The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 07, Issue 45, 7 November 1907, Page 3

The Storyteller

MRS. MOLYNEUX'S PARLOR MAID

' Aunt Grace,' announced Miss Bawn Desmond, coming in tired and wet, ' I've made .up my mind to go out as a parlor maid.' 'My dear,' cried old MLss Quinn,* who was only Aunt Guace ' by courtesy, lifting her thin old hands, 'what a__ shocking idea ! ' in spite of the hard day she had had interviewing possible and impossible employers, tramping from one agency to another, there was something victorious and triumphant In Miss Desmond's air. It was me thing that hindered her preferment in the positions of governess, companion, and all such genteel employments where meekness is a thing desirable. Ai this moment she was standing by the fender, with* one slender foot on it, quite heedless of the steam arising from her wet garments. She was wearing a long coat of palest gray hornesp.un, which inclosed a very beautiful 'figure. The big gray hat with gulls' wings on it, and the veil, which she had not troubled to lift hardly dimmed her brilliant hair and the imperial flasning of her large blue eyes. A girl not made for meekness certainly, but with a capacity for affeciion and devotion, which none knew better than the delicate, stately maiden lady who had' been her mother's old friend, and would fain have Icept Bawn forever under her rodf.

The girl absolutely looked her name, which is the Irish for ' fair.' She was fair and abundant. Already, indeed, there was a little suggestion of ma'tronliness about the flowing lines of her beautiful figure framed for motherhood. Since she would never see twentyfive again, the suggestion but added to her beauty. Her teeth were white and even, her lips red, her complexion rosy. She was, indeed, the last person in the world io tread those dusty paths of spinsterhood which are the ways of governesses and companions, ' A woman offered me £25 to-day, Aunt Grace,' she went on scornfully. "' I aslced her how much she gave her cook, and she was so talcen by surprise that she answered me. She gave her £60 a year. I asked her how long she. supposed" it had taken me to acquire my languages and my music. They all looked at my hair as though it were something disgraceful. My poor oriflamme.' She took off her hat and looked at her hair in the glass, patting it affectionately as she did so. 'It is quite true that it is what that horrid Mrs. Graham Kerr called "very remarkable." A young woman who has to earn her own living shouldn't be endowed with such hair.'

It was beautiful hair of so vivid a tawny as to be almost -orange. There was a great abundance of it, and it curled and rippled and crinkled and waved in a bewildering fashion. ' I wonder if I could get it all under a cap ? ' the owner said, still caressing it. , ' Oh, go away, do ! ' cried Miss Quinn, in a despairing voice. 'Go away and get off those wet things and come back and talk sense ! '

Miss Desmond went obeaienfly. She had begun to not.ice that uncomfortable steam herself. Presently she returned in a" loosely-fitting gown of orange tawny velveteen, the very shade of her hair, which was curiously becoming to her. She was as magnificent a creature in her way as the great cat, as yellow as a tiger n wlio sat blinking at her from the hearth rug • tut she was- not the least bit in the world feline' altnougli she had claws, as some of her would-bfe employers had felt. 1 I'm in earnest, Aunt Grace,' she said, seating herself, and allowing Selim, the cat, to make himself cosy on the tail of her gown. ' To-morrow I'm going to look for a parlor maid's place. There are no genteel- places any more— or, at least, -they are wretchedly paid. No, I can't stay with you, dear. We are awfully comfortable together, but you ' know your annuity would just keep us, no more.. I feel I'm eating Selim's ana Monsieur's bread as it is. Not that Monsieur would grudge it to me, the dear ! ' She lifted a small white Pomeranian on to her knee and kissed 'his forehead. ' And I must send money home to Balhntubber. There's the stepmother and all those young mouths. I promised dafl Fd be 'good to the stepmother, and she was good to me when I was a kid.' • It was no use Miss Quinn protesting, weeping even. She knew that once Bawn had made up her mind it was useless trying to move her. She was

