III. THE MAID-SERVANT.
"Where is Jemima? I want Jemima," said a feeble voice, interrupted by coughing, from a bed in a sick room.
"My dear," said an elderly woman, who entered through an open door from the west chamber, "Jemima is gone to lie down. What can I do for you?"
"I want Jemima," was the reply: and Jemima appeared. In she came, with her young, innocent, chubby face, looking as fresh as if she had been accustomed of late to sleep every night, as other people do, whereas she had been night and day for some weeks, by the bedside of her mistress, who was dying of consumption. Her master was very ill too, and the whole of the nursing rested upon his mother, and upon this, their little maid-of-all-work, who was then fifteen.
When Jemima had comforted and refreshed her poor mistress, the mother-in-law whispered to her that she must go and lie down again; but Jemima said a little fresh air would do her more good than lying down with the feeling that she was wanted. The medicines for the evening had not come, and she would go for them, and to the grocer's.
Thus it went on to the end. Jemima always found that her best refreshment was in doing something that was wanted. She was always at her mistress's call; and, when that call was unreasonable, she was the first to observe that dying persons did not always know the night from the day, or judge how time went with other people, when it was all so long to them, and they could get no rest. When the funeral was over, her elder mistress made her go to bed for nearly a week. At first she cried so much, as she lay thinking of the one who was gone, that she would rather have been up and busy; but soon a deep sleep fell upon her; and when she rose, her face was as chubby and her voice as cheerful as ever.
The same scene had to be gone over with her master. He died of consumption two months after his wife. As there were now two nurses to one patient, Jemima's work was not quite so trying; but she did more than most trained nurses could have done. When the funeral was over, she helped the bereaved mother to clear the house, and put away every thing belonging to those that lay in the church-yard. The tears were often running down her cheeks; but her voice was always cheerful, as she said things were best as they were, her friends having gone together to a better place.
One summer evening, when Mr. and Mrs. Barclay and their family returned from a walk, they found at their door a genteel-looking little girl, who had just knocked. She was in a black stuff gown, with a gray handkerchief crossed over her bosom; and a black straw hat, under which was the neatest little quaker cap. She courtesied, and said she came after the housemaid's place. Mrs. Barclay would have dismissed her at once, as too young, but for something in her face and manner which seemed to show that her mind was that of an older person. She said she was very strong, and willing to be taught and trained. Mrs. Barclay promised to inquire her character, and the inquiry settled the business.
"Ma'am," said the bereaved mother, "I would never part with Jemima, if I could by any means keep her. I never saw such a girl. It seems impossible to exhaust her, body or mind, on account, I think, of her good will." And she gave the whole story of the two illnesses. When asked what the girl's faults were, as she must have some, she said she really did not know: she supposed there must be some fault; but she had never seen any. She had known Jemima only six months, and under peculiar circumstances; she could not tell how she would get on in a regular housemaid's place; but she had never had to find fault with her. Of course, Jemima went to Mrs. Barclay. Her wages were to be £5 a year at first, and to increase to £8 as she grew up, and became trained.
The training was no trouble to any body. When she had once learned where every thing was in the house, and what were the hours and ways of the family, her own sense and quickness did the rest. She was the first person awake and up. She never lost, or broke, or forgot any thing. Never, during the years of her service, was there a dusty, dark corner in her pantry, nor a lock of "slut's wool" under any bed, nor a streaky glass on the sideboard, nor a day when the cloth was not laid to a minute. She never slammed a door; and if there was a heavy foot overhead it was not hers. She and her fellow-servants had their time, after seven in the evening, for their own work; and Jemima was a capital needlewoman, and worked for somebody else besides herself. She would ask the nursemaid to read aloud, and, in return, she would make or mend a gown for her. She reduced her own gowns, when they began to wear, for her little sister Sally. The wonder was how she could afford this, out of her small wages; but she was always nicely dressed; and she soon began to spare money for other objects which her friends thought should not have been pressed upon one in her circumstances. This was after a great change had come over her mind and life.
