CHAPTER VSHERRY
It was the last of May, and more than a year since the cold February day when Alex. went up the mountain road to the tumbledown house, which was now a fine mansion,—the pride of its owner and the wonder of the people in the neighborhood, who were waiting developments. All through the previous summer and autumn the work of repairs and additions had gone on, with Bowles as head carpenter and Alex. there half the time giving directions and hurrying on the work. The roofs and chimneys and cellar walls and cisterns and windows had all been attended to. The piazza had been extended on three sides of the house and a bowling alley and billiard-room added. The barn and stables had been enlarged to accommodate the horses Alex. meant to have, with carriages and tally-ho for the use of his guests. Two grooms had been hired, with a chef and housekeeper and maids for the kitchen, and a head waiter. Invitations had been given to and accepted by people anxious to try this new departure, which promised so much.
“And now there’s nothing but the table waiters,” Alex. said. “I must advertise for these, and I want four to begin with, nice, pretty girls,—salesladies, I suppose, and stenographers and typewriters, and, possibly, teachers, who will be glad of a change.”
“And put on airs, and think they must sit with us when their work is done, and perhaps practise on the piano. I’ve heard of such things,” Amy said, with a toss of her head.
She was prouder than her brother, and did not believe in waitresses who might put on airs and sit with the family. She wanted girls who would keep their places. Alex. laughed, and said he’d advertise any way, and see what came of it. Two days later there appeared in the leading papers an advertisement to the effect that four or five capable young girls were wanted as table waiters during the summer at Maplehurst, among the White Mountains; the work would be light and the highest wages given. Those wishing for the place were to apply to the housekeeper, Mrs. Groves, No. — West Twenty-fourth Street, and, if accepted, were to report at Maplehurst the last week in June.
The morning after the advertisement was inserted a New York paper found its way to Buford, a little inland town in Massachusetts, where there was a very aristocratic look in the one long, broad street, and an air of sleepiness everywhere. There didn’t seem, however, to be anything drowsy about the young girl who had been for the daily mail, finding only the morning paper, which she read as she walked along the elm-skirted street towards home.
“Oh, mother and Katy, just listen to this!” she cried, sitting down in the doorway and reading the advertisement. “I mean to apply. I am told many young ladies do this very thing just for theexcitement and a little money. It will be such a lark, and it’s where our great-grandfather Crosby used to live. You know Aunt Pledger wrote us that a Mr. Marsh was fitting it up for a big house party and calling it Maplehurst. I’ve always wanted to see the swell world without being seen,—have wanted to know how they demean themselves towards each other every day, and how they treat their employees, and here’s my chance. The highest of wages, too, though I don’t care so much for that as for the fun. Yes, I mean to apply.”
She was very much excited, but her ardor was slightly dampened by her more practical sister Kate, who exclaimed:
“Fanny Sheridan Sherman! Are you crazy? Applying for a place as waitress in a hotel, or boarding-house, or whatever it is! Have you no pride, and what do you think Aunt Pledger would say, and how would she like her New York friends to know her niece was a waiter?”
“Aunt Pledger!” and Fanny, or Sherry, as she was usually called, laughed a low, rippling laugh as she leaned against the door-jamb and fanned herself with the paper. “I have never been able to make you understand that Aunt Pledger isn’t a swell woman, if she does live in New York. Her house is away down town on a side street, and her furniture the same she had when she was married years and years ago. She keeps one girl, Huldah, and she is gone half the time, leaving Aunt Pledger to open the door herself and do lots of things. I know she hasplenty of money, but is close, and she don’t care what we do to get a living, if it is respectable and we don’t come upon her. When father died last summer and she came to the funeral, didn’t she ask us both what we intended to do, or what we could do, and when I told her I couldn’t do a blessed thing, unless it was housework, didn’t she say, ‘Better that than do nothing and expect to be cared for by others. Young people succeed better who rely on themselves.’ I believe she was afraid we might ask her for help. Little we would get. I know she had me in New York two weeks, and took me everywhere, and she was very kind to me. But that was the first attention she ever showed us, and I don’t believe she would have done that if it hadn’t been for Miss Saltus, whom she met on some charitable work, and who spoke of us and said, ‘The next time either of your nieces are in New York let me know; I’d like to call upon them.’ After that Aunt Pledger invited me and did the handsome thing, for she never does a thing by halves, and then Mr. Saltus came to us in the opera-box and was glad to see me, and that helped. She is an awful good woman, of course,—goes to church twice every Sunday, rain or shine, and half supports a society for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals; but she believes in letting people take care of themselves, if they can. Her pride will not be hurt because I hire out as a waitress. I don’t know enough to teach as you do, but I can wash dishes and wait upon table, and earn some money and not let you be the only bread-winner. Then I shall enjoy immensely beingMr. What’s-his-name’s waitress, and know I am somebody else just as good as he is. He is the man who came to Aunt Pledger’s when I was there, and asked if she ever knew old Mr. Marsh. I nearly broke the window trying to see him as he left the house.”
“Young?” Kate asked, and Sherry replied:
“Yes, and good looking, judging from the back of his head and the fit of his coat. Uncle Pledger knows about him as he does about all the smart set, although he’s not in it. He is just an old-time New Yorker, who has lived in the city fifty years and seen the rise and fall of everybody, and knows everybody by reputation. He might live uptown in one of those handsome brown stones, but, like Aunt Pledger, prefers to stay where he is, leaving the city to roll on as it pleases.”
