a household exclusively composed of women has its advantages and its disadvantages. it is apt to become somewhat narrow in judgment, morbid in feeling, absorbed in petty interests, and bounding its vision of outside things to the small horizon which it sees from its own fireside. but, on the other hand, by this fireside often abides a settled peace and purity, a long-suffering, generous forbearance, and an enduring affectionateness which the other sex can hardly comprehend or credit. men will not believe, what is nevertheless the truth, that we can "stand alone" better than they can; that we can do without them far easier, and with less deterioration of character, than they can do without us; that we are better able to provide for ourselves interests, duties, and pleasures; in short, strange as it may appear, that we have more real self-sustaining independence than they.
of course, that the true life, the highest life, is that of man and woman united, no one will be insane enough to deny; i am speaking of the substitute for it, which poor humanity has so often to fall back upon and make the best of—a better best very frequently than what appears best in the eyes of the world. in truth, many a troubled, care ridden, wealthy family, torn with dissensions, or frozen up in splendid formalities, might have envied that quiet, humble, maiden household of the misses leaf, where their only trial was poverty, and their only grief the one which they knew the worst of, and had met patiently for many a year—poor selina's "way."
i doubt not it was good for elizabeth hand that her first place—the home in which she received her first impressions—was this feminine establishment, simple and regular, in which was neither waste nor disorder allowed. good, too, that while her mistresses' narrow means restricted her in many things enjoyed by servants in richer families, their interests, equally narrow, caused to be concentrated upon herself a double measure of thought and care. she became absolutely "one of the family," sharing in all its concerns. from its small and few carnal luxuries—such as the cake, fruit, or pot of preserve, votive offerings from pupils' parents—up to the newspaper and the borrowed book, nothing was either literally or metaphorically "locked" up from elizabeth.
this grand question of locking up had been discussed in full conclave the day after her month of preparation ended, the sisters taking opposite sides, as might have been expected. selina was for the immediate introduction of a locksmith and a key basket.
"while she was only on trial, it did not so much signify; besides, if it did, we had only buttons on the press doors; but now she is our regular servant we ought to institute a regular system of authority. how can she respect a family that never locks up any thing?"
"how can we respect a servant from whom we lock up every thing!"
"respect a servant! what do you mean, hilary?"
"i mean that if i did not respect a servant i would be very sorry to keep her one day in any house of mine."
"wait till you've a house of your own to keep, miss," said selina, crossly. "i never heard such nonsense. is that the way you mean to behave to elizabeth? leave every thing open to her—clothes, books, money; trust her with all your secrets; treat her as your most particular friend?"
"a girl of fifteen would be rather an inconvenient particular friend! and i have happily few secrets to trust her with. but if i could not trust her with our coffee, tea, sugar, and so on, and bring her up from the very first in the habit of being trusted, i would recommend her being sent away to-morrow."
"very fine talking; and what do you say, johanna?—if that is not an unnecessary question after hilary has given her opinion."
"i think," replied the elder sister, taking no notice of the long familiar innuendo, "that in this case hilary is right. how people ought to manage in great houses i can not say; but in our small house it will be easier and better not to alter our simple ways. trusting the girl—if she is a good girl—will only make her more trustworthy; if she is bad, we shall the sooner find it out and let her go."
but elizabeth did not go. a year passed; two years; her wages were raised, and with them her domestic position. from a "girl" she was converted into a regular servant; her pinafores gave place to grown-up gowns and aprons; and her rough head, at miss selina's incessant instance, was concealed by a cap—caps being considered by that lady as the proper and indispensable badge of servant-hood.
to say that during her transition state, or even now that she had reached the cap era, elizabeth gave her mistresses no trouble, would be stating a self-evident improbability. what young lass under seventeen, of any rank, does not cause plenty of trouble to her natural guardians? who can "put an old head on young shoulders?" or expect from girls at the most unformed and unsatisfactory period of life that complete moral and mental discipline, that unfailing self-control, that perfection of temper, and every thing else which, of course, all mistresses always have?
i am obliged to confess that elizabeth had a few—nay, not a few—most obstinate faults; that no child tries its parents, no pupil its school teachers, more than she tried her three mistresses at intervals. she was often thoughtless and careless, brusque in her manner, slovenly, in her dress; sometimes she was down-right "bad," filled full—as some of her elders and betters are, at all ages—with absolute naughtiness; when she would sulk for hours and days together, and make the whole family uncomfortable, as many a servant can make many a family small as that of the misses leaf.
