"Don"t look at me like that--please, Sam!" faltered Elizabeth. "I--I didn"t mean to buy that dress; truly I didn"t. I had paid for all the others, and I had twenty-seven dollars left, and Evelyn told me that Madame Pryse had a--a remnant of blue velvet which she would make up for me for a song. And--I--let her do it. I thought she would send the bill to me, and I would----"
"Did she send it to you?"
"Y-yes, twice. But Evelyn said for me not to worry. She said Madame Pryse"s customers never paid her right away, and there was so much else--just at the last, I didn"t like to ask daddy; Uncle Caleb always gives me fifty dollars for my birthday, and I thought--" Elizabeth"s voice had grown fainter as she proceeded with her halting explanations.
But she started up with a little cry, "Oh, Sam! what are you going to do?"
For her husband was examining the bill with an expression about his mouth which she had never seen there before. "I don"t see that you have been credited with the twenty-seven dollars," he said quietly. Then with a sorry attempt at a smile, "These _mesdames_ appear to pile up the items sky-high when it comes to building a gown; better have a cast-iron contract with "em, I should say, and pay up when the job"s finished."
Elizabeth"s tear-stained face was hidden on her husband"s shoulder.
"I--I spent the twenty-seven dollars for--for gloves," she confessed.
"Evelyn said I didn"t have enough long--ones."
"_Confound Evelyn!_" said the young man strongly. "Come, Betty, dear, you"re not to let this thing bother you, it isn"t worth it. I"ll pay this bill to-morrow. It"s lucky I"ve the money in the bank; and I"ll write to Mrs. Van D., too." He clenched his fist as though he would like to use something more powerful than his pen.
"But, Sam, you oughtn"t to--I can"t let you pay--for----"
"Well, I guess I can buy my wife a dress if I want to, and that blue velvet"s a stunner. You haven"t worn it yet, have you, dear? but when you do you"ll look like a posy in it. Come, sweetheart, this was a tough proposition, I"ll admit, but don"t you let it bowl you over completely.
And, Betty, you won"t tell the Tripp lady about it, will you?
I--er--couldn"t stand for that, you know."
Elizabeth stole one look at the strong, kind face bent toward her. For the first time, though happily not for the last, she was realising the immense, the immeasurable comfort to be found in her husband"s love.
"I"ll never--do such a thing again," she quavered. "I knew all the time I was being extravagant; but I didn"t expect--I never supposed----"
"You couldn"t very well have foreseen the Pryse woman"s astonishing business methods, nor Mrs. Van D."s Christian forbearance." His tone was bitter as he spoke the last words. "But what I can"t seem to understand is how that bill ever found its way to my esteemed sixteenth cousin."
Elizabeth"s eyes overflowed again. "I"m afraid it was Evelyn," she stammered. "She--told Madame Pryse that you--were Mrs. Van Duser"s nephew."
Sam Brewster whistled. Then he fell into a fit of revery so prolonged that Elizabeth nestled uneasily in the strong circle of his arm. He was reviewing the events of the immediate past in the cold light of the present, and the result was not altogether complimentary to Miss Tripp.
"I say, little girl," he said at length, looking down at the tear-stained face against his shoulder, "I don"t want to be disagreeable, but--er--I can"t for the life of me see why Miss Tripp should interest herself so--intimately--in our affairs. Don"t you think you might--er--discourage her a bit?"
Elizabeth sighed reminiscently. "I wouldn"t hurt Evelyn"s feelings for the world," she said, "but I--I"ll try."
CHAPTER VII
The very next morning as Elizabeth was engaged in putting the finishing touches upon the arrangements of her new home, with all the keen delight of nest-building, so strong in some women and so utterly lacking in others, Miss Evelyn Tripp was announced, and a moment later stepped airily from the laborious little elevator. "Oh, here you are _at last_, you _darling_ girl!" she exclaimed, clasping and kissing Elizabeth with _empress.e.m.e.nt_. "I knew you were expected last night--indeed, I was here all the morning helping, but as I told your mother and that dear, quaint grandmamma of yours, I wouldn"t have intruded upon your very first evening _for the world_! How delightfully well and pretty you are looking, and isn"t this the _sweetest_ little place? and oh! I nearly forgot, _did_ you find Mrs. Van Duser"s note? I a.s.sure you I pounced upon _that_, and took good care to put it where you would both see it the _very_ first thing. I don"t mind confessing that I am simply devoured with _curiosity_. _Was_ it a cheque, dear? And _is_ she going to do something nice for you in a social way?"
