In every circumstance of our lives lies the stirring knowledge that one's own case, however strange, is far from being singular. There are others besides myself with whom Poverty has taken up its abode; there are others from whose cup Despair has daily drunk; who, looking up from their daily bread, have found Sorrow's eyes forever on them. Those who have known these cup-companions need not be told how the House of Life can be darkened, or how these darker presences occupy the chambers of the mind. Nor need they yet be reminded how all this becomes bearable, even enduringly precious to the heart, if Love but remains, and consents still to sit at the board, and, though with brows bent, still breaks bread with its white hands, and lifts in its unshaken fingers the cup of bitter wine.
We went to live in the deep country, on what had once been a beautiful old estate. The house had not been lived in for years. It still preserved an air of beauty and dignity, but its ancient pride and fitness were turned toward decay. But if, like myself, it had fallen on adversity and evil fortune, that was but the better reason I should understand and love it. Wholly without what the world calls comforts, yet how comforting it was in those chill and cheerless times! Downfallen in the eyes of others, lowered from its proud estate, how I have yet lifted my heart up to it under the stars, and paid it an homage of love and thankfulness not matched, I think, in all its better days.
Our precarious means being entirely dependent on such writing as I could do, it would have been extravagance and bankruptcy for me to assume the domestic duties. There was no one else. I was the only woman of the household. It seemed to me that a working housekeeper might solve the difficulty; one of that variety which lays not so much stress upon wages as upon a home. I found a surprising number with this tendency. In answer to a most modest advertisement, I received sixty-four answers. Those whom, in the course of time, I at last engaged, were in each case women who had seen happier conditions and were by their own affidavits capable of standing anything. But I found them to be, without exception, shrinkingly susceptible to physical discomforts, and of these there were in that old house many.
These women were nouveaux pauvres of a middle-class order and had all the crudities of their condition. Each of them carried with her a remnant of her "better days," as an inveterate shopper carries an out-of-date sample, resolved, yet unable, to find its match. One of them could not forget, and had no mind to let you forget, that her husband had made four thousand a year; another had been to school in Paris; and one always wore rubber gloves, "because," she assured me, "as long as I can have my hands white, I can stand a great deal." Another insisted on the most fluffy and unsubstantial desserts, and thought the rest of the meal mattered little, so long as the finale had a grand air. Another could not endure the odor of onions and fainted at the sight of liver. Yet another, from reverses and humiliations unendurable, had turned Christian Scientist. I learned afterward that she came hoping to convert me to the idea that there is no poverty. I wish I could have spared her the futility.
By and by I abandoned all hope of a working housekeeper. I knew that what I needed was a "general houseworker."
Those who in extremity have sought servants in city employment bureaus need not be told what is too old a tale. When the array of imposing applicants had all declined the discomforts of my home, and the honor of being employed by me, the manager explained, what I was dull not to have known myself, that it might be wise to try some of the employment bureaus in the poorer quarters. I found one finally at the head of the Bowery, and climbed its rickety stairs.
They were a strange and varied lot that I came upon now: weird old flat-footed fairies, given to feathers and elaborate head-dresses, or young heavy Audreys who looked at you out of dull eyes. I explained elaborately the conditions under which they would be called on to live. I omitted nothing, not even the screech-owls, or the night sounds that might or might not be wild cats. They came eagerly or sullenly, according to their dispositions. But apparently none of them had at all grasped what I said. For when they saw the place, and felt the loneliness of which I had so thoroughly warned them, they turned and fled. The house might have been haunted.
Finally I heard that one could engage servants of a certain order from the Charities associations, such as the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor. To one of these I went.
The matron, a full-eyed woman who gave the impression of having to discipline an over-kind heart by an assumption of great severity, questioned me curtly. What surroundings had I to offer? My heart sank, but I went over faithfully the disadvantages—the extreme loneliness of the life, the necessity that those who entered on it should abandon all hope of "movies." "Movies" there were not within twelve miles. There were no conveniences, no department stores, no bargain sales, nothing—only field and forest, stars and dawns and sunsets—nothing!
She lifted explanatory eyebrows, a little displeased, I thought.