Mistress and Maid Part 18

"Nonsense," said Ascott, laughing. "I beg your pardon," he added, seeing it was with her no laughing matter; "but I am so accustomed to be hard up that I don't seem to care. It always comes right somehow--at least with me."

"How?"

"Oh, I don't exactly know; but it does. Don't fret, Aunt Hilary. I'll lend you a pound or two."

She drew back. These poor, proud, fond women, who, if their boy, instead of a fine gentleman, had been a helpless invalid, would have tended him, worked for him, nay, begged for him--cheerfully, oh, how cheerfully! wanting nothing in the whole world but his love--they could not ask him for his money. Even now, offered thus, Hilary felt as if to take it would be intolerable.

Still the thing must be done.

"I wish, Ascott"--and she nerved herself to say what somebody ought to say to him--"I would you would not lend but pay us the pound a week you said you could so easily spare."

"To be sure I will. What a thoughtless fellow I have been!

But--but--I fancied you would have asked me if you wanted it. Never mind, you'll get it all in a lump. Let me see--how much will it come to? You are the best head going for arithmetic, Aunt Hilary. Do reckon it all up?" She did so; and the sum total made Ascott open his eyes wide.

"Upon my soul I had no idea it was so much. I'm very sorry, but I seem fairly cleaned out this quarter--only a few sovereigns left to keep the mill going. You shall have them, or half of them, and I'll owe you the rest. Here!"

He emptied on the table, without counting, four or five pounds.

Hilary took two, asking him gravely "If he was sure he could spare so much? She did not wish to inconvenience him."

"Oh, not at all; and I wouldn't mind if it did; you have been good aunts to me."

He kissed her, with a sudden fit of compunction, and bade her good-night, looking as if he did not care to be "bothered" any more.

Hilary retired, more sad, more hopeless about him than if he had slammed the door in her face, or scolded her like a trooper. Had he met her seriousness in the same spirit, even though it had been a sullen or angry spirit--and little as she said he must have felt she wished him to feel--that his aunts were displeased with him; but that utterly unrepressible light-heartedness of his--there was no doing any thing with it. There was so to speak, "no catching hold" of Ascott. He meant no harm. She repeated over and over again that the lad meant no harm. He had no evil ways; was always pleasant, good-natured, and affectionate, in his own careless fashion; but was no more to be relied on than a straw that every wind blows. .h.i.ther and thither; or, to use a common simile, a b.u.t.terfly that never sees any thing farther than the nearest flower. His was, in short, the pleasure-loving temperament, not positively sinful or sensual, but still holding pleasure as the greatest good; and regarding what deeper natures call "duty," and find therein their strong-hold and consolation, as a mere bugbear or a sentimental theory, or an impossible folly.

Poor lad! and he had the world to fight with; how would it use him?

Even if no heavy sorrows for himself or others smote him, his handsome face would have to grow old, his strong frame to meet sickness--death.--How would he do it? That is the thought which always recurs. What is the end of such men as these? Alas! the answer would come from hospital wards, alms-houses and work-houses, debtors'

prisons and lunatic asylums.

To apprehensions like this--except the last, happily it was as yet too far off--Hilary had been slowly and sadly arriving about Ascott for weeks past; and her conversation with him to-night seemed to make them darken down upon her with added gloom. As she went up stairs she set her lips together hard.

"I see there is n.o.body to do any thing except me. But I must not tell Johanna."

She lay long awake, planning every conceivable scheme for saving money; till at length, her wits sharpened by the desperation of the circ.u.mstances, there flashed upon her an idea that came out of a talk she had had with Elizabeth that morning. True, it was a perfectly new and untried chance--and a mere chance; still it was right to overlook nothing. She would not have ventured to tell Selina of it for the world, and even to Johanna, she only said--finding her as wakeful as herself--said it in a careless manner, as if it had relation to nothing, and she expected nothing from it-- "I think, as I have nothing else to do, I will go and see Miss Balquidder to-morrow morning."

CHAPTER XIII.

Miss Balquidder's house was a handsome one, handsomely furnished, and a neat little to aid-servant showed Hilary at once into the dining-parlor, where the mistress sat before a business-like writing-table, covered with letters, papers, etc., all arranged with that careful order in disorder which indicates, even in the smallest things, the possession of an accurate, methodical mind, than which there are few greater possessions, either to its owner or to the world at large.

Miss Balquidder was not a personable woman; she had never been so even in youth; and age had told its tale upon those large, strong features--"thoroughly Scotch features," they would have been called by those who think all Scotchwomen are necessarily big, raw-boned, and ugly; and have never seen that wonderfully n.o.ble beauty--not prettiness, but actual beauty in its highest physical as well as spiritual development--which is not seldom found across the Tweed.

But while there was nothing lovely, there was nothing unpleasant or uncomely in Miss Balquidder. Her large figure, in its plain black silk dress; her neat white cap, from under which peeped the little round curls of flaxen hair, neither gray nor snowy, but real "lint-white locks" still; and her good-humored, motherly look--motherly rather than old-maidish--gave an impression which may be best described by the word "comfortable."--She was a "comfortable"

woman. She had that quality--too rarely, alas! in all people, and rarest in women going solitary down the hill of life--of being able, out of the deep content of her own nature, to make other people the same.

Hilary was cheered in spite of herself: it always conveys hope to the young, when in sore trouble, if they see the old looking happy.

