The three girls who composed our establishment had usually roomed in
one large apartment, but there was a small closet of a room which I
had taken for books, fishing-rods, guns, and any miscellaneous
property of my own. I mentally turned these out, and devoted the room
to the newcomer, whose appearance interested me.
And, as my mother hesitated, I remarked, with the assured tone of
master of the house, that "certainly she could have a small room to
herself."
"It is all I ask," she briefly answered. "In that case, I will come
for the same wages you paid the last girl in my situation."
"When will you come?" said my mother.
"I am ready to come immediately. I only want time to go and order my
things to be sent here."
She rose and left us, saying that we might expect her that afternoon.
"Well, sir," said my mother, "you seem to have taken it upon you to
settle this matter on your own authority."
"My dear little mother," said I, in a patronizing tone, "I have an
instinctive certainty that she will do. I wanted to make sure of a
prize for you."
"But the single room."
"Never mind; I'll move all my traps out of the little third-story
room. It's my belief that this girl or woman has seen better days; and
if she has, a room to herself will be a necessity of her case,--poor
thing!"
"I don't know," said my mother hesitatingly. "I never wish to
employ in my service those above their station,--they always make
trouble; and there is something in this woman's air and manner and
pronunciation that makes me feel as if she had been born and bred
in cultivated society."
"Supposing she has," said I; "it's quite evident that she, for some
reason, means to conform to this position. You seldom have a girl
apply for work who comes dressed with such severe simplicity; her
manner is retiring, and she seemed perfectly willing and desirous to
undertake any of the things which you mentioned as among her daily
tasks."
On the afternoon of that day our new assistant came, and my
mother was delighted with the way she set herself at work. The
china-closet, desecrated and disordered in the preceding reigns
of terror and confusion, immediately underwent a most quiet but
thorough transformation. Everything was cleaned, brightened, and
arranged with a system and thoroughness which showed, as my mother
remarked, a good head; and all this was done so silently and
quietly that it seemed like magic. By the time we came down to
breakfast the next morning, we perceived that the reforms of our
new prime minister had extended everywhere. The dining-room was
clean, cool, thoroughly dusted, and freshly aired; the tablecloth
and napkins were smooth and clean; the glass glittered like
crystal, and the silver wore a cheerful brightness. Added to
this were some extra touches of refinement, which I should call
table coquetry. The cold meat was laid out with green fringes of
parsley; and a bunch of heliotrope, lemon verbena, and mignonette,
with a fresh rosebud, all culled from our little back yard, stood in
a wineglass on my mother's waiter.
"Well, Mary, you have done wonders," said my mother, as she took her
place; "your arrangements restore appetite to all of us."
Mary received our praises with a gracious smile, yet with a composed
gravity which somewhat puzzled me. She seemed perfectly obliging and
amiable, yet there was a serious reticence about her that quite
piqued my curiosity. I could not help recurring to the idea of a lady
in disguise; though I scarcely knew to what circumstance about her I
could attach the idea. So far from the least effort to play the lady,
her dress was, in homely plainness, a perfect contrast to that of the
girls who had preceded her. It consisted of strong dark-blue stuff,
made perfectly plain to her figure, with a narrow band of white linen
around her throat. Her dark brown hair was brushed smoothly away from
her face, and confined simply behind in a net; there was not the
slightest pretension to coquetry in its arrangement; in fact, the
object seemed to be to get it snugly out of the way, rather than to
make it a matter of ornament. Nevertheless, I could not help remarking
that there was a good deal of it, and that it waved very prettily,
notwithstanding the care that had been taken to brush the curl out of
it.
She was apparently about twenty years of age. Her face was not
handsome, but it was a refined and intelligent one. The skin had a
sallow hue, which told of ill health or of misfortune; there were
lines of trouble about the eye; but the mouth and chin had that
unmistakable look of firmness which speaks a person able and resolved
to do a quiet battle with adverse fate, and to go through to the end
with whatever is needed to be done, without fretfulness and without
complaint. She had large, cool, gray eyes, attentive and thoughtful,
and she met the look of any one who addressed her with an honest
firmness; she seemed to be, in fact, simply and only interested to
know and to do the work she had undertaken,--but what there might be
behind and beyond that I could not conjecture.