Here Sherry laughed as she recalled her own and Katy’s ideas of Aunt Pledger’s house and style before her visit there the previous year. Born in Buford and the daughter of a clergyman, she knew little of the world except what she had seen at boarding-school, where, with Katy, she had spent a year. Of fashionable society she knew nothing, except as it was partially represented by the Saltus family, who owned a large house just outside the village, where they spent their summers. Between the Saltuses and Shermans a strong friendship had sprung up, and Sherry was right in her surmise that it was to Rose Saltus she owed her invitation to visit her aunt. With Kate she had talked a great deal of her New York relative,—had wondered why they were never asked to visit herand why she never visited them, or paid them any attention except to send herself and Kate and their mother each a handkerchief and their father a book at Christmas. For the rest of the year she ignored them entirely.
“Another handkerchief? Yes, and here’s the mark she forgot to take off: twenty cents! I have six of them now, all the same size, quality and price,—half cotton,” was Sherry’s contemptuous comment when the last batch of handkerchiefs arrived with the twenty-cent mark upon them.
Sherry was the outspoken one of the family, to whom the most latitude was allowed by her rather stern father while he was living. He had wanted a boy, whom he was to call Sheridan, after his favorite general. But she proved to be a girl, and was christened Fanny Sheridan, and grew up a bright, lighthearted, impulsive girl, fond of excitement and adventure, making friends wherever she went and feeling herself everybody’s equal. To see New York had been the dream of her life, and when Mrs. Pledger’s invitation came she was delighted, for now she should see life as it ebbed and flowed in a great city. She had heard that her Uncle Pledger was a millionaire, and had expected a grandeur which would quite overshadow her own home. Of just what she thought of the reality she never said much until the morning when she received Alex.’s advertisement, and Katy suggested that Aunt Pledger would feel hurt to have her grand-niece a waitress. Mr. and Mrs. Pledger had been very kind to her, and gone far out of theirway to entertain her. They had never been to an opera in their lives until they took her there; and when the questions of seats came up they hired an expensive box, Mr. Pledger saying he’d do the whole thing or nothing, and he guessed he could afford to have a spree now and then. He had his spree and slept through half of it, but was glad Sherry enjoyed it, and was proud that Craig Saltus came into the box to call, and hoped those high bucks, the Marshes, saw him. If he was not in the smart set he knew everybody who was, and from having lived in New York so long both himself and wife were as good as encyclopedias with regard to the history of many of the people, and it was his boast that he had at some time loaned money to more than half of his more intimate acquaintances to tide them over some difficulty. He was proud of himself as a money lender,—proud that he could afford to wear plain clothes, live far down town and drive old Whitey. Sherry, however, did not seem quite in keeping with the old horse and buggy. Something in her face made him think of the grand turnouts and the ladies who graced them; and when the drive in the park was suggested, he thought to have a handsome carriage and “show her off with the best of ’em.” But his more frugal wife suggested that this would be quite an expense after the opera box, and though Sherry might grace any carriage he could hire, he would be out of place in his old gray coat and hat. So the carriage was given up and the drive taken behind Whitey. Sherry enjoyed it immensely, and saw Alex. Marsh, who Uncle Pledger told her “wasa swell man, but about as good as they made ’em,” and knew that he drove behind them on their way home, and called afterwards to inquire about his Uncle Amos, who owned the farm where her great-grandfather once lived, but she thought no more about him.
Since that time her father had died, leaving his family, as clergymen’s families frequently are left, with little to depend upon besides their own exertions. They owned the house they lived in; there had been a life insurance, and Kate was teaching in a graded school. Sherry, who was the cleverest of housekeepers, and saved her delicate mother in every possible way, was doing nothing, and had puzzled her brain until it ached over the problem as to what she could do. She wanted to see the world and to earn some money at the same time, and here was her chance. The waitress part did not disturb her at all. She would still be Fanny Sheridan Sherman, although she did not intend to make any capital out of that or expect any favors. She would go like the rest of the girls and be one of them. She was rather self-willed when her mind was made up, and overcoming her mother’s and sister’s scruples, she wrote to Mrs. Groves in New York, asking for a situation as waitress at Maplehurst.
“I hope you told her about Aunt Pledger, and that you were a clergyman’s daughter and a lady,” Katy said, and Sherry replied:
“Indeed I didn’t! I just asked for the place and signed myself ‘Fanny S. Sherman.’ I’m going to beFanny up there and leave Sherry behind with the rest of me.”
In a few days Mrs. Groves’ answer came, very stiffly worded, to the effect that Mrs. Groves would see her on a certain day at a certain hour, and would expect references as to character and ability.
“I told you so,” Katy said. “References from the last lady you worked for.”
“Which is mamma. I can manage that,” Sherry answered, not at all disheartened by Mrs. Groves’ requirements, and with the understanding that she should spend the night with Mrs. Pledger, she left home on the morning of the day appointed by Mrs. Groves for the interview.