but still they never lost what hilary termed their "respect" for elizabeth; they never found her out in a lie, a meanness, or an act of deception or dishonesty. they took her faults as we must take the surface faults of all connected with us—patiently rather than resentfully, seeking to correct rather than to punish. and though there were difficult elements in the household, such as their being three mistresses to be obeyed the youngest mistress a thought too lax and the second one undoubtedly too severe, still no girl could live with these high-principled, much-enduring women without being impressed with two things which the serving class are slowest to understand—the dignity of poverty, and the beauty of that which is the only effectual law to bring out good and restrain evil—the law of loving-kindness.
two fracas, however, must be chronicled, for after both, the girl's dismissal hung on a thread. the first was when mrs. cliffe, mother of tommy cliffe, who was nearly killed in the field, being discovered to be an ill sort of woman, and in the habit of borrowing from elizabeth stray shillings, which were never returned, was forbidden the house, elizabeth resented it so fiercely that she sulked for a whole week afterward.
the other and still more dangerous crisis in elizabeth's destiny was when a volume of scott's novels, having been missing for some days, was found hidden in her bed, and she lying awake reading it was thus ignominiously discovered at eleven p. m. by miss selina, in consequence of the gleam of candle light from under her door.
it was true neither of these errors were actual moral crimes. hilary even roused a volley of sharp words upon herself by declaring they had their source in actual virtues; that a girl who would stint herself of shillings, and hold resolutely to any liking she had, even if unworthy, had a creditable amount of both self-denial and fidelity in her disposition. also that a tired out maid-of all-work, who was kept awake of nights by her ardent appreciation of the "heart of mid-lothian," must possess a degree of both intellectual and moral capacity which deserved cultivation rather than blame. and though this surreptitious pursuit of literature under difficulties could not of course be allowed, i grieve to say that miss hilary took every opportunity of not only giving the young servant books to read, but of talking to her about them. and also that a large proportion of these books were—to miss selina's unmitigated horror—absolutely fiction! stories, novels, even poetry—books that hilary liked herself—books that had built up in her own passionate dream of life; wherein all the women were faithful, tender, heroic, self-devoted; and all the men were—something not unlike robert lyon.
did she do harm? was it; as selina and even johanna said sometimes, "dangerous" thus to put before elizabeth a standard of ideal perfection, a quixotic notion of life—life in its full purpose power, and beauty—such as otherwise never could have crossed the mind of this working girl, born of parents who, though respectable and worthy, were in no respect higher than the common working class? i will not argue the point: i am not making elizabeth a text for a sermon; i am simply writing her story.
one thing was certain, that by degrees the young woman's faults lessened; even that worst of them, the unmistakable bad temper, not aggressive, but obstinately sullen, which made her and miss selina sometimes not on speaking terms for a week together. but she simply "sulked;" she never grumbled or was pert; and she did her work just as usual—with a kind of dogged struggle not only against the superior powers but against something within herself much harder to fight with.
"she makes me feel more sorry for her than angry with her," miss leaf would sometimes say, coming out of the kitchen with that grieved face, which was the chief sign of displeasure her sweet nature ever betrayed. "she will have up-hill work through life, like us all, and more than many of us, poor child!"
but gradually elizabeth, too, copying involuntarily the rest of the family, learned to put up with miss selina; who, on her part, kept a sort of armed neutrality. and once, when a short but sharp illness of johanna's shook the house from its even tenor, startled every body out of their little tempers, and made them cling together and work together in a sort of fear-stricken union against one common grief, selina allowed that they might have gone farther and fared worse on the day they engaged elizabeth.
after this illness of his aunt. ascott came home. it was his first visit since he had gone to london: mr. ascott, he said, objected to holidays. but now, from some unexplained feeling, johanna in her convalescence longed after the boy—no longer a boy, however, but nearly twenty, and looking fully his age. how proud his aunts were to march him up the town, and hear every body's congratulations on his good looks and polished manners! it was the old story—old as the hills! i do not pretend to invent any thing new. women, especially maiden aunts, will repeat the tale till the end of time, so long as they have youths belonging to them on whom to expend their natural tendency to clinging fondness, and ignorant, innocent hero worship. the misses leaf—ay, even selina, whose irritation against the provoking boy was quite mollified by the elegant young man—were no wiser than their neighbors.
