Tracy Park. Mary Jane Holmes
of Contents
GETTING ACCUSTOMED TO IT.
In the absence of Mrs. Crawford, who for a week or more had been domesticated in the cottage in the lane, as the house was designated which Arthur had given her, there was no one to receive the strangers except the cook and the house-maid, and as Mrs. Tracy entered the hall the two came forward, bristling with criticism, and ready to resent anything like interference in the new-comers.
The servants at the park had not been pleased with the change of administration. That Mr. Arthur was a gentleman whom it was an honor to serve, they all conceded; but with regard to the new master and mistress, they had grave doubts. Although none of them had been at the park on the occasion of Mrs. Tracy's first visit there, many rumors concerning her had reached them, and she would scarcely have recognized herself could she have heard the remarks of which she was the subject. That she had worked in a factory—which was true—was her least offence, for it was whispered that once, when the winter was unusually severe, and work scarce, she had gone to a soup-house, and even asked and procured coal from the poor-master for herself and her mother.
This was not true, and would have argued nothing against her as a woman if it had been, but the cook and the house-maid believed it, and passed sundry jokes together while preparing to meet 'the pauper,' as they designated her.
In this state of things their welcome could not be very cordial, but Mrs. Tracy was too tired and too much excited, to observe their demeanor particularly. They were civil, and the house was in perfect order, and so much larger and handsomer than she had thought it to be, that she felt bewildered and embarrassed, and said 'Yes 'em,' and 'No, ma'am,' to Martha, the cook, and told Sarah, who was waiting at dinner, that she 'might as well sit down in a chair as to stand all the time; she presumed she was tired with so many extra steps to take.'
But Sarah knew her business, and persisted in standing, and inflicting upon the poor woman as much ceremony as possible, and then, in the kitchen, she repeated to the cook and the coachman, with sundry embellishments of her own, the particulars of the dinner, amid peals of laughter at the expense of the would-be lady, who had said 'she could just as soon have her salad with her other things, and save washing go many dishes.'
It was hardly possible that mistress and maids would stay together long, especially as Mrs. Tracy, when a little more assured, and a little less in awe of her servants, began to show a disposition to know by personal observation what was going on in the kitchen, and to hint broadly that there was too much waste here and expenditure there, and quite too much company at all hours of the day.
'She didn't propose to keep a boarding-house,' she said, 'or to support families outside, and the old woman who came so often to the basement door with a big basket under her cloak must discontinue her calls.'
Then there occurred one of those Hibernian cyclones which sweep everything before them, and which in this instance swept Mrs. Tracy out of the kitchen for the time being, and the cook out of the house. Her self-respect, she said, would not allow her to stay with a woman who knew just how much coal was burned, how much butter was used, and how much bread was thrown away, and who objected to giving a bite now and then to a poor old woman, who, poor as she was, had never yet been helped by the poor-master, or gone to a soup-house like my lady!
Martha's departure was followed by that of Sarah, and then Mrs. Tracy was alone, and for a few days enjoyed herself immensely, doing her own work, cooking her own dinner, and eating it when and where she liked—in the kitchen mostly, as that kept the flies from the dining-room, and saved her many steps, for Dolly was beginning to find that there was a vast difference between keeping a house with six rooms and one with twenty or more.
Her husband urged her to try a new servant, saying there was no necessity for her to make a slave of herself: but she refused to listen. Economy was a part of her nature, and besides that she meant to show them that she was perfectly independent of the whole tribe; the tribe and them referring to the hired girls alone, for she knew no one else in town.
Nobody had called except the clergyman, not even Mrs. Crawford, whose friendship and possible advice Mrs. Tracy had counted upon, and with whom she knew she should feel more at ease than with Mrs. Atherton from Brier Hill, or Miss Hastings from Collingwood. She had seen both the last named ladies at church and had a nod from Mrs. Atherton, and that was all the recognition she had received from her neighbors up to the hot July morning, a week or more after the house-maid's departure, when she was busy in the kitchen canning black raspberries, of which the garden was full.
Like many housekeepers who do their own work, Dolly was not very particular with regard to her dress in the morning, and on this occasion her hair was drawn from her rather high forehead, and twisted into a hard knot at the back of her head; her calico dress hung straight dawn, for she was minus hoops, which in those days were worn quite large; her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and, as a protection against the juice of the berries, she wore a huge apron made of sacking. In this garb, and with no thought of being interrupted, she kept on with her work until the last kettle of fruit, was boiling and bubbling on the stove, and she was just glancing at the clock to see if it were time to put over the peas for dinner, when there came a quick, decisive ring at the front door.
'Who can that be?' she said to herself, as she wiped her hands upon her apron. 'Some peddler or agent, I dare say. Why couldn't he come round to the kitchen, door, I'd like to know?'
She had been frequently troubled with peddlers and agents of all kinds, and feeling certain that this was one—ringing the bell a second time, as if in a hurry—she started for' the door in no very amiable frame of mind, for peddlers were her abomination. Something ailed the lock or key, which resisted all her efforts to turn it; and at last, putting her mouth to the keyhole, she called out, rather sharply:
'Go to the back door: I cannot open this,'
Then, as she caught a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen, where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she did not see the person who stood on the threshold of the door until a voice wholly unlike that of any peddler or agent said to her;
'Good morning, Mrs. Tracy. I hope I am not intruding.'
Then she turned, and to her horror and surprise, saw Grace Atherton, attired in the coolest and daintiest of morning costumes, with a jaunty French bonnet set coquettishly upon her head, and a silver card-case in her hand.
For the moment Dolly's wits forsook her and she stood staring at her visitor, who, perfectly at her ease, advanced into the room and said:
'I hope you will excuse me, Mrs. Tracy, for this morning call I came—'
But she did not finish the sentence, for by this time Dolly had recovered herself a little, and throwing off her apron, she replied, nervously:
'Not at all—not at all, I supposed you were some peddler or agent when I sent you to this door. They are the plague of my life, and think I'll buy everything and give to everything because Arthur did. I am doing my own work, you see. Come into the parlor;' and she led the way into the dark drawing-room, and where the chairs and sofas were surrounded in white linen, looking like so many ghosts in the dim, uncertain light.
But Dolly opened one of the windows, and pushing back the blinds, let in a flood of sunshine, so strong and bright that she at once closed the shutters, saying, apologetically, that she did not believe in fading the carpets, if they were not her own. Then she sat down upon an ottoman and faced her visitor, who was regarding her with a mixture of amusement and wonder.
Grace Atherton was an aristocrat to her very finger-tips, and shrank from contact with anything vulgar and unsightly, and, to her mind, Mrs. Tracy represented both, and seemed sadly out of place in that handsome room, with her sleeves rolled up and the berry stains on her hands and face. Grace knew nothing by actual experience of canning berries, or of aprons