CHAPTER VITHE INTERVIEW
Sherry did feel a little shaky as she went up the steps to No. — West Twenty-fourth Street and touched the bell. Thelarkdid not look quite so funny as it had at first. But with her usual strong will, she put aside any regret she might have felt. It was too late to go back; there was nothing to do but go forward. Her ring was answered, and she was soon face to face with Mrs. Groves, a woman of fifty-five or sixty, who had forgotten her youth, if she ever had any, and thought of nothing except to maintain her position with dignity and discharge her duties conscientiously. She felt it an honor to be chosen as the matron at Maplehurst by the Marshes, and did not shrink at all from the responsibility of choosing the waitresses. She had already dismissed a dozen or more as wholly unfitted for the place, and her forehead was puckered in a frown when Sherry’s card was handed to her.
“Fanny Sheridan Sherman,” she read. “A pretentious name. I remember her writing to me. Show her in.”
This last to the bell boy, who pushed aside the portière and Sherry entered and bowed to the lady rustlingin black satin, with a bit of Duchess lace at her throat and gold-rimmed eye-glasses on her nose. There was no servility in Sherry’s manner or appearance of timidity. She was always self-possessed, and never more so than now, when answering Mrs. Groves’ questions.
“What is your name? Oh, yes, I know,—Fanny Sheridan Sherman. Fanny will be sufficient, if I take you. Superfluities like Miss, as some girls like, will not be permitted.”
Sherry bowed and said she was twenty years old, that her home was in Buford, Massachusetts, that she had never been in service and had no references.
“No references!” Mrs. Groves repeated, rather severely, and Sherry replied: “None except what mother might give you. I have never worked out, but have done a good deal at home.”
“What can you do?”
“All that is required of a waitress, I think,” Sherry said. “You can try me, and if I do not suit you can dismiss me.”
“Are you willing to wear a cap?” was Mrs. Groves’ next question.
Two or three applicants for the place had refused caps and been promptly dismissed by Mrs. Groves, who looked curiously at Sherry, waiting for her answer.
“Why, yes, I’ll wear a cap if you wish it and think I’ll do my work any better.”
“It isn’t that,” Mrs. Groves said. “It is not amatter of work. It is a badge,—a sign,—a distinction——”
“Yes, I know,” Sherry replied. “I know what the cap means. I’ll wear it,” and she laughed inwardly as she saw herself in a cap waiting upon a table and imagined Katy’s indignation when she heard of it.
Something of the laugh showed in her eyes, and Mrs. Groves saw it and was puzzled. This was no ordinary girl seeking a situation, and she might make trouble with that high head and that look in her eyes which she could not fathom. But she must begin to make a choice. Alex. had said to her, “Get nice-looking girls, not low-down truck. You know I want everything first-class.” Sherry certainly was first-class and nice looking and not “low-down truck,” and Mrs. Groves decided to take her on trial. “It is settled then, and you will be at Maplehurst the last week in June, where I shall meet you and the other girls and break you in,” she said, after a little further questioning, which elicited nothing from Sherry with regard to Mrs. Pledger, or her father having been a clergyman and her family one of the best in Buford, three points upon which Katy had laid great stress.
She was equal to herself and going to run herself, and when she said good-morning to Mrs. Groves she left that lady in a very perplexed state of mind as to whether she had done well to engage a girl with Sherry’s face and manner, and who had never been in any kind of service.
“I can dismiss her if I do not like her,” shethought, and as she was the first she had accepted, she wrote her down in her book, “Fanny Sherman, Buford, Massachusetts, No. 1. Seems capable but airy, with her head too high. There is something behind, but trust me to manage her!”
Mrs. Pledger was not expecting Sherry, but she was thinking about her as she sat darning Joel’s socks in her basement kitchen and watching the soup simmering on the range. As usual, Huldah was out; she generally was in the afternoon, and evening both, for that matter. Mrs. Pledger’s humanitarian principles carrying her so far as to think a poor girl who worked in the basement all the morning should have a good share of the rest of the day for fresh air and recreation.
“Now, for the land’s sake, who can that be, and Huldah gone!” she said, as Sherry’s ring echoed through the house. “Miss Ellett, I do believe, and she’s come for my subscription to the Humane Society. She always catches me in my everyday clothes. I’ll whip off my big apron anyway.”
She took off her apron, and hurrying up the stairs opened the door to Sherry.
“For goodness’ sake,” she exclaimed, “where did you drop from? Think of angels,—you know the rest, and I was thinking of you. Come in and take off your things. Have you come shopping?” she continued, with a feeling of disquiet as she thought that if Sherry went shopping she must go with her and see that she did not spend her money foolishly.
“Shopping!” Sherry repeated. “No, indeed! I’ve nothing to shop with, but I’m going to have as much as forty dollars. Think of it!” and very rapidly she told of her plan and asked what her aunt thought of it.
“And so you are going out to work?” Mrs. Pledger said, and her under jaw dropped a little, as if she did not quite know whether she liked it or not.
She had been much pleased with Sherry during the two weeks she had been her guest, and had often thought of inviting her again for a longer visit and including Kate in the invitation. But the habits of years are not easily broken, and she shrank from anything which would change her quiet ways as two young girls would do.
“Too much trouble, and costly, too,” she said to herself, thinking of the expense when Sherry was with them the previous year.
They had done the handsome thing then, and it must suffice for a while at least. And still Mrs. Pledger often found herself thinking of the girl who had filled the house with so much brightness, and was making up her mind to take her to some cheap watering place when Sherry appeared and made the startling announcement that she was going as a waitress for the summer to Maplehurst!
“You don’t mean it!” she said, and Sherry replied, “I do, most certainly. I want to do something; and lots of nice girls go as waitresses to these places, and it don’t hurt them any. Nothing hurts that is respectable, and I shall still be Fanny Sherman,and I want to see the world away from Buford.”
