Part 6 (2/2)
The tactful Miss Tripp looked sadly puzzled, but she felt that it would not be the part of wisdom to press the issue for the moment. Her face wreathed itself anew in forgiving smiles as she flitted about the little rooms. ”_Isn't_ this the most convenient, cosy little apartment?” she twittered. ”I am _so_ glad I was able to secure it for you; I a.s.sure you I was obliged to use all of my diplomacy with the agent. And your pretty things _do_ light up the dark corners so nicely. And speaking of corners somehow reminds me, I have found you a _perfect treasure_ of a maid; but you must take her at once. She's a cousin of our Marie, and has always been employed by the best people. She was with Mrs. Paget Smythe last, I believe. She told Marie last night that she would be willing to come to you for only twenty dollars a month, and that's _very_ reasonable, considering the fact that she is willing to do part of the laundry work,--the towels, sheets and plain things, you know. _Expensive?_ Indeed it's not, dear--for _Boston_. Why, I could tell you of plenty of people who are _glad_ to pay twenty-five and put all their laundry out.
I'd advise you to engage Annita without delay. Really, you couldn't do better.”
Elizabeth shook her head. ”I mean to do my own work,” she said decidedly. ”I shall want something to do while Sam is away, and why not this when I--like it?”
”But you won't like it after a while, my poor child, when the s.h.i.+ne is once worn off your new pans and things, and _think_ of your hands! It's absolutely impossible to keep one's nails in any sort of condition, and besides the heat from the gas-range is simply _ruinous_ for the complexion. Didn't you _know_ that? Of course you are all milk and roses now, but how long do you suppose that will last, if you are to be cooped up in a hot, stuffy little kitchen from morning till night?” Miss Tripp paused dramatically, her eyes wide with sympathy and apprehension.
”But we--I am sure we oughtn't to afford to keep a maid,” demurred Elizabeth in a small, weak voice. ”So please don't----”
”Oh, of course, it is nothing to me, my dear,” and Miss Tripp arose with a justly offended air. ”I _thought_ I was doing you a kindness when I asked Annita to call and see you this morning. It will be perfectly easy for you to tell her that you don't care to engage her. But when it comes to _affording_, _I_ think you can scarcely afford to waste your good looks over a cooking range. It is your duty to your husband to keep yourself young and lovely as long as you possibly can. It is only _too_ easy to lose it all, and then--” Miss Tripp concluded her remarks with a shrug of her shapely shoulders, which aroused the too impressionable Elizabeth to vague alarms.
”I am sure,” faltered the bride of two months, ”that Sam would like me just as well even if I----”
”Of course you _think_ so, dear, every woman does till it is _too late_,” observed Miss Tripp plaintively. ”I'm sure I _hope_ it will turn out differently in your case. But I could tell you things about some of my married friends that would-- Well, all I have to say is that _I_ never dared try it--matrimony, I mean--and if I were in your place-- But there! I _mustn't_ meddle. I solemnly promised myself years and years ago that I wouldn't. The trouble with me is that I love my friends _too_ fondly, and I simply cannot endure to see them making mistakes which might _so easily_ have been avoided. I'm coming to take you out to-morrow, and we'll lunch down town in the nicest, most inexpensive little place. And--_dear_, if you finally decide _not_ to engage Annita, _would_ you mind telling her that through a _slight misunderstanding_ you had secured some one else? These high-cla.s.s servants are _so easily_ offended, you know, and on account of _our Marie_--a perfect _treasure_ Oh, _thank_ you! _Au revoir_--till to-morrow!”
Perhaps it is not altogether to be wondered at that immediately after Miss Tripp's departure Elizabeth found occasion to glance into her mirror. Yes, she was undoubtedly prettier than ever, she decided, but suppose it should be true about the withering heat of the gas-range; and then there were the rose-tinted, polished nails, to which Elizabeth had only lately begun to pay particular attention. The day's work had already left perceptible blemishes upon their dainty perfection.
Elizabeth recalled her mother's hands, marred with constant household labour, with a kind of terror. Her own would look the same before many years had pa.s.sed, and would Sam--_could_ he love her just the same when the delicate beauty of which he was so fond and proud had faded? And what, after all, was twenty dollars a month when one looked upon it as the price of one's happiness?
