Blindfold

by Orrick Johns

One of the first things that impressed her was the unvarying quiet. Never was a voice raised that could be heard beyond the room in which it was spoken, and this applied even to the young masters, who, if they ever made a regular boy-racket, must have done so behind the closed doors of the nursery. Compared to the shouting up and down stairs, the banging of pianos and doors, the general uproar of the Meadowburn household, this was like living in a church. The stately high ceilings and big stained glass windows intensified the illusion.

And the armies of tradesmen who came! She had been accustomed to dealing with one butcher, one grocer, one baker. Here there were dozens who handled a farrago of specialties. There were three or four different dessert-makers, a pork butcher, a beef butcher, a poultry butcher, and a fish monger of high degree; there were a plain grocer, a grocer-importer, a wine-dealer, a liquor agent, coffee merchants and tea merchants, purveyors of spices and sweet-meats, apothecaries and fruiterers, dealers in milk, eggs and butter, and a score of others whose business did not happen to be with Ellen. All day they came and went. She had thought that supplying a kitchen was a matter of taking in a certain fixed number of staples and making the most of them. But here she found herself in the midst of an immense variety of esoteric materials whose names suggested the index of a geography. The kitchen with its vast conveniences for housing all these things in their appointed places was not unlike a large shop itself.

Formal dinner parties there were, but they were rare during those days, because of the sick woman in the house. And it was well they were! thought she, judging by the lavishness of those she helped to prepare. Mrs. Seymour, however, gave many luncheons to her friends, and for these Ellen delighted to outdo herself, since Aunt Mathilda was not ungenerous with compliments when they were deserved.

These refinements of luxury affected her unconsciously. She was soon trying to acquire the atmosphere of the house, to train her manners after her mistress, to soften her voice and even to alter the accent of her speech, which had always, though she knew it not, been more agreeable than the average.

This instinct of imitation led her to listen, whenever she could, to the conversations of Blaydon and his sister. She understood very little of what they said that did not concern the surface news of the family. Often they talked of books, and books were a strange world to Ellen. But one day the thought struck her that Moira, living her childhood in such a house would certainly acquire some of its cultivation, even though no one deliberately undertook to teach her.

But would Moira’s mother be worthy of such a companion? Ought she not to make an effort to improve her mind, so that Moira would be a little less ashamed of her in that rosy time ahead when they would understand each other? To Ellen the difficulties of reading were almost insurmountable. Nothing terrified her so much as twenty pages of print. However, once the thought of her unworthiness in Moira’s eyes occurred to her, she did not hesitate a moment. From one of the upstairs book-cases she selected the largest volume she could find. It proved to be “Les Misérables,” and there was something she liked about the title. That night she began bravely to read.

Hard as it was to make headway in it, she had chosen the only amusement possible to her. When she was not busy in the kitchen, mastering the problems of the stove and the mixing bowl, she sat beside her daughter. There was no chance to think of more exciting pleasures, for which, often enough, the youth in her still yearned. Yet these duties were only confining, never exhausting. From the sheer drudgery of hard manual labour, to which she once thought herself condemned until she dropped, a miracle had suddenly delivered her. And that miracle was a little child, unlawfully born. Life held many mysteries for Ellen, but none of them was as incomprehensible as this.

The first inkling that they were ever likely to move from the Trezevant place came to her through one of those overheard talks between Sterling Blaydon and his sister. They were sitting one morning in the brick-walled garden just off the rear drawing room, a lovely place, as Ellen knew, to dream and idle in, if it was deserted and she could have Moira tumbling about on the rugs at her feet. There were rows of green boxed plants along the top of the high walls, a striped awning and the clear sky spread between, like another mysterious ceiling farther away. There was comfort and security and the sense of distance too. It was like many other of the civilized refinements which Ellen discovered at the Blaydons’, suggestive of an almost incredible degree of foresight, of attention to the details of luxury, which the fortunate of the world had been developing illimitably since the first man was carried on the backs of other men. Mr. Blaydon and his sister often breakfasted in this inner garden on fine mornings, and Ellen sometimes served them herself in the absence of Marie.

She believed Sterling Blaydon the most romantic personage she had ever seen. His hair was almost white, but he was young in body and in years. His lean, brown face, which she thought had a tired expression when in repose or when he was reading, lighted up marvellously when he smiled. His tall, solid form would have made two of Aunt Mathilda’s. Ellen loved to peep through the butler’s pantry doors and see him decant the special brandy for his friends after dinner, languid and big-handed and jovial through the smoky fog.

This morning while he sat in the garden in the softest of grey tweeds, with his outstretched legs crossed and resting upon the tiles, she heard his drawling voice as she placed the coffee service fastidiously on the big silver tray in the pantry. Ellen liked to fondle the Blaydon china and silver. It was spoiling her; she would never want to touch anything less valuable.