“That is the way servants get spoiled,” she remarked. “And they don’t stay with you a bit longer for all your pains.”
“Mine stayed with me seven years, and has only gone away to get married,” said Lucy quietly.
The other gave a little laugh.
“You had better mention that to the girls,” she answered. “I believe it recommends a place. But most of them will feel they have been deceived with false hopes unless the event comes off within seven months! Seven years! Well, you’ve got something to learn now. You have not cut your mistress-teeth yet.”
Lucy felt that her mind was opening to new lines of thought in the world about her. She had always known that Florence thought in these ways; but she had thought that was just Florence. Her own small circle of intimates were people of another sort, being all people who had done real work of some kind or another, and were proud of it, and would have felt hurt to be suspected of idleness. But here were women who were prepared to work (for a glance at the knitter’s hands revealed that truth about her), but who were so ashamed of work that they could do it only out of sight, and were under the mean necessity of hiring a mask to do whatever people must see! How odd it was! And then it flashed into Lucy’s mind that one can scarcely expect very worthy girls to rush eagerly to discharge tasks that other women are simply ashamed to do! If it be so disgraceful to open one’s own door, or to wheel out one’s own baby, why should other women not feel it still more disgraceful to open other people’s doors and wheel out other people’s babies? Why should they not be eager to rush from these discredited duties towards others not yet lying under the same ban?
At that moment the groups in the middle of the room parted a little, and the elderly female clerk of the registry came towards Mrs. Challoner with an unctuous smile spread over her face. Following at her heels was another woman, who was, however, nearly eclipsed by her ample figure.
“I think I have found somebody to suit you, ma’am,” she said. “I think we have been most fortunate. Just the sort of person to please you is not to be found every day. It is quite Providential. I’m so glad you should see her before there is any chance of her being snapped up. I’d advise you to settle with her, madam,” she added, bending over, in a familiar whisper which made Lucy draw back. “She’d have a dozen chances if she were here half an hour. Her very appearance is enough. You’ll speak to me, please, madam, before you go away.”
As she moved aside for her “introduction” to step forward, Lucy beheld a neat, crisp little figure which might have stepped out of a Royal Academy picture of a happy cottage home or mansion nursery. This was not a young woman; she was between forty and fifty, dressed in black, with a small prim bonnet enclosing a neat white cap and tied with narrow white ribbons. The face within the bonnet was well-featured and softly ruddy, the pleasant middle-aged bloom being set off to advantage by the slight frosting of the hair visible beneath the cap. A small straw basket was held firmly in the neat cotton-gloved hands. An angel with shining wings could have hardly looked more apart than she did in that throng of coarse tawdry femininity, nor have been a more unexpected apparition. A well-trained respect, without a dash of servility, was in her voice and manner as she said—
“I am Jessie Morison, ma’am. I understand you want a servant.”
“She’s just your style, Luce,” whispered Florence; “but she’s too old! It’s no use taking people after others have got all the work out of them.”