Tracy Park

But when the Tracy carriage drew up, Grace Atherton saw and recognized her, and whispered, in an aside to her companion:

"For goodness" sake, Edith, look! There are the Tracys, our new neighbors." Then she bowed to Mrs. Tracy, and said: "Ah, I did not know you were on the train."

"I sat right behind you," was Mrs. Tracy"s rather ungracious reply: and then, not knowing whether she ought to do it or not, she introduced her husband.

"Yes, Mr. Tracy--how do you do?" was Mrs. Atherton"s response; but she did not in return introduce the young girl, whose dark eyes were scanning the strangers so curiously, and this Dolly took as a slight and inwardly resented it.

But Mrs. Atherton had spoken to her and that was something, and helped to keep her spirits up as she was driven along the turnpike to the entrance of the park.

On the occasion of Mrs. Frank"s first and only visit to her brother-in-law it was winter, and everything was covered with snow. But it was summer now, the month of roses, and fragrance, and beauty, and as the carriage pa.s.sed up the broad, smooth avenue which led to the house, Dolly"s eyes wandered over the well-kept lawn, sweet with the scent of newly-mown gra.s.s, the parteries of flowers and shrubs, the winding walks and clumps of evergreens here and there formed into fancy rooms, with rustic seats and tables under the over-hanging boughs; and when she reflected that all this was hers to enjoy for many years, and perhaps for her life-time, she felt the first stirring of that pride, and satisfaction, and self-a.s.sertion which was to grow upon her so rapidly and transform her from the plain, unpretentious woman who had washed, and ironed, and baked, and mended in the small house in Langley into the arrogant, haughty lady of fashion, who courted only the rich and looked down upon her less fortunate neighbors. Now, however, she was very meek and humble, and trembled as she alighted from the carriage before the great stone house which was to be her home.

"Isn"t this grand, Dolly?" her husband said, rubbing his hands together and looking about him complacently.

"Yes, very grand," Dolly answered him; but somehow it makes me feel weaker than water. I suppose, though, I shall get accustomed to it."

CHAPTER IV.

GETTING ACCUSTOMED TO IT.

In the absence of Mrs. Crawford, who for a week or more had been domesticated in the cottage in the lane, as the house was designated which Arthur had given her, there was no one to receive the strangers except the cook and the house-maid, and as Mrs. Tracy entered the hall the two came forward, bristling with criticism, and ready to resent anything like interference in the new-comers.

The servants at the park had not been pleased with the change of administration. That Mr. Arthur was a gentleman whom it was an honor to serve, they all conceded; but with regard to the new master and mistress, they had grave doubts. Although none of them had been at the park on the occasion of Mrs. Tracy"s first visit there, many rumors concerning her had reached them, and she would scarcely have recognized herself could she have heard the remarks of which she was the subject.

That she had worked in a factory--which was true--was her least offence, for it was whispered that once, when the winter was unusually severe, and work scarce, she had gone to a soup-house, and even asked and procured coal from the poor-master for herself and her mother.

This was not true, and would have argued nothing against her as a woman if it had been, but the cook and the house-maid believed it, and pa.s.sed sundry jokes together while preparing to meet "the pauper," as they designated her.

In this state of things their welcome could not be very cordial, but Mrs. Tracy was too tired and too much excited, to observe their demeanor particularly. They were civil, and the house was in perfect order, and so much larger and handsomer than she had thought it to be, that she felt bewildered and embarra.s.sed, and said "Yes "em," and "No, ma"am," to Martha, the cook, and told Sarah, who was waiting at dinner, that she "might as well sit down in a chair as to stand all the time; she presumed she was tired with so many extra steps to take."

But Sarah knew her business, and persisted in standing, and inflicting upon the poor woman as much ceremony as possible, and then, in the kitchen, she repeated to the cook and the coachman, with sundry embellishments of her own, the particulars of the dinner, amid peals of laughter at the expense of the would-be lady, who had said "she could just as soon have her salad with her other things, and save washing go many dishes."

It was hardly possible that mistress and maids would stay together long, especially as Mrs. Tracy, when a little more a.s.sured, and a little less in awe of her servants, began to show a disposition to know by personal observation what was going on in the kitchen, and to hint broadly that there was too much waste here and expenditure there, and quite too much company at all hours of the day.

"She didn"t propose to keep a boarding-house," she said, "or to support families outside, and the old woman who came so often to the bas.e.m.e.nt door with a big basket under her cloak must discontinue her calls."

Then there occurred one of those Hibernian cyclones which sweep everything before them, and which in this instance swept Mrs. Tracy out of the kitchen for the time being, and the cook out of the house. Her self-respect, she said, would not allow her to stay with a woman who knew just how much coal was burned, how much b.u.t.ter was used, and how much bread was thrown away, and who objected to giving a bite now and then to a poor old woman, who, poor as she was, had never yet been helped by the poor-master, or gone to a soup-house like my lady!

