Part 4 (1/2)
”I am sure that I am not indolent. I always have my music, embroidery, or reading to attend to. As to being chained down to household drudgery, I cannot think of it, and I am certain that it would be as much against George's wishes as mine.”
”It would undoubtedly be gratifying to him, whenever he had an hour or two, which he could spend at home, to see you tastefully dressed, and to have you at leisure so as to devote your time wholly to him.”
”You make George out to be extremely selfish, which I am sure he is not.”
”No, not more so than we all are.”
”Why, mother, I am sure you are not selfish. You are always ready to sacrifice your own enjoyment for the sake of promoting that of others.”
”I have been subjected to a longer course of discipline, than either you or George. I have lived long enough to know, that the true secret of making ourselves happy is to endeavour to make others so.
This is, at least, the case with all those whose finer sensibilities have not been blunted, or, more properly speaking, have been rightly cultivated. But it will do no good to enter into a metaphysical discussion of the subject. The course proper to be pursued by a woman, whose husband's income is rather limited, appears to me perfectly plain.”
”The course proper for me to pursue, is that which will best please George.”
”Certainly, and that is precisely what I would advise you to do; but I don't think that literally acting upon this suggestion of his, respecting domestic duties, will please him for any great length of time.”
Emily made no reply to this. She had decided in her own mind to obey the wishes of George, more especially as they exactly accorded with her own.
A few weeks from the time of the foregoing conversation, George and Emily Brenton commenced housekeeping. Their house was neatly and handsomely furnished, and through the influence of Emily's mother, Experience Breck, a girl thirty-five years old, who well understood domestic, labour, undertook to perform the duties of chambermaid, laundress, and cook, for what all concerned considered a reasonable compensation.
Their home, to make use of George's words, the first time he saw Emily's parents after everything was satisfactorily arranged, ”was a little paradise.” Pedy (the diminutive for Experience) was the best of cooks and clear-starchers, and never had he tasted such savory soups, and meat roasted so exactly to a turn, or such puddings and such pastry; and never had it been his fortune to wear s.h.i.+rt-bosoms and collars, which so completely emulated the drifted snow.
”And Emily too--she was the dearest and most cheerful of wives, and so bright an atmosphere always surrounded her, that one might almost imagine that she was a bundle of animated sunbeams. She was always ready to sing and play to him, or to listen while he read to her from some favourite author.”
This eulogy was succeeded by an invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Anderson to dine with them the ensuing day, that they might judge for themselves that he did not colour the picture of their domestic bliss too highly.
The invitation was accepted; and Emily could not help taking her mother aside to tell her that since they saw each other, she had done nothing but read and play on the beautiful harp her uncle gave her, except that when she grew tired of these, she sewed a little; ”and yet,” she added, with a bright smile, ”George has never given me, an unkind look--much more an unkind word.”
”And you have been housekeeping four whole days.”
”Eight days, mother!”
”It is only four days since everything was arranged, and you commenced talking your meals regularly at home.”
”I know, but then if we can live happily four days, we can four years.”
”Yes, if Pedy could always live with you.”
”She appears to be quite well satisfied with her situation,” was Emily's answer.
There was one at work, however, though neither he nor they realized it, who was sapping their happiness at its very foundation. This was an honest, intelligent farmer, by the name of Simon Lundley, who one day, when in the city, happened to overhear the praises bestowed on Pedy Breck by George Brenton, touching her excellence as a cook and clear-starcher.
”If,” thought he, ”she could do these well, the same good judgment would direct her how to excel in making b.u.t.ter and cheese; and as his mother, who kept his house, was growing old and infirm, it appeared to him that it would be convenient for her to have some person to a.s.sist her in the performance of these and other onerous duties belonging to the in-door work of a farm. He had seen Pedy a few months previous, when on a visit to a sister who resided in the neighbourhood of his home, and remembered of having thought it strange that she had never married as well as her sister, as she was remarkably good-looking.” Simon Lundley, therefore, the next Sunday, about sunset, arrayed in a suit of substantial blue broadcloth, boldly presented himself at George Brenton's front door, and inquired if Miss Breck was at home. It proved to be a fortunate, as well as a bold step. Pedy recognised him at once, and had a kind of a vague prescience as to the object of his visit, or such might have been the inference drawn from the deep crimson which suddenly suffused her cheeks.
From that time he visited her regularly every Sunday, and it was soon decided that they should be married in season to enable her to pack the fall b.u.t.ter. This decision she, for sometime, delayed to communicate to Emily, from sheer bashfulness. She could not, she said, when she at last had wrought herself up to what appeared to her the very pinnacle of boldness, make up her mind to tell her before, for the life of her, but then, she did suppose that Simon kind of had her promise that she would be married to him in just three weeks from the next Sunday.
Emily immediately called on her mother to communicate to her the melancholy information. Mrs. Anderson saw that these were what might be termed ”minor trials,” for her daughter in prospective. She hoped that she would be discreet enough not to allow them to be magnified into what might appropriately be called major trials.
”Don't you think, mother,” said Emily, ”that you can manage to find, me a girl as good as Pedy?”
”I think it will be impossible. Pedy is a kind of _rara avis_ in all that appertains to housekeeping. She excels in everything. You will be obliged now to limit your expectations. If you can obtain a girl who knows how to cook well, it is the best you can hope to do. Even that, I am afraid, will prove very difficult.”