Part 17 (1/2)
”Are you sure? Why shouldn't she?”
”I don't know,” replied Miss Walker, dryly. ”Women don't always understand each other.”
Sally's name suggested the housekeeper to Betty.
”I don't want you to be offended with me, Harriet,” she said hesitatingly, ”if I ask you not to be familiar with Miss Trumbull. You have not had the experience with that type that I have had. You cannot give them an inch. If you treat them consistently as upper servants when they are in your employ, and ignore them if they are not, they will keep their place and give you no annoyance; but treat them with something more than common decency and they leap at once for equality.”
”Well--you must remember that I was not always so fine as I am now, and Miss Trumbull does not seem so much of an inferior to me as she does to you. To tell you the truth, it does me good to come down off my high horse occasionally. I reckon I'll get over that; sometimes I want to so hard I could step on everybody that is common and second-cla.s.s. I don't deny I'm as ambitious as I reckon I've got a right to be, but old habits are strong, and I'm lazy, and it's lonesome up here. Your mother and Major Carter talk from morning till night about the South before the War. Mr. Emory and Sally are always together, and talk so much about things I don't understand that I feel in the way. Miss Trumbull knows the private affairs of most every one in her village, and amuses me with her gossip; that is all.”
Betty p.r.i.c.ked up her ears at one of Harriet's revelation, and let the painful fact of her hospitality for vulgar gossip pa.s.s unnoticed.
”Do you mean,” she asked, ”do you think that Mr. Emory is beginning to care for Sally?”
”One can never be sure. I am certain he likes and admires her.”
”Oh, yes, he always has done that. But I wish he would fall in love with her. I am nearly sure that she more than likes him.”
”I am quite sure,” said Harriet, dryly. ”She would marry him about as quickly as he asked her. I knew that the first time I saw them together.”
”And she certainly would make him happy,” said Betty, thinking aloud.
”She is so bright and amusing and cheerful. She is the only person I know who can always make him laugh, and the more he laughs the better it is for him, poor old chap! And I think he is too old now for the nonsense of ruining his happiness because a woman has more money--Harriet!”
Harriet had one of those mouths that look small in repose, but widen surprisingly with laughter. Betty, who had only seen her smile slightly at rare intervals, happened to glance up. Harriet's mouth had stretched itself into a grin revealing nearly every tooth in her head. And it was the fatuous grin of the negro, and again Betty saw her black. She gasped and covered her face with her hands.
”Oh, never do that again,” she said sharply. ”Never laugh again as long as you live. Oh, poor girl! Poor girl!”
”I won't ask you what you mean,” said Harriet, hurriedly. ”I reckon I can guess. Thank you for one more kindness.”
And the horror of that grin remained so long with Betty that it was some time before she thought to wonder what had caused it.
V
Betty amused herself for the next day or two observing Jack Emory and Sally Carter. They unquestionably enjoyed each other's society, and Sally at times looked almost pretty again. But at the end of the second day Miss Madison shook her head.
”He is not in love,” she thought. ”It does not affect him in that way.”
And she felt more satisfaction in her discovery than she would have antic.i.p.ated. A woman would have a man go through life with only a skull cap where his surrendered scalp had been. To grow another is an insult to her power and pains her vanity.
It occurred to Betty that she was not the only observant person in the house. She seemed always stumbling over Miss Trumbull, who did not appear to listen at doors but was usually as closely within ear-shot as she could get. It was idle to suppose that the woman had any malignant motive in that well-conducted household, and she seemed to be good-natured and even kindly. Interest in other people's affairs was evidently, save vanity, her strongest pa.s.sion. It was the natural result of an empty life and a common mind. But simple or not, it was objectionable.
Her vanity, her mistress had cause to discover, was more so. On Wednesday morning Betty returned home from a long tramp, earlier than was her habit, and went to her room. Miss Trumbull was standing before the mirror trying on one of her hats.
”That's real becomin' to me,” she drawled, as Miss Madison entered the room. ”I always could wear a hat turned up on one side, and most of your colours would suit me.”
Betty controlled her temper, but the effort hurt her. She would have liked to pour her scorn all over the creature.
”You may have the hat,” she said. ”Only do me the favour not to enter my room again unless I send for you. The maid is very neat, and it needs no inspection.”
The woman's face turned a dark red. ”I'm sorry you're mad,” she said, ”but there's no harm, as I can see, in tryin' on a hat.”