The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 1018, July 1, 1899

Why did Lucy Challoner start when she entered her own kitchen, well knowing that a visitor was there, for whose presence she had given full permission?

She started, because when one expects to see a moon-faced, shy youth, with a shock of red hair, it does give one rather a shock to be suddenly confronted by a tall jovial man of thirty, wearing a full black beard!

What ought Lucy to have done? Perhaps she ought to have walked forward, saying that this was not the person to whom she had made her kitchen free, inquiring who he was, and bidding him go about his business.

But poor Lucy was not a business-like and self-confident mistress, and she was so thoroughly disconcerted and taken aback that, with a single exclamation of surprise, she beat a hasty retreat.

Upstairs in the dining-room she considered the position. She could hear the voices in the kitchen. It seemed to her that there was smothered laughter on the part of the man. She could hear Jane speak with a defiant angry tone. Some kitchen utensils were moved sharply and noisily, as by the hand of an offended person.

It was very clear that the carpenter sweetheart had been discarded, and that this stranger had filled his place so promptly that Jane had not thought it worth her while to go through any ceremony of transferring his privileges. Of course she had known well enough that her mistress would be no party to such a rapidly moving panorama of courtship. Or was there any genuine courtship in the matter at all, or was the form of a professed “engagement” the mask under which mere promiscuous acquaintances were encouraged? Who was this man? Lucy could not but remember his free laughter and loud talk on what had evidently been the evening of his first appearance. Now when she had unwittingly surprised him in her kitchen, he neither blenched nor offered the slightest explanation or apology. As Lucy sat, reflective, she heard him laugh again.

However, this evening he did not stay till the usual hour of nine, but went off as soon as the spring twilight darkened into dusk—went off with slamming of doors, and stamping of feet, and whistling, as he mounted the area stairs.

Lucy lit her lamp. She resolved not to summon Jane to her presence, but to wait till she brought the supper tray. Perhaps she wished to give Jane an opportunity to come and offer some voluntary explanation and apology. Perhaps she wished to calm her own nerves. Perhaps—and this is the most probable—she deferred simply out of dread of a scene. Lucy had always felt that Jane was an unknown quantity in the house, so she had no prevision as to how the servant would act in any crisis.

The maid moved about the kitchen noisily. It was evident that supper was to be served in very good time. If Lucy was afraid of Jane, Jane was clearly not going to be afraid of her.

She came upstairs with a very firm step, and looked straight at her mistress as she put down the tray. Lucy’s heart was beating very fast, but she controlled her nerves enough to say with a perfectly even voice—

“Jane, I must ask you for some explanation about the change of your weekly visitor, for——”

Jane interrupted her.

“Please, m’m,” she said, “there’s no need to ask me anything. I’ve come to give you notice—to bid you suit yourself before this day month. Ever since I’ve been here I’ve been thinking I’d like service in the country—with some lady as is a lady, and doesn’t come a-poking her nose into my kitchen when she knows I’ve got a friend there. I like a lady as looks after her work at the proper time, not having to go out of a morning to earn her bread. It’s not your fault, m’m, I dessay, but it ain’t pleasant for a girl.”

In face of this impertinence, Lucy rallied her spirits and dignity. Cost what such effort may afterwards, it is not at such moments that any spirited woman fails or shrinks.

“Very well, Jane,” she said. “Under these circumstances, I need ask you no questions. This spares me a painful task. But as your senior, even but by a few years and a little experience, I trust that you will deeply consider your ways. You have not treated me well. That may not matter much now. But I fear that you are not acting in a way to secure your own womanly respectability and happiness. If you seek a reference from me, I shall have to tell any inquirer what has happened.”

“Very well, m’m. Please, m’m, you’ll remember it was me that gave you notice.”

“I shall remember,” said Lucy. Not another word was exchanged.

The event gave Lucy a sleepless night, partly because it had excited her beyond her ebbing strength, and partly because she could not help forecasting ways and means with which to meet this fresh domestic difficulty.

To live in the same house with somebody so flatly antagonistic as she felt Jane intended to be, was a hard trial for a lonely and over-strained woman. Lucy realised that Jane was capable of insolence—that her outburst had not been a mere fit of temper, but a revelation of the coarse, cruel nature seething beneath the dull exterior. It might not have been wise, but if Lucy had been a free woman, she would have paid Jane her wages and let her go at once, so as to clear the atmosphere. But Lucy was not a free woman; she had her engagements to fulfil, her work to do.

She had hoped to take advantage of the fine weather to take Hugh a little out of town on Saturday afternoons, thus giving him fresh air and enjoyment, and also snatching an opportunity to make a study or a sketch. But now the four Saturday afternoons which would pass over before Jane’s departure were all the leisure in which to seek a new supply of domestic help. This “month” of Jane’s would bring Lucy to the edge of the summer holidays at the Institute. Had all gone on right with Jane, Lucy had meant to get her decent old charwoman to spend her nights in the house and give the girl company and security, while she and Hugh went down to Deal for two or three weeks. She had a secret consciousness that she was “running down” in a way which needed both the fresh sea breezes and the strong, calm presence of Jarvis May’s brave widow. She had hoped to persuade Miss Latimer to make one of the party. That lady herself would have respite from her one or two little engagements, and she had not had a seaside holiday for two or three years. Lucy meant to give the invitation as a favour to herself, since Miss Latimer’s presence would ensure her the more leisure and freedom for sketching. For in that seaside holiday she had hoped to lay in a store of sketches—as many as she could possibly work up before the darkening days of next winter would be brightened by Charlie’s return.

Now all these plans of hers must be knocked on the head! She tried to be thankful that if she failed to secure satisfactory help during the coming month, then the holidays would at least give her leisure to do her own housework for awhile. She had accustomed herself to remember that, as Jeremy Taylor tells us, every trial has two handles, or at least that we have two hands, and that, when anything happens to our displeasure, it is the part of a wise and submissive spirit to handle it on that side in which we can find some comfort or use. But it seemed to poor Lucy as if this “handle” was so slight that it was ready to break in her trembling grasp. She knew that trials which loom large in the mists of our own minds are sometimes wonderfully reduced in magnitude if we can get them outside ourselves, and state them in plain terms. So she tried to rally her courage and spirits by asking what was this trouble, after all? She was simply parting from a servant whom she had never liked, and who had proved herself to be a girl of low type.

That was how Lucy resolutely put it, and then it seemed little enough. She would not let herself add that she was already worn out under the awful anxiety of her husband’s illness, the strain of the separation, the practical solitude, the unremitting duties which would allow of no rest nor recreation. She left these in her sub-consciousness. When we know that no hand but ours is on the helm, we can face anything except the full realisation that we ourselves are stunned and reeling in the storm.

It seemed to Lucy that as she and Miss Latimer were not to have their holiday together at the seaside, the next best thing would be to invite Miss Latimer to spend her holiday in the little house with the verandah, so that they might at least enjoy each other’s society. Miss Latimer accepted the invitation eagerly, adding the information that she had got to leave the house in which she had been living, as the family were quitting town.

“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.”