The good Aunt felt that she had the more cause to be apprehensive in the latter direction, from some observations that she had accidentally made a few weeks before. Not long after the coming into the house of Miss Hetty, cook and kitchen girl, (she is certainly entitled to the prefix of "Miss," at least once, from the fact of her holding her head a little higher than any member of the family) a little after her advent, we say, Aunt Martha happened one evening to pass through the lower hall, in list slippers, and accidentally became aware that two persons were talking in a very low tone, just within the door of the dining-room. Perhaps it may have been accidentally, but possibly on purpose, that she took one glance through the crack of the door, herself unobserved, and noticed that the talkers were Judge Owen and Hetty. The tone was certainly confidential, and the two stood very near together. Had Mrs. Martha West not been aware of certain points in her brother's character which would make a criminal flirtation with a servant-girl in his own house impossible, she might have drawn the conclusion that some impropriety of that kind was on foot. As it was, she became satisfied that some of her previous suspicions were correct, and that Judge Owen, who habitually went to the intelligence-offices and selected the servants when any change became necessary, was capable of the ineffable meanness of bribing his domestics to play the spy on his own household and detail all the occurrences to him! Where the estimable man had picked up that particular meanness, she had no idea, nor is this a place in which to hazard a suggestion. If it was so, it might be suggested that the practice of hearing and allowing weight to spy testimony, caught through key-holes and the cracks of doors, or picked up by lounging at people's elbows on sidewalks and in bar-rooms, had possibly some connection with the application of the same system to his own household.
Perhaps there may be persons upright and straight-forward enough themselves, and unsuspicious enough of the vices and meannesses of others, to doubt whether such things as those just hinted at, exist in the great city. To such it might not be amiss to say, that there are operations of this character, in what is called "respectable society," so much worse than the mere procured espionage of servants, that they make that atrocity almost endurable. Fancy the husband of a second wife keeping his eldest daughter by a former marriage, herself a married woman, in the same house with his wife, with orders to keep that wife constantly in view, to watch her when she receives company, dog her when she goes out, and dole out to her the necessaries for the family from closets, chests and cupboards of which she [the daughter] keeps the keys! Fancy these things, and the wife submitting to them, perforce! And then understand, what is the humiliating truth, that the lady subjected to these practices is a most beautiful and accomplished favorite, delighting thousands by her public appearances, envied by all, and supposed to be rolling in wealth and revelling in comfort!
Not long ago there was a story going the rounds of the press, of some spicy sporting operations in England, in which one trainer and jockey threw one of his creatures, in the disguise of a stable-boy, into the stables of another, to watch the appearance and action of his horses, to overhear what he could of the conversation of the trainer, to discover for what cups and matches they were about to be entered, and to make weekly reports to him, through letters pretendedly addressed to the boy's "mother," so that he could take advantage of the knowledge so unfairly attained, in making up his betting-book. By a mere accident the trainer discovered what kind of an emissary of the enemy was quartered in his stables, and instead of kicking him out he merely gave him plenty to report. He managed to have the boy overhear all sorts of manufactured conversations, rode his horses unfairly on the training-course, stuffed him with false reports of the matches for which they were entered, and, in short, gave him such budgets to send home to his master, that the latter grew completely mystified, bet on the losing chances instead of the winning ones, and lost about twenty thousand pounds, which went into the pocket of the intended victim. The story is a good one, and for the honor of humanity ought to be true.
Not many years ago a jealous old husband in this city, who had fallen into the misfortune of a young and handsome wife, grew jealous of her without the least cause, and descended to the execrable meanness of putting one of the chamber-maids under pay to play the detective and report to him what letters her mistress received and all the "goings on" in the house. Biddy was not quite keen enough for her new position, and the bright eyes of the young wife were not long in discovering that she was watched and dogged! What did the outraged wife? Send the vixen packing, bag and baggage, with a boxed ear for a parting present, as she might have done with all propriety? Not at all—she retained her and kept her own discovery a secret, merely adopting the same plan as our friend the trainer, and giving her something to tell. The wife fortunately had half a dozen male cousins, living at a distance, and as many female friends, living near. Between these two corps of assistants she managed to receive such letters, accidentally dropped for the servant-girl to finger, and received such clandestine visits when her husband was absent and at suspicious hours, as left no doubt whatever in the mind of a reasonable man like the husband, that she must be terribly false to her marital vows. The catastrophe of all this need not be given: it was final enough, in all conscience, and sent the husband down town one day with a dim consciousness that he had made himself the greatest fool since Adam, and that an early burial would not be so great a calamity after all!
Unfortunately Judge Owen, of this writing, had no such sharp-witted and reckless opponent, and his meanness was left to work itself out in a natural manner. Aunt Martha's apprehensions were not idle, as was proved very soon after. The Judge and his wife returned from their little trip up the Hudson, on the second day after their departure; and within three hours after their arrival, before the Judge had been absent from the house a moment and before Colonel Boadley Bancker could by any means have managed to see him, the storm of paternal wrath and indignation burst on the devoted heads for which it was intended.
The gas had just been lighted on the floor below, and Aunt Martha and Emily were seated enjoying the summer twilight in the front-room of the latter, up-stairs, when the stentorian voice of the Judge was heard bawling from the hall:
"Martha—Emily—come down here a moment!"
"There it is! there is trouble ahead! I knew it!" said Aunt Martha.
"He cannot have heard anything about it, yet," said the niece.
"He has, I am sure of it!" answered the Aunt. "We may as well go down and take the thunder-storm, at once, as have it hanging over us for a month."