It was true that Jemima was not without a fault, any more than other people. Her temper was not perfectly good. Her mistress soon perceived this, by certain flashes from her eyes, and flushes of her cheeks, and quick breathing, and hurry of speaking. It was not much at first; no more than just enough to show that Jemima could be in a passion, and probably would some day. The sufferings of her deceased master and mistress had kept this down while she was with them. Their deaths had made a deep impression upon her, and had disposed her naturally religious temper to be strongly wrought upon by the first religious influence which should come in her way. A new Methodist minister had been very acceptable to the people who attended the Apple-lane meeting-house; and, within a year after going to the Barclays, Jemima requested permission to attend that place of worship, instead of following the family to their own chapel on Sundays. Mrs. Barclay was sorry, because she liked to see her servants at worship near her own pew: but Jemima was always so trustworthy, and on this occasion so earnest, that it did not seem right to deny her; and she became a member of the Apple-yard Meeting Society. Very soon she asked leave to go an hour sooner on Sunday mornings to attend class; and then to go there one evening in the week, and sometimes two. As her work was never neglected, this, too, was permitted. Very soon it appeared that she was subscribing annually, quarterly, weekly, to missionary objects and sectarian funds. How she managed it nobody could understand; but she did it and honestly. Her dress reached the last point of plainness and cheapness; but it was as neat as ever; so that it was wholly her own affair. A less pleasant change was, that her temper was far from improving. She would have none but religious books read in the kitchen, and could tolerate no singing but hymns. She winced when any body laughed. A contraction came over her open brow, and a sharpness into her once cheerful voice. Not satisfied with pressing her views upon her fellow servants, she became critical upon the ways of the family. One of their customs was to receive, on Sunday evenings, two or three young men, who living alone, liked to spend their Sunday evenings in a sociable manner. There was always Scripture-reading and prayer, and often sacred music. In summer there was a country walk; in winter cheerful conversation, with an occasional laugh, which could be heard in the kitchen. This was too much for Jemima; but a worse thing was the supper. Like most old-fashioned Dissenters, the Barclays dined at one o'clock on Sundays, and, naturally, they had some supper at nine. It was simple enough; but the servant whose turn it was to stay at home had sometimes to poach eggs or dress a cutlet; and Jemima's repugnance to this was so far from being concealed that it amounted at last to extreme impertinence; and she went so far as to express her contempt and abhorrence to the child, whom it was her business to put to bed. Her mistress always hoped that the fit of fanaticism would pass off with months or years and the sooner for not being interfered with; but this behavior could not be passed over. When the rebuke was given, poor Jemima emptied her heart completely; and very curious the contents proved to be. It appeared that she despised the family she lived with, though she was fully resolved to do her duty by them. She feared they were lost people; but they might yet be saved, and it was her business to serve them, and not to judge them. She hoped she had not failed in her duty; but her feelings and her thoughts were her own. If she must not speak them, she could hold her tongue, and bear the cross of so doing; but nobody could take them from her. There was so much that was respectable and really fine in her ardor and conscientiousness, that she was gently treated, and only forbidden to make any complaints to the younger members of the family. One most important disclosure at this time was that she was engaged to be married; not yet, but some time or other.
Her lover was a class-mate, apprenticed to a shoemaker, with two years of his apprenticeship still to run. On inquiry he was found to be thoroughly respectable as to character, diligent in his business, and likely to be an able workman. So he was allowed to call for Jemima on class evenings, and to come now and then to the house. The Barclays knew when he was there by hearing a man's voice reading in the kitchen, when the door was opened, or by the psalm-singing, which needed no open doors to make itself heard.
Jemima was now, however, unsettled; not at all by her engagement, for nothing could be more sober and rational than the temper and views of the young people as regarded each other and their prospects; but the poor girl felt that she was living in a sort of bondage, while yet she could blame nobody for it. She sighed for freedom to lead the sort of religious life she wished, without interruption from persons of a different way of thinking. I believe she was nineteen or twenty when she told Mrs. Barclay what she had been planning; and Mrs. Barclay was not altogether sorry to hear about it, for Jemima had lost much of her openness and cheerfulness, bounced about when doing her work, and knocked hard with her brushes when cleaning floors overhead. There was evidently an internal irritation, which might best be relieved by total change.
The plan was for Jemima and a pious friend, about her own age, to take a room and live together, maintaining themselves by working for the upholsterers. The girls thought they could make money faster this way than at service, as both were good workwomen, and could live as cheaply as any body could live. If they found themselves mistaken they could go back to service. Jemima avowed that her object was to lay by money, as Richard and she had resolved not to marry till they could furnish their future dwelling well and comfortably. This might have been a rash scheme for most girls; but these two friends were so good and so sensible, and knew their own purposes so well, that nobody opposed their experiment.
It was really a pleasure to go and see them when they were settled. They chose their room carefully, for the sake of their work, as well as their own health. Their room was very high upstairs; but it was all the more airy for that, and they wanted plenty of light. And very light it was—with its two windows on different sides of the room. The well-boarded floor looked as clean as their table. There were plants in the windows; and there was a view completely over the chimneys of the city to the country beyond. Their most delicate work could get no soil here. They were well employed, and laid by money as fast as they expected.