Martha"s departure was followed by that of Sarah, and then Mrs. Tracy was alone, and for a few days enjoyed herself immensely, doing her own work, cooking her own dinner, and eating it when and where she liked--in the kitchen mostly, as that kept the flies from the dining-room, and saved her many steps, for Dolly was beginning to find that there was a vast difference between keeping a house with six rooms and one with twenty or more.

Her husband urged her to try a new servant, saying there was no necessity for her to make a slave of herself: but she refused to listen.

Economy was a part of her nature, and besides that she meant to show them that she was perfectly independent of the whole tribe; the _tribe_ and _them_ referring to the hired girls alone, for she knew no one else in town.

n.o.body had called except the clergyman, not even Mrs. Crawford, whose friendship and possible advice Mrs. Tracy had counted upon, and with whom she knew she should feel more at ease than with Mrs. Atherton from Brier Hill, or Miss Hastings from Collingwood. She had seen both the last named ladies at church and had a nod from Mrs. Atherton, and that was all the recognition she had received from her neighbors up to the hot July morning, a week or more after the house-maid"s departure, when she was busy in the kitchen canning black raspberries, of which the garden was full.

Like many housekeepers who do their own work, Dolly was not very particular with regard to her dress in the morning, and on this occasion her hair was drawn from her rather high forehead, and twisted into a hard knot at the back of her head; her calico dress hung straight dawn, for she was minus hoops, which in those days were worn quite large; her sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and, as a protection against the juice of the berries, she wore a huge ap.r.o.n made of sacking. In this garb, and with no thought of being interrupted, she kept on with her work until the last kettle of fruit, was boiling and bubbling on the stove, and she was just glancing at the clock to see if it were time to put over the peas for dinner, when there came a quick, decisive ring at the front door.

"Who can that be?" she said to herself, as she wiped her hands upon her ap.r.o.n. "Some peddler or agent, I dare say. Why couldn"t he come round to the kitchen, door, I"d like to know?"

She had been frequently troubled with peddlers and agents of all kinds, and feeling certain that this was one--ringing the bell a second time, as if in a hurry--she started for" the door in no very amiable frame of mind, for peddlers were her abomination. Something ailed the lock or key, which resisted all her efforts to turn it; and at last, putting her mouth to the keyhole, she called out, rather sharply:

"Go to the back door: I cannot open this,"

Then, as she caught a whiff of burnt syrup, she hurried to the kitchen, where she found that her berries had boiled over, and were hissing and sputtering on the hot stove, raising a cloud of smoke so dense that she did not see the person who stood on the threshold of the door until a voice wholly unlike that of any peddler or agent said to her;

"Good morning, Mrs. Tracy. I hope I am not intruding."

Then she turned, and to her horror and surprise, saw Grace Atherton, attired in the coolest and daintiest of morning costumes, with a jaunty French bonnet set coquettishly upon her head, and a silver card-case in her hand.

For the moment Dolly"s wits forsook her and she stood staring at her visitor, who, perfectly at her ease, advanced into the room and said:

"I hope you will excuse me, Mrs. Tracy, for this morning call I came--"

But she did not finish the sentence, for by this time Dolly had recovered herself a little, and throwing off her ap.r.o.n, she replied, nervously:

"Not at all--not at all, I supposed you were some peddler or agent when I sent you to this door. They are the plague of my life, and think I"ll buy everything and give to everything because Arthur did. I am doing my own work, you see. Come into the parlor;" and she led the way into the dark drawing-room, and where the chairs and sofas were surrounded in white linen, looking like so many ghosts in the dim, uncertain light.

But Dolly opened one of the windows, and pushing back the blinds, let in a flood of sunshine, so strong and bright that she at once closed the shutters, saying, apologetically, that she did not believe in fading the carpets, if they were not her own. Then she sat down upon an ottoman and faced her visitor, who was regarding her with a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and wonder.

Grace Atherton was an aristocrat to her very finger-tips, and shrank from contact with anything vulgar and unsightly, and, to her mind, Mrs.

Tracy represented both, and seemed sadly out of place in that handsome room, with her sleeves rolled up and the berry stains on her hands and face. Grace knew nothing by actual experience of canning berries, or of ap.r.o.ns made of sacking, or of bare arms, except it were of an evening when they showed white and fair against her satin gown, with bands of gold and precious stones upon them, and she felt that there was an immeasurable distance between herself and this woman, whom she had come to see partly on business and partly because she thought she must call upon her for the sake of Arthur Tracy, the former occupant of the park.

Grace and Arthur had been fast friends, and Brier Hill was almost the only place where he had visited on anything like terms of intimacy.

Indeed, it was rumored by the busy knowing ones of Shannondale that, had the pretty widow been six years his junior instead of his senior, she would have left no art untried to win him. But here the wise ones were in fault, for though Grace Atherton"s heart was not buried in her husband"s grave, and, in fact, had never been her husband"s at all, it was given to one who, though he cared for it once, did not prize it now, for, with all the intensity of his n.o.ble nature, Richard Harrington, of Collingwood; loved the beautiful girl whom, years ago, he had taken to his home as his child, and whom, it was said, he was to marry. But if the belief that the love she once refused and which she would fain recover was lost to her forever rankled in her breast, Grace never made a sign, and laughed as gayly and looked almost as young and handsome as in the days when Richard was wooing her in the pleasant old English town across the sea. She had loved Richard then, but, alas! loved money more, and she chose a richer man, old enough to be her father, who had died when she was twenty-one and left her the possessor of nearly half a million, every dollar of which she would have given to have recalled the days which were gone forever.

