THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

Vol. XX.—No. 1011.]

[Price One Penny.

MAY 13, 1899.

[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

GOOD NIGHT. THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH. HOW TO CONTRIVE AND DECORATE A COFFER OR LINEN PRESS. SHEILA. VARIETIES. THE FAIRIES. A POOR NEEDLEWOMAN. SELF-CULTURE FOR GIRLS. HOUSEHOLD HINTS. A GAME OF MEMORY. “OUR HERO.” THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

GOOD NIGHT.

By SARAH DOUDNEY.

“SLEEP, SISTER, SLEEP.”

All rights reserved.]

{514}

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

By ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ROOTS OF HOSPITALITY.

ucy paid no heed to her sister’s words, being diverted by another bit of by-play. “Jessie Morison’s” keen grey eyes had fallen on little Hugh, and her face had instantly broken into a smile. Could this superior, experienced, well-trained woman really want a general servant’s place?

“Yes, ma’am,” said Jessie Morison, “I’m wanting a quiet place that I could keep nice and comfortable.”

“But I have hitherto had quite a young woman,” urged Mrs. Challoner. “There are only myself and the little boy—until my husband comes home from a voyage,” she explained.

Jessie Morison pondered.

“That will suit me nicely,” she said. “Did the girl do the washing, ma’am?”

“Yes,” answered Lucy; “but——”

“I’m a capital washer,” said Jessie Morison, “and I dress well, too. I shouldn’t need help, ma’am—no, not for such a small family. I don’t like strangers coming about my kitchen, they make more work than they do.”

“We dine early,” said Lucy. “There are but few visitors. But you would have everything to do in the house; and while my husband is away, I shall not be able to give much help, as I am busy otherwise.”

“It’s not a very large house, maybe?” asked Jessie, in a pleasant tone, suggesting only that in her opinion a small house was the proper thing.

“No, it is a small house,” said Lucy. “Have you always been in service?”

“Well, ma’am, yes and no. I was in service as a girl. Then I got married. I’m a widow, ma’am. He only lived three years. He was thrown from a horse. I’ve been in service since.”

“How long were you in your last situation, and where was it?” inquired Lucy.

“It was near Edinburgh, ma’am—between Edinburgh and Berwick—and I was there twenty years.” She said this quite simply, as if she had no idea of effect.

“Twenty years!” echoed Lucy.

“Yes, ma’am. I was with the lady and gentleman first, and when he died, I lived on with the mistress. She died last year.”

“What made you come away from all your friends to London?” Mrs. Challoner asked.

“Well, I hadn’t many friends to leave—we’d lived terrible quiet-like—and I had a cousin and his wife with a nice home near London, and they asked me up for a visit, and now I’d sooner stay here than go back.”

“From whom shall I get your references?” asked Lucy, putting the question almost reluctantly.

“Well, you see, the family I’ve been with is all gone, ma’am. And the poor mistress she was bed-rid for nigh ten years, and few folks came about her. When I left the North, I hardly knew what I was going to do—I half thought of a little shop, ma’am—but I thought I’d keep on the safe side in case I decided on another place. So I got lines from the parish minister and from my mistress’s lawyer. There was nobody knew me better as woman or worker than them two. There’s the papers, ma’am, and they said they’d answer any other inquiries; but they couldn’t well say more than they’ve said there.”

Mrs. Challoner took the manuscripts. She read the shorter first. It was from the lawyer. The paper was stamped with a good Edinburgh legal address, and the handwriting was professional and educated. The missive was in note form.

“Mr. McGillvray has known Mrs. Jessie Morison for many years as the sole household help and personal attendant of a lately deceased lady, Mrs. Bruce of Ashfield. She was much valued and trusted by her late mistress, and so far as Mr. McGillvray had opportunity to observe, she was attentive and punctilious in the discharge of all her duties.”

The minister’s testimonial was longer and stronger. The Rev. John Black, of the Established Manse, Mickleton, addressing the unknown as “Dear Sir or Madam,” said that he had very much pleasure in recommending Mrs. Jessie Morison to anybody who would appreciate faithful service such as she had rendered for twenty years to employers who had owed most of their comfort and security to her diligence and devotion. He also knew Mrs. Jessie Morison to be a kind and helpful neighbour. He sincerely hoped that she might find a new sphere in which her capacities and qualities might prove useful to others and beneficial to herself.

