AT OUR PATRIOTIC BAZAAR.
Devoted Stall-holder. "I hardly like to ask you, Mr. Thrush, but the Committee would be so grateful if you would write one of your sweet verses on each of these eggs for wounded soldiers!"
JILLINGS.
I have always been very fond and proud of my niece Celia. With an exceptionally attractive appearance and a personal fascination that is irresistible she combines the sweetest and most unselfish nature it has ever been my good fortune to meet. Indeed, she has so excessive a consideration for the feelings of everybody but herself that she drifts into difficulties which she might have avoided by a little more firmness. As, for example, in the case of Jillings. Celia and Jack have been married six years; he is about twelve years older than she, and a capital good fellow, though he is said to have rather a violent temper. But he has never shown it with Celia—nobody could, had left the Army on his marriage and settled down in a pretty little place in Surrey, but of course rejoined the Service as soon as the War broke out. So long as he was in training with his regiment she took rooms in the neighbourhood, but when he was ordered to the Front about a year ago she and the children returned to the Surrey home, and it was then that Celia engaged Jillings as parlourmaid. I saw her shortly afterwards when I went down to stay for a night, and was struck by the exuberant enthusiasm with which she waited—not over efficiently—at table. Celia remarked afterwards that Jillings was a little inexperienced as yet, but so willing and warm-hearted, and with such a sensitively affectionate disposition that the least hint of reproof sufficed to send her into a flood of tears.
I had no idea then—nor had Celia—how much inconvenience and embarrassment can be produced by a warm-hearted parlour-maid. Jillings' devotion did not express itself in a concrete form until Celia's birthday, and the form it took was that of an obese and unimaginably hideous pincushion which mysteriously appeared on her dressing-table. Old and attached servants are in the habit of presenting their employers on certain occasions with some appropriate gift, and no one would be churlish enough to discourage so kindly a practice. But Jillings, it must be owned, was beginning it a bit early. However, Celia thanked her as charmingly as though she had been longing all her life for exactly such a treasure. Still, it was not only unnecessary but distinctly unwise to add that it should be placed in her wardrobe for safety, as being much too gorgeous for everyday use. Because all she gained by this consummate tact was another pincushion, not quite so ornate perhaps, but even cruder in colour, and this she was compelled to assign a prominent position among her toilet accessories.
These successes naturally encouraged Jillings to further efforts. Celia had the misfortune one day to break a piece of valuable old porcelain which had stood on her drawing-room mantelpiece, whereupon the faithful Jillings promptly replaced the loss by a china ornament purchased by herself. Considered merely as an article of vertu it was about on a par with the pincushions, but Celia accepted it in the spirit with which it had been offered. And, warned by experience, she did not lock it up in the obscurity of a cabinet, nor contrive that some convenient accident should befall it, wisely preferring "to bear those ills she had than fly to others," etc. And so it still remains a permanent eyesore on her mantelshelf.
Then it seemed that Jillings, who, by the way, was not uncomely, had established friendly relations with one of the gardeners at the big house of the neighbourhood—with the result that Celia found her sitting-rooms replenished at frequent intervals with the most magnificent specimens of magnolia, tuberose, stephanotis and gardenia. Unfortunately she happens to be one of those persons whom any strongly scented flowers afflict with violent headache. But she never mentioned this for fear of wounding Jillings' susceptibilities. Luckily, Jillings and the under-gardener fell out in a fortnight.
As was only to be expected, the other servants, being equally devoted to their mistress, could not allow Jillings to monopolize the pride and glory of putting her under an obligation. Very soon a sort of competition sprang up, each of them endeavouring to out-do the other in giving Celia what they termed, aptly enough, "little surprises," till they hit upon the happy solution of clubbing together for the purpose. Thus Celia, having, out of the kindness of her heart, ordered an expensive lace hood for the baby from a relation of the nurse's at Honiton, was dismayed to discover, when the hood arrived, that it was already paid for and was a joint gift from the domestics. After that she felt, being Celia, that it would be too ungracious to insist on refunding the money.
It was not until I was staying with her last Spring that I heard of all these excesses. But at breakfast on Easter Sunday not only did Celia, Tony and the baby each receive an enormous satin egg filled with chocolates, but I was myself the recipient of one of these seasonable tokens, being informed by the beaming Jillings that "we didn't want you, Sir, to feel you'd been forgotten." By lunch-time it became clear that she had succeeded in animating at least one of the local tradesmen with this spirit of reckless liberality. For when Celia made a mild inquiry concerning a sweetbread which she had no recollection of having ordered Jillings explained, with what I fear I must describe as a self-conscious smirk, that it was "a little Easter orfering from the butcher, Madam." I am bound to say that even Celia was less scrupulous about hurting the butcher's feelings—no doubt from an impression that his occupation must have cured him of any over-sensitiveness.