DOMESTIC.
Life was pleasant enough for Margaret Montfort, in those days. The hours
were still sad which she had been used to spend with Mrs. Cheriton, the
beloved Aunt Faith; but there was such peace and blessedness in the
thought of her, that Margaret would not have been without the gentle
sorrow. She loved to sit in the White Rooms, sometimes with her uncle,
but more often alone. In the morning, she generally walked for an hour
in the garden with Mr. Montfort, tending the rose-bushes that were his
special care and pride, listening to his wise and kindly talk, and
learning, she always thought, something new each day. It is wonderful
how much philosophy, poetry, even history, can be brought into the care
of roses, if the right person has charge of them. At ten o'clock he
generally went to town, and the rest of the morning was spent in
practising, sewing, and studying; the hours flew by so fast, Margaret
often suspected the clock of being something of a dishonest character.
She was studying German, with the delightful result of reading "Der
Trompeter von Saekkingen" with her uncle in the evening, when it was not
too beautiful out-of-doors. Then, in the afternoon, she could with a
clear conscience take up some beloved romance, and be "just happy," as
she called it, till Mr. Montfort returned in time for the walk or ride
which was the crowning pleasure of the day. And so the days went by, in
a golden peace which seemed too pleasant to last; and yet there seemed
no reason why it should ever change.
The morning after the reading of the letters, Margaret had been in the
White Rooms, arranging flowers in the vases, and putting little loving
touches to books and cushions, as a tidy girl loves to do, whether there
is need or not. The windows were open, and the orioles were singing in
the great elm-tree, and the laburnum was a bower of gold. It seemed
really too perfect a morning to spend in the house; Margaret thought she
would take her work out into the garden, not this sunny green parlour,
but the great shady garden outside, where the box swept above her head,
and the whole air smelt of it, and of moss and ferns and a hundred other
cool things. She passed out of the rooms, and went along a passage, and
as she went she heard voices that came through an open door at one side;
clear, loud voices that she could not have escaped if she would.
"These table-napkins is scandalous!" said Elizabeth. "I do wish Miss
Margaret would get us some new ones."
"Why don't you ask her?" said Frances, the cook, bringing her flat-iron
down with a thump. "The table-cloths is most worn out, too, this set.
Ask her to see to some new ones. She's young, you see, and she don't
think."
"I've been giving her one with holes in it, right along this two weeks,"
said Elizabeth, "hoping she'd notice, but she don't seem to. I thought
it'd be best if she found out herself when things was needed."
"Ah!" said Frances, "she's a sweet young lady, but she'll never make no
housekeeper. She hasn't so much as looked inside one of my closets since
Mis' Cheriton went."
"You wouldn't be over and above pleased if she looked much into your
closets, Frances; I know that!"
"Maybe I wouldn't, and maybe I would; but I'd like to have her know as
there was no need of her looking. Don't tell me, Elizabeth! So long as
she could walk on her feet, never a week but Mis' Cheriton would look
in, and take a peep at every shelf. 'Just for the pleasure of seeing
perfection, Frances,' she'd say, or something like that, her pretty way.
But if there had been anything _but_ perfection, I'd have heard from her
pretty quick."
"I think you're hard to please, I do!" Elizabeth answered. "I think Miss
Margaret is as sweet a young lady as walks the earth; so thoughtful, and
afraid of giving trouble, and neat and tidy as a pin. I tell you, Mr.
Montfort's well off, and so's you and me, Frances. Why, we might have
had one of them other young ladies, and then where'd we have been?"
"I don't know!" said Frances, significantly. "Not here, that's one sure
thing."
"Or Mr. Montfort might have married. Fine man as he is, it's a wonder he
never has."
"H'm! he's no such fool! Not but what there's them would be glad
enough--"
But here Margaret, with burning cheeks, fled back to the White Rooms. It
could not be helped; she had to hear what they were saying about
herself; she must not hear what they said about her uncle.
She sat down on the little stool that had always been her favourite
seat, and leaned her cheek against the great white chair, that would
always be empty now.
"I wish you were here, Aunt Faith!" she said, aloud. "I am very young,
and very ignorant. I wish you were here to tell me what I should do."
