On the very day she drew her first quarter's salary—not for worlds would she have anticipated it by an hour—Jessie ran off to a farm she knew of, and ordered a monster hamper to be sent to Rosslyn Villa, Shepherd's Bush—a hamper full of chickens, and goose, and cream, and butter, with a big saffron-flavoured cake for its crowning glory—such a cake as would delight the younger members of the household!
Nor did she forget her promise to send the over-tasked house-mother half her earnings. "You needn't mind taking the money, dearest," she wrote in the letter which enclosed the Post-Office order. "Mrs. Tregonell has given me a lovely grey silk gown; and I have bought a brown merino at Launceston, and a new hat and jacket. You would stare to see how splendidly your homely little Jessie is dressed! Christabel found out the date of my birthday, and gave me a dozen of the loveliest gloves, my favourite grey, with four buttons. A whole dozen! Did you ever see a dozen of gloves all at once, mother? You have no idea how lovely they look. I quite shrink from breaking into the packet; but I must wear a pair at church next Sunday, in compliment to the dear little giver. If it were not for thoughts of you and the brood, dearest, I should be intensely happy here! The house is an ideal house—the people are ideal people; and they treat me ever so much better than I deserve. I think I have the knack of being useful to them, which is a great comfort; and I am able to get on with the servants—old servants who had a great deal too much of their own way before I came—which is also a comfort. It is not easy to introduce reform without making oneself detested. Christabel, who has been steeping herself in French history lately, calls me Turgot in petticoats—by which you will see she has a high opinion of my ministerial talents—if you can remember Turgot, poor dear! amidst all your worries," added Jessie, bethinking herself that her mother's book-learning had gone to seed in an atmosphere of petty domestic cares—mending—washing—pinching—contriving.
This and much more had Jessie Bridgeman written seven years ago, while Mount Royal was still new to her. The place and the people—at least those two whom she first knew there—had grown dearer as time went on. When Leonard came home from the University, he and his mother's factotum did not get on quite so well as Mrs. Tregonell had hoped. Jessie was ready to be kind and obliging to the heir of the house; but Leonard did not like her—in the language of the servant's hall, he "put his back up at her." He looked upon her as an interloper and a spy, especially suspecting her in the latter capacity, perhaps from a lurking consciousness that some of his actions would not bear the fierce light of unfriendly observation. In vain did his mother plead for her favourite.
"You have no idea how good she is!" said Mrs. Tregonell.
"You're perfectly right there, mother; I have not," retorted Leonard.
"And so useful to me! I should be lost without her!"
"Of course; that's exactly what she wants: creeping and crawling—and pinching and saving—docking your tradesmen's accounts—grinding your servants—fingering your income—till, by-and-by, she will contrive to finger a good deal of it into her own pocket! That's the way they all begin—that's the way the man in the play, Sir Giles Overreach's man, began, you may be sure—till by-and-by he got Sir Giles under his thumb. And that's the way Miss Bridgeman will serve you. I wonder you are so shortsighted!"
Weak as Mrs. Tregonell was in her love for her son, she was too staunch to be set against a person she liked by any such assertions as these. She was quite able to form her own opinion about Miss Bridgeman's character, and she found the girl straight as an arrow—candid almost to insolence, yet pleasant withal; industrious, clever—sharp as a needle in all domestic details—able to manage pounds as carefully as she had managed pence and sixpences.
"Mother used to give me the housekeeping purse," she said, "and I did what I liked. I was always Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was a very small exchequer; but I learnt the habit of spending and managing, and keeping accounts."
While active and busy about domestic affairs, verifying accounts, settling supplies and expenditures with the cook-housekeeper, making herself a veritable clerk of the kitchen, and overlooking the housemaids in the finer details of their work, Miss Bridgeman still found ample leisure for the improvement of her mind. In a quiet country-house, where family prayers are read at eight o'clock every morning, the days are long enough for all things. Jessie had no active share in Christabel's education, which was Mrs. Tregonell's delight and care; but she contrived to learn what Christabel learnt—to study with her and read with her, and often to outrun her in the pursuit of a favourite subject. They learnt German together, they read good French books together, and were companions in the best sense of the word. It was a happy life—monotonous, uneventful, but a placid, busy, all-satisfying life, which Jessie Bridgeman led during those six years and a half which went before the advent of Angus Hamleigh at Mount Royal. The companion's salary had long ago been doubled, and Jessie, who had no caprices, and whose wants were modest, was able to send forty pounds a year to Shepherd's Bush, and found a rich reward in the increased cheerfulness of the letters from home.