In her admiration of the girl Mrs. Pledger came near offering to take her to some fashionable watering place where she could see the world far better than at Maplehurst, but the expense came up as a hindrance. Perhaps it was just as well to let her try her wings a little, and the Marshes were sure to recognize in her a superiority over the other girls and treat her accordingly, she thought, and suppressed her first impulse and began to speak of Maplehurst as it was when she was there as a girl.
“A grand old house, with big rooms and wide halls and fine views,” she said. Sherry’s great-grandmother, Mrs. Crosby, was a beautiful lady, with lovely clothes. “Her wedding dress was a cream brocade,” she continued, “with roses scattered over it, and would almost stand alone, and there was some rich lace with it and some jewels, and she looked like a queen at a reception your uncle gave. All the élite of the different hotels were there, with an ex-governor, and we lighted a hundred wax candles, and the affair was long talked of as the great Crosby party. Your grandmother died the next winter, and Uncle Crosby had her gowns and laces and jewels put away in a big cedar chest, where she kept her best linen. I was there once for a day after I was married. Mr. Marsh owned the place then. He had bought it of your grandfather Crosby, who soon after was killed in a railway accident. They are both buried in a little enclosure on the hillside opposite the house,—Mr. and Mrs. Crosby, I mean,—and Mr. Marsh erected amonument to their memory. You’ll see it, and the chest, if it hasn’t been taken away. It is more than thirty years since I was there. The place has been rented since and abandoned, and there’s no telling what is there and what isn’t. The gowns and things belong to you and Kate. Mr. Marsh told me I could have them, but as I was Mr. Crosby’s niece, not Mrs. Crosby’s, they didn’t belong to me, I said; if Cousin Henry,—that was your father,—ever married, they should go to his wife and children if he had any, I said. ‘All right,’ he answered, but most likely forgot it, he was so absent-minded and queer. Did your mother ever get anything?”
“Never that I know of. I think, though, I have heard that father received something when studying for the ministry. Mr. Marsh sent it, perhaps,” was Sherry’s reply, and Mrs. Pledger went on:
“That would be like him. People wondered what became of the money he paid Mr. Crosby for the farm. Probably your grandfather spent it or gave it away. He was very free handed, and there was barely enough to pay funeral expenses and outstanding debts. If you find the chest, ask Mr. Marsh to open it. The key used to hang on a big tack driven in the back of the chest. It may be there now, though it’s a miracle if it is. The things belong to you and Katy. Tell Mr. Marsh I said so. He has heard of your uncle if he hasn’t of me. Everybody knows Joel by reputation and he knows everybody. The Marshes are first class people,—not fast,—at least the young man isn’t. He is a friend of Craig Saltus, you know.”
Mrs. Pledger had talked very rapidly, while Sherry listened with absorbing interest, more glad than ever that she was going to what was once her great grandfather’s home, and in which she felt she had some rights, especially in the cedar chest, if it was still in existence. She doubted, though, if she should speak of her relationship to Mr. Crosby or the Pledgers.
“I am going just like the other girls, a common waitress, to see how it seems,” she said to her mother and Kate when, on her return from New York, she repeated the particulars of her interview with Mrs. Pledger and Mrs. Groves, the latter of whom she did not quite like. “She acted as if there was an immeasurable distance between us, and said that at Maplehurst I would be known as No. 1 among the waitresses, because she had accepted me first, and I am to wear caps. She laid great stress on that.”
“The snob! I hope you told her you’d never wear that badge of servitude,” Kate said, with a stamp of her foot.
Caps were not common in Buford. Even the Saltus servants did not wear them, and Kate was hot with indignation. But Sherry only laughed, saying she would as soon wear a cap as not, but when Kate asked suddenly, “Did you tell her that you sometimes walked in your sleep?” she was startled, and replied: “Why should I, when I haven’t walked for years, and why did you put it into my mind to think about it? Perhaps I shall now get up some night and frighten them to death.”
“I hope you will. That would be jolly. Caps andsnobs!” Kate said, but Sherry’s face was clouded by this reminder of a disagreeable habit of her childhood, which she believed she had outgrown, but which might come back if she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it.
Her will and nerves, however, were strong, and in the weeks which passed before she was due at Maplehurst she had so much to think about that the sleep-walking was nearly forgotten, or remembered only as something which had been, but would never be again.
CHAPTER VIIMAPLEHURST
It was the first day of July, and Maplehurst was in a state of great excitement, for sixteen people were coming by the afternoon train, and among them Alex., his mother and sister and cousin. Mrs. Groves, with her staff, had been there a week or more, and had carefully drilled her subordinates with regard to their duties, especially the waitresses. There were four of them, all from Boston, except Sherry,—one a saleslady, one a stenographer and one from a restaurant, who felt that she knew quite as much as Mrs. Groves, if not more, because she had been in a restaurant three or four years. But that dignitary soon set her right by telling her that waiting upon every sort of people in a restaurant or hotel was very different from waiting upon such guests as were coming to Maplehurst. Sherry had listened very respectfully to the directions, but there was a look upon her face which said that she, too, had an opinion as well as Polly, the girl No. 4. She had dined once or twice in great state at the Saltuses’ in Buford, and she remembered what she had seen and knew that in some respects it differed from Mrs. Groves’ rules, and when they were told that in no event were they to take in or out more than one dish at a time, she ventured to say, “Excuse me,Mrs. Groves, but that will take so long and necessitate a great many steps, as the kitchen is so far from the dining-room, and there is the anteroom between, and are there not different ways of serving?”