Elizabeth"s cheeks burned uncomfortably. "It was only a--a friendly--at least I think--I am sure she meant it to be a friendly letter. She said so, anyway. Sam put it in his pocket and took it away with him," she made haste to add, forestalling the urgent appeal in Miss Tripp"s luminous gaze.
"Well, I am sure that was _most_ sweet and gracious of Mrs. Van Duser.
Didn"t you find it so, my dear? So _dear_ of her to personally welcome you to _Boston_! You"ll call, of course, as soon as she returns from her country place. She will expect it, I am sure; such women are _most_ punctilious in their code of social requirements, and you can"t be _too_ careful not to offend. You"ll forgive me for saying this much, won"t you, dear?"
Elizabeth was conscious of a distinct sense of displeasure as she met Miss Tripp"s anxiously solicitous eyes. "You are very good, Evelyn,"
she said, "but Sam--Mr. Brewster--thinks it will be best for us not to--" She paused, her candid face suffused with blushes. "I"d--prefer not to talk about Mrs. Van Duser, if you please. We don"t _ever_ expect to go and see her."
The tactful Miss Tripp looked sadly puzzled, but she felt that it would not be the part of wisdom to press the issue for the moment. Her face wreathed itself anew in forgiving smiles as she flitted about the little rooms. "_Isn"t_ this the most convenient, cosy little apartment?" she twittered. "I am _so_ glad I was able to secure it for you; I a.s.sure you I was obliged to use all of my diplomacy with the agent. And your pretty things _do_ light up the dark corners so nicely. And speaking of corners somehow reminds me, I have found you a _perfect treasure_ of a maid; but you must take her at once. She"s a cousin of our Marie, and has always been employed by the best people. She was with Mrs. Paget Smythe last, I believe. She told Marie last night that she would be willing to come to you for only twenty dollars a month, and that"s _very_ reasonable, considering the fact that she is willing to do part of the laundry work,--the towels, sheets and plain things, you know. _Expensive?_ Indeed it"s not, dear--for _Boston_. Why, I could tell you of plenty of people who are _glad_ to pay twenty-five and put all their laundry out.
I"d advise you to engage Annita without delay. Really, you couldn"t do better."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I mean to do my own work," she said decidedly. "I shall want something to do while Sam is away, and why not this when I--like it?"
"But you won"t like it after a while, my poor child, when the shine is once worn off your new pans and things, and _think_ of your hands! It"s absolutely impossible to keep one"s nails in any sort of condition, and besides the heat from the gas-range is simply _ruinous_ for the complexion. Didn"t you _know_ that? Of course you are all milk and roses now, but how long do you suppose that will last, if you are to be cooped up in a hot, stuffy little kitchen from morning till night?" Miss Tripp paused dramatically, her eyes wide with sympathy and apprehension.
"But we--I am sure we oughtn"t to afford to keep a maid," demurred Elizabeth in a small, weak voice. "So please don"t----"
"Oh, of course, it is nothing to me, my dear," and Miss Tripp arose with a justly offended air. "I _thought_ I was doing you a kindness when I asked Annita to call and see you this morning. It will be perfectly easy for you to tell her that you don"t care to engage her. But when it comes to _affording_, _I_ think you can scarcely afford to waste your good looks over a cooking range. It is your duty to your husband to keep yourself young and lovely as long as you possibly can. It is only _too_ easy to lose it all, and then--" Miss Tripp concluded her remarks with a shrug of her shapely shoulders, which aroused the too impressionable Elizabeth to vague alarms.
"I am sure," faltered the bride of two months, "that Sam would like me just as well even if I----"
"Of course you _think_ so, dear, every woman does till it is _too late_," observed Miss Tripp plaintively. "I"m sure I _hope_ it will turn out differently in your case. But I could tell you things about some of my married friends that would-- Well, all I have to say is that _I_ never dared try it--matrimony, I mean--and if I were in your place-- But there! I _mustn"t_ meddle. I solemnly promised myself years and years ago that I wouldn"t. The trouble with me is that I love my friends _too_ fondly, and I simply cannot endure to see them making mistakes which might _so easily_ have been avoided. I"m coming to take you out to-morrow, and we"ll lunch down town in the nicest, most inexpensive little place. And--_dear_, if you finally decide _not_ to engage Annita, _would_ you mind telling her that through a _slight misunderstanding_ you had secured some one else? These high-cla.s.s servants are _so easily_ offended, you know, and on account of _our Marie_--a perfect _treasure_ Oh, _thank_ you! _Au revoir_--till to-morrow!"
Perhaps it is not altogether to be wondered at that immediately after Miss Tripp"s departure Elizabeth found occasion to glance into her mirror. Yes, she was undoubtedly prettier than ever, she decided, but suppose it should be true about the withering heat of the gas-range; and then there were the rose-tinted, polished nails, to which Elizabeth had only lately begun to pay particular attention. The day"s work had already left perceptible blemishes upon their dainty perfection.
