wondrous loveliness in the
face of the Lady Duty, and, putting a hand in hers, go onward, thinking
nothing hard because of her beauty. But it is admitted by all that there
is often a stage between these two, when all the romance of life is
summed up in the hackneyed word "love." The pretty girls who were
nicknamed Blue and Red had outgrown childhood, and they saw no
particular charm in work; they were very dull, and scarce knew why,
except that they half envied Eliza, who had gone to the hotel, and who,
it was well known, had a suitor in the person of Mr. Cyril Harkness, the
Philadelphian dentist.
Harkness had set up his consulting room in the hotel, but, for economy's
sake, he lodged himself in the old Harmon house that was just beyond
Captain Rexford's, on the same road. By this arrangement he passed the
latter house twice a day, but he never took any notice of Blue and Red.
They did not wish that he should--oh no, they were above that--but they
felt sure that Eliza was very silly to dislike him as she did,
and--well, between themselves, they found an infinite variety of things
to say concerning him, sayings emphasised by sweet little chuckles of
laughter, and not unfrequently wandering sighs. Sophia, at their age,
had had many suitors, this was the family tradition, and lo, upon their
own barren horizon there was only one pretty young man, and he only to
be looked at, as it were, through the bars of a fence.
One day, when the blue merino frock was flitting about near the red one,
the wearers of both being engaged in shaking up a feather bed, Red
suddenly stopped her occupation in some excitement.
"Oh, Blue!" She paused a moment as if she were experiencing some
interesting sensation; "oh, Blue, I think I've got toothache."
"No!" cried Blue, incredulously, but with hope.
Again over Red's face came the absorbed expression of introspection, and
she carefully indented the outside of her pretty cheek several times
with her forefinger.
"Yes, I'm sure I feel it. But no; there, it's gone again!"
"It's just the very way things have," said Blue, lamenting. "For two
months we've quite wished we had toothache, and there was Tommy the
other night just roaring with it."
"I shouldn't like a _roaring_ toothache," said Red, reflectively.
"Oh, but the worse it was," cried Blue, encouragingly, "the more
necessary it would be--" She stopped and shook her head with a very
roguish and significant glance at her sister.
"Mamma only put a bag of hot salt to Tommy's," said Red, prognosticating
evil.
"But if it were me," cried Blue, with assurance, "I'd not be cured by
bags of hot salt. I would insist upon consulting a dentist."
They both laughed a laugh of joyful plotting.
"It was only the other day," said Red, twisting her little English voice
into the American accent, "that he told Harold he was right down clever
at tinkering a tooth in the most pain_less_ manner."
"Oh, Red, dear Red," begged Blue, "do feel it again, for my sake; it
would be so joyfully funny if mamma would take us to him."
"I'd a little bit rather _you_, had the ache, Blue."
"I'd have it this _instant_ if I could, but"--reproachfully--"it was you
that felt the twinge.".
"Well, I don't mind," said Red, heroically, "as long as my cheek doesn't
swell; I won't go with a swelled face."
"What would it matter? He knows that your face is alike on both sides
_usually_."
"Still, I shouldn't like it," replied Red, with a touch of obstinacy.
Eliza, however, was of a very different mind about this same young man.
She had not taken her new situation with any desire to see more of him;
rather she hoped that by seeing him oftener she should more quickly put
an end to his addresses.
The "Grand Hotel" of Chellaston was, as Miss Rexford had said, a
boarding-house. It had few transient visitors. The only manufacturer of
the village, and his wife, lived in it all the year round; so did one of
the shopkeepers. Several other quiet people lived there all winter; in
summer the prices were raised, and it was filled to overflowing by more
fashionable visitors from the two cities that were within a short
journey. This "hotel" was an enormous wooden house, built in the
simplest fashion, a wide corridor running from front to rear on each
storey, on which the room doors opened. Rooms and corridors were large,
lofty, and well-lighted by large windows. The dining-room,
billiard-room, office, and bar-room, on the ground-floor, together with
the stairs and corridors, were uncarpeted, painted all over a light
slate grey. With the exception of healthy geraniums in most of the
windows, there was little ornament in these ground-floor rooms; but all
was new, clean, and airy. The upper rooms were more heavily furnished,
but were most of them shut up in winter. All the year round the landlord
took in the daily papers; and for that reason his bar-room, large and
always tolerably quiet, was the best public reading-room the village
boasted.
The keeper of this establishment was a rather elderly man, and of late
he had been so crippled by rheumatism that he could walk little and only
on crutches. He was not a dainty man; his coat was generally dusty, his
grey beard had always a grimy appearance of tobacco about it. He spent
the greater part of his day now sitting in a high pivot chair, his
crutches leaning against it.