never /quite sure when Bawn was joking ; and a remark of the girl's that there was only one alternative to the parlor maid plan, and that was to walk with the unemployed shaking a collecting box, reduced the old lady to a 'terrified compliancy. She was never quite sure of what Bawn mijgit do. 1 You know,' she said, during one of the days that followed, when Bawn was dismissing or being dismissed by possible or impossible mistresses, ' you know you'll never be able to keep a parlor maiu s place. You won't be— respected enough— and— and— ' Miss Quinn had her handkerchief to her eyes — ' you never could conceal your dislikes. No one will keep you.' ' Yes, some one will, when I've found tu'e person I want to live with, ihere are Tots of nice people looking for parlor maids ; there are only Gorgpns looking for governesses and companions. When I find the right person, she'll never give me up, once she has seen my tables and my care of the plate and house ' linen. She will wonder how she ever endured the others.'

Those days following had many adventures, even to the arriving of envelopes addressed to Miss Desmond as ' Brigid Desmond '—she had thought it wise to suppress her real name, as not being within the grasp of the ordinary employer— containing letters beginning ' Brigid Desmond ' in a naked brevity. ' It seems a rather inhuman way,' Miss Bawn said quite enjoying the old lady's stormy indignation.' ' Some of them would be for calling me "Desmons," but I shan't hire gut with them. -- -The lady who shall be my mistress will be one to call me "Brieid " and even to say " please " to me.' ' Sure enough, one evening Bawn came home triumphant. She had got ' a place 'as parlor maid in a flat and a record amount of wages, namely £45 a year. '

' How cau yoi maoiae-e it ? ' < n.k-d Miss Qui.ui, softly -weeping into her handkerchief. ' I asked for it and I got it,' said Bawn, tiiumphantly, ''although if it wasn't for Ballintubbar I'd alina + . serve her for love. Such a sweet old Judy, Aunt Grace— almost as great a darling as yourself. The Honorable Mrs. Molyneux is her name.' • There were Molyneuxes of Templebredin,' •Ijegian Miss Quinn, hut Bawn was too excited to listen to her.

' This time next year,' she said, ' she won't part with me for a hundred a year. There's a cook who will have to go. If ever I saw thief written in a human face ! 1 know she has been robbing that old dear. It is the sweetest little doll's house of a flat ! I shall easily be able for it, cooking and all. If we want anything extra, we can have it in.' It was in vain for Miss Quinn, who was a County Ulare woman, and connected with every title in the county, to protest. A week later saw Bawn, with a modest tin trunk on .top of a four-wheeler, driving off from the little house that was always so kindly willing to shelter her. She was in the highest spirits, the least bit in the world damped by wie sight of Miss Quinn in tears on the doorstep.

* Never mind, dear,' she called back. ' I'll come every second Sunday afternoon and every one of my evenings out. I shan't^have anyone to walk out with, you see, and it's ever so much nicer than being a governess.'

Some time' later she was standing before Mrs. Molyneux in the little slice of drawing-room that held so many b.eautiful things, looking taller, more opulently built than ever, her hair more flamboyant than ever, in her plain black frock and whuc cap and apron. The old lady was looking at her in a puzzled way. IMy dear,' she said, ' you are a lady surely, are you not ? '

Bawn repressed a mischievous impulse to answer, 4 No, please 'm ; a parlor maid,' which was on the tip of her tongue. It seemed an impertinent thought, taken in conjunction with the kind, anxious old race opposite to her. Instead she blushed, and tne blush gave her an expression of charming soiuness. 4 I am a lady parlor maid,' she said. •Ah ! I have heard of such things. And are you sure you can do my work ? You're not doing it for a jest or to write about it, are you, my dear ? ' ' I should never think of such a thing,' said oawn, indignantly.

- 4 You won't scratch my plate, will you ? I ' have some very beautiful old plate. And I should expect you to •do certain things for me which my maid would do if I had a maid — to mend my laces and wash my fichus, and make my caps and things of that sort.' 1 Try me,' said Bawn laconically. The old' lady looked at her anxiously.

