I told you our odd man, Tom Dexter, came to us after that awful young scamp of a boy, who was going to be a highwayman, left. Mr. Wilkins wanted to recommend a man he knew, who had been ostler up in London, but Harry said, “No, thank you, Wilkins, I’ll look out for one myself.” It was Mr. Wilkins who recommended us the boy highwayman, so we hadn’t much faith in his recommendations after that; though, of course, he meant well, and only wanted to do the boy’s grandmother a good turn.
I often think what a lot of bad turns you do sometimes to many people through trying to do one person a good turn. I’ve heard it said over and over again, “This comes of trying to do a man a good turn;” and it has always been about something unpleasant having happened.
It isn’t only that the person you try to do a good turn to brings trouble about, but the person himself or herself—for women are as bad as men in that respect—is generally ungrateful to you for what you’ve done, and very often “rounds” on you, as the common expression is, and tries to make out that you’ve done them, or I suppose I ought to say, to be grammatical, done him or her an injury.
“One good turn deserves another,” the proverb says; but my experience of doing anybody a good turn is, that it very seldom gets what it deserves; but generally the other thing.
I recollect one place, when I was in service, where the{142} master was a most kind-hearted man, and a friend came to him one day, and told him a tale about an old lady of very superior education, whose husband had died, and left her in such reduced circumstances that if she did not soon get something to do, she would have to go in the workhouse. The friend told my master that this old lady was a most excellent housekeeper, and used to looking after servants, because she had had her own, and she spoke and wrote French, and would be very useful that way, when there were children learning the language, to talk to them, and give them an accent.
“I knew her husband in business,” said the friend to master, “and you’d be doing a deserving woman a good turn, if you could find her a situation where her talents would be appreciated.”
It happened just at that time that my mistress had been saying to master that, her health being so delicate, and they having to travel about a good deal through it, the awful London winter being too much for her, they ought really to have a housekeeper—a person they could leave at home, to look after the house and the servants while they were away.
Master came home and told missus about the old lady (Mrs. Le Jeune, her name was), and missus said that that was just the very sort of person they wanted. Why not give her a trial?
“Just what I was thinking myself,” said master; “only, my dear, I thought I would consult you first.”
He knew by experience that if he did’nt consult missus first about everything, the fat would be in the fire; for she was one of those ladies who don’t believe that a man can do anything right, and master used to say sometimes he wondered she let him manage his own business. Of course he didn’t say that to us servants; but we used to hear when they were having arguments at dinner, which was pretty often.
It happened that just at the time master’s friend told him about Mrs. Le Jeune, we were going to have a grand ball, and missus, who had nervous headaches, was grumbling a good deal, and saying she couldn’t attend to everything because of her health; so master said it would be a{143} good thing to have the old lady engaged at once, and then she could take a lot of trouble off missus’s shoulders.
But Mrs. Le Jeune, it seems, couldn’t come for some reason just then. What it was I don’t know, but at any rate she didn’t arrive until the afternoon of the day that the ball was to come off, and then she drove up in a four-wheeled cab, with a big box outside, about five o’clock.
Of course we were all sixes and sevens in the kitchen, because it was rather a small house, and we’d had to turn the best bedroom into a supper-room, and we’d had the upholsterer’s men about all day fitting it up, and draping and decorating the other rooms, and we were all topsy-turvy.
Mrs. Le Jeune, when I let her in, told me she was the new housekeeper, and asked to see missus. Missus had gone to lie down, so as to be right for the evening, and had given orders that she wasn’t to be disturbed for anybody till six o’clock, and I knew it would be bad for me if I went and woke her up; so I said to the old lady that missus was asleep; but I would show her to the room that was to be hers.
She was a queer-looking old lady, certainly. She was very short, and had a big bonnet on, and a long, black, foreign-looking cloak, and the longest nose I think I ever saw on a woman in my life, but she spoke like a lady certainly, but when she walked it almost made me laugh. It wasn’t a walk—it was a little skip, and when she moved about, it was for all the world as if she was dancing.
When I told her missus could not see her, she said, “Oh, it is very strange. Madam knew that I was coming, she should have arranged for my reception; but these City people have no manners. What’s your name, girl?”
“Mary Jane.”
“Mary Jane what?”
“Mary Jane Buffham.”
“‘Mary Jane, madam,’ you mean. Be good enough never to address me without calling me ‘madam.’”
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t know——”
“Did you hear what I said to you? I can’t allow you to speak to me as if I were your equal. I am a lady by birth and education. I have consented to take charge of{144} this establishment in order that it may be properly conducted. I shall have to begin by teaching the servants how to behave themselves, evidently. Now, send some one to carry my box and conduct me to my apartment.”
“Yes, madam.”
I thought to myself, “Well, this is a nice old lady the master’s got hold of. She and missus won’t hit it off together long;” but, of course, it was no business of mine, so I asked one of the upholsterer’s men to give me a hand, and we carried her box upstairs, and I showed the old lady her room.
It was at the top of the house, next the servants’ bedrooms. Before she got up she was out of breath.
“Oh!” she said, “the attics! This is an insult to which I cannot submit. I am a lady; your master does not seem to be aware of the fact.”
I said I didn’t know anything about that. This was the room. So I got her box in, and gave her a candle, and left her muttering to herself, and taking off her bonnet in front of the looking-glass, and putting on a most wonderful cap, which she took out of the blue bonnet-box she had carried in her hand.
