35 Readjustment and the righteous few
I had served a tolerable apprenticeship. I could be trusted with the beds, trusted not to rattle the cutlery, or spill the soup down sensitive backs; I could even be trusted with madam’s breakfast tray. All of which, to Hattie’s way of thinking, argued that now I might also be trusted with the family honour and glory.
Hattie had been with the family for eighteen years, which in itself spoke volumes for their indubitable superiority. Hattie was not merely a jewel of a cook, but a flawless pearl of rectitude. Saint Peter himself would hesitate to question the credentials of her favourites. Well, her family, though not rich, had something of which to be proud.
Mr. H., a notable lawyer, was a Virginian. The eldest son was attending the University of Virginia, as had all the eldest sons for generations. The second son was at some military college, and I gathered from the sudden fluster of Hattie’s manner as she pummelled her pie-crust that Master Jim had need of discipline. The two daughters, she felt sure, must have impressed me with their exceptional promise of beauty. Madge was a dashing brunette, and Vera such a demure little blonde! A lazy baggage, I would have said, and fat besides! Of madam, no need to speak, said Hattie. I must have judged for myself what a splendid woman she was.
So I had, and had long since suspected what Hattie’s loyalty sought to suppress. Amiable Mrs. H., with her feline sensuality and self-complacent comfort, was not quite the social equal of her saturnine spouse, whose ancestors may well have snooted peg-legged Stuyvesant, with his cow and cabbages and petty leases in New Amsterdam. According to Hattie’s conviction, it was my solemn duty to be thoroughly grateful for the privilege of standing in the shadow of the Lord’s elect. She had no doubt I was properly impressed.
How scandalized she would have been to read my thoughts! How shaken to the roots of her religious soul to know that every beautiful thing in that house intensified my resentment against the cruel inequalities of life. It was not that I coveted any of these domestic trappings. Things in themselves meant little to me, for all my yearning centred in the world of books. It was the atmosphere these things created, the sense of security and well-being, that made gracious living a matter of course. It was the contrast of this home as against Laura’s dead dwelling that set me thinking. Laura had brains and ability and a burning desire to better herself. To what good? She was starving in a cheap little room, for the sake of peace! Exaggeration? Well, I wondered how Miss Vera would manage her placid graces on ten dollars a month, six of which went for a bed, a patch of hall carpet, and a pine bureau! I wondered then, as I wonder now, how the fine moralists expect a girl to feed and clothe herself on ten dollars a month, in honour!
I love the picture the assembled family made at dinner, every one self-assured, even in displeasure, all so beautifully groomed. I admired the picture, but often enough, as I cleared away halfeaten food, I had a fleeting vision of the Rhinertson children watching with big eyes as the plate of potato bread went around. I used to see, against my will, thousands of similar tables, where the so-called respectable poor stoked their bellies with meagre, starchy fare, and, in spite of clinging faith, I was revolted. There was something terribly wrong in attributing such contrasts to the dispensation of the Almighty Providence. Something blasphemous in preaching a religion that laid such evils on the shoulders of God. Not so long as I had wit to judge for myself of the boundless riches of the earth should I be persuaded to believe that these natural resources were solely designed for the enjoyment of the few who invested their money, which, without the labour of the disinherited, would have been as worthless as charity.
Solemn sermons on the merits of thrift and virtue and wisdom should not alter my conviction that these things were wrong and iniquitous. None of these excellent qualities are the fruits of poverty. Even to practise the thrift of a squirrel requires a surplus over and above the meanest needs of the body. But neither the squirrel nor the prosperous individual knows anything about the vicious sort of thrift to which the very poor are shackled more ignominiously than was any African in irons.
In a vague, tormented fashion, these things simmered in my mind as I slipped about with choice cheese, fruits, coloured ices: foods I had not known to exist. Yet, how fortunate I had been compared to many! And these people thought themselves cruelly pinched. As they doubtless were, compared with the wealthy clique in Lakeside.
These rambling resentments did not effect my interest in the family. Mrs. H. was kind, as many indolent people are kind, chiefly because it administers to their own comfort not to disturb the status quo. She did nothing from morning till night, and accomplished it perfectly. She was never bored, seldom irritable, and rarely ever sorry for herself.
At nine-thirty I brought up her breakfast, for which she had a good appetite; which amazed me, who hate the sight of food at that hour. For the rest of the morning she played with her complexion, her hair, her finger-nails. Failing an engagement after lunch, she occupied first one soft chair, then another, toying with a book or a piece of embroidery. The same books lay on the table when I left, three months later, that were there on my arrival; the same piece of needlework beside them. What her thoughts were, only heaven knows.