At first the women's talk seemed cruel to her. They had been here so
long, they knew the ways of the house so entirely, she had never dreamed
of advising them, any more than of advising her uncle himself. Frances
had been at Fernley twenty years, Elizabeth, twenty-five. What could she
tell them? How could she possibly know about the things that had been
their care and pride, year in and year out, since before she was born?
It seemed very strange, very unkind, that they should expect her to step
in, with her youth and ignorance, between them and their experience. So
she thought, and thought, feeling hot, and sore, and angry. She had
never had any care of housekeeping in her life. Old Katy, her nurse, who
had taken her from her dying mother's arms, had always done all that;
Margaret's part was to see that her own and her father's clothes were in
perfect order, to keep the rooms dusted, and arrange the books when she
was allowed to touch them, which was not often. As to table-cloths, she
had never thought of them in her life; Katy saw to all that; and if she
had attempted to suggest ordering dinner, Katy would have been apt to
send her to bed, Margaret thought. Poor, dear old Katy! She was dead
now, and Aunt Faith was dead, and there was no one to stand between
Margaret and the cares that she knew nothing about. Of course, Uncle
John must never know anything of it; he expected perfection, and had
always had it; he did not care how it was brought about. Surely these
women were unkind and unreasonable! What good could she possibly do by
interfering? They would not endure it if she really did interfere.
The white linen cover of the chair was smooth and cool; Margaret pressed
her cheek against it, and a sense of comfort stole over her insensibly.
She began to turn the matter over, and try to look at the other side of
it. There always was another side; her father had taught her that when
she was a little child. Well, after all, had they really said anything
unkind? Frances's words came back to her, "I'd like to have her know as
there was no need of her looking."
After all, was not that perfectly natural? Did not every one like to
have good work seen and recognised? Even Uncle John always called her to
see when he had made a particularly neat graft, and expected her praise
and wonderment, and was pleased with it. And why did she show him her
buttonholes this morning, except that she knew they were good
buttonholes, and wanted the kindly word that she was sure of getting?
Was the trouble with her, after all? Had she failed to remember that
Elizabeth and Frances were human beings, not machines, and that her
uncle being what he was, she herself was the only person to give them a
word of deserved praise or counsel?
"My dear," she said to herself, "I don't want to be hasty in my
judgments, but it rather looks as if you had been a careless, selfish
goose, doesn't it now?"
She went up to her own room,--the garden seemed too much of an
indulgence just now,--and sat down quietly with her work. Sewing was
always soothing to Margaret. She was not fond of it; she would have
read twelve hours out of the twenty-four, if she had been allowed to
choose her own way of life, and have walked or ridden four, and slept
six, and would never have thought of any time being necessary for
eating, till she felt hungry. But she had been taught to sew well and
quickly, and she had always made her own underclothes, and felled all
the seams, and a good many girls will know how much that means. She sat
sewing and thinking, planning all kinds of reforms and experiments, when
she heard Elizabeth stirring in the room next hers. It was the linen
room, and Elizabeth was putting away clean clothes, Margaret knew by the
clank of the drawer-handles. Now! this was the moment to begin. She laid
down her work, and went into the linen room.
"May I see you put them away, Elizabeth?" she asked. "I always like to
see your piles of towels,--they are so even and smooth."
Elizabeth looked up, and her face brightened. "And welcome, Miss
Margaret!" she said. "I'll be pleased enough. 'Tis dreadful lonesome,
and Mis' Cheriton gone. Not that she could come up here, I don't mean;
but I always knew she was there, and she was like a mother to me, and I
could always go to her. Yes, miss, the towels do look nice, and I love
to keep 'em so."
"They are beautiful!" said Margaret, with genuine enthusiasm, for the
shelves and drawers were like those she had read about in "Soll und
Haben." She had loved them in the book, but never thought of looking at
them in reality. "Oh, what lovely damask this is, Elizabeth! It shines
like silver! I never saw such damask as this."
"'Tis something rare, miss, I do be told," Elizabeth replied.
"Mr. Montfort brought them towels back from Germany, three years ago,
because he thought they would please his aunt, and they did, dear lady.