“These seem very satisfactory,” said Lucy.

“If you don’t think she is too old, you should be satisfied,” murmured Florence, who had looked over the testimonials while Mrs. Challoner read them.

“Only it is more satisfactory to have a personal reference,” Lucy went on. After what she had recently seen and heard, this seemed so much too good to be true that it flashed across her mind it might be a case of personation. Yet when she looked up at the douce, middle-aged face, she rebuked herself for the suspicion.

Jessie Morison did not resent the hesitation.

“I know it’s awkward,” she admitted; “but you might write to the gentlemen. I tell you they promised me they would answer any question.”

Lucy reflected. She did not see how that would help her. If there was anything unsound in the matter, more written testimonials would thicken the plot rather than clear it. Yet how natural and inevitable the circumstances seemed! How wrong it would be to let this nice woman slip through her fingers merely for the sake of a mere convention!

“Is there nobody within reach who can say a word for you?” she suggested.

“Well, ma’am,” said Jessie Morison anxiously, “of course, there’s my cousins; but I didn’t like to mention them, because most ladies would think relations don’t count for much. They’re highly respectable. He’s got a shop, and they’ve lived in the same house for years, and everybody knows them.”

“I think that will do,” Lucy conceded. After all, it seemed only a question of identity, and this inquiry would surely settle that.

“Very well, ma’am, thank you kindly. There’s my cousin’s business card, ma’am, and the dwelling-house is along with the shop. When will you likely call, ma’am?”

“Some time in the course of to-morrow,” Lucy answered. “Is there any particular time more suitable than another?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, they’re always at home at work—him in his shop, and her in her house. I only wanted to hear that you’d come at once, ma’am, for I’m so eager to get settled.”

“It shall be settled by to-morrow evening,” Lucy promised. “Good morning, Mrs. Morison.”

“Good morning, ma’am, and thank you, and I think you’ll find everything all right.”

Lucy was already joyfully gathering up her possessions. As for little Hugh, he sprang forward and danced a jig with delight at the prospect of departure. His mother turned to take courteous leave of the knitting lady, who looked up with an inscrutable smile.

“I congratulate you,” she remarked. “I suppose you think you have got off easily?”

“I think I am suited,” Lucy said with an air of triumph to the registry clerk, when she found her. “When ought I to pay my fee?”

“You can pay it now, ma’am. Five shillings. Oh, do you think it expensive, ma’am? Remember that for the same fee, if you choose, you can come here every day and all day long till you do get suited! We arrange so in case ladies{515} are not fortunate at first. We make only the same charge for hiring cooks or housemaids, but then they are more easily got than generals, and also they pay a percentage on their wages when they are hired. We charge the ‘generals’ nothing, poor things.”

“Fancy taking out your money’s worth by sitting there ‘till one is suited,’” cried Lucy, when they were once more outside in the fresh air.

“And did you see, Florence, the cousin’s address is at Willesden, and I shall have to lose another whole November day’s light in going there.”

“No, you needn’t,” said Florence, “not if you’ll trust me. I’ve an acquaintance at Willesden to whom I owe a call, so if you like I’ll kill the two birds with one stone. If everything is satisfactory, I’ll engage this woman on your behalf, and send you a wire that it is all right, and naming the day when she can come. You’ll be glad of her as soon as possible. I promised you I’d see you through this, Luce.”

Lucy was glad to feel that the said promise had not been absolutely forgotten, and she gratefully accepted the offered help.

“Of course, she’s too old. I don’t advise you to take her, remember that,” Florence went on. “But your heart is set on it.”

“I can’t bear to talk of such a woman as being ‘too old,’” cried Lucy. “I hope nobody will think me ‘too old’ when I am forty-five! Such years have not reached the infirmities of age, and if they have lost something, surely they have gained more. She may not run upstairs as quickly as a girl, but she must have sense and experience, and can be safely left in charge of the house, which is most important when I have outdoor engagements.”

“You being so determined to have her, and she so eager to come,” remarked Florence, “I think you might have brought down the wages a little.”