It was a big black cap, with cherries and red-currants and grapes sticking up all over it, and she looked so odd with it on, I had to go away, for fear I should burst out laughing, and hurt her feelings.
In about half an hour the old lady came downstairs into the kitchen, and everybody stared at her. It was most uncomfortable for us all to have a strange housekeeper, and such an eccentric one, walking in right in the middle of the preparations for a party, and beginning to missus it over us at once, and to talk like a duchess to us.
There were a lot of men about the kitchen, which made it worse, the upholsterer’s men, and the confectioner’s men, who were finishing off the things for supper, and the florist’s man with the plants and the flowers; and when that extraordinary old lady walked in, with her wonderful cap, and began to go on at us at once, and order us to do this and to do that, and to say we were a common lot, and not one of us knew how things ought to be done, I wondered what would be the end of it.{145}
Before the company came, master went to have a look at the ball-room to see if everything was right, while missus was dressing, and there he found the old lady, who had gone upstairs, and was talking to the upholsterer’s men, who were finishing off, and telling them about how different things were when she was young, and the men were what is called “getting at her,” and encouraging her to talk.
When master went in, he was quite flabbergasted to see that old lady, in her wonderful cap, talking away, and saying this ought to be altered and that ought to be altered, and he didn’t know who she was at first, not recognizing her, till she came up and said—
“Good evening, sir; I’m just looking round to see if things are as they should be.”
“Oh, thank you,” said the master, hardly knowing what to say. “But I won’t trouble you to do that.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she said; “I’m used to these affairs. If you’ll allow me to say it, sir, I don’t care for these artificial flowers about the place. They should be real.”
“Perhaps so,” said master; “but if you’ll kindly stay below and look after the servants, that is all you need do at present.”
He was anxious to get her out of the way before missus came down, because he guessed there would be trouble if missus found that old lady interfering and giving orders.
Missus was like that. She wouldn’t allow anybody to interfere with her, and she was very touchy on the point. Once she wanted to leave the house they were living in, and master put it in the agent’s hands and advertised it, and a gentleman and his wife came and looked at it several times, and everything was settled, and the deed or agreement, or whatever you call it, was to be signed, when, the day before, the lady who was going to take the house came to look over it again, and, going over the drawing-room with missus, she said, “I don’t think the colour of your curtains harmonizes with the paper. When I have the house, I shall have the curtains such and such a colour.”
{146}
That was enough for missus. She fired up directly, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t consult you when I was putting my curtains up, but the colour suits me well enough, and you won’t alter it, because you won’t have the house!”
And then there were a few words, and the lady thought it best to retire.
That night, when the master came home, missus told him that she’d changed her mind, and she wouldn’t leave the house, and the agreement wasn’t to be signed.
“Oh, but, my dear,” said master, “everything is in the lawyer’s hands, and the place is as good as let. We can’t back out of it now.”
“You’ll have to back out of it,” said missus, “for I’m not going to let that woman have my house. She’s had the impudence to find fault with my taste, and to tell me what she’s going to do, and so she sha’n’t come in at all—so there now!”
And all master could say was no good. Missus declared she’d never go into another house alive, and, for the sake of peace and quietness, master had to refuse to sign the agreement at the last moment.
There was an awful row about it, I heard, and the other gentleman was very indignant, but it was no use. It was more than master dared do to sign the agreement, knowing what his wife was, and he couldn’t be made to, legally, so the other people had to give way after lawyer’s letters had passed.
And one day, when missus met the other lady in an omnibus going to Regent Street, she said to her, “My curtains are still blue, madam;” and the other lady called to the conductor to stop the omnibus, and she paid her fare, and got out.
Knowing how missus was, you may be sure the master was in a fright about the new housekeeper interfering. There would have been a nice scene, and, with the company beginning to arrive, he didn’t want that.
So he said to the waiter who was had in—the man we always had for dinner-parties and balls—“Waters,” he said, “for Heaven’s sake, keep that old woman downstairs. Do anything you like, only keep her downstairs.”
“All right; sir,” said Waters. And he got the old lady{147} to sit down in the breakfast-room, and keep guard over the provisions and the wine that were put out for the musicians’ supper, and made out it was very important she should be there, as she was to see that nobody came in and helped themselves.
She saw that nobody did, but she helped herself, and by the time the ball was in full swing the poor old lady had drunk so much wine, she was quite silly, and presently began to get lively, and, feeling lonely, I suppose, she went upstairs to stand in the hall and see the fun, though she had to lean up against the wall a good deal, the wine having got in her head.
I can’t tell you the trouble we had with her; but the end of it was she suddenly made her appearance in the ball-room with her cap very much on one side, and her face very flushed, and said, “Where’s Mr. —— [naming the master]? I have a communication to make to him.”
Master was horrified, and missus said, “Good gracious, who is this person?”
“Person, madam?” said the new housekeeper, “I’d have you to know I’m a real lady, which is more than you are.”
She made as if she would come across to missus, but she staggered, and fell into the arms of a very stout old gentleman, and put her arms round his neck, and began to have hysterics, and the waiter and master had to get her away by main force between them, the company almost bursting with laughter.
Master was in an awful rage, and said he’d turn her out there and then, but he couldn’t in her condition, and so two of us girls got her upstairs and put her to bed, and we thought she’d go off to sleep; but just as the company had sat down to supper in the bedroom, which had been turned into a supper-room, she appeared with a candle in her hand, like Lady Macbeth,............