Still it seemed, after a time, that Jemima was not yet happy. Her face was anxious, and her color faded. She often went to work at the Barclays; as often as Mrs. B. could find any upholstery, or other needlework, for her to do. One object was to give her a good hot dinner occasionally; for it seemed possible that she might be living too low, though she declared that this was not the case. One day she happened to be at work in the dining-room with Mrs. Barclay, when one of the young ladies went in. Jemima was bending over her work; yet Miss B. saw that her face was crimson, and heard that her voice was agitated. On a sign from her mother, the young lady withdrew. One evening the next week Richard called, and saw Mrs. Barclay alone. Little was said in the family; but in many parts of the city it became presently known that the preacher who had so revived religion among the young people was on bad terms with some of them. Either he was a profligate, or some dozen young women were slanderers. Jemima was growing thin and pale under the dread of the inquiry which must, she knew, take place. Either her own character must go, or she must help to take away that of the minister. It was no great comfort to her that Richard told her that Mrs. Barclay could and would carry her through. She had many wretched thoughts that this certainty could not reach.
It was some weeks before the business was over. The Miss Barclays and Jemima were sitting at work together, with the parlor-door open, when there was a knock, and then the shuffling of the feet of four gentlemen in the hall, just as Mrs. Barclay was coming down stairs. She invited them into the drawing-room; but the spokesman (an acquaintance of the Barclays) declined, saying that a few words would suffice; that he and his friends understood that Mrs. Barclay was thoroughly well acquainted with Jemima Brooks, and they merely wished to know whether Jemima was, in that house, considered a well-conducted young woman, whose word might be trusted. All this was heard in the parlor. Jemima's tears dropped upon her needle; but she would not give up; she worked on, as if her life depended on getting done. The young ladies had never seen her cry; and the sight moved them almost as much as their mother's voice, which they clearly heard, saying,
"I am glad you have come here, Mr. Bennett; for I can speak to Jemima Brooks's merits. She lived in my family for some years; and she is in the house at this moment. There is no one in the world whom I more cordially respect; and, when I say that I regard her as a friend, I need not tell you what I think of the value of her word."
"Quite enough, Mrs. Barclay. Quite enough. We have nothing more to ask. We are greatly obliged to you, ma'am. Good morning—good morning."
When Mrs. Barclay had seen them out, and entered the parlor, the quick yet full gaze that Jemima raised to her face was a thing never to be forgotten. Mrs. Barclay turned her face away; but immediately put on her thimble, sat down among the party, and began to tell her daughters the news from London. Jemima heard no more of this business. It is probable that the gentlemen received similar testimony with regard to the other young people implicated; for the preacher was dismissed the city, without any ceremony, and with very brief notice.
From this time might clearly be dated the decline of Jemima's spiritual pride and irritability of temper. She was deeply humbled; and from under the ruins of her pride sprang richly the indigenous growth of her sweet affections. She was not a whit less religious; but she had a higher view of what religion should be. Her smile, when she met any of the Barclays in the street, and the tenderness in her voice when she spoke to them, indicated a very different state of mind from that in which she had left them.
She was looking well, and her friend and she were doing well, and Richard and she were beginning to reckon how many months, at their present rate of earning, would enable them to furnish a dwelling, and justify their going home to it, when they were called upon for a new decision, and a new scene opened in Jemima's life.
The eldest of Mrs. Barclay's sons, who had been married about two years before, was so ill as to be ordered to Madeira to save his life. There was more rashness formerly than there is now about sending persons so very ill far away from their own homes; and Madeira was then a less comfortable residence for Englishmen than it has since been made. A large country-house was taken for the invalid and his family; and all that forethought could do was done for their comfort. The very best piece of forethought was that of Mrs. Barclay, when she proposed that Jemima should be asked to go as one of their servants. Jemima asked a few days to consider; and during those few days the anxiety of the family increased as they saw how all-important the presence of such a helper would be. Nothing could be more reasonable than Jemima's explanation, when she had made up her mind. She said that if she was to engage herself for two years, and defer her marriage, it must be for the sake of some advantage to Richard, and to their affairs afterward, that she would make such a sacrifice. It was Richard's object and hers to save at present; if, therefore, she went to Madeira it must be on high wages. She would devote herself to do the best she could for the family: but she must see that Richard did not suffer by it. Of course, this was agreed to at once, and she went to Madeira.