1 x took a fancy to you my dear, the minute x saw you,' she said, ' ami that explains my engaging you. As I said to my nephew, Captain Gerald Aylmer Molyneux, you were not at all the person 1 imagined' as a parlor maid. \our hair, now.' ' You won't notice my hair in time, 1 said ±>awn coaxingly. ' And 1 am going to be such a comfort to you. Only, if you please, Mrs. Molyneux, I'd rather no one but you knew I was a lady. No one at all.' 'Not my nephew? Why, I tell -Mm everything.' 'It can't interest Captain Molyneux, 1 Bawn said. ' I never meant to have told you. It's a false sort of position. Why a lad}' parlor maid ? 1 can be a parlor maid and a lady without its being explicitly stated. Let it be our secret.' Mrs. Molyneux had a_ thought ; the reflection of it flashed in her face. The girl was gloriously handsome. If her nephew knew that she was a lady, he might be attracted by her "beauty. He would insist on treating her rather as a lady than, a servant. 'Yes, it would complicale matters. ' Very, well, my dear, I shall not tell him,' slie said. ' And 1 am so glad that I have put you a folding bed in the little dress-ing-room off my own room. . I thought it would be convenient when I wanted you to do tmngs for me. I felt that I could not ask you to occupy the same room with Jane.' * I am sure Jane snores,' said Bawn, with a glint of humor in her eye. It was not long before Dung's came to a crisis with Jane. Jane objected to hawing a young person in the kfEchen who had a way of looking at her with that humorous and observant gaze. it was impossible to say that Brigid did not do her work. She did it, indeed, wilh a thoroughness and ex^uisiteness unknown in kitchen annals, which was another cause of offence. Jane didn't think her hair respectable, either, and altogether disapproved of "the new parlor maid. 'My dear, she is so dreadfully sullen,' said lurs. Molyneux, piteously, one afternoon, when it was Brigid's evening out. ' I am really afraid to be left alone with her, and that is why 1 have asked my nephew to spend the afternoon and dine. Perhaps she will give us no dinner, and I am sure she will not wait. Sometimes I think that Jane drinks.' 1 WJien is her month up ? ' asked iiawn, with a sudden air of decision. ' To-morrow.' ' yvill you give me her money and make me housekeeper for this afternoon, Mrs. Molyneux? ' ' My dear, what are you going to do ? ' ' To dismiss Jane.' 1 i have wanted to do it for five years, and have never dared to. lam afraid Jane "wastes; mine is such an extravagant establishment for its size. I wouldn't mind, only that I haven't really much money of my own, although my dear boy, Gerald, is so good to me.' ' There is no reason why your money should- go into Jane's pocket,' said Bawn quietly. ' Give me the necessary power.' ' And the dinner ? I don't want my nephew to do without his dinner.' * I shall see to that.' ' Hadn'T; you better wait till he comes ? June is so dreadfully violent.' ' She will not be violent with me.' After Bawn had left her, Mrs. Molyneux listened with her gentle old heart in her mouth for an explosion that should shake the little flat, but all was silent within the room flooded with afternoon sunshine and sweet with growing flowers and flowers in. vases. Bawn coula not have spoken yet. It was a relief to hear "Captain Gerald's key in the door. He Had a latchkey for his aunt's fiat, and came and went as he would. * ' There is some odd sort of drama going on in your kitchen, Aunt Sybilla,' he said, coining in. ' The door was open, and I saw your new parlor maid standing, like an angry goddess, on one side of the table, and a. hcaped-up person, whom I took to be Jane, on the other.' Within half an hour Jane was out of the house. The details of that encounter Mrs. M-olyneux never knew, although after Jane had gone she noticed Bawn, with a strangle smile, folding some -filmy old laces, which she had not been able to find of late, -away in drawers. Also, in the days thaft followed, various trinkets £nfi pieces of plate long missing were returned to tlieir places.

1 I'm afraid it was compounding a fejomy,' said Bawn ; ' but she gave up all the tickets, poor wretch ! And I dion't think you'd like the publicity of prosecuting, Mrs. Molyneux.'

' T.o foe sure not ! ' the old lady answered hastily. 4 She promised to mend her ways, and mentioned incidentally that she had saved enough to marry the man of her choice,' liawn remarked, witn a grim smile. 'If she'd been .going to look for another place, I'd have had my doubts.'

