SAWN OFF THE OLD BLOCK.
The big Harrison villa,--with its broad ostentatious drive, its
unsightly smear of cement bridge spoiling the green dip in the lawn, its
elaborate superstructure which told of contractors' supplies bought at a
dealers' reduction--soon became familiar to Daisy from its concrete
cellar to its attic that resounded, mornings, with the virile thudding
of young Harold's punching bag.
"Don't you ever put anything on a shelf, or hang anything up, or turn
anything off?" she demanded, one morning, as, coming down from the top
floor with her broom, she passed the door where the heir of the house of
Harrison stood in his dressing-gown, combing back his thick black hair
before a mirror.
"Whence the query, fair one?" said Harold, playfully.
"Well," said Daisy, stopping in the doorway with the roses of recent
exertion coloring her cheeks superbly, her eyes dancing in their bright
challenging way, and her plump arms displayed to fine and not
unconscious advantage as she folded them over the broom-handle which
leaned in the bend of her elbow; "one of your boxing-gloves was under
the shower-bath, with the water running on it; and your sweater was on
the floor below the punching bag, tramped in the dust----"
"There shouldn't be any dust up there," said Harold, easily; "What do
you suppose we pay our little housemaids for? Uh?"
"Is that so!" retorted Daisy; "well, you'd better give orders for the
wind not to blow, then; and you'd better have your father pull up that
nasty concrete drive, where all the dust comes from; and----"
"See here! See-e here!" Sir Thomas Harrison's son jerked out, spinning
on his heel and facing her; "what do you mean by talking to me like
that? Who do you think you're speaking to--the chauffeur or the
stable-boy? Get on downstairs, or wherever you're going, and don't have
so much to say." Then, as the young heir of the place turned again to
the mirror, he added in audible soliloquy, "dashed cheek! These infernal
domestics are getting to think they can do and say what they please.
Some of these days that cook and I are going to have a rumpus too. She
chooses coolly to forget, and to keep right on forgetting, the
instructions I give her about my food.--What! you here yet?"
"Yes!" said Daisy, looking at him with her cheeks burning redly and her
eyes fixed and bright; "I'm here yet--_Mister_ Harold!"
"Oh, a-all right," observed the young man, sarcastically, throwing out
his palm with an elaborate motion toward a chair; "won't you have a
seat, Miss--er--er-- Miss Housemaid?"
Daisy's long eyelashes described a flashing arc as she swept the crown
prince of the dynasty of Harrison from head to house-slippered toe. Then
she turned away. Harold Harrison, as he heard her shoe-heels tapping
smartly down the back stairs, grinned at his reflection in the
looking-glass.
"That's putting 'em where they belong," he said; "Some kid, though,
be-lieve me--some kid!"
Jean, at the big cooking range, heard Daisy come into the kitchen and
thrust the broom into its holder with a rap. Then there came silence,
enduring for so long that the Scotswoman glanced questioningly around.
Daisy had dropped into a chair, and was sitting in a kind of brown
study, finger at lip and eyes looking ponderingly out of window.
"Now, now, lassie!" said the cook, kindly; "it's nae business o' mine,
likely; but this is a big hoose, an' ye canna be through reddin' up the
rooms yet, an' it's nearly eleven o'clock. Is onything amiss?"
Daisy related her encounter with young Harrison.
"Ey, ey," Jean smiled grimly as the girl told her what young Harold had
said about the cooking; "so he's no farin' quite as he wad at the
meal-table, and would like a bit brush with me, would he? Well, I canna
be aye getting' up special dishes for his lordship, so I may as weel
prepare to receive him. Did he tell ye of the wee bit tiff we had ance
before, him an' me? No; he didn't. Well, I'll tell ye, in a few words.
He talked wi' his tongue, and I talked with the besom; and the interview
juist lasted four minutes by the kitchen clock. He's no a bad lad
althegither, but he needs a canny bit breakin' in."
"Well, I'm not going to bother breaking him in," said Daisy, lifting her
chin, "he's not worth it."
Jean laughed. "Well, onyway," she said, turning again to her own work,
"don't let him start ye broodin', so the rooms'll no be done when our
good leddy goes over the huse. Ye ken weel she'd turn to and mak' up the
beds hersel', sooner than raise a fuss. Lassie, lassie, speakin' about
the Mistress, I'm sore worried. She's failed terrible this last month. I
keep tellin' her to drink milk, but she canna keep it doon. She eats nae
mair than yon dickie-bird--a great big strappin' wumman like she is--or
was--too! If onything happens to the leddy o' the hoose here--guid-bye
Harrisons! It's only for her sake I'm bidin' here, at the wage I get.
I've got a standin' offer o' half as much agen from Lady Frances
Ware--Sir William Ware's mother."
At the mention of Ware's name, Daisy gave a little involuntary start.
But she did not tell Jean that she too had an offer of a position in the
household of Sir William Ware.
"I suppose ye've no heard," said Jean, turning a protruding
skillet-handle out of her way as she reached up for the flour-shaker,
"that the young lad here--Harold--is engaged to a girl o' what they call
the smart set. He's a takin' lad in some ways; but he's got Sir Thomas's
way o' looking at marriage. It's nae good, Harrisons thinks, unless it
brings social advantage. Ey, the conquest o' society is uphill work for
puir Sir Tom.... By the bye, Sir Thomas himsel' is one person that, if
onything happened our leddy, would not miss her much nor mourn for her
long. Ey, he blames her, like, for 'keepin' him back'--her, that made
him!"