The Wonder-Child: An Australian Story Page 3

  *CHAPTER III*

  *The Second Lady-Help*

  'The droop, the low cares of the mouth, The trouble uncouth 'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain To put out of its pain.'

  And for actually six months that home survived! After that thecrumbling was to be expected, for some discerning man came along, andmarried the marvellous lady-help out of hand.

  Mr. Cameron spent five pounds in the purchase of a pair of _entree_dishes for a wedding-present, and was unhappy that he could so veryinadequately reward her great services. But there was a curious air ofbuoyancy and relaxation observable in him the first day the house wasfree of her.

  At tea he got _The Master of Ballantrae_ out, and read boldly allthrough the meal, a thing he had not ventured to do for eighteen months.And out in the frozen shrubbery at midnight, with the Master and Mr.Henry thrusting at each other, he spilled the tea that Hermie passedhim. When he saw the wide brown stain he had made on the table'swhiteness--although the ridiculous fancy pursued him that it was theMaster's life-blood smirching the snow--he looked up startled, full ofapologies. But there was only Hermie's childish face in front of him;and though she said, 'Oh, papa!' as became a president of the tea-tray,she looked away the next second to laugh at Roly, who had spread hisbread with jam on both sides, and did not know how best to hold it. AndCameron felt so much a man and master of his fate once more, that hestretched right across the table to help himself to butter, instead ofpolitely requesting the passing of it. For three months the householdran a merry course. Hermie, a bright little woman of eleven, begged herfather to let her 'keep house' and give the orders to Lizzie, the veryyoung general servant.

  The father bent his thoughts five minutes to the problem; Miss Macintoshhad been away now a fortnight, and everything seemed going along reallydelightfully. What need to break the sweet harmony of the days bygetting in some person whose principles counted reading at table andspilling tea among the cardinal vices?

  And Lizzie, the State girl, was at his elbow with a shining face. Shewas fifteen, she said--fifteen was real old! Now why should the mastergo getting in any more of them lady-helps, who did nothing but scoldfrom morning to night? She, Lizzie, would undertake all there was to doin this place 'on her head.'

  Cameron smiled at the eager girls, and, while hardly daring to consent,put off for a further day the engagement of a successor to MissMacintosh. And the three months ran gaily along, and still Hermie satimportantly at the head of the table, and still her father read, andstill Roly spread his bread upon both sides.

  There was always a good table--far better than either the mother orlady-help had kept.

  For the family grocer had an alluring way of suggesting delicacies, whenhe came for his orders that certainly no mistress of eleven or handmaidof fifteen could withstand.

  'Almonds?' he would say. 'Very fine almonds this week, MissCameron--three pounds did you say--yes? And what about jam? I have itas low as fivepence a tin, but there is no knowing what cheap fruitthese makers use.'

  'Oh,' Hermie would say, 'I must have very good jam, of course, or itmight make my little sister ill! How much is good jam?'

  'There's strawberry conserve, a shilling a tin,' the man wouldsay--'pure fruit and pure sugar, boiled in silver saucepans.'

  'Silver saucepans! That couldn't hurt Flossie! We will have six tinsof that, please,' the small house-woman would answer. Then there werebiscuits; Miss Macintosh, frugal soul, only gave Wilgandra, when it camecalling, coffee-biscuits at sevenpence a pound with its afternoon tea.Hermie regaled it upon macaroons at half a crown. Then Lizzie wouldhave her say. What was the use of cooking meat and vegetables onwashing-day, ironing-day, and Saturdays, she would say, when you couldget them tinned from a grocer? So tins of tongue, and whitebait, andpressed meats, French peas, asparagus, and such, were added weekly tothe order, the grocer sending to Sydney for the unusual things. 'We aresaving a lady-help's wages,' Hermie would say, 'and it saves thebutcher's bills, so it is not extravagant a bit.'

  It was not until the third month that the day of reckoning came. Thenthe grocer, grown a trifle anxious over his unusual bill, which no onewas settling, ventured to accost Mr. Cameron one day on his verandah andpresent it.

  'No haste, of course,' he said politely, 'only as your good lady andMiss Macintosh always paid monthly, I thought you might not like itgoing on much longer.'