Hand spun and wove they are, she said; and there's only one place where
they make this weave and this pattern. See, Miss Margaret! 'Tis roses,
coming out of a little loaf of bread like; and there was a story about
it, some saint, but I don't rightly remember what. There! I have tried
to remember that story, ever since Mis' Cheriton went, but it seems I
can't."
"Oh, oh, it must be Saint Elizabeth of Hungary!" cried Margaret, bending
in delight over the smooth silvery stuff. "Why, how perfectly
enchanting!"
"Yes, miss, that's it!" cried Elizabeth, beaming with pleasure. "Saint
Elizabeth it was; and maybe you'll know the story, Miss Margaret. I
never like to ask Mr. Montfort, of course, but I should love dearly to
hear it."
Margaret asked nothing better. She told the lovely story as well as she
knew how, and before she had finished, Elizabeth's eyes as well as her
own were full of tears. One of Elizabeth's tears even fell on the towel,
and she cried out in horror, and wiped it away as if it had been a
poison-spot, and laid the sacred damask back in its place. Margaret felt
the moment given to her.
"Elizabeth," she said, "I want to ask you something. I want to ask if
you will help me a little. Will you try?"
Elizabeth, surprised and pleased, vowed she would do all she could for
Miss Margaret, in any way in her power.
"You can do a great deal!" said Margaret. "I--I am very young,
Elizabeth, and--and you and Frances have been here a long time, and of
course you know all about the work of the house, and I know nothing at
all. And yet--and yet, I ought to be helping, it seems to me, and ought
to be taking my place, and my share in the work. Do you see what I mean,
Elizabeth? You and Frances could help me, oh, so much, if you would; and
perhaps some day I might be able to help you too,--I don't know just
how, yet, but it might come."
"Oh, miss, we will be so thankful!" cried Elizabeth. "Oh, miss, Frances
and me, we'd been wishing and longing to have you speak up and take your
place, if I may say so. We didn't like to put ourselves forward, and
we've no orders from Mr. Montfort, except to do whatever you said; and
so, when you'll say anything, Miss Margaret, we feel ever and ever so
much better, Frances and me. And I'll be pleased to go all over the work
with you, Miss Margaret, this very day, and show you just how I've
always done it, and I think Mr. Montfort has been satisfied, and Mis'
Cheriton was, Lord rest her! and you so young, and with so much else to
do, as I said time and again to Frances, reading with Mr. Montfort and
riding with him, and taking such an interest in the roses, as his own
daughter couldn't make him happier if he had one. And of course it's
nature that you haven't had no time yet to take much notice, but it
makes it twice as easy for servants, Miss Margaret, where an interest is
took; and I'm thankful to you, I'm sure, and so will Frances be, and
you'll find her closets a pleasure to look at."
Elizabeth stopped to draw breath, and Margaret looked at her in wonder
and self-reproach. The grave, staid woman was all alight with pleasure
and the prospect of sympathy. It came over Margaret that, comfortable
and homelike as their life at Fernley was, it was not perhaps exactly
thrilling.
"We will be friends, Elizabeth!" she said, simply; and the two shook
hands, with an earnestness that meant something. "And you are to come
to me, please, whenever there is anything that needs attention,
Elizabeth, and I will do my best, and ask your advice about anything I
don't understand. Don't--don't we--need some new napkins, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth was eloquent as to their need of napkins. In a couple of
washes more, there would be nothing but holes left to wipe their hands
on.
"Then I'll order some this very day," said Margaret. "Or better still,
I'll go to town with Uncle John to-morrow, and get them myself. And now,
Elizabeth, I am going down to see Frances, and--and perhaps--do you
think she would like it if I ordered dinner, Elizabeth?"
"Miss Margaret, she'd be pleased to death!" cried Elizabeth.
Returning from the kitchen an hour later, a sadder and a wiser girl (for
Frances's perfection seemed unattainable by ordinary mortals, even with
the aid of Sapolio), Margaret heard the sound of wheels on the gravel
outside. Glancing through the window of the long passage through which
she was going, she saw, to her amazement, a carriage standing at the
door, a carriage that had evidently come some way, for it was covered
with dust. The driver was taking down a couple of trunks, and beside the
carriage stood a lady, with her purse in her hand.