“Why, you told me I should have to offer more!” said Lucy, aghast.

“Yes; but people don’t care for servants with grey hair. If she’d an ounce of savoir faire, she’d have dyed it.”

“Oh, horrid, horrid, Florence!” exclaimed Lucy. “I can’t bear to hear you talk so. It was the grey hair which helped her to look so nice.”

It was not far past Lucy’s early dinner-hour. So she meant to hurry home. She invited Florence to come also, but Florence said no, she would get lunch near at hand, and then go straight home to dress for afternoon calls.

“I don’t see that you couldn’t do the same if you came with us,” Lucy urged, for she had a hospitable soul, and it hurt her to part from her sister directly she had used her, and when she was willing to be useful again on the morrow. On the other hand, had she gone with Florence to a restaurant, she knew that Florence would not only have refused to be her guest, but would have insisted that Lucy and Hugh should be hers, and would have “treated” them to all sorts of luxuries in a way which always made Lucy wish she could set the same money going in other directions.

But Florence was deaf to all persuasions. To own the truth, she felt relieved to get rid of her sister, for, as she said to herself, “the worry and the bad atmosphere of the last two hours had made her feel so ‘exhausted’ that she meant to recuperate with champagne, and she knew Lucy would be shocked.”

Lucy too, on reaching home, found herself more weary than she would have been after a hard day’s work. However, as the “light” had gone, there was nothing very pressing to do, and she went to bed early—very soon after Hugh’s usual bed-time.

Next afternoon the promised message from Florence duly arrived—

“Everything all right. She will enter service to-morrow before noon.”

“Before noon” proved to be directly after ten o’clock in the morning, when Jessie Morison presented herself as comely and comfortable as before. In expectation of her arrival, Mrs. Challoner had dispensed with the charwoman, and had busied herself trying to give the kitchen its former trim aspect, already somewhat dimmed in the hands of the muddling, untrained worker. After giving a few necessary instructions, she delivered up the lower regions to their new ruler, and betook herself to her sketching. After dinner she would devote the rest of the day to household explanations.

The simple midday meal almost startled Lucy by the savouriness of its preparation, and the daintiness of its arrangement. It was evident that Jessie Morison knew her business. Under her touch the fire glowed into genial brightness. Her skilful shake gave the sofa cushions a tempting rotundity. She received all her mistress’s directions with the masterly comprehension of one who knows the ground already. By tea-time, it seemed as if she had been in the house for months, and when, before retiring to rest, Mrs. Challoner went down into the kitchen to ascertain whether all outlets were properly fastened up, she thought she had never seen a pleasanter picture of middle-aged industry and worth. Jessie Morison sat in the arm-chair, over whose back she had thrown a Rob-Roy plaid. She was busily knitting a long grey stocking. The lamp was drawn up beside her, and its light fell full on the smiling face she turned to her mistress. She wore a grey woollen shawl pinned across her comfortable bosom by a Scotch pebble brooch, and the cap surmounting her silvered hair was no frivolous fly-away

dab of mock lace, but an efficient affair whose neat frills were the product of honest laundry-work and goffering irons. It actually came into Lucy’s mind that she might almost be thankful that Pollie had departed in quest of personal happiness, since Charlie might be easily assured that his dear ones and his home were safer than ever in the charge of this matronly, motherly person.

The days passed on. Lucy found herself free to work with an unencumbered mind. The new servant proved as pleasant as efficient. She was not a woman who talked much, but when addressed, she always responded cheerily, expressed herself nicely, and frequently made shrewd remarks, well set off by her Scottish dialect. Lucy was especially touched by the real right feeling she showed in any observation which glanced towards the absent “master” whom she had never seen. She felt that it was a comfort to have in the house this experienced woman, who had known a wife’s love and a widow’s loss. There seemed a human bond between them in the thick clumsy little Bible with the Scotch metrical Psalms, which lay on the kitchen dresser, its fly-leaf inscribed “To Jessie Milne, from her respectful friend Alexr. Morison,” with a date of the courting days five and twenty years ago.