Elizabeth recalled her mother"s hands, marred with constant household labour, with a kind of terror. Her own would look the same before many years had pa.s.sed, and would Sam--_could_ he love her just the same when the delicate beauty of which he was so fond and proud had faded? And what, after all, was twenty dollars a month when one looked upon it as the price of one"s happiness?
Elizabeth sat down soberly with pencil and paper to contemplate the matter arithmetically. Thirty-eight dollars for rent, and twenty dollars for a maid, subtracted from one hundred and twenty--the latter sum representing the young engineer"s monthly salary--left an undeniable balance of sixty-two dollars to be expended in food, clothing and other expenses. After half an hour of careful calculation, based on what she could remember of Innisfield prices, Elizabeth had reached very satisfactory conclusions. Clothing would cost next to nothing--for the first year, at least, and food for two came to a ridiculously small sum.
There appeared, in short, to be a very handsome remainder left over for what Sam called "contingencies." This would include, of course, the fixed amount which they had prudently resolved to lay by on the arrival of every cheque. This much had already been settled between them. Sam had a promising nest-egg in a Boston bank, and both had dreams of its ultimate hatching into a house and lot, or into some comfortable interest-bearing bonds. Elizabeth was firmly resolved to be prudent and helpful to her husband in every possible way; but was it not her duty to keep herself young and lovely as long as possible? The idea so cogently presented to her attention by Miss Tripp not an hour since appeared to have become so much her own that she did not recognise it as borrowed property.
It was at this psychological instant that a second summons announced the presence of a certain Annita McMurtry in the entrance hall below. "Did Mrs. Brewster wish to see this person?"
Elizabeth hesitated for the fraction of a minute. "You may tell her to come up," was the message that finally found its way to the hall-boy"s attentive ear.
Annita McMurtry was a neatly attired young woman, with a penetrating black eye, a ready smile and a well-poised, not to say supercilious bearing. In response to Elizabeth"s timid questions she vouchsafed the explanation that she could "do everything" and was prepared "to take full charge."
"And by that you mean?"
"I mean that the lady where I work doesn"t have to worry herself about anything. I take full charge of everything--ordering, cooking, laundry and waiting on table, and I don"t mind wiping up the floors in a small apartment like this. Window-cleaning and rugs the janitor attends to, of course."
"When--could you come, if I--decide to engage you?" asked Elizabeth, finding herself vaguely uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the alert black eyes.
"If you please, madam, I"d rather speak first about wages and days out.
I"d like my alternate Thursdays and three evenings a week; and will you be going to theatres often with supper parties after? I don"t care for that, unless I get paid extra. I left my last place on account of it; I can"t stand it to be up all hours of the night and do my work next day."
"I should think not!" returned Elizabeth, with ready sympathy. "We should not require anything of the sort. As to wages, Miss Tripp said you would be willing to come for twenty dollars. It seemed very high to me for only two in the family." Elizabeth spoke in a very dignified way; she felt that she appeared quite the experienced housekeeper in the eyes of the maid, who was surveying her with a faint, inscrutable smile.
"I never work for a family where there is more than two," said Miss McMurtry pointedly. "I could make my thirty-five a month easy if I would. But Miss Tripp must have misunderstood me; twenty-two was what I said, but you"ll find I earn it. I"ll come to-morrow morning about this time, and thank you kindly, madam." The young woman arose with a proud composure of manner, which put the finishing touch upon the interview, and accomplished her exit with the practised ease of a society woman.
"I wonder if I ought to have done it? And what will Sam say?" Elizabeth asked herself, ready to run undignifiedly after the girl, whose retiring footsteps were already dying away down the corridor. But Sam was found to be of the opinion that his Elizabeth had done exactly right. He hadn"t thought of hiring a servant, to be sure, but he ought, manifestly, to have been reminded of his omission. It was surely not to be expected that a man"s wife should spend her time and strength toiling over his food in a dark little den of a kitchen. No decent fellow would stand for that sort of thing. He wanted his wife to have time to go out, he said; to enjoy herself; to see pictures and hear music. As for the expense, he guessed they could swing it; he was sure to get another rise in salary before long. And much more of the same sort, all of which proved pleasantly soothing to Elizabeth"s somewhat disturbed conscience.
"I suppose Grandma Carroll would say I was a lazy girl," she sighed.
"You didn"t marry Grandma Carroll, dear," Sam told her, with a humorous twinkle in his eyes which Elizabeth thought delightfully witty.
CHAPTER VIII