"I shall give you two dollars!" the lady was saying, in a thin, sharp
voice. "I consider that ample for the distance you have come."
"I told the gentleman it would be three dollars, mum!" said the man,
civilly, touching his hat. "Three dollars is the regular price, with one
trunk, and these trunks is mortal heavy. The gentleman said as it would
be all right, mum."
"The gentleman knew nothing whatever about it," said the sharp-voiced
lady. "I shall give you two dollars, and not a penny more. I have always
paid two dollars to drive to Fernley, and I have no idea of being
cheated now, I assure you."
The man was still grumbling, when Elizabeth opened the door. She looked
grave, but greeted the newcomer with a respectful curtsey.
"Oh, how do you do, Elizabeth!" said the strange lady. "How is Mr.
Montfort?"
"Mr. Montfort is very well, thank you, mum!" said Elizabeth. "He is in
town, mum. He'll hardly be back before evening. Would you like to see
Miss Montfort?"
"Miss Montfort? Oh, the little girl who is staying here. You needn't
trouble to call her just now, Elizabeth. Send for Willis, will you, and
have him take my trunks in; I have come to stay. He may put them in the
White Rooms."
"I--I beg pardon, mum!" faltered Elizabeth. "In the Blue Room, did you
say? The Blue Room has been new done over, and that is where we have put
visitors lately."
"Nothing of the sort!" said the lady, sharply. "I said the White Rooms;
Mrs. Cheriton's rooms."
Margaret stayed to hear no more. A stranger in the White Rooms! Aunt
Faith's rooms, which she could not bear to occupy herself, though her
uncle had urged her to do so? And such a stranger as this, with such a
voice,--and such a nose! Never! never, while there was breath to pant
with, while there were feet to run with!
Never but once in her life had Margaret Montfort run as she did now;
that once was when she flew up the secret staircase to save her cousin
from burning. In a flash she was in her own room--what had been her
room!--gathering things frantically in her arms, snatching books from
the table, dresses from the closets. Down the back stairs she ran like a
whirlwind; down, and up, and down again. Had the girl gone suddenly mad?
Ten minutes later, when Elizabeth, her eyes smarting with angry tears,
opened the door of the White Parlour,--Willis the choreman behind her,
grunting and growling, with a trunk on his shoulder,--a young lady was
sitting in the great white armchair, quietly reading. The young lady's
cheeks were crimson, her eyes were sparkling, and her breath came in
short, quick gasps, which showed that what she was reading must be very
exciting; what made it the more curious was that the book was upside
down. But she was entirely composed, and evidently surprised at the
sudden intrusion.
"What is it, Elizabeth?" asked Margaret, quietly.
"I--I--I beg your pardon, Miss Montfort!" said Elizabeth, whose eyes
were beginning to brighten, too, and her lips to twitch dangerously.
"I--I didn't know, miss, as you had--moved in yet. Here is Miss
Sophronia Montfort, miss, as perhaps you would like to see her."
The strange lady was already glaring over Willis's shoulder.
"What is this?" she said. "What does this mean? These rooms are not
occupied; I was positively told they were not occupied. There must be
some mistake. Willis--"
"Yes, there is a mistake!" said Margaret, coming forward, and holding
out her hand with a smile. "Is this Cousin Sophronia? I am Margaret,
Cousin Sophronia. Uncle John asked me to take these rooms, and I--I feel
quite at home in them already. Would you like the Pink, or the Blue
Room? They are both ready, aren't they, Elizabeth?"
"Yes, Miss Montfort," said Elizabeth, "quite ready."
The strange lady's eyes glared wider and wider; her chest heaved; she
seemed about to break out in a torrent of angry speech; but making a
visible effort, she controlled herself. "How do you do, my--my dear?"
she said, taking Margaret's offered hand, and giving it a little pinch
with the tips of her fingers. "I--a little misunderstanding, no doubt.
Willis,--the Blue Room,--for the present!" But Willis was suffering from
a sudden and violent fit of coughing, which shook his whole frame, and
made it necessary for him to rest his trunk against the wall and lean
against it, with his head down; so that it was fully five minutes before
Miss Sophronia Montfort's trunk got up to the Blue Room.