One thing about her dress most in contrast with that of the other
servants was that she evidently wore no crinoline. The exuberance of
this article in the toilet of our domestics had become threatening of
late, apparently requiring that the kitchens and pantries should be
torn down and rebuilt. As matters were, our three girls never could
be in our kitchen at one time without reefings and manoeuvrings of
their apparel which much impeded any other labor, and caused some loss
of temper; and our china-closet was altogether too small for the
officials who had to wash the china there, and they were constantly at
odds with my mother for her firmness in resisting their tendency to
carry our china and silver to the general melee of the kitchen sink.
Moreover, our dining-room not having been constructed with an eye to
modern expansions of the female toilet, it happened that, if our table
was to be enlarged for guests, there arose serious questions of the
waiter's crinoline to complicate the calculations; and for all these
reasons, I was inclined to look with increasing wonder on a being in
female form who could so far defy the tyranny of custom as to dress in
a convenient and comfortable manner, adapted to the work which she
undertook to perform. A good-looking girl without crinoline had a sort
of unworldly freshness of air that really constituted a charm. If it
had been a piece of refined coquetry,--as certainly it was not,--it
could not have been better planned.
Nothing could be more perfectly proper than the demeanor of this girl
in relation to all the proprieties of her position. She seemed to give
her whole mind to it with an anxious exactness; but she appeared to
desire no relations with the family other than those of a mere
business character. It was impossible to draw her into conversation.
If a good-natured remark was addressed to her on any subject such as
in kindly disposed families is often extended as an invitation to a
servant to talk a little with an employer, Mary met it with the
briefest and gravest response that was compatible with propriety, and
with a definite and marked respectfulness of demeanor which had
precisely the effect of throwing us all at a distance, like
ceremonious politeness in the intercourse of good society.
"I cannot make out our Mary," said I to my mother; "she is a perfect
treasure, but who or what do you suppose she is?"
"I cannot tell you," said my mother. "All I know is, she understands
her business perfectly, and does it exactly; but she no more belongs
to the class of common servants than I do."
"Does she associate with the other girls?"
"Not at all--except at meal-times, and when about her work."
"I should think that would provoke the pride of sweet Erin," said I.
"One would think so," said my mother; "but she certainly has managed
her relations with them with a curious kind of tact. She always treats
them with perfect consideration and politeness, talks with them during
the times that they necessarily are thrown together in the most
affable and cheerful manner, and never assumes any airs of supremacy
with them. Her wanting a room to herself gave them at first an idea
that she would hold herself aloof from them, and in fact, for the
first few days, there was a subterranean fire in the kitchen ready to
burst forth; but now all that is past, and in some way or other,
without being in the least like any of them, she has contrived to make
them her fast friends. I found her last night in the kitchen writing a
letter for the cook, and the other day she was sitting in her room
trimming a bonnet for Katy; and her opinion seems to be law in the
kitchen. She seldom sits there, and spends most of her leisure in her
own room, which is as tidy as a bee's cell."
"What is she doing there?"
"Reading, sewing, and writing, as far as I can see. There are a few
books, and a portfolio, and a small inkstand there,--and a neat little
work-basket. She is very nice with her needle, and obliging in putting
her talents to the service of the other girls; but towards me she is
the most perfectly silent and reserved being that one can conceive. I
can't make conversation with her; she keeps me off by a most rigid
respectfulness of demeanor which seems to say that she wants nothing
from me but my orders. I feel that I could no more ask her a question
about her private affairs, than I could ask one of Mrs. McGregor in
the next street. But then it is a comfort to have some one so entirely
trustworthy as she is in charge of all the nice little articles which
require attention and delicate handling. She is the only girl I ever
had whom I could trust to arrange a parlor and a table without any
looking after. Her eye and hand, and her ideas, are certainly those of
a lady, whatever her position may have been."