  When he had bowed himself out, Mr. Cameron rubbed his suddenly troubledbrow a moment. Money, bills! The thought had actually never crossedhis mind all these three months! His wife first and then Miss Macintoshhad always managed the finances of the family. Indeed, one of Mrs.Cameron's injunctions to the lady-help had been, 'When Mr. Cameron'scheque for his quarter's salary comes, please be sure to remind him topay it into the bank.' And Miss Macintosh had never failed to do so,nor to apply for the twelve pounds monthly for payment of the householdbills.

  He went into the dining-room and began to rummage helplessly about hiswriting-table. To save his life he could not recollect what had becomeof his last cheque, for there was a conviction on his mind that he hadnever paid it into his account.

  Hermie was at the table, Mrs. Beeton's cookery-book spread open beforeher; over her shoulders peeped the heads of Bartie and Roly, absorbed inthe contemplation of the coloured plate picturing glorified blancmangesand jellies. For was not to-morrow Roly's fifth birthday, for whichgreat preparation must be made by the young mother of the house?

  'Children,' said the father at last entreatingly, 'come and help me; Ihave lost a very important envelope.'

  For over an hour did that family search from one end of the house to theother. It was Lizzie's happy thought that discovered it.

  'A long blue envelope, with no stamp on it and just printinginstead--why, there was one like that in the kitchen drawer with thedinners on it,' she said.

  She rushed for it, and met her anxious master with it held triumphantlyout.

  The back of the envelope bore dinners for the week in Hermie's roundcareful hand.

  _Mon._--Roast fowl, mashed potatoes, collyflower, pink jellie and gem cakes.

  _Tues._--Tong, blommange and strawberry jam, rainbow cake.

  _Wed._--Sardenes, current buns, yelow jelly and merangs.

  Mr. Cameron thrust a trembling hand into the depths of it, and, to hisexquisite relief, was able to draw out the cheque for his quarterlysixty pounds.

  In danger of the kitchen fire, in danger of the dust-box, in danger ofRoly's passion for paper-tearing, in danger of all the wind-storms thathad sprung up and torn raging through the place, in danger of all thesefor three months, and still safe!

  The relief took the man back into the dining-room, responsibility forhis family to the front for the third time in his life.

  He ran through the bills with a sinking heart. Instead of twelve poundsa month that Miss Macintosh's carefulness had made suffice, littleHermie had brought up the totals to twenty-eight--eighty-four pounds forthe quarter, to be deducted from the sixty pounds that must also payrent and clothes and many other things.

  The child cried bitterly when he showed her what she had done. It hadbeen delicious pleasure to her, this time of ordering and helping withthe dinners. Delicious pleasure to see her father appreciating thechanged meals as much as the boys--Cameron had quite a boyish appetitefor good things, and Hermie's brilliant menus had been delightful to himafter a long course of Miss Macintosh's boiled rhubarb puddings, treacleroly-polies, and milk sagos.

  'A first-rate little manager,' he always called her, when he passed uphis plate for more of the jelly, or more whitebait, or asparagus, and herecked even less than Bartie that the things were intrinsically moreexpensive than rhubarb or rice.

  'Oh, daddie, oh, daddie dear, I am so sorry!' she said, awake at last tothe sad truth that luxury must be paid for, cash down, and was a dearcommodity. And her eyes streamed, and her little chest heaved to
suchan extent that he had to put the bills aside and comfort her affliction,and explain to her that he was scolding himself, not her.

  'But I am eleven,' she kept repeating sadly, 'eleven, papa. I ought tohave known.'

  There rang at the door a few minutes later the master of the boys'school to which Bartie had just been sent. Hermie, her mother'sconscientiousness strong in her, had always gone off to her school eachday, though, in truth, so absorbed was she by her housekeeping delightsthat she was a very ill scholar nowadays.

  But Bartie, plain unalloyed boy, had wearied suddenly of tuition, andfound a pleasant fishing-ground in a secluded creek. There was no oneto tell him to go to school, it was against nature that he should betakehimself to servitude every day of his own accord, so, towards the end ofthe quarter, it fell out that he fished two days of the week and studiedthree, even at times reversing that order of things. In restitution hetook canings, his hands were horny, the touch of the master not overheavy.

  But now the matter was before his father, and the master was returninghome, the consciousness of duty done lifting his head.

  The father's blue eye flashed with strange fire as he looked at the boy.

  'Is my son a thief,' he said, 'that he should treat me so? Or is it hedespises me because I leave him unwatched and free?'

  With that he strode out of the room, out of the house; Bart, hisconscience quick once more and in agony, watched him walking, house-coaton and no hat, down the main street of the township and up, up, neverresting, to the top of the great hill the other side they call the Jib.