It is always a severe and wearing trial to servants to travel in foreign countries, or remain long abroad. They usually have all the discomfort without the gratifications which their employers seek and enjoy. Their employers can speak the languages of the people among whom they go; and they have intellectual interests, historical, philosophical, or artistical, which their servants know nothing about. Thus we hear of one lady's maid who cried all through Italy, and another who scolded or sulked all the way up the hill and down again; and another who declared every morning for some weeks in the Arabian deserts that she would bear it no longer, but would go straight home—that she would. Jemima and her fellow-servants had much to bear, but she and another bore it well. The voyage was trying, the sea-sickness was bad enough; but a worse thing was, that the infant, five months' old, got no proper sleep, from the noises and moving on board; and the foundation was thus laid for brain disease, of which he died in the winter. Then, when they landed, the great house was dreadfully dirty, and wanted airing; as it was not like a dirty house in England, which can always be cleaned when desired. The Portuguese at Madeira were found to have no notion of cleanliness; and as they could speak no English, and the servants no Portuguese, the business was an irritating one. There were great privileges about the abode. The view over land and sea was most magnificent; and there was in the grounds a hedge several hundred yards long of geraniums, fuchsias, and many glorious foreign blossoms, in flower and fragrance all the winter through; and the air was the most delicious that could be breathed; but Jemima would have given all these things, at any moment, for English food, and English ways, and the sound of English church bells, or the familiar voice of her own preacher. Her master visibly declined, on the whole, and the infant pined and died. She could not but know that she was the mainstay of the party, as to their external comfort. She must have had some sweet moments in the consciousness of this. When she considered, however, the great luxury of all was watching for the English packet from the top of the house. The house itself was on the mountains, and when she and a fellow-servant went up to the flat roof, and steadied the telescope on the balustrade, they could see very far indeed over the ocean, and sometimes watched the approach of the vessel, in which she knew there was a letter from Richard, for some hours before it reached the harbor. These days of the arrival of letters were the few days of animation and good cheer of that dreary and mournful season, which was more dismal among sunshine, and flowers, and sweet airs, than the gloomiest winter the party had ever known in England. If it had been for an unlimited time, even Jemima's steady spirits could hardly have borne it; but she said to herself that it was only for two years, and she should never repent it.
It did not last two years. When the heats came on, in May, the physicians said that the invalid must go home; and in June the family embarked in the only vessel in which they could have a passage—a wine-vessel going to a French port. It was dirty, and almost without comforts. Its discomforts were too great to be dwelt upon. In the Bay of Biscay there was a dead calm, in which they lay suffering for so many days that it seemed as if they were never to get on. Under this the invalid sank. He was buried at sea. The widow and her servants landed at Bordeaux, and traveled homeward through France. Never, perhaps, had Jemima felt so happy as when she saw again the cathedral spire of her native city, and was presently met by Richard, and welcomed by the grateful blessings of the Barclay family. She had well discharged her trust, and now her own domestic life was to begin.
Not immediately, however. It was a season of fearful distress in England—the year 1826, the time of the dreadful commercial crash, which, having ruined thousands of capitalists—from bankers to tradesmen—was now bringing starvation upon hundreds of thousands of artisans and laborers. Richard's business, till now a rising one, had become slack. During the few months longer that the young people waited, they bought what they could get to advantage of good furniture, and despised no small earnings. A certain clock—a thoroughly good one—was to be had for £8, which a year before would have cost £10 at least. Mrs. Barclay saw the longing there was to have this clock; while nothing like £8 was left to buy it with. She offered to buy it for them, and let them work it out; and the offer was gladly accepted. When they married she wished to send it home, but they both said they could never look at the clock in their own house without reproach while it was not truly their own. They actually craved permission to have it stand in Mr. Barclay's warehouse. Once a week they brought what money they could spare, and then they always stepped into the warehouse and took a long look at their clock; and at last the day came when they paid the last shilling, and took it home, where, no doubt, they gave it a longer gaze than ever.
