 | CHAPTER XIV.
“CALL AGAIN!” Live and let live, or, Domestic service illustrated |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
“CALL AGAIN!”
Mrs. Lee received a proposition from some
friends in the village where she had spent her
youth, that induced her at once to renounce her
wearisome life in town and return there. She was
to preside over the family of an old pair, whose
some dozen children were married and dispersed.
She was permitted to bring Jemmie with her, and
advantageous situations were offered for her two
little girls. Lucy, it was decided, should be left
with Mrs. Lovett, and Lucy determined to consecrate
her future earnings to Jemmie. This poor
little fellow's heart was almost broken at parting
with his sister. Without the extravagance of Rousseau's
lover, he divided the world into two parts,
“where she was and where she was not!”
Lucy continued through the year at Mrs. Lovett's,
reminded by nothing but the regular receipt
of her wages that she was at service. At the expiration
of that time a sad change occurred. Mr.
Lovett suddently determined to remove to Ohio.
He was the proprietor of land there, which was
now promising to become very valuable, and both
he and his wife expected, from a removal to that
fine new country, physical and moral benefit to
their children. The well-established bakehouse
for the business, was left to conduct it. After
much deliberation, decision, and reconsideration, it
was settled that Lucy should remain in the city—
this was strenuously urged by Charles, and rather
favoured by herself. A place had offered at Mrs.
Hartell's, where she might earn, with very light
labour, seven dollars a month. This money would
enable her to put some favourite plans for Jemmie
into execution, “and any time, if she chose,” as
Charles said and reiterated, lest the argument
should not prevail, “she might go to her mother.”
“Well, my children,” said Mrs. Lovett, at the conclusion
of their deliberations, “if one must stay, I
had rather the other should too. You will be a
brother to Lucy, Charles, and you will be a sister
to him, Lucy?” They both promised. Did the
thought of ever being anything nearer enter their
young hearts? We shall see.
We are obliged to omit some of the most interesting
scenes in Lucy's life—the parting from
the Lovetts and her closing, for the last time,
those doors, that, as she turned their bolts, she
thought had never been closed against any claim
to hospitality or kindness of any sort, and the first
depression of her mercury at the chill atmosphere
of a new service-place.
She went to Mrs. Hartell's in the morning, and,
on inquiring for the lady, was told she was never
visible till eleven; but that she could see “Miss
Adéle.” Miss Adéle proved to be the nurse, a
Frenchwoman of a certain age, who lost no time
in acquainting Lucy with the duties of her new
place and its advantages. Her inaugural discourse
the French she interspersed, and mend her
broken English.
“A very pretty position you will have here, my
dear, if you do everything—very quick, and very
well. It is very necessary you should never forget
you are to be grateful to me for it—for Mrs. Hartell,
my dear, would never know that you was born
if I had not made the discovery.” Lucy smiled.
“'Tis very true, my dear—we had one Bridget here
—very low Irish person, but very good judge of
character—she admired me very much—she spoke
well of you—your needlework, and so forth—particularly
she said you was very humble, which is
very pretty quality in young person—young person
should always look up, and so forth, to those that
are very little older—as I am than you.”
“Adéle! Adéle!” shouted one of the little girls,
“you look full old enough to be her mother.”
“C'est que j'ai la dignité d'un âge mûr—mais,
mademoiselle, vous ne devez parler que François.
That is because I have the dignity belonging to
ripe years—but, miss, you ought to speak only
French.”
“So you always say when you don't want us to
be understood—I hate French, and I never will
speak it when I don't choose—papa says I need
not.”
“Mais votre maman, ma chere mademoiselle,
elle dit tout au contraire. But your mamma, miss,
says quite the contrary.”
“Oh, well, I mind papa when I like, and mamma
when I like.”
“That is the way, I assure you,” said Adéle
inference from her individual experience,
“with all American children—there is no government
in this country nowhere—the people do as
they please, and the very little children do as they
please. You will have the very great advantage
to eat with me.”
“Great advantage, indeed!” interposed again
the aforesaid young speaker. “Adéle will take the
best, and leave you the rest—that was the way she
served little Judy Phealan.”
“Mademoiselle Ophelia, vous êtes trés desagre
áble ce matin; je me plaindrai de vous à votre maman.
Miss Ophelia, you are very disagreeable this
morning; I will complain of you to your mother.”
“And mamma will complain to me, and I will
complain to papa, and papa will complain back to
mamma,” retorted the little girl, laughing.
“I wish you to pay no attention to miss, because
her mamma wishes her to say nothing in English,
and it is as if she spoke not a word.”
“Then you need not answer what I say, Adéle.”
Adéle muttered a “Mon Dieu!” between her
teeth, and proceeded: “You will keep our room
very nice—I like very pretty order.”