In time our Mary became quite a family institution for us, seeming to
fill a thousand little places in the domestic arrangement where a hand
or an eye was needed. She was deft at mending glass and china, and
equally so at mending all sorts of household things. She darned the
napkins and tablecloths in a way that excited my mother's admiration,
and was always so obliging and ready to offer her services that, in
time, a resort to Mary's work-basket and ever ready needle became the
most natural thing in the world to all of us. She seemed to have no
acquaintance in the city, never went out visiting, received no
letters,--in short, seemed to live a completely isolated life, and to
dwell in her own thoughts in her own solitary little room.
By that talent for systematic arrangement which she possessed, she
secured for herself a good many hours to spend there. My mother,
seeing her taste for reading, offered her the use of our books; and
one volume after another spent its quiet week or fortnight in her
room, and returned to our shelves in due time. They were mostly works
of solid information,--history, travels,--and a geography and atlas
which had formed part of the school outfit of one of the younger
children she seemed interested to retain for some time. "It is my
opinion," said my mother, "that she is studying,--perhaps with a view
to getting some better situation."
"Pray keep her with us," said I, "if you can. Why don't you raise her
wages? You know that she does more than any other girl ever did before
in her place, and is so trustworthy that she is invaluable to us.
Persons of her class are worth higher wages than common uneducated
servants."
My mother accordingly did make a handsome addition to Mary's wages,
and by the time she had been with us a year the confidence which her
quiet manner had inspired was such that, if my mother wished to be
gone for a day or two, the house, with all that was in it, was left
trustingly in Mary's hands, as with a sort of housekeeper. She was
charged with all the last directions, as well as the keys to the
jellies, cakes, and preserves, with discretionary power as to their
use; and yet, for some reason, such was the ascendency she contrived
to keep over her Hibernian friends in the kitchen, all this confidence
evidently seemed to them quite as proper as to us.
"She ain't quite like us," said Biddy one day, mysteriously, as she
looked after her. "She's seen better days, or I'm mistaken; but she
don't take airs on her. She knows how to take the bad luck quiet like,
and do the best she can."
"Has she ever told you anything of herself, Biddy?" said my mother.
"Me? No. It's a quiet tongue she keeps in her head. She is ready
enough to do good turns for us, and to smooth out our ways, and hear
our stories, but it's close in her own affairs she is. Maybe she don't
like to be talkin', when talkin' does no good,--poor soul!"
Matters thus went on, and I amused myself now and then with
speculating about Mary. I would sometimes go to her to ask some of
those little charities of the needle which our sex are always needing
from feminine hands; but never, in the course of any of these little
transactions, could I establish the slightest degree of confidential
communication. If she sewed on a shirt-button, she did it with as
abstracted an air as if my arm were a post which she was required to
handle, and not the arm of a good-looking youth of twenty-five,--as I
fondly hoped I was. And certain remarks which I once addressed to her
in regard to her studies and reading in her own apartment were met
with that cool, wide-open gaze of her calm gray eyes, that seemed to
say, "Pray, what is that to your purpose, sir?" and she merely
answered, "Is there anything else that you would like me to do, sir?"
with a marked deference that was really defiant.
But one day I fancied I had got hold of a clue. I was standing in our
lower front hall, when I saw young McPherson, whom I used to know in
New York, coming up the doorsteps.
At the moment that he rung the doorbell, our Mary, who had seen him
from the chamber window, suddenly grew pale, and said to my mother,
"Please, ma'am, will you be so good as to excuse my going to the door?
I feel faint."
My mother spoke over the banisters, and I opened the door, and let in
McPherson.
He and I were jolly together, as old classmates are wont to be, and
orders were given to lay a plate for him at dinner.
Mary prepared the service with her usual skill and care, but pleaded
that her illness increased so that it would be impossible for her to
wait on table. Now, nobody in the house thought there was anything
peculiar about this but myself. My mother, indeed, had noticed that
Mary's faintness had come on very suddenly, as she looked out on the
street; but it was I who suggested to her that McPherson might have
some connection with it.
"Depend upon it, mother, he is somebody whom she has known in her
former life, and doesn't wish to meet," said I.
"Nonsense, Tom; you are always getting up mysteries, and fancying
romances."
Nevertheless, I took a vicious pleasure in experimenting on the
subject; and therefore, a day or two after, when I had got Mary fairly
within eye-range, as she waited on table, I remarked to my mother
carelessly, "By the bye, the McPhersons are coming to Boston to
live."