Elizabeth sat down soberly with pencil and paper to contemplate the matter arithmetically. Thirty-eight dollars for rent, and twenty dollars for a maid, subtracted from one hundred and twenty--the latter sum representing the young engineer's monthly salary--left an undeniable balance of sixty-two dollars to be expended in food, clothing and other expenses. After half an hour of careful calculation, based on what she could remember of Innisfield prices, Elizabeth had reached very satisfactory conclusions. Clothing would cost next to nothing--for the first year, at least, and food for two came to a ridiculously small sum.
There appeared, in short, to be a very handsome remainder left over for what Sam called ”contingencies.” This would include, of course, the fixed amount which they had prudently resolved to lay by on the arrival of every cheque. This much had already been settled between them. Sam had a promising nest-egg in a Boston bank, and both had dreams of its ultimate hatching into a house and lot, or into some comfortable interest-bearing bonds. Elizabeth was firmly resolved to be prudent and helpful to her husband in every possible way; but was it not her duty to keep herself young and lovely as long as possible? The idea so cogently presented to her attention by Miss Tripp not an hour since appeared to have become so much her own that she did not recognise it as borrowed property.
It was at this psychological instant that a second summons announced the presence of a certain Annita McMurtry in the entrance hall below. ”Did Mrs. Brewster wish to see this person?”
Elizabeth hesitated for the fraction of a minute. ”You may tell her to come up,” was the message that finally found its way to the hall-boy's attentive ear.
Annita McMurtry was a neatly attired young woman, with a penetrating black eye, a ready smile and a well-poised, not to say supercilious bearing. In response to Elizabeth's timid questions she vouchsafed the explanation that she could ”do everything” and was prepared ”to take full charge.”
”And by that you mean?”
”I mean that the lady where I work doesn't have to worry herself about anything. I take full charge of everything--ordering, cooking, laundry and waiting on table, and I don't mind wiping up the floors in a small apartment like this. Window-cleaning and rugs the janitor attends to, of course.”
”When--could you come, if I--decide to engage you?” asked Elizabeth, finding herself vaguely uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the alert black eyes.
”If you please, madam, I'd rather speak first about wages and days out.
I'd like my alternate Thursdays and three evenings a week; and will you be going to theatres often with supper parties after? I don't care for that, unless I get paid extra. I left my last place on account of it; I can't stand it to be up all hours of the night and do my work next day.”
”I should think not!” returned Elizabeth, with ready sympathy. ”We should not require anything of the sort. As to wages, Miss Tripp said you would be willing to come for twenty dollars. It seemed very high to me for only two in the family.” Elizabeth spoke in a very dignified way; she felt that she appeared quite the experienced housekeeper in the eyes of the maid, who was surveying her with a faint, inscrutable smile.
”I never work for a family where there is more than two,” said Miss McMurtry pointedly. ”I could make my thirty-five a month easy if I would. But Miss Tripp must have misunderstood me; twenty-two was what I said, but you'll find I earn it. I'll come to-morrow morning about this time, and thank you kindly, madam.” The young woman arose with a proud composure of manner, which put the finis.h.i.+ng touch upon the interview, and accomplished her exit with the practised ease of a society woman.
”I wonder if I ought to have done it? And what will Sam say?” Elizabeth asked herself, ready to run undignifiedly after the girl, whose retiring footsteps were already dying away down the corridor. But Sam was found to be of the opinion that his Elizabeth had done exactly right. He hadn't thought of hiring a servant, to be sure, but he ought, manifestly, to have been reminded of his omission. It was surely not to be expected that a man's wife should spend her time and strength toiling over his food in a dark little den of a kitchen. No decent fellow would stand for that sort of thing. He wanted his wife to have time to go out, he said; to enjoy herself; to see pictures and hear music. As for the expense, he guessed they could swing it; he was sure to get another rise in salary before long. And much more of the same sort, all of which proved pleasantly soothing to Elizabeth's somewhat disturbed conscience.
”I suppose Grandma Carroll would say I was a lazy girl,” she sighed.
”You didn't marry Grandma Carroll, dear,” Sam told her, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes which Elizabeth thought delightfully witty.
CHAPTER VIII
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