“Tom, I certainly must ask you what business it is of yours,” said my mother, settling back into the hortatory attitude familiar to mothers. “Supposing the thing is as you think,—suppose that Mary is a girl of refinement and education, who, from some unfortunate reason, has no resource but her present position,—why should you hunt her out of it? If she is, as you think, a lady, there is the 462 strongest reason why a gentleman should respect her feelings. I fear the result of all this restless prying and intermeddling of yours will be to drive her away; and really, now I have had her, I don’t know how I ever could do without her. People talk of female curiosity,” said my mother, with a slightly belligerent air; “I never found but men had fully as much curiosity as women. Now, what will become of us all if your restlessness about this should be the means of Mary’s leaving us? You know the perfectly dreadful times we had before she came, and I don’t know anybody who has less patience to bear such things than you.”
In short, my mother was in that positive state of mind which is expressed by the colloquial phrase of being on her high horse. I—as the male part of creation always must in such cases—became very meek and retiring, and promised to close my eyes and ears, and not dream, or think, or want to know, anything which it was not agreeable to Mary and my mother that I should. I would not look towards the doorbell, nor utter a word about the McPhersons, who, by the bye, decided to take the house in our neighborhood.
But though I was as exemplary as one of the saints, it did no good. Mary, for some reasons known to herself, became fidgety, nervous, restless, and had frequent headaches and long crying spells in her own private apartment, after the manner of women when something is the matter with them.
My mother was, as she always is with every creature in her employ, maternal and sympathetic, and tried her very best to get into her confidence.
Mary only confessed to feeling a little unwell, and hinted obscurely that perhaps she should be obliged to leave the place. But it was quite evident that her leaving was connected with the near advent of the McPhersons in the next 463 block; for I observed that she always showed some little irrepressible signs of nervousness whenever that subject was incidentally alluded to. Finally, on the day that their furniture began to arrive, and to provide abundant material for gossip and comment to the other members of the kitchen cabinet, Mary’s mind appeared suddenly made up. She came into my mother’s room looking as a certain sort of women do when they have made a resolution which they mean to stand by,—very pale, very quiet, and very decided. She asked to see my mother alone, and in that interview she simply expressed gratitude for all her kindness to her, but said that circumstances would oblige her to go to New York.
My mother now tried her best to draw from her her history, whatever that might be. She spoke with tact and tenderness, and with the respect due from one human being to another; for my mother always held that every soul has its own inviolable private door which it has a right to keep closed, and at which even queens and duchesses, if they wish to enter, must knock humbly and reverently.
Mary was almost overcome by her kindness. She thanked her over and over; at times my mother said she looked at her wistfully, as if on the very point of speaking, and then, quietly gathering herself within herself, she remained silent. All that could be got from her was, that it was necessary for her hereafter to live in New York.
The servants in the kitchen, with the warm-heartedness of their race, broke out into a perfect Irish howl of sorrow; and at the last moment, Biddy, our fat cook, fell on her neck and lifted up her voice and wept, almost smothering her with her tumultuous embraces; and the whole party of them would go with her to the New York station, one carrying her shawl, another her hand-bag and parasol, with emulous affection; and so our very pleasant and desirable second girl disappeared, and we saw her no more.
Six months after this, when our Mary had become only a memory of the past, I went to spend a week or two in Newport, and took, among other matters and things, a letter of introduction to Mrs. McIntyre, a Scotch lady, who had just bought a pretty cottage there, and, as my friend who gave it told me, would prove an interesting acquaintance.