Part 12 (2/2)
I began to do what I could about the room without making too much bustle. The girl watched me with eager eyes, and at last, as I came near the bed, she asked suddenly,--
”Did he send you?”
I felt myself growing flushed, though there was no reason for it.
”Deacon Richards asked me to come,” I answered.
”I don't know him,” she commented, evidently confused. ”Is he Overseer?”
I hushed her, and went on with my work, for I wanted to think what I had better tell her. Of course Marm Bagley was of no use, but when Hannah came things went better. Hannah was scandalized at my being there at all, and of course would not hear of my doing the rough work. She took possession of Mrs. Bagley, and ordered her about with a vigor which completely dazed that unsatisfactory person, and amused me so much that my disturbed spirits rose once more. This was all very well as long as it lasted, but Hannah had to go home for dinner, and when the restraint of her presence was removed Marm Bagley rea.s.serted herself. She tied a frowzy bonnet over a still more frowzy head, lighted her pipe, and departed for the woods behind the house.
”When that impudent old hired girl o' yours's got all through and got out,” she remarked, ”you can hang a towel out the shed winder, and I'll come back. I ain't got no occasion to stay here and git ordered round by no hired girl of anybody's.”
My remonstrances were of no avail, since I would not promise not to let Hannah come into the house, and the fat old woman waddled away into the seclusion of the woods. I suppose she slept somewhere, though the woods must be so damp that the indulgence seems rather a dangerous one; but at nightfall she returned more odorous, and more like Sairey Gamp than ever.
Hannah came back, and we did what we could. When Dr. Wentworth came in the afternoon he allowed us to get Julia into clean linen, and she did seem grateful for the comfort of fresh sheets and pillow-slips. It amused me that Hannah had not only taken the servants' bedding, but had picked out the oldest.
”I took the wornest ones,” she explained. ”Of course we wouldn't any of us ever want to sleep in them again.”
She was really shocked at my proposing to remain for the night.
”It ain't for you, Miss Ruth, to be taking care of such folks,” she declared; ”and as for that Bagley woman, I'd as soon have a bushel basket of c.o.c.kroaches in the house as her, any time.”
Even this lively image did not do away with the necessity of my remaining. I could not propose to Hannah to take my place. The mere fact of being mistress often forces one to do things which servants would feel insulted if asked to undertake. Father used to say, ”Remember that _n.o.blesse oblige_ does not exist in the kitchen;” though of course this is true only in a sense. Servants have their own ideas of what is due to position, I am sure; only that their ideas are so different, and often so funnily different, from ours. I could not leave the sick girl to the mercies of Mrs. Bagley, and so I had no choice but to stay.
All day long Julia watched me with a closeness most strangely disconcerting. She evidently could not make out why I was there. In the evening, as I sat by her, she said suddenly,--
”I dunno what you think yer'll get by it.”
”Get by what?”
”Bein' here.”
I smiled at her manner, and told her that at least I had already got the satisfaction of seeing her more comfortable. She made no reply for a time, but evidently was considering the matter. I did not think it well for her to talk, so I sat knitting quietly, while Mrs. Bagley loomed in the background, rocking creakingly.
”'Twon't please him none,” she said at last. ”He don't care a d.a.m.n for me.”
I tried to take this without showing that I understood it.
”I'm not trying to please anybody,” I responded. ”When a neighbor is sick and needs help, of course anybody would come.”
”Humph! Folks hain't been so awful anxious to help me.”
”There is a good deal of sickness in town,” I explained.
”'Tain't n.o.body's business to come, anyhow,” commented Mrs. Bagley dispa.s.sionately.
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