She had the virtues of the lazy. She never questioned the progress of our work. If Hattie was satisfied with my efforts, that was all she cared about. She made a point of inquiring after our comfort. She had heard me coughing in the night, and wished to be sure that nothing serious ailed me. I was thin, she thought. Perhaps I didn’t eat enough. One morning she told me to sit down. She had been watching me, she said, and had decided that I was not the sort of girl who usually applied for housework. Why had I not thought of something better? I had a nice voice, a quiet manner, and I spoke very well indeed.
That shops were not hiring help astonished her. How queer! People still bought things, and prices were outrageous. Only yesterday she had paid seventeen dollars for four little doilies. They were not worth it, but when your finances were embarrassed, you had to put up with inferior stuffs. Why hadn’t I kept on at school, if things were so difficult in stores and offices?
I had no desire to dramatize the situation. But, I admitted how much I had wanted to attend Normal; that for the present it was impossible, since I had neither home nor other means of livelihood. How unfortunate! Well, in the spring, everything would improve. Business always picked up in the spring, for some reason or other. Meanwhile, she would ask her dressmaker and the milliner if there wasn’t an opening. It must be fun trimming hats—and so respectable. Then, which was very kind, she handed me a book, and told me I might read whatever I liked in the evening.
Mr. H. seemed little more than a dignified figurehead in the house, coming and going about his business in grave, absorbed silence; asking nothing; saying nothing. Now and then he brought home a gift of flowers for his wife. The girls were goodnatured and amiable, like their mother: troubled with nothing except clothes, skating parties, and sorority dances. They lived in a world distant as the moon.
For the most part, I gave little thought to any of them. I had my own problem to solve. On my day out I felt like a thief, stealing into the street from the narrow back alley, and thought I must surely die if, by some mischance, a former friend saw me. I still had all my vanity intact. That Tilly and Laura should know of my predicament did not matter, but the thought of meeting Carl, or Arne, or fortunate Mollie of boarding-school glamour turned me faint with shame. Then there were my letters from Bannister—dear, charming letters, that made me feel a horrid impostor. Impossible to believe that the queer creature who lived by grace of mop and broom had any right to these pages! And it scared me to death, being constantly reminded that not later than July he was coming to Duluth.
That must not be! Until I was out of the mess, and had some sort of home in which to receive him, he must not come! Not for all the romance of earth would I meet any man at a kitchen door! Fool or not, I had not sufficient faith in male affection to believe that it could survive the shock of meeting the object of its dream attired in a cotton uniform, and popping out of an alley!
Perhaps I did not want it so. To love me was to love my pride. What a headache it was! What endless hours of frantic worry it. created. The prospect of a home was still a misty vision. Papa had temporary employment, and was planning a lecture trip through the Icelandic settlements of Manitoba when the job was done. He had some hope of locating something better in Canada, which seemed less effected by the general depression.
Mamma was hoarding the pennies. She was the proud owner of two chairs and a kitchen table. In a month, she hoped to buy a stove. So far, my contribution was only the payment of the two dollars squandered in job-hunting. The most sainted thrift falls short on three dollars a week. Out of my first week’s salary (bless the word!) I had to pay the employment bureau, and buy blue percale for two dresses. I would look so nice in blue, Mrs. H. thought. I was much too young to go about in a black skirt and blouse.
A pair of shoes ate up the next week’s earnings, then I paid my debt, and now I had only to wait six weeks to get a spring coat. All providing the devil did not tempt me to think of a hat, or some wickedness like a lace collar, or the book of Aldrich’s poems, marked down to twenty-five cents in a near-by shop window.
Satan won, to the extent of the poems, I am glad to say. Virtue has brought me such small comfort. The little book was an oasis of joy in the dull monotony of stupid housework. For everything about housework is a stupid repetition, with the exception of cooking. The book of verse, and Hattie expertly assembling a beautiful meal, were the highlights of existence. Hattie’s cooking was a fine art; not an idle gesture, not a single, superfluous spoon cluttered the table. Everything was accomplished with ease and dispatch. Because I watched her intently, asking no worrisome questions, she tossed off a priceless hint now and then which I tucked away in the crannies of my mind. Many years later, when I had to feed thirteen pernickety boarders, I had reason to bless Hattie, and be grateful for a memory that retains and easily calls forth whatever it really fixes upon.