The dinner was perfect that evening. To be sure, for some of the details Bawn was obliged to resort to a Piccadilly restaurateur, but, then, the notice was sfiort. And she surpassed herself in her table decoratron, which consisted of many kinds of roses. She had been to Oovent Garden that morning, and had bought her roses for a song. With the removal of Jane life at the flat became idyllic, ibawn had discovered a clean, quiet young woman, who • came in the morning to do the rough work. For the rest, she delighted in doing the duties of what she had called the ' doll's house flat ' and waiting on its mistress, to whom she had become warmly attached. Captain Gerald Molyneux was there very often. For a fashionable man a'btout 'town, he was extraordinarily devoted to his aunt by marriage. He had never let her feel lonely indeed, but now he was more at the flat than ever. ' I don't know what there is about your flat, .^unt Sybilla,' he said. ' There is something so restful. When one steps into your little white hall, it is as though one had left all the fret and disturbance of the world outside.' ' Dear boy,' the old lady said, looking at him affectionately. _ ' I didn't know you had any fret and disturbance, Lrerald. But it is true that I live in great peace. It is all due to Brigid ; she has made such a change in my life.' • Ah, Brigid ! ' Captain Gerald looked uneasily at Mrs. Molyneux. ' She seems a very— admirable kind of girl. Not in the least like a parlor maid, Aunt Sybilla, is she ? ' ' Servants arc different in our days,' said Mrs. Molyneux evasively, without looking at her nephew. About thi6 time, or sown after, she noticed thfit he became silent, restless, out of sorts. At last he announced to her one day that he was going, to exchange into a regiment under orders for India, and likely to get some service in a troublesome little frontier war, which at the time was taking up a paragraph or two in the papers every day. Mrs. Molyneux was dismayed. She let a tear fall, which much affected Captain Gerald. 1 I hate fo leave you, dear,' he said, taking up the thin, white old hand and kissing it. ' You see, you're the nearest tiling I've ever had to a mother, and an uncommonly good substitute. But I'm tired of being an ornamental soldier. I want to work, ihe kind of life we lead is the safest thing in the world to get a man into some kind of mischief. Let me go, dear, and don't make Ft too hard for me. Indeed, lit will be the best tiling.' Mrs. Molyneux dried her tears. Something in GeraWs voice as much as in his words alarmed her, for she knew not what. Was it possible the boy, who had always tieen so good, was in some disreputable kind of a scrape, or likely to be in one ? She was vaguely frightened, and said nothing more to turn him from his purpose. He was on the eve of effecting the exchange when he came to the flat one afternoon with a greater gloom on Ms brow than usual, and of late he had been very gloomy. 1 I knocKed up against that bad lot Reggie, in Regent street,' he safd. 'He had just got back, and means to .■bie in London for some months. I want you to promise me one thing, Aunt Sybilla. Don't have him here.' . " Mrs. Molyneux looked at her favorite nephew in distress. 1 How am I to refuse Reggie,' she asked helplessly, 'if he wants to come ? After all, 'he is my nephew, too. I'm sure I don't ■ know how he came to be Caroline's boy. Perhaps he has given up his wild 1 ways.' 4 If Reggie is- going to come here, Aunt Sybilla, I don't leave London,' said Captain Gerald decisively. Reggie did come, came first to pay a duty visit with an intolerable sense of bloredom, stared at Bawn when she opened the do.or to him, and after that first visit came again and again. But, as sure as he came to the flat, his cousin Gerald was there before him, or met him in the lift coming up, or was on his heels when he rang the door bell. Even Mrs. Molyneux could not but notice that the air was charged with electricity. The young men sat and looked at each other ; and, after a time, fteggie would get up with a laugh, take his hat and cane,

