Mistress and Maid Part 19

"Take time to answer, and speak out, my dear. Don't be afraid. You'll not offend me."

The kindly cheerful tone made Hilary recover her balance immediately.

"I never thought of it before; the possibility of such a thing did not occur to me; but I hope I should not be ashamed of any honest work for which I was competent. Only--to serve in a shop--to want upon strangers--I am so horribly shy of strangers." And again the sensitive color rushed in a perfect tide over checks and forehead.

Miss Balquidder looked, half amused, compa.s.sionately at her.

"No, my dear, you would not make a good shop-woman, at least there are many who are better fitted for it than you; and it is my maxim that people should try to find out, and to do, only that which they are best fitted for. If they did we might not have so many cases of proud despair and ambitious failure in the world. It looks very grand and interesting sometimes to try and do what you can't de, and then tear your hair, and think the world has ill-used you--very grand, but very silly: when all the while, perhaps, there is something else you can do thoroughly well; and the world will be exceedingly obliged to you for doing it, and not doing the other thing.--As doubtless the world was to me, when, instead of being a mediocre musician, as I once wished to be--it's true, my dear--I took to keeping one of the best ladies' outfitting warehouses in London."

While she talked her companion had quite recovered herself, and Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, what I will tell more briefly, if less graphically, than the good Scotchwoman, who, like all who have had a hard struggle in their youth, liked a little to dilate upon it in easy old age. Hard as it was, however, it had ended early, for at fifty she found herself a woman of independent property, without kith or kin, still active, energetic, and capable of enjoying life. She applied her mind to find out what she could best do with herself and her money.

"I might have bought a landed estate to be inherited by--n.o.body; or a house in Belgravia, and an opera-box, to be shared by--n.o.body. We all have our pet luxuries; none of these were exactly mine."

"No," a.s.sented Hilary, somewhat abstractedly. She was thinking--if she could make a fortune, and--and give it away!--if, by any means, any honorable, upright heart could be made to understand that it did not signify, in reality, which side the money came from; that it sometimes showed deeper, the very deepest attachment, when a proud, poor man had self-respect and courage enough to say to a woman, "I love you, and I will marry you; I am not such a coward as to be afraid of your gold."

But, oh! what a ridiculous dream!--and she sat there, the penniless Hilary Leaf, listening to Miss Balquidder, the rich lady, whose life seemed so easy. For the moment, perhaps, her own appeared hard. But she had hope, and she was young. She knew nothing of the years and years that had had to be lived through before those kind eyes looked as clear and cloudless as now; before the voice had gained the sweet evenness of tone which she liked to listen to, and felt that it made her quiet and "good," almost like Johanna's.

"You see, my dear," said Miss Balquidder, "when one has no duties, one must just make them; when we have n.o.body to care for us, we must take to caring for every body. I suppose"--here a slight pause indicated that this life, like all women's lives, had had its tale, now long, long told--"I suppose I was not meant to be a wife; but I am quite certain I was meant to be a mother. And"--with her peculiar, bright, humorous look--"you'd be astonished, Miss Leaf, if you knew what lots of 'children' I have in all parts of the world."

Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, that finding, from her own experience, how great was the number, and how sore the trial of young women who nowadays are obliged to work--obliged to forget that there is such a thing as the blessed privilege of being worked for--she had set herself, in her small way, to try and help them. Her pet project was to induce educated women to quit the genteel starvation of governesships for some good trade thereby bringing higher intelligence into a cla.s.s which needed, not the elevation of the work itself, which was comparatively easy and refined, but of the workers.

She had therefore invested sum after sum of her capital in setting up various small shops in the environs of London, in her own former line, and others--stationers, lace-shops, etc.--trades which could be well carried on by women.--Into the management of these she put as many young girls as she could find really fitted for it, or willing to learn, paying them regular salaries, large or small, according to their deserts.

"Fair work, fair pay; not one penny more or less; I never do it; it would not be honest. I overlook each business myself, and it is carried on in my name. Sometimes it brings me in a little profit; sometimes not. Of course," she added, smiling. "I would rather have profits than losses; still, I balance one against the other, and it leaves me generally a small interest for my money--two or three per cent., which is all I care about. Thus, you see. I and my young people make a fair bargain on both sides; it's no charity. I don't believe in charity."

"No," said Hilary, feeling her spirit rise. She was yet young enough, yet enough unworn by the fight to feel the deliciousness of work--honest work for honest pay. "I think I could do it," she added.

"I think, with a little practice, I really could keep a shop."

"At all events, perhaps you could do what I find more difficult to get done, and well done, for it requires a far higher cla.s.s of women than generally apply: you could keep the accounts of a shop; you should be the head, and it would be easy to find the hands, Let me see; there is a young lady, she has managed my stationer's business at Kensington these two years, and now she is going to be married.

Are you good at figures; do you understand book-keeping?"

And suddenly changing into the woman of business, and one who was evidently quite accustomed both to arrange and command, Miss Balquidder put Hilary through a sort of extempore arithmetical catechism, from which she came off with flying colors.

"I only wish there were more like you. I wish there were more young ladies brought up like--"

"Like boys!" said Hilary, laughing, "for I always used to say that was my case."

"No, I never desire to see young women made into men." And Miss Balquidder seemed a little scandalized. "But I do wish girls were taught fewer accomplishments, and more reading, writing, and arithmetic; were made as accurate, orderly, and able to help themselves as boys are. But to business. Will you take the management of my stationer's shop?"

Hilary's breath came hard and fast. Much as she had longed for work, to get this sort of work--to keep a stationer's shop? What would her sisters say? what would he say! But she dared not think of that just now.