The look on Mrs. Groves’ face would have disconcerted one less self-contained than Sherry, whose expression did not change at all at the lady’s reply: “There can be but one right way. I have told you what that is, and as forsteps, you are hired to take them if you walk miles in doing it.”
Sherry bent her head with what she meant to be a civil bow, but Mrs. Groves fancied she saw in it signs of insubordination, and resolved to hold a tight rein on No. 1, who evidently was above her business, and who looked too much like a lady, and was quite too pretty in her black dress and white apron with ruffled shoulder straps and the cap set so jauntily upon her curly hair. On her arrival at Maplehurst Mrs. Groves had found a box of caps sent by Amy Marsh, who had selected them, and for which Alex. had paid. He was shopping with his sister, who had asked his opinion with regard to different styles.
“Great guns! I don’t know about styles of caps. Must they wear them?” he said.
“Our maids do,” Amy answered. “Why shouldn’t these?”
“Oh, ah, well—er—I suppose they must if you and mother say so. But I fancy these are different,—picked, you know,” Alex. said; “salesgirls and schoolma’ams and that sort of thing, you know. Mrs. Groves writes that one is an awful high stepper. She may not take to caps. Some don’t.”
“She will take what we choose,” Amy replied, and her brother answered: “Well, then, get the most becoming and least objectionable. They are all young girls of twenty or thereabouts, and I won’t have them looking like grandmothers. How will this do?” and by chance Alex. selected the smallest and daintiest and prettiest of them all, as well as the most expensive.
But expense was nothing to him. He was always wanting a good time for himself and others, and meant to have it at Maplehurst. “A jam up good time for the whole of us, hired help and all,” he said to himself, using a bit of slang which horrified Amy, but which she forgave because he was her big, unselfish, good-natured brother, giving the good time to others, if there was but one to be had. His mother had hired Mrs. Groves, and he had left the selection of his staff entirely to her, feeling no particular interest in any except the four waitresses—his quartette he called them. He was somewhat particular about these, as he would see them three times a day. He wanted them near the same age and size and good-looking. “Not so good as to detract from the young ladies, but good,” he said to Mrs. Groves, who felt that she had filled the bill well, possibly a little too well with No. 1, who certainly was handsome, and whose manner would always be that of a lady whatever she was doing, and who would be noticed wherever she was. The quartette had come to Maplehurst on the same train and had been received by Mrs. Groves, who had assigned them their rooms, one toeach, greatly to Sherry’s satisfaction. She did not mean to be proud or exclusive, but she wanted a room to herself, where she could sometimes be alone. For the rest she meant to be one with her companions,—Susie, the saleslady, Annie, the stenographer, and Polly, the restaurant waitress; Nos. 2, 3 and 4, as Mrs. Groves designated them. They were bright, good girls, glad for this outing and inclined to be very friendly with Sherry, whom they at once recognized as a little different from themselves and treated her accordingly.
Sherry had been nearly a week at Maplehurst, and had been drilled daily and made to wait upon Mrs. Groves as she was expected to wait upon the coming guests. She proved the most apt of all the girls, and for this reason was assigned to the Marsh table.
“You will have Mr. and Mrs. Marsh, and Miss Marsh, and their cousin, Miss Doane, who lives with them, and two or three more, the Saltus family later on, perhaps, and you must be very particular as the Saltuses live in even greater style than the Marshes,” Mrs. Groves had said, and at the mention of the Saltuses the hot blood had flamed into Sherry’s face and then for a moment left it very white as she wondered what they would say to find her there,—a machine, as Mrs. Groves had said she must be, never smiling, and never seeming to see or hear what was being done and giving no sign that she had ever seen them before unless they made some advances.
“Never mind. I am in it and shall go through it,” she thought with the first real twinge of regret she had felt for thelarkin which she was engaged.
She had been all over the house, from the basement to the attic, where she had found the chest standing just where it had stood for years. It had a great fascination for her, seeming to link her with the past of years and years ago, when her great-grandmother had come there a bride and brought it with her. Seating herself on a stool near it Sherry sat for a long time wondering what was in it, and looking through the window off upon the lovely panorama of sunshine and cloud, of steep wooded hills and the green valley, and in the distance Mount Washington, blue and hazy in the summer light. Across the road on a knoll was the little cemetery, the mass of evergreens bringing out in sharp contrast the whiteness of the marble shaft Mr. Marsh had erected to the memory of his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Crosby. The yard had a neglected look, and the fence around it was broken in some places, but that afternoon she saw men there at work and heard that Mr. Alex. had ordered a new fence to be built and the undergrowth of bush and bramble to be removed.
The next day she went to the two graves, sunken so low as to be even with the ground. The lettering on the stone was somewhat blurred by the storms which had swept along the mountain road, but she managed to read, “Frances, beloved wife of Peter Crosby, who died in her bloom, being only twenty-five years and six months old, October 10th, 18—.”
“Her name was Frances, which is the same as Fanny,” she said. “I must have been named for her,” and she began to feel a great deal of interest inthe woman who had slept on the hillside so many years. “There ought to be something planted around the graves,” she thought, as she looked at the bare spot.