and depart. Reggie was always the one who laughed; Gerald, who had been gay enough in me old days, was the one to look careworn and stern. At oimes he looked older than Reggie, although that young gentleman's handsome, rakish face had more lines in it than his . years accounted for, and Gerald had been used to look for many years the younger of the two. At last, one afternoon Reggie arrived without his shadow. He knew., perhaps, that for once Gerald was obliged to be on duty. It was some little time between, his ring at the door bell and his arrival at Mrs. Molyneux's little drawing-room. He was smiling, the used-up, cynical smile which roJade a good many people dislike him. One of his dark oheeks had a vivid red color. He looked excited. ' I am going to stay to dinner, Aunt Sybilla,' he said. ' Very well, my dear,' Mrs. Molyneux replied, quite oblivious of the scapegrace's tingling cheek, and feeling rejoiced that Captain Gerald was not to turn up, for the feud between the cousins troubled her. The dinner was exquisite, as usual ; but Brigid somehow fell short in her attendance. She looked as though she had been crying, and she neglected to iiil Keginald Molyneux's glass. In fact, the gentleman had to help himself. She dropped the plates before him i as though they burned her, and handed him vegetables at arm's length. Mrs. Molyneux was very short-sighted and very unoblservant, but even she could not fail to notice how her nephew behaved to the parlor maid. His eyes were •more on her than on his ,plate. In fact, he stared in a very rude way, so that at length 'the old lady grew indignant. ' I should be glad, Reggie,' she said stiffly, when Bawn was out of the room, ' if you would not stare at Brigid. You embarrass the poor girl sd that phe does not know what she is doing.' He murmured an apology, and" was a little more careful when Bawn returned." In fact, .Mrs. Molyneux thought Her rebuke had been received excellently, and began to excuse Reggie in her own mind. 'She could not sco 'hiow he stored' into the parlor maids eyes whenever she handed him a dish, nor his aln:ost imperceptible smile, v,hich cut Bawn like a lash. However, she did happen to be looking straight at them when this extraordinary incident occurred. Bawtt was handing^ an entree of sweetbreads and mushrooms in thick brown g^avy, -to which Mr. Molyneux was helping himself with great slowness. Suddenly she saw the girl lift the silver dish and deliberately pour its contents over the young gentleman's sleek head and immaculate -garments. There was a shriek, an oath, a scurry. Bawn had fled from the room, and ....egfinald Molyneux _ was standing, streaming like 'the god Neptune, only with brown gravy instead of sea water, a collection of sweetbreads and mushrooms between' his shirt front and his vest, brown gravy streaming! down his nose, hanging from his eyelashes and nas hair, helpless, infuriates," dumb. An hour later Captain Gerald, relieved from duty, made his appearance at the flat, and found his aunt gravely disturbed. ' I couldn't have Relieved it of Brigid — I couldn't, indeed ! ' she said. ' You should have seen the sight he was, even after he'd tried—To wash it off. I'm afraid he must have been rude to her.' 1 I'm in love with your parlor maid, Aunt Sybilla.' ' Was that why you were going to exchange ? ' 1 Because I was an idiot. I did know she was a lady. Yet— yet — I was afraid I miglft; break your heart.' ' She belongs to a very good family— the Desmonds of Ballintubber. I found she had been living with my old friend, Grace Quinn, whom I had never seen since we were girls together in the County Clare. Where are you going to, Gerald, my dear ? ' 1 To apologize to Miss Desmond for my cousin's rascality — to ask her to stay with you and me, Aunt Sybilla.' ' Bawn ! ' said Captain Gerald a few minutes later. .€. € I am proud of your spirit. If Reggie had succeeded in kissing you, I should have killed him.' Bawn looEed down thoughtfully a/fc her slender, strong hand. ' You should have Heard the report ' she said, 'when I smaclced his face. I thought Mrs. Molyneux would come out to see what had happened. He is not likely to forgeV she continued pensively. ' And yet it was a pity. It was a delicious entree ; I had mlade it thinking of you.' 1 I should not Have enjoyed it half so much -if I had ealen it,' Captain Gerald said, wiXh grim delight.— Katherine Tynan in the ' Sketch.'

Self-respect is one of the best sentiments wj; can have when evil entices, but our respect for ourselves must be based upon the value God sets upon our souls.