There was a momentary jerk of Mary's hand, as she was filling a
tumbler, and then I could see the restraint of self-command passing
all over her. I had hit something, I knew; so I pursued my game.
"Yes," I continued, "Jim is here to look at houses; he is thinking
strongly of one in the next block."
There was a look of repressed fear and distress on Mary's face as she
hastily turned away, and made an errand into the china-closet.
"I have found a clue," I said to my mother triumphantly, going to
her room after dinner. "Did you notice Mary's agitation when I spoke
of the McPhersons coming to Boston? By Jove! but the girl is
plucky, though; it was the least little start, and in a minute she
had her visor down and her armor buckled. This certainly becomes
interesting."
"Tom, I certainly must ask you what business it is of yours," said my
mother, settling back into the hortatory attitude familiar to mothers.
"Supposing the thing is as you think,--suppose that Mary is a girl of
refinement and education, who, from some unfortunate reason, has no
resource but her present position,--why should you hunt her out of it?
If she is, as you think, a lady, there is the strongest reason why a
gentleman should respect her feelings. I fear the result of all this
restless prying and intermeddling of yours will be to drive her away;
and really, now I have had her, I don't know how I ever could do
without her. People talk of female curiosity," said my mother, with a
slightly belligerent air; "I never found but men had fully as much
curiosity as women. Now, what will become of us all if your
restlessness about this should be the means of Mary's leaving us? You
know the perfectly dreadful times we had before she came, and I don't
know anybody who has less patience to bear such things than you."
In short, my mother was in that positive state of mind which is
expressed by the colloquial phrase of being on her high horse. I--as
the male part of creation always must in such cases--became very meek
and retiring, and promised to close my eyes and ears, and not dream,
or think, or want to know, anything which it was not agreeable to Mary
and my mother that I should. I would not look towards the doorbell,
nor utter a word about the McPhersons, who, by the bye, decided to
take the house in our neighborhood.
But though I was as exemplary as one of the saints, it did no good.
Mary, for some reasons known to herself, became fidgety, nervous,
restless, and had frequent headaches and long crying spells in her own
private apartment, after the manner of women when something is the
matter with them.
My mother was, as she always is with every creature in her employ,
maternal and sympathetic, and tried her very best to get into her
confidence.
Mary only confessed to feeling a little unwell, and hinted obscurely
that perhaps she should be obliged to leave the place. But it was
quite evident that her leaving was connected with the near advent of
the McPhersons in the next block; for I observed that she always
showed some little irrepressible signs of nervousness whenever that
subject was incidentally alluded to. Finally, on the day that their
furniture began to arrive, and to provide abundant material for gossip
and comment to the other members of the kitchen cabinet, Mary's mind
appeared suddenly made up. She came into my mother's room looking as a
certain sort of women do when they have made a resolution which they
mean to stand by,--very pale, very quiet, and very decided. She asked
to see my mother alone, and in that interview she simply expressed
gratitude for all her kindness to her, but said that circumstances
would oblige her to go to New York.
My mother now tried her best to draw from her her history, whatever
that might be. She spoke with tact and tenderness, and with the
respect due from one human being to another; for my mother always held
that every soul has its own inviolable private door which it has a
right to keep closed, and at which even queens and duchesses, if they
wish to enter, must knock humbly and reverently.
Mary was almost overcome by her kindness. She thanked her over and
over; at times my mother said she looked at her wistfully, as if on
the very point of speaking, and then, quietly gathering herself within
herself, she remained silent. All that could be got from her was, that
it was necessary for her hereafter to live in New York.
The servants in the kitchen, with the warm-heartedness of their race,
broke out into a perfect Irish howl of sorrow; and at the last moment,
Biddy, our fat cook, fell on her neck and lifted up her voice and
wept, almost smothering her with her tumultuous embraces; and the
whole party of them would go with her to the New York station, one
carrying her shawl, another her hand-bag and parasol, with emulous
affection; and so our very pleasant and desirable second girl
disappeared, and we saw her no more.