"How much should I be able to earn, do you think?"

Miss Balquidder considered a moment, and then said, rather shortly, for it was not exactly acting on her own principles; she knew the pay was above the work. "I will give you a hundred a year."

A hundred a year! actually certain, and over and above any other income. It seemed a fortune to poor Hilary.

"Will you give me a day or two to think about it and consult my sisters?"

She spoke quietly, but Miss Balquidder could see how agitated she was; how she evidently struggled with many feelings that would be best struggled with alone. The good old lady rose.

"Take your own time, my dear; I will keep the situation open for you for one week from this date. And now I must send you away, for I have a great deal to do."

They parted quite like friends; and Hilary went out, walking quickly, feeling neither the wind nor the rain. Yet when she reached No. 15 she could not bring herself to enter, but took another turn or two round the Crescent, trying to be quite sure of her own mind before she opened the matter to her sisters.--

And there was one little battle to be fought which the sisters did know.

It was perhaps foolish, seeing she did not belong to him in any open way, and he had no external right over her life or her actions, that she should go back and back to the question, "What would Robert Lyon say?"

He knew she earned her daily bread; sometimes this had seemed to vex and annoy him, but it must be done; and when a thing was inevitable, it was not Mr. Lyon's way to say much about it. But being a governess was an accredited and customary mode of a young lady's earning her livelihood. This was different. If he should think it too public, too unfeminine: he had such a horror of a woman's being any thing but a woman, as strong and brave as she could, but in a womanly way; doing any thing, however painful, that she was obliged to do, but never out of choice or bravado, or the excitement of stepping out of her own sphere into man's. Would Robert Lyon think less of her, Hilary, because she had to earn to take care of herself, to protect herself, and to act in so many ways for herself, contrary to the natural and right order of things? That old order--G.o.d forbid it should ever change!--which ordained that the women should be "keepers at home;"

happy rulers of that happy little world, which seemed as far off as the next world from this poor Hilary.

"What if he should look down upon me? What if he should return and find me different from what he expected?"

And bitter tears burned in her eyes, as she walked rapidly and pa.s.sionately along the deserted street. Then a revulsion came.

"No; love is worth nothing that is not worth every thing, and to be trusted through every thing. If he could forget me--could love any one better than me--me myself, no matter what I was--ugly or pretty, old or young, rich or poor--I would not care for his love. It would not be worth my having; I'd let it go. Robert, though it broke my heart, I'd let you go."

Her eyes flashed; her poor little hand clenched itself under her shawl; and then, as a half reproach, she heard in fancy the steady loving voice--which could have calmed her wildest paroxysm of pa.s.sion and pain--"You must trust me, Hilary."

Yes, he was a man to be trusted. No doubt very much like other men, and by no means such a hero to the world at large as this fond girl made him out to be; but Robert Lyon had, with all people, and under all circ.u.mstances, the character of reliableness. He had also--you might read it in his face--a quality equally rare, faithfulness. Not merely sincerity, but faithfulness; the power of conceiving one clear purpose, or one strong love--in unity of strength--and of not only keeping true to it at the time, but of holding fast to it with a single-minded persistency that never even takes in the idea of voluntary change, as long as persistency is right or possible.

"Robert, Robert!" sobbed this forlorn girl, as if slowly waking up to a sense of her forlorness, and of the almost universal fickleness, not actual falseness, but fickleness, which prevails in the world and among mankind. "O Robert, be faithful! faithful to yourself--faithful to me!"

CHAPTER XIV.

When Miss Hilary reached home Elizabeth opened the door to her; the parlor was deserted.

Miss Leaf had gone to lie down, and Miss Selina was away to see the Lord Mayor's Show with Mr. Peter Ascott.

"With Mr. Peter Ascott!" Hilary was a little surprised; but on second thoughts she found it natural; Selina was glad of any amus.e.m.e.nt--to her, not only the narrowness but the dullness of their poverty was inexpressibly galling. "She will be back to dinner, I suppose?"

"I don't know," said Elizabeth briefly.

Had Miss Hilary been less preoccupied, she would have noticed something not quite right about the girl--something that at any other time would have aroused the direct question, "What is the matter, Elizabeth?" For Miss Hilary did not consider it beneath her dignity to observe that things might occasionally go wrong with this solitary young woman, away from her friends, and exposed to all the annoyances of London lodgings; that many trifles might happen to worry and perplex her. If the mistress could not set them right, she could at least give the word of kindly sympathy, as precious to "a poor servant" as to the Queen on her throne.

This time, however, it came not, and Elizabeth disappeared below stairs immediately.

The girl was revolving in her own mind a difficult ethical question.

To-day, for the first time in her life, she had not "told Miss Hilary every thing." Two things had happened, and she could not make up her mind as to whether she ought to communicate them.

Now Elizabeth had a conscience, by nature a very tender one, and which, from circ.u.mstances, had been cultivated into a much higher sensitiveness than, alas! is common among her cla.s.s, or, indeed, in any cla.s.s. This, if an error, was Miss Hilary's doing; it probably caused Elizabeth a few more miseries, and vexations, and painful shocks in the world than she would have had had she imbibed only the ordinary tone of morality, especially the morality of ordinary domestic servants; but it was an error upon which, in summing up her life, the Recording Angel would gravely smile.

The first trial had happened at breakfast time. Ascott, descending earlier than his wont, had asked her. Did any gentleman, short and dirty, with a hooked nose, inquire for him yesterday?

Elizabeth thought a minute, and recollected that some person answering the above not too flattering description had called, but refused to leave his name, saying he did not know the ladies, but was a particular friend of Mr. Leaf's.