“Come and stay with me, then, till you are comfortably suited elsewhere,” Lucy wrote back in reply. “I wish I could ask you to stay till Charlie returns. But it would give you too long a journey to your pupils.”
Miss Latimer’s answer soon came.
“I gladly accept your invitation in its new extended form,” she said. “I wish we could be together in this London which can make separation so easy. I should not mind the length of the daily journey to my pupil, but my income is too small to bear deduction of a railway fare.”
Lucy pondered over that letter. Sometimes when Hugh had gone to bed, she sat in her parlour, too tired to work and sick with loneliness. Why should not Miss Latimer stay with her, paying what she had paid hitherto, less the railway fare? She wrote to Miss Latimer, making this proposal, and saying, “Why not? Are we not sensible women?” Miss Latimer came and talked it over, and decided to accept the plan; then she and Lucy agreed that, as in this instance there was a breathing spell before they were deprived of household help, they would try what “advertisement” would do.
So Lucy put a very explicit advertisement into three daily papers, which had columns both of “Situations Wanted,” and “Vacant.” Applicants were to call “on Saturday afternoons only.” When the first Saturday came, she gave Hugh his painting book with which to amuse himself, took her needlework and sat expectant.
All that came to the house was repeated postman’s knocks. Every post brought circulars—printed, typewritten or lithographed—from different registry offices. But not one servant, suitable or the reverse, put in appearance!
Lucy thought this experience must be special and peculiar. So she resolved to repeat the process next week. At the same time, she thought she had better take more active measures. Therefore she began to con the columns of “Situations Wanted,” determined to write to every advertiser whose statement of her capacities and requirements held out any hope.
Lucy had often carelessly glanced over these columns in days gone by. Then it had seemed only as if there were plenty of people “waiting to be hired” for every purpose. She had felt quite sorry to think how much hope deferred and disappointment must be involved. But when one came to scan this newspaper page for an express purpose, it was wonderful into what a small number the hopeful cases shrank! “General Servants” in themselves were few enough, but even those who were so described all added “where another is kept,” or “where boy cleans knives and boots.” Lucy knew by experience that it was useless to approach these. There were “lady-helps” by the score. Some of these were only prepared to work “where there is a servant.” The others specially stated that they would do “nothing menial.”
There were, however, two advertisers who described themselves as “useful helps,” “well educated and highly recommended,” and who laid down no conditions save concerning “a comfortable home” and a “salary” not higher than the wages Mrs. Challoner was prepared to give. The one, “Miss L.,” called herself thirty-two, and gave an address in a suburb on the northern edge of London. The other described herself as twenty-six, and gave her name as Miss F., Parsonage Cottage, in a little town not very far away.
To both these addresses Lucy wrote. She detailed her own position, and added that she would be anxious to make every concession to give comfort and leisure to any well-educated woman whose household co-operation she could secure. She particularly requested a prompt reply in any case, and enclosed stamped and directed envelopes.