Six months after this, when our Mary had become only a memory of the
past, I went to spend a week or two in Newport, and took, among other
matters and things, a letter of introduction to Mrs. McIntyre, a
Scotch lady, who had just bought a pretty cottage there, and, as my
friend who gave it told me, would prove an interesting acquaintance.
"She has a pretty niece," said he, "who I'm told is heiress to her
property, and is called a very nice girl."
So, at the proper time, I lounged in one morning, and found a very
charming, cosy, home-like parlor, arranged with all those little
refined touches and artistic effects by which people of certain tastes
and habits at once recognize each other in all parts of the world, as
by the tokens of freemasonry. I felt perfectly acquainted with Mrs.
McIntyre from the first glance at her parlor,--where the books, the
music, the birds, the flowers, and that everlasting variety of female
small-work prepared me for a bright, chatty, easy-going, home-loving
kind of body, such as I found Mrs. McIntyre to be. She was, as English
and Scotch ladies are apt to be, very oddly dressed in very nice and
choice articles. It takes the eye of the connoisseur to appreciate
these oddly dressed Englishwomen. They are like antique china; but a
discriminating eye soon sees the real quality that underlies their
quaint adornment. Mrs. McIntyre was scrupulously, exquisitely neat.
All her articles of dress were of the choicest quality. The yellow and
tumbled lace that was fussed about her neck and wrists might have been
the heirloom of a countess; her satin gown, though very short and very
scanty, was of a fabulous richness; and the rings that glittered on
her withered hands were of the fashion of two centuries ago, but of
wonderful brilliancy.
She was very gracious in her reception, as my letter was from an old
friend, and said many obliging things of me; so I was taken at once to
her friendship, with the frankness characteristic of people of her
class when they make up their minds to know you at all.
"I must introduce you to my Mary," she said; "she has just gone into
the garden to cut flowers for the vases."
In a moment more "Mary" entered the room, with a little white apron
full of flowers, and a fresh bloom on her cheeks; and I was--as the
reader has already anticipated--to my undisguised amazement, formally
introduced to Miss Mary McIntyre, our second girl.
Of all things for which I consider women admirable, there is no trait
which fills me with such positive awe as their social tact and
self-command. Evidently this meeting was quite as unexpected to Mary
as to me; but except for a sudden flash of amused astonishment in the
eyes, and a becoming flush of complexion, she met me as any
thoroughbred young lady meets a young man properly presented by her
maternal guardian.
For my part, I had one of those dreamy periods of existence in which
people doubt whether they are awake or asleep. The world seemed all
turning topsy-turvy. I was filled with curiosity, which I could with
difficulty keep within the limits of conventional propriety.
"I see, Mr. Seymour, that you are very much astonished," said Mary to
me, when Mrs. McIntyre had left the room to give some directions to
the servants.
"Upon my word," said I, "I never was more so; I feel as if I were in
the midst of a fairy tale."
"Nothing so remarkable as that," she said. "But since I saw you, a
happy change, as I need not tell you now, has come over my life
through the coming of my mother's sister to America. When my mother
died, my aunt was in India. The letters that I addressed to her in
Scotland were a long time in reaching her, and then it took a long
time for her to wind up her affairs there, and find her way to this
country."
"But," said I, "what could"--
"What could induce me to do as I did? Well, I knew your mother's
character,--no matter how. I needed a support and protection, and I
resolved for a time to put myself under her wing. I knew that in case
of any real trouble I should find in her a true friend and a safe
adviser, and I hoped to earn her esteem and confidence by steadily
doing my duty. Some other time, perhaps, I will tell you more," she
added.
The return of Mrs. McIntyre put an end to our private communication,
but she insisted, with true old-world hospitality, on my remaining to
dinner.
Here I was precipitated into a romance at once. Mary had just enough
of that perverse feminine pleasure in teasing to keep my interest
alive. The fact was, she saw me becoming entangled from day to day
without any more misgivings of conscience than the celebrated spider
of the poem felt when she invited the fly to walk into her parlor.