Poor things! they little knew what was before them. Richard had plenty of business; and his stock of leather was used up, again and again; but, as the winter wore on, he could obtain no payment. One of the Miss Barclays, in speaking of the state of the times, thoughtlessly congratulated Jemima on her husband being a shoemaker, saying that one of the last things people could do without was shoes. A sort of spasm passed over Jemima's face when she tried to smile, and she stopped a moment before she said, very quietly, yes, that that was true: people still had shoes; but they could not pay for them. In a little while longer, she was making gowns, or doing any other sewing for any body, for any thing they could pay. As she worked, Richard sat by and read to her. He had no more leather; and there was no use trying his credit when he knew he should not get paid for the shoes he might make. At Christmas, they were sitting thus without a fire. A little later still, the Barclays found Jemima rubbing up her furniture, which was as clean and polished before as it could well be. No careless observer, seeing a neat young woman, in a snow-white cap, polishing substantial furniture, of her own, with a handsome clock ticking in the corner, could have supposed that she was wanting food. But it was so, and there was something in her face—a pinched look about the nose, a quivering about the chin, which betrayed the fact to the Barclays. It was partly to warm herself in the absence of fire, that Jemima was rubbing up her furniture. As for pawning or selling it—it would have gone very hard with the young couple to do that if it had been possible. But it was not possible; and they had no conflict of mind on that point. The furniture brokers had no money—any more than other people; and the pawnbrokers' houses were so crowded, from cellar to garret, that every one of them in the city had for some time refused to take any thing more whatever. The Barclays themselves were sorely embarrassed, and eventually ruined, by the same crash. The very little they could do was needed by multitudes even more than by Richard and Jemima. They found the weaver hanging fainting over his loom, and the reduced schoolmistress sitting on the bottom stair, too dizzy with hunger to mount to her own room. They found the elderly widow too proud to own her need to the district visitors, lending her pitcher, without a handle, to the sinking family above stairs, to fetch the soup from the public kitchen; while they, sinking as they were divined her case, and left some soup at the bottom of the pitcher as if by accident. No one was more ready than Jemima to point out to the Barclays the sufferers who, while saying least about it, most wanted bread. All that her friends could do for her was to get their shoes mended by Richard, and to give her a few days' employment, now and then, by their good fire, and with three good meals in the day.
How they managed it, the young couple could themselves hardly tell; but they got through. The worst times of commercial crisis must come to an end; and the end found the young people somewhat sunk in health and spirits, but clear of debt, and with all their little property safe about them. Of course their credit was good; and when people were again able to pay for their shoes, Richard was as safe as any man can be who is bound up with a system of fluctuations.
As safe, that is, about money matters. But the next autumn showed him by how frail a tenure he held his very best earthly blessing. Jemima was confined; and almost before he had seen his little daughter, his wife was in the last extremity of danger. She well knew it; and the surgeon said afterward that in all his experience, he had never seen such an instance of calm and amiable good sense under the strongest possible circumstances of proof. She understood the case—her affections were all alive—her husband and child were in the room—a bright life was before her—and she was slipping away from all; yet there was no fear, and, amidst excessive exhaustion, no perturbation. The surgeon said she saved her own life, for he could not have saved her. In a few weeks she brought her little daughter to the Barclays' house; and, as she sat there, they could not help thinking that her face was almost as childlike as her infant's. It was at least much the same in its innocence and brightness, as it was on that summer evening, so many years ago, when they found it on their steps, on returning from their walk.
The infant was extremely pretty. In connection with it happened the severest trial that Jemima had ever known; certainly, a severer one than she had looked for in her married life. She wished to have the child vaccinated. Richard objected. He had committed all he had to God, and it would be taking the child out of the hands of Providence to have it vaccinated. Jemima, whose fanaticism had gradually melted all away, saw the mistake he was in. She said, plainly and earnestly what she thought; but, when she saw that her husband's religious feelings were engaged in the matter, and that his will was roused, she let the subject drop. When the child could run about and prattle, and was so pretty that the Quaker-like young mother actually put the glossy hair in papers, and made dressy pinafores for her darling, the dreaded small-pox appeared. The child escaped death, but very narrowly; and her face was pitted and seamed so as to leave no trace of beauty. It did not lighten the affliction, that Richard still declared he was right. She bore it quietly and there was little alteration in her cheerful voice when she spoke of the ravage.
They rose steadily, on the whole, with occasional drawbacks. There were more children; there was a larger business. At last, on Saturday nights there was a respectable shop-front to close and a considerable stock to arrange for Monday morning. On Sundays a group of children came out to walk hand-in-hand to chapel, with their father in good broad cloth, and their mother in black silk behind them. The Barclays left the city long ago; but when one of them pays an occasional visit in the neighborhood, the brisk little woman in black silk, is sure to be seen presently coming up to the house; her innocent face looks in eagerly at the window, and the chirping voice is heard in the hall. There was nothing in her young days so impetuous as the grasp of the hand that the Barclays have from her when they meet at intervals of years.