"You see, miss," he said to Eliza, "I'll tell you what the crying need
for you is in this house at present; it's to step round spry and see
that the girls do their work. It's this way; when I was spry, if I
wasn't in the room, the young people knew that, like as not, I was just
round the corner; they knew I _might_ be there any minute; at present
they know they'll hear my sticks before I see them. It makes all the
difference. What I want of you is to be feet for me, and eyes for me,
and specially in the dining-room. Mrs. Bantry--that dressy lady you saw
in the corridor--Mrs. Bantry told me that this morning they brought her
buckwheat cakes, and _ten minutes after_, the syrup to eat 'em with. How
hot do you suppose they were?"
He finished his speech with the fine sarcasm of this question. He looked
at Eliza keenly. "You're young," he remarked warningly, "but I believe
you're powerful."
And Eliza showed that she was powerful by doing the thing that he
desired of her, in spite of the opposition from the servants which she
at first experienced. She had a share of hand work to do also, which was
not light, but she had high wages, a comfortable room in the top
storey, and the women who were boarding in the house made friends with
her. She would have thought herself very well off had it not been for
her dislike of Harkness, for which one reason certainly was the show he
made of being in love with her.
Harkness had his office on the first floor, and he took dinner at the
hotel. For about a week after Eliza's advent the young dentist and the
young housekeeper measured each other with watchful eyes, a measurement
for which the fact that they crossed each other's path several times a
day gave ample opportunity. Because the woman had the steadier eyes and
the man was the more open-tempered, Eliza gained more insight into
Harkness's character than he did into hers. While he, to use his own
phrase, "couldn't reckon her up the least mite in the world," she
perceived that under his variable and sensitive nature there was a
strong grip of purpose upon all that was for his own interest in a
material way; but having discovered this vein of calculating
selfishness, mixed with much of the purely idle and something that was
really warmhearted, she became only the more suspicious of his
intentions towards herself, and summoned the whole strength of her
nature to oppose him.
She said to him one day, "I'm surprised to hear that you go about
telling other gentlemen that you like me. I wonder that you're not
ashamed."
As she had hitherto been silent, he was surprised at this attack, and at
first he took it as an invitation to come to terms.
"I've a right-down, hearty admiration for you, Miss White. I express it
whenever I get the chance; I'm not ashamed of my admiration."
"But I am," said Eliza, indignantly. "It's very unkind of you."
Harkness looked at her, failing to unravel her meaning.
"There ain't anything a young lady likes better than to have an
admirer. She mayn't always like _him_, but she always likes him to be
admiring of her."
However true this philosophy of the inner secrets of the heart might be,
Eliza did not admit it for a moment. She denounced his behaviour, but it
was clear, as the saying is, that she was speaking over the head of her
audience. The youth evidently received it as a new idea that, when he
had spoken only in her praise, she could seriously object.
"Why now," he burst forth, "if any young lady took to admiring me,
thinking a heap of me and talking about me to her friends, d'ye think
I'd be cut up? I'd be pleased to that extent I'd go about on the broad
grin. I mightn't want to marry just yet; and when I did, I mightn't
_possibly_ take up with her; but I can tell you, as soon as I was
disposed to marry, I'd have a soft side towards her; I'd certainly think
it right to give her the first chance in considering who I'd have. And
that's all I ask of you, Miss White. You won't have anything to do with
me (why, I can't think), but I just give it put that I'm an admirer, and
I hang on, hoping that you'll think better of it."
He was good-natured about it, perfectly open apparently, and at the same
time evidently so confident that his was the sensible view of the matter
that Eliza could only repeat her prohibition less hopefully.
A little later she found that he had quelled a revolt against her
authority that was simmering in the minds of the table-maids. She went
at once to the door that was decorated with the dentist's sign.
It was opened by Harkness in the bowing manner with which he was wont to
open to patients. When he saw Eliza's expression he straightened
himself.
"I want to know what you've been saying to those girls downstairs about
me."
"Well now," said he, a little flustered, "nothing that you'd dislike to
hear."
"Do you think," she went on with calm severity, "that I can't manage my
affairs without your help?"
"By no means." His emphasis implied that he readily perceived which
answer would give least offence. "Same time, if I can make your path
more flowery--fail to see objections to such a course."
"I don't want you to trouble yourself."
"It wasn't the least mite of trouble," he assured her. "Why, those girls
downstairs, whenever I roll my eyes, they just fly to do the thing I
want."
"Do you think that is nice?" asked Eliza.
"Lovely--so convenient!"
"I do not like it."
"It don't follow that whenever they roll their eyes, I do what they
want. Jemima! no. They might roll them, and roll them, and roll them,
right round to the back of their heads; 'twouldn't have an atom of
effect on me."
He waited to see some result from this avowal, but Eliza was looking at
him as coldly as ever.
"In that respect," he added, "there ain't no one that interferes with
your prerogative."
Eliza looked as if he had spoken in a foreign tongue. "I do not
understand," she said, and in this she told a lie, but she told it so
successfully that he really did not know whether she had understood, or
whether it behooved him to speak more plainly.
Before he could make up his mind, she had taken her departure. When she
was gone he stood looking darkly, wishing he knew how to hasten the day
when she should change her aspect to him.