“Yes, when you have others to take the trouble
of it, Adéle.”
“Sacre! And in very hot days I wish you to
walk out with the young ladies, because it is very
disfavourable to my health.”
“And your complexion, Adéle—don't you remember
the day your colour ran down on to your
frill?”
Adéle's colour now at least was natural. “It is
is here to tell you all; but you will do everything
as I wish. You must ask always my direction, for
Mrs. Hartell is very delicate—all American ladies
are very delicate, you know—and she wishes not
to be troubled.” A slatternly girl now appeared
with the nurse's breakfast; Adéle inquired why it
was not brought by Monsieur Achille, the waiter.
“For a very good reason,” replied the girl,
chuckling, “Mr. Hartell has turned Monsheer
Achille out of doors.”
“Achille turned out of doors! For what?”
“For loving iced Champagne too well—and
drinking as much of it as Mr. Hartell himself.”
“Quelle horreur! Je lui ai dit—” Adéle checked
before she had betrayed herself. “Pauvre madame,”
muttered Adéle, “son mari est un bête.
Poor madame, her husband is a brute! Anne,”
she called after the girl, “these cakes are cold—
ask Henri to send me some hot ones.”
“Henri says if you want any more you may
come and bake them yourself.”
Adéle now bestowed the most vulgar abuse in
French upon Henri, and then begged Lucy to run
down and bake her some cakes. “Just half a dozen
for me—you can eat the cold ones, my dear—but
my stomach won't bear cold cakes.”
Lucy civilly but resolutely declined going down,
alleging that she was a stranger, and feared to give
offence in the kitchen. She immediately found
that in avoiding Scylla she had run on Charybdis.
Adéle had expected to find in Lucy a meek subject
to her authority; and disappointed, as well as
displeased, at so early a resistance, she looked
without the slightest restraint of good manners,
turning over the toast to get the best buttered
bits, pouring off all the clear coffee, and appropriating
the only egg to herself. Before the breakfast
was finished the baby cried, and Adéle directed
Lucy to take the little angel up and make it quiet,
adding, “that it hurt her digestion to be disturbed
at her meals!”
Lucy obeyed. The “little angel” proved to be
a stout boy of ten months, in a most impish humour,
and, in spite of the kind instincts of her nature, that
led her always to care for and caress children, she
was tired resisting its struggling and screaming
before Adéle was ready to take it. Miss Ophelia
and her sister had gone to their French school.
Eugene, the baby, was exquisitely dressed; no one
could deny Adéle's perfection in every department
of the toilet. Lucy had arranged the nursery, and
was sitting at her needlework, when Mrs. Hartell
made her appearance. She was a tall and handsome
woman, of about thirty, but her beauty was
impaired by paleness and langour, and powerless
from the absence of all expression. Her air of
high fashion, or perhaps her extreme coldness and
indifference, appalled our modest heroine; and after
the first glance she did not again raise her eyes to
the lady's face, and her ears gave her no information
as to the character of her new mistress; for
her languid endearments to her baby, her more
animated admiration of its new French dress, and
her conversation with Adéle, was all in French.
We shall take the liberty to translate it, omitting
the expletives with which both mistress and maid
quite graceful to exclaim at every other breath
“Mon Dieu!” though she rarely uttered the words
in English, the profanity being forbidden in her
own country by the usages of good society, as well
as by a Divine command. “What made Eugene
scream so horribly? he broke my morning nap.”
“Oh, madame, a thousand thousand pardons!
Ask mamma's pardon, Eugene,” and she joined
his hands, exclaiming, “What an angel! He was
so terrified at a new face. She,” nodding to Lucy,
“took him up too suddenly. It was all I could do
to tranquillize him.”
“Is the girl promising?”
“Well enough! I may make something of her
—in time—with an infinity of trouble; but nothing
is too much to do for madame—these Americans
are so awakward at first—so ill-mannered!”
“And at last too, Adéle. But I suppose we
are to have an American waiter. Mr. Hartell has
turned away Achille, and swears he'll not have
another Frenchman.”
“Mr. Hartell is very impetuous, madame—it
was only a suspicion of poor Achille—the other
servants are always against us. In truth, madame,
they are all in revolution down stairs, and Henri
swears he will abdicate.”
“Henri going! Achille gone! Well, I will
just shut myself up in my room, and let things take
their own way. If Mr. Hartell will turn away my
servants, he must get others to suit himself—I'll
have nothing to do with it.”
“Ah, madame, that is like the poor devil who said,
when the coach went over the precipice, `Never
without French cooking. American cooking is for
the brutes, not for ladies. If madame could only
persuade Mr. Hartell to return to Paris—”
“Ah, Adéle, if I could! Dear Paris! I shall
never go there till I go to heaven. Mr. Hartell
makes a point of never going where I wish—he
says, if he goes again to Paris, he shall go without
me.”