  No further word of the matter was ever said till the next Christmas,when the boy marched in with the year's prize for punctuality under hisarm. Then Cameron shook hands with him.

  'I like a man of honour,' he said. But the two events together, thegrocer's bill and the master's call, decided the father he must enterinto submission and have another lady-help, for the children's sake.

  How to obtain one? He made inquiries about Wilgandra, but the class ofpeople from whom he sought to take one were of the mind that prevails inmany of the country towns and bush settlements. They would ratherstarve than serve--at all events where they were known. Now and again aself-respecting intelligent girl broke away from her life and went offwith her trunk to find service in Sydney.

  But, for the most part, the daughters of a house up to the number ofseven, or even ten, stayed under the cramped roof-tree of their fathers,and led an unoccupied, sheepish existence, till marriage or death borethem off to other homes.

  So in despair Cameron wrote off to a Sydney registry office, and askedthe manageress to send him a lady. Just before he closed the letter thehappy freedom of the last three months led him to add a postscript, 'Ishould like the lady you select to be of not too managing adisposition--gentle and pleasant.'

  The registry office keeper rubbed her hands; here surely at last was achance to dispose of Miss Browne--Miss Browne, who was ever on thebooks, who was sent off to a situation one week, and came back with redeyes and a hopeless expression the next, dismissed incontinently asincapable.

  The registry office keeper turned up the town Wilgandra in her railwaytime-table.

  Three hundred and seventy-three miles away! Surely at such a distance,especially as the employer was paying the expensive fare, Miss Brownemight be regarded as settled for a space of three months!

  Mr. Cameron had no complaint to make of his new lady-help on the scoreof being of a managing disposition. She was gentleness itself--thatkind of deprecating gentleness that makes the world feel uncomfortable.She tried pitifully hard to be pleasant--pleasant and cheerful. Sheworked from earliest morning to late at night, and accomplished about asmuch as Hermie could in two hours. It took her nerveless fingers nearlya quarter of an hour to sew on a waistcoat button, and in little morethan a quarter of an hour the button would have tumbled off again.

  Lizzie seldom trusted her to cook anything; when she did so the poorlady invariably emerged from the kitchen with her hands burnt in severalplaces, sparks in her eyes, the front width of her dress scorched, herhair singed, and her poor frail body so utterly exhausted, the familywould insist upon her instant retirement to bed.

  Nobody knew what the woman's life had been, where had gone the vigour,the energy, the graces that should still have been hers, for her yearswere barely thirty-five.

  A crushing sorrow, disappointment on the heel of disappointment,loneliness, or perhaps only a grey life full of petty cares passed in ascorching, withering climate--one or all of these things had dried thesap out of her, and left of what might have been a gracious creature,radiating pleasure and comfort, only the rags and bones of womanhood.

  The Camerons suffered her patiently for three long months; then thefather gathered his courage up in both hands, closed his ears to thepity that clamoured at his heart, and told her gently enough that shemust go.

  She threw up her fluttering hands and sank on the sofa--in her eyes thepiteous look of amaze and grief that your fireside dog would wear if youtook a sudden knife to him. So kind had the family been, so patient,the poor creature had told herself exultingly that they were satisfied,even pleased with her, and had hugged the novel, delicious thought tosleep with her for the last two months.

  She asked shakingly what she had done.

  'Nothing, nothing at all,' Cameron reassured her eagerly; 'it is merely,merely I can see you are not strong enough for such a hard place asmine.'

  'A hard place!' she cried, and looked at him dazed. 'Why, there areonly five of you, and Lizzie to do all the rough work! I've been wherethere were ten, and done the washing and everything. I've been wherethere were nine, and had to chop the wood and draw the water myself.I've been mother's help and had to carry twin babies miles in the sun.I've been where the children pinched and scratched me. I've been atplaces where I rose at half-past four, and found my way to bed ateleven. And in none have I ever given notice myself. A hard place!Dear heart!'

  'My dear Miss Browne,' Cameron said, and such was the fluent nature ofthe man that his eyes were filled, and he had no idea that he lied, 'itwas solely for the sake of your health I spoke. You look so delicate.If you think the duties are not too heavy, why, I shall be most heartilyobliged to you if you will stay with us indefinitely.'

  Then he went away to seek his children, to tell them her story, and begtheir tenderest patience.