Christmas drew near. Lucy had wondered a little over Christmas. She felt sure the Brands would invite her and Hugh to their festive board, but she did not want to go there. She knew well enough how the Brands kept Christmas, for she and Charlie had dined with them on one or two Christmas days when they were first married. There would be a great dinner-party—a chef hired for the occasion. With the exception of one or two fawning familiars of the Brand household—and especially obnoxious to Lucy—the guests would be anybody who was in special favour at the time, many of them financial or fashionable acquaintances of the last twelve months. These people would pick over and waste the delicious food placed before them, they would drink much costly wine. There would be toasts, which would range from the last “Company” in which Jem Brand was interested, down to our “Absent Friends,” which he would certainly propose if Lucy were there. There would follow a little confused music in the drawing-room, overmastered by everybody talking at once and yet saying

nothing. Then before the party broke up, they would all stand round with linked hands, and these people, who had not a memory, an outlook, or even an interest in common (unless it might be in a “Company”), would ask in London tones, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?” singing—

No, Lucy felt that it would be impossible to endure all this just now. It would be too much for her nerves. It would cut her to the quick, tempting her to tears or laughter, both alike of cynicism and bitterness.

Yet Lucy feared that Florence would make a sad fuss if Lucy chose to sit at home alone—but for little Hugh—while a place at her sister’s table was ready to welcome her.

Of late years the Challoners had kept Christmas after their own fashion. They had often been joined by one or two stray young people, teachers or students, who were living in lodgings. But they had had two regular guests. One of these, Miss Latimer, had been governess to Florence and Lucy in their girlhood.{516} She used to go to the Brands for Christmas when they were first married and were not quite so showy as they had since become. Then Florence Brand had turned her over to Lucy, saying that she thought their “crowd” was too much for the old lady, “it only tired and excited her—she was such an intellectual person, there was much more enjoyment for her in a quiet talk with just one or two thoughtful people.” That was true, and Miss Latimer was delighted to get Lucy’s invitation, and to accept Mrs. Brand’s excuses and explanation. But the shrewd old lady knew well enough that it was a truth which Mrs. Brand would not have discovered if Miss Latimer’s dresses had been newer and richer, and if she had driven up in a brougham instead of

coming to the street corner in a humble ’bus.

The other regular visitor was he whom Lucy had once named to Florence as “Charlie’s great chum, Wilfrid Somerset.” He was a man of about Charles Challoner’s own age. They had been at school together. Then Charlie had gone, brave and bright and winsome, out into the world, and Wilfrid Somerset had retired to a hermitage in the heart of London. For he had been afflicted almost from birth with one of those dire disasters which set a sufferer apart from his fellows. His walk was a writhing struggle and distortion; his sad, worn face, though pathetically fine when in perfect repose, was convulsed even by the effort of speech. Yet a beautiful soul and a noble intellect dwelt in his wrung frame. Providentially he had a small independency, and was free to work only for pure love’s sake. He had made a high mark in philology, and was a poet of no mean order, though neither those who profited by his researches nor those who sang his songs had ever heard his name or seen his face. Not unnaturally, he was morbidly sensitive. He had apartments in an old house in a deserted

corner of the older London, and was rarely out of doors by daylight save when he took an early-morning stroll in the sunlight, which fell subdued on the dreary little square where he lived—a square where nobody else ever walked. He had many correspondents, but few visitors, and he visited absolutely nowhere but at the little house with the verandah. His visits were generally evening visits. The eyes of his fellows seemed to burn his very soul. Lucy had understood how to measure his great friendship when he dared to face the crowd at the docks that he might say good-bye to Charlie on board the Northern steamer.

When, during the first days of her loneliness, any thought of Lucy’s had strayed towards Christmas—prompted perhaps by some question from little Hugh—she had wished she could go on with what Charlie and she had begun, since that would surround her with those who loved him and whom he loved, and would save her from any jar with the Brands or any reproaches from them. Had Pollie been with her, she would certainly have done this. She knew that Charlie, trustful of Pollie’s fidelity, had inferred this would be so. Now, with this reliable woman on the scene it was again not only possible but quite easy. So Lucy called on Miss Latimer and delivered her invitation personally, getting it accepted with tears and embraces.

“If you had not felt equal to inviting me I should have gone nowhere else,” said the little lady.