Mrs. McIntyre took me in a very marked way into her good graces, and I
had every opportunity to ride, walk, sketch, and otherwise to attend
upon Mary; and Mary was gracious also, but so quietly and discreetly
mistress of herself that I could not for the life of me tell what to
make of her. There were all sorts of wonders and surmises boiling up
within me. What was it about McPherson? Was there anything there? Was
Mary engaged? Or was there any old affair? etc., etc. Not that it was
any business of mine; but then a fellow likes to know his ground
before--Before _what_? I thought to myself, and that unknown WHAT
every day assumed new importance in my eyes. Mary had many admirers.
Her quiet, easy, self-possessed manners, her perfect tact and grace,
always made her a favorite; but I could not help hoping that between
her and me there was that confidential sense of a mutually kept secret
which it is delightful to share with the woman you wish to please.
Why won't women sometimes enlighten a fellow a little in this dark
valley that lies between intimate acquaintance and the awful final
proposal? To be sure, there are kind souls who will come more than
halfway to meet you, but they are always sure to be those you don't
want to meet. The woman you want is always as reticent as a nut, and
leaves you the whole work of this last dread scene without a bit of
help on her part. To be sure, she smiles on you; but what of that? You
see she smiles also on Tom, Dick, and Harry.
"Bright as the sun her eyes the gazers strike;
And, like the sun, they shine on all alike."
I fought out a battle of two or three weeks with my fair foe, trying
to get in advance some hint from her as to what she would do with me
if I put myself at her mercy. No use. Our sex may as well give up
first as last before one of these quiet, resolved, little pieces of
femininity, who are perfect mistresses of all the peculiar weapons,
defensive and offensive, of womanhood. There was nothing for it but to
surrender at discretion; but when I had done this, I was granted all
the honors of war. Mrs. McIntyre received me with an old-fashioned
maternal blessing, and all was as happy as possible.
"And now," said Mary, "I suppose, sir, you will claim a right to know
all about me."
"Something of the sort," I said complacently.
"I know you have been dying of curiosity ever since I was waiting
behind your lordship's chair at your mother's. I knew you suspected
something then,--confess now."
"But what could have led you there?"
"Just hear. My mother, who was Mrs. McIntyre's sister, had by a first
marriage only myself. Shortly after my father's death, she married a
widower with several children. As long as she lived, I never knew what
want or care or trouble was; but just as I was entering upon my
seventeenth year she died. A year after her death, my stepfather, who
was one of those men devoted to matrimony at all hazards, married
another woman, by whom he had children.
"In a few years more, he died; and his affairs, on examination, proved
to be in a very bad state; there was, in fact, scarcely anything for
us to live on. Our stepmother had a settlement from her brother. The
two other daughters of my father were married, and went to houses of
their own; and I was left, related really to nobody, without property
and without home.
"I suppose hundreds of young girls are from one reason or other left
just in this way, and have, without any previous preparation in their
education and habits, to face the question, How can I get a living?
"I assure you it is a serious question for a young girl who has grown
up in the easy manner in which I had. My stepfather had always been a
cheery, kindly, generous man, one of those who love to see people
enjoy themselves, and to have things done handsomely, and had kept
house in a free, abundant, hospitable manner; so that when I came to
look myself over in relation to the great uses of life, I could make
out very little besides expensive tastes and careless habits.
"I had been to the very best schools, but then I had studied, as most
girls in easy circumstances do, without a thought of using my
knowledge for any practical purpose. I could speak very fair English;
but how I did it, or why, I didn't know,--all the technical rules of
grammar had passed from my head like a dream. I could play a little on
the piano, and sing a few songs; but I did not know enough of music to
venture to propose myself as a teacher; and so with every other study.
All the situations of profit in the profession of teaching are now
crowded and blocked by girls who have been studying for that express
object,--and what could I hope among them?
"My mother-in-law was a smart, enterprising, driving woman of the
world, who told all her acquaintance that, of course, she should give
me a home, although I was no kind of relation to her, and who gave me
to understand that I was under infinite obligations to her on this
account, and must pay for the privilege by making myself generally
useful. I soon found that this meant doing a servant's work without
wages. During six months I filled, I may say, the place of a
seamstress and nursery governess to some very ungoverned children,
varying with occasional weeks of servant's work, when either the table
girl or the cook left a place vacant. For all this I received my
board, and some cast-off dresses and underclothes to make over for
myself. I was tired of this, and begged my stepmother to find me some
place where I could earn my own living. She was astonished and
indignant at the demand. When Providence had provided me a good home,
under respectable protection, she said, why should I ask to leave it?