It would be easy to transplant some of the many rose bushes in the Maplehurst premises, and she could do it or ask to have it done, if it did not necessitate her telling why she was interested in the graves. She did not intend to tell anything about herself. Polly, No. 4, had quizzed her a good deal.
“I know you are somebody else besides a waiter like me. You are made of different stuff. Come, now, ain’t you?” she had said, but Sherry did not enlighten her. She was simply Fanny, or No. 1, and Mrs. Groves was calling her, saying it was time for the drill. “Dress parade,” No. 4 called it, saying that she had been put through her paces until she didn’t know her left hand from her right, and whether she was to pass things over the heads of the guests or in front of them. She was full of life and fun, and made faces at Mrs. Groves’ back, and mimicked her voice and manner perfectly.
“‘Now, young women,’” she would say, “or youngpersons, I suppose we are, ‘remember and pass to the left; take from the right. Never speak unless spoken to. A sociable waitress is bad form. Step softly and slow. Bring in and take out one thing at a time. Don’t stare, or seem to see anybody. Mr. Alex. is very particular to have his guests served properly.’ Mr. Alex.! I am anxious to see him. I suppose he is a great swell, but not greater than I have waited onin Boston, and who didn’t feel too big to say, ‘How are you, Polly? Mind and bring my soup hot, or tea or coffee, and get me some cream.’ I know a thing or two about a table as well as old mother Groves with her silk gown and gold glasses. Why, she was once waiter in a second-class restaurant in New York. I know it from a woman who was with her. Now she is matron of Maplehurst and feels big, but I don’t care for her. I shall say ‘good-morning’ if anybody says it to me,” and Polly executed a part of the skirt dance to finish her speech.
Naturally Nos. 1, 2 and 3 laughed at her performance, and shared her opinion of Mrs. Groves and her desire to see Alex., who had been held before them as one sure to detect the slightest departure from the deference due him and his guests from his employees. Of the four Sherry cared the least, and yet on the day when he was expected with his party she began to feel a little nervous, and to wonder what he would think of his quartette and of her. They were standing now in a row before Mrs. Groves, who was very imposing in her black satin dress, her old lace, gold-bowed spectacles, and her bunch of keys jingling at her side.
“Now, young women,” she said, “I expect you to do your best, and remember it does not matter that you are clerks,”—she would not say salesladies and stenographers and restaurant waiters,—“and—” she paused and glanced at Sherry, not knowing where to place her.
Polly, who admired Sherry greatly and styled her the Duchess, spoke up and said, “A real lady.”
Mrs. Groves frowned, and continued: “No matter what you have been, real ladies, or what, you have hired out to do certain duties, and I expect you to do them to the satisfaction of Mr. Marsh, whose orders I am carrying out. If not, you will be dismissed.”
“Who will take our places?” Polly asked; and Mrs. Groves replied, “Plenty are ready to jump at the chance. Don’t think we are dependent on you.”
Polly, who knew the difficulty there was to get help anywhere, shrugged her shoulders in a way which brought a sourer look than usual to Mrs. Groves’ naturally sour face.
“Mr. Marsh can command the best of help,” she said, “and expects the best of service, and so does his family. Mrs. and Miss Marsh are more particular than he,—that is,—more exacting. Ladies always are of their servants.”
Sherry felt for a moment as if she hated Mr. Marsh and his family, but she gave no sign of any emotion, and when, with a wave of her hand, Mrs. Groves signified that the conference was ended, she walked away with her companions and went to her room to wait for the expected arrival.
CHAPTER VIIITHE ARRIVAL
From the stable-yard there came a blast from an Alpine horn as the cortege started for the station. There was a long wagon for baggage, an open brougham, two buggies and the gayly colored tally-ho, for whose appearance, with the two grooms and four big black horses, the people who lived along the road were watching. It was nearly car time, and Sherry soon heard the rumble among the hills and saw the wreaths of smoke curling up in front of the station where the train was stopping. On a balcony opening from the hall in which the rooms of the quartette opened, Nos. 2, 3 and 4 had assembled, and Sherry finally joined them and stood waiting till the four black horses came prancing up the hill, the clinking of their silver-tipped harness, the blowing of the horn by one of the grooms and the chatter and laughter of the young people, nearly drowned by the barking of the huge dog, who ran sometimes in front of the horses, again under them and again at the side of the road, jumping and rolling over and shaking his handsome head and long mane in token of his delight with the freedom and freshness of the country. It was the dog Alex. had brought from Denver, changing his name from Laddie to Sherry, to which the dog hadbecome so accustomed that he had seemingly forgotten his old name. Occasionally, to test him, Alex. would call “Laddie, Laddie,” when the dog would plant his fore feet firmly on the ground and, lifting up his head, seem to be intently listening to something heard long ago and forgotten. But he would never move from the spot where the sound reached him, no matter how many times “Laddie” was repeated. Call him “Sherry,” and he always came with a bound, oftentimes putting both paws upon the shoulder of his master.
So many things to interest him had come into Alex.’s life since the night of the opera, when he saw Sherry Sherman in old Pledger’s box, that he did not think of her now as much as formerly. Who she was, or where she was, he had no idea, and the only link between her and himself was the dog he had named for her, and who was now barking himself nearly wild in his joy at being free to run as far as he pleased and thrust his nose into every suspicious looking hole along the road, hoping to unearth a woodchuck, or rabbit, or something stronger, it mattered little to him in his exuberance of spirits. As the gay cavalcade swept up the hill, Alex. swung his hat with a cheer for Maplehurst, which was at once taken up by the party, who shouted themselves hoarse as they drew up before the door, where Mrs. Groves was standing to receive them.