but there was one person in the household who still obstinately refused to bow the knee to ascott. whether it was, as psychologists might explain, some instinctive polarity in their natures; or whether, having once conceived a prejudice, elizabeth held on to it like grim death; still there was the same unspoken antagonism between them. the young fellow took little notice of her except to observe "that she hadn't grown any handsomer;' but elizabeth watched him with a keen severity that overlooked nothing, and resisted, with a passive pertinacity that was quite irresistible, all his encroachments on the family habits, all the little self-pleasing ways which ascott had been so used to of old, that neither he nor his aunts apparently recognized them as selfish.
"i canna bear to see him" ("can not," suggested her mistress, who not seeing any reason why elizabeth should not speak the queen's english as well as herself, had instituted h's, and stopped a few more glaring provincialisms.) "i cannot bear to see him, miss hilary, lolling on the arm-chair, when missis looks so tired and pale, and sitting up o' nights, burning double fires, and going up stairs at last with his boots on, and waking every body. i dunnot like it, i say."
"you forget; mr. ascott has his studies. he must work for the next examination."
"why doesn't he get up of a morning then instead of lying in bed, and keeping the break-fast about till ten? why can't he do his learning by daylight? daylight's cheaper than mould candles, and a deal better for the eyes."
hilary was puzzled. a truth was a truth, and to try and make it out otherwise, even for the dignity of the family, was something from which her honest nature revolted. besides, the sharp-sighted servant would be the first to detect the inconsistency of one law of right for the parlor and another for the kitchen. so she took-refuge in silence and in the apple-pudding she was making.
but she resolved to seize the first opportunity of giving ascott, by way of novelty, the severest lecture that tongue of aunt could bestow. and this chance occurred the same afternoon, when the other two aunts had gone out to tea, to a house which ascott voted "slow," and declined going to. she remained to make tea for him, and in the mean time took him for a constitutional up and down the public walks hard by.
ascott listened at first very good humoredly; once or twice calling her "a dear little prig," in his patronizing way—he was rather fond of patronizing his aunt hilary. but when she seriously spoke of his duties, as no longer a boy but a man, who ought now to assume the true, manly right of thinking for and taking care of other people, especially his aunts, ascott began to flush up angrily.
"now stop that, aunt hilary: i'll not have you coming mr. lyon over me."
"what do you mean?"
for of late ascott had said very little about mr. lyon—not half so much as mr. lyon, in his steadily persistent letters to miss leaf, told her about her nephew ascott.
"i mean that i'll not be preached to like that by a woman. it's bad enough to stand it from a man; but then lyon's a real sharp fellow, who knows the world, which women don't, aunt hilary. besides, he coaches me in my latin and greek; so i let him pitch into me now and then. but i won't let you; so just stop it; will you."
something new in ascott's tone—speaking more of the resentful fierceness of the man than the pettishness of the boy—frightened his little aunt, and silenced her. by-and-by she took comfort from the reflection that, as the lad had in his anger betrayed, he had beside him in london a monitor whose preaching would be so much wiser and more effectual than her own that she determined to say no more.
the rare hearing of mr. lyon's name—for, time and absence having produced their natural effect, except when his letter came, he was seldom talked about now—set hilary thinking.
"do you go to see him often?" she said, at last.
"who? mr. lyon?" and ascott, delighted' to escape into a fresh subject, became quite cheerful and communicative. "oh, bless you! he wouldn't care for my going to him. he lives in a two-pair back, only one room, 'which serves him for kitchen and parlor and all:' dines at a cook shop for nine-pence a day, and makes his own porridge night and morning. he told me so once, for he isn't a bit ashamed of it. but he must be precious hard up sometimes. however, as he contrives to keep a decent coat on his back, and pay his classes at the university, and carry off the very first honors going there, nobody asks any questions. that's the good of london life, aunt hilary," said the young fellow, drawing himself up with great wisdom. "only look like a gentleman, behave yourself as such, and nobody asks any questions."