For her part, she thought the situation of a young lady making herself
generally useful in domestic life, in the family of her near
connections, was a delightful one. She had no words to say how much
more respectable and proper it was thus to live in the circle of
family usefulness and protection, than to go out in the world looking
for employment.
"I did not suggest to her that the chief difference in the cases would
be, that in a hired situation I should have regular wages and regular
work; whereas in my present position it was irregular work, and no
wages.
"Her views on the subject were perhaps somewhat beclouded by the
extreme convenience she found in being able to go into company, and to
range about the city at all hours, unembarrassed by those family cares
which generally fall to the mistress, but which her views of what
constituted general usefulness devolved upon me.
"I had no retirement, no leisure, no fixed place anywhere. My bed was
in the nursery, where the children felt always free to come and go;
and even this I was occasionally requested to resign, to share the
couch of the housemaid, when sickness in the family or a surplus of
guests caused us to be crowded for room.
"I grew very unhappy, my health failed, and the demands upon me were
entirely beyond my strength, and without any consideration. The doer
of all the odds and ends in a family has altogether the most work and
least praise of any, as I discovered to my cost. I found one thing
after another falling into my long list of appointed duties, by a
regular progress. Thus first it would be, 'Mary, won't you see to the
dusting of the parlors? for Bridget is'--etc., etc.; this would be the
form for a week or two, and then, 'Mary, have you dusted the parlors?'
and at last, 'Mary, why have you not dusted the parlors?'
"As I said, I never studied anything to practical advantage; and
though I had been through arithmetic and algebra, I had never made any
particular use of my knowledge. But now, under the influence of
misfortune, my thoughts took an arithmetical turn. By inquiring among
the servants, I found that, in different families in the neighborhood,
girls were receiving three dollars a week for rendering just such
services as mine. Here was a sum of a hundred and fifty-six dollars
yearly, in ready money, put into their hands, besides their board, the
privilege of knowing their work exactly, and having a control of their
own time when certain definite duties were performed. Compared with
what I was doing and receiving, this was riches and ease and rest.
"After all, I thought to myself, why should not I find some
respectable, superior, motherly woman, and put myself under her as a
servant, make her my friend by good conduct, and have some regular
hours and some definite income, instead of wearing out my life in
service without pay? Nothing stood in my way but the traditionary
shadow of gentility, and I resolved it should not stop me.
"Years before, when I was only eight or ten years old, I had met your
mother with your family at the seaside, where my mother took me. I had
seen a great deal of her, and knew all about her. I remembered well
her habitual consideration for the nurses and servants in her employ.
I knew her address in Boston, and I resolved to try to find a refuge
in her family. And so there is my story. I left a note with my
stepmother, saying that I was going to seek independent employment,
and then went to Boston to your house. There I hoped to find a quiet
asylum,--at least, till I could hear from my aunt in Scotland. The
delay of hearing from her during those two years at your house often
made me low-spirited."
"But what made you so afraid of McPherson?" said I nervously. "I
remember your faintness, and all that, the day he called."
"Oh, that? Why, it was merely this,--they were on intimate visiting
terms with my mother-in-law, and I knew that it would be all up with
my plans if they were to be often at the house."
"Why didn't you tell my mother?" said I.
"I did think of it, but then"--She gave me a curious glance.
"But what, Mary?"
"Well, I could see plainly enough that there were no secrets between
you and her, and I did not wish to take so fine a young gentleman into
my confidence," said Mary. "You will observe I was not out seeking
flirtations, but an honest independence."
* * * * *
My mother was apprised of our engagement in due form, and came to
Newport, all innocence, to call on Miss McIntyre, her intended
daughter-in-law. Her astonishment at the moment of introduction was
quite satisfactory to me.
For the rest, Mary's talents in making a home agreeable have had since
then many years of proof; and where any of the little domestic chasms
appear which are formed by the shifting nature of the American
working-class, she always slides into the place with a quiet grace,
and reminds me, with a humorous twinkle of the eye, that she is used
to being second girl.