“The savage! a thousand pardons, madame!
But how can any one say or do anything unkind to
such an angel as madame! One thing is sure, Mr.
Hartell adores Monsieur Eugene. He will not go
to Paris without you, and leave him.”
“Well thought of, Adéle! and, by-the-way, Mr.
Hartell has taken it into his head that Eugene is
getting pale, and he puts all the fault upon you, for
he says the wet-nurse told him the only reason she
went away was because she would not live with
you, and she called you a bag of lies and pretences.”
“The Irish savage! The Irish are all savages
—all false and cruel.”
“Margery was good to Eugene, though.”
“Certainly, madame—before your eyes and Mr.
Hartell's.”
Mrs. Hartell was not ashamed to laugh at Adéle's
insinuation against a faithful and warm-hearted
creature, who, during a long illness, had watched
all night with her child, and carried him all day in
her arms, and whom Mrs. Hartell had finally sacrificed
to her favourite. “I wish, Adéle,” resumed
Mrs. Hartell, “you had borne with Margery a
keep them for the milk they give.”
Adéle shrugged her shoulders. “But when they
kick and hook, madame?”
This precious colloquy was broken off by the
entrance of the person in question. At sight of her
the baby almost sprung from his mother's arms;
Margery caught him in hers; and, pouring out a
flood of tears, caressed him with the fondness characteristic
of her people.
“God bless my darling!” she exclaimed; “and
ye feel just the same, and six weeks it is that ye
have not seen me.”
“One pretty while to stay away when one loves
so furiously!” said Adéle, contemptuously.
Her words were like the spark that kindleth a
great fire. “And was I not here the very day after
I left ye?” asked Margery.
“Yes—you came for your wages.”
“God forgive me, and so I did; but my mind
was so full of my baby, that when they told me
Mrs. Hartell said I must call next day, I thanked
God, thinking then I should see the boy again.
The milk was in my breasts yet, and pressed upon
my heart like. But I should have been thinking
of the money, for my own child's nurse was wanting
her pay, and two miles from the village had I
walked for it.”
“But, Margery, I told you I would pay you the
next day.”
“Ah, but ye ladies never think we have not
servants to send or carriages to ride in for our pay.
The time is all we have. It's easy for you to say
`call again,' and `call again,' and the time it takes
us of it, besides holding back our own.”
“Margery, you are very impertinent.”
“It's the truth, and not me that's impertinent to
you, Mrs. Hartell. Just listen to my story, and
ye'll be convinced. 'Twas the next day I was
offered a dollar for my day's work—I could not
lose it, for I had two dollars a week to pay for my
child—so I did it, and then in the evening walked
the two miles again, to be told, when I got to your
door, that you `could not attend to it then—you
were dressing for a party—I might call to-morrow.'
I asked for Mr. Hartell, but he was out; so back
the two miles I went; and the walk, after the heavy
day's work, and fretting, brought on a fever that
night, and held me a week, and dried every drop of
milk in my breasts; so I lost the nurse-place I had
engaged, and had to take my own poor little baby
from the breast, for how was I to pay eight dollars
from the seven, which was all I could get as drynurse?
and the poor thing sickened and died,
and all—all—mark it well, Mrs. Hartell, came
from my not getting my money when it was due!”
Mrs. Hartell, cold and careless as she was, was
startled with the consequences of her own mere
thoughtlessness, and naturally sought some vindication.
“How could I know, Margery, you was in
such need of it?—it was a mere trifle—only your
last month's wages!”
“Ye knew it was due, and that is all a lady
should want to know. What seems a trifle to you
is all to us.”
“But how could twelve dollars be of such mighty
consequence?”
“I have told you my story—it proved sickness
to me and death to my child.”
“C'est bien ridicule!” exclaimed Adéle; “you
desolate madame—and you very well know madame
is very charitable.”
“I was not after wanting charity, but my own,
that madam had, and I could not get.”
“Well, pray, Margery, say no more about it—it
is all paid now.”
“Yes, Mrs. Hartell, but paid too late.”
We trust such evil consequences as Margery
suffered from the want of punctuality in the employer's
payment do not often occur, but they are
not without a parallel. Is it not very common for
ladies, far more from thoughtlessness than meditated
injustice, to delay the payment of wages?
Is there not a culpable inconsiderateness of the
rights as well as necessities of a large class, including
tradespeople and humble creditors of every
sort, in that common reply to their demands, “Call
again?”
| CHAPTER XIV.
“CALL AGAIN!” Live and let live, or, Domestic service illustrated | |