Mildred had anticipated an unhappy ending to her mother's marriage, but she had not knowledge enough of life or of human nature to anticipate any such horrors as now began. Every day, all day long the vulgar fight raged. Her mother and her stepfather withdrew from each other's presence only to think up fresh insults to fling at each other. As soon as they were armed they hastened to give battle again. She avoided Presbury. Her mother she could not avoid; and when her mother was not in combat with him, she was weeping or wailing or railing to Mildred.
It was at Mildred's urging that her mother acquiesced in Presbury's plans for reducing expenses within income. At first the girl, even more ignorant than her mother of practical affairs, did not appreciate the wisdom, not to say the necessity, of what he wished to do, but soon she saw that he was right, that the servants must go, that the horses and carriages and the motors must be sold. When she was convinced and had convinced her mother, she still did not realize what the thing really meant. Not until she no longer had a maid did she comprehend. To a woman who has never had a maid, or who has taken on a maid as a luxury, it will seem an exaggeration to say that Mildred felt as helpless as a baby lying alone in a crib before it has learned to crawl. Yet that is rather an understatement of her plight. The maid left in the afternoon. Mildred, not without inconveniences that had in the novelty their amusing side, contrived to dress that evening for dinner and to get to bed; but when she awakened in the morning and was ready to dress, the loss of Therese became a tragedy. It took the girl nearly four hours to get herself together presentably—and then, never had she looked so unkempt. With her hair, thick and soft, she could do nothing.
"What a wonderful person Therese was!" thought she. "And I always regarded her as rather stupid." Her mother, who had not had a maid until she was about thirty and had never become completely dependent, fared somewhat better, though, hearing her moans, you would have thought she was faring worse.
Mildred's unhappiness increased from day to day, as her wardrobe fell into confusion and disrepair. She felt that she must rise to the situation, must teach herself, must save herself from impending dowdiness and slovenliness. But her brain seemed to be paralyzed. She did not know how or where to begin to learn. She often in secret gave way to the futility of tears.
There were now only a cook and one housemaid and a man of all work—all three newcomers, for Presbury insisted—most wisely—that none of the servants of the luxurious, wasteful days would be useful in the new circumstances. He was one of those small, orderly men who have a genius for just such situations as the one he now proceeded to grapple with and solve. In his pleasure at managing everything about that house, in distributing the work among the three servants, in marketing, and, in inspecting purchases and nosing into the garbage-barrel, in looking for dust on picture-frames and table-tops and for neglected weeds in the garden walks—in this multitude of engrossing delights he forgot his anger over the trick that had been played upon him. He still fought with his wife and denounced her and met insult with insult. But that, too, was one of his pleasures. Also, he felt that on the whole he had done well in marrying. He had been lonely as a bachelor, had had no one to talk with, or to quarrel with, nothing to do. The marriage was not so expensive, as his wife had brought him a house—and it such a one as he had always regarded as the apogee of elegance. Living was not dear in Hanging Rock, if one understood managing and gave time to it. And socially he was at last established.
Soon his wife was about as contented as she had ever been in her life. She hated and despised her husband, but quarreling with him and railing against him gave her occupation and aim—two valuable assets toward happiness that she had theretofore lacked. Her living—shelter, food, clothing enough—was now secure. But the most important factor of all in her content was the one apparently too trivial to be worthy of record. From girlhood she could not recall a single day in which she had not suffered from her feet. And she had been ashamed to say anything about it—had never let anyone, even her maid, see her feet, which were about the only unsightly part of her. None had guessed the cause of her chronic ill-temper until Presbury, that genius for the little, said within a week of their marriage:
"You talk and act like a woman with chronic corns."
He did not dream of the effect this chance thrust had upon his wife. For the first time he had really "landed." She concealed her fright and her shame as best she could and went on quarreling more viciously than ever. But he presently returned to the attack. Said he:
"Your feet hurt you. I'm sure they do. Now that I think of it, you walk that way."
"I suppose I deserve my fate," said she. "When a woman marries beneath her she must expect insult and low conversation."