Grace had been intending to call upon Mrs. Tracy ever since she came to the park. "Not," as she said to her friend, Edith Hastings, "for the woman"s sake, for she knew her to be vulgar: but because she was a neighbor and the sister-in-law of Arthur Tracy," And so at last she came, partly out of compliment and partly on business, into which last she plunged at once. She was going to the mountains with Mr. Harrington and Miss Hastings: her cook, who had been with her seven years, had gone to attend a sick mother, and had recommended as a fit person to take her place the woman who had just left Tracy Park.

"I do not like to take a servant without first knowing something of her from her last employer," she said: "and, if you do not mind, I should like to ask if Martha left for anything very bad."

Mrs. Tracy colored scarlet, and for a moment was silent. She could not tell that fine lady in the white muslin dress, with seas of lace and embroidery, that Martha had called her _second cla.s.sy_, and _stingy_ and _strooping_, and _mean_, because she objected to the amount of coal burned, and bread thrown away, and time consumed at the table, besides turning down the gas in the kitchen when she thought it too light, to say nothing of turning it off at the meter at ten o"clock, just when the servants were beginning to enjoy themselves. All this she felt would scarcely interest a person like Mrs. Atherton, who might sympathize with Martha more than with herself, so she finally said:

"Martha was saucy to me, and on the whole it was better for them all to go; and so I am doing my own work."

"Doing your own work!" and Grace gave a little cry of surprise, while her shoulders shrugged meaningly, and made Mrs. Tracy almost as angry as she had been with Martha when she called her mean and second-cla.s.s. "It cannot be possible that you cook, and wash, and iron, and do everything," Mrs. Atherton continued. "My dear Mrs. Tracy, you can never stand it in a house like this, and Mr. Arthur would not like it if he knew. Why he kept as many as six servants, and sometimes more. Pray let me advise you, and commend to you a good girl; who lived with me three years, and can do everything, from dressing my hair to making a blanc-mange. I only parted with her because she was sick, and now that she is well, her place is filled. Try her, and do not make a servant of yourself. It is not fitting that you should."

Grace was fond of giving advice, and had said more than she intended saying when she began, but Mrs. Tracy, though annoyed, was not angry, and consented to receive the girl who had lived at Brier Hill three years, and who, she reflected, could be of use to her in many ways.

While sitting there in her soiled working dress talking to the elegant Mrs. Atherton she had felt her inferiority more keenly than she had ever done before, while at the same time she was conscious that a new set of ideas and thoughts had taken possession of her, reawaking in her the germ of that ambition to be somebody which she had felt so often when a girl, and which now was to bud and blossom, and bear fruit a hundred fold. She would take the girl, and from her learn the ways of the world as presented at Brier Hill. She would no longer wear sacking ap.r.o.ns, and open the door herself. She would be more like Grace Atherton, whom she watched admiringly as she went down the walk to the handsome carriage waiting for her, with driver and footman in tall hats and long coats on the box.

This was the beginning of the fine lady into which Dolly finally blossomed, and when that day Frank went home to his dinner he noticed something in her manner which he could not understand until she told him of Mrs. Atherton"s call, and the plight in which that lady had found her.

"Served you right, Dolly," Frank said, laughing till the tears ran. "You have no business to be digging round like a slave when we are able to have what we like. Arthur said we were to keep up the place us he had done, and that does not mean that you should be a scullion. No, Dolly; have all the girls you want, and hold up your head with the best of them. Get a new silk gown, and return Mrs. Atherton"s call at once, and take a card and turn down one corner or the other, I don"t know which, but this girl of hers can tell you. Pump her dry as a powder horn; find out what the quality do, and then do it, and not bother about the expense. I am going in for a good time, and don"t mean to work either. I told Colvin this morning that I thought I ought to draw a salary of about four thousand a year, besides our living expenses, and though he looked at me pretty sharp over his spectacles he said nothing. Arthur is worth half a million, if he is worth a cent. So, go it, Dolly, while you are young," and in the exuberance of his joy Frank kissed his wife on both cheeks, and then hurried back to his office, where he spent most of his time trying to be a gentleman.

That day they dined in the kitchen with a leaf of the table turned up as they had done in Langley, but the next day they had dinner in the dining-room, and were waited upon by the new girl as well as it was possible for her to do with her mistress" interference.

"Never mind; Mr. Tracy"s in a hurry. Give him his pie at once," she said, as Susan was about to clear the table preparatory to the dessert, but she repented the speech when she saw the look of surprise which the girl gave her and which expressed more than words could have done.