"Welcome, my dear! I was afraid you had forgotten your promise."

"Oh no," said Hilary, responding heartily to the hearty clasp of a hand large as a man's, but soft as a woman's.

"Why did you not come sooner?"

More than one possible excuse flashed thro' Hilary's mind, but she was too honest to give it. She gave none at all. Nor did she like to leave the impression that this was merely a visit, when she knew she had only come from secondary and personal motives.

"May I tell you why I came to-day?--Because I want advice and help, and I think you can give it, from something I heard about you yesterday."

"Indeed! From whom?"

"In rather a roundabout way; from Mrs. Jones, who told our maid-servant."

"The same girl I met on the staircase at your bones? I beg your pardon, but I know where you live, Miss Leaf; your landlady happens to be an acquaintance of mine."

"So she said: and she told our Elizabeth that you were a rich and benevolent woman, who took a great interest in helping other women; not in money"--blushing scarlet at be idea--"I don't mean that, but in procuring them work. I want work--oh! so terribly. If you only knew--"

"Sit down, my dear;" for Hilary was rambling much, her voice breaking, and her eyes filling, in spite of all her self-command.

Miss Balquidder--who seemed accustomed to wait upon herself--went out of the room, and returned with cake and gla.s.ses; then she took the wine from the side-board, poured some oat for herself and Hilary, and began to talk.

"It is nearly my luncheon-time, and I am a great friend to regular eating and drinking. I never let any thing interfere with my own meals, or other folks' either, if I can help it. I would as soon expect that fire to keep itself up without coals, as my mind to go on working if I don't look after my body. You understand? You seem to have good health, Miss Leaf. I hope you are a prudent girl, and take care of it."

"I think I do;" and Hilary smiled. "At any rate my sister does for me, and also Elizabeth."

"Ah, I liked the look of that girl. If families did but know that the most useful patent of respectability they can carry about with them is their maid-servant! That is how I always judge my new acquaintances."

"There's reason in it, too," said Hilary, amused and drawn out of herself by the frank manner and the cordial voice--I use the adjective advisedly; none the less sweet because its good terse English had a decided Scotch accent, with here and there a Scotch word. Also there was about Miss Balquidder a certain dry humor essentially Scotch--neither Irish "wit" nor English "fun," but Scotch humor; a little ponderous perhaps, yet sparkling: like the sparkles from a large lump of coal, red-warm at the heart, and capable of warming a whole household. As many a time it had warmed the little household at s...o...b..ry--for Robert Lyon had it in perfection. Like a waft as from old times, it made Hilary at once feel at home with Miss Balquidder. Equally, Miss Balquidder might have seen something in this girl's patient, heroic, forlorn youth which reminded her of her own. Unreasoning as these sudden attractions appear, there is often a hidden something beneath which in reality makes them both natural and probable, as was the case here. In half an hour these two women were sitting talking like old friends; and Hilary had explained her present position, needs and desires. They ended in the one cry--familiar to how many thousands more of helpless young women!--"I want work!"

Miss Balquidder listened thoughtfully. Not that it was a new story--alas! she heard it every day; but there was something new in the telling of it; such extreme directness and simplicity, such utter want of either false pride or false shame, No asking of favors, and yet no shrinking from well-means kindness; the poor woman speaking freely to the rich one, recognizing the common womanhood of both, and never supposing for an instant that mere money or position could make any difference between them.

The story ended, both turned, as was the character of both, to the practical application of it--what it was exactly that Hilary needed, and what Miss Balquidder could supply.

The latter said, after a turn or two up and down the room, with her hands behind her--the only masculine trick she had--

"My dear, before going further, I ought to tell you one thing--I am not a lady."

Hilary looked at her in no little bewilderment.

"That is," explained Miss Balquidder, laughing, "not an educated gentlewoman like you. I made my money myself--in trade. I kept an outfitter's shop."

"You must have kept it uncommonly well," was the involuntary reply, which, in its extreme honesty and naivete, was perhaps the best thing that Hilary could have said.

"Well, perhaps I did," and Miss Balquidder laughed her hearty laugh, betraying one of her few weaknesses--a consciousness of her own capabilities as a woman of business, and a pleasure at her own deserved success.

"Therefore, you see. I can not help you as a governess. Perhaps I would not if I could, for, so far as I see, a good clearance of one half the governesses into honest trades would be for their own benefit, and greatly to the benefit of the other half. But that's not my affair. I only meddle with things I understand. Miss Leaf, would you be ashamed of keeping a shop?"

It is no reflection upon Hilary to confess that this point-blank question startled her.--Her bringing up had been strictly among the professional cla.s.s; and in the provinces sharper than even in London is drawn the line between the richest tradesman who "keeps a shop,"

and the poorest lawyer, doctor, or clergyman who ever starved in decent gentility. It had been often a struggle for Hilary Leaf's girlish pride to have to teach A B C to little boys and girls whose parents stood behind counters; but as she grew older she grew wiser, and intercourse with Robert Lyon had taught her much. She never forgot, one day, when Selina asked him something about his grandfather or great-grandfather, and he answered quickly, smiling, "Well, I suppose I had one, but I really never heard." Nevertheless it takes long to conquer entirely the cla.s.s prejudices of years, nay, more, of generations. In spite of her will Hilary felt herself wince, and the color rush all over her face, at Miss Balquidder's question.