“That’s him. I didn’t s’pose first-class folks made such a row as that, and Mr. Marsh is yelling, too, and he looks real good and not at all as if he would eat us,”Polly whispered, her attention concentrated upon Alex., as was that of her companions.
What they saw was a fair-haired, fair-faced young man, who, as Polly suggested, looked as if he was real good. All his life he had been having good times and helping others to have them, and he was having one now as he stood up in the tally-ho hurrahing for Maplehurst. Behind the tally-ho was the brougham, with Mrs. Marsh and the elderly ladies, while the open buggies contained husbands and fathers of some of the party. It was a gay gathering of well-bred, fashionable people, who, like Alex., were having a good time, and Mrs. Groves felt the importance and pride of her position, and bowed low as they descended one by one and began to fill the piazza and the hall, and to exclaim with delight at the beauty of everything.
“Oh, this is lovely! This is paradise! I wish I was to stay all summer instead of two weeks. I hope he will invite me,” Sherry heard as she came down from the balcony and stood at the far end of a side piazza, with a catch in her breath as she thought that her place was with the merry group rather than as a menial waiting for orders from Mrs. Groves.
Just then she was startled by a loud, peremptory call of “Sherry, Sherry, come here!”
Without dreaming that anything or anybody could be meant but herself, she started swiftly in the direction of the sound, and was met and nearly knocked down by a dog who planted his forefeet on her shoulders and stood shaking his head at her with a bit ofstick in his mouth. While the rest of the party had been going into ecstasies over the house and the view the dog had been making observations, too, and spying a hole under a rock across the road had at once started for the spot and commenced digging, eager to do battle with anything which might be hiding there. Fearing for the safety of his pet’s long fur, Alex. called quickly, “Sherry, Sherry, come here!”
Obedient to the call the dog came, but picked up as he came a chip, which he hoped some one might throw for him to catch. Seeing Sherry running down the long piazza, he scented fun in that direction and made for her, while Alex. called again, “Sherry, come here,” and hurried around the corner in time to keep the girl from falling, the force was so great with which the dog leaped upon her. She was fond of dogs, but this one frightened her, and her face was very white as she looked up at Alex., and her breath came quickly as she said, “Please call him off.”
She swayed a little, and Alex. put one arm around her, while with the other he grasped his dog by the mane, and said: “Down, Sherry, down! It is only play. He is very good-natured. I hope he has not frightened you,” and he looked anxiously into the face which struck him as one he had seen before.
“Just at first he startled me, he came so swiftly. What did you call him?” Sherry said; and Alex. replied, “Sherry,—odd, I know, but pretty; don’t you think so? I am his master, Alex. Marsh, and you are——?”
Sherry hesitated a moment and then answered, witha laugh, “The girls call me Fanny, and Mrs. Groves, No. 1. I am your waitress.”
“By George!” Alex. said, under his breath, and in his surprise letting go of the dog’s mane.
Not till that moment had he noticed Sherry’s dress, the white apron and cap, which told her position, and which he recognized as one of the lot he had bought in New York.
“By George!” he said again, because he had nothing else to say, while Sherry’s beautiful eyes twinkled with a look of half scorn and amusement at his discomfiture. “Fanny! Yes, that’s so. I ought to have known. I beg your pardon.”
“For mistaking me for a lady?” Sherry said, and now there was scorn and sarcasm both in her voice, which made Alex. wince and feel small, while, for want of something better to do, he wrenched the chip from his dog’s mouth and sent it out upon the grass, followed swiftly by the delighted animal.
It seemed scarcely a second before he was back to where Alex. still stood looking curiously at Sherry and stammering he scarcely knew what except that he hoped she liked it at Maplehurst, and was comfortable and not overworked. He wanted everyone to have a good time, and if there was anything he could do for her she must let him know.
Mrs. Groves, who hated dogs, had heard the clatter of Sherry’s feet and seen him as he disappeared around the corner. She was very careful to have the piazzas kept clean and had had them scrubbed that morning, and here was that huge creature careeringover them like mad. His place was at the stables with the horses, where a kennel had been built for him, and she started after him, shooing him as if he had been a hen and shaking her satin skirt at him, but stopped suddenly as she caught sight of Mr. Alexander Marsh talking to No. 1, who stood before him with what Polly, if she had seen her, would have called her grandest Duchess manner, and was actually smiling in his face, and showing her fine teeth and dimples. Mrs. Groves had been constantly expecting something out of the common from Sherry; but nothing quite so barefaced as thrusting herself upon Mr. Marsh’s notice before he had been there half an hour, and every thread in her satin gown rustled and the keys at her side gave out individual jingles as she said, “Young woman, this is not your place; you are wanted in the house to take towels to the rooms in corridor 2.”