"yes," acquiesced vaguely aunt hilary. and then her mind wandered yearningly to the solitary student in the two-pair back. he might labor and suffer; he might be ill; he might die, equally solitary, and "nobody would ask any questions." this phase of london life let a new light in upon her mind. the letters to johanna had been chiefly filled with whatever he thought would interest them. with his characteristic scotch reserve, he had said very little about himself, except in the last, wherein he mentioned that he had "done pretty well" at the college this term, and meant to "go in for more work" immediately.
what this work entailed—how much more toil, how much more poverty—hilary knew not. perhaps even his successes, which ascott went on to talk of, had less place in her thoughts than the picture of the face she knew, sharpened with illness, wasted with hard work and solitary care.
"and i can not help him—i can not help him!" was her bitter cry; until, passing from the dream-land of fancy, the womanly nature asserted itself. she thought if it had been, or if it were to be, her blessed lot to be chosen by robert lyon, how she would take care of him! what an utter slave she would be to him! how no penury would frighten her, no household care oppress or humble her, if done for him and for his comfort. to her brave heart no battle of life seemed too long or too sore, if only it were fought for him and at his side. and as the early falling leaves were blown in gusts across her path, and the misty autumn night began to close in, nature herself seemed to plead in unison with the craving of her heart, which sighed that youth and summer last not always; and that, "be it ever so humble," as the song says, there is no place so bright and beautiful as the fireside of a loveful home.
while the aunt and nephew were strolling thus, thinking of very different things, their own fire newly lit—ascott liked a fire—was blazing away in solitary glory, for the benefit of all passers-by. at length one—a gentleman—stopped at the gate, and looked in, then took a turn to the end of the terrace, and stood gazing in once more. the solitude of the room apparently troubled him; twice his hand was on the latch before he opened it and knocked at the front door.
elizabeth appeared, which seemed to surprise him.
"is miss leaf at home?"
"no, sir."
"is she well? are all the family well?" and he stepped right into the passage, with the freedom of a familiar foot.
("i should ha' slammed the door in his face," was elizabeth's comment afterward; "only, you see, miss hilary, he looked a real gentleman.")
the stranger and she mutually examined one another.
"i think i have heard of you," said he, smiling. "you are miss leaf's servant—elizabeth hand."
"yes, sir," still grimly, and with a determined grasp of the door handle.
"if your mistresses are likely to be home soon, will you allow me to wait for them? i am an old friend of theirs. my name is lyon."
now elizabeth was far too much one of the family not to have heard of such a person. and his knowing her was a tolerable proof of his identity; besides, unconsciously, the girl was influenced by that look and mien of true gentlemanhood, as courteous to the poor maid-of-all-work as he would have been to any duchess born; and by that bright, sudden smile, which came like sunshine over his face, and like sunshine warmed and opened the heart of every one that met it.
it opened that of elizabeth. she relaxed her cerberus keeping of the door, and even went so far as to inform him that miss leaf and miss selina were out to tea, but miss hilary and mr. ascott would be at home shortly. he was welcome to wait in the parlor if he liked.
afterward, seized with mingled curiosity and misgiving, she made various errands to go in and look at him; but she had not courage to address him, and he never spoke to her. he sat by the window, gazing out into the gloaming. except just turning his head at her entrance; she did not think he had once stirred the whole time.
elizabeth went back to her kitchen, and stood listening for her young mistress's familiar knock. mr. lyon seemed to have listened too, for before she could reach it the door was already opened.
there was a warm greeting—to her great relief: for she knew she had broken the domestic laws in admitting a stranger unawares—and then elizabeth heard them all three go into the parlor, where they remained talking, without ringing for either tea or candles, a full quarter of an hour.
miss hilary at last came out, but much to elizabeth's surprise, went straight up into her bedroom without entering the kitchen at all.
it was some minutes more before she descended; and then, after giving her orders for tea, and seeing that all was arranged with special neatness, she stood absently by the kitchen fire. elizabeth noticed how wonderfully bright her eyes were, and what a soft, happy smile she had. she noticed it, because she had never seen miss hilary look exactly like that before; and she never did again.
"don't you be troubling yourself with waiting about here," she said; and her mistress seemed to start at being spoken to. "i'll get the tea all right, miss hilary. please go back into the parlor."
hilary went in.