Sherry looked at her in surprise, as this was the first intimation she had had that taking towels to the rooms was a part of her duties. Nor was it, and Mrs. Groves had only thought of it as a means of getting rid of her. But Sherry made no protest except with her eyes, which flashed a moment with a look Mrs. Groves had seen before and did not like. Then she said, very respectfully, “Yes, madam,” and with a bow to Alex., walked away, followed by the dog, who was so persistent in letting her know what he wanted that when she reached the end of the piazza she took the stick from him and threw it into the yard, as Alex. had done. There were leaps and bounds, andMrs. Groves was nearly thrown off her feet as the dog rushed by her to the door through which Sherry had disappeared, shutting it after her. Finding no one there, he looked around with surprise and disappointment, and then came back to Alex. and Mrs. Groves, signalling to the latter that he wished her to continue the play. He might as well have signalled the Sphinx for any response he received, except a frown, as she held her dress away from him.
“He is so glad to be in the country again that he is nearly crazy,” Alex. said.
Mrs. Groves bowed and continued the conversation the dog had interrupted. She had commenced by saying: “I knew she had a great deal of assurance, but I did not think she would go so far as that.”
“As what?” Alex. asked, and Mrs. Groves replied:
“Thrust herself upon your notice the first thing.”
“She did nothing of the sort,” Alex. answered quickly. “My dog nearly knocked her down, as he did you, and I apologized for him, and told her who I was and asked who she was. She said she was sometimes ‘Fanny’ and sometimes ‘No. 1.’ She is a deuced pretty girl any way. Who is she and where did she come from?”
Mrs. Groves frowned. Alex., with his democratic notions, would spoil the servants if she did not keep a tight rein.
“She is Fanny Sherwood, or Sherman, or something like that,” she said. “I don’t try to remember their last names. I call the waitresses Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, and she is No. 1, because I hired her first.”
“Do they like it?” Alex. asked, and Mrs. Groves replied: “I don’t consult their wishes. I tell you, Mr. Marsh, you must be strict these days with your help, or they will run over you and expect to be Miss Brown, or Smith, or whatever their names chance to be, especially if they are clerks, or typewriters, or teachers.”
“And what is No. 1?” Alex. asked.
“Nothing, so she says,” Mrs. Groves answered. “Poor, no doubt, and wanted an easy job and some money. I can’t say that she does not do her work well, but there is something about her which tells me that she’s a high stepper and must be curbed.”
“So she is the high stepper you wrote about? Well, don’t draw the bit too tight,” Alex. said, laughingly. “I want everybody to have a good time,—help and all. I could not enjoy myself if they were being ground down like machines,—so treat them well, Mrs. Groves,—treat them well, and if No. 1 wants to step high, let her, provided she does not kick over the traces.”
“Which she will, if you have your way,” Mrs. Groves replied.
“Well, let her kick,” was Alex.’s rejoinder.
He was beginning to feel a good deal of interest in No. 1, who, with a dozen fresh towels on her arm, was going towards corridor No. 2.
“What are you doing? The racks are full of towels,” a chambermaid said to her.
“Obeying Mrs. Groves’ orders,” was Sherry’s reply, as she went on and knocked at the first door in the corridor.
It chanced to belong to Amy Marsh, who, thinking it one of her friends, called out familiarly, “Entrez, if you can get in.”
The tone of her voice changed very materially when she saw who it was.
“Oh,” she said, “I thought Martha was the maid on this floor.”
“She is, but Mrs. Groves sent me,” Sherry answered, laying a part of her towels on the already well-filled rack.
“Yes; well, now you are here, I wish you would put up some of my things, which I have scattered everywhere in unpacking my trunk to get my dress for dinner,” Amy said.
“When I have disposed of these I will help you,” Sherry replied, leaving the room, while Amy looked after her curiously.
The girl’s personality was beginning to impress her. “I wonder who she is,” she thought. “Not an ordinary, sure; but some saleslady, I dare say, or teacher. They usually carry their chins in the air, and hers is very high. No matter, I mean to make her useful.”
Amy’s room was littered with the different articles she had dragged from her trunk, and these on her return Sherry began to put away, while Amy questioned her as to her name, and where she had lived, and in what capacity she was at Maplehurst.
Sherry told her she was waitress No. 1, that her name was Fanny, that she came from the country and was neither a saleslady, nor typewriter, nor teacher. Amy did not ask her last name. Like Mrs. Groves,she did not care. Fanny was enough, and as she seemed willing, notwithstanding the way she held her head and chin, she asked her to button her dress and fasten her collar and see if her skirt hung right. And Sherry did what was required of her and did it so well that Amy said to her, “Seems as if you must be a lady’s maid, you are so handy. Are you?”
“No, I have not that honor. I was never any one’s maid but my mother’s and sister’s. I am glad if I pleased you,” Sherry answered, and her chin certainly did take an upward tilt, and there were red spots on her cheeks as she left the room and went down to receive Mrs. Groves’ last directions before dinner.
Numbers 2, 3 and 4 were already in the anteroom looking a little anxious, except Polly, who said she didn’t care a rush for all the gentry at Maplehurst; she had seen a thing or two in Boston, had waited on a Governor, and could teach madam herself. Further remarks were prevented by the appearance of madam, who began: “Now, young women, this is your first dinner, and everything depends upon the way you acquit yourselves. If you are very awkward and make mistakes I may have to fill your places. Mr. Marsh is very particular about his table service. When the gong sounds you are to walk in slowly side by side with your trays, and take your places at your respective tables, behind the chair at the head, and don’t on any account ever put your hand on the chair or stand lopsided on one hip. Remember!”
With this injunction she went out, leaving Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 waiting for the gong, with Polly taking a few steps of the Highland Fling as she waited.